Wow, Just watched ShonKey trying to defend his defense of Banks on Breakfast TV. To give him some credit, it is obvious even he doesn’t believe the weasel words he’s spouting re this issue. Hilarious to watch.
Quite sad IMO, Shearer’s inability to nail him along with the MSM simply going along with this ‘I’ve a view’ line.
Wonder when someone in the media grow a pair and take him down over his lack of credibility….that’s rhetorical of course as no-one in the MSM has a pair.
Well, in fact, it seems to me that the MSM is keeping up a certain amount of pressure on Key over Banks, albeit in a fairly muted way. They keep asking the questions:
Prime Minister John Key’s support for ACT leader John Banks is becoming increasingly untenable after he conceded there were a range of views on whether the Epsom MP had lied.
Opposition MPs said it was obvious Mr Banks knew where donations to his failed 2010 Auckland mayoral campaign were coming from – and went out of his way to make them appear anonymous.
…
Labour leader David Shearer said Mr Key was refusing to read it because it was so damning.
“He knows it will show that all the evidence points to the fact his minister has lied to him.”
It was “negligent” for Mr Key not to read the file solely because it would mean he would have to sack Mr Banks, Mr Shearer said.
“Everyone in New Zealand knows that Kim Dotcom, his bodyguard and lawyer have all independently given sworn testimony that John Banks knew about the donation.
“Yet John Banks told the prime minister’s chief of staff, the media and the country that he did not know.”
[hmmm… interesting the list of Nat MPs who’ve had to resign under Key’s watch at the end of the artlcle – includes a possiblereason why Worth had to resign].
The problem for Key and the sycophantic MSM is that, Banks is falling out of favour with NAct voters, who know he lied and rorted the system. But they don’t really want to kill off National’s favoured support partner just yet….. hence, I guess the continuing but muted focus on Banks and pressure on Key over it.
NZ needs a government and/or opposition parties to really get on the case of how NZ’ers are cared for, as well as to be working towards safer and secure work places.
Jan Logie Green MP is doing something helpful by getting on the case of the WINZ culture of dis-entitlement, as developed through medical assessments that deny help to the injured and sick on benefits.
An institutional culture of cost saving has led WINZ to the same strategy of disentitlement as ACC, said the Green Party today.
WINZ are reviewing existing invalid and sickness beneficiaries with well-documented medical conditions for no other reason than because they are seen to be high cost. Designated doctors are assigned, trained and audited by WINZ. The same doctors can sit on Medical Appeal Boards.
…
“We all need to know if we are unable to work for medical reasons we can still survive. People should be treated with the respect they deserve. This is a fundamental social contract and ensures all New Zealanders who are unable to work for sound medical reason have a fair future.
…
“Given the seriousness of our findings the Green Party is calling for an urgent review into the review process for Invalid and sickness beneficiaries, said Ms Logie
Meanwhile, too many NZ workplaces are not safe and/or healthy for workers, leaving them vulnerable to workplace injuries. This is where the real savings can be made on welfare payments to invalid and sickness benefits.
Bigger fines and tougher penalties for companies and directors could be one of the ways to improve New Zealand’s deplorable workplace injury and death toll.
The just-published Safer Workplaces report by the Independent Taskforce reveals New Zealand’s workplace safety record is twice as bad as Australia’s and four times as bad as Britain’s, and that those injured in the workplace each year would fill Eden Park four times over.
But, instead, our government keeps looking to make savings by targeting NZ’s most vulnerable, from the unemployed, to children in poverty, and to the infirm elderly.
DHB chief executive Mary Bonner said last month that no sacrifices had been made even though the board had cut $80 million off its budget.
But Mrs Plunket said “home support cost cuts is the elephant in the room, which is growing as fast as the ageing population”.
Access North Island general manager David Chrisp said he did not know the specific case, but services would be reduced only if a client was assessed to be able to manage with less help.
Grey Power Kapiti president Trevor Daniel said he had received more than 20 complaints about local home care hours being cut, which had been passed on to the board.
“Old people are very reluctant to complain in case they get targeted. They are very grateful for what they get and do not want to kick up a fuss. Very few of them are willing to stand up,” he said.
Now is the time for opposition parties to really stand up and OPPOSE the nasty elite-supporting government who target the vulnerable and powerless with vicious and punitive policies, while doing nothing to improve the future prospects for the country.
From a link provded by xtasy the other day that leads to an official presentation by the illustrious Principal Health Advisor Dr David Bratt….a Labour Party appointee. It reads as a bizarre appeal to, or echo of, views straight from the early 1900’s that viewed unemployed people as feckless or mentally and morally deficient and ‘the job’ as a general panacea.
•Health Risk equals smoking 10 packs of cigarettes per day (Ross 1995)
•Suicide in young men > 6mths out of work is increased 40x (Wessely, 2004)
•Suicide rate in general increased 6x inlonger-term worklessness (Bartley et al, 2005)
•Health risk and life expectancy reduction is greater than in many “killer diseases”(Waddell & Aylward 2005)
•Greater risk than most dangerous jobs
•the “benefit” – an addictive debilitating drug with significant adverse effects to both the patient and their family (whānau) – not dissimilar to smoking
•and NZ doctors write 350,000 scripts for it every year!
No effects by being exposed to an adversarial WINZ culture, of course!
Excellent post as usual Carol. Unfortunately we do not have an opposition party that can do anything about the situation as the Q+A program showed yesterday. And that truly does leave me with grave fears for the unemployed, young, sick, and injured. because if we have to wait untill 2017 to get rid of the Nats then NZ will be as desolate, divided, and broke as America is now. Morally and Financially.
David, for a moment there I thought you were referring to 2012!! The point is, we should not and cannot afford to wait at all – let alone until 2017. Disaster is upon us right now!!
Well, apart from anything else, I’m now with those who think there will be a change in Labour leadership before the end of February/March. I hope they choose someone who can deliver what’s necessary – but that’s no certainty.
No Terry I did mean 2017 as from what I can see now, Labour hasn’t got a shits show of winning in 2014. Me I voted Labour all my life, and it’s going to feel funny ticking different boxes next time round, Because from what I see now, until Labour have a complete clean out then they CANNOT connect with the electorate. And that’s the biggest reason that many did not vote last time, and I really can’t see them having any reason to vote this time (2014) either. the way the poor are treated in this country is disgusting, and the silence and incompetence from Labour do not give hope to anyone.
John Key has the dog whistle out and is blowing it for all it is worth. Apparently article 3 of the treaty meant that Maori surrendered all rights to water to the Crown. The only problem with this is that it says no such thing.
The european version of the treaty provides “[f]or this agreed arrangement therefore concerning the government of the Queen, the Queen of England will protect all the ordinary people of New Zealand and will give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England. ”
So obviously article 2 is paramount and the protection of all “their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess” remains.
In any event article 3 gives them “rights and duties of citizenship” which is related to ensuring they have the legal protection afforded by the law. It clearly was not intended to take those rights away from Maori. The fact that under common law you may not own something does not mean that if you own it pursuant to the treaty you then lose it. Besides you cannot have a right to something you cannot own.
And in the US its absolutely true. Only a handful…and I mean that literally…of senior bankers have been indicted for the massive destruction and hundreds of billions in fraud their industry has cost the real economy.
As an aside, the big banks (and their employees) donate millions to the Republicans AND the Democrats every election cycle.
He still is Mickey, trading your kids future to enrich his mates and getting the PM junkets along the way.
He’s meet presidents and leaders, done a royal wedding, opened a rugby world cup and taken max to the football world cup….. and as an added bonus he gets to plump up his share portfolio by playing blind man’s bluff.
Best job Eva, pity the pay sucks but as he’s hardly ever there doing any actual PM stuff it’s still a great gig.
How did the structures collapse in near symmetrical fashion when the apparent precipitating causes were asymmetrical loading? The collapses defies common logic from an elementary structural engineering perspective.
***
Heat transmission (diffusion) through the steel members would have been irregular owing to differing sizes of the individual members; and, the temperature in the members would have dropped off precipitously the further away the steel was from the flames—just as the handle on a frying pan doesn’t get hot at the same rate as the pan on the burner of the stove. These factors would have resulted in the structural framing furthest from the flames remaining intact and possessing its full structural integrity, i.e., strength and stiffness.
Structural steel is highly ductile, when subjected to compression and bending it buckles and bends long before reaching its tensile or shear capacity. Under the given assumptions, “if” the structure in the vicinity … started to weaken, the superstructure above would begin to lean in the direction of the burning side. The opposite, intact, side of the building would resist toppling until the ultimate capacity of the structure was reached, at which point, a weak-link failure would undoubtedly occur…
Personally I don’t give a flying monkeys about the Twin Towers except to say that they represent a very large excuse for ongoing imperial aggression from a petro super power. Roll on the end of the oil age when the USA may once again attempt to live up to the rhetoric of “the land of the free” and “the champion of democracy”.
Yes this and the carriers not being in Pearl Harbour when attacked, as that would’ve done their navy some serious damage in WWII, one could say show the US isn’t too fussed about how it gets it’s way.
I’ve always wondered how come the camera work on the jet crashing into the tower looks so good, almost as if….mmmm
Reflecting on the US of WW2…I recently spoke to the son of a US serviceman who married a NZer whilst posted here in 1942. We mused on the US / NZ relationship of today. Seventy years ago they were our friends and allies in a way it is hard to conceive he said. Without their help we were destined for Japanese occupation and the horrors that came with that. Yes they were an imperial power who did not come to our aid for ascetic reasons, but we can be thankful they did. NZ fought alongside the Yanks, willingly and as real comrades.
So where are we today with the USA? Cant stand the imperialism, the banksters and the hucksterism, scoff at the “American way of life”. Yet pretty much every American I meet could be our neighbour, a mate. Having said that we cheer the All Blacks together and the stand is full of the Parnell Shonkers set. All very confusing.
But largely, its their political and business leadership (I use the term loosely) over 25 years which has led that country on a massive nose dive underneath its true potential.
I’ve always seen WT7 as the weakest link in the chain for the conspiracy theorists to attack, because what happened to it really does seem quite strange.
As TPTB have no interest in doing another investigation, I doubt we’ll ever get any different story than the current official one.
The other large problem the conspiracy theorists have is that a controlled demolition of any of these towers, let alone all 3, would require dozens, if not hundreds, of people to be involved. Unless they were all knocked off by the state, it seems eventually one of them would leak their involvement with sufficient proof. 11 years and this still hasn’t happened.
Unless they were all knocked off by the state, it seems eventually one of them would leak their involvement with sufficient proof. 11 years and this still hasn’t happened.
Yeah this is definitely a very interesting consideration/criticism.
Basically because the massive inertia in the structure above meant the main force was straight down and that overcame any lateral force that initiated the collapse. You see WTC 2 clearly twist and the top lean out but then the supporting floors fail and the whole lot then goes straightish down but debris is spread over 100m from the base of the structure.
Listened for Mike Williams on RNZ but ended up listening to Hootons Half Hour. He is the most obnoxious rude and bad mannered person,Hooton I mean.WHY is he allowed to take over every conversation that Williams started and is then allowed to take over the rest of the discussion(for want of a better word).I would have just walked out.Bl——dy annoying!!!!!!
Agreed. It’s infuriating. Kathryn Ryan is successful (sometimes) in stopping him in his tracks but this woman Freeman doesn’t even try…
Mind you it’s William’s job to complain about it. Today was one of the worst instances I’ve heard from Hooton. His final shout denigrating David Shearer as hard as he could…obnoxious. Who was it who day after day – along with Michelle Boag – exhorted the Labour caucus to pick Shearer for Leader because he was the best man for the job.
OK David S. now you know the truth. Hooton is a bastard!
being a bit sad I timed them (as I hadn’t listened so it was a good opportunity to do so) and Hooten just out talks williams by almost 2:1. But Williams did invite Hooten to interject a couple of times, but then he did initiate a bit of argy bargy overtalking. It was otherwise a very gentlemanly display of your turn, my turn.
Mike is a blokey kind of talker, so he expresses an idea and then stops. Hooten just talks and talks and rarely leaves a gap. Nothing sinister, just style.
Its called a strategic style. He’s had a lot of practice and has it down to a fine art – even to the ‘gentlemanly’ chuckle after a particularly nasty barb.
Mike Williams did manage to over talk him at one stage. So Hooten’s not impenetrable.
And Lynn Freeman did ask some penetrating questions. But Hooton’s a great sneerer and obnoxious when he gets like that.
They seem to take it turn about prism. One week it’s Pagani and the next week it’s Williams. I wish it was Williams every week . Hooton is there every Monday.
Loss of Sovereignty:
many of us are well aware that the smokescreen associated with Free Trade Agreements is well orchestrated by those that will benefit most from these dubious “Treaties”.
Seldom is it confirmed in MSM as clearly this gem
My impression at the time and place (Brisbane) was that he got kicked for wanting to hit some of the big miners with a super profits tax. It was the right of the Labor Party which got rid of him. This is the same right who seem quite happy to continue a lot of Howard’s policies with respect to the Northern Territory and nautically arriving refugees. In Queensland, fighting for white people to not be put in detention camps is enough to label yourself as a socialist. The Labor State Premier during the Howard years thought Howard’s cutting of human rights with “anti-terrorism” legislation didn’t go far enough and wanted extended powers for Queensland. Instead of military shutdown of whole streets, he wanted whole suburbs, for example. Australian politics is weird.
I posted on the ALP’s facebook page asking why they support the privatisation of state electricity networks. It seems my post went into the ether. Along with that facility.
Instead of actually creating enough jobs to ensure there is less welfare dependency by increasing opportunity, National is playing to peoples prejudices and fostering resentment against those they perceive to be inferior. This is ultimately detrimental to the fabric of our society…
Looking at that document there is one glaring omission Superannuation it’s nowhere in the PDF at all. Seems to me that if you are going to spend a million bucks on a report that counts the cost of people on benefits for their lives then you really should add in super. Or am I missing something here?
Exactly! National haven’t included Superannuation because they’re not in the targeted group and National have no answers to the growing cost of looking after our aging population. Hope and pray is about the best they can come up with.
Beneficiaries who fail to answer three phone calls and a voicemail from Work and Income are being told they’ll have their welfare payments slashed in half.
A step to far to the right off the ledge if you ask me.
Well, I have recently heard of a way that WINZ is trying to lower the cost of superannuation. From reports of people I know who have applied for super recently, it seems WINZ are trying to encourage all those who are eligible, to apply for any over-seas state pensions they are entitled to.
I get a small amount of UK state pension – different system there, like Aussie, what you get is based on what you paid into the scheme when you worked there.
I had to apply for my UK state pension through WINZ, who have my allocation on record. WINZ told me, when I am old enough to get NZ super, my UK (and any Aussie super I get), will be deducted from my NZ super entitlement, and I’ll get what’s left (if anything).
It seems that when Kiwis now apply for NZ super, if WINZ know they worked somewhere like the UK or Aus, they get a letter from WINZ suggesting they apply for their entitlement in the other country/ies.
Carol: This has been going on for very many years already!
Any migrant or NZer, who ever worked long enough overseas to get any entitlement to a pension or comparable entitlement in another country, will have to declare this when applying for NZ super or retirement income.
Such persons have to first use their entitlement from overseas, and after that having been deducted from the NZ super, then the balance is all they get here.
It is another smart way of the NZ government to “save” costs.
So any person who earned and saved for retirement overseas has done that somehow for no benefit or gain at all, if such a person retires in NZ. All one gets is the balance to the maximum NZ retirement payment.
Only those that have got more entitlement overseas than what they would ever get in NZ would be better off. They though would get nothing here in that case.
Last time I looked there was no legal requirement to have a phone. WINZ won’t include a phone in unavoidable expenditure calculations, unless one has a doctors’ certificate saying one needs one. So a simple: “I haven’t got a phone” should knock that one over.
Retired road policing manager can speak out now about the disappointment that the police felt at the government’s refusal to act to drop the general alcohol limit to .05 instead of .08. Instead the government has set up a two year study so they can say precisely how much extra risk they are willing to expose us to by doing as little as possible for as long as possible. Why worry, have another li’l glug of whisky or wine, a bit of song and the women will soon turn up. We’re paying and we can afford it, what’s more we deserve it!
Very funny that, going all solemn about research. Funny in all ways. One way is that they don’t give a f..k about statistics, findings or research unless forced to. They much prefer to do what feels gooood for us NACTs. Fatheads and fat-ars..s they are examples of a lack in NZ education alright, that of critical thinking, human philosophy and strategic planning and vision for policies for the good of the whole country.
Yep I had to go to Kiwislime blog for this as it’s vanished from the Herald site.
The Government has blood on its hands for refusing to lower the drink-drive limit, a departing senior road policing boss says.
Superintendent John Kelly, who set up national highway patrols, retired on Thursday after six years overseeing the roads of Auckland’s sprawling Waitemata district and 35 years on the force.
He told the Herald on Sunday that John Key’s National Party ignoring calls for the drink-drive limit to be slashed two years ago was his biggest career frustration. He believed it had potentially contributed to more than 60 road deaths since.
“Between 250 and 300 people are still dying annually on the roads but if we had lowered the drink-drive limit when we could have, there might have been 30 or so of those people still alive every year,” said Kelly.
And as usual Whaleshit has the usual fools running off at the mouth as at Kiwislime. Jeeze there’sz some troglodytes in this country. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/troglodyte
A person considered to be reclusive, reactionary, out of date, or brutish.
David H 10.1
To save yourself getting bogged in the Slough of Despond at Kiwiwhatname, you can also very likely pick up news info on Radionz site – click News from the top list and there are set out all the items in summary form each of which can be clicked to give the full details. Use our Radionz, we want to keep it.
The deafening silence from opposition parties in the week since the announcement by Fletcher Building of NZ’s first major Public Private Partnership is an eloquent statement of their lack of consistency and courage. This has huge economic, social and even constitutional implications.
In economic terms, it will be at least as bad a deal as the energy privatisations. PPP ‘savings’ to the taxpayer are *always* illusory. Worse than that, it’s a precedent for a whole raft of PPP deals that will ultimately give National’s cronies even more that they could expect from the privatisations.
This PPP will likely entail:
– Underwriting a large scale speculative venture by the private sector partners, guaranteeing their profit and socialising any potential losses (e.g. a guarantee of 90% occupancy makes betting against penal reform a one-way bet).
– Driving down wages and conditions in a de-unionised environment.
– Creating a private prison lobby and dictating public policy for the next 25 years, possibly putting penal reform off the agenda.
– Eroding the capacity of the State to perform its fundamental role.
– Entrenching this against future governments by signing an agreement enforceable in international tribunals (e.g. under the TPPA).
How many government supply agreements are there that run for 25 years? Especially ones that dictate broader public and social policy. This seems a fundamental breach of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. Opposition parties should loudly reserve the right to repudiate such agreements.
Such ventures in the UK and Australia have produced almost nothing but grief (and expensive grief at that). Speak up Labour and Greens, we can’t hear you!
Why one company is thought of as experts in all of design, build and then operate a prison is beyond me – and a contract for 25 years seems unnecessarily long.
Legislation will doubtless be rammed through under urgency . . .
well if her figure of $78 Billion is right then no wonder they want to privatise it.
a chunk of that would buy infinite bckets of KFC, Big Macs and Waitakere Whizzzzzz.
The above mentioned Cabinet paper suggested the Government might want to “revisit the question of whether forward funding would enhance the performance of the benefit system even further”.
How we count, and what we count, matters.
How many of us would think of children as affordable if we were told that we’d need to have, upfront, the lifetime cost of a child before being permitted to bring one into the world?
Just so you know, a 2009 Inland Revenue estimate reckoned the cost of raising one child to 18 at $250,000.
A good article by Tapu Misa showing the illogic of forward funding.
Yes, another excellent piece from her. i like the way she turns the table on the Nat spin line, attacking Labour constantly as “Planet Labour”.
And her her article includes comparisons with the attempt to prepare ACC for privatisation by manufacturing a “welfare crisis”. She also says that National should be consistent in its accounting by measuring poverty and keeping accurate records on the numbers of jobs being created and destroyed. She is critical of the governments statistics on the latter.
The logic of forward funding by government is that of putting money aside in good times to meet the cost of benefits in poorer times – itis what Michael Cullen used to create the NZ Super Fund – there costs were expected to rise as a large cohort of baby-boomers went through retirement. Another reason for the funding was so that the baby-boomer generation did not leave a large liability on the (smaller) cohorts following. The same rationale could e used for benefits, but the difference is that under National we are not, and don;t look like ever getting, those government surpluses from which the additional savings can be made.
Yes, I understand that. It’s just that such a plan is delusional.
It’s delusional because money is not a resource. When it comes down to actually providing the services that the money is to pay for we’re going to need to have the people with the skills, the equipment and everything else needed to provide them. No amount of money will provide these things if they don’t exist and we don’t have a plan to provide them. All we’ve got is a plan to put money aside and hope that those services will be available which they probably won’t as the Rena grounding proved.
Satellite news media referring to ‘Arab Winter’ now. precession to another ‘winter’?
Aus authorities provided with all power/s to identify computer-generated SMS initiating anti-US riots in Sydney (to be repeated next w/e as well)
computer-generated SMS initiating anti-US riots in Sydney
Translation: messages to Facebook group members will be monitored.
FFS, “computer-generated SMS initiating anti-US riots” sounds like skynet, not social networking.
yes the dystopian future is here
off to serve now ( and i have many compassionate friends, thank you B(u)rney);learning to blog in a safe and helpful manner by self is slow process to work around gardens
might volunteer also at the very local radio station; they present probing news summaries and play some really cool music.
Cambell Live 7 pm tonight is comparing the lunches of two schools. Saw a clip on this, the empty desk tops or two slices of bread copmpared to a few items in a lunch box puts it into perspective.
TV 3 strikes again, with an item putting the US view of what the Sky reporter calls ‘our mission’ in Afghanistan. You’d never believe from this guy, that there was any disagreement about ‘our mission’…
Joining the National Day of Action Against Welfare Reforms
Friday, October 5, 2012
12:00pm until 3:30pm in UTC+13
Henderson Square, WINZ Henderson, Bennett’s Office
This is a page to co-ordinate the Auckland Action/s.
Proposed Plan:
12.00: Rally Henderson Square , Catherine St, near G.N.Rd
12.30: March to Henderson WINZ.
1pm: Protest Henderson WINZ, 36 Sel Peacock Drive.
2pm: March to Paula Bennett’s office.
2.30: Protest Bennett’s Office, 429 Great North Rd
Note: It is not the intention to occupy the WINZ offices, as this will lead to serious issues with tresspass notices being issued. It is also not the intention to interfere with staff going about their daily work. We are protesting the system, the culture of WINZ, and government policy. We are not protesting the individual workers – harrassment of WINZ employees is NOT condoned by the organisers of National Day of Action.
Calling on academics, parents, and our community to unite.
Vulnerable parents, and vulnerable communities create vulnerable children.
The Government has been rolling out policy it says will help curve child poverty and change NZ shocking child abuse rates. However, punitive measures are attacking the poor and putting chi
ldren at risk.
“The Government is attacking beneficiaries with the guise of protecting children, but stripping parents and our communities of what’s left of any supportive foundations is harming those we should be fighting to protect. Parenting is not a privilege of the rich. We are heading down a dark path where sole parents are being victimised and abused by the state, instead of supported and respected as our most important asset in stopping abuse against children in this country. It’s time our society stopped letting our Government shape our ideology, and had a real discussion about the direction we are heading. In order to change the abuse our children suffer, we must start to value parenting as an important role in society.”
“Beneficiaries are an easy target for Governments to attack, because beneficiaries are in hard times, struggling to survive and make the best out of a hard situation, so organising any form of united front against such attacks is hard work. Picking on sole parents is easy to do, but at what cost?
The Government now states they are slashing benefits if parents don’t comply with the new regime. If a parent who is struggling on a benefit gets their benefit cut 50%, who is being punished?
The children.
It’s the children who will be going hungry. This is the reality! Children will and are suffering from this Government’s punitive measures.
Parents must unite and draw support from each other, to tell this Government that “we won’t let them attack our children any longer.”
Sole parents are not irresponsible timewasters, who can be replaced by institutional day-care centres. Parents are our children’s first and most important teachers. Sole parent are the parents who have taken on the responsibility of raising the child, and have dedicated themselves to this important task. We don’t see this Government chasing up the parent who is not financially supporting the parent who is caring for the child. No, we see women being told they need contraceptives, and to get back to work.
Parenting is work. It’s the most important work in this country.
We have the research that shows day-care is not a substitute for good parenting. We can’t let this Government treat children like a disposable commodity anymore. Children are our Toanga, and we dam well need to protect them.
There were some great academics contributing to the Green Paper on Vulnerable Children who stood up and spoke out against this Governments agenda of benefit bashing. We need these academics to help us unite and have a voice in this country.
There must be a debate, at the moment all we have is one punitive measure after another hitting the poor like bombs. This is a call to action for everyone and anyone who is concerned about the direction of our society.
Every single parent on the benefit who is being attacked needs to join together to have a discussion. We need the community to help turn this into a discussion, instead of a war on the poor.
It isn’t just parents under attack, those members of our community who are unwell are also under huge pressure.
People looking for work are being punished for not finding it, when it’s the Government who have destroyed the jobs in this country and continue to do so.
All beneficiaries must unite, and we need help to do this!’
Phil O’Reilly seems to care about poverty, and he explains his POV well. But there seems to me to be too much focus on treating the systems, and not really acknowledging the underlying causes – i.e ones based in extensive inequalities.
Carol, But like a hospital, you first have to treat the symptoms before you try to cure the whole body. Sorry getting tired, probably a bad analogy. Have to be up early for the pride of my life, that’s him watching you. Lol
RT television regularly feature the occupy movement
TS is really engaging to read at present: build a road and the people will come
Tuhoe are raised up to be Leaders imo and experience
that ol’ Republican propaganda machine FOX are really spinning the outrage at the blasphemous video
Yes. Let us Hope that the ‘Day of The Troll’ is coming to a close, for they only harm themselves as the Skynet closes in.(Despite all their Rage, they are still just Rats in a cage)
Manufacturing is certainly receiving a hammering: How’s those Free Trade Agreements working out for them, Aye?
Rage Against The Machine
Look forward to seeing Articles posted from Carol; MSM can eat the blogosphere’s Dust
Campbell Live ran 2 strong stories today:
1) about a school in Christchurch threatened with closure and the community’s fight back.
2) about lunches at decile 1 and 10 schools and its pointer to child poverty.
Did anyone else see them? Seemed to me like some good old fashioned journalism.
What did you think?
Campbell Live has been consistently turning the gaze upon the social inequalities continuously arising in Aotearoa as a consequence of ideological, balls to the wall, head in the sand adherence to Neo-Liberal Free Market Capitalism.
(although, even ol’ Joycie looked a little unsettled when interviewed by Rachel concerning the hammering manufacturing is in for.)Will, we see Devaluation this electoral term?
Ms Penny Bright was in attendance to address the CEO Review Subcommittee regarding maintaining systems to enable effective planning and accurate reporting of the financial and service performance of the local authority.
Resolution number CEOR/2012/10
MOVED by Mayor LCM Brown, seconded Cr CE Fletcher:
That the Chief Executive Review Subcommittee:
Agree that the Public input presentation be received.
CARRIED
Subject: OPEN LETTER: Request for speaking rights at Auckland Council CEO Review Subcommittee 22 August 2012, 10am Auckland Town Hall.
17 August 2012
REQUEST FOR SPEAKING RIGHTS AT THE CEO REVIEW SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING
to be held on Wednesday 22 August 2012, 10am,
Council Chambers, Auckland Town Hall, 301-305 Queen Street, Auckland
SUBJECT MATTER:
1) The failure of the Auckland Council CEO Doug McKay to meet his statutory duties under s.42 2(e) of the Local Government Act 2002 re:
“maintaining systems to enable effective planning and accurate reporting of the financial and service performance of the local authority; ”
LGOIMA REPLY 21 November 2011 from Darryl Griffin (Manager for Democracy Services)
“The Auckland Council Annual Report:
1) Is the Auckland Council, in a truly ‘open,transparent and democratically-accountable’ way, going to ensure that citizens and ratepayers of the Auckland region are going to be given the ‘devilish’ detail, so we can see exactly where out rate monies are being spent on private sector consultants and contractors?
a) Are the names of the consultants/contractors; the scope,term and value of these contracts going to be published in the Auckland Council Annual Report so that they’re available for public scrutiny?
b) If not – why not?
Not at this stage. There are 5,000 contracts related to 12,500 suppliers.
To collate and publish these would be a major exercise logistically and cost-wise. ”
____________________________________________________________
2) The alleged ‘conflict of interest’ of CEO Doug McKay in being a member of the unelected private lobby group – the Committee for Auckland, in his capacity as CEO of Auckland Council.
(Is this the reason why Auckland Council rates keep going up?
Because the primary reason for the establishment of the Auckland SUPERCITY was to ensure bigger contracts – for (fewer) but bigger private contractors, an unknown number of which have been awarded to member companies of the Committee for Auckland?)
Posters on here will know that I pretty much am not keen on outsourcing. However, given the fact that local and central government have purged anything to do with engineering, work and services and the like, given the choice bettween spending millions building up that expertise (and risking the backlash from assorted rednecks) and souring it from the private sector, then there is no choice.
But when the contract for running one of the most popular summer festivals in NP, the Festival of Lights, our council chooses to ditch the local company that runs it, which is full of experienced electricians and technicians who have learnt their trade at the old NPCC electricity department before it became NP Energy/Taranaki Energy/Powerco, and instead go for a more expensive tender from a company that appears to be run by people who have done polytech courses in theatre lighting, you really gotta just throw your hands up in dispear.
Following the UK example, indeed, now new legal provisions are proposed and expected to become law, that will enable WINZ and MSD to outsource services for medical and work capacity assessments, for training and job-referrals. Also will the disability allowance be tied to providers delivering specified services.
The sickness benefit will be abolished, and sick and disabled not meeting the living support category will have to join other “job seekers”, get work tested, will have to ready themselves to do at least part time work and also have to meet strict other criterias and requirements. Many sole parents whose youngest child is over 14 will also have to work, and only invalid’s beneficiaries will (largely) be exempted as living support recipients from the requirement to work.
Yet there will be more checks, stricter criterias and apparently separate assessments besides of purely medical based ones. So it will be work, work, work and more work, whether there are any jobs or not.
Get ready to join the pickets, marches and protests, which will need to be held all over NZ in the coming weeks and months. This is a nasty piece of legislation and a vicious attack on the poor, sick and disabled.
BeneBashers goal of getting 10,000 off benefits a year is pure pie in the sky when after 4 years in power the National party has lost 60,000 jobs that means they are going to have to turn around a 100, 000 deficit in jobs.
60,000 more on the unemployment benefit,30,000 on the DPB.Thousands more on other benefits .
Rapidly increasing numbers on the pension (National does nothing)
Where is the plan to get 100,000 more jobs not including those leaving to Australia.
More Porkies from Porkies party!
New Policy Reprint all bureaucracies letter head change name of Dept .
Then Change benefit names that will help to no end!
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
Chris Trotter writes – MELISSA LEE should be deprived of her ministerial warrant. Her handling – or non-handling – of the crisis engulfing the New Zealand news media has been woeful. The fate of New Zealand’s two linear television networks, a question which the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications ...
TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts and , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and on climate change.The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the ...
Policymakers rarely wish to make plain or visible their desire to dismantle environmental policy, least of all to the young. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent ...
I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in places like the UK, the US, and over the ditch with our good mates the Aussies. Let’s call them AUKUS, for want of a better collective term. More on that in a bit.It used to be, not long ago, that ...
TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
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 ...
David Farrar writes – The Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled: Comments by radio host Kate Hawkesby suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity were misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found. It is a fact such patients are prioritised. ...
PRC and its proxies in Solomons have been preparing for these elections for a long time.A lot of money, effort and intelligence have gone into ensuring an outcome that won’t compromise Beijing’s plans. Cleo Paskall writes – On April 17th the Solomon Islands, a country of ...
Is speeding up the trip to and from Wellington airport by 12 minutes worth spending up more than $10 billion? Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me in the last day to 8:26 am today are:The Lead: Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced ...
You're a fraud, and you know itBut it's too good to throw it all awayAnyone would do the sameYou've got 'em goingAnd you're careful not to show itSometimes you even fool yourself a bitIt's like magicBut it's always been a smoke and mirrors gameAnyone would do the sameForty six billion ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The June general election in Mexico could mark a turning point in ensuring that the country’s climate policies better reflect the desire of its citizens to address the climate crisis, with both leading presidential candidates expressing support for renewable energy. Mexico is the ...
2024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?When I say 2024 I really mean the state of humanity in 2024.Saturday night, we watched Civil War because that is one terrifying cliff we've ...
Buzz from the Beehive A pet project and governmental tunnel vision jump out from the latest batch of ministerial announcements. The government is keen to assure us of its concern for the wellbeing of our pets. It will be introducing pet bonds in a change to the Residential Tenancies Act ...
A recent report generated from a Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) survey of 1,224 rangatahi Māori aged 11-12 found: Cultural connectedness was associated with fewer depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms and better quality of life. That sounds cut and dry. But further into the report the following appears: Cultural connectedness is ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: From the gory details of job-cuts news, you’d think the public service was being eviscerated. While the media’s view of the cuts is incomplete, it’s also true that departments have been leaking the particulars faster than a Wellington ...
Remember the good old days, back when New Zealand had a PM who could think and speak calmly and intelligently in whole sentences without blustering? Even while Iran’s drones and missiles were still being launched, Helen Clark was live on TVNZ expertly summing up the latest crisis in the Middle ...
Costello did not pass on analysis of the benefits of the smokefree reforms to Cabinet, emphasising instead the extra tax revenues of repealing them. Photo: Hagen Hopkins, Getty Images TL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me at 7:26 am today are:The Lead: Casey Costello never passed on ...
True loveYou're the one I'm dreaming ofYour heart fits me like a gloveAnd I'm gonna be true blueBaby, I love youI’ve written about the job cuts in our news media last week. The impact on individuals, and the loss to Aotearoa of voices covering our news from different angles.That by ...
While commentators, including former Prime Minister Helen Clark, are noting a subtle shift in New Zealand’s foreign policy, which now places more emphasis on the United States, many have missed a key element of the shift. What National said before the election is not what the government is doing now. ...
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. ...
Changes to minimum wage and benefit indexation means many New Zealanders will get less this year, as the Government gives a big tax break to landlords instead. ...
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 ...
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Wow, Just watched ShonKey trying to defend his defense of Banks on Breakfast TV. To give him some credit, it is obvious even he doesn’t believe the weasel words he’s spouting re this issue. Hilarious to watch.
Quite sad IMO, Shearer’s inability to nail him along with the MSM simply going along with this ‘I’ve a view’ line.
Wonder when someone in the media grow a pair and take him down over his lack of credibility….that’s rhetorical of course as no-one in the MSM has a pair.
Well, in fact, it seems to me that the MSM is keeping up a certain amount of pressure on Key over Banks, albeit in a fairly muted way. They keep asking the questions:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7687702/Key-fends-off-calls-to-sack-Banks
[hmmm… interesting the list of Nat MPs who’ve had to resign under Key’s watch at the end of the artlcle – includes a possiblereason why Worth had to resign].
The problem for Key and the sycophantic MSM is that, Banks is falling out of favour with NAct voters, who know he lied and rorted the system. But they don’t really want to kill off National’s favoured support partner just yet….. hence, I guess the continuing but muted focus on Banks and pressure on Key over it.
NZ needs a government and/or opposition parties to really get on the case of how NZ’ers are cared for, as well as to be working towards safer and secure work places.
Jan Logie Green MP is doing something helpful by getting on the case of the WINZ culture of dis-entitlement, as developed through medical assessments that deny help to the injured and sick on benefits.
http://www.greens.org.nz/press-releases/winz-culture-no-better-acc-s
Meanwhile, too many NZ workplaces are not safe and/or healthy for workers, leaving them vulnerable to workplace injuries. This is where the real savings can be made on welfare payments to invalid and sickness benefits.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/7687873/Taskforce-targets-workplace-injury-toll
But, instead, our government keeps looking to make savings by targeting NZ’s most vulnerable, from the unemployed, to children in poverty, and to the infirm elderly.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/7687793/Patients-needing-home-help-sacrificed-in-cuts
Now is the time for opposition parties to really stand up and OPPOSE the nasty elite-supporting government who target the vulnerable and powerless with vicious and punitive policies, while doing nothing to improve the future prospects for the country.
Thanks for this Carol. Your work is appreciated.
Hi Carol – is the email address that you use here active / read?
Thanks for the tip. Just rescued an email from Lynn in my junkmail folder – over a week old.
OK good. I made the same suggestion to Lynn this weekend – pleased he has already been in touch…
Thanks, replied
[Note- my name, as on the email account, is not the same as my handle here]
Carol, please write posts – lots of them. Your lead comments are typically robust and I always appreciate hearing your insight on issues.
Thanks, Tigger. Always like to read your comments.
From a link provded by xtasy the other day that leads to an official presentation by the illustrious Principal Health Advisor Dr David Bratt….a Labour Party appointee. It reads as a bizarre appeal to, or echo of, views straight from the early 1900’s that viewed unemployed people as feckless or mentally and morally deficient and ‘the job’ as a general panacea.
No effects by being exposed to an adversarial WINZ culture, of course!
http://www.gpcme.co.nz/pdf/2012/Fri_DaVinci_1400_Bratt_Medical%20Certificates%20are%20Clinical%20Instruments%20too%20-%20June%202012.pdf
Excellent post as usual Carol. Unfortunately we do not have an opposition party that can do anything about the situation as the Q+A program showed yesterday. And that truly does leave me with grave fears for the unemployed, young, sick, and injured. because if we have to wait untill 2017 to get rid of the Nats then NZ will be as desolate, divided, and broke as America is now. Morally and Financially.
David, for a moment there I thought you were referring to 2012!! The point is, we should not and cannot afford to wait at all – let alone until 2017. Disaster is upon us right now!!
Well, apart from anything else, I’m now with those who think there will be a change in Labour leadership before the end of February/March. I hope they choose someone who can deliver what’s necessary – but that’s no certainty.
No Terry I did mean 2017 as from what I can see now, Labour hasn’t got a shits show of winning in 2014. Me I voted Labour all my life, and it’s going to feel funny ticking different boxes next time round, Because from what I see now, until Labour have a complete clean out then they CANNOT connect with the electorate. And that’s the biggest reason that many did not vote last time, and I really can’t see them having any reason to vote this time (2014) either. the way the poor are treated in this country is disgusting, and the silence and incompetence from Labour do not give hope to anyone.
Yes. One size fits all welfare processing will see more unintended consequences.
John Key has the dog whistle out and is blowing it for all it is worth. Apparently article 3 of the treaty meant that Maori surrendered all rights to water to the Crown. The only problem with this is that it says no such thing.
The european version of the treaty provides “[f]or this agreed arrangement therefore concerning the government of the Queen, the Queen of England will protect all the ordinary people of New Zealand and will give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England. ”
So obviously article 2 is paramount and the protection of all “their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess” remains.
In any event article 3 gives them “rights and duties of citizenship” which is related to ensuring they have the legal protection afforded by the law. It clearly was not intended to take those rights away from Maori. The fact that under common law you may not own something does not mean that if you own it pursuant to the treaty you then lose it. Besides you cannot have a right to something you cannot own.
Key should have stuck to merchant banking.
Key has stuck to the prime premise of “bankster” merchant banking: The law DOES NOT APPLY to merchant bankers.
And in the US its absolutely true. Only a handful…and I mean that literally…of senior bankers have been indicted for the massive destruction and hundreds of billions in fraud their industry has cost the real economy.
As an aside, the big banks (and their employees) donate millions to the Republicans AND the Democrats every election cycle.
He still is Mickey, trading your kids future to enrich his mates and getting the PM junkets along the way.
He’s meet presidents and leaders, done a royal wedding, opened a rugby world cup and taken max to the football world cup….. and as an added bonus he gets to plump up his share portfolio by playing blind man’s bluff.
Best job Eva, pity the pay sucks but as he’s hardly ever there doing any actual PM stuff it’s still a great gig.
ZeroHedge summarises quotes from a couple of dozen architects and engineers re: the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-15/911-mysterious-collapse-wtc-building-7-was-not-inside-job
eg.
Personally I don’t give a flying monkeys about the Twin Towers except to say that they represent a very large excuse for ongoing imperial aggression from a petro super power. Roll on the end of the oil age when the USA may once again attempt to live up to the rhetoric of “the land of the free” and “the champion of democracy”.
True at the moment it’s just USA the land of the Paranoid and Insane.
Very true that!
Yes this and the carriers not being in Pearl Harbour when attacked, as that would’ve done their navy some serious damage in WWII, one could say show the US isn’t too fussed about how it gets it’s way.
I’ve always wondered how come the camera work on the jet crashing into the tower looks so good, almost as if….mmmm
Almost as if cameras were trained on the towers waiting for something to happen?
Your use of the singular suggests monumental ignorance.
Obviously between 08:46 & 09:03 as emergency services were mobilised, so too were the media, covering the fire in the north tower.
Reflecting on the US of WW2…I recently spoke to the son of a US serviceman who married a NZer whilst posted here in 1942. We mused on the US / NZ relationship of today. Seventy years ago they were our friends and allies in a way it is hard to conceive he said. Without their help we were destined for Japanese occupation and the horrors that came with that. Yes they were an imperial power who did not come to our aid for ascetic reasons, but we can be thankful they did. NZ fought alongside the Yanks, willingly and as real comrades.
So where are we today with the USA? Cant stand the imperialism, the banksters and the hucksterism, scoff at the “American way of life”. Yet pretty much every American I meet could be our neighbour, a mate. Having said that we cheer the All Blacks together and the stand is full of the Parnell Shonkers set. All very confusing.
Americans are, largely, a hugely friendly and hospitable people.
There are a few who may be of concern (see link):
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/photos/
But largely, its their political and business leadership (I use the term loosely) over 25 years which has led that country on a massive nose dive underneath its true potential.
I’ve always seen WT7 as the weakest link in the chain for the conspiracy theorists to attack, because what happened to it really does seem quite strange.
As TPTB have no interest in doing another investigation, I doubt we’ll ever get any different story than the current official one.
The other large problem the conspiracy theorists have is that a controlled demolition of any of these towers, let alone all 3, would require dozens, if not hundreds, of people to be involved. Unless they were all knocked off by the state, it seems eventually one of them would leak their involvement with sufficient proof. 11 years and this still hasn’t happened.
Yeah this is definitely a very interesting consideration/criticism.
Basically because the massive inertia in the structure above meant the main force was straight down and that overcame any lateral force that initiated the collapse. You see WTC 2 clearly twist and the top lean out but then the supporting floors fail and the whole lot then goes straightish down but debris is spread over 100m from the base of the structure.
Note that Mike Williams is the left wing commenter on Radionz left-right today after 11 am. Josie Pagani having a holiday?
Listened for Mike Williams on RNZ but ended up listening to Hootons Half Hour. He is the most obnoxious rude and bad mannered person,Hooton I mean.WHY is he allowed to take over every conversation that Williams started and is then allowed to take over the rest of the discussion(for want of a better word).I would have just walked out.Bl——dy annoying!!!!!!
Agreed. It’s infuriating. Kathryn Ryan is successful (sometimes) in stopping him in his tracks but this woman Freeman doesn’t even try…
Mind you it’s William’s job to complain about it. Today was one of the worst instances I’ve heard from Hooton. His final shout denigrating David Shearer as hard as he could…obnoxious. Who was it who day after day – along with Michelle Boag – exhorted the Labour caucus to pick Shearer for Leader because he was the best man for the job.
OK David S. now you know the truth. Hooton is a bastard!
Williams should be taking the lead back.
being a bit sad I timed them (as I hadn’t listened so it was a good opportunity to do so) and Hooten just out talks williams by almost 2:1. But Williams did invite Hooten to interject a couple of times, but then he did initiate a bit of argy bargy overtalking. It was otherwise a very gentlemanly display of your turn, my turn.
Mike is a blokey kind of talker, so he expresses an idea and then stops. Hooten just talks and talks and rarely leaves a gap. Nothing sinister, just style.
Yeah, I agree insider.
Its called a strategic style. He’s had a lot of practice and has it down to a fine art – even to the ‘gentlemanly’ chuckle after a particularly nasty barb.
Mike Williams did manage to over talk him at one stage. So Hooten’s not impenetrable.
And Lynn Freeman did ask some penetrating questions. But Hooton’s a great sneerer and obnoxious when he gets like that.
They seem to take it turn about prism. One week it’s Pagani and the next week it’s Williams. I wish it was Williams every week . Hooton is there every Monday.
Anne +1
Loss of Sovereignty:
many of us are well aware that the smokescreen associated with Free Trade Agreements is well orchestrated by those that will benefit most from these dubious “Treaties”.
Seldom is it confirmed in MSM as clearly this gem
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10834522
Oh no: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/feisty-rudd-stirs-leadership-rumours-20120912-25sw2.html
Ruddkips is at it again, seemingly ignoring completely why the party kicked him out of the leadership position in the first place…
My impression at the time and place (Brisbane) was that he got kicked for wanting to hit some of the big miners with a super profits tax. It was the right of the Labor Party which got rid of him. This is the same right who seem quite happy to continue a lot of Howard’s policies with respect to the Northern Territory and nautically arriving refugees. In Queensland, fighting for white people to not be put in detention camps is enough to label yourself as a socialist. The Labor State Premier during the Howard years thought Howard’s cutting of human rights with “anti-terrorism” legislation didn’t go far enough and wanted extended powers for Queensland. Instead of military shutdown of whole streets, he wanted whole suburbs, for example. Australian politics is weird.
I posted on the ALP’s facebook page asking why they support the privatisation of state electricity networks. It seems my post went into the ether. Along with that facility.
National… Masters at passing the buck
Instead of actually creating enough jobs to ensure there is less welfare dependency by increasing opportunity, National is playing to peoples prejudices and fostering resentment against those they perceive to be inferior. This is ultimately detrimental to the fabric of our society…
Looking at that document there is one glaring omission Superannuation it’s nowhere in the PDF at all. Seems to me that if you are going to spend a million bucks on a report that counts the cost of people on benefits for their lives then you really should add in super. Or am I missing something here?
Exactly! National haven’t included Superannuation because they’re not in the targeted group and National have no answers to the growing cost of looking after our aging population. Hope and pray is about the best they can come up with.
As an update, today 3 News reported:
A step to far to the right off the ledge if you ask me.
Well, I have recently heard of a way that WINZ is trying to lower the cost of superannuation. From reports of people I know who have applied for super recently, it seems WINZ are trying to encourage all those who are eligible, to apply for any over-seas state pensions they are entitled to.
I get a small amount of UK state pension – different system there, like Aussie, what you get is based on what you paid into the scheme when you worked there.
I had to apply for my UK state pension through WINZ, who have my allocation on record. WINZ told me, when I am old enough to get NZ super, my UK (and any Aussie super I get), will be deducted from my NZ super entitlement, and I’ll get what’s left (if anything).
It seems that when Kiwis now apply for NZ super, if WINZ know they worked somewhere like the UK or Aus, they get a letter from WINZ suggesting they apply for their entitlement in the other country/ies.
Carol: This has been going on for very many years already!
Any migrant or NZer, who ever worked long enough overseas to get any entitlement to a pension or comparable entitlement in another country, will have to declare this when applying for NZ super or retirement income.
Such persons have to first use their entitlement from overseas, and after that having been deducted from the NZ super, then the balance is all they get here.
It is another smart way of the NZ government to “save” costs.
So any person who earned and saved for retirement overseas has done that somehow for no benefit or gain at all, if such a person retires in NZ. All one gets is the balance to the maximum NZ retirement payment.
Only those that have got more entitlement overseas than what they would ever get in NZ would be better off. They though would get nothing here in that case.
Last time I looked there was no legal requirement to have a phone. WINZ won’t include a phone in unavoidable expenditure calculations, unless one has a doctors’ certificate saying one needs one. So a simple: “I haven’t got a phone” should knock that one over.
Retired road policing manager can speak out now about the disappointment that the police felt at the government’s refusal to act to drop the general alcohol limit to .05 instead of .08. Instead the government has set up a two year study so they can say precisely how much extra risk they are willing to expose us to by doing as little as possible for as long as possible. Why worry, have another li’l glug of whisky or wine, a bit of song and the women will soon turn up. We’re paying and we can afford it, what’s more we deserve it!
Very funny that, going all solemn about research. Funny in all ways. One way is that they don’t give a f..k about statistics, findings or research unless forced to. They much prefer to do what feels gooood for us NACTs. Fatheads and fat-ars..s they are examples of a lack in NZ education alright, that of critical thinking, human philosophy and strategic planning and vision for policies for the good of the whole country.
Yep I had to go to Kiwislime blog for this as it’s vanished from the Herald site.
The Government has blood on its hands for refusing to lower the drink-drive limit, a departing senior road policing boss says.
Superintendent John Kelly, who set up national highway patrols, retired on Thursday after six years overseeing the roads of Auckland’s sprawling Waitemata district and 35 years on the force.
He told the Herald on Sunday that John Key’s National Party ignoring calls for the drink-drive limit to be slashed two years ago was his biggest career frustration. He believed it had potentially contributed to more than 60 road deaths since.
“Between 250 and 300 people are still dying annually on the roads but if we had lowered the drink-drive limit when we could have, there might have been 30 or so of those people still alive every year,” said Kelly.
And as usual Whaleshit has the usual fools running off at the mouth as at Kiwislime. Jeeze there’sz some troglodytes in this country.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/troglodyte
A person considered to be reclusive, reactionary, out of date, or brutish.
David H 10.1
To save yourself getting bogged in the Slough of Despond at Kiwiwhatname, you can also very likely pick up news info on Radionz site – click News from the top list and there are set out all the items in summary form each of which can be clicked to give the full details. Use our Radionz, we want to keep it.
Thank you Prism. I bow to your superior knowledge.
David H 10 1 1 1
Very wise of you. It’s good to be acknowledged, so rare! I like most of your stuff by the way. Some good points made. Cheers.
Where Silence Is Consent
The deafening silence from opposition parties in the week since the announcement by Fletcher Building of NZ’s first major Public Private Partnership is an eloquent statement of their lack of consistency and courage. This has huge economic, social and even constitutional implications.
In economic terms, it will be at least as bad a deal as the energy privatisations. PPP ‘savings’ to the taxpayer are *always* illusory. Worse than that, it’s a precedent for a whole raft of PPP deals that will ultimately give National’s cronies even more that they could expect from the privatisations.
This PPP will likely entail:
– Underwriting a large scale speculative venture by the private sector partners, guaranteeing their profit and socialising any potential losses (e.g. a guarantee of 90% occupancy makes betting against penal reform a one-way bet).
– Driving down wages and conditions in a de-unionised environment.
– Creating a private prison lobby and dictating public policy for the next 25 years, possibly putting penal reform off the agenda.
– Eroding the capacity of the State to perform its fundamental role.
– Entrenching this against future governments by signing an agreement enforceable in international tribunals (e.g. under the TPPA).
How many government supply agreements are there that run for 25 years? Especially ones that dictate broader public and social policy. This seems a fundamental breach of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. Opposition parties should loudly reserve the right to repudiate such agreements.
Such ventures in the UK and Australia have produced almost nothing but grief (and expensive grief at that). Speak up Labour and Greens, we can’t hear you!
Meanwhile real money lies in taking a margin through a management contract:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/116008/serco-expects-$30m-revenue-from-wiri-prison
Why one company is thought of as experts in all of design, build and then operate a prison is beyond me – and a contract for 25 years seems unnecessarily long.
Legislation will doubtless be rammed through under urgency . . .
Invoke Godwin’s Law all you like, but Paula isn’t the first to work out lifetime costs:
http://www.exostispress.gr/images/HTML/427/Fahr1.jpg
Forget Godwin. Call it as you see it I reckon.
If you didn’t look, but just listen, David Shearer could be Bill Rowling – also a nice bloke.
well if her figure of $78 Billion is right then no wonder they want to privatise it.
a chunk of that would buy infinite bckets of KFC, Big Macs and Waitakere Whizzzzzz.
Precious little sense on Planet Paula
A good article by Tapu Misa showing the illogic of forward funding.
Yes, another excellent piece from her. i like the way she turns the table on the Nat spin line, attacking Labour constantly as “Planet Labour”.
And her her article includes comparisons with the attempt to prepare ACC for privatisation by manufacturing a “welfare crisis”. She also says that National should be consistent in its accounting by measuring poverty and keeping accurate records on the numbers of jobs being created and destroyed. She is critical of the governments statistics on the latter.
Planet Paula. That would be the Gas Giant, full of nothing but hot air.
The logic of forward funding by government is that of putting money aside in good times to meet the cost of benefits in poorer times – itis what Michael Cullen used to create the NZ Super Fund – there costs were expected to rise as a large cohort of baby-boomers went through retirement. Another reason for the funding was so that the baby-boomer generation did not leave a large liability on the (smaller) cohorts following. The same rationale could e used for benefits, but the difference is that under National we are not, and don;t look like ever getting, those government surpluses from which the additional savings can be made.
Yes, I understand that. It’s just that such a plan is delusional.
It’s delusional because money is not a resource. When it comes down to actually providing the services that the money is to pay for we’re going to need to have the people with the skills, the equipment and everything else needed to provide them. No amount of money will provide these things if they don’t exist and we don’t have a plan to provide them. All we’ve got is a plan to put money aside and hope that those services will be available which they probably won’t as the Rena grounding proved.
Still waiting for Jenny to come out with her wholesale support for the Islamic riots, violence and murders over the weekend.
Arab Spring – yeah right!
Satellite news media referring to ‘Arab Winter’ now. precession to another ‘winter’?
Aus authorities provided with all power/s to identify computer-generated SMS initiating anti-US riots in Sydney (to be repeated next w/e as well)
computer-generated SMS initiating anti-US riots in Sydney
Translation: messages to Facebook group members will be monitored.
FFS, “computer-generated SMS initiating anti-US riots” sounds like skynet, not social networking.
yes the dystopian future is here
off to serve now ( and i have many compassionate friends, thank you B(u)rney);learning to blog in a safe and helpful manner by self is slow process to work around gardens
might volunteer also at the very local radio station; they present probing news summaries and play some really cool music.
Cambell Live 7 pm tonight is comparing the lunches of two schools. Saw a clip on this, the empty desk tops or two slices of bread copmpared to a few items in a lunch box puts it into perspective.
TV 3 strikes again, with an item putting the US view of what the Sky reporter calls ‘our mission’ in Afghanistan. You’d never believe from this guy, that there was any disagreement about ‘our mission’…
Joining the National Day of Action Against Welfare Reforms
Friday, October 5, 2012
12:00pm until 3:30pm in UTC+13
Henderson Square, WINZ Henderson, Bennett’s Office
This is a page to co-ordinate the Auckland Action/s.
Proposed Plan:
12.00: Rally Henderson Square , Catherine St, near G.N.Rd
12.30: March to Henderson WINZ.
1pm: Protest Henderson WINZ, 36 Sel Peacock Drive.
2pm: March to Paula Bennett’s office.
2.30: Protest Bennett’s Office, 429 Great North Rd
http://againstwelfarereforms.wordpress.com/
Please share and invite!!
Note: It is not the intention to occupy the WINZ offices, as this will lead to serious issues with tresspass notices being issued. It is also not the intention to interfere with staff going about their daily work. We are protesting the system, the culture of WINZ, and government policy. We are not protesting the individual workers – harrassment of WINZ employees is NOT condoned by the organisers of National Day of Action.
Calling on academics, parents, and our community to unite.
Vulnerable parents, and vulnerable communities create vulnerable children.
The Government has been rolling out policy it says will help curve child poverty and change NZ shocking child abuse rates. However, punitive measures are attacking the poor and putting chi
ldren at risk.
“The Government is attacking beneficiaries with the guise of protecting children, but stripping parents and our communities of what’s left of any supportive foundations is harming those we should be fighting to protect. Parenting is not a privilege of the rich. We are heading down a dark path where sole parents are being victimised and abused by the state, instead of supported and respected as our most important asset in stopping abuse against children in this country. It’s time our society stopped letting our Government shape our ideology, and had a real discussion about the direction we are heading. In order to change the abuse our children suffer, we must start to value parenting as an important role in society.”
“Beneficiaries are an easy target for Governments to attack, because beneficiaries are in hard times, struggling to survive and make the best out of a hard situation, so organising any form of united front against such attacks is hard work. Picking on sole parents is easy to do, but at what cost?
The Government now states they are slashing benefits if parents don’t comply with the new regime. If a parent who is struggling on a benefit gets their benefit cut 50%, who is being punished?
The children.
It’s the children who will be going hungry. This is the reality! Children will and are suffering from this Government’s punitive measures.
Parents must unite and draw support from each other, to tell this Government that “we won’t let them attack our children any longer.”
Sole parents are not irresponsible timewasters, who can be replaced by institutional day-care centres. Parents are our children’s first and most important teachers. Sole parent are the parents who have taken on the responsibility of raising the child, and have dedicated themselves to this important task. We don’t see this Government chasing up the parent who is not financially supporting the parent who is caring for the child. No, we see women being told they need contraceptives, and to get back to work.
Parenting is work. It’s the most important work in this country.
We have the research that shows day-care is not a substitute for good parenting. We can’t let this Government treat children like a disposable commodity anymore. Children are our Toanga, and we dam well need to protect them.
There were some great academics contributing to the Green Paper on Vulnerable Children who stood up and spoke out against this Governments agenda of benefit bashing. We need these academics to help us unite and have a voice in this country.
There must be a debate, at the moment all we have is one punitive measure after another hitting the poor like bombs. This is a call to action for everyone and anyone who is concerned about the direction of our society.
Every single parent on the benefit who is being attacked needs to join together to have a discussion. We need the community to help turn this into a discussion, instead of a war on the poor.
It isn’t just parents under attack, those members of our community who are unwell are also under huge pressure.
People looking for work are being punished for not finding it, when it’s the Government who have destroyed the jobs in this country and continue to do so.
All beneficiaries must unite, and we need help to do this!’
http://www.facebook.com/groups/360890093983840/
Other Centres:
CHRISTCHURCH http://www.facebook.com/events/359769487433655/
Organising meeting, Monday 17th Sep. 7pm at WEA 59 Gloucester street..contact Jo on 0221726120
WELLINGTON https://www.facebook.com/groups/501414736555115/ – contact kylebowater@gmail.com
HAMILTON http://www.facebook.com/events/406160476105876/
DUNEDIN https://www.facebook.com/events/284916358279500/
♥
Supporting Groups: ( We will add more as they join)
Waitemata Branch of Unite Union
Against Welfare Reforms
againstwelfarereforms.wordpress.com
Stop the War on the Poor
Reply to David H, from My 2 Cents thread:
http://thestandard.org.nz/my-2-cents/comment-page-1/#comment-522476
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10834436
Phil O’Reilly seems to care about poverty, and he explains his POV well. But there seems to me to be too much focus on treating the systems, and not really acknowledging the underlying causes – i.e ones based in extensive inequalities.
Carol, But like a hospital, you first have to treat the symptoms before you try to cure the whole body. Sorry getting tired, probably a bad analogy. Have to be up early for the pride of my life, that’s him watching you. Lol
Why is it easier to…
Yes, that’s a very good one-liner. Just saw it on my twitter feed a little while ago. Must be doing the rounds.
RT television regularly feature the occupy movement
TS is really engaging to read at present: build a road and the people will come
Tuhoe are raised up to be Leaders imo and experience
that ol’ Republican propaganda machine FOX are really spinning the outrage at the blasphemous video
Yes. Let us Hope that the ‘Day of The Troll’ is coming to a close, for they only harm themselves as the Skynet closes in.(Despite all their Rage, they are still just Rats in a cage)
Manufacturing is certainly receiving a hammering: How’s those Free Trade Agreements working out for them, Aye?
Rage Against The Machine
Look forward to seeing Articles posted from Carol; MSM can eat the blogosphere’s Dust
Campbell Live ran 2 strong stories today:
1) about a school in Christchurch threatened with closure and the community’s fight back.
2) about lunches at decile 1 and 10 schools and its pointer to child poverty.
Did anyone else see them? Seemed to me like some good old fashioned journalism.
What did you think?
Campbell Live has been consistently turning the gaze upon the social inequalities continuously arising in Aotearoa as a consequence of ideological, balls to the wall, head in the sand adherence to Neo-Liberal Free Market Capitalism.
(although, even ol’ Joycie looked a little unsettled when interviewed by Rachel concerning the hammering manufacturing is in for.)Will, we see Devaluation this electoral term?
Childhood Poverty Is National Poverty
IS AUCKLAND COUNCIL CEO DOUG MCKAY ‘FIT FOR DUTY’?
In my considered opinion NO – and I told him so – to his face on 22 August 2012:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151226862514524&set=a.10150142285564524.342080.649079523&type=1&theater
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10834472
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aboutcouncil/committees/ceoreviewsubcommittee/meetings/chiefexecutivereviewsubcommitmin20120822.pdf
5 Public Input
5.1 Public Input –
Ms Penny Bright was in attendance to address the CEO Review Subcommittee regarding maintaining systems to enable effective planning and accurate reporting of the financial and service performance of the local authority.
Resolution number CEOR/2012/10
MOVED by Mayor LCM Brown, seconded Cr CE Fletcher:
That the Chief Executive Review Subcommittee:
Agree that the Public input presentation be received.
CARRIED
Subject: OPEN LETTER: Request for speaking rights at Auckland Council CEO Review Subcommittee 22 August 2012, 10am Auckland Town Hall.
17 August 2012
REQUEST FOR SPEAKING RIGHTS AT THE CEO REVIEW SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING
to be held on Wednesday 22 August 2012, 10am,
Council Chambers, Auckland Town Hall, 301-305 Queen Street, Auckland
SUBJECT MATTER:
1) The failure of the Auckland Council CEO Doug McKay to meet his statutory duties under s.42 2(e) of the Local Government Act 2002 re:
“maintaining systems to enable effective planning and accurate reporting of the financial and service performance of the local authority; ”
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0084/latest/DLM171859.html
LGOIMA REPLY 21 November 2011 from Darryl Griffin (Manager for Democracy Services)
“The Auckland Council Annual Report:
1) Is the Auckland Council, in a truly ‘open,transparent and democratically-accountable’ way, going to ensure that citizens and ratepayers of the Auckland region are going to be given the ‘devilish’ detail, so we can see exactly where out rate monies are being spent on private sector consultants and contractors?
a) Are the names of the consultants/contractors; the scope,term and value of these contracts going to be published in the Auckland Council Annual Report so that they’re available for public scrutiny?
b) If not – why not?
Not at this stage. There are 5,000 contracts related to 12,500 suppliers.
To collate and publish these would be a major exercise logistically and cost-wise. ”
____________________________________________________________
2) The alleged ‘conflict of interest’ of CEO Doug McKay in being a member of the unelected private lobby group – the Committee for Auckland, in his capacity as CEO of Auckland Council.
IE: Is the CEO of Auckland Council primarily working in the interests of the public majority of citizens and ratepayers or a private minority of big business /corporate interests?
http://www.committeeforauckland.co.nz/membership/member-organisations
Doug McKay Chief Executive Officer Auckland Council http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz
(Is this the reason why Auckland Council rates keep going up?
Because the primary reason for the establishment of the Auckland SUPERCITY was to ensure bigger contracts – for (fewer) but bigger private contractors, an unknown number of which have been awarded to member companies of the Committee for Auckland?)
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
http://www.stopthesupercity.org.nz
Market rents for those in NZDF housing. Yes, you heard it right. Those who serve are about to be hit with something really nasty by the Nats.
All those thinking of joining the forces need to realise that there will be NO increased standard of living and NO job security.
Posters on here will know that I pretty much am not keen on outsourcing. However, given the fact that local and central government have purged anything to do with engineering, work and services and the like, given the choice bettween spending millions building up that expertise (and risking the backlash from assorted rednecks) and souring it from the private sector, then there is no choice.
But when the contract for running one of the most popular summer festivals in NP, the Festival of Lights, our council chooses to ditch the local company that runs it, which is full of experienced electricians and technicians who have learnt their trade at the old NPCC electricity department before it became NP Energy/Taranaki Energy/Powerco, and instead go for a more expensive tender from a company that appears to be run by people who have done polytech courses in theatre lighting, you really gotta just throw your hands up in dispear.
I have the same reaction when people push for investment in rail over road, or for Hillside to design
and build trains.
So, you are an anti rail redneck then.
Can you please provide a detailed explanation why you want the whole rail network closed down and ripped up?
Sure, if you first explain why you hate all polytechnic students and want them murdered in their beds
AND here IT is, Paula Bennett’s NASTY Masterpiece of proposed legislation, being the “final chapter” of the National Party’s welfare reform package:
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2012/0067/latest/DLM4542304.html?search=ts_act%40bill%40regulation%40deemedreg_Social+Security+%28Benefit+Categories+and+Work+Focus%29+Amendment+Bill_resel_25_h&p=1
Following the UK example, indeed, now new legal provisions are proposed and expected to become law, that will enable WINZ and MSD to outsource services for medical and work capacity assessments, for training and job-referrals. Also will the disability allowance be tied to providers delivering specified services.
The sickness benefit will be abolished, and sick and disabled not meeting the living support category will have to join other “job seekers”, get work tested, will have to ready themselves to do at least part time work and also have to meet strict other criterias and requirements. Many sole parents whose youngest child is over 14 will also have to work, and only invalid’s beneficiaries will (largely) be exempted as living support recipients from the requirement to work.
Yet there will be more checks, stricter criterias and apparently separate assessments besides of purely medical based ones. So it will be work, work, work and more work, whether there are any jobs or not.
Get ready to join the pickets, marches and protests, which will need to be held all over NZ in the coming weeks and months. This is a nasty piece of legislation and a vicious attack on the poor, sick and disabled.
BeneBashers goal of getting 10,000 off benefits a year is pure pie in the sky when after 4 years in power the National party has lost 60,000 jobs that means they are going to have to turn around a 100, 000 deficit in jobs.
60,000 more on the unemployment benefit,30,000 on the DPB.Thousands more on other benefits .
Rapidly increasing numbers on the pension (National does nothing)
Where is the plan to get 100,000 more jobs not including those leaving to Australia.
More Porkies from Porkies party!
New Policy Reprint all bureaucracies letter head change name of Dept .
Then Change benefit names that will help to no end!