Newshub has obtained a complaint made to Labour from their mother. She accused Andersen of yelling at her daughter and son on election night, telling them, "Maybe you should have done some more door-knocking" in an aggressive way and making them feel like this was the reason Labour and Andersen lost. The mother also details another time her daughter couldn't volunteer because she was going on a family trip and Andersen allegedly yelled at her on the phone. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/11/ginny-andersen-doesn-t-deny-bullying-allegations-in-phone-call-with-newshub.html
In 2020, the mother said her daughter mixed up home addresses and Andersen called her "useless" and "made her feel little", it alleged.
Newshub was among multiple media outlets which were sent this complaint – the source said they were leaking it because they were unhappy with the Labour leadership's handling of it.
So this pattern of behaviour has been continuing for three years. Everyone naturally wonders what makes a leftist so nasty. Why default to copying the right when we need a positive alternative? Is self-improvement and character development really impossible for left-wingers? I doubt it.
Something in their culture makes them want to take the easy way out instead. You'd think Labour's leadership would have learnt from Kiri how to respond to complaints. Apparently not!
Nah – just about every workplace has some of this stuff. What we are seeing is a fundamental disjunction that is seldom mentioned – that irreconcilable conflict between highly-pressured modern work and the growing cultural phenomenon of individuals believing they have a right to feel 'empowered'.
The more cynical among us might think that the promotion of the idea that ’empowerment’ is possible despite being in a position of subordination, is a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact of subordination.
"In 2020, the mother said her daughter mixed up home addresses and Andersen called her "useless" and "made her feel little", it alleged"
If that occurred Why the fuck is the individual hanging around for more? Masochism? It's hard for me to understamd why someone would keep going back for more for a volunteer position frankly it beggars belief.
"National’s Hutt South-based MP, Chris Bishop, complained to the Auditor-General about the arrangement. On Thursday, the Auditor-General wrote back confirming it would not investigate.
Funny how it is potential high flyers in the Labour Party who get accused of "bullying."
This complaint contains nebulous things like "shouting at" and "blaming." The complaint is from the mother and includes the Election night accusation just 3+ weeks ago. Who leaked the complaint to media? Labour Party? Ginny? And with case in the alleged stage how come the Media, especially Newshub, are so certain of Ginny being guilty?
My take, reading the subtext, was that it was authentic. Seems like a committed Labour family, to have sustained the volunteering despite the bitching…
However I sympathise with your scepticism. Once upon a time I naively assumed that anyone who joined the Greens would be ethical!
Funny how it is potential high flyers in the Labour Party who get accused of "bullying.
And they are nearly always Labour women.
As for the past attempt to smear the Hutt Valley Labour Party's financial arrangements with a union which amounted to a paltry few thousand dollars per annum:
how much of that $8 billion lodged in the Nat’s campaign kitty was dirty money? It would not surprise me if it was quite a bit.
As David Mitchell says (paraphrase) in the attached link…'yes they're all horrible, but the "good ones" are those who maintained stability and didn't play favourites'
"Some" Labour people. We also had the "Backbone Club", the "Mike Moore Supporters Club", the "Anybody But Cunliffe" crowd, and a whole collection of past egoists, misfits and wreckers. We survived them – and we will survive this.
National’s future leaders tend to be ex-CEOs such as the current one who parachuted from above from Air New Zealand into the Party. None other NZ political party follows the vertical trickle-down of power as blatantly as the Nats; it’s in their blood. Unsurprisingly, the number of female MPs in National is low, not to mention the representation of other social groups in the NZ population.
Gaurav was proven to have bullied his staff, he was also a headache to PS. The way Amelia and Tova were speaking to Helen White, this looked like a media beat up to me.
"You guys are really going for me, is there any particular reason?"
"You guys are really going for me, is there any particular reason?"
Helen White made the stupid claim that she had "done very well" in Mt Albert when she clearly had not. In doing so, she opened up the opportunity for the gotcha journos to "go for her". She should have had the sense to say nothing.
The problem with that Louis, Mt Albert was regarded as the safest Labour seat in the country. Most people thought it would be impossible to turn that seat around.
The last time Mt.Albert came under threat was in 1975 when Muldoon offered a massive superannuation bribe which brought NZ close to bankruptcy nine years later. Even then the margin between the two parties was iirc somewhere between 250 -300 votes.
Covid has turned everything upside down. Auckland's anger over the last lockdown, and as the election showed, Labour seats were not safe. 2020 red wave. 2023 blue wave.
To put it bluntly, the majority of the population don't give a tinker's cuss (as my old Dad used to say) about anyone but themselves and who belongs to them.
Helen White did really well to keep our electorate when cabinet ministers went down with Michael in Mt Roskill, Deborah lost New Lynn for the first time since the electorate was established in 1964. Peeni lost Tāmaki Makarau (although it is suspicious and unfair having a polling booth in the marae that the leading opponent was CEO of).
Melissa Lee had more experience and brand recognition than Carlos Chung and Paulo Garcia. But for Helen and her fantastic campaign team's hard work, then there is no question that we would have lost this seat too. Ricardo Menenmendez-March has name recognition and it was disappointing the Greens campaigned so hard for the electorate vote with a two ticks green campaign (unlike Mt Roskill and New Lynn). Some would call that selfish. There were boundary changes and high end housing being completed that also made it harder for Helen than for other Labour MPs – yet she still won!
The attacks by media, particularly Amelia Wade at Newshub supported by Jenna Lynch, Tova, and the green party attack blogger Martyn Bradbury on The Daily Blog are disgraceful. Helen's professionalism and skill as a leading lawyer are clearly evident. If Helen was in Wellington, we'd miss her, but she would have easily won Rongotai or Wellington Central. It is just not as easy for us getting votes in Auckland as it is in Wellington!
The statistics also show how well Helen did on the party vote. Next door in Epsom we got under 15%! Helen got 27% which is slightly HIGHER than the nationwide average. In surrounding electorates the party vote dropped more than in Mt Albert. Yes the tide was going out swiftly and so heavily in Auckland so we dropped a bit from 48.6% party vote in 2020 to 27.0%. But in New Lynn we dropped even more from 53.3% down to 27.3%, in Te Atatu from 58.1% down to 33.0%, in Mt Roskill down from 55.7% to 30.0%, Kelston 61.9% to 38.0%, Pakuranga 41.8% down to 16.3%, and Takanini 54.5% down to 27.1%. In all of these electorates Helen again outperformed. This is why this media beat up defies the statistics and Helen is absolutely 100% right, that she did very well. It really annoys me them attacking an obviously extremely hard working diligent MP that ran an excellent campaign in the face of attacks from both left and right. I fear the media are making up leaks by not naming the sources – as they will not exist.
We are lucky to have patriots like Helen White representing us, and without our brilliant and super-talented campaign team in Mt Albert, then this too would have joined the majority of Auckland electorates in turning blue too.
This storm will pass. Helen did brilliantly to hold our electorate in light of everything. Just sticking up to and pushing back to media makes us admire Helen even more. We can only thank Helen so much for her service. We are lucky to have someone of her calibre, that cares about people, worker's rights, a great health & education system, and providing affordable housing.
I grew up in Mt Albert and was closely aligned to the Mt. Albert Labour Party in the 1970s and part of the 80s. I shifted to the North Shore in 1984 and lost contact with my former Labour colleagues.
Before me, my father and Warren Freer [who was the MP for Mt Albert for 34 years until Helen Clark took over in 1981] were good friends so my ties went back a long way. It seemed inconceivable that Mt Albert could ever fall to the Nats but now that you have explained the back-ground I can see what happened.
Since making those comments we have seen further negativity aimed at other women Labour MPs and former Cabinet Ministers. Ginny Anderson is the latest.
There seems to be an orchestrated attempt to discredit them, in part perhaps to cover-up for the National Party's less than skillful attempts to organise a coalition government.
Hunting around for a testing site that lets me look at a recent iOS (and doesn't want an ongoing subscription).
I asked my partner, but it appears that her iPhone has developed a fusion with her hand. I might add that I feel this way as well about my S23, but I am in a cafe at present on their internet because a moon boot on my foot is leaving me reluctant to get up and extract the phone from the car.
One outcome of the current coalition negotiations is likely to be an extra four billion a year for defense.
Rumour has it that the navy would like to replace the OPVs and ANZAC frigates with single class of 3-5 new frigates, with the Babcock (who have a presence in NZ) designed Arrow 140 (AKA Type 31) frigate looking like the early favourite. Babcock will offer some tasty local investments to help build these ships.
The Type 31 is twice as heavy as the ANZAC frigates and 30 metres longer. Get the popcorn out for that debate…
Imagine if peace-making were given parity with war-making in economic policy, and funded accordingly. An enlightened govt would deploy AI in both necessities.
I'd like to see a global competition for leading edge tech companies to develop peacemaking AI software. Bill Gates oughta fund it. Structure the thing like a World Cup tournament, so whizzkids get to update the tech in quadriennial cycle.
It would give leftist govts the opportunity to get runs on the board solving trad problems like the middle east…
That, however, was binary. The AI must be primed with network theory plus the science of complexity to sort out shit like the middle east.
That gears your tetrad up into a hexad. I'd toss in magical thinking to end up with a heptad: 7 elements in a design & it works like magic. Obviously one adept at mastery would kick that one in on the sly…
Not to mention in a manner that doesn't constrain it in the time dimension.
Fairness, historical fact, international law, and accepted values all morph like crazy over time. This is why law in most open states that don't make law by clique tends to lag public mores by about 30 years.
Changes in societal attitude tend to require about that amount of time to diffuse through society enough so the balance point in favour of change tilts to making it into law or precedence.
Reading the history of common law or legislative change is like looking at changes in local or international concurrences about what is fair, and accepted values. Frequently you see acceptance of 'historical fact' leading or trailing that process.
Saturn cycle is 29.5 years (usually gets cited as 30), correlating with the traditional onset of middle age. As a natural archetype it provides structure (Jupiter provides growth, 11.5 year cycle usually cited as 12). Thus these two drive the economy (fear & greed).
In mass psychology they work like this: Saturn imposes boundaries, Jupiter opportunities, thus divides & multiplications, differentials & integrals. So with law you get outlaws & inlaws, the latter being law-abiding. But folks get bored with binaries so clever buggers usually do both & success depends on timing & situation!
That morphing effect you mentioned is due to mutable phasing within time cycles, when things are liable to mutate. Science is still stuck on the Einsteinian spacetime paradigm, a century in now, so physics education still lacks comprehension of real time, which is experiential. Biological clocks are acknowledged as real but academic silos prevent physicists learning from them. So dumb buggers still only count time. Qualia are real too, of course, but the penny hasn't yet dropped…
A while ago a good mate who was ex-navy said anything we can afford or be allowed to have, i.e super secret techo, as a frigate would only be usable in a aircraft carrier screen on the far periphery of the protection screen. I'll check with him again on the details but I had not known that aircraft carriers have up to 12-20 other ships protecting them. In other words it would be a bloody expensive sacrifical lamb on its way to the slaughter. Lets just stick to our knitting and get ships that can do more useful work than be part of a pack.
Thats too close . Most would need to be further than that , but we can see what a US carrier has as its support group now , there are two of them in the Med/Red Sea
4 Destroyers plus a Cruiser based on the current makeup. The numbers your friend talked about are WW2-Korean War stuff
'The Ford Carrier Strike Group has a range of capabilities, the senior defense official said. While in the Eastern Mediterranean, the strike group – consisting of Ford, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG-60) and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), USS Ramage (DDG-61), USS Carney (DDG-64) and USS Roosevelt (DDG-80)
A potential early pointer will be the Seasprite replacement, as the SH-2G is running into serviceability issues and looks like it may need to be retired earlier than anticipated. Anything in the AW101/SH-60 class would imply a vessel big enough to operate such helicopters.
The Type 31/Arrowhead 140 is (apart from the sticker price – which will still be a LOT cheaper than the A$45 billion the Australians are spending on the AEGIS capable Hunter class to replace their ANZAC class frigates) an attractive offer. An easy fit for the Calliope dock, it has multi-mission modules, a VLS system compatible with all the most modern guided weapons and, above all, a crew of 80-100 which is a lot less than the 162 required on an ANZAC frigate. You could have three T31/A140 frigates for the same crewing cost of two ANZACs.
Ignore the costings for Australia frigates. Thats full life costs over 30 years. Build and buy cost is a fraction of that
See the NZ buy of P-8 planes . US Navy contracts made public for every annual contract shows them buying ( for US and other countries) them for US$140 mill each
'Five years ago, on 2 July 2018, Cabinet approved the acquisition of four Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to replace the aging P-3K2 Orion aircraft – a $2.34 billion, once in a generation investment.
Through life cost for any major defence equipment buy is essential. No good buying a ship if you then can't maintain it in subsequent years because there is no money, or you can't train personnel to service the equipment, or operate it. Auusies know this that is why they include that figure in the overall buy. Private companies just want the sale so don't factor in these ongoing costs.
Why is it that with all the specification/operational requirements, consultation with those in Defence and independent experts, frequently existing units in operation already…sometimes for years….that we appear to almost always buy dogs, whether it be ships, armoured vehicles, helicopters, weapons systems etc.
And it's usually within a relatively short period of time that we discover the fact.
Im basing my opinion on the numerous reports (usually) emanating from NZD itself….its a regular occurrence that some years after a major purchase a MoD report comes out listing the reasons why the purchase was the wrong one.
As a general rule NZ Govt's, of whatever colour, always buy the cheapest option.
I have been involved in the scoping and costing for replacement vessels as a Staff Officer on the Naval Staff for a period of around 8 years. I remember the acquisition of the Brooke Marine Lake class Patrol Craft in the 1970's. They were designed for Atlantic sea states, Pacific Ocean wave lengths are different and the new Partrol Craft were just not up to the task. Personal injury to crews grew at an alarming rate because of the craft tossing about in seas they were simply not designed to handle. The Admiral arranged for the four patrol craft to vist Wellington to show them off to the general public and the politicians of the time. A short trip around the harbour was organised including a short peak into Cook Strait.
We had been requesting the Govt for hard living allowance for the crews for the Patrol Craft for some time prior. That short trip was sufficient to get the approval for the hard living allowance approved that day
The frigates just finished a major update – known as half life, and its not like they even spend half their time at sea. So plenty of time if or when a new build is on the cards
Britain is on edge this week in the lead up to a planned march in support of Palestine on Saturday, Armistice Day.
The Home Secretary, Cruella Braverman, in breach of ministerial code, took out an article in The Times accusing the Met Police of bias for not shutting down the march. She also compared what she called the hate march with 'those we see in Northern Ireland'.
Sky's senior Ireland correspondent explains that part, somewhat brutally:
Braverman is history. If Sunak signed off on her Times letter criticising the police for favouring the Left (what alternative reality is this?) then Sunak could be gone too.
What about commemerating the British servicemen killed by the Jewish terrorist militias during Mandate for Palestine period
Due to the violence Britain had to station 100,000 troops there after the war, and eventually gave up handing the problem over to the UN – who thought partition to mostly new arrivals was a good idea , after a rigged UN general assembly vote ( Thailand voted No , the delegation was recalled and vote changed allowing it to pass 60% majority
I do know my mother was always bitter towards the Israelis because they had killed many British troops in bomb attacks during the period you talk about above. I read somewhere the other day the Zionists blew up a synagogue during the same period, and blamed it on the Palestinians, doubtless to curry favour and support from the USA.
In fact, Israel’s ongoing industrial-scale slaughter and nationwide repression of the Palestinians, in retaliation of Hamas’s gruesome October 7 attacks in southern Israel, is both utterly criminal and terribly foolish. Israel has tried to live by the sword for the past 75 years, but it has sowed more of the same insecurity, infamy and anger. Repeating the same strategy again and again and expecting different results is indeed stupid.
The article does downplay wrong-doing by Arabs (e.g. the above single sentence is the only mention of hamas' recent terrorist attack) and to say "If anything, the Jews have historically been the victims of racism for centuries…" betrays serious bias – in fact Jews have clearly and obviously been victims of centuries of appalling abuse, not least being the main victims of one of the worst single acts of genocide to date.
There is not one mention of what hamas could offer – e.g. return hostages, implement a ceasefire etc. The author has written numerous articles criticising Israel and its war crimes since October 7th, but wrote only a single article (on October 7th) about the hamas atrocities – in which he made no criticism of hamas or condemnation of their appalling war crimes / crimes against humanity, but instead admiringly portrayed their despicable acts as heroic military action against Israel.
He expressed no concern that such an attack would obviously make the current Israeli attacks likely. What did he think would happen?
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This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University Ken stocker/Shutterstock In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by men’s violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University Oleg Ivanov IL/Shutterstock Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this year’s federal budget. That’s the type of non-emergency surgery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne Amna Artist/Shutterstock One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
In 1995, Sally Clark went out on her own in a bold and unorthodox attempt to join an illustrious group of equestrian riders conquering the world. In the days of glovebox road maps, brick cell phones, and the hit song How Bizarre, Clark refused to follow Sir Mark Todd, Blyth ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Beaglehole, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago niphon/Getty Images The number of people accessing medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Aotearoa New Zealand increased significantly between 2006 and 2022. But the disorder is still under-diagnosed and ...
To celebrate the start of New Zealand music month, we look back at the best local tuneage that managed to weasel its way into Hollywood productions. There’s nothing quite like the thrilling zap of recognition when New Zealand weasels its way into a glamorous Hollywood production. Crack open a Tui ...
People trust other people more than institutions. So how can the media gain that trust through journalists without losing what’s important about the institution? Anna Rawhiti-Connell reflects on two years of curating the news for The Bulletin.Amonth ago, armed cops descended on my neighbourhood as calls to “lock your ...
Opinion: PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are a class of thousands of man-made chemicals used widely in everyday consumer items such as textiles, packaging, and cookware, popular for their water, grease and stain-repellent properties. However, the very properties that make PFAS so attractive to manufacturers are also what ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)’ This is the hottest book in New Zealand, number one with a bullet in its first week, selling more than any overseas title, and demand is so huge that it’s already been reprinted. A ...
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We're seeing Labour's blame culture again:
So this pattern of behaviour has been continuing for three years. Everyone naturally wonders what makes a leftist so nasty. Why default to copying the right when we need a positive alternative? Is self-improvement and character development really impossible for left-wingers? I doubt it.
Something in their culture makes them want to take the easy way out instead. You'd think Labour's leadership would have learnt from Kiri how to respond to complaints. Apparently not!
Nah – just about every workplace has some of this stuff. What we are seeing is a fundamental disjunction that is seldom mentioned – that irreconcilable conflict between highly-pressured modern work and the growing cultural phenomenon of individuals believing they have a right to feel 'empowered'.
The more cynical among us might think that the promotion of the idea that ’empowerment’ is possible despite being in a position of subordination, is a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact of subordination.
"Outgoing Police Minister Ginny Andersen has said she "doesn't recall" yelling at a teenage volunteer and calling her "useless"
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/11/labour-mp-ginny-andersen-doesn-t-outright-rule-out-yelling-at-teenage-volunteer-calling-her-useless.html
I imagine the things that make leftists angry and the things that make Frankses angry are similar.
"In 2020, the mother said her daughter mixed up home addresses and Andersen called her "useless" and "made her feel little", it alleged"
If that occurred Why the fuck is the individual hanging around for more? Masochism? It's hard for me to understamd why someone would keep going back for more for a volunteer position frankly it beggars belief.
Doesn't make sense. She would not have kept working for Andersen for three years after this if the event were true.
That's what I thought too.
The new Hutt South national MP has history of unsubstantiated claims , who knows who is giving this story into the news ??
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300341183/hutt-south-labour-electoral-office-not-auditorgenerals-business
"National’s Hutt South-based MP, Chris Bishop, complained to the Auditor-General about the arrangement. On Thursday, the Auditor-General wrote back confirming it would not investigate.
Good point.
Funny how it is potential high flyers in the Labour Party who get accused of "bullying."
This complaint contains nebulous things like "shouting at" and "blaming." The complaint is from the mother and includes the Election night accusation just 3+ weeks ago. Who leaked the complaint to media? Labour Party? Ginny? And with case in the alleged stage how come the Media, especially Newshub, are so certain of Ginny being guilty?
This smacks of Dirty Tricks to me.
My take, reading the subtext, was that it was authentic. Seems like a committed Labour family, to have sustained the volunteering despite the bitching…
However I sympathise with your scepticism. Once upon a time I naively assumed that anyone who joined the Greens would be ethical!
And they are nearly always Labour women.
As for the past attempt to smear the Hutt Valley Labour Party's financial arrangements with a union which amounted to a paltry few thousand dollars per annum:
how much of that $8 billion lodged in the Nat’s campaign kitty was dirty money? It would not surprise me if it was quite a bit.
Two can play at that game.
One leftist, all leftist … really?
Not really, of course. Generalising is just a thing people do, part of human nature. One can often find exceptions to a general rule…
Too many gins in Ginny and the mask slips. This doesn't sound very #kind. Gaurav was right.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/301005635/labour-investigates-bullying-complaint-against-mp-ginny-andersen
And even Labour Party people don't like Helen White, want to see her fail:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/11/election-2023-amelia-wade-analysis-labour-insider-hopes-helen-white-loses-recount-another-says-she-s-condescending-entitled.html
Looks like the wheels have completely fallen off. The next Labour PM isn't even in parliament yet.
As David Mitchell says (paraphrase) in the attached link…'yes they're all horrible, but the "good ones" are those who maintained stability and didn't play favourites'
"Some" Labour people. We also had the "Backbone Club", the "Mike Moore Supporters Club", the "Anybody But Cunliffe" crowd, and a whole collection of past egoists, misfits and wreckers. We survived them – and we will survive this.
Aw
"The next Labour PM isn't even in parliament yet."
Neither is National's it's in recess ya numpty!
National’s future leaders tend to be ex-CEOs such as the current one who parachuted from above from Air New Zealand into the Party. None other NZ political party follows the vertical trickle-down of power as blatantly as the Nats; it’s in their blood. Unsurprisingly, the number of female MPs in National is low, not to mention the representation of other social groups in the NZ population.
"National’s future leaders tend to be ex-CEOs ".
That is an interesting hypothesis but do you have any evidence for it having occurred at any time prior to Luxon?
Hamilton? No
Holland? – No
Holyoake? No
Marshall? No
Muldoon? No
McLay? No
Bolger? No
Shipley? No
English? No
Brash? Yes, for a very short period. Broadbank and the Kiwifruit Authority I believe.
Key? No
Bridges? No
Muller? No
Collins? No
Hardly very much of a Trend, is it?
Key wasnt a CEO , but like Luxon, Muller were corporate ladder climbers, who got near or at the top
Gaurav was proven to have bullied his staff, he was also a headache to PS. The way Amelia and Tova were speaking to Helen White, this looked like a media beat up to me.
"You guys are really going for me, is there any particular reason?"
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/11/election-2023-labour-s-helen-white-still-proud-of-result-despite-just-20-vote-victory-recount-happening.html
FYI, RRM is a RW troll whose natural habitat is over at KB.
Thanks for the heads up.
"You guys are really going for me, is there any particular reason?"
Helen White made the stupid claim that she had "done very well" in Mt Albert when she clearly had not. In doing so, she opened up the opportunity for the gotcha journos to "go for her". She should have had the sense to say nothing.
I can see why Helen White said that when other safe Labour seats went blue.
The problem with that Louis, Mt Albert was regarded as the safest Labour seat in the country. Most people thought it would be impossible to turn that seat around.
The last time Mt.Albert came under threat was in 1975 when Muldoon offered a massive superannuation bribe which brought NZ close to bankruptcy nine years later. Even then the margin between the two parties was iirc somewhere between 250 -300 votes.
Covid has turned everything upside down. Auckland's anger over the last lockdown, and as the election showed, Labour seats were not safe. 2020 red wave. 2023 blue wave.
To put it bluntly, the majority of the population don't give a tinker's cuss (as my old Dad used to say) about anyone but themselves and who belongs to them.
Helen White did really well to keep our electorate when cabinet ministers went down with Michael in Mt Roskill, Deborah lost New Lynn for the first time since the electorate was established in 1964. Peeni lost Tāmaki Makarau (although it is suspicious and unfair having a polling booth in the marae that the leading opponent was CEO of).
Melissa Lee had more experience and brand recognition than Carlos Chung and Paulo Garcia. But for Helen and her fantastic campaign team's hard work, then there is no question that we would have lost this seat too. Ricardo Menenmendez-March has name recognition and it was disappointing the Greens campaigned so hard for the electorate vote with a two ticks green campaign (unlike Mt Roskill and New Lynn). Some would call that selfish. There were boundary changes and high end housing being completed that also made it harder for Helen than for other Labour MPs – yet she still won!
The attacks by media, particularly Amelia Wade at Newshub supported by Jenna Lynch, Tova, and the green party attack blogger Martyn Bradbury on The Daily Blog are disgraceful. Helen's professionalism and skill as a leading lawyer are clearly evident. If Helen was in Wellington, we'd miss her, but she would have easily won Rongotai or Wellington Central. It is just not as easy for us getting votes in Auckland as it is in Wellington!
The statistics also show how well Helen did on the party vote. Next door in Epsom we got under 15%! Helen got 27% which is slightly HIGHER than the nationwide average. In surrounding electorates the party vote dropped more than in Mt Albert. Yes the tide was going out swiftly and so heavily in Auckland so we dropped a bit from 48.6% party vote in 2020 to 27.0%. But in New Lynn we dropped even more from 53.3% down to 27.3%, in Te Atatu from 58.1% down to 33.0%, in Mt Roskill down from 55.7% to 30.0%, Kelston 61.9% to 38.0%, Pakuranga 41.8% down to 16.3%, and Takanini 54.5% down to 27.1%. In all of these electorates Helen again outperformed. This is why this media beat up defies the statistics and Helen is absolutely 100% right, that she did very well. It really annoys me them attacking an obviously extremely hard working diligent MP that ran an excellent campaign in the face of attacks from both left and right. I fear the media are making up leaks by not naming the sources – as they will not exist.
We are lucky to have patriots like Helen White representing us, and without our brilliant and super-talented campaign team in Mt Albert, then this too would have joined the majority of Auckland electorates in turning blue too.
This storm will pass. Helen did brilliantly to hold our electorate in light of everything. Just sticking up to and pushing back to media makes us admire Helen even more. We can only thank Helen so much for her service. We are lucky to have someone of her calibre, that cares about people, worker's rights, a great health & education system, and providing affordable housing.
Only just discovered your comment Dave W.
I grew up in Mt Albert and was closely aligned to the Mt. Albert Labour Party in the 1970s and part of the 80s. I shifted to the North Shore in 1984 and lost contact with my former Labour colleagues.
Before me, my father and Warren Freer [who was the MP for Mt Albert for 34 years until Helen Clark took over in 1981] were good friends so my ties went back a long way. It seemed inconceivable that Mt Albert could ever fall to the Nats but now that you have explained the back-ground I can see what happened.
Since making those comments we have seen further negativity aimed at other women Labour MPs and former Cabinet Ministers. Ginny Anderson is the latest.
There seems to be an orchestrated attempt to discredit them, in part perhaps to cover-up for the National Party's less than skillful attempts to organise a coalition government.
Hopefully fixed the update problem with TS on mobiles. The update to WordPress 6.4 broke the theme used for the mobile plugin.
Just trying to clear the offsite cache now to force a update.
Nope. The problem appears to be with the mobile plugin not loading CSS. Pushed it back to the plugin support. Disabled the mobile plugin.
I will have a look at it tomorrow and see if I can identify the bug.
any chance the commenting fault on the desktop version can be fixed? Still can't reply to comments. Safari on iOS 17.1.1
I think this is why some people don't use the reply button and just do a new comment.
Reply button working fine for me on chrome
what device and OS?
My pc windows 10
thanks, that’s helpful to rule out. The problem is on phones (and maybe other small devices)
Hunting around for a testing site that lets me look at a recent iOS (and doesn't want an ongoing subscription).
I asked my partner, but it appears that her iPhone has developed a fusion with her hand. I might add that I feel this way as well about my S23, but I am in a cafe at present on their internet because a moon boot on my foot is leaving me reluctant to get up and extract the phone from the car.
One outcome of the current coalition negotiations is likely to be an extra four billion a year for defense.
Rumour has it that the navy would like to replace the OPVs and ANZAC frigates with single class of 3-5 new frigates, with the Babcock (who have a presence in NZ) designed Arrow 140 (AKA Type 31) frigate looking like the early favourite. Babcock will offer some tasty local investments to help build these ships.
The Type 31 is twice as heavy as the ANZAC frigates and 30 metres longer. Get the popcorn out for that debate…
Imagine if peace-making were given parity with war-making in economic policy, and funded accordingly. An enlightened govt would deploy AI in both necessities.
I'd like to see a global competition for leading edge tech companies to develop peacemaking AI software. Bill Gates oughta fund it. Structure the thing like a World Cup tournament, so whizzkids get to update the tech in quadriennial cycle.
It would give leftist govts the opportunity to get runs on the board solving trad problems like the middle east…
I kind of like the idea, in the absence of human rationality.
If AI could be programmed with historical fact, a code of fairness, international law, accepted values…oh god, it's not gonna work is it?
historical fact, a code of fairness, international law, accepted values
A likely tetrad. The working model for this stuff is the one that solved the Cold War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
That, however, was binary. The AI must be primed with network theory plus the science of complexity to sort out shit like the middle east.
That gears your tetrad up into a hexad. I'd toss in magical thinking to end up with a heptad: 7 elements in a design & it works like magic. Obviously one adept at mastery would kick that one in on the sly…
i wonder if anyone has gamed that ?
The problem would be including and entering the data in a non partisan manner
Not to mention in a manner that doesn't constrain it in the time dimension.
Fairness, historical fact, international law, and accepted values all morph like crazy over time. This is why law in most open states that don't make law by clique tends to lag public mores by about 30 years.
Changes in societal attitude tend to require about that amount of time to diffuse through society enough so the balance point in favour of change tilts to making it into law or precedence.
Reading the history of common law or legislative change is like looking at changes in local or international concurrences about what is fair, and accepted values. Frequently you see acceptance of 'historical fact' leading or trailing that process.
damn good comment
Saturn cycle is 29.5 years (usually gets cited as 30), correlating with the traditional onset of middle age. As a natural archetype it provides structure (Jupiter provides growth, 11.5 year cycle usually cited as 12). Thus these two drive the economy (fear & greed).
In mass psychology they work like this: Saturn imposes boundaries, Jupiter opportunities, thus divides & multiplications, differentials & integrals. So with law you get outlaws & inlaws, the latter being law-abiding. But folks get bored with binaries so clever buggers usually do both & success depends on timing & situation!
That morphing effect you mentioned is due to mutable phasing within time cycles, when things are liable to mutate. Science is still stuck on the Einsteinian spacetime paradigm, a century in now, so physics education still lacks comprehension of real time, which is experiential. Biological clocks are acknowledged as real but academic silos prevent physicists learning from them. So dumb buggers still only count time. Qualia are real too, of course, but the penny hasn't yet dropped…
A while ago a good mate who was ex-navy said anything we can afford or be allowed to have, i.e super secret techo, as a frigate would only be usable in a aircraft carrier screen on the far periphery of the protection screen. I'll check with him again on the details but I had not known that aircraft carriers have up to 12-20 other ships protecting them. In other words it would be a bloody expensive sacrifical lamb on its way to the slaughter. Lets just stick to our knitting and get ships that can do more useful work than be part of a pack.
Sure, have ships that have more than that purpose and not committing to a fight for Taiwan.
Oz can be defended by land based (air and missile) forces, with subs at the periphery.
Doesnt have 20 ships , maybe 4 or which are all high end destroyers and cruisers
Carrier has its own planes to defend itself
He said the screen could be 20kms by20kms with frigates etc on the outer.
Thats too close . Most would need to be further than that , but we can see what a US carrier has as its support group now , there are two of them in the Med/Red Sea
4 Destroyers plus a Cruiser based on the current makeup. The numbers your friend talked about are WW2-Korean War stuff
'The Ford Carrier Strike Group has a range of capabilities, the senior defense official said. While in the Eastern Mediterranean, the strike group – consisting of Ford, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG-60) and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), USS Ramage (DDG-61), USS Carney (DDG-64) and USS Roosevelt (DDG-80)
https://news.usni.org/2023/10/12/gerald-r-ford-csg-arrives-in-eastern-mediterranean-defense-department-says
Very interesting rumor.
Any source to follow up?
Just in case there's a bid coming up.
Discussion of the RFI here (closes 15th November)
https://www.navalnews.com/event-news/indo-pacific-2023/2023/10/new-zealand-contemplates-how-to-best-manage-a-small-fleet-of-ships/
Babcock's confirmation of a formal offer for the Type 31/Arrowhead 140. It isn't clear to me if this is an unsolicited offer.
https://www.navaltoday.com/2023/11/01/babcock-offers-arrowhead-140-frigate-design-to-new-zealand/
A potential early pointer will be the Seasprite replacement, as the SH-2G is running into serviceability issues and looks like it may need to be retired earlier than anticipated. Anything in the AW101/SH-60 class would imply a vessel big enough to operate such helicopters.
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/new-naval-helicopter-planned-for-new-zealand
The Type 31/Arrowhead 140 is (apart from the sticker price – which will still be a LOT cheaper than the A$45 billion the Australians are spending on the AEGIS capable Hunter class to replace their ANZAC class frigates) an attractive offer. An easy fit for the Calliope dock, it has multi-mission modules, a VLS system compatible with all the most modern guided weapons and, above all, a crew of 80-100 which is a lot less than the 162 required on an ANZAC frigate. You could have three T31/A140 frigates for the same crewing cost of two ANZACs.
Helpful pointers thankyou.
Just in case NZF gets its coalition order in fast.
Ignore the costings for Australia frigates. Thats full life costs over 30 years. Build and buy cost is a fraction of that
See the NZ buy of P-8 planes . US Navy contracts made public for every annual contract shows them buying ( for US and other countries) them for US$140 mill each
https://www.defence.govt.nz/the-latest/story/fourth-and-final-p-8a-poseidon-lands-in-new-zealand
Actual cost to buy 4 from public information US contracts is more like US$500 mill
Through life cost for any major defence equipment buy is essential. No good buying a ship if you then can't maintain it in subsequent years because there is no money, or you can't train personnel to service the equipment, or operate it. Auusies know this that is why they include that figure in the overall buy. Private companies just want the sale so don't factor in these ongoing costs.
Hospitals and schools are the same , but we only compare the ' built cost ' there.
$1 bill doesnt go very far in the health system , over 25 years does it
Why is it that with all the specification/operational requirements, consultation with those in Defence and independent experts, frequently existing units in operation already…sometimes for years….that we appear to almost always buy dogs, whether it be ships, armoured vehicles, helicopters, weapons systems etc.
And it's usually within a relatively short period of time that we discover the fact.
Mostly disinformation spread by rival manufacturers who didnt get the business.
They are complex equipment and need proper maintenance, money that often isnt made available or cut after a few years.
Im basing my opinion on the numerous reports (usually) emanating from NZD itself….its a regular occurrence that some years after a major purchase a MoD report comes out listing the reasons why the purchase was the wrong one.
We appear to be regularly wise AFTER the event….perhaps some of that wisdom is needed prior?
As a general rule NZ Govt's, of whatever colour, always buy the cheapest option.
I have been involved in the scoping and costing for replacement vessels as a Staff Officer on the Naval Staff for a period of around 8 years. I remember the acquisition of the Brooke Marine Lake class Patrol Craft in the 1970's. They were designed for Atlantic sea states, Pacific Ocean wave lengths are different and the new Partrol Craft were just not up to the task. Personal injury to crews grew at an alarming rate because of the craft tossing about in seas they were simply not designed to handle. The Admiral arranged for the four patrol craft to vist Wellington to show them off to the general public and the politicians of the time. A short trip around the harbour was organised including a short peak into Cook Strait.
We had been requesting the Govt for hard living allowance for the crews for the Patrol Craft for some time prior. That short trip was sufficient to get the approval for the hard living allowance approved that day
That is four billion wasted that could be used to fix up the public health system.
Its an RFI , a wish list for 15 years away …maybe
The frigates just finished a major update – known as half life, and its not like they even spend half their time at sea. So plenty of time if or when a new build is on the cards
Britain is on edge this week in the lead up to a planned march in support of Palestine on Saturday, Armistice Day.
The Home Secretary, Cruella Braverman, in breach of ministerial code, took out an article in The Times accusing the Met Police of bias for not shutting down the march. She also compared what she called the hate march with 'those we see in Northern Ireland'.
Sky's senior Ireland correspondent explains that part, somewhat brutally:
https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1722696060819124684?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1722696060819124684%7Ctwgr%5Ea73849ab6cba64bb5611788357d9ecc48d26bd85%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theforum365.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fbmay%2Fstatus%2F1722696060819124684%3Fs%3D20
Braverman is history. If Sunak signed off on her Times letter criticising the police for favouring the Left (what alternative reality is this?) then Sunak could be gone too.
What about commemerating the British servicemen killed by the Jewish terrorist militias during Mandate for Palestine period
Due to the violence Britain had to station 100,000 troops there after the war, and eventually gave up handing the problem over to the UN – who thought partition to mostly new arrivals was a good idea , after a rigged UN general assembly vote ( Thailand voted No , the delegation was recalled and vote changed allowing it to pass 60% majority
Wow I didn't know about that rigging Ghost.
I do know my mother was always bitter towards the Israelis because they had killed many British troops in bomb attacks during the period you talk about above. I read somewhere the other day the Zionists blew up a synagogue during the same period, and blamed it on the Palestinians, doubtless to curry favour and support from the USA.
IMO a good article
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/9/israels-war-crimes-in-gaza-are-by-design-not-default
It is ok, certainly this is true I think:
The article does downplay wrong-doing by Arabs (e.g. the above single sentence is the only mention of hamas' recent terrorist attack) and to say "If anything, the Jews have historically been the victims of racism for centuries…" betrays serious bias – in fact Jews have clearly and obviously been victims of centuries of appalling abuse, not least being the main victims of one of the worst single acts of genocide to date.
There is not one mention of what hamas could offer – e.g. return hostages, implement a ceasefire etc. The author has written numerous articles criticising Israel and its war crimes since October 7th, but wrote only a single article (on October 7th) about the hamas atrocities – in which he made no criticism of hamas or condemnation of their appalling war crimes / crimes against humanity, but instead admiringly portrayed their despicable acts as heroic military action against Israel.
He expressed no concern that such an attack would obviously make the current Israeli attacks likely. What did he think would happen?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/133271227/after-a-month-of-waiting-nelson-finally-has-an-election-result
One recount down , so far so good
Was it a judicial recount under a judges supervision or just a Vote NZ manual recount ?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/502129/labour-s-rachel-boyack-confirms-26-vote-win-in-nelson-recount