With the porkys and taxpayer spend piling up in northland granny does her best to help the NACT again with a lead on Len brown and no politics section immediately visible online.
It’s as if parliament wasn’t sitting and nothing of political merit was occurring….
All the media outlets have downgraded their politics sections in the wake of the election. TVNZ doesn’t even have a politics tab you can click on anymore, it’s all just jumbled up with the rest of the NZ news.
tc- On the home page, the NZH link to their Politics section now appears on the far right hand side about 4/5ths the way down, just above the Puzzles and Games section –
Who can blame them when goff fuels speculation about a mayoralty bid rather than turn the blowtorch on NACT over Northland pork barrelling, Lui 25K donation, Sabin, Troop deployment etc etc
However, the Herald gave it as little attention as possible and although the comment section is open not one comment has appeared yet. It never featured in the Politics or Opinion sections where it rightfully belongs. Why?
A quick search online suggests that it has not been picked up by anybody, which is odd IMO.
I think it is very good article that raises very good questions that need to be pondered and discussed by many.
Does this mean the limo drivers are on the minimum hourly wage and zero-hour contracts with no set tea- or toilet-breaks? Are they unionised? Perhaps now is a good time to negotiate better employment terms …
And if the negotiations stall then they could ..well head for wellington sans passengers who will have a long walk/ bus ride if they are lucky to the nearest airport.
Althogh I’m not so sure that the sight of a lot of rich limo’s tooling cabinet ministers around will bring out the vote in their favour
New research from Otago Uni shows a common ointment used to treat child skin infections is worsening the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
As well as a general wake-up call about antibiotic resistance, it’s another reason not to rely on being able to treat the symptoms of poverty rather than its causes.
Here’s a remarkably precise re-enactment of the free-for-all fist-fight we’ve just witnessed on The Standard over the last 2 days regarding Julian Assange.
Re-enacted by the Sheffield Townswomen’s Guild, starring Mrs Elsie Osselthwaite as TRP, Mrs Patricia Wesleydale as Chooky, Mrs Audrey Bycroft as OAB and Mrs Ena Daniels as CV. And – in a brief but memorable cameo – Mrs Petulia Ramsbottom as Les…….
Due to ill-health, Mrs Millicent Holdsworth was unable to play Stephanie Rodgers throwing a heavily-loaded (rape-culture-enabling) hand-grenade to start the fight off (so they had to make-do with a whistle).
LOL that was quite funny, I’d never seen that clip before. Mind you very serious important people don’t like it when the piss gets taken out of them, so maybe you shouldn’t do it any more 😛
Government is listening to retail lobby group and will tax on line purchases 15%, possibly in this term. National, the big brother government that increases tax and reduces services.
Polling in the Israeli election closes in a few minutes. The final polling had the rightwing party Likud neck and neck with the the left wing (and awfully named) Zionist Union. They are both at around 25% of the vote. So both will need other parties to form government in a system that, like here, is proportionally based and also involves getting 61 seats in a 120 seat parliament.
The initial results will be known in an hour or so, then coalition building begins.
If A Prominent New Zealander has their name suppression extended tomorrow, will WhaleOil follow his previous form and break the suppression order, in public interest?
somehow I doubt he is willing to inflict that much pain and hurt on Key in northland …
and if it involves children as ‘personal matters’, perhaps even Slater may be a little kind. Doubt he wants back in court quite so soon, and also he is a ‘real’ journalist now, isn’t he ?
Personally, I am sure it will come but likely not from Slater.
Dirty secrets hidden for three elections* in our tiny land with less than 1.5 degrees of separation and Australia just over the ditch ? And Winston on an absolute roll ?
It must come out. Our whole citizenry has the right to know what this
vile Key government has been willing to cover up and who it is they are willing to harm.
West’s cognitive dissonance grows as Saudi Arabia decapitates 45th person
That’s since the start of the 2015. Not sure how many of stonings of women have been carried out in that same time frame but I think that’s an additional number.
“My book shows how the US and Western European countries have fostered and put to work different kinds of “Islams” during the last two hundred years—pan-Islamism, jihadist forms of Islam, and liberal forms of Islam, depending on the period and the tactical and strategic goals they sought; sometimes they foster these different varieties at the same time to serve different agendas. The question of the Caliphate, which became a major concern for European colonial powers, would not subside until the eve of World War II. The book goes into details about Western designs about who the Caliph should be, what authority he should have, and what ethnic background he must have.
We see, for example, how at present the US and Western European countries are fostering two kinds of “Islam” simultaneously, a jihadist form that targets those who resist the US order and its Israeli and Saudi proxies—beginning in Afghanistan, but also in Arab countries with regimes that resisted US diktat (though recently jihadists like ISIS, who were made possible by the support of the US and its allies, have partly gone off script in their Iraqi and Libyan incarnations and have themselves made use of the Caliphate, at least at the titular if not the institutional level)—and a liberal form of Islam that the US could tolerate, which Arab and Muslim governments and an army of Arab and Muslim intellectuals and journalists and a political and economic class espouse and push for in the name of modernization, human rights, and a new/neo liberal order. The latter form of liberal Islam was also supported by the British in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; hence British celebrations then and ongoing American celebrations today of thinkers like Qasim Amin, Muhammad ‘Abduh, the already-mentioned al-Kawakibi, ‘Ali Abd al-Raziq, and scores of others.”
Why oh why did Andrew Little come out straight away and agree with John Key’s idea to charge GST on overseas online purchases?? This could be a real vote-loser with the public. So why not just say that Labour would look at it and leave it at that? Labour could claw that lost GST back easily by raising the tax rate on the wealthy! And leave the public’s wrath on Key’s back! After all it’s his idea – maybe he wants the money to pay for his new flag and probably other little hobby-horses he has in the pipeline – And how much is this to do with the TPPA? So many questions the mainstream media will never never ask. Still it does give ammo to the left today in Parliament over Key’s appalling inability to work out 15 percent GST on an i-tunes song worth $1.39 – and here he was laughing at the Green leadership candidates some of whom did not know the exact unemployment rate etc! Shouldn’t his GST gaffe be front page news in the Herald? David Cunliffe wearing his red scarf sure was!
The whole point of GST is that it’s a tax which hits working class people hardest – and not just because we spend more of our income on necessities, but because unlike income tax it comes out of our wages, whereas generally workers’ income tax is a deduction on surplus-value. This is why GST was introduced and why the most economically right-wing prefer higher GST and lower income tax.
See: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/understanding-gst-and-tax-policy/
I’m not surprised that Little isn’t opposed to what Key said. Labour brought in GST.
Moreover, GST is 15% – 12.5% was introduced by Labour! First Labour made it 10%, then they increased it to 12.5%.
Simply speaking, GST was introduced so as to allow the government lower taxes upon the rich with no thought whatsoever on the harm it does to the poor. If Labour were serious about helping the poor they’d be talking about dropping GST.
dtb +100
I think GST is quite a useful tax that throws a wide net and could be used much more effectively to fund infrastructure and so on where business and enterprise is happening and therefore needs facilitating services and improvements. My belief is that it should not be 15%, and I suggest half that would make a useful tax, with an element of distribution like this – 7 1/2% with 5% going to central government and 2 1/2% to the local authority.
Although it is a tax that hits everyone equally, it has an unequal effect on the rich than on the poor. I get something mended and pay the government 15% on that, it might be only $4 but that would buy a nice coffee which I forego most days while watching my budget, someone comfortably off can buy new and afford the 15% without making a hole in their ample funds.
So bring it down as I have suggested, that would be fair to everyone.
edited
And if we didn’t have GST at all your coffee would only cost $3.40 instead of $4 🙂
Other area’s where GST sucks up valuable dollars, my examples:
Weekly grocery shop: Up to $45
Landline/broadband monthly approx $15
Power monthly :Approx $18
Doctor’s visit: $6
Unfunded medicines per month average: $10
Quarterly rates bill $87
Weekly petrol: $7
Just a few random examples off the top of my head, the cruellest and most unfair being groceries.
Get rid of GST all together and the retailers won’t be complaining. People with a bit of extra coin in their pocket are going to spend it in the shops. Get those shoppers off line and into the stores by removing GST. Shops get busier, hire more staff, increase wages, boss has greater profits, Put the profit into NZ businesses not over seas ones. Everyone’s happy.
More than that, people will be able to afford to get extra food in their weekly shop or improve the quality of the products they buy. Once again this will lead to increased turnover. Why should a necessity such as food be taxed? Thats sick!
Along with low wage rates and the high cost of accommodation in our cities GST is an added unfair burden and surely contributes to poverty.
Get rid of it. Replace with a FTT, CGT and increase the income tax on the highest earners
@ Rosie
Sounds nice, I can see a double rainbow behind that printed in big letters on a roadside billboard. But GST has been set up, it’s in place and it provides a good base of taxation to do things with and everybody has to contribute.
A lower rate will ensure that every citizen is putting into the putea without being scalped, and the Taxpayers Union which has a sort of sacred, special tang about it can go suck their iceblocks. They willl be made to admit that their idea of being special and different and somehow better is just a bunch of Minties, whose moment has gone. It can be reiterated that we ALL pay tax through GST, so CRACT shut the f…up. But the tax take must be smaller, like I suggest 7% or so.
Don’t think of wiping it until the FTT and the CGT come in. The income tax of course ought to be going up anyway, starting from down at the bottom, 5% to $20,000 and then progressing up by 10% every $20,000 to 40%. After that 45% marginal.
And make sure they pay, and no lambasting people with cumulative interest if they don’t, but just threaten seizure of assets if they don’t keep to their schedules and strt carrying it out. Treat them like gang members if they just won’t do it.
7% would be better than 15% but to my mind, it has to go, it has to be phased out, after CGT and FTT’s and increased tax on high incomes are soundly in place (Ha! I remember when GST came in. I was at my first job at DEKA, when I was 17. I thought it was unfair, even back then).
And about “everyone contributing”. This isn’t fair either. Unlike income tax, that one income tax paying individual then, can potentially go on to supply additional tax to the government on behalf of others, not just themselves – They are paying taxes for those in the household who aren’t earning, such as babies and children, or supporting a partner who isn’t earning, so the heavy burden of GST is increased on that one individual. All the tax on all the goods and services purchased for those non earners comes from one individual. Think of those poor aching shoulders!
Tax is being squeezed out of zero earners. It has to come from somewhere so falls back on the main earner for the household.
There are multiple ways in which GST is unfair.
As for those minties 🙂 they can go jump. Leave them to bleat about FTT and CGT instead.
@ Rosie
I was looking at it from a fairer tax approach so that bennies would be paying 12% ta all up. Naturally the crazy secondary tax would be stopped and people would be encouraged to earn and keep their government services if wanted.
But looking at GST from a different viewpoint, the beneficiary pays it on most of his/her transactions which goes to the government. Then the government probably pays that out in accommodation allowance to the landlord of the house/flat being tenanted by the beneficiary. That is instead of increasing state housing in purpose built people friendly and
affordable state ccommodation, it goes out of the bennies hands and into the landlord’s hands. Who responds to this vicious circle by keeping the rents rising whereby the accommodation allowance goes up again.
The politicians are being cowardly and placing the hardest taxes on the people with the least power while facilitating a transfer to from the poor to the landed gentry of the landlord class. Usual fucked up behaviour from the “left” and the “right.”
Especially when you consider that the Crown is sovereign and does not necessarily need to collect in electronic NZD in order to spend electronic NZD.
+1 Rosie. Lower income people pay GST on everything they earn, because they spend all their money to survive. 15% for them.
Someone on $100k might spend $50k on living costs, with the rest invested in property. Let’s say they get a capital gain of $50k a year. 5% GST for them.
Get rid of it. It’s a gift to globetrotting scumbags with houses in Hawaii and keeps the poor stuck in their poverty.
not sure about that ,GST catches big spenders too ,increasing tax on very high earners and closing down loopholes would be more productive imo.If you think about all the financial devices ..tax havens ,trusts ,etc..they only are for the benefit of the very wealthy ..a small % of voters.
No it doesn’t. Due to GST the bottom decile pay nearly as high a percentage of tax as the top decile. And some of those big spenders are also shaping their finances through businesses and trusts so that they can minimise the the GST that they pay.
A thousand bucks spent on fancy wine is still only fuck all proportion of the rich prick’s $250K per annum income.
Compared to someone who blows $100 out of their $600 wages on scrumpy, gin and Woodstock bourbon.
The ordinary wage earners gets smashed with GST way harder as a % of their income. One in six dollars they earn gets GST’d just on that transaction alone. For the rich prick its only one in two hundred and fifty dollars that they earn which is subject to GST. Big difference.
The Green Party contenders were far more ignorant than not knowing the exact unemplyment rate. Some didn’t know what the current inflation rate or what the OCR was. I’d expect any politician should have a clue about those two economic measures given they drive so much of our economic framework.
Gosman no doubt you knew the exact employment rate and the ratio in different regions one to another. You are keen and interested in winkling out inaccuracies.
I suggest you offer your sterling services to the UNACTS and don’t waste your talents throwing pearls to wee, wee, wee the swine at TS.
But unlike Key on finance, they don’t portray themselves as experts on unemployment rates! Key asked Goff to “show me the money” – well, come on John, “Show us the exact GST amount” – any moron can work out 15 percent GST on $1.39 – but maybe John Key isn’t just “any moron” – Maybe he’s a gold-plated “special and exclusive” kind of moron??
Hami Shearlie
It probably is the case that yek never thinks about anything so small as that bit of money. He deals in millions of dollars after all. He doesn’t have to know the minor details of odd dollars and cents. When you have lots, you just put it all on your credit card and pay up each month. No wonder the poor man couldn’t do the sums in his head, it’s peanuts to him where he lives on Planet Key.
@ Hami Shearlie
mmm I doubt very much if GST on online purchases hits the bottom 20% of income earners Hami. In the real world they can’t afford to buy tablets/cameras/SD cards online, just food at the Supermarket and often second-hand clothes.
It follows that Little is right to support this as online-purchase GST is likely to mostly tax the better off, thus increasing the tax base for potential social spending.
Are you sure this isn’t just a complaint because, like that silly woman on The Panel last night, you buy things online and don’t want to pay more?
15 percent gst wouldn’t stop me buying anything online as I already save so much and can actually buy things like narrow fitting shoes at the same price as all the others instead of paying $500 for narrow italian shoes – All I am saying is why share the burden of the public’s anger with Key when you don’t have to – I think this could blow up to be a very sore point with many kiwis – especially young people who buy much more online than anyone else and who usually don’t vote at the moment – this might give them a real incentive to vote against National – but if Labour come out publicly and stand beside Key on this from the get-go, then those young people will decide to not vote once again. Sometimes silence is truly golden, at least for a time, long enough for the public to associate Key and National with this unpopular idea.
“Why oh why did Andrew Little come out straight away and agree with John Key’s idea to charge GST on overseas online purchases?”
I can’t think of any good reasons. Little continues to disappoint. Is his view of economics so dismal that he thinks of GST as leftist because Labour introduced it?
Ehm, don’t you think that not doing so rather advantages overseas, Delaware/Cayman/Taxhavenian multinationals from obtaining a ~15% cost advantage over kiwi retailers trying to peddle their wares online in NZ?
Kiwis who spend all their money to survive each week would have 15% extra to spend if gst were dropped on everything. Not all, in fact probably not much of that, would be spent overseas. Kiwi retailers prices would drop as well and they’d still be competitive. I think you missed the fact that I am totally opposed to consumption taxes. Maybe I should have made it obvious.
Yeah, Douglas and Prebble talked about the good old level playing field a lot. They forgot to tell us that the workers’ team would have its legs broken before the game and, if they were still doing ok at half time, their arms as well.
Part of her version of feminism might extend to fiddling with young, or old, men (If she’s not ageist). There is plenty of pluck in us old folks and there’s hope for us yet.
Israeli exit polls are out! The centre-left Zionist Union and rightwing Likud are each estimated to get 27 seats. Netanyahu has called it a victory, but it is premature and still there is a chance of a left-wing victory.
One possible scenario is a coalition/alliance between Zionist Union (centre-left), Meretz (left-wing), Yesh Atid (centre), Kulanu (centre), and with support from the Joint List (Arab parties). These parties, as far as I know, have all indicated a preference for a Zionist Union-led Government. That combination would give 67 seats, or a majority.
So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully that is the case and Bibi is not PM anymore. It would be a much more progressive and pro-peace Government.
Hopefully everyone can cooperate and it doesn’t end up a right-wing victory..
Oh dear. Benjamin Netanyahu has declared victory in the Israeli election. I guess in the worst possible terms Palestine now knows where it stands with Netanyahu.
I see that according to the “Lions of Rojava” facebook page, Turkey is right now aiding ISIS fighters in fighting the northern Syrian Kurds who have established democratic cantons in the part of Syria they control.
For all you Venezuelan apologists out there here is a good break down of the key problems in that country and what they are caused by (Hint: it doesn’t have anything to do with US economic sanctions).
Play the ball not the man. If you have a problem with the facts presented please advise where they are wrong. Simply stating I don’t like the political bent of the target source is a lazy way to argue.
You are right, but you often choose very limited perspectives – on another country, in particular Venezuela – and I don’t understand your obsession with it.
Given that the last few democratic elections have been considered to be quite rigorously conducted, are you just commenting on the policy of a sovereign country using outside sources for the sheer joy of it, or are you actually fascinated with how external commentators view alternate economies?
An interesting topic would have links to Venezuelan sources from both the minority right wing, and existing governing left on a singular topic. Then it would be worth reading both articles to start a discussion.
I am fascinated how many left wingers use examples like Venezuela as examples the world should aspire to when the populist regime in power starts out. Then when it all turns to custard they blame external forces for the failure rather than the economic policies that were implemented. This despite it being obvious to anyone with any nous of understanding around economics that this is what happens following those sorts of economic policies.
Rubbish. Austerity degrades, distorts and destroys societies. Ireland should never have given away its currency sovereignty and it should never have let property and banking speculators get away with rampant cronyism and corruption.
One main reason that Irish unemployment rates have been decreasing is that unemployed people have been fucking off out of Ireland.
Yet another neoliberal way to get the “books back in order.”
One of those things throws money into an economy and boosts gdp.
The other simply extracts money from the poor and further shuts down the real economy in order to temporarily prop up the computer-chip betting market “economy”.
Wall Street Journal offshoot publication
Rupert Murdoch owned.
Oil prices plummeting heavy sanctions have nothing to do with their situation.
Murder Rate nothing to do with American war on drugs causing inflated prices for illegal drugs making it more profitable for drug lords who control vast areas of Venezuela.
Previous Right wing dictatorships propped up by the CIA,s profiting from the Drug trade to Run South American covert ops.
Is why Venezuelans don’t trust the US.
The Murdoch Press happy to give only one side of the Story.
Please name me one economic sanction imposed by the US which has led to the shortages of common goods in Venezuela. I am pretty confident you won’t be able to because there has been no economic sanctions like this imposed.
This hurts US Oil producers just as badly. I also note you haven’t produced any evidence that the US has worked with the Saudis on this or explained why it would necessarily cause shortages of key goods. Other oil producers aren’t suffering shortages of items like toilet paper or medicines.
Venezuela has been a US target since they nationalised their oil industry and kicked Exxon & co. out. Economic sanctions are simply there to destabilise the nation.
Ummm…. you do realise these are for defence items i.e. weapons and ammunition. They are not for goods like toilet paper. Please tell me how these sactions lead to shortages of goods.
You had nearly 10 hours to read those few short paragraphs.
In May 2011, the State Department imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), for delivering at least two cargoes of reformate, a blending component for gasoline, to Iran between December 2010 and March 2011. The sanctions prohibit PDVSA from competing for U.S. government procurement contracts, from securing financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, and from obtaining U.S. export licenses. They do not, however, apply to PDVSA subsidiaries nor prohibit the export of crude oil to the United States.
The sanctions generally preclude the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation from financing or underwriting projects in Venezuela. However, in 2013 President Obama issued a vital national interest waiver to authorize these entities to finance programs critical to U.S. foreign policy interests.
The United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has also imposed sanctions on various designated Venezuelan businesses and individuals. You can find information regarding Venezuela-related OFAC designations at the following website:
U.S. citizens and residents considering trade with Venezuela may wish to seek the advice of experienced legal counsel, given the range of economic sanctions potentially affecting such transactions. See the section on Commercial Disputes and Legal Resources below.
Again you have no example of how sanctions are causing the specific shortages. My understanding is that the recent announcements are targeted sanctions on specific members of the Venezuelan regime. In this regard they are no different to those imposed on Zimbabwe in the early 2000’s. The Zimbabwe regime also blamed these sanctions for the collapse of their economy. Of course there was no evidence for this there just as there is no evidence in the case of Venezuela.
Ah, so now that we find some sanctions, you want other ones. For that, you should talk to FJK. He can tell you “Yes, those are some sanctions, but I can always find other ones.”
So no specific examples of economic sanctions just a loose reference to a general approach the US possibly takes in dealings with South American countries.
do some research on U.S interventions in Guatemala,Honduras and all other central and Sth American nations ,usually on behalf of business corporations.Freedom and democracy do not figure.
Just as I thought. No evidence of sanctions causing shortages just a general argument that the US is working against the government because it has done something like this in other nations before.
how excited you must be to have started a thread about how right you are about Venezuela from a certain premise and now satisfied yourself you were right . Enjoy you day.
You do have a point ,but you first post is either showing you’re thick or you’re mischief making and I prefer your average mischief maker to at least attempt to be clever or funny ,preferably both
Labour might just think that the rural communities are too important to leave with NAct, and have decided not to sacrifice the people, and especially the children, of Northland on a sectarian altar. Good on them.
Phil Twyford : Has he been advised that the Pipiwai Tītoki Advocacy for Community Health and Safety Group, which is campaigning to get more money spent sealing Northland roads, allegedly received a threatening phone call from his colleague Shane Reti telling it to tone down its demands or it would not get what it wanted?
Hon SIMON BRIDGES : I am not aware of that. I am aware of the general project. It is one that I think does need looking at. Of course, if we did that, the other side would accuse us of pork-barrel politics. On this side of the House we have got strong voices inside Government who can make a difference on projects that matter to people in the north.
Ron Mark’s comments at that part of QT are also worth noting
Ron Mark : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could I ask you to have a look at that transcript and pay some attention particularly to the first supplementary question, which is virtually an identical supplementary question to one I asked the very same Minister last week. The problem is that the answer he gave here is different from the answer he gave last time.
Twyford has really struggled to get traction on Transport and Housing, two plum portfolios that any capable front bench MP should be able too. Maybe DC should be given one of them bringing him back up to the front bench.
I think Twyford has done ok on housing actually. He can take some credit for the government never really being able to front-foot this issue. Though I accept the main reason they struggle with this is their ideological blindness.
“Whangarei dairy farmer Alex Wright said Whangarei National MP Shane Reti rang her last week and told her the Pipiwai advocacy group should keep quiet for the next two and a half weeks – or risk getting nothing.
In the call, which she recorded, Dr Reti said he had been working behind the scenes to help the group, but warned her that could be jeopardised if the group continued to agitate and send what he called threatening emails to MPs.
Ms Wright said she was taken aback by Dr Reti’s call, and felt bullied.
But Dr Reti said he was trying to help the group – not bully them”
The behaviour from that MP is appalling. In fact, a BLACKMAIL!
He needs to be sacked from the party immediately. It is worse than the ‘Do you know who I am’ stupid offense by the drunken bravado of Aaron Gilmore! Aaron’s were drunken words where as, Reti’s threat is very serious BLACKMAIL! No doubt about that.
he was trying to help them by telling them to back off til after the election cos his higher ups were getting embarassed and when embarassed the basis of their decision making changes.
Dr Reti (for I believe he is a doctor of some sort) has since issued a statement saying he could have handled his communications with Alex Wright better. The higher-ups are shitting on him.
These days well paid people expect to get their salary, once employed, as a right whatever they do. They have to have performance pay to goad them into doing their job. And if they fail and have to leave they get compensated for someone exerting authority over them.
When a group being helped by a politician makes some democratic comment that isn’t favourable well that isn’t showing proper respect and gratitude to their patron. This polly is in exactly the same position as if working in a private firm. He doesn’t need to do anything for them and has helped out of the goodness of his heart.
He has put himself out to do some work for them, and the ingratitude! It’s appalling.
They apparently think that government should be working for the people. They don’t understand there are many, many things that must be done by pollies who have to prioritise, to meet Party obligatons.
And in the same midday report Steven Joyce has been forced to concede that some of the 7000 so-called jobs he claimed were created in Northland are actually in neighbouring electorates.
I’m not saying you should like them but someone has to think about housing and get behind affordable housing and understand different types. The government seems to have stopped thinking about housing and establishing intelligent renewals and city dense designs back in the 1960’s – 50 years later look at the mess we are in.
BRANZ seemed a bloody waste of money when it came to leaky house design and concepts, with its net gains being non-existent. I hope it is different now but if it was reformed to help property speculators it is just a subsidy for them.
Here is a report that is supposed to be from them but comes from first light studio, whatever they are. http://firstlightstudio.co.nz/report-on-prefab/
CR
I see in the DomPost that they are worried after ebola that measles is coming in. It is so contagious that vaccines are a must they think. And a large group of children are at risk.
So this is where vaccination is essential isn’t it. When there is an emerging situation like this it is a prophylactic that can be given a tick. They fear the measles epidemic, and they fear the unpreparedness of the medical system depleted and exhuasted after ebola will not be able to cope.
I see in the DomPost that they are worried after ebola that measles is coming in. It is so contagious that vaccines are a must they think. And a large group of children are at risk.
So this is where vaccination is essential isn’t it. When there is an emerging situation like this it is a prophylactic that can be given a tick.
Well, linking ebola and measles together is a deliberate, but rather transparent and unimaginative tactic.
+100 CR…”linking ebola and measles together”….is pathetic!…one is a deadly disease , the other most of us had as children…. and our parents and grandparents had as children….and we surbvived and lived long and well
@ McFlock
I got the impression that measles was more contagious than ebola. And making out that it’s some sort of cunning plan to sneak vaccinations in under the pretext of heightened anxiety after ebola is not a good look from you CR.
In the absence of context (no link) it’s not a bad assumption to make. Not that there is a conspiracy, but that this is just the natural way that some people think. It’s unclear however whether it’s a journalist or health authority.
CR
I thought they made a good case for being careful about measles. But what do I know?? And my conclusions though I thought they were reasoned ones, just show my ignorance clearly. I’m afraid this matter will always be one of those black holes down which thought is sucked and vanishes.
@The Chairman
Thanks for that. That must send a clear signal to those RW and business oriented types who chorus that we need more foreign investment.
It’s like an awful addiction – a giant Ponzi scheme. The more we get, the less advamtage there is because if it helps us do more business successfully, then the increased flow of profits out of the country ups our current account deficit. Then that is easiest met by getting more foreigh money invested in the country.
That media piece seems to scotch the idea and I suppose business types will admit they are wrong and look at the whole system again for change. Or perhaps not.
”Fairfax Media New Zealand is rolling out a new model for its newsrooms nationwide and regional newspaper editors are disappearing in favour of regional editorial managers based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch….
”The changes, trialed in Southland, are being rolled out nationwide in coming months.
”The roles disappearing are expected to be editors in smaller regional centres.
”Under the newsroom changes journalists will edit each other’s stories more.”
The last point in particular is disturbing – even if they had the time, reporters are not trained for the very different role of sub-editing.
Agreed.
I have a nodding acquaintance with document production (not on a daily publication basis, though). One reason our team is successful is that we actually do have people who will spend an afternoon mulling over the precision of phrasing or the difference between an em dash and an en dash. I tend to be oblivious to that sort of thing, and the conversations do my nut in, but on the other hand I have skillsets that they do not. Like switching the computer off, then on again.
Frankly, I’d rather headbutt a pencil than have daily discussions on topics such as whether the building was evacuated or merely the building’s occupants were evacuated. I suppose that with a big enough news story aka “disaster” both might be true…
“Frankly, I’d rather headbutt a pencil than have daily discussions on topics such as whether the building was evacuated or merely the building’s occupants were evacuated”
I would have given a more specific example, but if some of my colleagues participate here it might have made staff meetings a tad uncomfortable 🙂
Another example would be that I almost wrote “it amazes me how many pages can be written on the most nuanced turns of phrase”, but then realised that if that sentence had been considered for publication we would have spent fifteen minutes discussing the merits of “it amazes me how many pages can be written regarding the most nuanced turns of phrase”, with at least one person in favour of “on” because of space requirements and another person adamant that “on” is misleading because nothing is literally written on a turn of phrase, and then someone else would wonder whether the plural should be “turns of phrases” or whether “expressions” should be used instead.
Those are the days I long for a return to security, with ice-cold rain down the back of my neck and most problems essentially revolving around “refer issue to someone else, run away, or stop person hitting me”.
”The changes, trialed in Southland, are being rolled out nationwide in coming months.”
They’re getting rid of the Editor of the Southland Times? I bet that’s going to go down well. I also seem to remember the current editor being fairly outspoken on a number of issues, so that would be a loss not just for Southland but for NZ journalism.
Hmm, this would seem to contradict the Fairfax announcement, a new editor of the ST was appointed yesterday.
Good spotting, I hadn’t seen that. That is a bit confusing.
I see Joanna Norris is quoted as South Island editor-in-chief, a title I haven’t heard before, so maybe the on-site editors will be less autonomous.
Steven Joyce answers the ‘Puhoi to Wellsford’ roading ‘bribe’ question today in the House:
3. Roading, Auckland—Pūhoi to Wellsford Route
[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:3. Text is subject to correction.]
3. DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) to the Minister for Economic Development : Does he stand by his statement to RadioLive ’s Duncan Garner yesterday, in respect of starting the Pūhoi to Wellsford Motorway , that “2016 sounds like a pretty good date to me”?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I thank the member for his question, and I absolutely do.
The New Zealand Transport Agency expects construction of the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway to start in late 2016 and to take around 5 years, which is fantastic for the people of Northland. Pūhoi to Wellsford will open up Northland to economic development and tourism by providing a critical link between Northland and the rest of the country.
Yesterday I happened to be in the north of Northland, and they were telling me it could not come soon enough, which is why it is important they support a good local who understands the needs of the north and who does not just fly in and fly out on his helicopter.
Denis O’Rourke : Can the Minister please tell the House when the board of inquiry was held on the 19 kilometre Warkworth to Wellsford section of the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway, which is vital to the economic future of Northland?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE : That part has not yet happened, as the member may have noticed. Pūhoi to Warkworth has, and it is expected to start construction next year, which is very exciting. And I remind the House that before this Government came along, the commitment of the other side was to stop a four-lane motorway in a paddock outside Pūhoi and never extend it further.
Denis O’Rourke : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question asked whether the Minister would tell the House when the board of inquiry was held. That was not addressed at all.
Mr SPEAKER : It certainly was addressed. He said it has not occurred for that particular section, and then referred to the section that it had been. The question has been addressed.
Phil Twyford : Can he confirm the New Zealand Transport Agency’s advice that at this stage, in respect of the route between Warkworth and Wellsford, there is no indicative route available and no start date for construction; if not, is he announcing that a route has been set and a start date has been confirmed?
…………………….
_________________________________________________________ http://www.parliament.nz/…/3-roading-auckland%E2%80%94p%C5%
Checking out the NZH and Stuff websites from a wee stint in Europe and what is leading the national news three days in a row? Something about a couple of utter nobodies bullying another nobody on some unwatchable “talent” show. Call me a snob but no wonder some of us still suffer from “cultural cringe”
@JanMeyer
I think the background to the matter is a racist comment thrown at someone performing by one of the judges. There are just a few standards left that people on tv and radio have to consider and the comment violated them. I have not had tv for a while now so it’s largely gone over my head. But 18 year olds and those stuck in a time warp of that mental age have got agitated on the subject.
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Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
“Our exporters should, therefore, be deeply concerned that the Fast-track Approvals Bill was not assessed for consistency with any of our free trade commitments prior to being introduced to the House,” says Gary Taylor, Chief Executive of the Environmental ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with a track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go wrong for him. ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
Thank you, Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, for your brilliant invention. I’m another mid-20s Kiwi who had an OE last year. I hopped on my bicycle where France meets the Atlantic and cycled east. I pedalled through the Loire Valley, down rivers lined with willows and ancient wisteria-draped chateaus. I relished ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
With the porkys and taxpayer spend piling up in northland granny does her best to help the NACT again with a lead on Len brown and no politics section immediately visible online.
It’s as if parliament wasn’t sitting and nothing of political merit was occurring….
All the media outlets have downgraded their politics sections in the wake of the election. TVNZ doesn’t even have a politics tab you can click on anymore, it’s all just jumbled up with the rest of the NZ news.
tc- On the home page, the NZH link to their Politics section now appears on the far right hand side about 4/5ths the way down, just above the Puzzles and Games section –
And that’s what they think politics is. Just Games and Puzzles. FFS.
The MSM in NZ seem to have become a diversion from politics and politicians rather than reporting on them and holding them to account as is their job.
Who can blame them when goff fuels speculation about a mayoralty bid rather than turn the blowtorch on NACT over Northland pork barrelling, Lui 25K donation, Sabin, Troop deployment etc etc
Indeed. David Fisher wrote a compelling objective and analytical article about the recent Snowden revelations in the Herald and it appeared online yesterday afternoon http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11418653
However, the Herald gave it as little attention as possible and although the comment section is open not one comment has appeared yet. It never featured in the Politics or Opinion sections where it rightfully belongs. Why?
A quick search online suggests that it has not been picked up by anybody, which is odd IMO.
I think it is very good article that raises very good questions that need to be pondered and discussed by many.
Crown limousines cost $68 per hour http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11418839
Does this mean the limo drivers are on the minimum hourly wage and zero-hour contracts with no set tea- or toilet-breaks? Are they unionised? Perhaps now is a good time to negotiate better employment terms …
And if the negotiations stall then they could ..well head for wellington sans passengers who will have a long walk/ bus ride if they are lucky to the nearest airport.
Althogh I’m not so sure that the sight of a lot of rich limo’s tooling cabinet ministers around will bring out the vote in their favour
My two cents on “Prince” Harry’s timely visit during his “gap” year!
Bugger, link wrong. On Prince Harry, Afghanistan, Iraq And Other Misbegotten Wars John Key Wants Us To Get Into.
yes, i thought that suspicious. Here’s how the Guardian reported it, to compare.
Harry leaves military
Tactical withdrawal by the Windsors.
Rally the troops, eh what!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11418814
New research from Otago Uni shows a common ointment used to treat child skin infections is worsening the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
As well as a general wake-up call about antibiotic resistance, it’s another reason not to rely on being able to treat the symptoms of poverty rather than its causes.
Here’s a remarkably precise re-enactment of the free-for-all fist-fight we’ve just witnessed on The Standard over the last 2 days regarding Julian Assange.
Re-enacted by the Sheffield Townswomen’s Guild, starring Mrs Elsie Osselthwaite as TRP, Mrs Patricia Wesleydale as Chooky, Mrs Audrey Bycroft as OAB and Mrs Ena Daniels as CV. And – in a brief but memorable cameo – Mrs Petulia Ramsbottom as Les…….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcSMaNlcDPs
Due to ill-health, Mrs Millicent Holdsworth was unable to play Stephanie Rodgers throwing a heavily-loaded (rape-culture-enabling) hand-grenade to start the fight off (so they had to make-do with a whistle).
Ding ding round 3 !!
Ho ho ho, very droll! Any discussion about sexism always comes back to the blokes and their mighty pythons doesn’t it?
Haha I have been up to my neck in Kauri Tree issues lately so managed to miss this entirely …
🙄
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄
Cheers. That’s the first time anyone’s given me the eye-roll. Look forward to many more in the future.
LOL that was quite funny, I’d never seen that clip before. Mind you very serious important people don’t like it when the piss gets taken out of them, so maybe you shouldn’t do it any more 😛
And now for something completely different.
Government is listening to retail lobby group and will tax on line purchases 15%, possibly in this term. National, the big brother government that increases tax and reduces services.
Polling in the Israeli election closes in a few minutes. The final polling had the rightwing party Likud neck and neck with the the left wing (and awfully named) Zionist Union. They are both at around 25% of the vote. So both will need other parties to form government in a system that, like here, is proportionally based and also involves getting 61 seats in a 120 seat parliament.
The initial results will be known in an hour or so, then coalition building begins.
Live updates here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31913781
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/mar/17/israel-elections-netanyahu-herzog-voters-coalition-knesset
If A Prominent New Zealander has their name suppression extended tomorrow, will WhaleOil follow his previous form and break the suppression order, in public interest?
somehow I doubt he is willing to inflict that much pain and hurt on Key in northland …
and if it involves children as ‘personal matters’, perhaps even Slater may be a little kind. Doubt he wants back in court quite so soon, and also he is a ‘real’ journalist now, isn’t he ?
”and if it involves children as ‘personal matters’, perhaps even Slater may be a little kind.”
Something for commenters on TS to keep in mind as well in respect of any comment on this issue.
Just for clarity, I was referring solely to breaching name suppression by Slater … we know that no-one here is going to do that.
He hasn’t broken name suppression since he got fined, in fact hes very strict on anyone even hinting at it
Pity, because this truly would be in the public interest, unlike the other ones he chose to expose.
Personally, I am sure it will come but likely not from Slater.
Dirty secrets hidden for three elections* in our tiny land with less than 1.5 degrees of separation and Australia just over the ditch ? And Winston on an absolute roll ?
It must come out. Our whole citizenry has the right to know what this
vile Key government has been willing to cover up and who it is they are willing to harm.
* Two general elections and the current one.
Nope. Slater has been spreading fud for the Nats over this.
He’s published at least two posts this month in which he insinuates that what the Nats are covering up is “wife-bashing”.
While awful enough, that’s fucking nothing compared to what pretty much everyone knows they’re really covering up.
West’s cognitive dissonance grows as Saudi Arabia decapitates 45th person
That’s since the start of the 2015. Not sure how many of stonings of women have been carried out in that same time frame but I think that’s an additional number.
Just remember: ISIS are the bad guys.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-17/45-beheadings-2015-%E2%80%93-us-ally-saudi-arabia-set-top-2014s-record-decapitation-level
Where did ISIS come from?
“My book shows how the US and Western European countries have fostered and put to work different kinds of “Islams” during the last two hundred years—pan-Islamism, jihadist forms of Islam, and liberal forms of Islam, depending on the period and the tactical and strategic goals they sought; sometimes they foster these different varieties at the same time to serve different agendas. The question of the Caliphate, which became a major concern for European colonial powers, would not subside until the eve of World War II. The book goes into details about Western designs about who the Caliph should be, what authority he should have, and what ethnic background he must have.
We see, for example, how at present the US and Western European countries are fostering two kinds of “Islam” simultaneously, a jihadist form that targets those who resist the US order and its Israeli and Saudi proxies—beginning in Afghanistan, but also in Arab countries with regimes that resisted US diktat (though recently jihadists like ISIS, who were made possible by the support of the US and its allies, have partly gone off script in their Iraqi and Libyan incarnations and have themselves made use of the Caliphate, at least at the titular if not the institutional level)—and a liberal form of Islam that the US could tolerate, which Arab and Muslim governments and an army of Arab and Muslim intellectuals and journalists and a political and economic class espouse and push for in the name of modernization, human rights, and a new/neo liberal order. The latter form of liberal Islam was also supported by the British in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; hence British celebrations then and ongoing American celebrations today of thinkers like Qasim Amin, Muhammad ‘Abduh, the already-mentioned al-Kawakibi, ‘Ali Abd al-Raziq, and scores of others.”
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21067/new-texts-out-now_joseph-a.-massad-islam-in-libera
Would be interesting to see where you place Islamic government on your Marxist take on historical development of civilisation.
Why oh why did Andrew Little come out straight away and agree with John Key’s idea to charge GST on overseas online purchases?? This could be a real vote-loser with the public. So why not just say that Labour would look at it and leave it at that? Labour could claw that lost GST back easily by raising the tax rate on the wealthy! And leave the public’s wrath on Key’s back! After all it’s his idea – maybe he wants the money to pay for his new flag and probably other little hobby-horses he has in the pipeline – And how much is this to do with the TPPA? So many questions the mainstream media will never never ask. Still it does give ammo to the left today in Parliament over Key’s appalling inability to work out 15 percent GST on an i-tunes song worth $1.39 – and here he was laughing at the Green leadership candidates some of whom did not know the exact unemployment rate etc! Shouldn’t his GST gaffe be front page news in the Herald? David Cunliffe wearing his red scarf sure was!
The whole point of GST is that it’s a tax which hits working class people hardest – and not just because we spend more of our income on necessities, but because unlike income tax it comes out of our wages, whereas generally workers’ income tax is a deduction on surplus-value. This is why GST was introduced and why the most economically right-wing prefer higher GST and lower income tax.
See: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/understanding-gst-and-tax-policy/
I’m not surprised that Little isn’t opposed to what Key said. Labour brought in GST.
Moreover, GST is 15% – 12.5% was introduced by Labour! First Labour made it 10%, then they increased it to 12.5%.
GST is, essentially, a Labour Party tax.
Phil
It’s appalling. Labour supporting a tax which hits the bottom 50% of NZ disproportionately.
+1
Simply speaking, GST was introduced so as to allow the government lower taxes upon the rich with no thought whatsoever on the harm it does to the poor. If Labour were serious about helping the poor they’d be talking about dropping GST.
Yes please. Drop GST and raise income taxes. It would be good to see the left lose another election.
dtb +100
I think GST is quite a useful tax that throws a wide net and could be used much more effectively to fund infrastructure and so on where business and enterprise is happening and therefore needs facilitating services and improvements. My belief is that it should not be 15%, and I suggest half that would make a useful tax, with an element of distribution like this – 7 1/2% with 5% going to central government and 2 1/2% to the local authority.
Although it is a tax that hits everyone equally, it has an unequal effect on the rich than on the poor. I get something mended and pay the government 15% on that, it might be only $4 but that would buy a nice coffee which I forego most days while watching my budget, someone comfortably off can buy new and afford the 15% without making a hole in their ample funds.
So bring it down as I have suggested, that would be fair to everyone.
edited
And if we didn’t have GST at all your coffee would only cost $3.40 instead of $4 🙂
Other area’s where GST sucks up valuable dollars, my examples:
Weekly grocery shop: Up to $45
Landline/broadband monthly approx $15
Power monthly :Approx $18
Doctor’s visit: $6
Unfunded medicines per month average: $10
Quarterly rates bill $87
Weekly petrol: $7
Just a few random examples off the top of my head, the cruellest and most unfair being groceries.
Get rid of GST all together and the retailers won’t be complaining. People with a bit of extra coin in their pocket are going to spend it in the shops. Get those shoppers off line and into the stores by removing GST. Shops get busier, hire more staff, increase wages, boss has greater profits, Put the profit into NZ businesses not over seas ones. Everyone’s happy.
More than that, people will be able to afford to get extra food in their weekly shop or improve the quality of the products they buy. Once again this will lead to increased turnover. Why should a necessity such as food be taxed? Thats sick!
Along with low wage rates and the high cost of accommodation in our cities GST is an added unfair burden and surely contributes to poverty.
Get rid of it. Replace with a FTT, CGT and increase the income tax on the highest earners
@ Rosie
Sounds nice, I can see a double rainbow behind that printed in big letters on a roadside billboard. But GST has been set up, it’s in place and it provides a good base of taxation to do things with and everybody has to contribute.
A lower rate will ensure that every citizen is putting into the putea without being scalped, and the Taxpayers Union which has a sort of sacred, special tang about it can go suck their iceblocks. They willl be made to admit that their idea of being special and different and somehow better is just a bunch of Minties, whose moment has gone. It can be reiterated that we ALL pay tax through GST, so CRACT shut the f…up. But the tax take must be smaller, like I suggest 7% or so.
Don’t think of wiping it until the FTT and the CGT come in. The income tax of course ought to be going up anyway, starting from down at the bottom, 5% to $20,000 and then progressing up by 10% every $20,000 to 40%. After that 45% marginal.
And make sure they pay, and no lambasting people with cumulative interest if they don’t, but just threaten seizure of assets if they don’t keep to their schedules and strt carrying it out. Treat them like gang members if they just won’t do it.
Sounds nice, would be nice for sure!
7% would be better than 15% but to my mind, it has to go, it has to be phased out, after CGT and FTT’s and increased tax on high incomes are soundly in place (Ha! I remember when GST came in. I was at my first job at DEKA, when I was 17. I thought it was unfair, even back then).
And about “everyone contributing”. This isn’t fair either. Unlike income tax, that one income tax paying individual then, can potentially go on to supply additional tax to the government on behalf of others, not just themselves – They are paying taxes for those in the household who aren’t earning, such as babies and children, or supporting a partner who isn’t earning, so the heavy burden of GST is increased on that one individual. All the tax on all the goods and services purchased for those non earners comes from one individual. Think of those poor aching shoulders!
Tax is being squeezed out of zero earners. It has to come from somewhere so falls back on the main earner for the household.
There are multiple ways in which GST is unfair.
As for those minties 🙂 they can go jump. Leave them to bleat about FTT and CGT instead.
They have had their moment as far as I am concerned.
@ Rosie
I was looking at it from a fairer tax approach so that bennies would be paying 12% ta all up. Naturally the crazy secondary tax would be stopped and people would be encouraged to earn and keep their government services if wanted.
But looking at GST from a different viewpoint, the beneficiary pays it on most of his/her transactions which goes to the government. Then the government probably pays that out in accommodation allowance to the landlord of the house/flat being tenanted by the beneficiary. That is instead of increasing state housing in purpose built people friendly and
affordable state ccommodation, it goes out of the bennies hands and into the landlord’s hands. Who responds to this vicious circle by keeping the rents rising whereby the accommodation allowance goes up again.
The politicians are being cowardly and placing the hardest taxes on the people with the least power while facilitating a transfer to from the poor to the landed gentry of the landlord class. Usual fucked up behaviour from the “left” and the “right.”
Especially when you consider that the Crown is sovereign and does not necessarily need to collect in electronic NZD in order to spend electronic NZD.
Yep +1 to that Warbs
+1 Rosie. Lower income people pay GST on everything they earn, because they spend all their money to survive. 15% for them.
Someone on $100k might spend $50k on living costs, with the rest invested in property. Let’s say they get a capital gain of $50k a year. 5% GST for them.
Get rid of it. It’s a gift to globetrotting scumbags with houses in Hawaii and keeps the poor stuck in their poverty.
+1000
“If Labour were serious about helping the poor they’d be talking about dropping GST.
Amen to that.
not sure about that ,GST catches big spenders too ,increasing tax on very high earners and closing down loopholes would be more productive imo.If you think about all the financial devices ..tax havens ,trusts ,etc..they only are for the benefit of the very wealthy ..a small % of voters.
This I agree with: taxation isn’t the answer to a high GINI: it’s an answer. Predistribution is preferable.
It all comes down to value of life (all life) and work. Let’s set a high value on them.
@ les. Got no problem with introducing a sales tax on luxury goods for the big spenders 🙂
and a bit more ..Rosie…tax avoidance is an industry patronised by a very few to the detriment of ..many.
an assets tax including a land tax is where a truly progressive party would be looking. Get rid of GST on the portion of any item under $50.
No it doesn’t. Due to GST the bottom decile pay nearly as high a percentage of tax as the top decile. And some of those big spenders are also shaping their finances through businesses and trusts so that they can minimise the the GST that they pay.
GST is massively regressive.
really..so when rich prick goes to the wine shop and spends a few thousand its all down to company expenses..hope not ,but probably..
A thousand bucks spent on fancy wine is still only fuck all proportion of the rich prick’s $250K per annum income.
Compared to someone who blows $100 out of their $600 wages on scrumpy, gin and Woodstock bourbon.
The ordinary wage earners gets smashed with GST way harder as a % of their income. One in six dollars they earn gets GST’d just on that transaction alone. For the rich prick its only one in two hundred and fifty dollars that they earn which is subject to GST. Big difference.
how does income tax not come out of ‘our wages?
The Green Party contenders were far more ignorant than not knowing the exact unemplyment rate. Some didn’t know what the current inflation rate or what the OCR was. I’d expect any politician should have a clue about those two economic measures given they drive so much of our economic framework.
Gosman no doubt you knew the exact employment rate and the ratio in different regions one to another. You are keen and interested in winkling out inaccuracies.
I suggest you offer your sterling services to the UNACTS and don’t waste your talents throwing pearls to wee, wee, wee the swine at TS.
But unlike Key on finance, they don’t portray themselves as experts on unemployment rates! Key asked Goff to “show me the money” – well, come on John, “Show us the exact GST amount” – any moron can work out 15 percent GST on $1.39 – but maybe John Key isn’t just “any moron” – Maybe he’s a gold-plated “special and exclusive” kind of moron??
Hami Shearlie
It probably is the case that yek never thinks about anything so small as that bit of money. He deals in millions of dollars after all. He doesn’t have to know the minor details of odd dollars and cents. When you have lots, you just put it all on your credit card and pay up each month. No wonder the poor man couldn’t do the sums in his head, it’s peanuts to him where he lives on Planet Key.
@ Hami Shearlie
mmm I doubt very much if GST on online purchases hits the bottom 20% of income earners Hami. In the real world they can’t afford to buy tablets/cameras/SD cards online, just food at the Supermarket and often second-hand clothes.
It follows that Little is right to support this as online-purchase GST is likely to mostly tax the better off, thus increasing the tax base for potential social spending.
Are you sure this isn’t just a complaint because, like that silly woman on The Panel last night, you buy things online and don’t want to pay more?
15 percent gst wouldn’t stop me buying anything online as I already save so much and can actually buy things like narrow fitting shoes at the same price as all the others instead of paying $500 for narrow italian shoes – All I am saying is why share the burden of the public’s anger with Key when you don’t have to – I think this could blow up to be a very sore point with many kiwis – especially young people who buy much more online than anyone else and who usually don’t vote at the moment – this might give them a real incentive to vote against National – but if Labour come out publicly and stand beside Key on this from the get-go, then those young people will decide to not vote once again. Sometimes silence is truly golden, at least for a time, long enough for the public to associate Key and National with this unpopular idea.
“Why oh why did Andrew Little come out straight away and agree with John Key’s idea to charge GST on overseas online purchases?”
I can’t think of any good reasons. Little continues to disappoint. Is his view of economics so dismal that he thinks of GST as leftist because Labour introduced it?
Ehm, don’t you think that not doing so rather advantages overseas, Delaware/Cayman/Taxhavenian multinationals from obtaining a ~15% cost advantage over kiwi retailers trying to peddle their wares online in NZ?
Let me know if I’ve missed the obvious…
Kiwis who spend all their money to survive each week would have 15% extra to spend if gst were dropped on everything. Not all, in fact probably not much of that, would be spent overseas. Kiwi retailers prices would drop as well and they’d still be competitive. I think you missed the fact that I am totally opposed to consumption taxes. Maybe I should have made it obvious.
I getcha, in which case we agree, GST should be abandoned uniformly as a regressive tax system.
Or put in place a 25% GST on the portion of all items sticker price over $50
That essentially means that all items in a supermarket would be GST free.
(just messing with ideas now)
probably because he supports an even playing field ,and it affects smaller business more than large multi national retailers.
Yeah, Douglas and Prebble talked about the good old level playing field a lot. They forgot to tell us that the workers’ team would have its legs broken before the game and, if they were still doing ok at half time, their arms as well.
luv it!Douglas and Prebble would be the biggest turncoats in NZ political history.
Interesting dissection of Hillary Clinton’s claims to be a progressive and a feminist:
Hillary Clinton and corporate feminism:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/hillary-clinton-and-corporate-feminism/
Phil
I would think any real feminist would have little respect for a women who kept her man after finding out he was fiddling with young women.
Part of her version of feminism might extend to fiddling with young, or old, men (If she’s not ageist). There is plenty of pluck in us old folks and there’s hope for us yet.
https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dRhvHyjgvcCWgJ9O16En4EkIjFI=/800×0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3514038/07-knesset_blank_exitpollslogo.0.png
Israeli exit polls are out! The centre-left Zionist Union and rightwing Likud are each estimated to get 27 seats. Netanyahu has called it a victory, but it is premature and still there is a chance of a left-wing victory.
One possible scenario is a coalition/alliance between Zionist Union (centre-left), Meretz (left-wing), Yesh Atid (centre), Kulanu (centre), and with support from the Joint List (Arab parties). These parties, as far as I know, have all indicated a preference for a Zionist Union-led Government. That combination would give 67 seats, or a majority.
So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully that is the case and Bibi is not PM anymore. It would be a much more progressive and pro-peace Government.
Hopefully everyone can cooperate and it doesn’t end up a right-wing victory..
Good luck with that more peace oriented government Michael.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/67433115/israels-netanyahu-declares-victory-in-tight-race
Oh dear. Benjamin Netanyahu has declared victory in the Israeli election. I guess in the worst possible terms Palestine now knows where it stands with Netanyahu.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/1.647212
I see that according to the “Lions of Rojava” facebook page, Turkey is right now aiding ISIS fighters in fighting the northern Syrian Kurds who have established democratic cantons in the part of Syria they control.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Lions-Of-Rojava/290140627860127
And there have been more reports of ISIS positions getting air supplied…
http://qz.com/362275/why-venezuela-is-the-worlds-worst-performing-economy-in-three-charts/
For all you Venezuelan apologists out there here is a good break down of the key problems in that country and what they are caused by (Hint: it doesn’t have anything to do with US economic sanctions).
Not exactly an unprejudiced, objective source as your link Gosman. Try harder.
Both the site and this particular author come from a very limited perspective.
Play the ball not the man. If you have a problem with the facts presented please advise where they are wrong. Simply stating I don’t like the political bent of the target source is a lazy way to argue.
You are right, but you often choose very limited perspectives – on another country, in particular Venezuela – and I don’t understand your obsession with it.
Given that the last few democratic elections have been considered to be quite rigorously conducted, are you just commenting on the policy of a sovereign country using outside sources for the sheer joy of it, or are you actually fascinated with how external commentators view alternate economies?
An interesting topic would have links to Venezuelan sources from both the minority right wing, and existing governing left on a singular topic. Then it would be worth reading both articles to start a discussion.
I am fascinated how many left wingers use examples like Venezuela as examples the world should aspire to when the populist regime in power starts out. Then when it all turns to custard they blame external forces for the failure rather than the economic policies that were implemented. This despite it being obvious to anyone with any nous of understanding around economics that this is what happens following those sorts of economic policies.
What, like how neolibs touted Ireland and Iceland as success stories because of low corporate taxes and money trading in the early 2000s?
You mean how Ireland has bounced back strongly after undertaking austerity?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/ireland-economy-growth-european-union
lol oh it’s back in the good books now is it? Not one of the PIIGS any more?
Amazing how well an economy can grow when the EU bails it out.
And it undertakes a period of austerity to get it’s books back in order.
Rubbish. Austerity degrades, distorts and destroys societies. Ireland should never have given away its currency sovereignty and it should never have let property and banking speculators get away with rampant cronyism and corruption.
One main reason that Irish unemployment rates have been decreasing is that unemployed people have been fucking off out of Ireland.
Yet another neoliberal way to get the “books back in order.”
Oh, that must be why the Irish Finance Minister is getting out of stocks and into real world Gold then! Because he has such faith in the Irish recovery. Not!! 🙄 😆
🙄
One of those things throws money into an economy and boosts gdp.
The other simply extracts money from the poor and further shuts down the real economy in order to temporarily prop up the computer-chip betting market “economy”.
Wall Street Journal offshoot publication
Rupert Murdoch owned.
Oil prices plummeting heavy sanctions have nothing to do with their situation.
Murder Rate nothing to do with American war on drugs causing inflated prices for illegal drugs making it more profitable for drug lords who control vast areas of Venezuela.
Previous Right wing dictatorships propped up by the CIA,s profiting from the Drug trade to Run South American covert ops.
Is why Venezuelans don’t trust the US.
The Murdoch Press happy to give only one side of the Story.
Please name me one economic sanction imposed by the US which has led to the shortages of common goods in Venezuela. I am pretty confident you won’t be able to because there has been no economic sanctions like this imposed.
The deliberate lowering of oil prices by the Saudis in cahoots with the US.
This hurts US Oil producers just as badly. I also note you haven’t produced any evidence that the US has worked with the Saudis on this or explained why it would necessarily cause shortages of key goods. Other oil producers aren’t suffering shortages of items like toilet paper or medicines.
Venezuela has been a US target since they nationalised their oil industry and kicked Exxon & co. out. Economic sanctions are simply there to destabilise the nation.
What economic sanctions?
Here you go, Goosestep, straight from the US Embassy in Caracas (the capital of Venezuela):
http://caracas.usembassy.gov/business-faq.html#9
Ummm…. you do realise these are for defence items i.e. weapons and ammunition. They are not for goods like toilet paper. Please tell me how these sactions lead to shortages of goods.
You had nearly 10 hours to read those few short paragraphs.
Again you have no example of how sanctions are causing the specific shortages. My understanding is that the recent announcements are targeted sanctions on specific members of the Venezuelan regime. In this regard they are no different to those imposed on Zimbabwe in the early 2000’s. The Zimbabwe regime also blamed these sanctions for the collapse of their economy. Of course there was no evidence for this there just as there is no evidence in the case of Venezuela.
I don’t give a fuck about that. I was replying to this:
“Ummm…. you do realise these are for defence items i.e. weapons and ammunition.”
It’s bullshit, and it shows you didn’t read the link, and it amuses me to highlight your pompous patronising tone now and then.
Good day, fucko.
Ah, so now that we find some sanctions, you want other ones. For that, you should talk to FJK. He can tell you “Yes, those are some sanctions, but I can always find other ones.”
The US uses multi-prong tactics to destabilise Central and South American nations. Even the press corps and State Department press secretary knows it:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-16/caught-tape-state-departments-psaki-smirks-about-us-policy-supporting-coups
So no specific examples of economic sanctions just a loose reference to a general approach the US possibly takes in dealings with South American countries.
do some research on U.S interventions in Guatemala,Honduras and all other central and Sth American nations ,usually on behalf of business corporations.Freedom and democracy do not figure.
Just as I thought. No evidence of sanctions causing shortages just a general argument that the US is working against the government because it has done something like this in other nations before.
how excited you must be to have started a thread about how right you are about Venezuela from a certain premise and now satisfied yourself you were right . Enjoy you day.
Andrew Little this morning on the By-election in Northland.
http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/little-realistic-about-labours-chances-in-northland-2015031811
Link doesn’t seem to be working
Works for me.
If still no, then may be you could try it in the 3 news website and see if it works there for you. .
No wonder shes not going to win, why vote for her if your party and leader don’t support her
Moderately cleverer than something your mate fisiani might post but only just. 3/10
I guess i could have gone with something about how it really shows what Labour thinks about the heartland, rural communities of NZ
You do have a point ,but you first post is either showing you’re thick or you’re mischief making and I prefer your average mischief maker to at least attempt to be clever or funny ,preferably both
Labour might just think that the rural communities are too important to leave with NAct, and have decided not to sacrifice the people, and especially the children, of Northland on a sectarian altar. Good on them.
Seriously?
It’s symbolism. Useful, certainly, but substantive?
If Labour is confused about that they’re worse than useless.
I don’t think they are confused, nor do I think they are not supporting the candidate. That should become obvious later on. Yeah, I’m serious.
Radio NZ is reporting that a roading advocate group in Northland claim the National MP for Whangarei Shane Reti has bullied them in an effort to shut them up ahead of the by-election:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/268939/dusty-road-group-claim-bullying
If that’s true and the proof is concrete we should be expecting another bye election in a couple of months surely.
The Transport Minister was asked about this yesterday so I would imagine there is more to come http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/business/qoa/51HansQ_20150317_00000007/7-transport-infrastructure%E2%80%94investment-in-northland
Ron Mark’s comments at that part of QT are also worth noting
Ron Mark : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could I ask you to have a look at that transcript and pay some attention particularly to the first supplementary question, which is virtually an identical supplementary question to one I asked the very same Minister last week. The problem is that the answer he gave here is different from the answer he gave last time.
http://thestandard.org.nz/how-much-is-nationals-northland-panic-costing-the-taxpayer/#comment-987204
Twyford has really struggled to get traction on Transport and Housing, two plum portfolios that any capable front bench MP should be able too. Maybe DC should be given one of them bringing him back up to the front bench.
I think Twyford has done ok on housing actually. He can take some credit for the government never really being able to front-foot this issue. Though I accept the main reason they struggle with this is their ideological blindness.
would be good to hear her recording of the call …. smart woman !!
Starts 35sec in: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/20171431/northland-mp-tells-dusty-roads-campaigners-to-back-off
Reti will go far in NAct. He’s almost as good a liar as FJK and has the democratic instincts of an over promoted woodwork teacher.
From your link:
“Whangarei dairy farmer Alex Wright said Whangarei National MP Shane Reti rang her last week and told her the Pipiwai advocacy group should keep quiet for the next two and a half weeks – or risk getting nothing.
In the call, which she recorded, Dr Reti said he had been working behind the scenes to help the group, but warned her that could be jeopardised if the group continued to agitate and send what he called threatening emails to MPs.
Ms Wright said she was taken aback by Dr Reti’s call, and felt bullied.
But Dr Reti said he was trying to help the group – not bully them”
The behaviour from that MP is appalling. In fact, a BLACKMAIL!
He needs to be sacked from the party immediately. It is worse than the ‘Do you know who I am’ stupid offense by the drunken bravado of Aaron Gilmore! Aaron’s were drunken words where as, Reti’s threat is very serious BLACKMAIL! No doubt about that.
Bloody right he needs sacking stand over tactics are the realm of gangs and crooks.
he was trying to help them by telling them to back off til after the election cos his higher ups were getting embarassed and when embarassed the basis of their decision making changes.
i hope that clarifies it.
Dr Reti (for I believe he is a doctor of some sort) has since issued a statement saying he could have handled his communications with Alex Wright better. The higher-ups are shitting on him.
These days well paid people expect to get their salary, once employed, as a right whatever they do. They have to have performance pay to goad them into doing their job. And if they fail and have to leave they get compensated for someone exerting authority over them.
When a group being helped by a politician makes some democratic comment that isn’t favourable well that isn’t showing proper respect and gratitude to their patron. This polly is in exactly the same position as if working in a private firm. He doesn’t need to do anything for them and has helped out of the goodness of his heart.
He has put himself out to do some work for them, and the ingratitude! It’s appalling.
They apparently think that government should be working for the people. They don’t understand there are many, many things that must be done by pollies who have to prioritise, to meet Party obligatons.
And in the same midday report Steven Joyce has been forced to concede that some of the 7000 so-called jobs he claimed were created in Northland are actually in neighbouring electorates.
Good one. Gotcha Joyce. Choice.
did it mention that figure also includes jobs of only one hour a week ?
gosh n, but the media did note that unemployment didnt fall.
he further built on is lie by saying he couldnt get the figures for the actual regions covered by the by election. They just cant help themselves.
Interested in systems enabling cheaper and better house construction in NZ. Keep an eye on innovators and idea producers like this.
http://www.prefabnz.com/
http://www.kiwiprefab.co.nz/
and a few more
http://www.kiwiprefab.co.nz/
http://www.keithhayhomes.co.nz/
http://www.modprefab.co.nz/
I’m not saying you should like them but someone has to think about housing and get behind affordable housing and understand different types. The government seems to have stopped thinking about housing and establishing intelligent renewals and city dense designs back in the 1960’s – 50 years later look at the mess we are in.
BRANZ seemed a bloody waste of money when it came to leaky house design and concepts, with its net gains being non-existent. I hope it is different now but if it was reformed to help property speculators it is just a subsidy for them.
Here is a report that is supposed to be from them but comes from first light studio, whatever they are.
http://firstlightstudio.co.nz/report-on-prefab/
CR
I see in the DomPost that they are worried after ebola that measles is coming in. It is so contagious that vaccines are a must they think. And a large group of children are at risk.
So this is where vaccination is essential isn’t it. When there is an emerging situation like this it is a prophylactic that can be given a tick. They fear the measles epidemic, and they fear the unpreparedness of the medical system depleted and exhuasted after ebola will not be able to cope.
Another debilitating disease – that of drug running.
This poor woman was abducted and allegedly beheaded by those in the drug business as a warning not to interfere with them. Illegal drugs and huge profits is resulting in Mexico losing its soul. The pope says that Mexico is being punished. I don’t know if the right people are getting it though.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/mexican-mayoral-candidate-reportedly-decapitated
http://www.theguardian.com/world/mexico
And while it’s handy here is the latest from Oz via the Guardian.
* Federal police confirm they have accessed journalists’ metadata
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/17/federal-police-confirm-they-have-accessed-journalists-metadata
* Senate blocks university deregulation for the second time
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/17/senate-blocks-university-deregulation-for-the-second-time
Well, linking ebola and measles together is a deliberate, but rather transparent and unimaginative tactic.
+100 CR…”linking ebola and measles together”….is pathetic!…one is a deadly disease , the other most of us had as children…. and our parents and grandparents had as children….and we surbvived and lived long and well
indeed.
Measles is much more contagious than ebola.
CORRECT
🙄
Ok, INCORRECT
You have no idea either way.
@ McFlock
I got the impression that measles was more contagious than ebola. And making out that it’s some sort of cunning plan to sneak vaccinations in under the pretext of heightened anxiety after ebola is not a good look from you CR.
In the absence of context (no link) it’s not a bad assumption to make. Not that there is a conspiracy, but that this is just the natural way that some people think. It’s unclear however whether it’s a journalist or health authority.
@ weka
No link? I put three in at 20. Surely there was something there that was informative.
GWS: not a good look from ME? I’m not the major news outlet which posited ebola and measles in the same piece.
Measles killed 145,000 people globally in 2013.
Ebola in 2014? Not so much.
CR
I thought they made a good case for being careful about measles. But what do I know?? And my conclusions though I thought they were reasoned ones, just show my ignorance clearly. I’m afraid this matter will always be one of those black holes down which thought is sucked and vanishes.
Increasing GDP leads to foreign-owned companies in New Zealand making bigger profits:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/67433238/foreign-firms-profits-push-out-nz-current-account-deficit
@The Chairman
Thanks for that. That must send a clear signal to those RW and business oriented types who chorus that we need more foreign investment.
It’s like an awful addiction – a giant Ponzi scheme. The more we get, the less advamtage there is because if it helps us do more business successfully, then the increased flow of profits out of the country ups our current account deficit. Then that is easiest met by getting more foreigh money invested in the country.
That media piece seems to scotch the idea and I suppose business types will admit they are wrong and look at the whole system again for change. Or perhaps not.
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2015/03/16/teachers-union-announces-closure-of-charter-school.html
Surprising no one
Yeah how about that one in northland eh
Fairfax moving to branch office model for newspapers.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1503/S00610/fairfax-media-rolls-out-new-newsroom-model.htm
”Fairfax Media New Zealand is rolling out a new model for its newsrooms nationwide and regional newspaper editors are disappearing in favour of regional editorial managers based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch….
”The changes, trialed in Southland, are being rolled out nationwide in coming months.
”The roles disappearing are expected to be editors in smaller regional centres.
”Under the newsroom changes journalists will edit each other’s stories more.”
The last point in particular is disturbing – even if they had the time, reporters are not trained for the very different role of sub-editing.
Agreed.
I have a nodding acquaintance with document production (not on a daily publication basis, though). One reason our team is successful is that we actually do have people who will spend an afternoon mulling over the precision of phrasing or the difference between an em dash and an en dash. I tend to be oblivious to that sort of thing, and the conversations do my nut in, but on the other hand I have skillsets that they do not. Like switching the computer off, then on again.
Frankly, I’d rather headbutt a pencil than have daily discussions on topics such as whether the building was evacuated or merely the building’s occupants were evacuated. I suppose that with a big enough news story aka “disaster” both might be true…
“Frankly, I’d rather headbutt a pencil than have daily discussions on topics such as whether the building was evacuated or merely the building’s occupants were evacuated”
That shouldn’t actually need discussion.
I would have given a more specific example, but if some of my colleagues participate here it might have made staff meetings a tad uncomfortable 🙂
Another example would be that I almost wrote “it amazes me how many pages can be written on the most nuanced turns of phrase”, but then realised that if that sentence had been considered for publication we would have spent fifteen minutes discussing the merits of “it amazes me how many pages can be written regarding the most nuanced turns of phrase”, with at least one person in favour of “on” because of space requirements and another person adamant that “on” is misleading because nothing is literally written on a turn of phrase, and then someone else would wonder whether the plural should be “turns of phrases” or whether “expressions” should be used instead.
Those are the days I long for a return to security, with ice-cold rain down the back of my neck and most problems essentially revolving around “refer issue to someone else, run away, or stop person hitting me”.
lol. Ok, I have to ask, are the staff meetings full of self-deprecating humour and wit, or is that completely serious?
That’s pretty typical of some of the discussions, but fortunately not every week.
And there are funny moments, too – all in all it’s a pretty good team I work with 🙂
”The changes, trialed in Southland, are being rolled out nationwide in coming months.”
They’re getting rid of the Editor of the Southland Times? I bet that’s going to go down well. I also seem to remember the current editor being fairly outspoken on a number of issues, so that would be a loss not just for Southland but for NZ journalism.
Hmm, this would seem to contradict the Fairfax announcement, a new editor of the ST was appointed yesterday.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/67425662/New-editor-for-Southland-Times
Good spotting, I hadn’t seen that. That is a bit confusing.
I see Joanna Norris is quoted as South Island editor-in-chief, a title I haven’t heard before, so maybe the on-site editors will be less autonomous.
So folks – there was never a planned Puhoi to WELLSFORD motorway.
That was just ‘made up’,and in my view, a blatant election lying ‘BRIBE’.
The planned motorway was from Puhoi to WARKWORTH.
There is 19 kms between WARKWORTH and WELLSFORD.
WARKWORTH is in the Rodney electorate (and comes within the Auckland ‘Supercity’).
WELLSFORD is in the Northland electorate.
Seems that Winston Peters is owed an apology?
________________________________________________________________________________________
Steven Joyce answers the ‘Puhoi to Wellsford’ roading ‘bribe’ question today in the House:
3. Roading, Auckland—Pūhoi to Wellsford Route
[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:3. Text is subject to correction.]
3. DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) to the Minister for Economic Development : Does he stand by his statement to RadioLive ’s Duncan Garner yesterday, in respect of starting the Pūhoi to Wellsford Motorway , that “2016 sounds like a pretty good date to me”?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I thank the member for his question, and I absolutely do.
The New Zealand Transport Agency expects construction of the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway to start in late 2016 and to take around 5 years, which is fantastic for the people of Northland. Pūhoi to Wellsford will open up Northland to economic development and tourism by providing a critical link between Northland and the rest of the country.
Yesterday I happened to be in the north of Northland, and they were telling me it could not come soon enough, which is why it is important they support a good local who understands the needs of the north and who does not just fly in and fly out on his helicopter.
Denis O’Rourke : Can the Minister please tell the House when the board of inquiry was held on the 19 kilometre Warkworth to Wellsford section of the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway, which is vital to the economic future of Northland?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE : That part has not yet happened, as the member may have noticed. Pūhoi to Warkworth has, and it is expected to start construction next year, which is very exciting. And I remind the House that before this Government came along, the commitment of the other side was to stop a four-lane motorway in a paddock outside Pūhoi and never extend it further.
Denis O’Rourke : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question asked whether the Minister would tell the House when the board of inquiry was held. That was not addressed at all.
Mr SPEAKER : It certainly was addressed. He said it has not occurred for that particular section, and then referred to the section that it had been. The question has been addressed.
Phil Twyford : Can he confirm the New Zealand Transport Agency’s advice that at this stage, in respect of the route between Warkworth and Wellsford, there is no indicative route available and no start date for construction; if not, is he announcing that a route has been set and a start date has been confirmed?
…………………….
_________________________________________________________
http://www.parliament.nz/…/3-roading-auckland%E2%80%94p%C5%
Penny Bright
Checking out the NZH and Stuff websites from a wee stint in Europe and what is leading the national news three days in a row? Something about a couple of utter nobodies bullying another nobody on some unwatchable “talent” show. Call me a snob but no wonder some of us still suffer from “cultural cringe”
@JanMeyer
I think the background to the matter is a racist comment thrown at someone performing by one of the judges. There are just a few standards left that people on tv and radio have to consider and the comment violated them. I have not had tv for a while now so it’s largely gone over my head. But 18 year olds and those stuck in a time warp of that mental age have got agitated on the subject.