English Labour will not vote against the Tory government’s welfare bill and should not oppose Tories limiting child tax credits to two children, the party’s interim leader, Harriet Harman, has said. Her remarks came as the shadow education secretary, Tristam Hunt, warned the party that it was becoming an irrelevance at a frightening speed.
Seemingly bennie bashing is how you become relevant.
Ha ha. You are so right. Unless, in the not to distant future, they invent a robot with a fourth law embedded in its neural net which axiomatically decrees – wipe bottom – Do Not Exterminate, Mr Octogenerian Infused will have to put up with the working poor taking care of his bodily functions.
But in saying that, he will receive generally excellent care.
The robot on the other will quickly and logically conclude – wiping bottom sucks – exterminate, exterminate.
Why bail out the bank directly, when you could bail out the country so it is more likely able to pay some money back to the bank? If you bail out the bank directly, Greece is left in no state to be able to recover and thus will require more lending. Bailing out the banks and not the country is short-term thinking.
If that’s the case, why lend money in the first place if they aren’t going to be able to pay it back? Oh, it’s so you have an excused to repossess all their assets. So they basically lend money so they could loot the country. Why should that behaviour be rewarded?
Did you that terrible interview on RNZ?
Good to hear listeners’ feedback supporting Twyford and slamming RNZ for its bias as well as the government for doing nothing about the crisis.
I’ve been reflecting on the kerfuffle over chinese investment in nz’s real estate. some random points:
it’s fairly easy to distinguish between who comes from the prc and who comes from.the diaspora because the communist state early on adopted a distinctive form of romanization of Chinese words called pinyin. I’m not sure if the salmond factored this in to his surprisingly underappreciated methodology.
Chinese are vulnerable in nz. any sort of negative press, such as what labour has been running, will probably result in more street level racial abuse. I doubt that Chinese associations in nz or any pakeha institutions would be well placed to pick up on such trends. liberal nz’s policy settings are based on the false premise that multiculturalism is easy, and so there isn’t an institutional depth around trying to grasp the lived experience of migrant communities -though I’d be interested to learn more about the tools that the race relations conciliator has available.
the Chinese state and local Chinese idiots are capable of truly horrific behaviour, and innocent Chinese are regularly caught up in the blowback. I’m thinking of the anti China riots in Vietnam recently when beijing plonked an oil rig in vietnamese waters, surrounding it with burly and aggressive ships. taiwanese businesses were attacked – pretty much anyone who was chineseish was in danger. even China’s immediate neighbours can be quite ignorant of the various communities that loosely come under the adjective “chinese”. also you get all sorts of outrageous behaviour from usually mainland businesspeople that gets the locals antsy about anyone who seems chinese. that’s mostly what’s behind the often strong anti-Chinese sentiment in africa. that and the success, and the numbers.
genuine question – where is the space in the public domain for people to say “I feel bad about these buggers moving in”. cos a lot of people are feeling that. I remember a couple of Myanmar refugees telling me in Wellington in 2007 something like “there are so many Chinese everywhere”. confusedly. it just seems to me that resentment is building up, and it’s dangerous to simply say “fuck off dumb racist”. cos the problem doesn’t fuck off.
political parties tend to be quite shit at engaging in migrant communities. to do it proper you need biculturalism – basically people who are conversant in the majority plus other cultures. and that takes yearsnyears of language learning, travel, lived experience, etc etc. essentially nzers lack the skills to be able to forge a coherent society out of a fractured one. we’ve got multiculturalism on the cheap, which turns out to be not good for much beyond the diversity of the shopping mall foodcourt.
The internet? And when you say “people” do those people include you? Whoever those people are, why, or what hurdles do they have to reaching an understanding of the things they think and how those things may or may not be threatened, or which things are threatened, or even why they think the way they do?
Are they happy to be against others because of race and leave it there?
From a pakeha perspective, is there a cultural reason (or of course, time, ability) that they cannot just pause for a moment and work back from “there are too many chinese everywhere” and figure out what scares them about that? As a European it’s “normal” for me to suggest this fairly clumsy method because my psychological heritage stands outside the subconscious looking in as a stranger. What is their cultural position, traditionally? What ideas are they carrying (beneficial or not) that they take for granted that holds them back from examining their beliefs like that? How are they resistent to Western thinking, if at all?
And more importantly, does it even matter? A pakeha racist might go from “too many Chinese” to “let’s attack the next one we see!” naturally. But if you were from Myanmar and a buddhist, you might think, “Ok so too many Chinese. Bastards.” and then go back to whatever you’re doing and nothing more comes of it, ever. If the problem is a negative personal experience (causing the ill-feeling), not much can be done in the “public domain” and at an early stage, internet-venting might actually make it worse.
my personal take is, people tend to be fearful of change, and large scale immigration is one kind of change.
people are also usually more comfortable dealing with their own kind…
so these are legitimate, human fears that are ubiquitous and easy to understand .
i live in china, suffer from racism quite a bit. i accept that a lot of it is coming from a very human place, so it doesn’t bother me. there are plenty of folk who can handle foreigners, and plenty who can’t so well. that’s all normal. i’ve also been attacked by groups of men a couple of times on racial grounds. i’d put that at the less legitimate end of the scale of behaviour around dealing with foreigners. but it’s really about them, not me, and i wish them well.
we live in a big diverse world and some people are better than others at handling that diversity turning up on their doorstep. but you need to appreciate the concept of “home”. this place is the home of others in a more intimate way than it is my home, so while i’m a local i’ll also always be a guest.
it’s sort of contradictory to espouse a cosmopolitanism that looks down on people who aren’t able to espouse it.
i come from a Christian angle, and the differences from liberalism re: racism are thus:
liberals believe that racism can be defeated. they believe in progress – things getting better and better. thus you hear phrases like “we have to move past racism”. what is racism grounded in according to this worldview? probably bad thinking, which can be educated away, and possibly bad attitudes such as selfishness, that can be dropped. ironically, in this worldview, you’re able to relatively easily become unracist, so if you don’t it means you are (choosing to be) inferior. so liberals look down on people for looking down on people. awesome.
i believe that racism will always be with us. “progress” does not exist. i believe it’s a question of character, and character runs deep and is not so easy to change. humans are morally weak and deserve greater empathy in their failings than liberals are generally disposed to afford them. jesus comes to a failing world in love, it’s satan who accuses (terry eagleton points out that the popular modern idea of the christian god actually fits the biblical idea of satan – the accuser who is out to get you if you screw up (the word satan is hebrew for accuser). point being, christians are required to practice empathy toward ‘bad people’, which is a world away from the snide liberal pooh pooing).
liberals follow tolerance and freedom, christians follow hospitality and the imperatives of love. for a liberal, it’s ok to allow people to immigrate, and let them do their thing without engaging with them at any serious level. for christians that’s not ok. we need to be inviting them into our homes, eating with them, and having our horizons expanded as we try to figure out how to support or simply be there for them, to live alongside them. for example: wellington refugee and migrant services was started by a group of churches – not the local atheists’ knitting club. for another example: my church ran free english classes for refugees and migrants. for a lot of them it was their only regular contact with new zealanders. new new zealanders cannot become new zealanders simply by dint of a change in citizenship status. hospitality is a vital part in becoming a local. i used to teach chinese students whose only interaction with kiwis was transactional – involving the handing over of money – be it the landlord, the esl teacher or the local shop keeper. there’s a lot of freedom and toleration in that, but it’s crap. and the chinese students knew it was crap. “come to new zealand and buy stuff!” yeah right.
when a migrant suffers from racism, they need to be able to talk it out with someone. if they’re only discussing that shit with other migrants, well that’s a recipe for brewing a world of resentment and bitterness. when migrants have actual born and bred kiwis to talk about their struggles with, it goes a huge way to making them feel accepted and part of things. new zealand is really doing this immigration thing too cheaply, and it opens the way for a toxic legacy down the track.
Racists look for “enablement”. It’s the prime principle of the dogwhistle. If someone prominent says something that they can use as justification for their behaviour, they’ll feel they’ve been let off the leash.
One of the most frequent mistakes politicians make is to assume that the only message people receive is the one they intend to send as text or subtext, not the one that people want to hear themselves.
Before it was the leakers like Goff and Robertson who wanted people to think that David Cunliffe was unfit to lead Labour when the message received was that Labour as a whole was unfit to govern. Now the message being received is that Labour says Chinese people are bad, and certainly National and Act have gleefully leapt at the opportunity to make use of this.
God only knows why I’m being so generous. Must be lingering sentiment.
Labour says that 9% of probable Chinese in a fraction of the population are probably not doing something bad for the economy, and 30% of probable Chinese in that fraction are probably doing something bad for it.
this is all about hot money inflows.
when you have the wrong end of the stick, best thing is to let it go and walk away.
Labour can say one thing and be heard another. Right now they’re defending themselves against charges of racism because some people construe their message as racist and because it’s being painted as racist. The facts are getting lost.
Mr Little said while some people had claimed it was racist, several Aucklanders had applauded it.
“If the feedback out of Auckland is anything to go by, I expect we’ll have a lot of support in the policy we’ve put up.
“We understood the risks but we thought that having got information that clearly highlights an issue that is consistent with what we’ve been saying, we made the judgment it should be disclosed. I think people need to know.”
He said Labour’s critics should be concerned about first-home buyers being squeezed out of the market.
“Our first moral duty is to those who live here, and that includes those of Chinese ethnicity who have chosen to live here, or whose parents or grandparents chose to live here. They are the people we care about.”
Except, you know, that is the Herald which is a national publication that is supposed to be neutral and the standard is a blog which openly comes from the left.
Shit. So that settles it then. They say they knew the risks. haha “the risks”? It’s not a “risk” when you chose to ring the race cowbell. That’s a choice. They knew the choices. Get it right, Andrew.
Is this a “dead rat” issue? Because stirring up racial tensions wil get a party elected, and the Left needs Labour unless the unthinkable happens and people flock to the Greens and Mana in a totally unforeseen landslide. But really, the ongoing cost of the race card, is it worth it? This is more like a “dead horse” issue, or a re-interred partially thawed and rotting ice-mammoth issue. Two years out, and The Greens are bolstering National’s anti-free speech laws and Labour are ringing the race bells. Christ. Can not wait for 2017. That year is clearly going to be insane.
And hasn’t he committed a bit of a general cultural faux pas by suggesting present day Chinese are not connected to anything past their grandparents? It’s like the “blame the parents for the kids” argument; or the “we decide who is Maori or not” bloodline/ratio approach. Colonial Viper is right, Labour need a better reflection of who it is they represent in their MPs.
In saying “first moral duty”, Little acknowledges the harm his party has done to people who are “second” or even lower ranked. Nice to know. The bus has a dog whistle for a horn. Beneficiaries, LBGTQ, now people with Chinese-sounding surnames – all acceptable collateral damage… I wonder if they’ll realise that chucking people under the bus won’t put diesel in the tank?
Metiria Turei gave a much more intelligent and considered response. It’s early on in this clip:
Even making the generous assumption of good faith, Labour’s handling has been collosally (and predictably) stupid, handing ammunition to Smith and undermining its credibility on race. It’s a classic case of “Fire! Aim! Ready!” Even making the generous assumption that they didn’t anticipate this backlash, then whoever’s running their media strategy needs to put down their crayons for a while and let someone with at least the barest suggestion of competence take the role.
My extended family & I sincerely hope that Labour will put a hand out to pick us up, or to scrape us off the road, after Messrs Twyford & Little and the current issues leave town in the big red bus.
Perhaps its not surprising the Herald editorial this morning backs-up Labour’s call for proper data to be collected on just who is buying up big and speculatively in the Auckland housing market. After all, the Herald IS Auckland-based, and anecdotal “evidence” and people on the ground at Auckland auctions is what’s causing the concern, and it needs addressing. This is from today’s Herald :
” For many people, the leaked property sale figures reported in the Weekend Herald ……… They concluded some time ago that overseas Chinese buyers were behind the boom in the Auckland property market. ……”
Oh noes! Chinese at property auctions! Quick, where are the internment camps when we need them?! And what about Australians, Poms, Indians and the South Africans. Especially the South Africans. They’re sneaky bastards. You can only tell they’re South African when they open their mouths.
Geez I go away for a couple of days and everything goes ker-razy…so who decided that attacking Asians was the best way for Labour to get back into power?
Well PR you must be very upset to realise that it is not TrevM
perhaps you should go to Specsavers or even go back to where you have been and then we wouldn’t have to put up with your biased comments although, I must say that the SST actually beats you for bias in this instance.
Today’s NZ Herald editorial – ( Monday 13 July 2015) Business Section:
“Chinese role in the housing boom.
For many people, the leaked property sale figures reported in the Weekend Herald will have contained just one element of surprise.
They concluded some time ago that overseas Chinese buyers were behind the boom in the Auckland property market.
Anecdotal accounts from auctions had led them to discount a survey of real estate agents in 2013 that attributed only 8 per cent of purchases to this group.
Even so, many will have been astonished to learn that as many as 39.5 per cent of sales may be to buyers of Chinese descent.
That figure, whatever the question-marks surrounding it, raises issues that need to be addressed.
Deriding the finding as politically motivated and statistically unsound is easy, but essentially a red herring.
Compiling an estimate of the ethnicity of purchasers from their surnames, as Labour’s housing spokesman, Phil Twyford, has done, is not ideal.
But the basis, figures covering 3922 Auckland sales from one real estate firm from February to April this year, is reasonably comprehensive.
And it is better than anything else available.
Regrettably, there is an information vacuum because this country has no register of foreign buyers.
But perhaps we should not be totally surprised if Chinese buyers are, indeed, having a big influence.
The Beijing Government is allowing more of its citizens to buy overseas property, and interest rates in China are much lower than here.
This has led to Auckland housing being marketed aggressively to Chinese investors.
They have been alerted especially that this country has no land tax, stamp duty or other of the restrictions of the likes of Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
So far, the Key Government has acted directly only to the extent of requiring overseas buyers to have an Inland Revenue number and a New Zealand bank account from October.
Mr Twyford’s finding will ramp up the pressure to do more.
To some, it will represent evidence that the extent of Chinese investment, and a readiness to pay over the odds, is, beside its ramifications for the economy, creating an untenable situation for local buyers, especially those seeking their first homes.
There needs to be a high degree of caution, however.
First, Mr Twyford’s finding has to be substantiated by statistics whose accuracy cannot be challenged.
In that context, figures made available by the new government requirements for overseas buyers need to be made available to the public.
Secondly, if these figures underline Mr Twyford’s conclusion, the response must be carefully calibrated.
It would be easy to follow Australia’s lead and require overseas investors to build new houses.
This makes some sense in increasing supply rather than adding to demand.
It is a stern step, however. New Zealanders certainly take a dim view when they are denied the right to buy a house in an overseas country.
Equally, some of the purchases by overseas Chinese buyers are for family members, perhaps students, living in this country for at least some of the time.
Even when reliable data is available, therefore, a knee-jerk response must be out of the question.”
Equally, some of the purchases by overseas Chinese buyers are for family members, perhaps students, living in this country for at least some of the time.
Well, they can just rent a flat, like all the other students in the whole flaming world!
Can you just link to articles in the future? Walls of text disrupt the flow of discussion and reposting articles without permission opens the site up to copyright claims.
“A former Goldman Sachs banker suggested Greece start legal action against his former employer over complex financial deals that helped the country hide its national debt in 2001 and continue borrowing despite its poor economy, the Independent reports.
The banking giant made as much as $500 million from the transactions known as “swaps”, which translated Greek debts issued in dollars and yens into euros, the British daily says. The figure is, however, disputed by Goldman, which refuses to state an exact number. The deals were prepared by Antigone Loudiadis, who reportedly received $12 million a year for the job….
Greece will have as much luck with that as their other brilliant idea of getting money of Germany because of the Nazis.
This is the government that some on here were calling “heros” the other day… and what have they done … Gone against the wishes of their people in the referendum which gave the response that they were championing.
Now because they have been shown to be untrustworthy the country is way worse off than it was just a few months ago.
Welcome to the National Government’s modus operandi – “While most other governments intend cutting emissions, New Zealand appears to be increasing emissions, and hiding this through creative accounting. It may not have to take any action at all to meet either its 2020 or 2030 targets.” http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/278582/nz%27s-climate-change-target-condemned
All those yelling “racist” at the top of their voices ( led by the ACT Party) have no valid explanation for the data.
That’s because there isn’t one, except for the conclusions Rob Salmon came to.
More interestingly, why why do some organisations seem so determined to shut this discussion?
Let’s look at who is benefiting from the status quo.
No surprise that you don’t know what racism is, PR. While you might be desperately hoping people are demonised, it’s not actually happening because most people can see past your faux outrage and focus on the facts. It must really be hurting you that Labour have got this issue right and have gazumped National so effectively!
Most people being Nats, Standardistas, and the twitteratti. Those being affected by the housing crises in Auckland are probably nodding their heads in agreement.
Again ISTM that many on the left would rather be ideologically pure and in permanent opposition.
There are many on this website (including me) who think this is a crisis caused by large numbers of non-doms buying up housing and property in the country.
” We do need to have a mature public debate about Chinese foreign investment in New Zealand real estate. Especially when the Government has refused to set up a register of foreign ownership and make it public.
Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and other nations have enacted restrictions on foreign buyers in recent years.
When the sales data also pointed to a big presence of offshore Chinese investors, Labour decided it was time to talk about this. However uncomfortable it may be, the sales data reinforces what so many Aucklanders have thought is going on.
It is simply not good enough to try to shut down an important public debate with allegations of racism.”
You’re the one trying to shut it down – have you even put up an argument about why it is not racism – check out what Little said – “We understood the risks…” What risk did he understand?
Twyford: Hey Andy, I have this idea about the housing crisis.
Little: What is it?
Twyford: The Chinese are the problem.
Little: Sounds risky. Sounds kinda racist. Would Winston say something like that?
Twyford: Probably.
Little: Could be a bad idea then. What else could we talk about that focussed on grass roots social issues we have policy for? Something a bit less negatively framed?
Twyford: Anything really, we could talk a lot about the things we’re doing right, but it’s like no one is listening.
Little: What evidence is there no one is listening?
Twyford: Just a hunch.
Little: Do you have wider figures for foreign buyers?
Twyford: I say just concentrate on what we do know about the Chinese. We have an email.
Little: That’s true. And I know several people in Auckland.
Twyford: Should we ask around first?
Little: Nah it sounds fairly solid. I guess we know the risk then, run with it.
Later that afternoon….
Twyford: Shit, that escalated quickly.
Little: I know. Did someone actually throw a trident at you?
Twyford: Yep.
Little: Let’s run with justification of a specific segment of Chinese people and try to cover the shit trail. And whatever you do, don’t mention the risk!
As an overseas born mixed ethnicity/Eurasian person from South East Asia (I am neither from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong nor Korea) with a Chinese family name, I do not think Twyford has initiated a “mature debate”.
My family has been here for about forty years. There are now three generations of us in the extended family, in this country we regard as home. The perception of NZ being principled about egalitarianism, social justice, inclusion & non-discrimination attracted the older family members to this country.
All of us voted Labour. Some of us are Labour Party members (if the Labour membership list is being checked, please do not assume we have the same surname, let alone a Chinese sounding surname or a pinyin version as I have used here). Has Labour asked us how we feel or what we would have thought before launching off during the weekend on TV3? How do you think my family & I feel now? Does Labour reckon they have strengthened their support from my family since Saturday? How has Labour demonstrated their principles since then?
Whatever the polling outcome or policy proposals that will eventuate from hereon, I genuinely hope what has been triggered will be worthwhile for Labour and the country. And please, to the Labour Party, don’t forget those of us with Chinese sounding names as well as Chinese looking ones when we are seen in public. We would like to continue voting for the Labour Party.
May I suggest that the Labour Party – MPs, supporters & members – spare a thought about repairing relationships at some stage really soon after whatever outcome, which was planned or intended, has been achieved please?
Who is saying anything except Twyford is a small-minded git?
Truly pitiful rhetoric calling everyone who hates Twyfords racism, an act supporter.
Who said here, anything apart from Twyford being a twit. A ninny and a school boy chauvinist?
Twyfords the great sectarian leader for bigots across NZ. Making a bid for the NZ first leadership is he?
That aside, you can have a go at his lack of humanity and talk about the housing issue – it’s not an either/or issue. I don’t believe myself or anyone else for that matter, has argued any other way.
Housing in Auckland is a problem, transnational investment is a problem, the quality of the housing is a problem, the Aussie banks are a problem, Over crowding is a problem, the government keeping the housing bubble going, because, if it doesn’t we are going to loss ten’s of thousands of jobs, is a problem. Twyford being a bigoted git, is a problem. Housing NZ, is a problem. No capital gain, death duty and a crushing g.s.t on the poor is a problem.
So many parts to this problem, but all you good’ ol boys run off to save the twit Twyford.
1.Do you think non-doms should be allowed to own housing in NZ?
2. Do you think the data about the sale and purchase of housing should be open and transparent?
And that’s why our resident trolls and the ACT Party are so determined to frame this conversation as racist.
They know that one of the quickest ways of shutting down debate is to accuse your opponent of being sexist or racist.
But, by and large, when either accusation is made about tories it’s generally supported by actual fact, and is a general conclusion on the merits of an argument or the trustworthiness of a commenter.
When the accusation is made by tories, it’s generally (as you call it) a “little trick”, usually tenuous and made with the objective of derailing further analysis, however valid that analysis may be.
But being a moral vacuum, you are incapable of understanding the difference between the two.
Well I sure as shit wouldn’t want your worldview, where politics is merely a vicious game played by sociopaths who care not a jot for the real pain in the world and where all appeals to decency and calling-out of injustice are mere cynical ploys to score points. Surely humanity is more than just a pack of rabid dogs feasting on their weak?
fuck, it’s a wonder you didn’t slit your wrists years ago.
To believe that the only difference between political perspectives is simply that one side is better at being cynically manipulative than the others would be a fair approximation of hell. No hope of change. Ever.
“And that’s why our resident trolls and the ACT Party are so determined to frame this conversation as racist.”
“If your not for us your against us.”
Paul using good old George Bush Jr. rhetoric, what a find. You are a charmer mate. Or just another middle of the road lefty, who is in reality, an Ike style Republican.
If you can not divide up the debate – sorry for you. How about you read this, then we will talk as adults. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley.
I am just trying to point out that a lot of the people jumping up and down yelling ‘racist’ are folk like pr, BM, clean power etc etc.
Yes, there are left wing voices saying the same, but shouldn’t your bedfellows concern you Adam?
It is foreign overseas wealth that is the issue, American, German, British and Chinese. And our pathetic rules that allow wealthy overseas investors trump the civil right of residents in this country to affordable housing.
The reason why the rwnjs are yelling so loudly is that they support the unhindered access to ‘markets’ by the wealthy global elite. They support the looting of this country.
Can’t you see that?
The problem is that the Labour Party has been complicit in this since the 1980s and so, I, and many others are sceptical of whether they will really stand up for the rights of workers against foreign capital.
No, what worries me is so called left wing people like you Paul who are defending racists. That’s what is worrying me. And not all right wing people are racists.
To your other points you have not read a damn thing I’ve said – so go back and try again.
Now your worried that labour having now raised China to the level of spectre, they will back down.
Sheesh, and you only way to keep pressure up is to go lalalalala Twyford is not a chauvinist small minded git. Great politics, up lifting and inclusive – no wait, if you did that sort of politics, it be left wing…
But maybe that’s what we’re doing wrong – we don’t go for uplifting and inclusive
To Clean-power – Devoy is muddled. She’s mixing local Chinese resident in NZ with the group that Phil Twyford is targetting – the non-resident Chinese who come in briefly for a few nights, go to the Auckland auctions, bag a few properties (using cheap finance), and fly off again.
Two totally different groups – and the local Chinese should be just as concerned at what their country-people are doing – because they’re also pushing them out of the Auckland housing market.
And to BM – Wikipedia is talking about the entire Asian population in Auckland – that would include Korean, Indian, and other nations as well as China. Twyford probably had his ethnic population figures from a more reliable source – NZ Stats Dept and the Auckland Council.
[Removed duplicate comment, Jenny, and added your edit about the council. TRP]
I imagine they both know what you have told them already.
Remember there are here as shills for the government and its powerful lobbyists, not to engage in rational discussion.
Trolls don’t debate.
I’m getting thoroughly sick of all this – she’s just making cheap shots burbling on about how it’s not fair to ‘Chinese New Zealanders’; when anyone with an IQ of above 60 knows perfectly well that the discussion is not about them; it’s about people without residency buying large amounts of property and distorting the market. In. fact, I’m getting really angry that people like my daughter-in-law and her family are being used by people to make what appear on the surface to be supportive arguments, but are really just a cynical tilt at the Labour Party. My family deserve better than this
Hang on, are you demanding Twyford provide a reference for a stat reported by Weepus Beard as being what Twyford said on morning report, when even if it were an undercount then the figure of 21% still suggests either disproportionate purchases by a specific residential demographic, or non-resident purchases?
That seems to be a somewhat pointless exercise.
Which is probably why you’ve got your knickers in a twist about it.
I fixed some of the issues I was having with the duplicating RSS feeds. I just have to figure out a better solution to bloody google feeds duplicating (ie mostly blogger). Now I have to figure out a better fix.
I’ll correct this comment issue. But generally the best immediate fix is to pull the comment from Trash
Hooton kept repeating the term ‘international activist groups’ as if people advocating for changes to climate change policy and Zero Hours contracts were part of some evil conspiracy.
Sounded like the reds under the bed nonsense.
And yet the host challenged one of these nonsensical ideas.
RNZ going downhill.
In fact, Paul, the host (Lynn Freeman) contradicted Hooton and exposed his crude methodology. It was Mike Williams, as useless as ever, who failed to challenge Hooton.
I’ve done a transcript of the last four minutes of the programme—humiliating for Hooton—and I’ll put it up on Open Mike tomorrow morning.
Hello JanM (on iPad & cannot reply under your comment).
Thanks & sorry to hear that.
This is why Phil Twyford had to be more careful & skilful in raising the issues & when discussing that ‘research’.
On my part, how do people here think I feel when I will be at the next open home?
Huang Y.G’s plight at his next auction does not affect my family one bit. That’s the world that the Nazional party lead government and ACT type people have fostered upon us, is it not?
One where it’s every man for himself. A dog-eat-dog world?
I’ve never been to a house auction so he or she will get no sympathy from me, thanks very much.
I really couldn’t give a stuff when the likes of Winston runs an anti-Asian campaign, but when a self styled broad church like Labour acts this politically inept and knowingly burns a couple of hundred thousand voters due to moves explained by an utter lack of Asians in its caucus and senior hierarchy, as well as a total lack of understanding the local Chinese community and its history, its time to escalate the push back.
The Labour caucus should be demographically representative (or at the very least make specific and explicit efforts to address the concerns of less powerful groups iin society). Labour, and society as a whole, will be stronger for it.
I am a renter with a young family, shut out of ever owning a house in the place I was born in and grew up in because of cheap foreign money propping up the current government’s economic policy, as hinted at by Phil Twyford, in the absence of much asked for buyers’ data.
You be ashamed of him for fighting for his family’s future against this volatile tide of cheap money which is distorting NZ’s delicate residential infrastructure?
I am a renter with a young family, shut out of ever owning a house in the place I was born in and grew up in because of cheap foreign money propping up the current government’s economic policy, as hinted at by Phil Twyford, in the absence of much asked for buyers’ data.
the Auckland property bubble has been blowing up big since 2001/2002, Helen Clark and Michael Cullen loved the wealth effect “propping up” their government’s finances too, foreign money has played a role in this, but there are a shit load of other factors as well, go blame Westpac, BNZ and ANZ for starters.
A typical Auckland house went from $300,000 to $600,000 under Helen Clark’s watch. Lots of property owning middle class Aucklanders got suddenly rich – at least on paper. Buying houses for investments and capital gains became a Kiwi middle class past time. Lots of money from ever expanding mortgage debt was flooding the economy. Labour was fine with this. Cullen built his budget surpluses on it.
Now we find that the Auckland middle class are getting seriously priced out of the market by foreign money. All of a sudden, Labour wants to make a big media hoopla about how big a problem the Chinese are causing.
None of this is about helping the average Kiwi worker earning $50K pa get into an Auckland house.
I say get the data, restrict foreigners from residential property, and slow immigration until Auckland infrastructure can catch up. That’s a socially responsible viewpoint.
You say don’t be so racist, supply is the problem, and Labour did it too. That’s a National party troll viewpoint.
I say get the data, restrict foreigners from residential property, and slow immigration until Auckland infrastructure can catch up. That’s a socially responsible viewpoint
That approach won’t sort out affordable housing in Auckland for 20 to 30 years, if even by then.
I’m more radical than you are on this topic by a million miles. You don’t even know it.
And the 3pm news headlines with a BNZ economist calling for a ban on foreign ownership of New Zealand property.
Means to an end Marty. You really need to get that chip off your shoulders that you hold against Labour. Mana/one trick pony Hone sold out and it was their choice 🙂
you’re right about one thing (I know, surprised me too) it is a means to an end but the end will not be the end rather the end of the end and then we’ll see what happens…
And the 3pm news headlines with a BNZ economist calling for a ban on foreign ownership of New Zealand property.
As I mentioned in another comment, you must always analyse why a bank economist is saying what they are saying, on behalf of their employer. In this case, BNZ would love to have these rich Chinese and other foreign buyers banned out of the market, because they are wealthy buyers who bring their own cash to the table – they do not need mortgages from the BNZ.
TL/DR: Every house bought using Chinese cash is a lost mortgage origination for the BNZ.
As I mentioned in another comment, you must always analyse why a bank economist is saying what they are saying, on behalf of their employer. In this case, BNZ would love to have these rich Chinese and other foreign buyers banned out of the market, because they are wealthy buyers who bring their own cash to the table – they do not need mortgages from the BNZ. Every house bought using Chinese cash is a lost mortgage origination for the BNZ.
Brave man, Twyford. Finally some facts emerging about this crazy house price bubble. Brave leaker from the Ak property company too, I bet there’s a witch hunt going on there right now too. Hope the leaker stays hid.
Yes there is a witch hunt going on over this story and I hate the potential for victimising NZ Chinese citizens.
But the facts that are emerging are real. If the stock market in China can lose trillions dropping back to earlier levels of just a few months ago meaning vast amounts of money was invested there, money that dwarfs NZs entire GDP, and the Chinese government is about to facilitate their citizens’ investment in foreign countries, and little old NZ still has no controls tax or other defences to restrict that, then we are fucked.
Brave man Twyford, thank Christ some people actually care about whether my daughters will ever be able to afford to buy a house in a NZ city in the next few years. Or whether go down the biggest depression hole we have ever seen. NZ doesnt have trillions of dollars, we have fuck all.
You’re shitting me. This housing bubble has been blowing up since 2001/2002, a $300K house in 2001 is now worth over a million dollars 13 years later and suddenly fucking Twyford and Little and Labour figure out that its been the goddam Chinese all this time?
Talk about lazy rationalising of the Labour Government’s failures to control the money and debt flowing into the housing market and now the National Government’s failure to control money and debt flowing into the housing market.
As for your daughters buying houses in Auckland in a few years time, what are they, in the market for $700K houses? Because nothing Labour does to halt foreign ownership of NZ land has a shit show of lowering house prices back to even that level, let alone back to an actually affordable sub-$400K level.
Other cities too. The housing bubble trajectory in Auckland isnt going to stop it’s just going to get worse and spread to other cities and the eventual crash which bubbles foretell will be devastating for NZ citizens who mortgage up to try to get what we always thought a kiwi dream.
This speculative bubble is bigger than who is driving up the prices, it’s en route to tragedy unless our useless governments do something to control it.
Every recent NZ govt has believed in the free flow of financial capital, no recent NZ government has believed in limiting capital flows.
BTW provincial towns all across NZ (excluding the likes of Wanaka and Greytown) have flat to declining house prices (esp once inflation is taken into account).
The answer is really quite simple. Give people a reason to move back to provincial NZ which is crying out for more population and more economic activity.
And yeah, ban foreign ownership of NZ land. Not just houses, all land.
How many people know that right NOW – at the Auckland Sky City Convention Centre, there is a great big fat ‘conference’ happening on combatting ‘money-laundering’?
Timing?
VENUE !?
Who would have thought …… !
“APG ANNUAL MEETING AND FORUM ON TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND TRAINING 2015
1 August 2014
The 2015 APG Annual Meeting and Technical Assistance and Training Forum will be held in Auckland, New Zealand in the week of 13-17 July 2015.
The APG Annual Meeting is the primary policy and decision-making vehicle for the APG. Decisions made at the Annual Meeting will set the course for the APG’s work over the next year.”
Wonder what their recommendations are going to be regarding the prevention of real estate / property market being used for ‘money-laundering’?
Railway thinkers. I’ve noticed that a book featuring the historic past to much of our infrastructure is on Trademe. Big Ideas: 100 Wonders of NZ Engineering by Matthew Wright published in 2009. Closes this Saturday buynow at $33
There’s also Rails Across NZ, only $12 closes Tuesday morning so be quick,
and NZ on the move: 100 Transport Icons, Buy now $15 closes Wed.
Looking at the review of Big Ideas: 100 Wonders…in North and South October 2009,
It has great photos on early power-generating and road and rail building projects and ‘for a tin-pot colony at the bottom of the world” says Wright, the eingineering and technology applied were remarkable.
Photos: Laying underwater sections of the high-voltage direct-current cable in early 1960s.
Early Hamilton marine=jet units under construction. A Kiwi invention, the jet boat was a water-borne application of the axial-flow, impeller principle adopted in WW2 for jet engines.
Benmore hydro station 1958-1964. (I heard from people there that a Swiss company was called in eventually to assist.)
The Denniston self-acting incline.
John Britten’s V-twin motorcycle, built in 1992, wa the most stylish machine of its day – and the fastest.
Now the fleas on the back of giants are sucking up all the benefit that is still present in these projects and selling off the family silver so they can proceed, like all decadent children, to gamble away the family’s wealth and estate.
Yeah you’re exercising in the wrong place Clean power. You should be at the gym building those abs and shoulders to do the physical heavy lifting. The exercise of brain requires a different sort of robust energy beyond your innate capacity. Stick to what you’re made for man.
An eight-mile convoy of pickups, motorcycles and cars wound through a central Florida town on Sunday in a show of support for the Confederate flag, as a backlash against its banishment from public landmarks across the South picks up steam.
Horns blared and hundreds of the rebel flags fluttered as more than 1,500 vehicles and some 4,500 people turned out for the “Florida Southern Pride Ride” in Ocala, according to police estimates. Vehicles from states across the South and as far away as California participated.
“That flag has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people,” said David Stone, 38, who organized the event. “It doesn’t symbolize hate unless you think it’s hate – and that’s your problem, not mine.” ….
You would think money man Key would take a leaf out of American multi billionaire Warren Buffet’s book. There is money in freighting and like Prebble says the Rail corridors are already in place in most city’s in New Zealand.
I have to agree the gridlock on Auckland’s Roading network is beyond a joke, as I ponder should I travel to Auckland early tomorrow morning for a meeting at 10.30 am
or drive later this afternoon? Either way it means being stuck in traffic.
“We purchase a substantial amount of eggs a year – nearly 13 million – so in order to keep up with demand, our egg suppliers will be investing significantly in new farms and farming systems. This is why the rollout will happen over 18 months – it needs to be sustainable for our suppliers,” says Mr Wilson.
Who are the 1% exactly? Are they the Taxpayers of Estonia, Latvia and Finland who will be the ones called upon to make sacrifices for the Greeks so they can continue spending far more than they earn? Have you ever wondered why the Finn’s, Latvian’s and Estonians’s (Not to mention the Dutch and Germans) on the whole are very resistant to both debt relief and giving Greece even more support? The Latvian’s and Estonian’s are not very wealthy. In fact an average pensioner in Latvia apparently earns less than their Greek counterpart.
The National lead government being put under pressure by the opposition parties’ policies and calls for action on issue that infect the working poor, so much so that the National lead government waits a few months only to release a watered-down version of the same opposition policy and trumpet it as new legislation.
Sufficiently watered down, one might say, to try to please everybody. Mostly, however, it just pleases their business buddies while the worker, or the freezing tenant just has to suck it up in the name of flexibility of the labour market, or listen while being told to how to clean that black mould of your sick kids’ bedroom walls while on a budget.
Let’s look at four instances of this:
– The capital gains tax that is not a tax driven by David Parker.
– The rental housing WOF, which now just asks for smoke alarms and ineffectual polystyrene floor insulation, driven by the Green party.
– The data collection for house and land sales to foreign buyers that doesn’t collect any data, driven by Phil Twyford.
– The dismantling of zero-hour contracts (thanks Helen Kelly), which ended up as an weak appeasement to shonky employers.
This new and hurried legislation from the Nazional government only just tip-toes around the edges of something which will actually work for workers and their families, but none the less would not have happened at all if it were not for the brave people in opposition who come up with solutions for the increasingly disenfranchised every day.
My question is:
Are Labour and the Greens governing this country from the opposition benches?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/70184652/doctors-helping-patients-die-as-assisted-death-debate-rolls-on
”More than one in ten doctors have helped a patient die despite potentially breaking the law, a survey suggests.
In a fax poll of general practitioners, conducted by magazine New Zealand Doctor and IMS Health, nearly 12 per cent of respondents said they had helped a patient die. About two out of five doctors also said they had been asked to help a patient die, although most had refused.”
This creates an unsafe level of pressure and stress for the doctors who are prepared to do this to help their patients. Apart from the risk to their career, there is no avenue for them to receive the counselling anyone would require (whether what they are doing is permitted or not) to cope with the emotional burden of assisting someone to end their life.
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
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 ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
“It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April to meet the Prime Minister’s ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
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A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
As a young gymnast, Aimee Didierjean was always conscious of making sure her underwear wasn’t showing on the competition floor. A peek of a bra strap, or briefs if a leotard rode up, would cost a gymnast points in her routines. “When I was growing and going through puberty, it ...
Jubi/West Papua Daily Repeated cases of Indonesian military (TNI) soldiers torturing civilians in Papua have been evident, as seen in the viral video depicting the torture of civilians in the Puncak Regency allegedly done by soldiers of Raider 300/Brajawijaya Infantry Battalion. There is a pressing need for stringent law enforcement ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In 2023, Anthony Albanese was shooting for the moon, his eyes on the Voice referendum. On one view, he looked like the idealist reflecting his left-wing roots. In 2024, we’re seeing a pragmatic, determined, ...
The House - The principle that all MPs are honourable and that they should be taken at their word has been tested multiple times this week in Parliament. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW Sydney Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock Since the review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) released its recommendations in December, there has been a series of Town Hall events to discuss them around the country ...
English Labour will not vote against the Tory government’s welfare bill and should not oppose Tories limiting child tax credits to two children, the party’s interim leader, Harriet Harman, has said. Her remarks came as the shadow education secretary, Tristam Hunt, warned the party that it was becoming an irrelevance at a frightening speed.
Seemingly bennie bashing is how you become relevant.
Labour is reinforcing predjudices about family size being the cause of poverty. Bear in mind these tax credits are for working families. The English Labour Party is in disarray and air heads like Harman and Hunt are joining the Tories in slapping the working class for daring to have families.http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/12/harman-labour-not-vote-against-welfare-bill-limit-child-tax-credits
Having a bigger family doesnt excatly jelp does it?
“If we can’t get them out, we’ll breed them out”
Help with what?
The rich get richer.
infused, who is going to wipe your arse when you are too old and decrepit to do it yourself? Just curious.
Kiaora, weka
Ha ha. You are so right. Unless, in the not to distant future, they invent a robot with a fourth law embedded in its neural net which axiomatically decrees – wipe bottom – Do Not Exterminate, Mr Octogenerian Infused will have to put up with the working poor taking care of his bodily functions.
But in saying that, he will receive generally excellent care.
The robot on the other will quickly and logically conclude – wiping bottom sucks – exterminate, exterminate.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-12/greece-may-sue-goldman-over-banks-role-greek-collapse
Good. It’s about time they were held to account.
Must hand over Sovereignty? 90% of the loans went to bail out banks, not to the Greek people.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/eurogroup-fails-to-reach-deal-gives-greece-24-hours-to-accept-draconian-terms-must-pass-whole-package-to-start-aid-talks-cant-greek-do-what-iceland-has-done/
The banks that Grecee owed money too? Well duh.
Why bail out the bank directly, when you could bail out the country so it is more likely able to pay some money back to the bank? If you bail out the bank directly, Greece is left in no state to be able to recover and thus will require more lending. Bailing out the banks and not the country is short-term thinking.
Why bail out the country at all when their spending habits are not going to change?
If that’s the case, why lend money in the first place if they aren’t going to be able to pay it back? Oh, it’s so you have an excused to repossess all their assets. So they basically lend money so they could loot the country. Why should that behaviour be rewarded?
This was posted on the SMH site a few days before Phil Twyford raised the issue in NZ.
Fyi,
http://webmail.clear.net.nz/deferrer.html?redirectUrl=%2Fwebmail.cgi%3Fcmd%3Durl%26url%3Dhttp!3A!2F!2Fnews.domain.com.au!2Fdomain!2Freal-estate-news!2Fchinese-share-market-offshore-investors-will-flock-to-australian-real-estate-20150708-gi7hcv.html!3Futm_source%3DSMH!26utm_medium%3Dlink!26utm
Did you that terrible interview on RNZ?
Good to hear listeners’ feedback supporting Twyford and slamming RNZ for its bias as well as the government for doing nothing about the crisis.
anyone screaming about racism over there!
I’ve been reflecting on the kerfuffle over chinese investment in nz’s real estate. some random points:
it’s fairly easy to distinguish between who comes from the prc and who comes from.the diaspora because the communist state early on adopted a distinctive form of romanization of Chinese words called pinyin. I’m not sure if the salmond factored this in to his surprisingly underappreciated methodology.
Chinese are vulnerable in nz. any sort of negative press, such as what labour has been running, will probably result in more street level racial abuse. I doubt that Chinese associations in nz or any pakeha institutions would be well placed to pick up on such trends. liberal nz’s policy settings are based on the false premise that multiculturalism is easy, and so there isn’t an institutional depth around trying to grasp the lived experience of migrant communities -though I’d be interested to learn more about the tools that the race relations conciliator has available.
the Chinese state and local Chinese idiots are capable of truly horrific behaviour, and innocent Chinese are regularly caught up in the blowback. I’m thinking of the anti China riots in Vietnam recently when beijing plonked an oil rig in vietnamese waters, surrounding it with burly and aggressive ships. taiwanese businesses were attacked – pretty much anyone who was chineseish was in danger. even China’s immediate neighbours can be quite ignorant of the various communities that loosely come under the adjective “chinese”. also you get all sorts of outrageous behaviour from usually mainland businesspeople that gets the locals antsy about anyone who seems chinese. that’s mostly what’s behind the often strong anti-Chinese sentiment in africa. that and the success, and the numbers.
genuine question – where is the space in the public domain for people to say “I feel bad about these buggers moving in”. cos a lot of people are feeling that. I remember a couple of Myanmar refugees telling me in Wellington in 2007 something like “there are so many Chinese everywhere”. confusedly. it just seems to me that resentment is building up, and it’s dangerous to simply say “fuck off dumb racist”. cos the problem doesn’t fuck off.
political parties tend to be quite shit at engaging in migrant communities. to do it proper you need biculturalism – basically people who are conversant in the majority plus other cultures. and that takes yearsnyears of language learning, travel, lived experience, etc etc. essentially nzers lack the skills to be able to forge a coherent society out of a fractured one. we’ve got multiculturalism on the cheap, which turns out to be not good for much beyond the diversity of the shopping mall foodcourt.
re: “…genuine question…”.
The internet? And when you say “people” do those people include you? Whoever those people are, why, or what hurdles do they have to reaching an understanding of the things they think and how those things may or may not be threatened, or which things are threatened, or even why they think the way they do?
Are they happy to be against others because of race and leave it there?
From a pakeha perspective, is there a cultural reason (or of course, time, ability) that they cannot just pause for a moment and work back from “there are too many chinese everywhere” and figure out what scares them about that? As a European it’s “normal” for me to suggest this fairly clumsy method because my psychological heritage stands outside the subconscious looking in as a stranger. What is their cultural position, traditionally? What ideas are they carrying (beneficial or not) that they take for granted that holds them back from examining their beliefs like that? How are they resistent to Western thinking, if at all?
And more importantly, does it even matter? A pakeha racist might go from “too many Chinese” to “let’s attack the next one we see!” naturally. But if you were from Myanmar and a buddhist, you might think, “Ok so too many Chinese. Bastards.” and then go back to whatever you’re doing and nothing more comes of it, ever. If the problem is a negative personal experience (causing the ill-feeling), not much can be done in the “public domain” and at an early stage, internet-venting might actually make it worse.
my personal take is, people tend to be fearful of change, and large scale immigration is one kind of change.
people are also usually more comfortable dealing with their own kind…
so these are legitimate, human fears that are ubiquitous and easy to understand .
i live in china, suffer from racism quite a bit. i accept that a lot of it is coming from a very human place, so it doesn’t bother me. there are plenty of folk who can handle foreigners, and plenty who can’t so well. that’s all normal. i’ve also been attacked by groups of men a couple of times on racial grounds. i’d put that at the less legitimate end of the scale of behaviour around dealing with foreigners. but it’s really about them, not me, and i wish them well.
we live in a big diverse world and some people are better than others at handling that diversity turning up on their doorstep. but you need to appreciate the concept of “home”. this place is the home of others in a more intimate way than it is my home, so while i’m a local i’ll also always be a guest.
it’s sort of contradictory to espouse a cosmopolitanism that looks down on people who aren’t able to espouse it.
doing some more thinking about it:
i come from a Christian angle, and the differences from liberalism re: racism are thus:
liberals believe that racism can be defeated. they believe in progress – things getting better and better. thus you hear phrases like “we have to move past racism”. what is racism grounded in according to this worldview? probably bad thinking, which can be educated away, and possibly bad attitudes such as selfishness, that can be dropped. ironically, in this worldview, you’re able to relatively easily become unracist, so if you don’t it means you are (choosing to be) inferior. so liberals look down on people for looking down on people. awesome.
i believe that racism will always be with us. “progress” does not exist. i believe it’s a question of character, and character runs deep and is not so easy to change. humans are morally weak and deserve greater empathy in their failings than liberals are generally disposed to afford them. jesus comes to a failing world in love, it’s satan who accuses (terry eagleton points out that the popular modern idea of the christian god actually fits the biblical idea of satan – the accuser who is out to get you if you screw up (the word satan is hebrew for accuser). point being, christians are required to practice empathy toward ‘bad people’, which is a world away from the snide liberal pooh pooing).
liberals follow tolerance and freedom, christians follow hospitality and the imperatives of love. for a liberal, it’s ok to allow people to immigrate, and let them do their thing without engaging with them at any serious level. for christians that’s not ok. we need to be inviting them into our homes, eating with them, and having our horizons expanded as we try to figure out how to support or simply be there for them, to live alongside them. for example: wellington refugee and migrant services was started by a group of churches – not the local atheists’ knitting club. for another example: my church ran free english classes for refugees and migrants. for a lot of them it was their only regular contact with new zealanders. new new zealanders cannot become new zealanders simply by dint of a change in citizenship status. hospitality is a vital part in becoming a local. i used to teach chinese students whose only interaction with kiwis was transactional – involving the handing over of money – be it the landlord, the esl teacher or the local shop keeper. there’s a lot of freedom and toleration in that, but it’s crap. and the chinese students knew it was crap. “come to new zealand and buy stuff!” yeah right.
when a migrant suffers from racism, they need to be able to talk it out with someone. if they’re only discussing that shit with other migrants, well that’s a recipe for brewing a world of resentment and bitterness. when migrants have actual born and bred kiwis to talk about their struggles with, it goes a huge way to making them feel accepted and part of things. new zealand is really doing this immigration thing too cheaply, and it opens the way for a toxic legacy down the track.
Cheers Vaughan Little; good to read your thoughtful perspective on this.
Racists look for “enablement”. It’s the prime principle of the dogwhistle. If someone prominent says something that they can use as justification for their behaviour, they’ll feel they’ve been let off the leash.
One of the most frequent mistakes politicians make is to assume that the only message people receive is the one they intend to send as text or subtext, not the one that people want to hear themselves.
Before it was the leakers like Goff and Robertson who wanted people to think that David Cunliffe was unfit to lead Labour when the message received was that Labour as a whole was unfit to govern. Now the message being received is that Labour says Chinese people are bad, and certainly National and Act have gleefully leapt at the opportunity to make use of this.
God only knows why I’m being so generous. Must be lingering sentiment.
“Labour says Chinese people are bad”
Labour says that 9% of probable Chinese in a fraction of the population are probably not doing something bad for the economy, and 30% of probable Chinese in that fraction are probably doing something bad for it.
this is all about hot money inflows.
when you have the wrong end of the stick, best thing is to let it go and walk away.
Read it again. Especially my second sentence.
Labour can say one thing and be heard another. Right now they’re defending themselves against charges of racism because some people construe their message as racist and because it’s being painted as racist. The facts are getting lost.
target selected
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11479813
Check out the photo they have used of little.
The wind has changed and now anybody can be chucked under the labour bus – for the first moral duty.
No different than the old fat photos of farrer thestandard still uses or the stupid ones of john key.
Except, you know, that is the Herald which is a national publication that is supposed to be neutral and the standard is a blog which openly comes from the left.
All media uses whatever means to grab attention though doesn’t it?
I’m not defending the papers either. They are all equally as shit… well most media in NZ.
Shit. So that settles it then. They say they knew the risks. haha “the risks”? It’s not a “risk” when you chose to ring the race cowbell. That’s a choice. They knew the choices. Get it right, Andrew.
Is this a “dead rat” issue? Because stirring up racial tensions wil get a party elected, and the Left needs Labour unless the unthinkable happens and people flock to the Greens and Mana in a totally unforeseen landslide. But really, the ongoing cost of the race card, is it worth it? This is more like a “dead horse” issue, or a re-interred partially thawed and rotting ice-mammoth issue. Two years out, and The Greens are bolstering National’s anti-free speech laws and Labour are ringing the race bells. Christ. Can not wait for 2017. That year is clearly going to be insane.
And hasn’t he committed a bit of a general cultural faux pas by suggesting present day Chinese are not connected to anything past their grandparents? It’s like the “blame the parents for the kids” argument; or the “we decide who is Maori or not” bloodline/ratio approach. Colonial Viper is right, Labour need a better reflection of who it is they represent in their MPs.
But thats how he looks and how he appears, whats he supposed to do?
In saying “first moral duty”, Little acknowledges the harm his party has done to people who are “second” or even lower ranked. Nice to know. The bus has a dog whistle for a horn. Beneficiaries, LBGTQ, now people with Chinese-sounding surnames – all acceptable collateral damage… I wonder if they’ll realise that chucking people under the bus won’t put diesel in the tank?
Metiria Turei gave a much more intelligent and considered response. It’s early on in this clip:
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mnr/mnr-20150713-0711-labour_cops_flak_over_chinese_surname_property_claim-048.mp3
Even making the generous assumption of good faith, Labour’s handling has been collosally (and predictably) stupid, handing ammunition to Smith and undermining its credibility on race. It’s a classic case of “Fire! Aim! Ready!” Even making the generous assumption that they didn’t anticipate this backlash, then whoever’s running their media strategy needs to put down their crayons for a while and let someone with at least the barest suggestion of competence take the role.
Hmmm, does my roof need painting?
Exactly rhino
My extended family & I sincerely hope that Labour will put a hand out to pick us up, or to scrape us off the road, after Messrs Twyford & Little and the current issues leave town in the big red bus.
Thanks MM.
I’d guessed that Twyford’s tack was approved by Andrew Little and the Leader’s office.
There’s something quite particular having a leader who is promising then really disappointing by turns.
Three attempts at trolling by infused already on this thread.
Coffee took longer than expected.
Perhaps its not surprising the Herald editorial this morning backs-up Labour’s call for proper data to be collected on just who is buying up big and speculatively in the Auckland housing market. After all, the Herald IS Auckland-based, and anecdotal “evidence” and people on the ground at Auckland auctions is what’s causing the concern, and it needs addressing. This is from today’s Herald :
” For many people, the leaked property sale figures reported in the Weekend Herald ……… They concluded some time ago that overseas Chinese buyers were behind the boom in the Auckland property market. ……”
Oh noes! Chinese at property auctions! Quick, where are the internment camps when we need them?! And what about Australians, Poms, Indians and the South Africans. Especially the South Africans. They’re sneaky bastards. You can only tell they’re South African when they open their mouths.
Re the auck prices
Interestingly at 4% commission and average $700k house the real estate firm will have collected about $112 million in fees!!!!
The other observation was that many of the comments in NBR were positive re the release of the data.
Geez I go away for a couple of days and everything goes ker-razy…so who decided that attacking Asians was the best way for Labour to get back into power?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/70170890/housing-data-strongly-suggests-chinese-foreign-investment–twyford
At first i thought it was picture of T. Mallard
Well PR you must be very upset to realise that it is not TrevM
perhaps you should go to Specsavers or even go back to where you have been and then we wouldn’t have to put up with your biased comments although, I must say that the SST actually beats you for bias in this instance.
At least with me (unlike the MSM) you know I’m not pretending about my political viewpoints
This is an interesting attack add from the democrats. Commentary by TYT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv_zIYXzsGo
https://youtu.be/bv_zIYXzsGo?t=198
familiar? hahahaha
Seen this?
Today’s NZ Herald editorial – ( Monday 13 July 2015) Business Section:
“Chinese role in the housing boom.
For many people, the leaked property sale figures reported in the Weekend Herald will have contained just one element of surprise.
They concluded some time ago that overseas Chinese buyers were behind the boom in the Auckland property market.
Anecdotal accounts from auctions had led them to discount a survey of real estate agents in 2013 that attributed only 8 per cent of purchases to this group.
Even so, many will have been astonished to learn that as many as 39.5 per cent of sales may be to buyers of Chinese descent.
That figure, whatever the question-marks surrounding it, raises issues that need to be addressed.
Deriding the finding as politically motivated and statistically unsound is easy, but essentially a red herring.
Compiling an estimate of the ethnicity of purchasers from their surnames, as Labour’s housing spokesman, Phil Twyford, has done, is not ideal.
But the basis, figures covering 3922 Auckland sales from one real estate firm from February to April this year, is reasonably comprehensive.
And it is better than anything else available.
Regrettably, there is an information vacuum because this country has no register of foreign buyers.
But perhaps we should not be totally surprised if Chinese buyers are, indeed, having a big influence.
The Beijing Government is allowing more of its citizens to buy overseas property, and interest rates in China are much lower than here.
This has led to Auckland housing being marketed aggressively to Chinese investors.
They have been alerted especially that this country has no land tax, stamp duty or other of the restrictions of the likes of Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
So far, the Key Government has acted directly only to the extent of requiring overseas buyers to have an Inland Revenue number and a New Zealand bank account from October.
Mr Twyford’s finding will ramp up the pressure to do more.
To some, it will represent evidence that the extent of Chinese investment, and a readiness to pay over the odds, is, beside its ramifications for the economy, creating an untenable situation for local buyers, especially those seeking their first homes.
There needs to be a high degree of caution, however.
First, Mr Twyford’s finding has to be substantiated by statistics whose accuracy cannot be challenged.
In that context, figures made available by the new government requirements for overseas buyers need to be made available to the public.
Secondly, if these figures underline Mr Twyford’s conclusion, the response must be carefully calibrated.
It would be easy to follow Australia’s lead and require overseas investors to build new houses.
This makes some sense in increasing supply rather than adding to demand.
It is a stern step, however. New Zealanders certainly take a dim view when they are denied the right to buy a house in an overseas country.
Equally, some of the purchases by overseas Chinese buyers are for family members, perhaps students, living in this country for at least some of the time.
Even when reliable data is available, therefore, a knee-jerk response must be out of the question.”
Penny Bright
Well, they can just rent a flat, like all the other students in the whole flaming world!
Can you just link to articles in the future? Walls of text disrupt the flow of discussion and reposting articles without permission opens the site up to copyright claims.
‘Goldman Sachs could face lawsuit for helping hide Greek debt – report’
http://rt.com/business/273208-greece-goldman-debt-lawsuit/
“A former Goldman Sachs banker suggested Greece start legal action against his former employer over complex financial deals that helped the country hide its national debt in 2001 and continue borrowing despite its poor economy, the Independent reports.
The banking giant made as much as $500 million from the transactions known as “swaps”, which translated Greek debts issued in dollars and yens into euros, the British daily says. The figure is, however, disputed by Goldman, which refuses to state an exact number. The deals were prepared by Antigone Loudiadis, who reportedly received $12 million a year for the job….
Greece will have as much luck with that as their other brilliant idea of getting money of Germany because of the Nazis.
This is the government that some on here were calling “heros” the other day… and what have they done … Gone against the wishes of their people in the referendum which gave the response that they were championing.
Now because they have been shown to be untrustworthy the country is way worse off than it was just a few months ago.
Excellent. The Greek government will only require 79 Billion Euros rather than 80 Billion when they win.
Well, that’s a good start!
Except they will still be bankrupt and economically hapless.
Welcome to the National Government’s modus operandi – “While most other governments intend cutting emissions, New Zealand appears to be increasing emissions, and hiding this through creative accounting. It may not have to take any action at all to meet either its 2020 or 2030 targets.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/278582/nz%27s-climate-change-target-condemned
-Twyford (again today on Morning Report)
I couldn’t agree more!
All those yelling “racist” at the top of their voices ( led by the ACT Party) have no valid explanation for the data.
That’s because there isn’t one, except for the conclusions Rob Salmon came to.
More interestingly, why why do some organisations seem so determined to shut this discussion?
Let’s look at who is benefiting from the status quo.
Its racist because a group is being demonised on the basis that their names sound Asian
Labour messed up (again) so now the best thing they could do is own up to it and apoligise
No surprise that you don’t know what racism is, PR. While you might be desperately hoping people are demonised, it’s not actually happening because most people can see past your faux outrage and focus on the facts. It must really be hurting you that Labour have got this issue right and have gazumped National so effectively!
You choose to make that interpretation of what has happened.
Most people don’t.
Most people being Nats, Standardistas, and the twitteratti. Those being affected by the housing crises in Auckland are probably nodding their heads in agreement.
Again ISTM that many on the left would rather be ideologically pure and in permanent opposition.
There are many on this website (including me) who think this is a crisis caused by large numbers of non-doms buying up housing and property in the country.
That’s not what Labour (Twyford and Little) said, though.
These are Twyford’s words.
” We do need to have a mature public debate about Chinese foreign investment in New Zealand real estate. Especially when the Government has refused to set up a register of foreign ownership and make it public.
Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and other nations have enacted restrictions on foreign buyers in recent years.
When the sales data also pointed to a big presence of offshore Chinese investors, Labour decided it was time to talk about this. However uncomfortable it may be, the sales data reinforces what so many Aucklanders have thought is going on.
It is simply not good enough to try to shut down an important public debate with allegations of racism.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11479817
You’re the one trying to shut it down – have you even put up an argument about why it is not racism – check out what Little said – “We understood the risks…” What risk did he understand?
I’m trying to keep the discussion open about Auckland’s housing crisis.
See that word 11 places in?
Here’s what we’re asked to believe:
One morning at breakfast…
Twyford: Hey Andy, I have this idea about the housing crisis.
Little: What is it?
Twyford: The Chinese are the problem.
Little: Sounds risky. Sounds kinda racist. Would Winston say something like that?
Twyford: Probably.
Little: Could be a bad idea then. What else could we talk about that focussed on grass roots social issues we have policy for? Something a bit less negatively framed?
Twyford: Anything really, we could talk a lot about the things we’re doing right, but it’s like no one is listening.
Little: What evidence is there no one is listening?
Twyford: Just a hunch.
Little: Do you have wider figures for foreign buyers?
Twyford: I say just concentrate on what we do know about the Chinese. We have an email.
Little: That’s true. And I know several people in Auckland.
Twyford: Should we ask around first?
Little: Nah it sounds fairly solid. I guess we know the risk then, run with it.
Later that afternoon….
Twyford: Shit, that escalated quickly.
Little: I know. Did someone actually throw a trident at you?
Twyford: Yep.
Little: Let’s run with justification of a specific segment of Chinese people and try to cover the shit trail. And whatever you do, don’t mention the risk!
nek minute…
Little: … and furthermore… we knew the risk… DOH!
As an overseas born mixed ethnicity/Eurasian person from South East Asia (I am neither from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong nor Korea) with a Chinese family name, I do not think Twyford has initiated a “mature debate”.
My family has been here for about forty years. There are now three generations of us in the extended family, in this country we regard as home. The perception of NZ being principled about egalitarianism, social justice, inclusion & non-discrimination attracted the older family members to this country.
All of us voted Labour. Some of us are Labour Party members (if the Labour membership list is being checked, please do not assume we have the same surname, let alone a Chinese sounding surname or a pinyin version as I have used here). Has Labour asked us how we feel or what we would have thought before launching off during the weekend on TV3? How do you think my family & I feel now? Does Labour reckon they have strengthened their support from my family since Saturday? How has Labour demonstrated their principles since then?
Whatever the polling outcome or policy proposals that will eventuate from hereon, I genuinely hope what has been triggered will be worthwhile for Labour and the country. And please, to the Labour Party, don’t forget those of us with Chinese sounding names as well as Chinese looking ones when we are seen in public. We would like to continue voting for the Labour Party.
May I suggest that the Labour Party – MPs, supporters & members – spare a thought about repairing relationships at some stage really soon after whatever outcome, which was planned or intended, has been achieved please?
Who is saying anything except Twyford is a small-minded git?
Truly pitiful rhetoric calling everyone who hates Twyfords racism, an act supporter.
Who said here, anything apart from Twyford being a twit. A ninny and a school boy chauvinist?
Twyfords the great sectarian leader for bigots across NZ. Making a bid for the NZ first leadership is he?
That aside, you can have a go at his lack of humanity and talk about the housing issue – it’s not an either/or issue. I don’t believe myself or anyone else for that matter, has argued any other way.
Housing in Auckland is a problem, transnational investment is a problem, the quality of the housing is a problem, the Aussie banks are a problem, Over crowding is a problem, the government keeping the housing bubble going, because, if it doesn’t we are going to loss ten’s of thousands of jobs, is a problem. Twyford being a bigoted git, is a problem. Housing NZ, is a problem. No capital gain, death duty and a crushing g.s.t on the poor is a problem.
So many parts to this problem, but all you good’ ol boys run off to save the twit Twyford.
1.Do you think non-doms should be allowed to own housing in NZ?
2. Do you think the data about the sale and purchase of housing should be open and transparent?
It would be a very weak minimum position, but yes we need both those points.
I also think we need a Capital gains tax. A death Tax. More houses.
A full investigation into the Aussie banks and their role in creating, and continuing the housing bubble here, and across the ditch.
More housing density, coupled with good public transport options.
No sale of the current social housing stock, with a massive improvement of the rights for tenants.
I also think the market can not solve this issue.
It needs a wholly new approach.
+1
The people benefiting from the status quo are the rich – everyone else is being screwed.
And that’s why our resident trolls and the ACT Party are so determined to frame this conversation as racist.
They know that one of the quickest ways of shutting down debate is to accuse your opponent of being sexist or racist.
We learned that little trick from the left…also helps to accuse your opponesnts as being trolls as well
But, by and large, when either accusation is made about tories it’s generally supported by actual fact, and is a general conclusion on the merits of an argument or the trustworthiness of a commenter.
When the accusation is made by tories, it’s generally (as you call it) a “little trick”, usually tenuous and made with the objective of derailing further analysis, however valid that analysis may be.
But being a moral vacuum, you are incapable of understanding the difference between the two.
Sorry but by and large the left are as bad and in some cases even worse than the right its just that the right are better at it
However I do see that the left now have a new weapon in their armoury with the new cyber bullying laws so we’ll see how that goes
Yeah, reread my last sentence above.
Well you keep on believing what you want to believe
Well I sure as shit wouldn’t want your worldview, where politics is merely a vicious game played by sociopaths who care not a jot for the real pain in the world and where all appeals to decency and calling-out of injustice are mere cynical ploys to score points. Surely humanity is more than just a pack of rabid dogs feasting on their weak?
fuck, it’s a wonder you didn’t slit your wrists years ago.
Suicide isn’t funny. Just sayin….
not a joke.
To believe that the only difference between political perspectives is simply that one side is better at being cynically manipulative than the others would be a fair approximation of hell. No hope of change. Ever.
Fuck.
I need to go for a cup of coffee.
“And that’s why our resident trolls and the ACT Party are so determined to frame this conversation as racist.”
“If your not for us your against us.”
Paul using good old George Bush Jr. rhetoric, what a find. You are a charmer mate. Or just another middle of the road lefty, who is in reality, an Ike style Republican.
If you can not divide up the debate – sorry for you. How about you read this, then we will talk as adults. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley.
Simple question.
Are you concerned about non-dom ownership of housing in NZ?
I am and I don’t know why that concern should be twisted.
“If your not for us your against us.”
erm… Paul didn’t actually use that rhetoric, did he?
I am just trying to point out that a lot of the people jumping up and down yelling ‘racist’ are folk like pr, BM, clean power etc etc.
Yes, there are left wing voices saying the same, but shouldn’t your bedfellows concern you Adam?
It is foreign overseas wealth that is the issue, American, German, British and Chinese. And our pathetic rules that allow wealthy overseas investors trump the civil right of residents in this country to affordable housing.
The reason why the rwnjs are yelling so loudly is that they support the unhindered access to ‘markets’ by the wealthy global elite. They support the looting of this country.
Can’t you see that?
The problem is that the Labour Party has been complicit in this since the 1980s and so, I, and many others are sceptical of whether they will really stand up for the rights of workers against foreign capital.
No, what worries me is so called left wing people like you Paul who are defending racists. That’s what is worrying me. And not all right wing people are racists.
To your other points you have not read a damn thing I’ve said – so go back and try again.
Now your worried that labour having now raised China to the level of spectre, they will back down.
Sheesh, and you only way to keep pressure up is to go lalalalala Twyford is not a chauvinist small minded git. Great politics, up lifting and inclusive – no wait, if you did that sort of politics, it be left wing…
But maybe that’s what we’re doing wrong – we don’t go for uplifting and inclusive
According to this Asians make up 21% of the Auckland population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Auckland
Apparently the data went to level2 ethnicity, so 21% Asian includes 9% “Asian (Chinese)”, 8% “Asian (Indian)”, etc.
Dame Susan takes Labour to task
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/70172739/use-of-halfbaked-housing-data-disappointing–devoy
And Twyford is acting Ethnic Affairs spokesman while Goff is overseas… you can’t make this shit up.
Someones decided to help Labour out:
http://howkiwiareyou.nz/
It sounds as plausible as Labours stats
To Clean-power – Devoy is muddled. She’s mixing local Chinese resident in NZ with the group that Phil Twyford is targetting – the non-resident Chinese who come in briefly for a few nights, go to the Auckland auctions, bag a few properties (using cheap finance), and fly off again.
Two totally different groups – and the local Chinese should be just as concerned at what their country-people are doing – because they’re also pushing them out of the Auckland housing market.
And to BM – Wikipedia is talking about the entire Asian population in Auckland – that would include Korean, Indian, and other nations as well as China. Twyford probably had his ethnic population figures from a more reliable source – NZ Stats Dept and the Auckland Council.
[Removed duplicate comment, Jenny, and added your edit about the council. TRP]
I imagine they both know what you have told them already.
Remember there are here as shills for the government and its powerful lobbyists, not to engage in rational discussion.
Trolls don’t debate.
I’m getting thoroughly sick of all this – she’s just making cheap shots burbling on about how it’s not fair to ‘Chinese New Zealanders’; when anyone with an IQ of above 60 knows perfectly well that the discussion is not about them; it’s about people without residency buying large amounts of property and distorting the market. In. fact, I’m getting really angry that people like my daughter-in-law and her family are being used by people to make what appear on the surface to be supportive arguments, but are really just a cynical tilt at the Labour Party. My family deserve better than this
C’mon Jenny. If Twyford sources are reliable, why doesn’t he disclose them and tell us who they are? The term “probably” is out of place here.
Hang on, are you demanding Twyford provide a reference for a stat reported by Weepus Beard as being what Twyford said on morning report, when even if it were an undercount then the figure of 21% still suggests either disproportionate purchases by a specific residential demographic, or non-resident purchases?
That seems to be a somewhat pointless exercise.
Which is probably why you’ve got your knickers in a twist about it.
shit that was to c_p. Must have missed the reply button
Something funny about the reply sequencing McFlock? I don’t know why I’m above the comment and not below. See where this one lands.
ok, someone’s deleted their comment and blown the threading, maybe.
[Might have been when I removed a duplicate comment halfway up. I’ll see if I can fix it. TRP]
[Yeah, CP’s reply to Anne’s duplicate comment is now an orphan. Must have been posted as I was trashing the dupe. Sorry about that. TRP]
I fixed some of the issues I was having with the duplicating RSS feeds. I just have to figure out a better solution to bloody google feeds duplicating (ie mostly blogger). Now I have to figure out a better fix.
I’ll correct this comment issue. But generally the best immediate fix is to pull the comment from Trash
Hooton kept repeating the term ‘international activist groups’ as if people advocating for changes to climate change policy and Zero Hours contracts were part of some evil conspiracy.
Sounded like the reds under the bed nonsense.
And yet the host challenged one of these nonsensical ideas.
RNZ going downhill.
In fact, Paul, the host (Lynn Freeman) contradicted Hooton and exposed his crude methodology. It was Mike Williams, as useless as ever, who failed to challenge Hooton.
I’ve done a transcript of the last four minutes of the programme—humiliating for Hooton—and I’ll put it up on Open Mike tomorrow morning.
Hello JanM (on iPad & cannot reply under your comment).
Thanks & sorry to hear that.
This is why Phil Twyford had to be more careful & skilful in raising the issues & when discussing that ‘research’.
On my part, how do people here think I feel when I will be at the next open home?
I don’t care how you feel at your next open home.
Not nice, Weepus beard
C’mon.
Huang Y.G’s plight at his next auction does not affect my family one bit. That’s the world that the Nazional party lead government and ACT type people have fostered upon us, is it not?
One where it’s every man for himself. A dog-eat-dog world?
I’ve never been to a house auction so he or she will get no sympathy from me, thanks very much.
Thanks for confirming that you’ve taken aspects of the right wing ethos to heart.
And you really seem to be more accepting of identity politics these days…
I really couldn’t give a stuff when the likes of Winston runs an anti-Asian campaign, but when a self styled broad church like Labour acts this politically inept and knowingly burns a couple of hundred thousand voters due to moves explained by an utter lack of Asians in its caucus and senior hierarchy, as well as a total lack of understanding the local Chinese community and its history, its time to escalate the push back.
I agree entirely.
The Labour caucus should be demographically representative (or at the very least make specific and explicit efforts to address the concerns of less powerful groups iin society). Labour, and society as a whole, will be stronger for it.
I am a renter with a young family, shut out of ever owning a house in the place I was born in and grew up in because of cheap foreign money propping up the current government’s economic policy, as hinted at by Phil Twyford, in the absence of much asked for buyers’ data.
You?
Same situation as my younger son, then, but I’d be ashamed of him if he carried on like this
Really?
You be ashamed of him for fighting for his family’s future against this volatile tide of cheap money which is distorting NZ’s delicate residential infrastructure?
No for having a go at someone without establishing where they’re coming from – you made an assumption and just went for it!. Read his 12.45 post
the Auckland property bubble has been blowing up big since 2001/2002, Helen Clark and Michael Cullen loved the wealth effect “propping up” their government’s finances too, foreign money has played a role in this, but there are a shit load of other factors as well, go blame Westpac, BNZ and ANZ for starters.
#labourdidittoo
A typical Auckland house went from $300,000 to $600,000 under Helen Clark’s watch. Lots of property owning middle class Aucklanders got suddenly rich – at least on paper. Buying houses for investments and capital gains became a Kiwi middle class past time. Lots of money from ever expanding mortgage debt was flooding the economy. Labour was fine with this. Cullen built his budget surpluses on it.
Now we find that the Auckland middle class are getting seriously priced out of the market by foreign money. All of a sudden, Labour wants to make a big media hoopla about how big a problem the Chinese are causing.
None of this is about helping the average Kiwi worker earning $50K pa get into an Auckland house.
I’m done conversing with you on this.
I say get the data, restrict foreigners from residential property, and slow immigration until Auckland infrastructure can catch up. That’s a socially responsible viewpoint.
You say don’t be so racist, supply is the problem, and Labour did it too. That’s a National party troll viewpoint.
I’m done.
That approach won’t sort out affordable housing in Auckland for 20 to 30 years, if even by then.
I’m more radical than you are on this topic by a million miles. You don’t even know it.
LOL mate, even the conservatives are more compassionate than you.
midday onenews – first item – labour getting smashed from all sides – thanks twyford and little you have really helped the gnats – wankers.
And the 3pm news headlines with a BNZ economist calling for a ban on foreign ownership of New Zealand property.
Means to an end Marty. You really need to get that chip off your shoulders that you hold against Labour. Mana/one trick pony Hone sold out and it was their choice 🙂
you’re right about one thing (I know, surprised me too) it is a means to an end but the end will not be the end rather the end of the end and then we’ll see what happens…
As I mentioned in another comment, you must always analyse why a bank economist is saying what they are saying, on behalf of their employer. In this case, BNZ would love to have these rich Chinese and other foreign buyers banned out of the market, because they are wealthy buyers who bring their own cash to the table – they do not need mortgages from the BNZ.
TL/DR: Every house bought using Chinese cash is a lost mortgage origination for the BNZ.
– Colonial Viper, 13/07/15
Bookmarked.
I’m getting sick of this.
Brave man, Twyford. Finally some facts emerging about this crazy house price bubble. Brave leaker from the Ak property company too, I bet there’s a witch hunt going on there right now too. Hope the leaker stays hid.
Yes there is a witch hunt going on over this story and I hate the potential for victimising NZ Chinese citizens.
But the facts that are emerging are real. If the stock market in China can lose trillions dropping back to earlier levels of just a few months ago meaning vast amounts of money was invested there, money that dwarfs NZs entire GDP, and the Chinese government is about to facilitate their citizens’ investment in foreign countries, and little old NZ still has no controls tax or other defences to restrict that, then we are fucked.
Brave man Twyford, thank Christ some people actually care about whether my daughters will ever be able to afford to buy a house in a NZ city in the next few years. Or whether go down the biggest depression hole we have ever seen. NZ doesnt have trillions of dollars, we have fuck all.
Don’t worry. Nick Smith has got our backs. You can trust Nick Smith to deal with this can’t you? [/sarc]
“Brave man Twyford”
You’re shitting me. This housing bubble has been blowing up since 2001/2002, a $300K house in 2001 is now worth over a million dollars 13 years later and suddenly fucking Twyford and Little and Labour figure out that its been the goddam Chinese all this time?
Talk about lazy rationalising of the Labour Government’s failures to control the money and debt flowing into the housing market and now the National Government’s failure to control money and debt flowing into the housing market.
As for your daughters buying houses in Auckland in a few years time, what are they, in the market for $700K houses? Because nothing Labour does to halt foreign ownership of NZ land has a shit show of lowering house prices back to even that level, let alone back to an actually affordable sub-$400K level.
Other cities too. The housing bubble trajectory in Auckland isnt going to stop it’s just going to get worse and spread to other cities and the eventual crash which bubbles foretell will be devastating for NZ citizens who mortgage up to try to get what we always thought a kiwi dream.
This speculative bubble is bigger than who is driving up the prices, it’s en route to tragedy unless our useless governments do something to control it.
its the exact same story with our exchange rate.
Every recent NZ govt has believed in the free flow of financial capital, no recent NZ government has believed in limiting capital flows.
BTW provincial towns all across NZ (excluding the likes of Wanaka and Greytown) have flat to declining house prices (esp once inflation is taken into account).
The answer is really quite simple. Give people a reason to move back to provincial NZ which is crying out for more population and more economic activity.
And yeah, ban foreign ownership of NZ land. Not just houses, all land.
How many people know that right NOW – at the Auckland Sky City Convention Centre, there is a great big fat ‘conference’ happening on combatting ‘money-laundering’?
Timing?
VENUE !?
Who would have thought …… !
“APG ANNUAL MEETING AND FORUM ON TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND TRAINING 2015
1 August 2014
The 2015 APG Annual Meeting and Technical Assistance and Training Forum will be held in Auckland, New Zealand in the week of 13-17 July 2015.
The APG Annual Meeting is the primary policy and decision-making vehicle for the APG. Decisions made at the Annual Meeting will set the course for the APG’s work over the next year.”
Wonder what their recommendations are going to be regarding the prevention of real estate / property market being used for ‘money-laundering’?
Penny Bright
Railway thinkers. I’ve noticed that a book featuring the historic past to much of our infrastructure is on Trademe. Big Ideas: 100 Wonders of NZ Engineering by Matthew Wright published in 2009. Closes this Saturday buynow at $33
There’s also Rails Across NZ, only $12 closes Tuesday morning so be quick,
and NZ on the move: 100 Transport Icons, Buy now $15 closes Wed.
Looking at the review of Big Ideas: 100 Wonders…in North and South October 2009,
It has great photos on early power-generating and road and rail building projects and ‘for a tin-pot colony at the bottom of the world” says Wright, the eingineering and technology applied were remarkable.
Photos: Laying underwater sections of the high-voltage direct-current cable in early 1960s.
Early Hamilton marine=jet units under construction. A Kiwi invention, the jet boat was a water-borne application of the axial-flow, impeller principle adopted in WW2 for jet engines.
Benmore hydro station 1958-1964. (I heard from people there that a Swiss company was called in eventually to assist.)
The Denniston self-acting incline.
John Britten’s V-twin motorcycle, built in 1992, wa the most stylish machine of its day – and the fastest.
Now the fleas on the back of giants are sucking up all the benefit that is still present in these projects and selling off the family silver so they can proceed, like all decadent children, to gamble away the family’s wealth and estate.
Chur GW
Yeah you’re exercising in the wrong place Clean power. You should be at the gym building those abs and shoulders to do the physical heavy lifting. The exercise of brain requires a different sort of robust energy beyond your innate capacity. Stick to what you’re made for man.
Not looking good for the Greeks now:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/12/finlands-parliament-in-favour-of-forcing-greece-out-of-the-euro-says-report
Confederate flag supporters rise up to defend embattled symbol
OCALA, FLA. | BY BARBARA LISTON
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/12/us-usa-confederate-ride-idUSKCN0PM11Q20150712
An eight-mile convoy of pickups, motorcycles and cars wound through a central Florida town on Sunday in a show of support for the Confederate flag, as a backlash against its banishment from public landmarks across the South picks up steam.
Horns blared and hundreds of the rebel flags fluttered as more than 1,500 vehicles and some 4,500 people turned out for the “Florida Southern Pride Ride” in Ocala, according to police estimates. Vehicles from states across the South and as far away as California participated.
“That flag has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people,” said David Stone, 38, who organized the event. “It doesn’t symbolize hate unless you think it’s hate – and that’s your problem, not mine.” ….
Continued…..
https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/34009
I find it hard to believe but I agree with Prebble on something
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11480088
I can’t even find any ‘hoik it off to the lowest bidder’ hook in there O.o
You would think money man Key would take a leaf out of American multi billionaire Warren Buffet’s book. There is money in freighting and like Prebble says the Rail corridors are already in place in most city’s in New Zealand.
I have to agree the gridlock on Auckland’s Roading network is beyond a joke, as I ponder should I travel to Auckland early tomorrow morning for a meeting at 10.30 am
or drive later this afternoon? Either way it means being stuck in traffic.
‘Dat moment the crazy right wing guy looks moderate compared to the present govt. O_O
McDonald’s moving to cage free eggs in all stores within 18 months, by which time the company will account for 9% of the free range market.
http://www.voxy.co.nz/lifestyle/mcdonalds-nz-commitments-100-free-range-eggs/5/226386
“We purchase a substantial amount of eggs a year – nearly 13 million – so in order to keep up with demand, our egg suppliers will be investing significantly in new farms and farming systems. This is why the rollout will happen over 18 months – it needs to be sustainable for our suppliers,” says Mr Wilson.
Number of beneficiaries going in debt to WINZ increasing.
Another illustration why consumption inequality is an inadequate measure.
This Washington Post Online article points out how Syriza has failed abysmally.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/10/how-greece-went-from-victory-to-economy-destroying-defeat/
Do you ever support the people or are you always shilling for the 1%?
Who are the 1% exactly? Are they the Taxpayers of Estonia, Latvia and Finland who will be the ones called upon to make sacrifices for the Greeks so they can continue spending far more than they earn? Have you ever wondered why the Finn’s, Latvian’s and Estonians’s (Not to mention the Dutch and Germans) on the whole are very resistant to both debt relief and giving Greece even more support? The Latvian’s and Estonian’s are not very wealthy. In fact an average pensioner in Latvia apparently earns less than their Greek counterpart.
Seems just about everyone has gone off the Greek issue Gosman?
I thought they’d be lining up to concede that you have been pretty much on the money all the way through. sarc.
We have seen a lot of it recently.
The National lead government being put under pressure by the opposition parties’ policies and calls for action on issue that infect the working poor, so much so that the National lead government waits a few months only to release a watered-down version of the same opposition policy and trumpet it as new legislation.
Sufficiently watered down, one might say, to try to please everybody. Mostly, however, it just pleases their business buddies while the worker, or the freezing tenant just has to suck it up in the name of flexibility of the labour market, or listen while being told to how to clean that black mould of your sick kids’ bedroom walls while on a budget.
Let’s look at four instances of this:
– The capital gains tax that is not a tax driven by David Parker.
– The rental housing WOF, which now just asks for smoke alarms and ineffectual polystyrene floor insulation, driven by the Green party.
– The data collection for house and land sales to foreign buyers that doesn’t collect any data, driven by Phil Twyford.
– The dismantling of zero-hour contracts (thanks Helen Kelly), which ended up as an weak appeasement to shonky employers.
This new and hurried legislation from the Nazional government only just tip-toes around the edges of something which will actually work for workers and their families, but none the less would not have happened at all if it were not for the brave people in opposition who come up with solutions for the increasingly disenfranchised every day.
My question is:
Are Labour and the Greens governing this country from the opposition benches?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/70183404/cheaper-milk-prices-help-cut-the-household-grocery-bill
and now for some good news
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/70184652/doctors-helping-patients-die-as-assisted-death-debate-rolls-on
”More than one in ten doctors have helped a patient die despite potentially breaking the law, a survey suggests.
In a fax poll of general practitioners, conducted by magazine New Zealand Doctor and IMS Health, nearly 12 per cent of respondents said they had helped a patient die. About two out of five doctors also said they had been asked to help a patient die, although most had refused.”
This creates an unsafe level of pressure and stress for the doctors who are prepared to do this to help their patients. Apart from the risk to their career, there is no avenue for them to receive the counselling anyone would require (whether what they are doing is permitted or not) to cope with the emotional burden of assisting someone to end their life.
Turei, less smart than I thought. Disappointing from her.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/70186455/greens-accuse-labour-of-crude-racial-profiling-on-housing-sales
Labour fighting back over Devoy’s comments.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/70202394/labour-hits-back-at-dame-susan-devoy-over-claim-its-housing-data-was-halfbaked
Just going out for popcorn… back soon.