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!
‘It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. I am quite sure that it is figures which show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.’ GoetheI was struck at a recent conference on equity for the elderly, how many presenters implicitly relied upon Statistics New Zealand. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveReporting on defence spending late last year, RNZ said the coalition government will have to make some tough calls this term to help the force address staff shortages and ageing infrastructure. “These are huge, huge amounts of government spending. It’s a significant proportion of the government’s ...
Peter Dunne writes – I am always wary when I hear that the Controller and Auditor-General has commented on or made recommendations to the government about an issue of public policy that does not relate strictly to public expenditure. According to the legislation, the role of the Controller ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought NZ to the brink of economic and cultural chaos Chris Trotter writes – TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition ...
And why did the Crown not challenge the Tribunal’s jurisdiction? Gary Judd writes – Retired District Court Judge, David Harvey, has posted on his A Halflings View Substack an excellent summary of Justice Isacs’ judgment declining to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result?As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and ...
Macklemore isn’t someone I’d usually think about. Sure I liked his big hit from a few years back, everybody did it was catchy and cool with some memorable lines. But if I was going to think of artists who might speak out on political matters or world events, he wouldn’t ...
Another week goes by in the Luxon government’s efforts to roll back the past 70 years of social progress. The school lunches programme is to be downgraded by $107 million, and women need bother their heads no longer about pay equity, let alone expect ACC to provide adequate sexual violence ...
Brrr, the first cold snap of the year. Hope you’re rugged up nice and warm. Here are some stories that caught our eye this week… This Week on Greater Auckland On Monday, we had a post from a new contributor, Connor Sharp, who dug into the public feedback ...
Almost all of the Wellington City Council’s recommended zoning changes to allow many more apartments and townhouses in its inner-suburbs have been approved.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guest on geopolitics, ...
Open access notablesA Global Increase in Nearshore Tropical Cyclone Intensification, Balaguru et al., Earth's Future:Tropical Cyclones (TCs) inflict substantial coastal damages, making it pertinent to understand changing storm characteristics in the important nearshore region. Past work examined several aspects of TCs relevant for impacts in coastal regions. However, ...
Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result? As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and always answered “yes”, with very few ...
Thus far May has followed on from a quiet April in the blogging department, but in fairness, it has been another case of doing what I am supposed to be doing, namely writing original fiction. Plus reading. So don’t worry – I have been productive. But in order to reassure ...
Buzz from the Beehive A new government agency will open for business on July 1 – the Social Investment Agency. As a new standalone central agency effective from 1 July, it will lead the development of social investment across Government, helping ministers understand who they need to invest in, what ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The ...
Alwyn Poole writes – After being elected to Parliament in 2008 the maiden speech of Hipkins was substantially around education policy. He was Labour’s spokesperson for education 2011 – 2017. He was Minister for Education from 2017 until February 2023. This is approximately 88% of the time Labour ...
Eric Crampton writes – A fashion industry group is lobbying for protections. They make the usual arguments and a newer one. None of it makes sense. An industry group says it pumped $7.8 billion into the economy last year – that’s 1.9 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. ...
In December 2006, Fiji's military leader Voreqe Bainimarama overthrew the elected government in a coup. He ruled Fiji for the next 16 years, first as dictator, then as "elected" Prime Minister. But now, he's finally been sent to jail where he belongs. Sadly, this isn't for his real crime of ...
Don't like National's corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law? Aotearoa's environmental NGO's - Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, WWF, Coromandel Watchdog, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, and others - have announced a joint march against it in Auckland in June: When: 13:00, 8 June, 2024 Where: Aotea Square, Auckland You ...
Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
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 ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
By Kaneta Naimatu in Suva Journalists in the Pacific region play an important role as the “eyes and ears on the ground” when it comes to reporting the climate crisis, says the European Union’s Pacific Ambassador Barbara Plinkert. Speaking at The University of the South Pacific (USP) on World Press ...
Aldora Itunu is back in the Black Ferns squad after a three-year absence. The last of her 24 internationals was an underwhelming loss to France (7-29) in Castres to conclude the disastrous 2021 Northern Tour. The powerhouse prop won a Rugby World Cup in 2017 and thought she was done. ...
The fight to control major transport policy and projects in Auckland has burst into the open again, with councillors rejecting Mayor Wayne Brown’s latest attempt to steer things more under his influence. Councillors from the left and right broke ranks on the mayor’s bid to control Auckland Transport more directly ...
Exhausted by the general election campaign, horrified by the twilight zone of coalition negotiations, distracted by the silly season and waiting for the honeymoon to begin, Raw Politics has been in hibernation since October. From today, we’re back. Our weekly political video show and podcast returns for ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk Authorities in the small town of Boulouparis have commemorated Armistice Day on May 8 with a new memorial honouring New Zealand soldiers who were stationed in New Caledonia during World War II. The ceremony took place in the township on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Dehm, Senior lecturer, international migration and refugee law, University of Technology Sydney The High Court unanimously ruled today that the Australian government can keep asylum seekers in immigration detention indefinitely in cases where they do not “voluntarily” cooperate with their own ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Munro, Lecturer, Creative Industries and Digital Media, University of South Australia Twenty-four hours after the release of Macklemore’s pro-Palestine protest song Hind’s Hall on social media on May 7, the video had already notched up over 24 million views. In ...
Failing to anticipate the complexity of the consenting system is being cited as the the current builder's shortcomings, an Infrastructure Commission review says. ...
350 Aotearoa is calling the Environment Select Committee’s decision to allow oral submissions from just 40% of individual, unique submitters who asked to speak to the committee ‘a disgraceful blight to democracy’. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Helal, Assistant Dean (Sustainability), The University of Melbourne Dubai skylineAleksandarPasaric/Pexels Since ancient times, people have built structures that reach for the skies – from the steep spires of medieval towers to the grand domes of ancient cathedrals and mosques. Today ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Musole, PhD Law Student, University of New England Girts Ragelis/ShutterstockRecent trends show Australians are increasingly buying wearables such as smartwatches and fitness trackers. These electronics track our body movements or vital signs to provide data throughout the day, with ...
Papua New Guinea experienced a significant earthquake on 24 March in East Sepik and there has also been recent flooding there and in surrounding provinces. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yousuf Mohammed, Dermatology researcher, The University of Queensland Maridav/Shutterstock You wake up, stagger to the bathroom and gaze into the mirror. No, you’re not imagining it. You’ve developed face wrinkles overnight. They’re sleep wrinkles. Sleep wrinkles are temporary. But as your ...
The Environment Select Committee has just announced that 60 percent of individuals who asked to speak at the hearings will not be heard. This equates to almost 700 people who made individual submissions and more than 1000 more who made a form submission. ...
The Royal New Zealand Ballet is performing Swan Lake around the country. What kind of dream does the ballet sell?Before going to see the Royal New Zealand Ballet perform Swan Lake, I had about as much familiarity with the plot of this ballet as could be expected from having ...
A new poem by Auckland poet Eamonn Tee. High Tide at Local Maxima It is only going to get worse. The streams will be narrow and fickle. The week will bend and buckle like a pot-bellied waist. You will make it to the weekend with one ...
The New Zealand entrepreneur behind beauty business Ethique is gearing up to launch a new eco-venture. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Our thirst for a tasty bevvy is insatiable, but it comes with a hefty plastic price for the planet: 580 billion ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 James by Percival Everett (Mantle, $38) A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from ...
By Kamna Kumar in Suva Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna stressed the importance of media freedom and its link to the climate and environmental crisis at the 2024 World Press Freedom Day event organised by the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme. Under the theme “A Planet for ...
Tara Ward previews a new local TV series offering alternative visions of motherhood. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. A woman is clambering up the side of her two-story house, clinging desperately to a drainpipe. Nearby, her child is perched on the ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is supportive of the cross-party approach to climate adaptation announced by the Minister of Climate Change today. ...
The Sustainable Business Council (SBC) and Climate Leaders Coalition (CLC) welcome today’s announcement from Government around a bipartisan inquiry into an enduring climate adaptation framework for New Zealand. ...
The Free Speech Union welcomes the decision by the Department of Internal Affairs, and Minister Brooke Van Velden, to abandon proposals to further regulate online speech. ...
Its new building in Wellington will not be nearly big enough for all its records, and it has also run out of money to build its new storage facility in Levin. ...
BusinessNZ is congratulating the Minister of Climate Change for his work in achieving cross-party consensus for a way forward on climate adaptation. ...
Recent research reveals the repeal of smokefree measures is not only bad for our health, but also the economy. The Government has repealed various smokefree measures to ensure it keeps collecting $1.2 billion a year in tobacco taxes, in order to pay for tax cuts already being delivered to ...
The club’s surprisingly good season is built on the desire to prove a random A-League YouTuber wrong… and a few other factors.“There’s no way that Wellington Phoenix play finals this year. I can’t see it happening at all.” Those are the words of Lachlan Raeside, an Australian football content ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By César Albarrán-Torres, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology Apple TV+ As one of billions of bilingual individuals in the world, it disappoints me when a film or TV show with characters of a non-English-speaking background is ...
The under-utilised course is a waste of space, and with a little political will, it could be turned into something better. For the duration of her stay in Wellington, my long-suffering cousin listened to me rant about golf courses. They’re bad for the environment: water intensive and pesticide heavy. They ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab, Podcast at MissPerceived, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows US fertility rates dropped 2% in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Corderoy, Medical doctor and PhD candidate studying involuntary psychiatric treatment, School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney shop_py/Shutterstock Picture two people, both suffering from a serious mental illness requiring hospital admission. One was born in Australia, the other in Asia. Hopefully, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Treby, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, RMIT University P.j.Hickox, Shutterstock Peatlands store more carbon per square metre than any other ecosystem on Earth. These waterlogged, mossy bogs beat even dense rainforests for their ability to act as carbon reservoirs. Under the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Goss, Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Research Institute, University of Canberra Government spending on health has been growing so rapidly that a decade ago the then health minister Peter Dutton called it “unmanageable” and “unsustainable”. Health spending grew in real terms by ...
New Zealand's largest electricity distributor is warning the country to hurry up with controls around charging electric vehicles or face unnecessary bills running into the billions. ...
New Zealanders have been asked to conserve energy this morning to combat a possible electricity shortfall, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. A call to conserve power New Zealand is facing a possible electricity shortfall, with people up ...
Writer Rebecca K Reilly breaks down the national book awards. What are the Ockhams?The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are our annual national awards for books published for adults, and have existed in this form since 2016. There are four categories: Fiction, Poetry, General Non-fiction and Illustrated Non-fiction. There ...
Wellington City Council should keep its 34% ownership share in Wellington International Airport, argue Unions Wellington spokespeople Finn Cordwell and Ashok Jacob. Insanity, as the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Wellington City Council (WCC) is yet again proposing to dispose ...
New Zealand’s largest book publisher has undergone drastic changes this week, leaving its future role in local publishing uncertain. Two of the most recognisable local publishers in New Zealand are among those restructured out of Penguin Random House, it was announced this week. Head of publishing Claire Murdoch will leave ...
In 2021 the Public Interest Journalism Fund launched the Te Rito Journalism project, a $2.4 million initiative to boost diversity in New Zealand’s newsrooms. The initiative was in response to the decades-long shortage of Māori and Pacific journalists in the media industry. It was billed as New Zealand’s ...
The Black Ferns Sevens appeared to be a mile behind Australia at the halfway point of the 2023-24 SVNS international circuit. Winless in three tournaments, a cup quarter-final exit in Perth was one of their worst results. To add insult to injury, talismanic skipper Sarah Hirini had been ruled out ...
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Successive governments have tried, and failed, to count Māori. But with the return of social investment, it’s more important than ever to get good data. The post Government looks for a better way to count Māori appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Experts in financing social investment initiatives say New Zealand is in a prime position to tackle social issues via a social investment approach The post What will Willis’ social investment fund look like? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist A former Tuvalu prime minister says while the New Zealand government’s oil and gas plans show it is concerned about its economy, he is more concerned about the livelihoods and survival of the Tuvalu people. Enele Sopoaga — who still serves as an MP ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Many people who follow federal budgets know about the magnificent “budget tree” in a parliamentary courtyard, which turns a glorious red in time for the May event. This week Treasurer Jim Chalmers posed by ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Strong, Associate professor, Music Industry, RMIT University This week American rapper Macklemore released a new track, Hind’s Hall, which has gained a lot of attention because of its explicitly political nature. The track is unapologetically pro-Palestine. It declares the artist’s ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danica Jenkins, Lecturer in European Studies, University of Sydney On a freezing spring night in March, Georgia’s national soccer team beat Greece in a nail-biter penalty shootout to qualify for the Euro 2024 championships. The atmosphere on the streets of the capital ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam G. Arian, Lecturer (Accounting & Finance), Australian Catholic University Loic Manegarium/Pexels Imagine every ton of carbon dioxide a company emits is slowly inflating its costs — not just in terms of potential fines or fees but in the capital it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Somwrita Sarkar, Senior Lecturer in Design and Computation, University of Sydney The “latte line” is the infamous, invisible boundary that divides Sydney between the more affluent north-east and the south-west. Historically, people north of the line enjoy better access to jobs and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dowdy, Principal Research Scientist in Extreme Weather, The University of Melbourne Nomad_Soul/Shutterstock In media articles about unprecedented flooding, you’ll often come across the statement that for every 1°C of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture. This ...
RNZ Pacific Former Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has been sentenced to one year in prison, Fiji media are reporting. Bainimarama, alongside suspended Fiji Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho appeared in the High Court in Suva today for their sentencing hearing for a case involving their roles in blocking a police ...
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!