Yesterday was the first day of the 2020 sitting year for Parliament. Usual business was suspended for the day to allow Members to remember and share their personal memories of the late Right Honorable Mike Moore. Speeches started with Jacinda Ardern as PM followed by leaders of the other political parties, with other individual MPs then following.
The initial speeches were fairly conservative eulogies with all leaders essentially in agreement over the huge contribution made by Mike Moore, but things loosened up when the other MPs stood to recall their memories.
In particular, Ron Mark started out using notes but quickly dispensed with these and launched into one of the most personal from the heart speeches I ever recall hearing in the House . At the same time it was one of the most humourous recounts of behind the scenes memories of Mark and Moore’s relationship since Mark’s time with the Labour Party when Mark ran unsuccessfully for Labour in the Selwyn electorate. Mark supported his recounting with an impressive number of Labour Party documents and policies attributable to Mike Moore. from his own personal archives.
If you watch nothing else, I urge you to watch Mark’s speech – it is 12 minutes you won’t regret!
The speeches following Mark by Brownlee, Damian O’Connor and Trevor Mallard also carried on with more personal and humourous memories. All in all a great send off for Mike. And impressive in the recognition of Yvonne’s contribution as Mike’s partner in life and politics.
Drat – the Mark video came up properly as a picture but doesn’t now.
I only partly saw on the news last night, a poll saying Ron Mark was by far the most preferred person to take over NZ First if Winston wasn't there. Result surprised me. Did anyone see the whole thing as I missed where the poll was taken. I've always presumed Shane Jones would be the eventual NZF leader.
That's interesting, Jimmy. I did not see that as I rarely watch TV – which News was it on? TVNZ or Newshub?
Re Jones taking over as Leader of NZF eventually, I don't believe that will happen for a number of reasons. I actually discussed this subject in a reply to Dennis Frank on open Mike at 2.1.1.2 http://11 February 2020 at 9:29 am Here is some of that reply (no point in re-inventing the wheel!):
The NZF party of today is a very different animal to the one that existed pre 2008 with Peters spending his time in the wilderness revamping the party into one supported by a much wider age range and range of views to that previously. Both Lprent and I have written here on TS on this many times over recent years.
Sure, Jonesy is a bit of a weak link but the other NZF MPs have been doing a very credible job in their various Ministerial roles and support roles – eg Tracey Martin and Ron Mark as well as Peters himself as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
We don't hear much of Fletcher Tabuteau, but IMO he, rather than Jonesy, is the one who is being groomed as the next leader as reflected in his roles not only as Deputy Leader, but also as understudy to both Peters and Jonesy as Parliamentary Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development.
To add to that, both Tracey Martin and Ron Mark have previously been Deputy Leader of NZF. As I understand it, because other members of Tracey Martin's family have had considerable influence on the Party (eg her mother Ann Martin was President for many years) it was considered better to spread the influence, hence Ron Mark becoming Deputy and he then handed onto Tabuteau.
Re Jones, I cannot provide any links but I seem to recall that Jones himself – both when he was still with Labour and since moving to NZF – has implied that he is not interested in party leadership roles and is more comfortable doing roles like his present one as "Champion of the Regions" and the similar role he undertook under the previous Nat Govt in relation to economic development etc in the Pacific. As I say, I cannot provide links to this but I have a pretty good memory despite older age.
Thanks for the heads-up Jimmy as I have now found the TV3 item and here is the link – another Tova O'Brien special as part of the Newshub poll released the other night.
The results are interesting with Ron Mark indeed coming out well ahead, both generally and with NZF voters.
I don't find that surprising, nor the fact that Fletcher Tabuteau barely rated as he keeps – or is kept – fairly low profile. Nevertheless Tabuteau has been associated with NZF since its inception 25 years ago at about 20 years of age, and at c 45/46 currently, he still has a lot of miles left on the clock. At 66, Mark is 20 years older and thus only seven years younger than Peters and I wonder whether he would really want the job.
I am surprised that Tracey Martin did not rate higher but she did take on a rather poisoned chalice (or challenge) in the form of Oranga Tamariki. I have a lot of respect for her in doing so as it is going to take a lot to turn that nightmare around.
Time will tell – and there is the possiblity that NZF may not make it at the upcoming election although I would be surprised if that actually happens. There are a lot of oldies who know who we have to thank for our Super Gold cards! LOL.
I was watching fom the balcony in parliament yesterday and I agree that Ron Marks contribution stood out – warm, funny, wise and clear. He would make a good NZ First leader, and sooner rather than later I think as I believe from my observations that Winston's health is starting to fail
What about the tens of thousands received by the National machine. Those which are visible paint a picture of influence on a very grand scale. Investigate that?
National have received several millions in total but of course all donations were deliberate and fairly legal.
I've never voted for Peters and NZ First but lets be fair…
National and ACT have been indulging in this kind of fiscal subterfuge for decades. ACT started doing it in the 1990s and National have been doing it even longer. Anyone with any historical political knowledge (which counts out half the current political journos) knows it.
If the media is going to call out NZ First fair enough. But tell the whole story and acknowledge the fact National and ACT do it too. I can't speak for Labour or the Greens but given their donations tend to be much smaller amounts – but more numerous in quantity – I think it is unlikely.
Edit: And if some smarty pants tries to misconstrue my last sentence:
90% of Labour’s donors are not rich people and they donate small amounts (less than $100) but probably do it more frequently.
The original comment was about NZ1st. There seems to be an effort round these parts to minimise Winston's shenanagins.
When NZ 1st say they will review their practices, I call bulldust.
The NZ1st foundation was formed with the guidance of Peter's lawyer. I don't believe for a moment that Peter's isn't aware of what was going on. It sounds pretty legal
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
This is what corruption looks like in an relatively non corrupt country.
For years we have suspected, but have had no real evidence that government policy on the racing industry was being bought.
The government has provided tax breaks to this morally corrupt industry, that feeds off gambling and animal cruelty.
Winston Peters is the Racing Minister. Can we really trust that he had no idea what was going on with the New Zealand First Foundation as he is claiming, when the Racing Industry that he serves was funneling money into it??
This real-time exercise in realpolitik for RNZ’s board and the Government illustrates where power lies in New Zealand. They only needed to look at the number and demographics of the Concert FM fans.
But given what has been going on at RNZ, all this was as much about a couple of commercially oriented master-of-the-universe egos as it was about creating an alternative network with instant appeal.
If Thompson and co had been more concerned about what they perceive as the problem, they could have quietly worked on a third network and allowed it to evolve and be discovered by the 'demographic' naturally. (Even built on the BRAND "The Wireless")
It ain't over yet. The bloody board either let themselves down too, or were too busy trying to be down with the kuds. When you look at their backgrounds though a majority would seem to be quite comfortable with what's been going on (over a long time)
"If you doubt the variety of young people, cast your mind back to your own class at secondary school, ranging as it did from the thug at the back to the scholar at the front, via the athlete in the middle and the aesthete to one side, plus the dubious creep who later, oh my god, went into local politics. In short, we young people, like you older people, are as various as the pebbles on the beach and any radio station that tries to appeal to all of us will appeal to none of us."
Personally I am not surprised that hierarchy at RNZ has exposed themselves in this way as being so out of touch with their local communities, just look at steady decline of National radio as a serious new source over the past couple of decades, it really is now a just hollow shell of it's former self, are real lightweight.
And now (and under Labour of course) they totally disregard and dismiss one of the very few sources that offers even a breath of high minded culture for free into our communities..fucking Liberals, always so lowbrow, always finding ways to make life just that bit more shitty and crappy….yuk.
IMO that is a very one-sided view of the situation and I am surprised and disappointed at Hickey's take on the situation. This view that only white elitists listen to Concert FM or listen to and participate in classical music is just so closed minded.
It takes no account of the contribution NZ's multicultural and in particular, Maori and Pacifica, communities for example have made to classical music both here in NZ and worldwide.
In opera alone, Maori account for a good proportion of NZ artists who have reached the world stage such as Inia Te Wiata, Keri Te Kanawa, Kawiti Waetford, ManaTe Hapuku, and Phillip Rhodes to name just a few.
In the same field, in more recent years, our Samoan community has also contributed an impressive array of world recognised stars – for example, Moses Mackay, Pene Patu and Amatai Patu both individually and together as Sol3 Mio – our own version of the Three Tenors. Other Samoan NZers on the world opera circuit include Marlena Devoe and Benson Wilson – as is Amina Edris both in her own right and in company with her husband, Pene Patu. Amina is Egyptian-born but raised and trained in opera in NZ.
I could go on – at length – but will leave it at that. Many of the above artists did not come from well off homes – far from it. And they have provided good role models for others to follow in their footsteps – and support for others to do so.
But I am surprised and disappointed at the ignorance and closed mindedness that has emerged, including on here at TS, as the Concert FM issue has emerged.
But I am surprised and disappointed at the ignorance and closed mindedness that has emerged, including on here at TS, as the Concert FM issue has emerged.
In part it's a consequence of the way identity politics subsumes all individual interests and capacities. It casts a broad net over whole categories of people and dumps them into big silos with a couple of fat, lazy labels on them.
There is an overwhelming national interest in deplatforming classical music. /sarc.
Its a conclusion you can only reach by choosing not to think about who running ConcertFM benefits, and who running it opresses (e.g nobody).
And frankly the views suggesting its ConcertFM or Skypath are equally dim. What is the suggestion, that some roading contractors should take up radio engineering instead? The two are not economically or fiscally related so NZ should happily invest in both.
Because what you call "identity politics" isn't about dumping labels on people, it's about people choosing how they describe themselves.
My suspicion was that someone was looking at a line item in their budget, they didn't listen to it personally, and they just assumed that its core audience was the stereotypical old/rich/white crowd beloved by hollywood screenwriters.
it's about people choosing how they describe themselves.
And invariably when they do this, they become more than anything else individuals, with a unique mix of heritage, family, experiences, interests and capacities. For example, someone may very well describe themselves as 'Samoan', but in reality this might be only one of many equally important aspects of who they are.
People do not choose one identity, they are a bewildering mix of them. While on the one hand we are social creatures driven to belong, we also value highly our freedom to choose where we belong, when and in which context. Much more nuanced than the crude idioms of identity politics allows for.
"Because what you call "identity politics" isn't about dumping labels on people, it's about people choosing how they describe themselves."
Your saying comment 3 is self descriptive? The problematic kinds of identity politics invariably involve talking in very broad generalisations about a group (or between groups) of which the author is not representative. Also very typically some form of amateur phychology is infered to imply which group is morally superior.
On the other hand cases of people self identifying are so harmless they barely appear worthy of mention (Elizibeth Warren not with-standing).
In this case the people who seem to identify as the down with the youf executive of RNZ seem to be getting the shit, and their beliefs are problematic for people who like listening to Classical Music. There is something pretty fubar with the framing of this in identity politics terms of some elite demographic vs whoever they are opressing by enjoying Classical music on the radio.
If this wasn't characteristic of these IP arguments I wouldn't be making this argument of course, but it is.
Except that the implicit assumption is that only the "elite demographic" listen to classical music, which is an assumption about all the various groups made without listeningto any of those groups to start with. Which has more in common with colonialism than it does with "identity politics".
Colonialism aye. In fact I think the only reason I am having this discussion is because of my unconscious Colonialism. Of course consciously I think its because I think having a discussion based on gross generalisations about caricatures of groups produces nonsense, but in the back there is always some colonialism going on there.
I already did. You responded by trying to start a discussion where you apply amateur phychology (motivated by Colonialism) to a group (ConcertFM audience) to negatively caricature that group. The argument is gibberish but you thus ignored the reasonable concerns over the decision (should RNZ be run like a commercial station?).
Who said anything about "motivated by colonialism"?
I just said that imposing a collection of labels upon others (rather than listening to what labels they might choose for themselves) was more like colonialism that it was like "identity politics".
In all the discussions about "elitist" concert radio listeners, have you seen an actual breakdown of the concertFM audience? Standard market research with self-reported socio-economic data? Because I haven't. Which suggests to me that any description of the concertFM audience is probably:
an assumption
that imposes labels like "elite"
upon the audience
instead of being based on the labels they select for themselves.
What you describe is imposition of labels with no regard for consent. "Identity politics" is about the freedom to honestly choose labels for oneself. From pronouns to any other aspect of identity.
The Pacifika and Maori contribution to classical music – particularly in vocal and choral – has been a revelation in the last 40 years.
It seriously worries me that a massive tradition of local music composition and performance is being proposed to simply be automated onto an AM station. WTF.
Well done to those who organised the petition – it clearly had an immediate effect upon our current Prime Minister .
Thank God for someone like Helen Clark who is giving it right back to them.
Which also reminds me of another NZ composer of worldwide reputation whose compositions range over and blend a number of different genres including electronic with orchestral – Rhian Sheehan.
[Funny that because I have known him most of his life (= wider whanau). LOL]
Rhian features quite often on RNZ National music shows and presumably elsewhere across the spectrum of music radio stations.
For something different, you could always visit your local planetarium, eg Auckland Planetarium/Skydome, as Rhian composes the music for many of the shows featured at many planetariums worldwide – eg I think the latest one is "We are Astronomers" narrated by former Dr Who, David Tarrant or I might be totally out of date.
Here is his Wikipedia entry but if you google his name there are plenty of local media reports on his background, his music compositions and their recognition overseas – eg he composed music for the opening/closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics amongst many other compositions for worldwide events etc.
And perhaps this interview will give you a little bit of an insight as to why Samoan and other Pacifica New Zealanders feature in our NZ music scene across all genres but particularly the choral genres including those associated with classical music.
I'll pick out the bits I like about Hickey's contribution:
He seemed to be learning in real time this week after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern used an interview on RNZ's Morning Report on Monday to express "frustration" that the planned "gutting" and relegation of Concert FM to a robo-station on AM had been announced before the Government had had to chance to come up with an alternative FM channel.
"I think we obviously didn't explain it clearly enough, and when we were talking about our plan, there was an assumption that it wouldn't be obvious initially that the FM transmission would be affected, and I think that was just a glitch in the communications," (struggling much?)
actually there's too many bits, and maybe I have a bit of a prejudice: liking to watch any wideboy being fed their chips
But there is unfortunately the truthiness in this:
"This real-time exercise in realpolitik for RNZ's board and the Government illustrates where power lies in New Zealand."
Oh how much easier it would be if gummints of whatever stripe, and masters-of the Universe in whatever pick-your-brand-Corp could just be up-front, open and honest.
Bullshit begets more bullshit (on the bright side though, it keeps a few spin meisters in immoral employment)
The politics within RNZ are something to behold – especially since the current reign, from the way people have been 'eased' out (under-appreciated) to the marketeers taking over. I'd say the board royally fucked up putting too much faith in their 'golden boy(s)'.
Thank you. Lisa Owen asks explicitly at 15.52 if the public backlash has prised concessions from the govt including the shelved frequencies. A minute later, Thompson confirms RNZ did not ask for those as part of their plans for a new youth service because there had been 'no signal' they were on offer.
Ministers do not tend to be forgiving about being manipulated..
Aligned with his commercial background, Jim is also a former officer in the New Zealand Army, and was awarded the Sword of Honour in recognition of his distinguished achievements in Officer training.
He currently holds governance roles with the following organisations:
Director of Auckland Transport
Director of Ngāti Awa Group Holdings Limited
Member of the MBIE Risk and Audit Committee
Managing Director of Mather Solutions Limited
Well done Jim! Gorjiss!
We could go through each of the board members such as the next on the list.
Problem is they still fucked up (even though I have a special interest in one of them not coming to grief)
I really don't give a fuck who gets thrown under the bus – put it down to the cistern they operate in. The board, the CEO or his decisions on recruiting a wonder-boy called Willy, but somebody/people should have the decency to resign, or be sacked
Probably though if you really want to be efficient and effective, Thompson and Mcalister should take the fall
This afternoon’s announcement was of an altogether greater magnitude, however. Not only would Concert remain on FM, but its staff would keep their jobs. The restructure plan had been scrapped, and a new strategy for Concert would be drafted.
…
In a statement yesterday, the RNZ board “welcomed the government’s decision to look at freeing up an additional FM transmission frequency and to explore funding options for a multi-media music brand” – a possible hint that a budget boost may be imminent.
The chair of the RNZ board, Jim Mather, said: “We hear that passion for Concert and look forward to completing the consultation process to consider other possible improvements to that service now we have been given the potential of additional FM capacity”.
It was great to see the Salvation Army report with it's set of succinct social indicators.
Since this government doesn't look like it is going to deliver a social indicator report before the election despite structuring their entire budget around it, the Salvation Army one will do nicely.
If I had time I'd do a full post on it so I hope someone else will.
Yesterday I was shown some images out of China that were downright chilling … while I'm reluctant to repeat claims I've no way to verify or source, there is a fear that the CCP is using this event as cover to disappear inconvenient people … and more. There are now 60m people confined to their apartments and no-one knows for how long. In this tense, paranoid atmosphere there is real potential for events to spin out of control.
But the worst part now is that no-one trusts the CCP regime to tell the truth. Not just about the virus from a medical perspective, but with regard to all the other things going on around it. It seems the govts reaction is to double down on the security, censorship and restrictions in an attempt retain control, but this only further undermines the trust that is essential to the social cohesion necessary to get through this.
The Chinese people are going through a very difficult time right now … no matter where they live. A bit of true humanity and kindness will go a long way.
One problem I'm having is the great wall (the fire wall) is blocking vpns which normally get around it. Almost all of the anarchists in China have gone silent. Not a peep – and that is making me more than a little anxious. Have been asking other mates online, and they are repeating pretty much what you are saying RedLogix about the disappearance process.
What worries me many of these anarchists are lifestyle types, who are not really that political. Moreover they like the cultural elements, the music scene and hanging around together. Some good music coming out of chinese underground, been really enjoying the little I get to hear.
The chances are that the good ol' ordinary flu is affecting hundreds or even thousands of times as many Chinese in this their winter flu season than this new virus. This is just Christmas for a headline inducing panic-desperate media in all it's dodgy persuasions.
It is also Christmas and all its birthdays for the mad over controlling CCP and with a bit of luck its over reaction may be its downfall.
Humans live more or less in a known equilibrium with influenza; some years it's a bit tricky and evolves into a slightly new form, other years the vaccines work well. But in essence most people have sufficient immunity, and it has a typical lethality rate below 0.1%. It’s serious, but a known adversary we understand.
This new coronavirus is a concern because no-one has any immunity to it; potentially every human alive could become infected; and it's now clear that it's very transmittable. On the current numbers it seem like about 25% of people who become infected go on to develop a serious illness, and of these around 3% will die. Maybe 50m deaths inside the first year. That is much worse than seasonal influenza which typically kills around 0.5m each year.
This virus hits the 'sweet spot', long incubation period, efficient transmission including silent carriers and spreaders, multiple modes of transmission including airborne, a high fraction of serious illnesses that will hit the medical system, and sufficiently lethal to be heavily disruptive socially.
What we know about this bug is concerning already, and this is before it starts mutating on us. If it becomes seasonal, like many other coronavirus's, then all bets are off we would be into unknown territory where anything could happen. At that point the secondary social impacts will start to hurt.
The WHO has asked countries to be "as aggressive as possible" in fighting the newly-named COVID-19 coronavirus.
"If the world doesn't want to wake up and consider the virus as public enemy number one, I don't think we will learn from our lessons," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva.
"We are still in containment strategy and should not allow the virus to have a space to have local transmission," he said.
If Angola can contain Ebola I think are chances on this one are pretty good. The point I was making is how this is playing into the hands of the desperate, the media for drama and click bait and the CCP for control of its populace, having them locked away and terrified instead of on the street protesting.
Comparing one disease with another isn't necessarily useful. Already you've compared COVID-19 with influenza which is easily transmitted but with a very low fatality rate, and now with Ebola which is only transmittable via direct body fluid contact and this makes standard medical isolation and practices quite effective, even though it has a scarily high lethality.
Each disease must be treated on it's own terms, on the totality of it's character. This almost looks to be very difficult to contain, and sufficiently lethal to be quite disruptive. An unhappy combination that it would be unwise to ignore.
"This new coronavirus is a concern because no-one has any immunity to it; potentially every human alive could become infected; and it's now clear that it's very transmittable. "
Is that not true of every new iteration of influenza?
It would need an expert to answer this properly, but it's my understanding it's not a binary black and white thing as your question implies, and the degree of novelty matters. Also every individual's immune system has a different history and character.
By contrast COVID-19 is totally novel, no-one has even partial immunity as far as I'm aware. That's why these new variants that have jumped from other species are so very worrisome; they will spread quickly and we have no idea what their potential range of mutations will be.
The super spreader in England was infecting people before he got symptoms and it has a long incubation period. Unless we want to inundate the medical services we want to slow it down as much as possible – hopefully until a vaccine is available.
Yeah.. and the Chinese authorities has put tens of millions of their own citizens under house arrest and is spraying down every city street just for shits and giggles.
No, its for the CCPs rabid desire for control. Plenty of virologists have stated that the spraying is ineffective as such viruses are very unlikely to survive outside or on such surfaces. But the images are good for mind control.
Yeah. Unless there's an insect vector and the spray is insecticide, the spray isn't going to do shit.
But it looks like something is being done.
My disagreement isn't that it's the CCP strengthening its control, I suspect it's more of a desperate holding action for control. The virus is going to be worst in impact, both directly and economically, on China. Hungry and scared people can be bullied only so far before they riot, and not nice like in HK. Stringing people up-style rioting.
Hungry and scared people can be bullied only so far before they riot, and not nice like in HK.
Our Chinese friend is translating material off the net for us that looks very much like the precursor to this. Last week she was not so worried, this week the tone has changed a lot.
We can speculate fruitlessly about the virus, it's behavior and how it might unfold globally. But what I was really wanting to emphasise is that the Chinese people in particular are going through a very difficult and worrisome time. If anyone has the chance to do so, now would be a good time to reach out to anyone Chinese you know. A little kindness at moments like this can go a very long way.
Not really a blame thing. It was simply an observation of when mass spraying might be effective in disease control as opposed to a simple morale-boosting exercise. Development of the Panama Canal being a case in point.
Still there as far as I know – but the French lost tens of thousands of workers to disease in their failed attempts, while the yanks focused on mosquito control (eradication and screens) and managed to significantly reduce their tropical disease fatalities.
The analysis of 22 studies reveals that human coronaviruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus or endemic human coronaviruses (HCoV) can persist on inanimate surfaces like metal, glass or plastic for up to 9 days, but can be efficiently inactivated by surface disinfection procedures with 62-71% ethanol, 0.5% hydrogen peroxide or 0.1% sodium hypochlorite within 1 minute.
There's a massive difference between some level of persistence and that level being enough to realistically infect someone else walking on the same outdoor footpath.
This is a virus where someone went to a corporate workshop and only infected a few of the attendees after hours of close proximity. It's not like measles, where someone walking through the same terminal two hours later has a realistic chance of being infected.
On February 10, 2020, the Department of Justice recommended a seven to nine year sentence for Roger Stone on charges of obstructing a congressional investigation, making false statements to Congress, and witness tampering during the Russia investigation. Trump tweeted that the recommendation was “horrible and very unfair” and shortly after, a senior DOJ official intervened to overrule the front-line prosecutors and announced that they would be recommending a more lenient sentence. Four DOJ prosecutors have resigned from the case since the announcement.
What's the story Joe? Did Bernie pooh in your handbag or something. You seem to be keen to highlight perceive short-comings or cast doubt whenever possible.
The town you cite is the third least populated in New Hampshire. Billy-Bob could've had a BBQ and a significant portion of voters not shown up.
Looks like the big question will be which of Klobuchar, Warren, and Biden break the 15% threshold to be awarded delegates. Right now only Klobuchar is over.
Then the hocus-pocus wing-of-bat 2-eyes-of-newt weirdshit recipes different states have for allocating delegates breaks things up into several different levels, some of which can have an effective threshold greater than 15%.That's how Biden ended up with 6 delegates from Iowa and Klobuchar 1 despite have almost identical vote and SDE%
Plus giving out an effective leader's bonus due to rounding. That's how Buttigieg come out of Iowa with a 14 – 12 delegate lead over Sanders, despite only leading the SDE count by 0.1% (and lagging in the popular vote by 1.6%).
I should probably clarify that a bit more. As I understand it, the 15% threshold for allocating delegates applies at each of the sub-units, not at the state as a whole.
So with New Hampshire awarding 8 delegates from each of its two House districts, if Warren breaks 15% in one of those, she will get one delegate even if she is below 15% for the state as a whole.
That's how Klobuchar got one delegate from Iowa, despite being below 15% for the state as a whole. But Biden squeaked over 15% for Iowa as a whole, so he got allocated delegates from the pool that was determined by statewide vote and ended up with 6 total from Iowa.
With 22% reporting, the NYT have Bernie at 28% of the vote… as with Iowa that's basically half what he got in 2016.
I remain skeptical of Bernies chances, in part because the three big 'obviously moderates' candidates (Mayor Pete, Biden, Klobuchar) combined are currently at more than 50% of the vote. My gut feel remains that, down the campaign stretch as the field shrinks, Sanders will get overtaken by whichever candidate outlasts the others.
Or go a bit further on a national level, the moderates (Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden, Bloomberg) add up to around 55%, the liberals (Sanders, Warren, Yang, Gabbard) are just a bit over 40%. Kinda like the Clinton – Sanders split last time around.
Yes, less candidates last time, BUT I can't think of any other examples where a presidential hopeful has entered the primary a second time around and performed significantly worse than their first attempt.
Clinton was the anointed successor to Obama in '16 because she spent 8 years positioning herself as such. McCain ran distant second to Bush in '00, then Romney was second to McCain in '08 and they both were the obvious front runner for the title of next Republican nominee.
In contrast, Sanders seems like the just kind of walked away from the Democratic party apparatus in 2016 (he relinquished membership of the party not long after Trump's election) and left a huge vacuum that all these other candidates are now trying to fill.
I agree about his party membership, but the thing is that more candidates means a lot more pieces of cake. Which means smaller pieces. I don't think the different campaign years can be usefully compared on that basis.
ps: if you could think of such a candidate, you'd be the biggest nerd on a political nerd blog lol
Mike Huckabooboo actually won more delegates and was a very close third in popular vote % behind Romney's second in '08. But withdrew on Feb 1, 2016 after getting negligible support.
His 'firewall' is still the 4th voting state – South Carolina and its majority-minority voter composition. He has led basically every poll conducted in SC, but it's still a high risk strategy because he has already effectively given up on Nevada which is next.
There's a bunch of other articles floating around the intertoobz about Biden losing support among African-Americans, but they all seem to trace back to something from National Review, so …hmmm.
Phil your logic here is a bit off and is not supported by what data we have on the subject. Supporters of the big three moderate candiates Pete, Biden, Klobuchar arent just some moderate blob that will roll between the moderate candidates, in fact Biden supporters leading second choice is Bernie, furthmore bernie holds a good share in the second choice for Pete's supporters with a strong third (only three point behind bloomberg's lead).
The fall of Biden seems the most likley to happen soon and that will help Bernie more than Klobuchar or Pete both of whom are too much in the ascendency to consider dropping at the moment. And with warrens poor preformance tonight she might not be running to much longer either again, helping Bernie.
I recall seeing some 2nd preference numbers months ago, but I too would be interested in seeing an update. The older they are the more they might reflect name recognition rather than actual voting intent.
The voting data that we do have from Iowa showed there was very little shift to Bernie on the 2nd-preference from the unviable candidates (and Biden was often unviable at individual caucus sites) so I really don't know how to square the two pieces of intelligence. I still stand by the gut-feel that Bernie probably doesn't have the coalition to reach 50% of delegates outright, but I can easily imagine him having the single largest bloc at the convention.
… and if nobody comes to the convention with more than 50% of the pledged delegates to win it at the first round, then the superdelegates come into play for the subsequent rounds.
When fivethirtyeight looked at it back in December, they found that only about a third of Sanders and Warren supporters picked the other liberal as their second choice.
National just got ticked off by the Advertising Standards Authority for telling porkies in an advert last year and Simon Bridges says they're going to keep on doing it.
I mean, we all knew that National was planning to use outright lies to try to win the election but I didn't expect them to actually tell us in advance!
So IHC's done another survey and nothing's changed. Surprise, surprise.
IHC lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission 12 years ago. What the heck's happened to that? If IHC's behaviour around the sleepover case is anything to go by it'd be surprisng if it'll go anywhere. IHC's too far up the government's backside for that to happen.
Well that will destroy whatever social licence Rio Tinto have in Southland. I can see some interesting inadvertent alliances forming here. Who's going to have the balls, or stupidity, to defend Rio Tinto on in Southland Times, or on Dee Street.
may be indicative of their review result….'well fellas , we've worn out our welcome here…time to find a new mug to host us'…and dont worry, they’ll have their cheque books open
Having worked briefly on a major Rio site I can attest to the insane over-regulation and nit-picking that is endemic everywhere. Just to get a room in the camp I had to initial and sign a 48 page document of rules.
As frustrating as this decision must be for Southlanders, I'll bet the board has a process reason for this delay. The clue is here:
"It’s my understanding from conversations with Stewart that Rio Tinto’s rationale for refusing to take the dross was that it didn’t want any more liabilities on the Tiwai site before the company’s strategic review is completed at the end of March.”
Mr Parry said the original deal struck with all Southland councils, landowners and NZAS to move the dross stored throughout Southland was still in place.
"We remain committed to a solution that removes the material. NZAS has committed to contributing $1.75 million to the costs of safely removing and processing the material."
This looks more like a delay rather than reneging. Right now it's not even clear who the legal owner of this material is and the board's legal advisers may be cautious about accepting liability for it. The sums of money involved are literally petty cash to Rio Tinto, it will be safety and legal issues driving this.
I have to say that working for them was an exercise in demoralising frustration, so none of this surprises me.
Disposal of the dross has been an ongoing issue for the last 30 years at least. It just keeps getting moved around, and called different things every 10 years so people think it's another new problem.
Rio want it anywhere by their place so they don't have to deal with it when they remediate the Tiwai site on closure, which I'd say we will find out about after the review.
This is the same poll (i.e. same respondents) as the party vote poll earlier this week. It's noteworthy that Ardern's 63.3% must include some National voters, and a high percentage of National voters do not think Bridges is performing well.
It sounds geeky but is actually relevant that this is the same poll as the party vote results, because of the polling methodology. I don't have access to the script of course, but the order of questions usually starts with the party vote ("if there were an election tomorrow" etc). So … having answered "National", the respondent then answers Qs about the party leaders, and gives Bridges the thumbs down.
While it is not impossible for a party to win despite a leader with low ratings, it is very rare in modern democracies, with leader-focused campaigns – and hasn't happened in NZ under MMP (Brash 2005 and Clark 1996 came closest).
He certainly has no mates except Seymour who Peters characterised as being ACT's seventh leader- but there's only one vote and if there was a second ACT MP in the caucus, he wouldn't be.
The Opposition finance spokesperson , Paul Goldsmith, was described as the only candidate in democracies who took his own hoardings down before an election rather than putting them up!
Was chatting to a true blue supporter today who told me for the first time in his life he won't be voting national, because of 'that twat bridges'. I almost fell over.
Looking at that poll leader approval rating result, it appears that his view is shared by others.
That's the funny thing – the more Bridges looks like a dropkick, ACT will be a wasted vote. So the sensible tory will vote NZ1 to moderate the next government's policies, which could end up helping NZ1 over the line…
Bear in mind, too, that (as with Colmar Brunton), Reid Research …
(1) Present the Party Vote as a % of Decided voters only …
Whereas:
(2) Leader Performance (like Preferred PM) is presented as a % of All Respondents.
That means that non-Labour voters comprise an even larger slice of those who believe Ardern is Performing Well than might appear to be the case at first sight,
If the Reid Research % Don't Knows are anything close to the latest Colmar Brunton DKs … then that would mean a very large minority of those favourable to Ardern's Performance are non-Lab voters … Nats, Greens, NZFers along with those respondents who haven't made up their mind on the Party Vote.
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – 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 ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
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. ...
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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 ...
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. ...
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Yesterday was the first day of the 2020 sitting year for Parliament. Usual business was suspended for the day to allow Members to remember and share their personal memories of the late Right Honorable Mike Moore. Speeches started with Jacinda Ardern as PM followed by leaders of the other political parties, with other individual MPs then following.
Here is a link to the 12 speeches
https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?keyword=Government+Motion&from=2020-02-11&to=2020-02-11&subject=&person=&stage=
The initial speeches were fairly conservative eulogies with all leaders essentially in agreement over the huge contribution made by Mike Moore, but things loosened up when the other MPs stood to recall their memories.
In particular, Ron Mark started out using notes but quickly dispensed with these and launched into one of the most personal from the heart speeches I ever recall hearing in the House . At the same time it was one of the most humourous recounts of behind the scenes memories of Mark and Moore’s relationship since Mark’s time with the Labour Party when Mark ran unsuccessfully for Labour in the Selwyn electorate. Mark supported his recounting with an impressive number of Labour Party documents and policies attributable to Mike Moore. from his own personal archives.
If you watch nothing else, I urge you to watch Mark’s speech – it is 12 minutes you won’t regret!
The speeches following Mark by Brownlee, Damian O’Connor and Trevor Mallard also carried on with more personal and humourous memories. All in all a great send off for Mike. And impressive in the recognition of Yvonne’s contribution as Mike’s partner in life and politics.
Drat – the Mark video came up properly as a picture but doesn’t now.
I only partly saw on the news last night, a poll saying Ron Mark was by far the most preferred person to take over NZ First if Winston wasn't there. Result surprised me. Did anyone see the whole thing as I missed where the poll was taken. I've always presumed Shane Jones would be the eventual NZF leader.
That's interesting, Jimmy. I did not see that as I rarely watch TV – which News was it on? TVNZ or Newshub?
Re Jones taking over as Leader of NZF eventually, I don't believe that will happen for a number of reasons. I actually discussed this subject in a reply to Dennis Frank on open Mike at 2.1.1.2 http://11 February 2020 at 9:29 am Here is some of that reply (no point in re-inventing the wheel!):
To add to that, both Tracey Martin and Ron Mark have previously been Deputy Leader of NZF. As I understand it, because other members of Tracey Martin's family have had considerable influence on the Party (eg her mother Ann Martin was President for many years) it was considered better to spread the influence, hence Ron Mark becoming Deputy and he then handed onto Tabuteau.
Re Jones, I cannot provide any links but I seem to recall that Jones himself – both when he was still with Labour and since moving to NZF – has implied that he is not interested in party leadership roles and is more comfortable doing roles like his present one as "Champion of the Regions" and the similar role he undertook under the previous Nat Govt in relation to economic development etc in the Pacific. As I say, I cannot provide links to this but I have a pretty good memory despite older age.
Thanks for that. It was TV3 news I'm pretty sure.
Interesting comments too re: NZF.
Thanks for the heads-up Jimmy as I have now found the TV3 item and here is the link – another Tova O'Brien special as part of the Newshub poll released the other night.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/02/revealed-who-kiwis-think-should-be-nz-first-leader-if-winston-peters-stands-down.html
The results are interesting with Ron Mark indeed coming out well ahead, both generally and with NZF voters.
I don't find that surprising, nor the fact that Fletcher Tabuteau barely rated as he keeps – or is kept – fairly low profile. Nevertheless Tabuteau has been associated with NZF since its inception 25 years ago at about 20 years of age, and at c 45/46 currently, he still has a lot of miles left on the clock. At 66, Mark is 20 years older and thus only seven years younger than Peters and I wonder whether he would really want the job.
I am surprised that Tracey Martin did not rate higher but she did take on a rather poisoned chalice (or challenge) in the form of Oranga Tamariki. I have a lot of respect for her in doing so as it is going to take a lot to turn that nightmare around.
Time will tell – and there is the possiblity that NZF may not make it at the upcoming election although I would be surprised if that actually happens. There are a lot of oldies who know who we have to thank for our Super Gold cards! LOL.
I was watching fom the balcony in parliament yesterday and I agree that Ron Marks contribution stood out – warm, funny, wise and clear. He would make a good NZ First leader, and sooner rather than later I think as I believe from my observations that Winston's health is starting to fail
And who the heck takes Shane Jones seriously? The guy's a clown.
Horse gambling industry loves donating to Winston First https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/409320/nz-first-foundation-received-tens-of-thousands-of-dollars-from-donors-in-horse-racing-industry
What about the tens of thousands received by the National machine. Those which are visible paint a picture of influence on a very grand scale. Investigate that?
National have received several millions in total but of course all donations were deliberate and fairly legal.
Yep.
I've never voted for Peters and NZ First but lets be fair…
National and ACT have been indulging in this kind of fiscal subterfuge for decades. ACT started doing it in the 1990s and National have been doing it even longer. Anyone with any historical political knowledge (which counts out half the current political journos) knows it.
If the media is going to call out NZ First fair enough. But tell the whole story and acknowledge the fact National and ACT do it too. I can't speak for Labour or the Greens but given their donations tend to be much smaller amounts – but more numerous in quantity – I think it is unlikely.
Edit: And if some smarty pants tries to misconstrue my last sentence:
90% of Labour’s donors are not rich people and they donate small amounts (less than $100) but probably do it more frequently.
Whataboutism?
Yes the nats did that.
The original comment was about NZ1st. There seems to be an effort round these parts to minimise Winston's shenanagins.
When NZ 1st say they will review their practices, I call bulldust.
The NZ1st foundation was formed with the guidance of Peter's lawyer. I don't believe for a moment that Peter's isn't aware of what was going on. It sounds pretty legal
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
This is what corruption looks like in an relatively non corrupt country.
For years we have suspected, but have had no real evidence that government policy on the racing industry was being bought.
The government has provided tax breaks to this morally corrupt industry, that feeds off gambling and animal cruelty.
Winston Peters is the Racing Minister. Can we really trust that he had no idea what was going on with the New Zealand First Foundation as he is claiming, when the Racing Industry that he serves was funneling money into it??
The whole idea of having a Minister for Racing is about as idiotic as you can get imo. Now we have the proof of what it is all about.
And yes this industry is based on animal cruelty and gambling.
He should at the very least be stood down from that Portfolio pending the investigation.
How on earth can he remain there?
Dodgy as ****
Concert FM hoopla shows whose views count the most https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/02/12/1030591/concert-fms-lesson-in-realpolitik
and then there's this:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018733749/former-prime-minister-helen-clark-on-concert-changes just a few minutes ago.
Both Hickey and Clark have good points to make.
But given what has been going on at RNZ, all this was as much about a couple of commercially oriented master-of-the-universe egos as it was about creating an alternative network with instant appeal.
Joe Bennett – in his normal mischievous way is on Stuff this morning channeling a 'yoof': https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/119415619/dear-rnz-bosses-young-people-arent-an-homogeneous-herd
If Thompson and co had been more concerned about what they perceive as the problem, they could have quietly worked on a third network and allowed it to evolve and be discovered by the 'demographic' naturally. (Even built on the BRAND "The Wireless")
It ain't over yet. The bloody board either let themselves down too, or were too busy trying to be down with the kuds. When you look at their backgrounds though a majority would seem to be quite comfortable with what's been going on (over a long time)
"If you doubt the variety of young people, cast your mind back to your own class at secondary school, ranging as it did from the thug at the back to the scholar at the front, via the athlete in the middle and the aesthete to one side, plus the dubious creep who later, oh my god, went into local politics. In short, we young people, like you older people, are as various as the pebbles on the beach and any radio station that tries to appeal to all of us will appeal to none of us."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/119415619/dear-rnz-bosses-young-people-arent-an-homogeneous-herd
Gotta love Joe Bennet…straight to the point
🙂 Maybe he's done his chips on "The Panel" like Martyn Bradbury did.
I doubt it would bother him much
Personally I am not surprised that hierarchy at RNZ has exposed themselves in this way as being so out of touch with their local communities, just look at steady decline of National radio as a serious new source over the past couple of decades, it really is now a just hollow shell of it's former self, are real lightweight.
And now (and under Labour of course) they totally disregard and dismiss one of the very few sources that offers even a breath of high minded culture for free into our communities..fucking Liberals, always so lowbrow, always finding ways to make life just that bit more shitty and crappy….yuk.
IMO that is a very one-sided view of the situation and I am surprised and disappointed at Hickey's take on the situation. This view that only white elitists listen to Concert FM or listen to and participate in classical music is just so closed minded.
It takes no account of the contribution NZ's multicultural and in particular, Maori and Pacifica, communities for example have made to classical music both here in NZ and worldwide.
In opera alone, Maori account for a good proportion of NZ artists who have reached the world stage such as Inia Te Wiata, Keri Te Kanawa, Kawiti Waetford, ManaTe Hapuku, and Phillip Rhodes to name just a few.
In the same field, in more recent years, our Samoan community has also contributed an impressive array of world recognised stars – for example, Moses Mackay, Pene Patu and Amatai Patu both individually and together as Sol3 Mio – our own version of the Three Tenors. Other Samoan NZers on the world opera circuit include Marlena Devoe and Benson Wilson – as is Amina Edris both in her own right and in company with her husband, Pene Patu. Amina is Egyptian-born but raised and trained in opera in NZ.
I could go on – at length – but will leave it at that. Many of the above artists did not come from well off homes – far from it. And they have provided good role models for others to follow in their footsteps – and support for others to do so.
But I am surprised and disappointed at the ignorance and closed mindedness that has emerged, including on here at TS, as the Concert FM issue has emerged.
But I am surprised and disappointed at the ignorance and closed mindedness that has emerged, including on here at TS, as the Concert FM issue has emerged.
In part it's a consequence of the way identity politics subsumes all individual interests and capacities. It casts a broad net over whole categories of people and dumps them into big silos with a couple of fat, lazy labels on them.
There is an overwhelming national interest in deplatforming classical music. /sarc.
Its a conclusion you can only reach by choosing not to think about who running ConcertFM benefits, and who running it opresses (e.g nobody).
And frankly the views suggesting its ConcertFM or Skypath are equally dim. What is the suggestion, that some roading contractors should take up radio engineering instead? The two are not economically or fiscally related so NZ should happily invest in both.
Funny, I was thinking the opposite.
Because what you call "identity politics" isn't about dumping labels on people, it's about people choosing how they describe themselves.
My suspicion was that someone was looking at a line item in their budget, they didn't listen to it personally, and they just assumed that its core audience was the stereotypical old/rich/white crowd beloved by hollywood screenwriters.
it's about people choosing how they describe themselves.
And invariably when they do this, they become more than anything else individuals, with a unique mix of heritage, family, experiences, interests and capacities. For example, someone may very well describe themselves as 'Samoan', but in reality this might be only one of many equally important aspects of who they are.
People do not choose one identity, they are a bewildering mix of them. While on the one hand we are social creatures driven to belong, we also value highly our freedom to choose where we belong, when and in which context. Much more nuanced than the crude idioms of identity politics allows for.
You described identity politics and then followed that description with a sentence that demonstrates you don't realise what you did.
"Because what you call "identity politics" isn't about dumping labels on people, it's about people choosing how they describe themselves."
Your saying comment 3 is self descriptive? The problematic kinds of identity politics invariably involve talking in very broad generalisations about a group (or between groups) of which the author is not representative. Also very typically some form of amateur phychology is infered to imply which group is morally superior.
On the other hand cases of people self identifying are so harmless they barely appear worthy of mention (Elizibeth Warren not with-standing).
"Let's not treat [people who identify as X] like shit" can be problematic for people who disagree with that statement.
In this case the people who seem to identify as the down with the youf executive of RNZ seem to be getting the shit, and their beliefs are problematic for people who like listening to Classical Music. There is something pretty fubar with the framing of this in identity politics terms of some elite demographic vs whoever they are opressing by enjoying Classical music on the radio.
If this wasn't characteristic of these IP arguments I wouldn't be making this argument of course, but it is.
Except that the implicit assumption is that only the "elite demographic" listen to classical music, which is an assumption about all the various groups made without listening to any of those groups to start with. Which has more in common with colonialism than it does with "identity politics".
Colonialism aye. In fact I think the only reason I am having this discussion is because of my unconscious Colonialism. Of course consciously I think its because I think having a discussion based on gross generalisations about caricatures of groups produces nonsense, but in the back there is always some colonialism going on there.
Now tell us how you feel about "identity politics".
I already did. You responded by trying to start a discussion where you apply amateur phychology (motivated by Colonialism) to a group (ConcertFM audience) to negatively caricature that group. The argument is gibberish but you thus ignored the reasonable concerns over the decision (should RNZ be run like a commercial station?).
Who said anything about "motivated by colonialism"?
I just said that imposing a collection of labels upon others (rather than listening to what labels they might choose for themselves) was more like colonialism that it was like "identity politics".
In all the discussions about "elitist" concert radio listeners, have you seen an actual breakdown of the concertFM audience? Standard market research with self-reported socio-economic data? Because I haven't. Which suggests to me that any description of the concertFM audience is probably:
instead of being based on the labels they select for themselves.
What you describe is imposition of labels with no regard for consent. "Identity politics" is about the freedom to honestly choose labels for oneself. From pronouns to any other aspect of identity.
Fully agree with you 100%.
The Pacifika and Maori contribution to classical music – particularly in vocal and choral – has been a revelation in the last 40 years.
It seriously worries me that a massive tradition of local music composition and performance is being proposed to simply be automated onto an AM station. WTF.
Well done to those who organised the petition – it clearly had an immediate effect upon our current Prime Minister .
Thank God for someone like Helen Clark who is giving it right back to them.
Same question – who are some of those composers for us to be aware of?
Go to ConcertFM while you still can and find out.
Or go to your nearest arts festival.
They are played and discussed at both.
Educate yourself.
If it's a 'massive tradition', I'd expect to already know more than Lilburn and Psathas.
Like I said, tune in more and you'll learn.
The facilities are there for you to do so.
Where do I tune in to hear more local electronica compositions?
GeorgeFM apparently – and googling electronica music NZ will give you masses of links to actual events etc.
GeorgeFM is awesome on Sundays. During the week not so much.
https://www.georgefm.co.nz/home/shows/george-weekends.html
When listened to online via a good USB DAC (digital to analogue converter) it sounds better than CD quality.
(CDs ripped to FLAC (lossless format) also sound better than a CD played directly)
Which also reminds me of another NZ composer of worldwide reputation whose compositions range over and blend a number of different genres including electronic with orchestral – Rhian Sheehan.
[Funny that because I have known him most of his life (= wider whanau). LOL]
Rhian features quite often on RNZ National music shows and presumably elsewhere across the spectrum of music radio stations.
For something different, you could always visit your local planetarium, eg Auckland Planetarium/Skydome, as Rhian composes the music for many of the shows featured at many planetariums worldwide – eg I think the latest one is "We are Astronomers" narrated by former Dr Who, David Tarrant or I might be totally out of date.
Rhian features quite often on RNZ National music shows and presumably elsewhere across the spectrum of music radio stations.
Student radio, that's all. Love his work.
Oh, and Gareth Farr.
That's a good list of performers. Which composers would you say are contributing to New Zealand's musical culture?
As Ad said, go educate yourself. There is plenty out there including on Google
So here are one or two snippets to get you started:
NZ Samoan Composer – Opeloge Ah Sam
https://www.creativenz.govt.nz/news/passionate-composer-and-performer-awarded-samoa-artist-in-residency
NZ Composer of Greek origin – Peter Psathas
Here is his Wikipedia entry but if you google his name there are plenty of local media reports on his background, his music compositions and their recognition overseas – eg he composed music for the opening/closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics amongst many other compositions for worldwide events etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Psathas
Here is another link that lists quite a few "Samoan Voice" composers etc
https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/visit/whats-on/war-memorial/first-world-war-centenary/wwi-samoa-voices-from-the-pacific/artist-biographies
And perhaps this interview will give you a little bit of an insight as to why Samoan and other Pacifica New Zealanders feature in our NZ music scene across all genres but particularly the choral genres including those associated with classical music.
https://e-tangata.co.nz/arts/igelese-ete-from-just-a-bunch-of-chords-to-moana-and-beyond/
I'll pick out the bits I like about Hickey's contribution:
He seemed to be learning in real time this week after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern used an interview on RNZ's Morning Report on Monday to express "frustration" that the planned "gutting" and relegation of Concert FM to a robo-station on AM had been announced before the Government had had to chance to come up with an alternative FM channel.
"I think we obviously didn't explain it clearly enough, and when we were talking about our plan, there was an assumption that it wouldn't be obvious initially that the FM transmission would be affected, and I think that was just a glitch in the communications," (struggling much?)
actually there's too many bits, and maybe I have a bit of a prejudice: liking to watch any wideboy being fed their chips
But there is unfortunately the truthiness in this:
"This real-time exercise in realpolitik for RNZ's board and the Government illustrates where power lies in New Zealand."
Oh how much easier it would be if gummints of whatever stripe, and masters-of the Universe in whatever pick-your-brand-Corp could just be up-front, open and honest.
Bullshit begets more bullshit (on the bright side though, it keeps a few spin meisters in immoral employment)
I haven't followed closely. Did the board fuck up, or where they playing the government?
The politics within RNZ are something to behold – especially since the current reign, from the way people have been 'eased' out (under-appreciated) to the marketeers taking over. I'd say the board royally fucked up putting too much faith in their 'golden boy(s)'.
Nobody has said. Jim Mather in particular seems too savvy to make such a stuff-up.
Board signed off Dec…around 17 minute mark
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018733670
Thank you. Lisa Owen asks explicitly at 15.52 if the public backlash has prised concessions from the govt including the shelved frequencies. A minute later, Thompson confirms RNZ did not ask for those as part of their plans for a new youth service because there had been 'no signal' they were on offer.
Ministers do not tend to be forgiving about being manipulated..
I doubt any Ministers were manipulated somehow
Savvy as he may be:
Aligned with his commercial background, Jim is also a former officer in the New Zealand Army, and was awarded the Sword of Honour in recognition of his distinguished achievements in Officer training.
He currently holds governance roles with the following organisations:
Well done Jim! Gorjiss!
We could go through each of the board members such as the next on the list.
Problem is they still fucked up (even though I have a special interest in one of them not coming to grief)
I really don't give a fuck who gets thrown under the bus – put it down to the cistern they operate in. The board, the CEO or his decisions on recruiting a wonder-boy called Willy, but somebody/people should have the decency to resign, or be sacked
Probably though if you really want to be efficient and effective, Thompson and Mcalister should take the fall
Both.
Toby Manhire ponders that question in light of today's developments: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/12-02-2020/a-crescendo-just-crushed-the-concert-restructure-so-what-next-for-rnz/
It was great to see the Salvation Army report with it's set of succinct social indicators.
Since this government doesn't look like it is going to deliver a social indicator report before the election despite structuring their entire budget around it, the Salvation Army one will do nicely.
If I had time I'd do a full post on it so I hope someone else will.
Link to report: https://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/article/bring-everyone-together
Yesterday I was shown some images out of China that were downright chilling … while I'm reluctant to repeat claims I've no way to verify or source, there is a fear that the CCP is using this event as cover to disappear inconvenient people … and more. There are now 60m people confined to their apartments and no-one knows for how long. In this tense, paranoid atmosphere there is real potential for events to spin out of control.
But the worst part now is that no-one trusts the CCP regime to tell the truth. Not just about the virus from a medical perspective, but with regard to all the other things going on around it. It seems the govts reaction is to double down on the security, censorship and restrictions in an attempt retain control, but this only further undermines the trust that is essential to the social cohesion necessary to get through this.
The Chinese people are going through a very difficult time right now … no matter where they live. A bit of true humanity and kindness will go a long way.
One problem I'm having is the great wall (the fire wall) is blocking vpns which normally get around it. Almost all of the anarchists in China have gone silent. Not a peep – and that is making me more than a little anxious. Have been asking other mates online, and they are repeating pretty much what you are saying RedLogix about the disappearance process.
What worries me many of these anarchists are lifestyle types, who are not really that political. Moreover they like the cultural elements, the music scene and hanging around together. Some good music coming out of chinese underground, been really enjoying the little I get to hear.
The chances are that the good ol' ordinary flu is affecting hundreds or even thousands of times as many Chinese in this their winter flu season than this new virus. This is just Christmas for a headline inducing panic-desperate media in all it's dodgy persuasions.
It is also Christmas and all its birthdays for the mad over controlling CCP and with a bit of luck its over reaction may be its downfall.
Humans live more or less in a known equilibrium with influenza; some years it's a bit tricky and evolves into a slightly new form, other years the vaccines work well. But in essence most people have sufficient immunity, and it has a typical lethality rate below 0.1%. It’s serious, but a known adversary we understand.
This new coronavirus is a concern because no-one has any immunity to it; potentially every human alive could become infected; and it's now clear that it's very transmittable. On the current numbers it seem like about 25% of people who become infected go on to develop a serious illness, and of these around 3% will die. Maybe 50m deaths inside the first year. That is much worse than seasonal influenza which typically kills around 0.5m each year.
This virus hits the 'sweet spot', long incubation period, efficient transmission including silent carriers and spreaders, multiple modes of transmission including airborne, a high fraction of serious illnesses that will hit the medical system, and sufficiently lethal to be heavily disruptive socially.
What we know about this bug is concerning already, and this is before it starts mutating on us. If it becomes seasonal, like many other coronavirus's, then all bets are off we would be into unknown territory where anything could happen. At that point the secondary social impacts will start to hurt.
WHO wakes up.
The WHO has asked countries to be "as aggressive as possible" in fighting the newly-named COVID-19 coronavirus.
"If the world doesn't want to wake up and consider the virus as public enemy number one, I don't think we will learn from our lessons," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva.
"We are still in containment strategy and should not allow the virus to have a space to have local transmission," he said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/china-coronavirus-outbreak-latest-updates-200211012218330.html
Large scale infection of health workers.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050077/least-500-wuhan-medical-staff-infected-coronavirus
If Angola can contain Ebola I think are chances on this one are pretty good. The point I was making is how this is playing into the hands of the desperate, the media for drama and click bait and the CCP for control of its populace, having them locked away and terrified instead of on the street protesting.
Comparing one disease with another isn't necessarily useful. Already you've compared COVID-19 with influenza which is easily transmitted but with a very low fatality rate, and now with Ebola which is only transmittable via direct body fluid contact and this makes standard medical isolation and practices quite effective, even though it has a scarily high lethality.
Each disease must be treated on it's own terms, on the totality of it's character. This almost looks to be very difficult to contain, and sufficiently lethal to be quite disruptive. An unhappy combination that it would be unwise to ignore.
"This new coronavirus is a concern because no-one has any immunity to it; potentially every human alive could become infected; and it's now clear that it's very transmittable. "
Is that not true of every new iteration of influenza?
It would need an expert to answer this properly, but it's my understanding it's not a binary black and white thing as your question implies, and the degree of novelty matters. Also every individual's immune system has a different history and character.
By contrast COVID-19 is totally novel, no-one has even partial immunity as far as I'm aware. That's why these new variants that have jumped from other species are so very worrisome; they will spread quickly and we have no idea what their potential range of mutations will be.
The super spreader in England was infecting people before he got symptoms and it has a long incubation period. Unless we want to inundate the medical services we want to slow it down as much as possible – hopefully until a vaccine is available.
Following comments on another story I see that he has recovered. Sorry no link was just screenshot in comments.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/uknews/10942974/coronavirus-drug-dealer-prisoner-uk-jail-outbreak/
But this development does not sound good . Overcrowded prisons and virus sounds recipe for disaster.
Yeah.. and the Chinese authorities has put tens of millions of their own citizens under house arrest and is spraying down every city street just for shits and giggles.
No, its for the CCPs rabid desire for control. Plenty of virologists have stated that the spraying is ineffective as such viruses are very unlikely to survive outside or on such surfaces. But the images are good for mind control.
Yeah. Unless there's an insect vector and the spray is insecticide, the spray isn't going to do shit.
But it looks like something is being done.
My disagreement isn't that it's the CCP strengthening its control, I suspect it's more of a desperate holding action for control. The virus is going to be worst in impact, both directly and economically, on China. Hungry and scared people can be bullied only so far before they riot, and not nice like in HK. Stringing people up-style rioting.
Hungry and scared people can be bullied only so far before they riot, and not nice like in HK.
Our Chinese friend is translating material off the net for us that looks very much like the precursor to this. Last week she was not so worried, this week the tone has changed a lot.
We can speculate fruitlessly about the virus, it's behavior and how it might unfold globally. But what I was really wanting to emphasise is that the Chinese people in particular are going through a very difficult and worrisome time. If anyone has the chance to do so, now would be a good time to reach out to anyone Chinese you know. A little kindness at moments like this can go a very long way.
An insect vector??
Really!
Blame the fleas (or rats, while not insects, they are definitely loathsome, yes?)
Not really a blame thing. It was simply an observation of when mass spraying might be effective in disease control as opposed to a simple morale-boosting exercise. Development of the Panama Canal being a case in point.
How's the canal faring just now, do you know?
It's so busy that the biggest issue facing it is draining the lake that's the high point of the canal.
Still there as far as I know – but the French lost tens of thousands of workers to disease in their failed attempts, while the yanks focused on mosquito control (eradication and screens) and managed to significantly reduce their tropical disease fatalities.
https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30046-3/fulltext
There's a massive difference between some level of persistence and that level being enough to realistically infect someone else walking on the same outdoor footpath.
This is a virus where someone went to a corporate workshop and only infected a few of the attendees after hours of close proximity. It's not like measles, where someone walking through the same terminal two hours later has a realistic chance of being infected.
I will just leave this here.
that didn't display, but the URL inside the tag was like 3 pages long. I've deleted it. Try a link instead.
You also got caught in the spam filter, which might have been that URL, or you may have a typo in your email address.
What you're just leaving here is the sentence: "I will just leave this here."
Brilliant piece of conceptual art.
4’33”
I hadn't heard this before. Still reeling.
Stuff/Marlborough Express- Thomas Coughlan:
Can't find a link but for Bridges is this a sort of squirmy half U-turn?
Ruling them out…unless it suits me not to…I'm ruling them out. For now. Unless it suits me not to. To get power. Otherwise, ruled out. 100%.
That clear?
Fucker's gone full despot.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1227352806992072704
On February 10, 2020, the Department of Justice recommended a seven to nine year sentence for Roger Stone on charges of obstructing a congressional investigation, making false statements to Congress, and witness tampering during the Russia investigation. Trump tweeted that the recommendation was “horrible and very unfair” and shortly after, a senior DOJ official intervened to overrule the front-line prosecutors and announced that they would be recommending a more lenient sentence. Four DOJ prosecutors have resigned from the case since the announcement.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/foia/doj-roger-stone-reduced-sentencing/
Thread.
https://twitter.com/Stonekettle/status/1008502343594373120
[…]
https://twitter.com/Stonekettle/status/1227379680719888384
They have uniforms.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1227249776162418695
And then there were ??
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1227397210574381056
Pity, as he was one of the more interesting candidates.
New Hampshire should be a comfortable win for Bernie.
Perhaps.
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1227393878879350784
What's the story Joe? Did Bernie pooh in your handbag or something. You seem to be keen to highlight perceive short-comings or cast doubt whenever possible.
The town you cite is the third least populated in New Hampshire. Billy-Bob could've had a BBQ and a significant portion of voters not shown up.
Not even that – Carroll county is 3rd smallest, with 47k people. The town in question has only 4k of that 47k.
It's a non-random sample of 4000 people, probably only 3,000 votes. Maybe bernie farted while visiting it, or they got pissed he didn't visit at all.
I think it's still 10, since Bennet has dropped out as well.
Early indications form NH – Bernie gets a good start with 14% counted.
Looks like the big question will be which of Klobuchar, Warren, and Biden break the 15% threshold to be awarded delegates. Right now only Klobuchar is over.
I thought the threshold was only for caucus states?
It's for all states.
Then the hocus-pocus wing-of-bat 2-eyes-of-newt weirdshit recipes different states have for allocating delegates breaks things up into several different levels, some of which can have an effective threshold greater than 15%.That's how Biden ended up with 6 delegates from Iowa and Klobuchar 1 despite have almost identical vote and SDE%
Plus giving out an effective leader's bonus due to rounding. That's how Buttigieg come out of Iowa with a 14 – 12 delegate lead over Sanders, despite only leading the SDE count by 0.1% (and lagging in the popular vote by 1.6%).
https://www.270towin.com/content/thresholds-for-delegate-allocation-2020-democratic-primary-and-caucus
https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/NH-D
https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/IA-D
Thanks for that.
I should probably clarify that a bit more. As I understand it, the 15% threshold for allocating delegates applies at each of the sub-units, not at the state as a whole.
So with New Hampshire awarding 8 delegates from each of its two House districts, if Warren breaks 15% in one of those, she will get one delegate even if she is below 15% for the state as a whole.
That's how Klobuchar got one delegate from Iowa, despite being below 15% for the state as a whole. But Biden squeaked over 15% for Iowa as a whole, so he got allocated delegates from the pool that was determined by statewide vote and ended up with 6 total from Iowa.
With 22% reporting, the NYT have Bernie at 28% of the vote… as with Iowa that's basically half what he got in 2016.
I remain skeptical of Bernies chances, in part because the three big 'obviously moderates' candidates (Mayor Pete, Biden, Klobuchar) combined are currently at more than 50% of the vote. My gut feel remains that, down the campaign stretch as the field shrinks, Sanders will get overtaken by whichever candidate outlasts the others.
Or go a bit further on a national level, the moderates (Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden, Bloomberg) add up to around 55%, the liberals (Sanders, Warren, Yang, Gabbard) are just a bit over 40%. Kinda like the Clinton – Sanders split last time around.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/national/
Again, only 2 significant candidates in 2016, vs half a dozen in 2020.
Biden is looking done at the moment. Bernie looks good, but the mayor and Warren are also still in the race.
Yes, less candidates last time, BUT I can't think of any other examples where a presidential hopeful has entered the primary a second time around and performed significantly worse than their first attempt.
Clinton was the anointed successor to Obama in '16 because she spent 8 years positioning herself as such. McCain ran distant second to Bush in '00, then Romney was second to McCain in '08 and they both were the obvious front runner for the title of next Republican nominee.
In contrast, Sanders seems like the just kind of walked away from the Democratic party apparatus in 2016 (he relinquished membership of the party not long after Trump's election) and left a huge vacuum that all these other candidates are now trying to fill.
I agree about his party membership, but the thing is that more candidates means a lot more pieces of cake. Which means smaller pieces. I don't think the different campaign years can be usefully compared on that basis.
ps: if you could think of such a candidate, you'd be the biggest nerd on a political nerd blog lol
Mike Huckabooboo actually won more delegates and was a very close third in popular vote % behind Romney's second in '08. But withdrew on Feb 1, 2016 after getting negligible support.
How many nerd points do I get?
you get to roll the 20-sided die to find out
Re: Biden.
His 'firewall' is still the 4th voting state – South Carolina and its majority-minority voter composition. He has led basically every poll conducted in SC, but it's still a high risk strategy because he has already effectively given up on Nevada which is next.
Fivethirtyeight's average still has Biden in the polling lead for South Carolina, but his trendline has done a BASE jump.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/south-carolina/
AP news has a piece on Biden's SC firewall starting to crumble.
https://apnews.com/3cbd9aca529f3f1b1385318b082bb049
There's a bunch of other articles floating around the intertoobz about Biden losing support among African-Americans, but they all seem to trace back to something from National Review, so …hmmm.
Phil your logic here is a bit off and is not supported by what data we have on the subject. Supporters of the big three moderate candiates Pete, Biden, Klobuchar arent just some moderate blob that will roll between the moderate candidates, in fact Biden supporters leading second choice is Bernie, furthmore bernie holds a good share in the second choice for Pete's supporters with a strong third (only three point behind bloomberg's lead).
The fall of Biden seems the most likley to happen soon and that will help Bernie more than Klobuchar or Pete both of whom are too much in the ascendency to consider dropping at the moment. And with warrens poor preformance tonight she might not be running to much longer either again, helping Bernie.
It would be good to see Warren drop out and have a large chunk of her supporters move to Bernie, but I suspect she will limp on for quite a while yet…
Have you links for the second choice voting that you mention? I would to see those stats.
I recall seeing some 2nd preference numbers months ago, but I too would be interested in seeing an update. The older they are the more they might reflect name recognition rather than actual voting intent.
The voting data that we do have from Iowa showed there was very little shift to Bernie on the 2nd-preference from the unviable candidates (and Biden was often unviable at individual caucus sites) so I really don't know how to square the two pieces of intelligence. I still stand by the gut-feel that Bernie probably doesn't have the coalition to reach 50% of delegates outright, but I can easily imagine him having the single largest bloc at the convention.
… and if nobody comes to the convention with more than 50% of the pledged delegates to win it at the first round, then the superdelegates come into play for the subsequent rounds.
When fivethirtyeight looked at it back in December, they found that only about a third of Sanders and Warren supporters picked the other liberal as their second choice.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voters-second-choice-candidates-show-a-race-that-is-still-fluid/
I'm quite surprised no one is talking about this:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/409298/bridges-says-national-won-t-tone-down-ads-after-asa-ruling
National just got ticked off by the Advertising Standards Authority for telling porkies in an advert last year and Simon Bridges says they're going to keep on doing it.
I mean, we all knew that National was planning to use outright lies to try to win the election but I didn't expect them to actually tell us in advance!
inorite – who is dumb enough to tell the truth about lying? lol
Brief audio clip behind each static picture – note again in the second one the word 'believe' being used:
https://twitter.com/antihobbes/status/1227354837521584131
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/409346/survey-paints-grim-picture-of-schooling-for-children-with-disabilities
So IHC's done another survey and nothing's changed. Surprise, surprise.
IHC lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission 12 years ago. What the heck's happened to that? If IHC's behaviour around the sleepover case is anything to go by it'd be surprisng if it'll go anywhere. IHC's too far up the government's backside for that to happen.
"Gore district mayor Tracy Hicks was forthright in his condemnation of NZAS and Rio Tinto.
"I've had a gutsful of their shilly-shallying.
"We have been working with Rio Tinto for the last three years and have bent over backwards to keep them engaged.
"All they do is thumb their nose at us and the people of Mataura." "
Fuckers
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/devastated-anger-deal-move-toxic-chemicals-falls-over
Well that will destroy whatever social licence Rio Tinto have in Southland. I can see some interesting inadvertent alliances forming here. Who's going to have the balls, or stupidity, to defend Rio Tinto on in Southland Times, or on Dee Street.
"Fuckers"
x 1000
About time someone grew a pair and told Rio Tinto to depart these shores.
Which territorial authority is in charge here?
Paging Mr. Guyton.
may be indicative of their review result….'well fellas , we've worn out our welcome here…time to find a new mug to host us'…and dont worry, they’ll have their cheque books open
Having worked briefly on a major Rio site I can attest to the insane over-regulation and nit-picking that is endemic everywhere. Just to get a room in the camp I had to initial and sign a 48 page document of rules.
As frustrating as this decision must be for Southlanders, I'll bet the board has a process reason for this delay. The clue is here:
This looks more like a delay rather than reneging. Right now it's not even clear who the legal owner of this material is and the board's legal advisers may be cautious about accepting liability for it. The sums of money involved are literally petty cash to Rio Tinto, it will be safety and legal issues driving this.
I have to say that working for them was an exercise in demoralising frustration, so none of this surprises me.
Disposal of the dross has been an ongoing issue for the last 30 years at least. It just keeps getting moved around, and called different things every 10 years so people think it's another new problem.
Rio want it anywhere by their place so they don't have to deal with it when they remediate the Tiwai site on closure, which I'd say we will find out about after the review.
"Shilly-shallying"???
That's the best old Tracy can do?
Bending over backwards….what a silly tactic.
Approval ratings for Ardern and Bridges
This is the same poll (i.e. same respondents) as the party vote poll earlier this week. It's noteworthy that Ardern's 63.3% must include some National voters, and a high percentage of National voters do not think Bridges is performing well.
It sounds geeky but is actually relevant that this is the same poll as the party vote results, because of the polling methodology. I don't have access to the script of course, but the order of questions usually starts with the party vote ("if there were an election tomorrow" etc). So … having answered "National", the respondent then answers Qs about the party leaders, and gives Bridges the thumbs down.
While it is not impossible for a party to win despite a leader with low ratings, it is very rare in modern democracies, with leader-focused campaigns – and hasn't happened in NZ under MMP (Brash 2005 and Clark 1996 came closest).
Winston said in his speech today that Bridges is at minus 32% on the +- scale.
He also asked Bridges if he had a Warrant to practice Law? No answer.
Bridges will rue his stance versus NZF.
He certainly has no mates except Seymour who Peters characterised as being ACT's seventh leader- but there's only one vote and if there was a second ACT MP in the caucus, he wouldn't be.
The Opposition finance spokesperson , Paul Goldsmith, was described as the only candidate in democracies who took his own hoardings down before an election rather than putting them up!
Electoral chicanery we should not forget.
Is he implying that the lad has let his practising registration lapse? So all the chest-thumping about being a thrusting lawyer is but a fond memory..
Was chatting to a true blue supporter today who told me for the first time in his life he won't be voting national, because of 'that twat bridges'. I almost fell over.
Looking at that poll leader approval rating result, it appears that his view is shared by others.
Who will they vote for I wonder – or just not vote?
Winston said in the House musingly, "Since the popular vote was over 70% for Jacinda, there must have been a fair few National voting for Jacinda?"
Uncooked, I did ask who else he wouldn't be voting for and the reply was, NZ First or act.
Another person then entered the room so our conservation ended.
Will ask him after the election who he ended up voting for, he knows I support red and green.
Ianmac 🙂 I'd say Winnie is 100% correct with that comment.
That's the funny thing – the more Bridges looks like a dropkick, ACT will be a wasted vote. So the sensible tory will vote NZ1 to moderate the next government's policies, which could end up helping NZ1 over the line…
Bear in mind, too, that (as with Colmar Brunton), Reid Research …
(1) Present the Party Vote as a % of Decided voters only …
Whereas:
(2) Leader Performance (like Preferred PM) is presented as a % of All Respondents.
That means that non-Labour voters comprise an even larger slice of those who believe Ardern is Performing Well than might appear to be the case at first sight,
If the Reid Research % Don't Knows are anything close to the latest Colmar Brunton DKs … then that would mean a very large minority of those favourable to Ardern's Performance are non-Lab voters … Nats, Greens, NZFers along with those respondents who haven't made up their mind on the Party Vote.