No wonder workers get exploited- It is sooo difficult to turn a profit, almost not worth being in business. Just as well that one party is promising to rescind and minimum wage increase so such businesses will become MORE profitable. Now if we can only protect those workers being exploited under visa requirements.
That poor Mr. Singh. My heart goes out to him. How is he ever going to complete his unnecessarily opulent home now that he's no longer able to siphon the wages of his indentured servants via threats of deportation? And he's been disowned by Super Liquor. Dear me. It's all a ghastly nightmare. I wonder if he's considered setting up a GoFundMe page to see him through these turbulent waters?
Seriously, he should be in prison. This guy has form for this crap, and he's shitting on his own people. How he's regarded as a 'prominent person in the Sikh community' while pulling stunts like this is anyone's guess. Singh and people like him should be fined into penury and prohibited from running a business for the rest of their natural lives. And his wife looks as though she's happily complicit.
It would "shift the onus of proof", says Keene, and could lead to "more equal" outcomes – and might have made a difference in Jazmine Bell's case.
"The alleged perpetrator could be required to describe how they knew the other person was consenting throughout the process, so, for example, if the victim was asleep or unconscious, they would need to demonstrate why they thought they had obtained enthusiastic consent from the other person," she explains.
"This pretence that A and B are unimportant marginal figures is very odd. Both had in fact been considered outstanding professionals for the OPCW throughout their careers, and have many written notes commending the quality of their work. They were rehired – something the OPCW very rarely does – because the OPCW needed their experience.
The OPCW says they were rehired on a lower grade from the one they had previously held. It does not say that this was because the old higher grade had been abolished, and so it was no reflection on the two men’s skills and competence."
Hitchens , a long time anti-Assadist says there is more to come
I haven't followed this story much (the ME being a Deccan Death Trap where the truth crawls off to die) … but I must confess to considerable sadness at seeing an important UN organisation being subverted on such an important matter.
When people are punished for telling the truth, everyone else around them very quickly learns to tell nothing but lies.
Thanks for the link francesca, I notice that one of the big pushers of the original narrative our very own RNZ National, have remained very very quite on this story…
I have just been sitting in the lunch room flicking through a copy of Manufacturing Consent that just arrived in the shop, I read it a long time ago, it has lost none of it's power or relevance..it should be required reading at secondary school IMO.
They don't. Your tax dollers are specially selected out and used to pay for Winstons personal Wiskey collection. You can change to who your taxes are contributed by emailing, spending-programs-which-dont-exist@govt.nz at any time.
Personally – I would prefer not having my tax dollars pay for roads that Chris T drives on to get to his work computer and disseminate odd opinions. But I'm not six years old any more, accept that in the scheme of things my personal preferences don't amount to much, and that we have this thing called a society that we have to make work without killing each other.
The idea of Chris's taxes paying for anything makes no sense what-so-ever. The govt controls and operates the accounts which record these transactions of course but if they wish to change the numbers in the account entries they can just do so without needing to ask permission. Essentially we are just discussing changes in spreadsheet entries.
So apparently the Spinoff-Twitter crowd just got one of the world’s most famous left wing philosophers and animal rights activists cancelled?
I always thought that Peter Singer’s remarks about sentience in babies born disabled vs animals were made to serve his argument towards the improved treatment of animals, not the worse treatment of disabled people… it’s an argument supposed to induce a moral shock in readers. Should we ban a Modest Proposal next?
Singer’s comments were not meant to be satire but they were firmly about improved animal welfare and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron…
“It’s a similar realm to Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneaux in that it’s about a ‘supreme race’…"
What! OMG I guess the only response in this intellectually impoverished day-and-age is an emoji.
Singer takes utilitarian to its logical end point, to the point of reductio ad absurdum, to call out specious arguments about human superiority based on arguments relating to sentience and quality of life, not in order to argue for infanticide.
Whoever is responsible for this should get a job running black ops for Fonterra.
This is perhaps, hands down, the stupidest and most counter-productive thing the “left” have done this year – so far.
I'm assuming that you have failed to provide a link to the Spinoff article because, like, disabled people who discuss Singer's warped attitudes are like, moronic?
My excuse is that I haven't been able to paste the link from my phone.
The Spinoff article is more than well worth a read and Red Nicholson nails it.
OK I can't help myself so I will quickly make a few points.
First, in response to your putting words in my mouth is saying:
"…disabled people who discuss Singer's warped attitudes are like, moronic?"
You are half right. Disabled people who discuss Singer's attitudes can be morons. They can also discover black holes from their wheelchairs. They can also get drunk and repeatedly drive their wheelchairs into their wives or nurses.
Judgement of a person's arguments or moral character does not come into my assessment of disabled people. I wouldn't want to prejudice them by suggesting they require me to treat them with kid gloves when the fact they can't walk, for example, has little to do with their potential to become one of the greatest living physicists.
By the same token, I won't pretend that because you have some diminished physical capacity that you can't be an asshole.
Second, to quickly address where Red Nicholson goes wrong from the get-go.
Nicholson writes "In 1979’s Practical Ethics, Singer wrote that the value of a life should be based on “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness”.
That should Nicholson inserts is very important.
Singer does not write that the value of a life should be based on “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness.
Singer is arguing within a specific philosophical tradition, utilitarianism, which variously argues that maximizing pleasure (higher, lower – it varies) is the end individuals and societies should aim for. He then argues for an expansion of our field of moral concern: to encompass people who we are not related to directly or by tribe or by nation, and also for non human beings. Controversially, he points to arguments about human superiority over animals based on sentience, as superior sentience is argued by some – like lots of utilitarians – to have a bearing on a human or non-human's persons capacity for pleasure.
There are arguments within utilitarianism which support the position that INDIVIDUAL sentience or capacity are less relevant to one's ability to experience pleasure, or a happy society.
There are also arguments outside of that tradition which argue for value on different grounds. In saying that, most utilitarians agree that human beings have inherent value. I can't remember what John Stuart Mill wrote about that off the top of my head but I will look it up.
Nicholson needs to work out what he is grappling with before he jumps into the arena because without doing that he could end up mischaracterizing a very deep thinker and contribute to getting him banned… by a gambling venue.
A copy of Practical Ethics should anyone want to read a book that presumably should be banned alongside Mein Kampf:
You know Billy when you make an argument – it's consider good form to attribute the right quote to the right people.
Strawman arguments are also a bit boorish as well – which general make me feel you have the need to full up space, and/or you know your wrong so you gotta make shit up, to knock it down.
Hi Adam, where's the wrong attribution? I quoted directly from the Spinoff article.
In that article, as I pointed out, Nicholson characterizes Singer as someone who advocates euthanasia for disabled people. I referred to Singer’s book and the passage from where Nicholson took and then altered the partial quote, turning it into a different sort of statement: as advocacy. Nicholson’s mischaracterization is the strawman argument here.
I’m not sure your response is in good faith.
It’s not “philosophical wank”, as someone claimed, to seek to right the way a philosopher’s position has been misrepresented. The later is, or worse.
Singer states quite clearly in a number of sources, primary and secondary, that that his questions around personhood "[are] a way of getting people involved in species membership. And try and get them to break this automatic nexus between species membership and moral status."
It was the author of the piece, not Red Nicholson, who wrote that sentence you quoted.
If you do take the time to go back and actually read the Spinoff article entire, you might just come to realize that Singer has a serious issue with disability.
Thanks Rosemary. I attributed something written by Leonie Hayden to Red Nicholson, who was quoted later in Hayden’s opinion piece. My mistake.
My criticism of that passage stands. My attribution did not affect my point.
My point was that the author put a spin on Singer's words in the original text, to which I linked. It's not the only passage that was coloured Singer’s arguments in that way.
Singer argues for the radical expansion of our definition of personhood and not for eugenics.
It’s true that Singer has stated that 28 day postpartum infanticide is acceptable. He also notes that this is already common practice in hospitals, and that parents frequently choose to abort severely disabled children up until late term, suggesting that infanticide is a lot less controversial in reality. I expect to see you with a picket sign outside an abortion clinic or hospital with the radical Catholics and the Evangelicals some day soon.
If you had actually sat down and read Practical Ethics you would have seen that Singer as a strong Utilitarian places no limit on abortion and struggles to find limits to getting rid of people who have major degenerative diseases.
Utilitarians like Singer are a pain in the ass, and as a general rule philosophers – particularly Utilitarians – have no place getting their mitts on the levers of power.
If you want to see a full-on Fordist hardass utilitarian really get their hands on power and see what they do with it, have a good look at McNamara planning the bombing of Vietnam in The Fog Of War. It's in his own words so there's no misinterpretation.
Not also Singer’s version of sentience based on self-consciousness means dealing with beings lower down the food-chain you can essentially harvest things for food, or otherwise use them as resource. As soon as you conceive of things as resource, as Heidegger reminded us, the more the entire world gets used up fast.
Singer has no concept of being.
Essentially everything starts to look like food.
So before you start having another good wank quoting philosphical passages at someone with a severely disabled dependent who has been doing so for many years (as in Rosemary's case), suck it up first and be more careful.
Thanks I was idly thinking about a response myself, but that's far better than I would have done. Utilitarian's are a refined form of materialism. Yes humans have to do business with the material world, but to pretend this is sufficient leads to terrible places.
Utilitarians are very valuable philosophers, in that they don't work on the principle that Homo Sapiens is the be-all and end-all of the Universe. The ability to step outside the automatic self-interest of your own species is a rare talent and a useful one. At the very least, utilitarians force us to think about the basis of our morality and what rational arguments there are for it. Unsurprisingly, people who think humanity is the pinnacle of evolution or God's special creation hate utilitarians, but that's their business.
Those are all fair points, but I don't think Singer can be lumped in with McNamara.
I sympathize with the difficulties you must have. And I can see how even a hint of these arguments could cause offense. Though, the arguments Singer makes around this are about logical inconsistencies with utilitarianism, for animal welfare (and the welfare of people not in your tribe).
I would like to unpick your response a bit because there are problems with it but I don’t have time at present.
So apparently the Spinoff-Twitter crowd just got one of the world’s most famous left wing philosophers and animal rights activists cancelled?
Yep. On the one hand it's refreshing to see philosophers once again considered a threat to established social order with their unpopular ideas, on the other hand it sucks to see the growth of intolerance, authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism and irrationality in our society.
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In an apparently successful attempt to get under the skin of Donald Trump, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has purchased Greenland from Denmark.
In an official statement released on Tuesday, the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, would not disclose the price that Bloomberg paid for Greenland but indicated that it was an “all-cash offer.”
“Mr. Bloomberg has a lot of money,” Frederiksen added.
News of Bloomberg’s purchase of Greenland reportedly infuriated Trump, who immediately ordered his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to make an offer to buy the Faroe Islands from Denmark.
Within minutes, however, Denmark rebuffed Kushner’s bid. “We do not believe Donald Trump is capable of running the Faroe Islands,” Frederiksen said.
As for Bloomberg, his campaign released a brief statement about the historic purchase of the 836,330-square-mile landmass, saying only, “Mike gets it done.”
Singer may know about animals but he is blatantly ignorant about disability and the value of being human. He echoes common stereotypes but his extremism with them is even more socially harmful.
Singer said it was disappointing that a speaking tour that was meant to be about the benefits of "effective altruism" has instead become focussed on infanticide.
He said he supported laws that ban hate speech against any group of people but he did not see his views as being in that category.
Saying it is good to kill a class of people because you do not see any value in their life seems pretty hateful from here. Be really brave, dude, and make it about race or gender, go on.
He is welcome to spitefully mutter into a beer at his local but no way is a public platform justified. Not adding anything new or useful. Others have already done it 'better'.
The trouble with "hate speech" is that people think it necessarily involves hate. Not so. People calmly doing a job can also utter or commit the most vile things, with no particular emotion or desire any more than one would file an invoice.
… he is blatantly ignorant about disability and the value of being human.
I couldn't comment on what he knows about disability, but a lot of his work is about what "the value of being human" actually means and what arguments there are for that value being significantly higher than the value of being something else. Doing that is one of the tasks of philosophy, and the fact that people don't like having to contemplate the basis and merit of their morality doesn't make philosophy "hate speech."
I'm not aware that Singer has suggested anyone should be euthanised. That would be political advocacy rather than philosophical argument, and would surely have been widely publicised.
I did, which is why I'm wondering about these accusations that he advocates killing people. Recognising that there's a philosophical argument for infanticide not being unethical under some circumstances is not advocating for infanticide. Feeling strongly about something doesn't given a person the right to misrepresent what the object of their anger is saying.
He doesn't. Our society has decided that the magic point at which someone achieves personhood is birth. Catholics believe the magic point occurs much earlier. Singer has said it is acceptable to terminate a newborn 28 days postpartum, and noted that it is common practice in hospitals today to let severely disabled children die. Personhood for him should include animals. He’s not an advocate for eugenics.
If you do believe in abortion, at which point is personhood achieved by the fetus or infant, or when falls the magic point at which termination is no longer acceptable, and why?
If you can’t provide an answer, you have no business preventing a philosopher who has considered these questions deeply from holding a talk on those and many other matters of profound ethical, social, cultural and political importance.
But doctors decide when people should die all the time.
When they give cancer patients a push-button controller for fatal doses of morphine. When they decide to stop treating someone, including a severely disabled child. Sometimes guardians or partners give their input. When a baby is in an incubator, at what point should we decide to turn that incubator off?
What if the advancement of medical technology meant that hospitals could keep every baby born alive artificially? Should hospitals keep every baby born alive, even if they are so severely disabled that they would otherwise die? Many disabled people rely on medical technology without which they would be dead. Some people are unable to communicate whether they want to continue living.
It seems to me that if it is not going to end well, we should at least have the best reasons for those decisions. And the public deserves forums in which those arguments can be aired – or should it be left up to the DHB’s accountants? Abortion legislation has passed through Parliament and been quite contentious. Battles over health funding are never going to go away. Those battles should have informed public input.
If you feel you're decending into Alice territory, take the hand of Harriet McBryde Johnson (a link to her article in the NYT is in the Spinoff piece for your convenience).
Walk with her through the maze, and perhaps drag yourself from the mire.
The self-appointed woke left have just cancelled perhaps the world’s most important moral and environmental philosopher who was in the country to give a talk on our collective duty to address global poverty.
Furthermore, they were content to advocate the silencing of this radical voice without even bothering to understand what he was actually saying. They’re not even willing, seemingly, to address the same difficult questions, which are unavoidable.
If you count yourself among this group you are a reactionary narcissist and not a leftist.
If there's no place for Peter Singer there's no place for me.
Hey, Billy, nobody from the left has cancelled Singer's visit. He's only lost a venue. He could still turn up and give his talk in another venue or even on a soapbox in Albert Park for that matter. If he doesn't front, it's entirely his own decision.
@Sacha – it seems sometimes a reply can be made to a comment at the bottom nesting level – I was really bummed when weka slipped one in above my "Bowelly" comment a while back and totally ruined the flow. Maybe it's when a reply is made from some mobile devices?
@Andre – I wonder if it might be the same person replying to themself that gets treated differently? Not a standard WordPress platform behaviour as far as I know.
Stuff report Jami Lee Ross and the 3 others, Yikun Zhang, Shijia Zheng, and Hengjia Zheng have had name suppression lifted. No surprises there then I guess. Poor little "Beijing Bridges" will be putting on his ballet shoes right now, ready for a bit of Pin Head dancing.
Be interesting to learn what offence(s) each of the four individuals involved has been charged with. I believe at the time of the donations, JLR was still a National MP!
JLR seems quite rational about it, judging by his statement in Stuff. Perhaps during legal proceedings in court, through JLR's defence and that of his co defendents, the National leader's name could pop up!
I suspected one was JLR because Bigmouth Bridges said at some stage early on that "no current Nat party member " had been charged. Bridges must be shitting himself because as JLR is charged Bridges is complicit. If only they did it like the old days, waiting for a big crowd outside his office before leading the perp out in cuffs before gently placing a big cop's hand on his head while still managing to whack it on the door opening of the Police Holden Kingswood.
I am suddenly having a good day.
P.s, I once asked a detective mate of mine over a few beers if that was deliberate, "Yeah, of course mate '" was the reply.
Seems a bit odd that by the telephone record, Bridges was complicit, but not charged.
And those big donors are very rich and can buy good lawyers, but Jamie…
And those others charged said,""Our clients are proud New Zealanders and philanthropists. They were urged to follow a process and are now deeply disappointed at being caught up in a donation's fiasco.
I think Winston is, putting it mildly, a blight on NZ politics. I would like it if Jacinda read him the riot but of course she won't because of the power Winston appears to have over her.
To counter this how difficult would it be, politically speaking, for Bridges to say to Ardern that if she strips everything she can from Winston (and if he throws his toys out of the cot and threatens to bring down the govt and cause an early election) then National will support the COL until the general election
On what basis could Bridges make a case to Ardern that his integrity is higher than that of Winston Peters? That is, why should Ardern feel that Peters isn't a fit person to work with but Bridges is a fit person to work with?
Yeah good on you, you managed to to say in a post how untrustworthy Bridges is, well done, big round of applause, herp derp Bridges bad
Its a hypothetical question therefore we can assume everyone is acting in good faith
The point of the post was about the implications, if any, of NZFirst breaking away from the COL and National supporting the govt through to the next election
Would this course of action help Labour or National more
Would this course of action reinforce peoples positive views of MMP and democracy in NZ or would it be viewed as a negative
Take your "COL" and shove it up your arse. Calling people Losers because they have different views than yours is nasty and with regard to your Grand Coalition arrangement to eliminate Peters, that's just further ganging up and bullying to eliminate a rival, but then I guess that comes easily to your ilk. Next they came for the National Supporters but …. etc
'The government was announced shortly before 7pm on Thursday, a coalition of Labour and New Zealand First – ending nine years of National governments.'
Actually I suspect you weren't using it as C.O. Labour as you strike me is too bright to not know that the Labour Party is not a Coalition, there is a C O Labour, NZ1st, Greens. but you didn't use an Anagram for that, did you, plus you even acknowledge you knew it's origin. Neither of your links refer to a COL do they. It's been my experience that everyone using that Anagram is a Completely Unethical National Toady so it's up to you if you fit that title.
I figure on the basic level a perceived coalition between Labour and National would go down as well with Labour voters as NZ1 and National went down with NZ1 voters in 1996. The Greens would probably have the integrity to walk and force an early election, in which case Labour is now reliant on national to replace greens and nz1. The "grand coalition" wet dream of friendless tories media pundits finally eventuates, Labour goes back to 20% or less, nats get bolstered for looking competent, and Luke blows up the death star.
Nice "hypothetical". Now, if we include people's characters and histories, Bridges has a fair chance of making the pact 4 months of hell followed by a snap election after he (or his successor) pulls support, NZ1 has a fair chance of being returned to office, and then Winston calls a plague on both parties because he doesn't like being treated like shit. Oh, and people think Labour is full of shit for swapping between two parties who both appear to be similarly dodgy with their donations.
Labour must keep ditching one or both, and only one has a track record of actually working well with Labour.
So coalition is a non event but confidence and supply might be a better option then
To my way of thinking theres only 7 months to the next election so if things turned to custard with Winnie (and on past history thats not impossible) we might not need an early election
The distinction between a formal coalition agreement and simple support for C&S is a subtle one that I suspect most people won't care about – it's the difference between seeing your partner in bed with someone else and simply seeing them having a romantic dinner with that person.
If you're friends with the other person and your partner is open about it, no worries. If you hate the other person and don't trust your partner because of a past betrayal, you might have an issue.
Well at the very least it would seem that there are a few options for the govt (including future ones) to not be held to hostage by another party threatening an early election
There are all sorts of mathematical possibilities – hell, NZ1 can go with national if Labour try to cut them loose.
It comes down to how contradictory parties are in policy principles and how the personalities work together. And some proposals are more wishful thinking than realistic ideas.
Maybe. Seymour's really trying hard to appeal to the voters not even NZ1 or the nats will go after openly (well, not since the nat staffer got all "emotional" for some reason).
Poverty is a big driver of most of the bad stats some people don't get it.
I say our farmers can lower their carbon footprint.
There is a study that points out that green house gases produce by big oil is under estimated by 40 %. In my view we need to focus on getting fossil fuel energy out of our energy mix not deflect all the blame on our farmers.
Tikapa beach is nice and clean.
You know that the last government of nine years was lead by a climate change denier under them thousands of heacture of forest got cut down prematurely wind turbine project got canned of course under a government like that farmers were not mitigating their environmental footprint.?????.
That's a good cause to champion lowering the voting age some parents have a hard time looking into the future past there hip pockets to see we are stuffing the future up.
Ngāti Kahunga had a good Kapa Haka festival.
Kura Kaupapa is saving tangata whenua o Aotearoa Te reo and cultural kia kaha.
Its cool seeing Iwi fighting to keep their Awa pristine and clean.
Great Waiheke Island is aiming for a predator free sanctuary for Aotearoa native wildlife.
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Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – 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 is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
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No wonder workers get exploited- It is sooo difficult to turn a profit, almost not worth being in business. Just as well that one party is promising to rescind and minimum wage increase so such businesses will become MORE profitable. Now if we can only protect those workers being exploited under visa requirements.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119602924/liquor-store-owners-planned-mansion-while-company-probed
Meanwhile we hear 'Kiwis' don't want to work'.
A lot easier to exploit a migrant than a local. Same problem in HB in horticulture.
That poor Mr. Singh. My heart goes out to him. How is he ever going to complete his unnecessarily opulent home now that he's no longer able to siphon the wages of his indentured servants via threats of deportation? And he's been disowned by Super Liquor. Dear me. It's all a ghastly nightmare. I wonder if he's considered setting up a GoFundMe page to see him through these turbulent waters?
Seriously, he should be in prison. This guy has form for this crap, and he's shitting on his own people. How he's regarded as a 'prominent person in the Sikh community' while pulling stunts like this is anyone's guess. Singh and people like him should be fined into penury and prohibited from running a business for the rest of their natural lives. And his wife looks as though she's happily complicit.
Let's do this:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/119484045/he-said-she-said-how-we-might-tackle-changes-to-our-sexual-consent-laws
It was great to hear the Police Officer in charge of Crime Prevention say on RNZ this afternoon that no one should have sex with drunk people.
Many will argue that getting at least slightly drunk is the only way they actually get sex.
But in the context of Orientation Week, it's the right message for the Police to get out.
The MSM generally does not linger on any controversies that embarrass the western
PTB, the news cycle must go on
Peter Hitchens ,however , is not letting this go.
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2020/02/someone-has-been-telling-lies-about-a-and-b-kafka-comes-to-the-hague.html
An excerpt
"This pretence that A and B are unimportant marginal figures is very odd. Both had in fact been considered outstanding professionals for the OPCW throughout their careers, and have many written notes commending the quality of their work. They were rehired – something the OPCW very rarely does – because the OPCW needed their experience.
The OPCW says they were rehired on a lower grade from the one they had previously held. It does not say that this was because the old higher grade had been abolished, and so it was no reflection on the two men’s skills and competence."
Hitchens , a long time anti-Assadist says there is more to come
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/12/in-praise-of-telling-the-truth
I haven't followed this story much (the ME being a Deccan Death Trap where the truth crawls off to die) … but I must confess to considerable sadness at seeing an important UN organisation being subverted on such an important matter.
When people are punished for telling the truth, everyone else around them very quickly learns to tell nothing but lies.
Thanks for the link francesca, I notice that one of the big pushers of the original narrative our very own RNZ National, have remained very very quite on this story…
I have just been sitting in the lunch room flicking through a copy of Manufacturing Consent that just arrived in the shop, I read it a long time ago, it has lost none of it's power or relevance..it should be required reading at secondary school IMO.
Personally would prefer not having more of my tax dollars paying for the nutty Green Party, New Conservatives or the next Colin Craig.
They don't. Your tax dollers are specially selected out and used to pay for Winstons personal Wiskey collection. You can change to who your taxes are contributed by emailing, spending-programs-which-dont-exist@govt.nz at any time.
Personally – I would prefer not having my tax dollars pay for roads that Chris T drives on to get to his work computer and disseminate odd opinions. But I'm not six years old any more, accept that in the scheme of things my personal preferences don't amount to much, and that we have this thing called a society that we have to make work without killing each other.
The idea of Chris's taxes paying for anything makes no sense what-so-ever. The govt controls and operates the accounts which record these transactions of course but if they wish to change the numbers in the account entries they can just do so without needing to ask permission. Essentially we are just discussing changes in spreadsheet entries.
So apparently the Spinoff-Twitter crowd just got one of the world’s most famous left wing philosophers and animal rights activists cancelled?
I always thought that Peter Singer’s remarks about sentience in babies born disabled vs animals were made to serve his argument towards the improved treatment of animals, not the worse treatment of disabled people… it’s an argument supposed to induce a moral shock in readers. Should we ban a Modest Proposal next?
Singer’s comments were not meant to be satire but they were firmly about improved animal welfare and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron…
“It’s a similar realm to Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneaux in that it’s about a ‘supreme race’…"
What! OMG I guess the only response in this intellectually impoverished day-and-age is an emoji.
Singer takes utilitarian to its logical end point, to the point of reductio ad absurdum, to call out specious arguments about human superiority based on arguments relating to sentience and quality of life, not in order to argue for infanticide.
Whoever is responsible for this should get a job running black ops for Fonterra.
This is perhaps, hands down, the stupidest and most counter-productive thing the “left” have done this year – so far.
I'm assuming that you have failed to provide a link to the Spinoff article because, like, disabled people who discuss Singer's warped attitudes are like, moronic?
My excuse is that I haven't been able to paste the link from my phone.
The Spinoff article is more than well worth a read and Red Nicholson nails it.
I don't think Red Nicholson understands what Peter Singer is doing.
I've got to get busy now but I will rebut the article here this afternoon.
The article: https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/19-02-2020/disabled-voices-on-peter-singer-whos-actually-listening-to-this-guy/
Oh, well done for providing the link…good on you!
Pray, oh Wise One, exactly what is Singer "doing" that Red Nicholson is failing to understand?
OK I can't help myself so I will quickly make a few points.
First, in response to your putting words in my mouth is saying:
"…disabled people who discuss Singer's warped attitudes are like, moronic?"
You are half right. Disabled people who discuss Singer's attitudes can be morons. They can also discover black holes from their wheelchairs. They can also get drunk and repeatedly drive their wheelchairs into their wives or nurses.
Judgement of a person's arguments or moral character does not come into my assessment of disabled people. I wouldn't want to prejudice them by suggesting they require me to treat them with kid gloves when the fact they can't walk, for example, has little to do with their potential to become one of the greatest living physicists.
By the same token, I won't pretend that because you have some diminished physical capacity that you can't be an asshole.
Second, to quickly address where Red Nicholson goes wrong from the get-go.
Nicholson writes "In 1979’s Practical Ethics, Singer wrote that the value of a life should be based on “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness”.
That should Nicholson inserts is very important.
Singer does not write that the value of a life should be based on “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness.
Singer is arguing within a specific philosophical tradition, utilitarianism, which variously argues that maximizing pleasure (higher, lower – it varies) is the end individuals and societies should aim for. He then argues for an expansion of our field of moral concern: to encompass people who we are not related to directly or by tribe or by nation, and also for non human beings. Controversially, he points to arguments about human superiority over animals based on sentience, as superior sentience is argued by some – like lots of utilitarians – to have a bearing on a human or non-human's persons capacity for pleasure.
There are arguments within utilitarianism which support the position that INDIVIDUAL sentience or capacity are less relevant to one's ability to experience pleasure, or a happy society.
There are also arguments outside of that tradition which argue for value on different grounds. In saying that, most utilitarians agree that human beings have inherent value. I can't remember what John Stuart Mill wrote about that off the top of my head but I will look it up.
Nicholson needs to work out what he is grappling with before he jumps into the arena because without doing that he could end up mischaracterizing a very deep thinker and contribute to getting him banned… by a gambling venue.
A copy of Practical Ethics should anyone want to read a book that presumably should be banned alongside Mein Kampf:
http://www.stafforini.com/docs/Singer%20-%20Practical%20ethics.pdf
You know Billy when you make an argument – it's consider good form to attribute the right quote to the right people.
Strawman arguments are also a bit boorish as well – which general make me feel you have the need to full up space, and/or you know your wrong so you gotta make shit up, to knock it down.
"…good form to attribute the right quote to the right people.. "
Come, come now Adam….give Billy a break.
There's an awful lot going on in Hayden's article…so very easy to get a wee bit muddled.
Hi Adam, where's the wrong attribution? I quoted directly from the Spinoff article.
In that article, as I pointed out, Nicholson characterizes Singer as someone who advocates euthanasia for disabled people. I referred to Singer’s book and the passage from where Nicholson took and then altered the partial quote, turning it into a different sort of statement: as advocacy. Nicholson’s mischaracterization is the strawman argument here.
I’m not sure your response is in good faith.
It’s not “philosophical wank”, as someone claimed, to seek to right the way a philosopher’s position has been misrepresented. The later is, or worse.
Singer states quite clearly in a number of sources, primary and secondary, that that his questions around personhood "[are] a way of getting people involved in species membership. And try and get them to break this automatic nexus between species membership and moral status."
source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/nov/06/weekend.kevintoolis
Go back and have another read Billy, laddie.
It was the author of the piece, not Red Nicholson, who wrote that sentence you quoted.
If you do take the time to go back and actually read the Spinoff article entire, you might just come to realize that Singer has a serious issue with disability.
Thanks Rosemary. I attributed something written by Leonie Hayden to Red Nicholson, who was quoted later in Hayden’s opinion piece. My mistake.
My criticism of that passage stands. My attribution did not affect my point.
My point was that the author put a spin on Singer's words in the original text, to which I linked. It's not the only passage that was coloured Singer’s arguments in that way.
Singer argues for the radical expansion of our definition of personhood and not for eugenics.
It’s true that Singer has stated that 28 day postpartum infanticide is acceptable. He also notes that this is already common practice in hospitals, and that parents frequently choose to abort severely disabled children up until late term, suggesting that infanticide is a lot less controversial in reality. I expect to see you with a picket sign outside an abortion clinic or hospital with the radical Catholics and the Evangelicals some day soon.
If you had actually sat down and read Practical Ethics you would have seen that Singer as a strong Utilitarian places no limit on abortion and struggles to find limits to getting rid of people who have major degenerative diseases.
Utilitarians like Singer are a pain in the ass, and as a general rule philosophers – particularly Utilitarians – have no place getting their mitts on the levers of power.
If you want to see a full-on Fordist hardass utilitarian really get their hands on power and see what they do with it, have a good look at McNamara planning the bombing of Vietnam in The Fog Of War. It's in his own words so there's no misinterpretation.
Not also Singer’s version of sentience based on self-consciousness means dealing with beings lower down the food-chain you can essentially harvest things for food, or otherwise use them as resource. As soon as you conceive of things as resource, as Heidegger reminded us, the more the entire world gets used up fast.
Singer has no concept of being.
Essentially everything starts to look like food.
So before you start having another good wank quoting philosphical passages at someone with a severely disabled dependent who has been doing so for many years (as in Rosemary's case), suck it up first and be more careful.
Thanks I was idly thinking about a response myself, but that's far better than I would have done. Utilitarian's are a refined form of materialism. Yes humans have to do business with the material world, but to pretend this is sufficient leads to terrible places.
McNamara is an especially unlovely character in US history. Then there is this episode of shame.
Marxists are also materialists.
Utilitarians are very valuable philosophers, in that they don't work on the principle that Homo Sapiens is the be-all and end-all of the Universe. The ability to step outside the automatic self-interest of your own species is a rare talent and a useful one. At the very least, utilitarians force us to think about the basis of our morality and what rational arguments there are for it. Unsurprisingly, people who think humanity is the pinnacle of evolution or God's special creation hate utilitarians, but that's their business.
Those are all fair points, but I don't think Singer can be lumped in with McNamara.
I sympathize with the difficulties you must have. And I can see how even a hint of these arguments could cause offense. Though, the arguments Singer makes around this are about logical inconsistencies with utilitarianism, for animal welfare (and the welfare of people not in your tribe).
I would like to unpick your response a bit because there are problems with it but I don’t have time at present.
Theres lived experience and then theres intellectual (?) exercise …ne'er the twain shall meet
And then there's the Socratic method which people no longer seem to understand and wish to stamp out.
It’s disturbing that those people seem to have a purchase on the state.
The Socratic method is limited and I would suggest not applicable in this instance.
A time and place for everything
So apparently the Spinoff-Twitter crowd just got one of the world’s most famous left wing philosophers and animal rights activists cancelled?
Yep. On the one hand it's refreshing to see philosophers once again considered a threat to established social order with their unpopular ideas, on the other hand it sucks to see the growth of intolerance, authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism and irrationality in our society.
Meanwhile..
Andrew Little just did an interview on Magic Talk did anyone hear it as I missed it but its getting a lot of negative flak.
That'll just be James and alwyn tag-team-calling.
?????
?????
https://www.magic.co.nz/home/news/2020/02/sean-plunket-and-justice-minister-in-fiery-argument-over-right-t.html
Little really needs some help with media training, he started with the insults and then it went down hill from there
Singer may know about animals but he is blatantly ignorant about disability and the value of being human. He echoes common stereotypes but his extremism with them is even more socially harmful.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/119641143/skycity-cancels-philosopher-peter-singers-booking-over-disability-concerns
Saying it is good to kill a class of people because you do not see any value in their life seems pretty hateful from here. Be really brave, dude, and make it about race or gender, go on.
He is welcome to spitefully mutter into a beer at his local but no way is a public platform justified. Not adding anything new or useful. Others have already done it 'better'.
The trouble with "hate speech" is that people think it necessarily involves hate. Not so. People calmly doing a job can also utter or commit the most vile things, with no particular emotion or desire any more than one would file an invoice.
… he is blatantly ignorant about disability and the value of being human.
I couldn't comment on what he knows about disability, but a lot of his work is about what "the value of being human" actually means and what arguments there are for that value being significantly higher than the value of being something else. Doing that is one of the tasks of philosophy, and the fact that people don't like having to contemplate the basis and merit of their morality doesn't make philosophy "hate speech."
I haven't the time, but point me to the place where Singer the Wise states that recidivist rapists and child sex offenders should also be euthanized?
I'm not aware that Singer has suggested anyone should be euthanised. That would be political advocacy rather than philosophical argument, and would surely have been widely publicised.
Err…you did, of course, read the Spinoff piece?
The one that directly quotes the Wise One?
Where he says the bit about parents being able to kill a disabled newborn?
That this would be a good, an ethical and moral thing to do?
You might want to read a little more widely on the pontifications of Singer.
I did, which is why I'm wondering about these accusations that he advocates killing people. Recognising that there's a philosophical argument for infanticide not being unethical under some circumstances is not advocating for infanticide. Feeling strongly about something doesn't given a person the right to misrepresent what the object of their anger is saying.
He doesn't. Our society has decided that the magic point at which someone achieves personhood is birth. Catholics believe the magic point occurs much earlier. Singer has said it is acceptable to terminate a newborn 28 days postpartum, and noted that it is common practice in hospitals today to let severely disabled children die. Personhood for him should include animals. He’s not an advocate for eugenics.
All just a harmless thought experiment, guv.
He's a clever lad is that Singer fellow.
He has a reputation for philosophizing right back up his own aft crevasse.
Rosemary, do you believe in abortion?
If you do believe in abortion, at which point is personhood achieved by the fetus or infant, or when falls the magic point at which termination is no longer acceptable, and why?
If you can’t provide an answer, you have no business preventing a philosopher who has considered these questions deeply from holding a talk on those and many other matters of profound ethical, social, cultural and political importance.
Deciding when people count as humans never seems to end well.
But doctors decide when people should die all the time.
When they give cancer patients a push-button controller for fatal doses of morphine. When they decide to stop treating someone, including a severely disabled child. Sometimes guardians or partners give their input. When a baby is in an incubator, at what point should we decide to turn that incubator off?
What if the advancement of medical technology meant that hospitals could keep every baby born alive artificially? Should hospitals keep every baby born alive, even if they are so severely disabled that they would otherwise die? Many disabled people rely on medical technology without which they would be dead. Some people are unable to communicate whether they want to continue living.
It seems to me that if it is not going to end well, we should at least have the best reasons for those decisions. And the public deserves forums in which those arguments can be aired – or should it be left up to the DHB’s accountants? Abortion legislation has passed through Parliament and been quite contentious. Battles over health funding are never going to go away. Those battles should have informed public input.
This is insane. I'm out.
Whoa there Billy lad….!!!
If you feel you're decending into Alice territory, take the hand of Harriet McBryde Johnson (a link to her article in the NYT is in the Spinoff piece for your convenience).
Walk with her through the maze, and perhaps drag yourself from the mire.
All the best.
The self-appointed woke left have just cancelled perhaps the world’s most important moral and environmental philosopher who was in the country to give a talk on our collective duty to address global poverty.
Furthermore, they were content to advocate the silencing of this radical voice without even bothering to understand what he was actually saying. They’re not even willing, seemingly, to address the same difficult questions, which are unavoidable.
If you count yourself among this group you are a reactionary narcissist and not a leftist.
If there's no place for Peter Singer there's no place for me.
Hey, Billy, nobody from the left has cancelled Singer's visit. He's only lost a venue. He could still turn up and give his talk in another venue or even on a soapbox in Albert Park for that matter. If he doesn't front, it's entirely his own decision.
True that TRP, but would He be able to charge the folks $160 to hear his Words of Wisdom from his soapbox in Albert Park?
Billy, the only people 'appointing' the 'woke' are the same right-wing gits we have suffered from for decades.
And do not let the door hit you on your way out.
(@lprent – interesting that nesting of these final level comments is not keeping to the posting time.)
@Sacha – it seems sometimes a reply can be made to a comment at the bottom nesting level – I was really bummed when weka slipped one in above my "Bowelly" comment a while back and totally ruined the flow. Maybe it's when a reply is made from some mobile devices?
@Andre – I wonder if it might be the same person replying to themself that gets treated differently? Not a standard WordPress platform behaviour as far as I know.
Stuff report Jami Lee Ross and the 3 others, Yikun Zhang, Shijia Zheng, and Hengjia Zheng have had name suppression lifted. No surprises there then I guess. Poor little "Beijing Bridges" will be putting on his ballet shoes right now, ready for a bit of Pin Head dancing.
Link: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/119624613/three-of-four-names-revealed-in-national-party-donation-sfo-case
And the Herald. Jamie adds to his comment.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12309887
Red Blooded One (9) … I just read about it.
Be interesting to learn what offence(s) each of the four individuals involved has been charged with. I believe at the time of the donations, JLR was still a National MP!
"I believe at the time of the donations, JLR was still a National MP! "
That's why Simon has been very careful in only using the present tense in his denials.
Of course. 'Currently' gave it away.
JLR seems quite rational about it, judging by his statement in Stuff. Perhaps during legal proceedings in court, through JLR's defence and that of his co defendents, the National leader's name could pop up!
I imagine it will frequently. A good look during an election year… possibly popcorn time
He was the bloody National Party Chief Whip.
I suspected one was JLR because Bigmouth Bridges said at some stage early on that "no current Nat party member " had been charged. Bridges must be shitting himself because as JLR is charged Bridges is complicit. If only they did it like the old days, waiting for a big crowd outside his office before leading the perp out in cuffs before gently placing a big cop's hand on his head while still managing to whack it on the door opening of the Police Holden Kingswood.
I am suddenly having a good day.
P.s, I once asked a detective mate of mine over a few beers if that was deliberate, "Yeah, of course mate '" was the reply.
Seems a bit odd that by the telephone record, Bridges was complicit, but not charged.
And those big donors are very rich and can buy good lawyers, but Jamie…
And those others charged said,""Our clients are proud New Zealanders and philanthropists. They were urged to follow a process and are now deeply disappointed at being caught up in a donation's fiasco.
Sniff?
I think Winston is, putting it mildly, a blight on NZ politics. I would like it if Jacinda read him the riot but of course she won't because of the power Winston appears to have over her.
To counter this how difficult would it be, politically speaking, for Bridges to say to Ardern that if she strips everything she can from Winston (and if he throws his toys out of the cot and threatens to bring down the govt and cause an early election) then National will support the COL until the general election
Is this doable or even possible?
(Basically I want Winston gone)
On what basis could Bridges make a case to Ardern that his integrity is higher than that of Winston Peters? That is, why should Ardern feel that Peters isn't a fit person to work with but Bridges is a fit person to work with?
Not quite the point of the post (but well done for for the attempted diversion)
Not really. Why would Ardern fire Winston to rely on a promise from Bridges?
Yeah good on you, you managed to to say in a post how untrustworthy Bridges is, well done, big round of applause, herp derp Bridges bad
Its a hypothetical question therefore we can assume everyone is acting in good faith
The point of the post was about the implications, if any, of NZFirst breaking away from the COL and National supporting the govt through to the next election
Would this course of action help Labour or National more
Would this course of action reinforce peoples positive views of MMP and democracy in NZ or would it be viewed as a negative
Take your "COL" and shove it up your arse. Calling people Losers because they have different views than yours is nasty and with regard to your Grand Coalition arrangement to eliminate Peters, that's just further ganging up and bullying to eliminate a rival, but then I guess that comes easily to your ilk. Next they came for the National Supporters but …. etc
Actually I was referring to the Coalition of Labour but using the acronym
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/341924/labour-nz-first-government-what-you-need-to-know
'The government was announced shortly before 7pm on Thursday, a coalition of Labour and New Zealand First – ending nine years of National governments.'
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/109372044/after-a-huge-year-in-politics-one-politician-stands-out
'The unlikely coalition of Labour, NZ First and the Greens is looking locked in.'
Actually I suspect you weren't using it as C.O. Labour as you strike me is too bright to not know that the Labour Party is not a Coalition, there is a C O Labour, NZ1st, Greens. but you didn't use an Anagram for that, did you, plus you even acknowledge you knew it's origin. Neither of your links refer to a COL do they. It's been my experience that everyone using that Anagram is a Completely Unethical National Toady so it's up to you if you fit that title.
Yes dear
Glad you agree and acknowledge your intention.
Thats nice
Come on Pucky, you're/were better than that!
We like you.. when you talk straight.
Even the best of us get a little salty at times
No you were not. Own your snark like a big boy.
oh, I forgot that's what it stood for.
The winningest "losers" in parliament lol
It may have started out as that but I assumed it was now accepted as Coalition of Labour
You want Winston out, fine.
The people didn't.
I figure on the basic level a perceived coalition between Labour and National would go down as well with Labour voters as NZ1 and National went down with NZ1 voters in 1996. The Greens would probably have the integrity to walk and force an early election, in which case Labour is now reliant on national to replace greens and nz1. The "grand coalition" wet dream of
friendless toriesmedia pundits finally eventuates, Labour goes back to 20% or less, nats get bolstered for looking competent, and Luke blows up the death star.Nice "hypothetical". Now, if we include people's characters and histories, Bridges has a fair chance of making the pact 4 months of hell followed by a snap election after he (or his successor) pulls support, NZ1 has a fair chance of being returned to office, and then Winston calls a plague on both parties because he doesn't like being treated like shit. Oh, and people think Labour is full of shit for swapping between two parties who both appear to be similarly dodgy with their donations.
Labour must keep ditching one or both, and only one has a track record of actually working well with Labour.
So coalition is a non event but confidence and supply might be a better option then
To my way of thinking theres only 7 months to the next election so if things turned to custard with Winnie (and on past history thats not impossible) we might not need an early election
The distinction between a formal coalition agreement and simple support for C&S is a subtle one that I suspect most people won't care about – it's the difference between seeing your partner in bed with someone else and simply seeing them having a romantic dinner with that person.
Thats an accurate if slightly disturbing way of looking at it.
I don't know much about what crossbench support means but would that be another option?
That's seeing them having coffee in a cafe.
If you're friends with the other person and your partner is open about it, no worries. If you hate the other person and don't trust your partner because of a past betrayal, you might have an issue.
Well at the very least it would seem that there are a few options for the govt (including future ones) to not be held to hostage by another party threatening an early election
Hypothetically speaking of course
There are all sorts of mathematical possibilities – hell, NZ1 can go with national if Labour try to cut them loose.
It comes down to how contradictory parties are in policy principles and how the personalities work together. And some proposals are more wishful thinking than realistic ideas.
Oh I know mine is wishful thinking but its good to know its possible, if extremely unlikely
Also good to know that Winnie can't hold the country to ransom anymore
Meh.
I'd prefer no nats to no winston.
Interesting, I'd prefer any of the minor parties to Winnie
You almost had me in agreement, then I remembered ACT lol
I predict three MPs for Act this election, possibly even four and they'd be disappointed with two
Maybe. Seymour's really trying hard to appeal to the voters not even NZ1 or the nats will go after openly (well, not since the nat staffer got all "emotional" for some reason).
I mean that seriously. Fuck ACT.
Swapping the party that's only under investigation over donations for the one whose then MP & Whip has been charged would be a good look.
Especially as the leader is on record having interesting phone conversations with the MP in question …
Belated Valentine's Card
http://normanfinkelstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/IMG_3866.jpg
Nice!
Kia Ora The Am Show.
Congratulations on winning NZ of the year.
Poverty is a big driver of most of the bad stats some people don't get it.
I say our farmers can lower their carbon footprint.
There is a study that points out that green house gases produce by big oil is under estimated by 40 %. In my view we need to focus on getting fossil fuel energy out of our energy mix not deflect all the blame on our farmers.
Tikapa beach is nice and clean.
You know that the last government of nine years was lead by a climate change denier under them thousands of heacture of forest got cut down prematurely wind turbine project got canned of course under a government like that farmers were not mitigating their environmental footprint.?????.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
Treating others with respect even when they are a different culture is a great quality.
I agree racism is a dumb thing so are haters.
The Milfordsounds roads are fixed the rain made a mess of those roads.
Children can be quite cruel to children that are different to them.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
The Crown did a lot of dirty deeds. Taking Ngāti Apakura whenua.
That's cool pop up health clinics to give advice and health services to the people.
Mana Wahine.
Ka kite Ano
Some Eco Maori Music For The Minute.
https://youtu.be/mWRsgZuwf_8
Kia Ora Newshub.
Times are changing some people can't see when the writings on the walls for Electric cars.
The good old roundabout intercetion are a good low carbon efficient way to sort traffic.
All products need to have a charge built into them to pay for recycling. What a big messy problem for Africa Western waste piling up.
That's cool A new 1 hour Friends HBO being made.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
That's a good cause to champion lowering the voting age some parents have a hard time looking into the future past there hip pockets to see we are stuffing the future up.
Ngāti Kahunga had a good Kapa Haka festival.
Kura Kaupapa is saving tangata whenua o Aotearoa Te reo and cultural kia kaha.
Its cool seeing Iwi fighting to keep their Awa pristine and clean.
Great Waiheke Island is aiming for a predator free sanctuary for Aotearoa native wildlife.
Never to long in the tooth to learn your culture.
Ka kite Ano
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Kia Ora Newshub.
Aotearoa makes some of the Best Kai in the world with our environment being cleaner than most other countries.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Ngāti Paoa the same thing happened in Te Tairawhiti during the Maori land court scams.
Ka pai.
Sports is good for Te tangata.
Ka kite Ano.