“and in a sharply-worded editorial the nation’s top law enforcement official accused those worried about the surveillance program of being either criminals or conspiracy theorists”
“In some cases, the bill envisages monitoring the information in real time”
Two days before the country is set to elect a new president, Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court has ruled that the Islamist-dominated parliament must be dissolved and that former regime figures must be allowed to hold political office, effectively approving the candidacy of presidential hopeful and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq.
AJ news this morning talked about the “deep state” in Egypt. i.e.:
The reactionary militaristic power embedded in the state’s institutions: the courts etc.
This set me to wondering about the nature of NZ’s “deep state” and what is involved? The treasury? The media? The courts? The SIS?…. and how much it has been infiltrated by the so-called “neoliberal” discourses and practices?
Carol the questions you raise, are the questions which most want to blow off as “conspiracy”, and yet there are examples even in the MSM every day, which illustrate the realities of how the world is run, Egypt being the recent predictable example, shown by your post.
People want (need) to believe in accidents, coincidence, or stupidity of government..
As I’ve heard it Egypt was in a bind anyway. Aren’t there two candidates, one from the Muslim Brotherhood, with a fear of them by many as they may institute sharia law, and some guy who is part of the old regime.
Can someone help me with this — I woke in the freezing dead of night terrified with the thought that the TPP could be used by Monsanto and Dow to force GM substances into our food and feed markets ?
Just before the last election Nick Smith was sprung in his ignorance of a new study being done to support GM substances, and only recently in the House someone referred to ‘innovative’ agriculture.
Anyone know anything more about this study ?
The most idiotic thing of all is that we are one of the last bastions of non GMO — surely, this is a potential market of huge value ?
How do we oppose the TPP when none of it will be made public until after it is signed ??
So the question is how to oppose before you know when to oppose or what it is you are opposing; and then how to get out of the loop which uses a clause that cannot be refuted because it exists in the grey area of the probable?
The simple answer is to side step. Then you at least eliminate the imbalance of preparing for opposition without first winning a space for rationality and to form strategy. Next is to understand that nothing is certain and to get from a clean supply to a corrupted supply takes time and effort. Longer, definitely than it will take for you to get a good night’s sleep.
Those who supply GM products/seed are not certain of long term effects in the environment – this is both good and bad. We know what could go wrong, but we cannot know what we do not know i.e. the actual future. This means that our version of bad events may not happen. This isn’t to say it can’t happen or that general release is safe. It is just a way to place all points of the problem into a wider perspective. A mind that readily identifies patterns can become a powerful mental roadblock if allowed to reach an imbalance. Once the balance is lost, the patterns trap you. Realising the trap, indicated by being “terrifed with the thought”, then highlights the stall of thinking. There is a way forward. Life is not linear, regardless of how beautiful the pattern may seem. Life is full of chance. Chance is chance – pure, untouched, yet to be shaped, neither good nor bad, without bias, without prejudice. Nothing can be done in the terrified early hours of the cold morning. Relax.
Provided all the facts of the position have been presented, we can then work backwards from worst case, being vegetable and meat supplies corrupted with GM material.
Immediate solutions:
Urban farming; seedsaving/sharing; landshare; home based pork and poultry products; vegetarianism.
Start these intiatives now, you build up a following of like minds that in the very least is a real island of protection against an imagined tide of corrupted GM supply. The sooner they are started, the more time there is to address practical methods for protecting against cross-pollenation issues, legal oppositions and defenses etc. Pick a point of practical action and begin.
Indirect reactive influences:
Removing your food source from the corrupted food chain; self empowerment that can be extended to participants; reduction of demand for corrupted market; strengthening of necessity based community relationships.
There are other far more theoretical and complex imaginings supporting the premise that Dow and Monsanto could force-feed people bad food, but these take far more maneovering and time to manifest in NZ than it would take for a person to begin effectual action against them. In the context of an early morning wake-up call, they can be safely dismissed. These events could not happen entirely covertly i.e. the difference between clear and present danger and covert unknown dangers. If your mind starts to assign unrealistic power to unknown possibilities, catch it at work and realise the reality.
When dealing with possible scenarios based on supposition and likelihood, realise that nothing is certain. If, in the scenario, chance is allowed to make a tourist drop a handful of seed, then why is it that chance is then not allowed to intervene again later in a zero germination rate for the seeds? Maybe the natural pests and birds got the rest before they flowered?
Is this to say that we should do nothing, ever? Not at all. It is simply higlighting another trick of the mind to try to control the effect of chance for a negetive effect, resulting mostly, in people not being able to sleep at night. We cannot say what just one person, stating today on an urban farm will or will not cause to happen, even by small ripple effect, by this time next year. Don’t try to bully chance into being a bully. It would contravene the idea that nature knows best.
When confronted with the unknowable that threatens with the unforeseable, your first strategic weapon is your mind. Stay flexible. Remain calm. Step outside the cycle. View it from a distance, place all points in an overall wider context. Remember that bad does not exist without good, right without left, dark without light. If your mind recognises only negetive possibilities, you are acknowledging less than half the picture. Do not mentally oppose the unbalanced theoretical. Step back and be ready for opportunities for indirect action involving the actual.
Nice post Uturn , I just did some lucid calm thinking about reversing assets sales (on the No Assets sales post). The Monsanto issue is similar, play the buggers at their own game as you say by growing your own.
A little lucid clam thinking has also reminded me that the Monsanto model is truly integrated to the cheap petro chem model of agriculture and pesticides: oil decline will f**k them over in a number of ways.
If, in the scenario, chance is allowed to make a tourist drop a handful of seed, then why is it that chance is then not allowed to intervene again later in a zero germination rate for the seeds?
Um, because the opening of the hand is one chance, the sprouting of the seeds is hundreds of chances.
Actually, that entire rant was just a mind soothe seemingly designed to put peoples minds at rest about the dangers in GMO.
We need to massively support the Australian government in its stand and urge them to hold strong!!
Maybe the opposition parties can write an open letter to the Australian government
all it would take is one act of industrial espionage, such as a ‘tourist’ dropping a handful of GM seeds onto NZ soil and whammo Monsanto will be all over us with patent infringement cases and end up owning NZ.
watch Food Inc
and if you want to read some of their pitiful responses to the film http://www.monsanto.com/food-inc/Pages/default.aspx remember Monsanto was invited to be interviewed for the film but declined.
Bits of the TPP agreement that worry me are matters such as unions and worker’s rights. If governments cannot legislate in such ways as to reduce corporate profit margins, they may have difficulty opposing contract work, or the importation of short-term, low paid foreign workers while many of our own remain unemployed.
TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership (multinational economic agreement)) secrecy, well we have been confronted with this before when international deals were being discussed.. It’s so interesting in an objective way, to see wars being fought ostensibly to bring democracy. But the d word is just a game to play with, with less rigid rules than when playing Scrabble. But the politicians and their flunkeys and funders sure know how to use words and they can read philosophy, they just don’t understand it.
yeshe is imagining the effects on food and genetic engineering when the big corporates are allowed to have their way with us. I have been thinking of NZ as a naive girl with Tim Groser as a procurer employed by a hard-faced, money-obssessed, amoral group of confidence men and women within this country, catering for a powerful group of evil pirates looking for slave labour and treasure. We have this fascinating and dramatic serial unwinding which we can watch with avid interest as did the viewers in the film The Truman show.
Our girl wanders through the bush like little Red Riding Hood – will the wolfish group spirit her away or will the rescue party arrive to keep her alive? Fairy tales were largely precautionary tales for real people. I wait each day for the next episode with helpless anxiety.
Yes well…I was thinking of going for a G certificate, but even the kiddies today are going for, or being presented with, gritty adult ideas. (Recently I saw tshirt size 1 yr with a skull on it).
A sawn-off shotgun I believe fires off a lot of shot in all directions, yes could work.
Red Riding Hood in the TV show Once Upon a Time discovered that the wolf she feared so much, is herself. Her mother had been trying to protect her from the knowledge of being the latest in a long line of werewolves.
NZ maybe naive and ignorant on the future, because our “parents” have been keeping the truth from us. But that may be because we are more powerful than we realise… especially when we learn more of the truth.
Well that’s a great twist on the story. But energising a whole country to understand their inner werewolf would be too much for NZ I think. Though if we could make it a new fad we could spread the idea and develop that along complex network lines which are explained on Wikipedia which I still don’t understand. We need a new approach for sure, this same old same old isn’t going forward, just round and round down the gurgler.
Wow JMG continues his brilliant posts and his current theme of accepting the truth of what is happening to our industrial societies and the end game of that scenario. Last week he entitled his post, “collapse now and avoid the rush” and this week he discusses self-delusion.
I suspect, rather, that the refusal to recognize and deal with the end of progress will become a massive social force in the decade or so ahead of us, and that the great divide in American society during those years will not be the one between left and right, or between rich and poor, but between those who have accepted history’s verdict on our fantasy of perpetual progress, on the one hand, and those who cling to the fantasy despite all disconfirmations, on the other.
The hardcore megadeathdoomers don’t like him because he offers solutions for today and tomorrow and those solution start with us, where we are now, whatever we are doing. Many contributors to this site are up to speed on the situation, we can see it everywhere, and we are doing what we can. JMG makes me uncomfortable because his posts make me realise how much i am clinging onto this society and the benefits I get from it.
I tend to disagree with Greer a bit as I think that small societies with good renewable energy supplies and sustainable practices in resource use will be able to keep going. Yes, there will be power down. Nobody will have cars any more but there will still be transport and computers.
Have not explored that issue much but I tend toward any size community being able to continue to the level of the energy supply, which mean appropriate tools are necessary.
There has been a tendency on this blog for people to assume a non regression principle, i.e.that what we have and know about today is going to be possible forever. I would contend that the resources available will drive the technology we utilise, and that what we know about we may not be able to practice because of this. Lack of practice tends to lead to loss of practical memory, which can make re-adoption of known technology problematic.
Coming back to your small community contention when we talk high tech (computers etc) we are talking massive complexity of systems, supply, support etc with massive amounts of interdependence. The more complex the more chances there are for single point catastrophic failure. This would incline me towards a lower tech future being more likely than a retention of our core technologies.
You’ve also got to have a critical mass to be able to produce goods or services to pay off the bills for these things. Old school thinking I know but some sort of payment service will have to keep going in the future.
The classic example of the costs of modern infrastructure/technology at the moment is being played out in Kaipara with a small community being lumped with the cost of expensive wastewater treatment (albeit that the wastewater plant in question is oversized for the current population). A similar example is the wastewater plant at Kawakawa Bay that ended up costing $29M.
You’ve also got to have a critical mass to be able to produce goods or services to pay off the bills for these things.
Money != the economy
What that basically means is that if we have the physical resources available to do something then we can do it. We have the resources available but it does mean that over production in other areas (such as farming or building boats) and service industries (ZOMG, we won’t be able to afford to have anyone working at McDs) will have to be curtailed.
Or, as the tutors at uni said, economics is about the distribution of scarce resources and money is not a resource nor is it scarce.
Have not explored that issue much but I tend toward any size community being able to continue to the level of the energy supply, which mean appropriate tools are necessary.
Which means that we need to do a lot of R&D into renewable power generation
Coming back to your small community contention when we talk high tech (computers etc) we are talking massive complexity of systems, supply, support etc with massive amounts of interdependence.
Yep but it’s quite possible for us to do so. We have the base resources, we have access to the basic knowledge to do these things and we have universities and polytechnics for research and teaching.
We should be starting now but the R&D is to make what we have now more efficient and to tune it to local conditions. We also need to make it cover 100% of our needs.
Renewables aren’t going to cover all of our needs – and I am thinking here particularly of transportation. Coastal shipping, rail, air travel and public transport are all going to remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
Also (as I am quite sure you are aware) improving efficiency is not the real issue. Cutting total energy use is.
thanks for linking this, I confess to not having heard of this writer before now and I really like his/her blog and message. It’ll take a while to read the whole lot since 2006 but I’m inclined to do so based on the last three posts. Thanks mm
PS I started from the beginning and the fictional scenarios were very sweet.
I am finding it hard already to view comments on the “back down” of the Government on educational so called “policies”. We must have noted that Key accepted absolutely no responsibility, and settled for treating all opponents as a bunch of ignorant clowns incapable of comprehending Tory “wisdom” (is any one of that lot a qualified expert in education?)
Please be sure to read this morning’s N.Z. Herald editorial, probably the best they ever published!!
With auckland pop. Estimates to increase by 1 million by 2040, mainly as a result of immigration. Also given that nz grew due to net migration of 400,000 why is there no discussion as to the cost that this has resulted in. Growing pains that Auckland and NZ is incapable to cope with, and the consequences ( e.g high housing costs, increased infrusture and unity demand). We seem to have an amazing perpencity to create problems with bo associate solutions. Such growth will kill Auckland and thus NZ.
I don’t make comparisons with Hitler lightly and I’m not saying John Key is like Hitler but the hysterical voice of John Key when he talks about NZ not being involved in the illegal war in Iraq is truly frightening and makes me even more worried about NZ signing up to NATO.
I don’t see the problem. Comparison of todays people and activities with the biggest event in the 20th century is entirely applicable a lot of the time.
It’s fine when used rationally, but that’s a bit of a tautology.
The problem is when people with little life get obsessed by issues that are usually pretty little (e.g. maybe a local council placement of traffic lights near a school) or even imaginary (not touching with a bargepole). They lose perspective and start saying stuff like ‘this 30kph speed restriction is worse than H~!”. And everything goes downhill from there.
And like most things, if it gets overused it loses its ability to adequately communicate the user’s perspective.
Have people read in this morning’s Herald about the Government’s new scheme relating to the long-term unemployed? To my eye, the old scheme looks somewhat better and simpler! However, maybe I have got it wrong. Would like to know what others think.
If I have got it right, the Government input is now reduced from a total of $92 to a revised total of $62! Are we, again, being sold “a bill of goods”?
Have people read in this morning’s Herald about the Government’s new scheme relating to the long-term unemployed?
I read it on their website.. or think I did! Something similar anyway…
Very jolly complicated, and as far as I can see, much less helpful than the previous ones!
Apologies to the watchers the writers the minders and the keepers of The Standard.
-if this posting results in a ban i unreservedly accept it and have weighed that against the importance of the act which is itself a last resort dictated by circumstances not of my making.
A direct question to Pete George:
Are you the Peter G who set up the No Asset Sales petition at Avaaz.org?
Earlier today on your blog i asked you that direct question. Instead of replying like an adult you removed the post and have not responded. If you had time to remove the post you had time to reply. I feel you left me no option but to inquire more publicly.
I have contacted Avaaz re the posting. I outlined the situation here in NZ and requested a clear header be added to the on-line petition explaining that it has no validity in the referendum process and is actually doing more harm than good. Something most here would be well aware of, including you Peter George.
PG I gave you an opportunity to answer a very simple question but instead you removed the post that has been part of your site since the petition’s inception. ( Really pathetic!) You slid away under your rock and this act of malfeasance will not be forgotten. (Sure you are not in public office but you basically imagine yourself to be, so it is more than apt)
note: for full disclosure i will happily post the email sent to Avaaz.org if requested
( after editing identifiers )
p.s. PG after discovering you had removed the No Asset Sales post promoting the Avaaz.org petition i took screengrabs so don’t try to repost it. I wish i had done earlier as well but the idea you would remove the post supporting the petition never occurred to me, naive little bunny that i am
[Your question seems fair to me freedom. You’re not speculating about the identity of anonymous / pseudonymous participants here. You’re just asking Pete George if he started a petition. — r0b]
No, I haven’t started any petitions. I don’t know what happened to your question on the blog, I haven’t had time to do anything there. Back later this morning.
The question wasn’t about ‘any’ petitions, it was about one specific petition. Are you the Pete G. who started the Avaaz ssset sales petition or not? Yes or no?
Just because I can .. please Pete, may I ask you — does anyone else, or did anyone else, have access to your blog for writing and/or posting/ or deleting ? May you receive it as a fair question … many thx.
You deleted the entire thread that was promoting the Avaaz No Asset Sales Petition, not just my posted question. As it is your blog you very well know what happened and you now decide to besmirch the security record and the reputation of WordPress.com by insinuating that a phantom manipulated your blog and removed a thread that you had been actively promoting. That, or you are accusing me of fabricating the existence of said thread.
I stand by the facts asserted in the post above and only wish i had taken screen grabs of the blog when i first visited the thread, but why would i ever suspect it would be removed. Having screen grabs of the current listings only shows the post is not there. I cannot prove it ever was but as i am not prone to posting on non-existent threads i know it was and you know it was.
I thank The Standard for allowing this matter to be aired. I sincerely hope it offers many here a moment of reflection as to the character and intentions of Pete George.
I will continue to do what i can to promote and support the real petition but on the Peter G petition i am done, i have had enough of my time wasted on this saboteur
freedom, IMHO I don’t think that PG is the author of the online petition although I share your and others’ views on PG’s disingenuity etc. It has been a relief not having him spewing here for two days.
The reasons I don’t think it is him are that he is very consistent in using “Pete” not “Peter” in his blogging across many blogs and on Linked In etc (Yes I checked) and the online petition originator is “Peter G”. The writing style and language used in the petition and its updates are also very different from that of PG – for example, PG hardly knows the difference between “Government” and “Parliament” and has used these incorrectly a number of times. The online petition is very clear in its language, eg The bill will now be debated by the Committee of the Whole House, and opposition parties are planning to propose hundreds of amendments to delay Government legislation.
That is not to say that someone else could not have wrote it for him! But my gut instinct is that it is not him, but that is in no way of a defence of him as i have no respect etc for PG.
I signed the online petition is an instant reaction when it was first put up but have also signed and totally support the official referendum. I agree that it would be easy for people to mistakenly think the online petition is the referendum one, and wish that the online one had made it clear that they were not one and the same. There does not seem to be any way to communicate this to the author. My reading of the online petition was/is that it is an attempt to get as many to sign in a short space of time (and almost 25,000 as of a few minutes ago is pretty astounding in 3-4 days) to thow at Key et al next week when the Bill goes into Committee stages.
I am really pleased you raised the question as to whether Pete George was the author – and in some perverse ways I hope that my opinion is wrong. On the other hand, our discussion of this as a possibility also plays right into what I also think is PG’s raison d’etre – to be the centre of attention and to think he is much more important and influential than he really is.
i will reply to Pete here and everyone can be assured this is the end of this matter although little is clear.
I agree Pete, nothing about this is usual. All i can say is something very very strange is going on. I am certainly a magnet for strange and would love to understand why. I saw the petition, saw the creator, went to your blog, saw the post promoting the petition on your blog and submitted a question using the reply function.
If you declare you did not start the Avaaz petition i must accept that, but if you say you have not deleted a posting on the petition then i guess i hallucinated the whole thing and should seek immediate psychiatric help! I have had professional counseling for PTSD in the past and no suspicion of any psychiatric illness was ever identified in fact the two therapists I have worked with both stated clearly that i have a clear and perceptive grasp of reality.
I guess it is a Ripley’s moment and we all end up as much in the dark as when we began.
Someone somewhere knows what is going on and I hope they are happy with the disquiet that has been generated. Perhaps someday they will fill me in on the joke because i do not find it funny, neither do i suspect does Pete who it appears has been unjustly accosted by me on this subject. I do not know what else to do, despite my misgivings i feel i must say sorry Pete for the suspicion that you tried to sabotage the petition process. As the Petition is 305 signatories away from its goal, I guess we might discover who Peter G is when the avaaz petition gets delivered to parliament as promised. Pete , i am sorry.
I saw the petition, saw the creator, went to your blog, saw the post promoting the petition on your blog and submitted a question using the reply function.
There was no post promoting the petition on the blog (the Yourdunedin.org one) that i have seen and i don’t know how there could have been unless hacked – and subsequently unhacked.
You posted on About which had no link to the petition.
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Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
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 ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
The Fast-track Bill, if passed, would allow three Ministers, unchallenged and unchecked, to approve the immediate extraction and exhaustion of one-off resources. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
In apparent defiance of the Biden administration, the Netanyahu government has now initiated missile strikes against Iran. Last Saturday night (Sunday morning in New Zealand) Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against Israeli military targets. With the assistance of US, UK and possibly French forces, ...
Māori representation brings a perspective that encompasses not only the interests of Māori communities but also a broader, holistic approach to environmental stewardship and community well-being, principles deeply embedded in Te Ao Māori (the Māori ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
Zoë Colling’s favourite piece in the ‘That’s So Last Century’ collection is a lubrication chart for a sewing machine from the ’60s. It’s about the size of a postcard, and carefully maintained. “I like it that this piece of ephemera highlights that manual and technical side of the skill involved ...
Kia Ora Gaza A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to ...
With submissions closing today, Macassey-Pickard says groups around the country have been supporting a huge range of people to make their submissions. ...
Our response to the new legislation is informed by targeted conversations with practitioners working in the system and through an implementation lens. ...
The new ‘Fast-track Approvals Bill’ would give just three Ministers the power to approve or deny development projects. They would avoid the usual checks and balances that are in place to protect rivers, land, the ocean, and communities. ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pearce, Professor, School of Allied Heath, Human Services & Sport, La Trobe University, La Trobe University This week, Collingwood AFL player Nathan Murphy announced his retirement, brought on by his concussion history and ongoing issues. The 24-year-old’s seemingly sudden retirement, ...
The Mental Health Foundation provides support and resources for those facing the loss of their job, so it’s wrong in the very week the Government adds another 1000 jobs to its tally of cuts, that this is happening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/Sydney Theatre Company Decay, terror, revulsion. These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President. The Austrian is one of the greatest ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says threats by ministers Shane Jones and David Seymour to reform or close down the Waitangi Tribunal were “ill-considered”, as legal experts say the ministers may have breached Cabinet Manual conventions. “I think those comments are ill-considered and we expect all ministers to actually exercise good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ye In (Jane) Hwang, Postdoctoral Research Associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Pexels/RDNE stock project You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. ...
A new poem by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. Mitochondrial Problem I. It was long drive to Kansas for the man and his dog but you have to understand he said She doesn’t fly. Which calls to mind not carsick shitting barking or whining but a dog who chooses not to as ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)Hot off the press, this debut ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without ...
Chief executive Shaun Robinson said it has not had any government funding cut, but government-funded contracts have not kept pace with rising costs. ...
The Ministry of Health has delayed the release of its evidence brief on the safety, reversibility and mental health and wellbeing outcomes for puberty blockers. While we wait, Julia de Bres speaks to those with firsthand experience. Best practice gender-affirming healthcare is based on trans people’s self-determination and agency. The ...
Barcelona’s city streets have gone from traffic-clogged to pedestrian-friendly. How? Superblocks. Ellen Rykers explains. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week I read a great interview with renowned urbanist Janette Sadik-Khan by The Spinoff’s Wellington editor Joel MacManus: “You can reimagine streets, ...
Student groups ‘Climate Action VUW’, Schools Strike 4 Climate and VUWSA will be on the street in Wellington today, the last day for submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill, with a message that the fight against the Government’s ‘War on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sofia Ammassari, Research Fellow, Griffith University Since 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity has grown exponentially – and so has the formidable organisational machine of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). These two factors will be key to delivering the BJP a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Associate Professor of Education (Adjunct) & Senior Manager (BCE), Charles Sturt University During COVID almost all Australian students and their families experienced online learning. But while schools have long since gone back to in-person teaching, online learning has not gone ...
Yes, they’re better for the environment. No, that’s not a good enough reason for me to use them. Once every 26 days or so, my period arrives, and if struck by an act of God, I am caught red-crotched without products. How, after 17 years of this, do I still ...
“It will cause significant harm to our environment and communities. It is completely at odds with New Zealanders’ relationship with nature and our need for a low-carbon, sustainable economic future." ...
The Chair of the National Maori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, has warned a Parliamentary Select Committee that fast-tracking legislation is a perilous practice that undermines the core tenets of democracy, transparency, and accountability. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Tenbensel, Associate Professor, Health Policy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Since coming into power, the coalition government has adopted a simple but shrewd see-how-fast-we-can-move political strategy. However, in the health sector this need for speed entails ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Hronis, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Darya Sannikova/Pexels Whether you’re watching TV, attending a footy game, or eating a meal at your local pub, gambling is hard to escape. Although the rise of gambling is not unique to Australia, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Wong, Forrest Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia Have you ever wondered if there are more insects out at night than during the day? We set out to answer this question by combing through the scientific ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol T Kulik, Research Professor, University of South Australia IR Stone/Shutterstock In Australia, it’s not the done thing to know – let alone ask – what our colleagues are paid. Yet, it’s easy to see how pay transparency can make pay ...
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is sounding a warning to migrants, that running foul of the law may see them leaving the country prematurely. ...
The government’s plan to get 50,000 people off jobseeker support by 2030 has had a rocky start, 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. Beneficiary numbers are up – and so are ...
Raglan Roast is a staple of Wellington coffee culture. But with five branches across the capital, which one is the best? I am a die-hard Raglan Roast fan. It’s consistently the most affordable cafe in Wellington, and one of the only places you can get a coffee after 3pm. So, ...
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The thousands of government “back-office” job cuts are causing widespread pain in the capital city. In today’s episode of The Detail, we speak to three journalists and a think tank researcher, looking at the larger picture around the cuts and what effect it will have on Wellington, a city that’s ...
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Home Office Secretary Theresa May said in an editorial published ahead of the bill’s unveiling that only evil-doers should be frightened.
“and in a sharply-worded editorial the nation’s top law enforcement official accused those worried about the surveillance program of being either criminals or conspiracy theorists”
“In some cases, the bill envisages monitoring the information in real time”
–Welcome to the jobs new growth sector
This world is heading the wrong way very quickly.
Sad news about the dissolution of Egypt’s parliament by the high court:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/06/2012614172410271831.html
AJ news this morning talked about the “deep state” in Egypt. i.e.:
The reactionary militaristic power embedded in the state’s institutions: the courts etc.
This set me to wondering about the nature of NZ’s “deep state” and what is involved? The treasury? The media? The courts? The SIS?…. and how much it has been infiltrated by the so-called “neoliberal” discourses and practices?
We’ve seen a member of a well known South Island farming family claim some pretty impressive scalps this week.
Carol the questions you raise, are the questions which most want to blow off as “conspiracy”, and yet there are examples even in the MSM every day, which illustrate the realities of how the world is run, Egypt being the recent predictable example, shown by your post.
People want (need) to believe in accidents, coincidence, or stupidity of government..
As I’ve heard it Egypt was in a bind anyway. Aren’t there two candidates, one from the Muslim Brotherhood, with a fear of them by many as they may institute sharia law, and some guy who is part of the old regime.
Egyptian Amr Bargisi, who may or may not be on a neo-lib payroll, is very pessimistic about his country’s future.
Can someone help me with this — I woke in the freezing dead of night terrified with the thought that the TPP could be used by Monsanto and Dow to force GM substances into our food and feed markets ?
Just before the last election Nick Smith was sprung in his ignorance of a new study being done to support GM substances, and only recently in the House someone referred to ‘innovative’ agriculture.
Anyone know anything more about this study ?
The most idiotic thing of all is that we are one of the last bastions of non GMO — surely, this is a potential market of huge value ?
How do we oppose the TPP when none of it will be made public until after it is signed ??
So the question is how to oppose before you know when to oppose or what it is you are opposing; and then how to get out of the loop which uses a clause that cannot be refuted because it exists in the grey area of the probable?
The simple answer is to side step. Then you at least eliminate the imbalance of preparing for opposition without first winning a space for rationality and to form strategy. Next is to understand that nothing is certain and to get from a clean supply to a corrupted supply takes time and effort. Longer, definitely than it will take for you to get a good night’s sleep.
Those who supply GM products/seed are not certain of long term effects in the environment – this is both good and bad. We know what could go wrong, but we cannot know what we do not know i.e. the actual future. This means that our version of bad events may not happen. This isn’t to say it can’t happen or that general release is safe. It is just a way to place all points of the problem into a wider perspective. A mind that readily identifies patterns can become a powerful mental roadblock if allowed to reach an imbalance. Once the balance is lost, the patterns trap you. Realising the trap, indicated by being “terrifed with the thought”, then highlights the stall of thinking. There is a way forward. Life is not linear, regardless of how beautiful the pattern may seem. Life is full of chance. Chance is chance – pure, untouched, yet to be shaped, neither good nor bad, without bias, without prejudice. Nothing can be done in the terrified early hours of the cold morning. Relax.
Provided all the facts of the position have been presented, we can then work backwards from worst case, being vegetable and meat supplies corrupted with GM material.
Immediate solutions:
Urban farming; seedsaving/sharing; landshare; home based pork and poultry products; vegetarianism.
Start these intiatives now, you build up a following of like minds that in the very least is a real island of protection against an imagined tide of corrupted GM supply. The sooner they are started, the more time there is to address practical methods for protecting against cross-pollenation issues, legal oppositions and defenses etc. Pick a point of practical action and begin.
Indirect reactive influences:
Removing your food source from the corrupted food chain; self empowerment that can be extended to participants; reduction of demand for corrupted market; strengthening of necessity based community relationships.
There are other far more theoretical and complex imaginings supporting the premise that Dow and Monsanto could force-feed people bad food, but these take far more maneovering and time to manifest in NZ than it would take for a person to begin effectual action against them. In the context of an early morning wake-up call, they can be safely dismissed. These events could not happen entirely covertly i.e. the difference between clear and present danger and covert unknown dangers. If your mind starts to assign unrealistic power to unknown possibilities, catch it at work and realise the reality.
When dealing with possible scenarios based on supposition and likelihood, realise that nothing is certain. If, in the scenario, chance is allowed to make a tourist drop a handful of seed, then why is it that chance is then not allowed to intervene again later in a zero germination rate for the seeds? Maybe the natural pests and birds got the rest before they flowered?
Is this to say that we should do nothing, ever? Not at all. It is simply higlighting another trick of the mind to try to control the effect of chance for a negetive effect, resulting mostly, in people not being able to sleep at night. We cannot say what just one person, stating today on an urban farm will or will not cause to happen, even by small ripple effect, by this time next year. Don’t try to bully chance into being a bully. It would contravene the idea that nature knows best.
When confronted with the unknowable that threatens with the unforeseable, your first strategic weapon is your mind. Stay flexible. Remain calm. Step outside the cycle. View it from a distance, place all points in an overall wider context. Remember that bad does not exist without good, right without left, dark without light. If your mind recognises only negetive possibilities, you are acknowledging less than half the picture. Do not mentally oppose the unbalanced theoretical. Step back and be ready for opportunities for indirect action involving the actual.
Effective minds require sleep. Stay effective.
Nice post Uturn , I just did some lucid calm thinking about reversing assets sales (on the No Assets sales post). The Monsanto issue is similar, play the buggers at their own game as you say by growing your own.
A little lucid clam thinking has also reminded me that the Monsanto model is truly integrated to the cheap petro chem model of agriculture and pesticides: oil decline will f**k them over in a number of ways.
really great comment Uturn.
Um, because the opening of the hand is one chance, the sprouting of the seeds is hundreds of chances.
Actually, that entire rant was just a mind soothe seemingly designed to put peoples minds at rest about the dangers in GMO.
We need to massively support the Australian government in its stand and urge them to hold strong!!
Maybe the opposition parties can write an open letter to the Australian government
all it would take is one act of industrial espionage, such as a ‘tourist’ dropping a handful of GM seeds onto NZ soil and whammo Monsanto will be all over us with patent infringement cases and end up owning NZ.
watch David vs Monsanto
http://archive.org/details/DavidV.Monsanto
watch Food Inc
and if you want to read some of their pitiful responses to the film http://www.monsanto.com/food-inc/Pages/default.aspx remember Monsanto was invited to be interviewed for the film but declined.
Most importantly, use your own powers of critical perception and ask who the TPP will benefit?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1206/S00186/national-says-yes-to-investor-rights-to-sue.htm
Bits of the TPP agreement that worry me are matters such as unions and worker’s rights. If governments cannot legislate in such ways as to reduce corporate profit margins, they may have difficulty opposing contract work, or the importation of short-term, low paid foreign workers while many of our own remain unemployed.
TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership (multinational economic agreement)) secrecy, well we have been confronted with this before when international deals were being discussed.. It’s so interesting in an objective way, to see wars being fought ostensibly to bring democracy. But the d word is just a game to play with, with less rigid rules than when playing Scrabble. But the politicians and their flunkeys and funders sure know how to use words and they can read philosophy, they just don’t understand it.
yeshe is imagining the effects on food and genetic engineering when the big corporates are allowed to have their way with us. I have been thinking of NZ as a naive girl with Tim Groser as a procurer employed by a hard-faced, money-obssessed, amoral group of confidence men and women within this country, catering for a powerful group of evil pirates looking for slave labour and treasure. We have this fascinating and dramatic serial unwinding which we can watch with avid interest as did the viewers in the film The Truman show.
Our girl wanders through the bush like little Red Riding Hood – will the wolfish group spirit her away or will the rescue party arrive to keep her alive? Fairy tales were largely precautionary tales for real people. I wait each day for the next episode with helpless anxiety.
My version of Little Red Riding Hood has her carrying a basket with a gingham cloth cover, which when removed reveals a sawn off shotgun……..
Yes well…I was thinking of going for a G certificate, but even the kiddies today are going for, or being presented with, gritty adult ideas. (Recently I saw tshirt size 1 yr with a skull on it).
A sawn-off shotgun I believe fires off a lot of shot in all directions, yes could work.
Red Riding Hood in the TV show Once Upon a Time discovered that the wolf she feared so much, is herself. Her mother had been trying to protect her from the knowledge of being the latest in a long line of werewolves.
NZ maybe naive and ignorant on the future, because our “parents” have been keeping the truth from us. But that may be because we are more powerful than we realise… especially when we learn more of the truth.
Knowledge and acceptance of the truth will allow self-governance, being kept in the dark and fed BS keeps us slaves.
Guess which seems to be the one that this government wants?
“Guess which seems to be the one that this government wants?”
–Not just this govt though is it!
Well that’s a great twist on the story. But energising a whole country to understand their inner werewolf would be too much for NZ I think. Though if we could make it a new fad we could spread the idea and develop that along complex network lines which are explained on Wikipedia which I still don’t understand. We need a new approach for sure, this same old same old isn’t going forward, just round and round down the gurgler.
Wow JMG continues his brilliant posts and his current theme of accepting the truth of what is happening to our industrial societies and the end game of that scenario. Last week he entitled his post, “collapse now and avoid the rush” and this week he discusses self-delusion.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/
The hardcore megadeathdoomers don’t like him because he offers solutions for today and tomorrow and those solution start with us, where we are now, whatever we are doing. Many contributors to this site are up to speed on the situation, we can see it everywhere, and we are doing what we can. JMG makes me uncomfortable because his posts make me realise how much i am clinging onto this society and the benefits I get from it.
Greer, Orlov and Kunstler, the Holy Trinity of truly clear thinking on matters of the future…..
Actual Link
I tend to disagree with Greer a bit as I think that small societies with good renewable energy supplies and sustainable practices in resource use will be able to keep going. Yes, there will be power down. Nobody will have cars any more but there will still be transport and computers.
But, it does need to be a small society.
Have not explored that issue much but I tend toward any size community being able to continue to the level of the energy supply, which mean appropriate tools are necessary.
There has been a tendency on this blog for people to assume a non regression principle, i.e.that what we have and know about today is going to be possible forever. I would contend that the resources available will drive the technology we utilise, and that what we know about we may not be able to practice because of this. Lack of practice tends to lead to loss of practical memory, which can make re-adoption of known technology problematic.
Coming back to your small community contention when we talk high tech (computers etc) we are talking massive complexity of systems, supply, support etc with massive amounts of interdependence. The more complex the more chances there are for single point catastrophic failure. This would incline me towards a lower tech future being more likely than a retention of our core technologies.
You’ve also got to have a critical mass to be able to produce goods or services to pay off the bills for these things. Old school thinking I know but some sort of payment service will have to keep going in the future.
The classic example of the costs of modern infrastructure/technology at the moment is being played out in Kaipara with a small community being lumped with the cost of expensive wastewater treatment (albeit that the wastewater plant in question is oversized for the current population). A similar example is the wastewater plant at Kawakawa Bay that ended up costing $29M.
Money != the economy
What that basically means is that if we have the physical resources available to do something then we can do it. We have the resources available but it does mean that over production in other areas (such as farming or building boats) and service industries (ZOMG, we won’t be able to afford to have anyone working at McDs) will have to be curtailed.
Or, as the tutors at uni said, economics is about the distribution of scarce resources and money is not a resource nor is it scarce.
Which means that we need to do a lot of R&D into renewable power generation
Yep but it’s quite possible for us to do so. We have the base resources, we have access to the basic knowledge to do these things and we have universities and polytechnics for research and teaching.
I wouldn’t bother.
Hydro, localised and national grid wind generation and solar thermal is 80% of what we need.
Let’s just get on with it now.
We should be starting now but the R&D is to make what we have now more efficient and to tune it to local conditions. We also need to make it cover 100% of our needs.
Renewables aren’t going to cover all of our needs – and I am thinking here particularly of transportation. Coastal shipping, rail, air travel and public transport are all going to remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
Also (as I am quite sure you are aware) improving efficiency is not the real issue. Cutting total energy use is.
Coastal shipping = sail
Rail/public transport = electric
Air travel will be non-existent
We can produce enough to cover what we need if we build the infrastructure. And there’s one other thing:
We have no choice, renewables must cover what we need.
Which is why cars will be gone.
thanks for linking this, I confess to not having heard of this writer before now and I really like his/her blog and message. It’ll take a while to read the whole lot since 2006 but I’m inclined to do so based on the last three posts. Thanks mm
PS I started from the beginning and the fictional scenarios were very sweet.
Hating on the Herb – Propaganda Lolz
I am finding it hard already to view comments on the “back down” of the Government on educational so called “policies”. We must have noted that Key accepted absolutely no responsibility, and settled for treating all opponents as a bunch of ignorant clowns incapable of comprehending Tory “wisdom” (is any one of that lot a qualified expert in education?)
Please be sure to read this morning’s N.Z. Herald editorial, probably the best they ever published!!
+1
With auckland pop. Estimates to increase by 1 million by 2040, mainly as a result of immigration. Also given that nz grew due to net migration of 400,000 why is there no discussion as to the cost that this has resulted in. Growing pains that Auckland and NZ is incapable to cope with, and the consequences ( e.g high housing costs, increased infrusture and unity demand). We seem to have an amazing perpencity to create problems with bo associate solutions. Such growth will kill Auckland and thus NZ.
I don’t make comparisons with Hitler lightly and I’m not saying John Key is like Hitler but the hysterical voice of John Key when he talks about NZ not being involved in the illegal war in Iraq is truly frightening and makes me even more worried about NZ signing up to NATO.
Yeah, yeah it’s the H word purgatory
[lprent: Yep. It is one of the classic misuse words to catch trolls. To know that it is there is to make it simple to get around. 😈 ]
I’m glad you came to the conclusion that this is not how I used it. 🙂
I don’t see the problem. Comparison of todays people and activities with the biggest event in the 20th century is entirely applicable a lot of the time.
Lest we forget ffs ……….
It’s fine when used rationally, but that’s a bit of a tautology.
The problem is when people with little life get obsessed by issues that are usually pretty little (e.g. maybe a local council placement of traffic lights near a school) or even imaginary (not touching with a bargepole). They lose perspective and start saying stuff like ‘this 30kph speed restriction is worse than H~!”. And everything goes downhill from there.
And like most things, if it gets overused it loses its ability to adequately communicate the user’s perspective.
Hi vto,
I thought this might interest you. It is a complete map of the inner circle of Bilderberg and their business interests.
well they both had/have a thing for building motorways.
Austerity Failure – UK to counter austerity with huge cash injection
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2159480/140bn-kiss-life-Britain-Chancellor-Bank-dramatic-bid-hand-small-firms-house-buyers-cheap-loans–gamble-work.html
Correct Peter, instead, tax cuts are the answer http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-20/news/31372306_1_stimulus-ponytail-financial-crisis
Although these would be labelled ‘tax cuts for the rich’ and slammed by the left if it happened in NZ.
Have people read in this morning’s Herald about the Government’s new scheme relating to the long-term unemployed? To my eye, the old scheme looks somewhat better and simpler! However, maybe I have got it wrong. Would like to know what others think.
If I have got it right, the Government input is now reduced from a total of $92 to a revised total of $62! Are we, again, being sold “a bill of goods”?
I read it on their website.. or think I did! Something similar anyway…
Very jolly complicated, and as far as I can see, much less helpful than the previous ones!
Apologies to the watchers the writers the minders and the keepers of The Standard.
-if this posting results in a ban i unreservedly accept it and have weighed that against the importance of the act which is itself a last resort dictated by circumstances not of my making.
A direct question to Pete George:
Are you the Peter G who set up the No Asset Sales petition at Avaaz.org?
Earlier today on your blog i asked you that direct question. Instead of replying like an adult you removed the post and have not responded. If you had time to remove the post you had time to reply. I feel you left me no option but to inquire more publicly.
I have contacted Avaaz re the posting. I outlined the situation here in NZ and requested a clear header be added to the on-line petition explaining that it has no validity in the referendum process and is actually doing more harm than good. Something most here would be well aware of, including you Peter George.
PG I gave you an opportunity to answer a very simple question but instead you removed the post that has been part of your site since the petition’s inception. ( Really pathetic!) You slid away under your rock and this act of malfeasance will not be forgotten. (Sure you are not in public office but you basically imagine yourself to be, so it is more than apt)
note: for full disclosure i will happily post the email sent to Avaaz.org if requested
( after editing identifiers )
p.s. PG after discovering you had removed the No Asset Sales post promoting the Avaaz.org petition i took screengrabs so don’t try to repost it. I wish i had done earlier as well but the idea you would remove the post supporting the petition never occurred to me, naive little bunny that i am
[Your question seems fair to me freedom. You’re not speculating about the identity of anonymous / pseudonymous participants here. You’re just asking Pete George if he started a petition. — r0b]
No, I haven’t started any petitions. I don’t know what happened to your question on the blog, I haven’t had time to do anything there. Back later this morning.
The question wasn’t about ‘any’ petitions, it was about one specific petition. Are you the Pete G. who started the Avaaz ssset sales petition or not? Yes or no?
FFS, “I haven’t started any petitions” means I have not started any petitions, at all, zero, including the Avaaz petition mentioned.
Are you the Pete G. who started the Avaaz ssset sales petition or not? Yes or no?
In case you still don’t undertsand that – No.
And that was under “Peter G.”, I don’t use that variant of my name online.
Just because I can .. please Pete, may I ask you — does anyone else, or did anyone else, have access to your blog for writing and/or posting/ or deleting ? May you receive it as a fair question … many thx.
I don’t know how anyone else could have had access to the Yourdunedin.org blog.
to PG: You disingenuous person,
You deleted the entire thread that was promoting the Avaaz No Asset Sales Petition, not just my posted question. As it is your blog you very well know what happened and you now decide to besmirch the security record and the reputation of WordPress.com by insinuating that a phantom manipulated your blog and removed a thread that you had been actively promoting. That, or you are accusing me of fabricating the existence of said thread.
I stand by the facts asserted in the post above and only wish i had taken screen grabs of the blog when i first visited the thread, but why would i ever suspect it would be removed. Having screen grabs of the current listings only shows the post is not there. I cannot prove it ever was but as i am not prone to posting on non-existent threads i know it was and you know it was.
I thank The Standard for allowing this matter to be aired. I sincerely hope it offers many here a moment of reflection as to the character and intentions of Pete George.
I will continue to do what i can to promote and support the real petition but on the Peter G petition i am done, i have had enough of my time wasted on this saboteur
freedom, IMHO I don’t think that PG is the author of the online petition although I share your and others’ views on PG’s disingenuity etc. It has been a relief not having him spewing here for two days.
The reasons I don’t think it is him are that he is very consistent in using “Pete” not “Peter” in his blogging across many blogs and on Linked In etc (Yes I checked) and the online petition originator is “Peter G”. The writing style and language used in the petition and its updates are also very different from that of PG – for example, PG hardly knows the difference between “Government” and “Parliament” and has used these incorrectly a number of times. The online petition is very clear in its language, eg
The bill will now be debated by the Committee of the Whole House, and opposition parties are planning to propose hundreds of amendments to delay Government legislation.
That is not to say that someone else could not have wrote it for him! But my gut instinct is that it is not him, but that is in no way of a defence of him as i have no respect etc for PG.
I signed the online petition is an instant reaction when it was first put up but have also signed and totally support the official referendum. I agree that it would be easy for people to mistakenly think the online petition is the referendum one, and wish that the online one had made it clear that they were not one and the same. There does not seem to be any way to communicate this to the author. My reading of the online petition was/is that it is an attempt to get as many to sign in a short space of time (and almost 25,000 as of a few minutes ago is pretty astounding in 3-4 days) to thow at Key et al next week when the Bill goes into Committee stages.
I am really pleased you raised the question as to whether Pete George was the author – and in some perverse ways I hope that my opinion is wrong. On the other hand, our discussion of this as a possibility also plays right into what I also think is PG’s raison d’etre – to be the centre of attention and to think he is much more important and influential than he really is.
I’m not convinced the online petition is a bad thing.
If anything it’s promoting awareness of the issue. It just needs to be followed up with people on the streets getting people signing.
freedom, If you use an archive service, you might find that it’s backed up somewhere.
I didn’t delete anything. I’ve just replied at http://yourdunedin.org/about/
I suspect you were looking in the wrong place/blog, commenting on “About” is not the usual place to put or find comments.
i will reply to Pete here and everyone can be assured this is the end of this matter although little is clear.
I agree Pete, nothing about this is usual. All i can say is something very very strange is going on. I am certainly a magnet for strange and would love to understand why. I saw the petition, saw the creator, went to your blog, saw the post promoting the petition on your blog and submitted a question using the reply function.
If you declare you did not start the Avaaz petition i must accept that, but if you say you have not deleted a posting on the petition then i guess i hallucinated the whole thing and should seek immediate psychiatric help! I have had professional counseling for PTSD in the past and no suspicion of any psychiatric illness was ever identified in fact the two therapists I have worked with both stated clearly that i have a clear and perceptive grasp of reality.
I guess it is a Ripley’s moment and we all end up as much in the dark as when we began.
Someone somewhere knows what is going on and I hope they are happy with the disquiet that has been generated. Perhaps someday they will fill me in on the joke because i do not find it funny, neither do i suspect does Pete who it appears has been unjustly accosted by me on this subject. I do not know what else to do, despite my misgivings i feel i must say sorry Pete for the suspicion that you tried to sabotage the petition process. As the Petition is 305 signatories away from its goal, I guess we might discover who Peter G is when the avaaz petition gets delivered to parliament as promised. Pete , i am sorry.
Kudos to you, freedom – you have my respect.
There was no post promoting the petition on the blog (the Yourdunedin.org one) that i have seen and i don’t know how there could have been unless hacked – and subsequently unhacked.
You posted on About which had no link to the petition.
Apology accepted.
Pete, not Peter Dunne making some mischief over the asset sales and using you as the fall guy?
I agree, dd. There is not just one way to achieve a result, and in the case of the partial asset sales, everything should be tried.