How many more elections under MMP? It has major flaws IMO that often lead to confusion rather than giving voters clarity and assurance and a real ‘choice’.
The agreements and ‘deals’ are flying Left, Right and Centre. They are not legally binding in any way or they would pervert the intended function and process of democratic elections; coalition deals can only be made afterwards, not beforehand, but they also don’t have legal status AFAIK.
We now have MOUs, coat tailing, overhang, waka jumping, strategic electorate deals, tea gate, etc., and least of all, the dual ballot. It’s a mess!
According to Sir Geoffrey Palmer:
… MPs spend far too much time in their electorates instead of scrutinising the Executive – no doubt, because they’re focused more on campaigning and popularity than the public good.
We would be better off with a truly proportional single vote system with a fixed number of MPs and a truly proportional minimum threshold for a seat (e.g. 0.83% for 120 MPs).
At the same time we need stronger local and grassroots government instead of centralised power and top-down hierarchy.
Whatever structures and institutions are in place, our society should not be managed like a (traditional) corporate business but more like a family, iwi or clan; people’s wellbeing in the short, medium, and long term should come before financial health & wealth and not the other way round.
As long as the economy, surpluses, and tax (cuts) dominate the political conversations, especially with upcoming elections, we’ll have a long way to go …
The real difficulty of MMP in my opinion is that it drags un-elected people into Parliament. Thereby betraying the one Person one Vote system.
It also confuses even intelligent everyday citizens who simply have not got time to pore over hundreds of biographies of would be candidates.
In First past the Post elections there is ultimate simplicity. Each candidate is either elected or fails to be elected. So if you want the Wealthy to be supported, you vote National, If you want the Constructive Technical Party (Labour) to rule you would vote accordingly.
It is interesting that the Nationals have absolutely no interest in the Environment. They positively encourage their wealthy members to pollute every river in our Nation. The Green Party tries to resist that, but with so few members they get rubbished.
First past the Post draws together like minded voters. Anything else is a schnozzle.
Exactly, Draco. Also, I look at the party list, and when I vote for a list I am electing those on it. It is called reading, OT. Try getting literate. Nobody in Parliament is ‘unelected’ as you wrongly put it.
What if he/she is illiterate? Or partially so.
What if he/she isn’t as gorgeous as you?
Snot Rock Soince – disenfranchoise NOW!
This is still a left wing site, yes? It’s that Broad Church left wing site – or so I’ve been told. One that doesn’t require the intellect of a Hillary Stace, or indeed a Lynne Prentice, OR the compassion of ……. take your pick
….. maybe not. The daylight visible whilst spending time up one’s own arse springs to mind, as well as various other platitudes – like we don’t know how lucky we are.
To that poster and contributor: GET LITERATE NOW!!!!! GET LITERATE NOW !!!!!
ya vol herr commandant!
Perhaps the deep and meaningful @ Weka would care to comment if you’re not too busy trying to understand underlying meaningfulness. I’ve got a set of crystals that might be able to assist.
!!!!!!! BAN !!!!! we do not allow people to call into question anyone who / READ THE !!!!!!!!!!!! (small print) / etc.
Rubbish. (Anyone as gorgeous as me is in a terrible condition.)
But I am tired of FFP simpletons claiming that MMP list members are ‘unelected’ because they did not stand in an FFP electorate vote. That is a nonsensical – a lot of the losing runner-ups in big FFP electorates are far superior to the donkeys that win FFP in a safe seat.
Your ‘daylight vision’ sentence has now given me an idea of where your own head might be, Once was.
Instead of opting for a hybrid system to replace FPP it would have been more courageous (politically speaking) to have adopted a truly proportional single vote system – no, I am not saying it is perfect.
Just consider for a moment how much (air)time and energy goes into the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of MMP and how much it pulls our focus away from much more important issues (and policies as somebody (?) pointed out somewhere here on TS).
I don’t have time to argue for or against FPP so I just provide a link(s) for your perusal:
OK so we want a change of Govt. So what does Labour do? It lies and obfuscates to shut down another Left party— Mana.
On RNZ this morning I heard Kelvin Davis coming across trying to be smart, but just being smarmy .I heard Andrew Little being disingenuous , if not deliberately lying, about the agreement between Mana/Maori. They know damned well the agreement only goes to 23/9, just like their MOU with the Greens( who, incidentally, Labour have been trying to shaft for years).
When is Labour going to grow up and fight the real fight against the real enemy of the Left?
I know the answer…. they won’t because they are still bogged down in their neolib /1984 mistaken policies.
We all pay tax Alan it’s called GST (except those who are in business or some scheme that they can wangle their way out of it.)
And being in paid work and taxed doesn’t mean they are better than someone working but not being paid and not paying wag tax, they are called volunteers. Or they may be working at something that harms fellow citizens, and pay tax on their earnings, or some of them. Or they might want more work so they can pay more tax, but the government has organised the economy and laws so that they can’t get guaranteed adequate working hours every week.
Or they may be people so damaged by life that they can’t work much but can do work if they can get help with it, and then there are parents and caregivers who look after others but don’t get paid for it. Then there are the real bludgers who don’t do anything like useful work and manage their tax to minimal, some around the lower middle class, and some big earners floating around doing very little that is useful to society but cleverly creaming of millions of dollars from their schemes.
So keep your one liners to yourself. You will just tire your brain out needlessly, telling us the rote learning of street yokels.
you are implying that I am disdainful of people not in paid employment,that is not the case.
My point is that referring to the “middle” as middle piddles etc. does your cause no good whatsoever – but suit yourself
1. What Marty said .
2. Yes, “the people who work and pay tax” are being “trickled” upon by those who can afford to avoid tax.
3. The people being hurt the most by this callous incompetence are as always, the poor.
Then there’s all the people who do unpaid work that is essential to the running of society – caring for people in their homes, voluntary organisations that provide support to those in need, etc. And such people still get taxed on their incomes, whether underpaid employment or state benefits.
John Waters is someone I respect: but what
the HELL was he doing on this horror show?
It’s pretty desperate when Piers Morgan is the smartest and most honest person in the room. The pathetic reiteration of DNC campaign lies starts with the woman guest at the 3:48 mark….
Anti republican, dismissive of Trump, atheist, supporter of equality, advocate for minorities and he doesn’t mind getting dirty for a cause.
What could Bill Maher possibly have done to be called less honest than Morgan on a left leaning website?
Did he say something that offended you in 1987? lol
Could I suggest you replace your open-mouthed viewing with some serious READING?
Great show, admirable left winger.
Well, if the word “left winger” has recently changed its meaning to “rabid supporter of U.S. terror and Israel’s right to exterminate the Palestinians”, you’re correct. In the real world, however, your statement is risible.
The only nonsense is predictably yours.
You are, yet again, my befuddled friend, way out of your depth. Again, I urge you to do some READING. Serious reading, that is.
I unfollowed TDB on twitter today, on the basis of – if I stop to throw stones (unpick the arguments) at every dog that barks, I’ll never get to my destination – got a lot of other things I need to do this week.
Who knew the real reason Paul got banned from TS? i.e content and viewpoints/arguments against fake news and for way forward for the left, and not process or breaching TS policy guide.
I stopped reading TDB and Chris Trotter a couple of years ago, and I haven’t read anything by Bryce Edwards for some months. Life is too short to read crap by ill-informed blokes who claim to represent the working class, but are really just white, middle-class, middle-aged men who feel threatened by anybody who isn’t the same as them.
Actual left wing people who I follow on twitter sometimes refer to stuff these guys have written and I know I made the right choice.
I stopped reading TDB and Chris Trotter a couple of years ago, and I haven’t read anything by Bryce Edwards for some months. Life is too short to read crap by ill-informed blokes who claim to represent the working class, but are really just white, middle-class, middle-aged men who feel threatened by anybody who isn’t the same as them.
Actual left wing people who I follow on twitter sometimes refer to (and mock) the stuff these guys have written and I know I made the right choice.
Bomber does come from a working class background. I guess he now has achieved middle class status through education. So, I still tend to see him as having a bit of a working class perspective.
Oh dear. There’s some much faction fighting going on. Us vs them in various ways.
And I also looked at a post there at TDB about “identity politics” and class. By a guy who the bio says he’s a postgrad sociologist and researcher. Been there done that – well partly sociology. I know about the theories he’s citing. And I could produce an argument to counter his post, but it’d take me a more time than I have right now.
Basically though, I am a bit confused about his use of (definition of?) “identity politics”. He rubbishes it while still seeing capitalism as patriarchal.
Many people use the term “identity politics” to refer to any feminist, anti-misogynist, anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchy comments/posts/articles.
So I started the day confused about how the term “identity politics” is used.
I got distracted from the main topic (populism) by the way “identity politics” was being used. One of the panel described Trump’s politics as IP because of the way he divides people into “us” (one identity) and “them” (another identity): i.e. the left behind (us) and Muslims (them).
Other panelists talked about how economics and IP are interconnected.
I decided “identity politics” has become a useless term, like PC, that means whatever a person (or their political position) wants it to mean.
It’s how it’s used, which clearly means different things to different people. So saying it is what it says it is…. adds nothing to the discussion.
Language is only as good as the way it is used. Language is the result of a process where people in a society agree on the meaning of a word or term. these meanings change over time in relation to the way tehy are used.
I don’t like the term Identity politics, because it is used in ways that aren’t the sum total of the 2 words. I prefer to talk about social and economic justice.
Some people seem to assume “identity politics” is separate from social class issues. In fact they are intertwined – as defined by wikipedia:
Examples include social organizations based on age, social class, culture, dialect, disability, education, ethnicity, language, nationality, gender identity, generation, occupation, profession, race, religion, sexual orientation, settlement, urban and rural habitation, and veteran status.
In political debates it’s often used mainly to refer to and attack politics of race, gender and sexuality, And it is often used in oppositon to class politics.
But as the wikipedia page goes on to say:
Formally, it may even be found in Karl Marx’s earliest statements about a class becoming conscious of itself and developing a class identity.
i.e. in order to organise politically as a class, workers need to become conscious of their shared identity and exploitation as workers.
I have always found this style of particular trashing meme rather amusing, albeit rather tiresome.
We get it every few years from different groups. It typically happens when some group doesn’t like things being aired that they would prefer never got mentioned (because it would interfere with their wee games).
Over the last 9.5 years, we’d have had similar sustained attempts at denigrating TS about once every 1-2 years. Never works in terms of the site surviving or readership or anything else. We provide a relatively open source of debate which has a pretty active policy of tossing out pirates trying to board it to control the debate. Doesn’t matter if it is right trolls, left trolls, journalists, MPs, party whips, people who picked up bans, blogs that don’t like the site, ardent feminists, ardent dickheads, ardent anything or whatever. It is always pretty damn stupid and usually done by people who fail to understand the basic precept of this site. We agree to disagree, but are also willing to damn well argue about it.
I suspect that the underlying rationale for such attempts is something like they can drive away funders (because why else would they always try to push it into the public sphere?). What they don’t seem to understand is that over the last decade, the site has moved from not needing any money to run, to needing money, and in a determined effort – back to not needing any money to run. It makes it really hard to do anything about. So do our policies about moderating and protecting the privacy or authors and commenters.
The site currently requires about $200 per month which we get from donations and some time from people willing to be authors, moderators, or techs. The latter is usually me. The site is scaleable to at least 4 times the traffic from the last elections. And people are always free to comment here provided they follow our rules about bad behaviour.
Personally, I am looking forward getting over this last year’s project and back to the less time and attention consuming maintenance. That will give me more time for the site again.
Agreed Weka-Bryce Edwards never fails to attack the Left in his articles.
He is dangerous because he purports to be balanced and simply reporting the weeks’ political comings and goings when in fact he sticks it up the Left every time.
The PLA number is those who are full time in uniform, whereas the US DoD is nniform full time, uniform, part-time and civilians. If you added the civilians and reservists to the PLA, it would be bigger.
It is a petty point that does not outweigh the rest of what Garibaldi quoted.
If it really balanced things up, I would be grateful. I think he is quibbling disingenuously.
How to make bad law? Fail to recognise practice, fail to appreciate need, hear only senile voices speaking to their peculiar issues.
Grey power does not want kids to cycle on pavements. Kids do though, and parnt want them to stay on the pavement. And the earlier, and more experience kids get cycling the more they appriciate others needs. So its insane that grey power is against kids cycling.
But its worse. Ask any cyclist trapped at a red light, undected and now illegally cannot cycle on pavement, and so banned from using the utility of their cycle. And all because a few olds might have an accident?
Take the one way road, cant cycle up the wrong way, cant cycle on the pavement! Cycles effectively banned.
In any accident involving bikes and cars, cyclists come off worse, much like any pedestrian does. So why are we so down on cyclists? Where is their voice? nAtional radio think the only voice for cyclists is someone who cant teach kids to cycle on
pavements in their day job.Thats how lousy laws are.
Cyclists are pedestrians and have the same rights to cycle on pedestrian pavements alongside such wheeled vehicles, as motorized wheelchairs, mopeds deliverying mail, scateboarders, etc. They all use the pavements on wheels and Grey power accidents are not a crisis. Because people naturally do not want to engage with oldies because they are so boring and talk nonsense, kids need to learn this early.
Routinely cyclists ride on pavements, its illegal but its safer than sharing roads with trunks.
A cyclist is not on foot, and therefore cannot possibly be a pedestrian. Don’t mangle our language. (Directed at aerobubble: Cyclists are not motorists, but that does not make them pedestrians.)
I was walking along the Wellington waterfront a year ago and was passed from behind by a cyclist who went by within a meter until I heard the wind of his passing. I don’t have a rear vision mirror as a pedestrian. If I had moved to the right by one step he would have hit me. At his speed and the reaction times needed it could not have been otherwise.
As a former teacher, I once did an experiment with a class of year nine students to test their reaction times and the brakes on their bikes. They thought they were quick enough and safe with what they did, riding on footpaths as cars pulled unseen out of high fenced driveways. I had that day seen a boy ride into the side of a car doing just that.
Integrity would suggest the Grey council answer some simple questions. Like where are cyclist to go, its not illehal to ride a bike. As for the smear that Cyclists aren’t trustworthy because they cycle past people who have poor hearing, really, is that supposed to be an objection, are we banning joggers to?
Cyclist use feet power. Cyclists are pedestrians, then comeput just as badly when hit by cars and trucks. They are no different than other wheeled pedestrians, skakeboards, rollerskates, and joggers are fast too.
How utterly innane, Cyclist are not pedestrians because they are not road vehicles, listen to yourself a moment, your ignoring the fact that carless citizens use bikes and roads are dangerous places for them, and liberty beats out death anyday. Cyclists will continue to use pedestrian walkways.
But lets play a bit. Why do olds get free transit after 9. To keep them off the footpaths so employees can cycle to work, kids cycle to school out ofrush hour traffic. Ratepayers fund footpaths and free buses for olds. Olds aren’t using the footpaths as much during rushhour, they wait for free buses. So cyclists who are unfamiliar to non japenese who allow cyclists to use footpaths, should not be funding free old age bus trips. Its about sharing not banning. Most people are in school, at work during time olds are using footpaths, you lazy thinking senile old bats. It has nothing to do with accidents with old people and bikes, its to do with the age problem of old people with too much time on their hand and too senile to give a crap.
And then there is the reality, there is going to be no doubt when accidents do happen that stupid cyclists dont understand how utterly senile deaf old people are tt they ever thought they could cycle anywhere near them. And good on them, senile and stupid people meet. No doubt some old cyclist banned from using his car and whose Grey power, oldie council, have forgotten has rights to movement too. Olds hurting rights of other oldies.
Unfund free buses for olds if they continue to ban pedestrians using the footpath with their bikes, oh, but posties use mopeds, olds use motorised wheel chairs, yet kids aren’t to be trusted. No, its senility that is untrusted.
I’m moderately surprised that primary-school kids aren’t permitted to ride on the footpath.
That having been said, we’re still talking about a voluntary decision to cycle vs that fact that some people have to walk because they can’t drive or cycle, and they’re the ones being put at risk.
Maybe kids shouldn’t cycle unsupervised until they’re old enough to deal with obstacles and hazards, like cars or pedestrians? And if they’re supervised, they should be on the road.
The original premise was that “cyclists” should be allowed to ride on the footpath. If it’s revised down to “kids” (primary-school age, presumably) should be allowed to ride on the footpath, it’s less ridiculous.
There are many, many kids I would trust. But there are a certain number I would not trust with a wheel barrow, let alone a bicycle.
If we are going to do it properly, we do what I remember from Cologne 1979: footpath clearly demarcated into pedestrian and cyclist areas. That worked.
But NZ can never do what overseas countries do. I remember when Hamilton tried to introduce a parking system that I had seen work perfectly in Cambridge, UK. Hamilton gave up because it was ‘too difficult’ for our parkers.. Go figure.
In Vino
That thing about NZ never being able to replicate a successful system successfully is what I have noticed.
and JanM
That’s exactly the same difficulty I notice as I go round. I don’t want little kids on the road, but I don’t want older kids and adult men shooting past me at speed. And I find that family cyclists have a god complex, and will shoot down private lanes as throughways without a thought. Get on two wheels and the world is yours.
When I am on the footpath I don’t want to be as alert as if I was walking on the road. You need to be able to relax pm the footpath, that’s why we have them so you won’t be run into by machine, crazy children, excited dogs, scooting cats, scooting Mums. A fall for an older person can mean permanent disablement for the last of their years, you just don’t heal like a young person does.
Good gracious me – there are two major groups who are vulnerable in our society; the young and the elderly. Both deserve consideration. Some of your language around the elderly practically amounts to abuse – they are as entitled to safety as the children. While I agree that riding a bike on the road is very risky, so is being a pedestrian sharing a footpath with cyclists – especially the young and inexperienced. The faster cycle lanes can be placed everywhere the better – and that’s where all cyclists should go. Until then – a little civility and consideration would go a long way. If you’re really lucky you’ll get to be an ‘oldie’ yourself some day – then you can look back on this sort of language and feel a bit ashamed maybe
Abuse. Banning people who cannot us a oneway road, as they cant cycle on the pavement and risk fine accident goin against traffic! Sorry until you can understand outright banning is undemocratic and the real abuse since the stats are firmly against the harm your side suggests. People do not invite accidents, joggers dont, skateboards dont, posties on mopeds, all us the footpath, any increased harm is in the minds of fools. abuse yeah, stupidity should be called out.
Simple. Pedestrians, under their own power, forced to take side roads, invariable steep, would be a huge impediment to their using cycles. So, yeah its a rights issue, which would then justify asking the question, why ban something outright. Which in Japan they dont. Nobody has yet said why we need to ban cycles, that should tell you something about how bad the laws are. Kids dont learn good behaviour, people ignore the law, cyclists get held up at red lights that never change as they dont detect them. You dont see car drivers getting out and pushing their bikes over the line to behave legally because its a stupid law. Cyclists are no different to any personally power person. Ban moped, ban motorized wheelchairs, dont fund free public transport, all the arguments you will hear to justify no banning apply equally to cyclists. Sure, helmets and bike bells, sure thin typed racing bikes that need a minimum speed as they are unstable at low speed, sure keep them to the roads, but a mountain bike can stop on a ledge, it aint a threat. Any jogger, walker, can be unstable and knock a oldie over, any kid with a ball. Thats not a good enough reason to so restrict cyclists that it makes cyclying unusable. A kid died when run over by a truck on the way to school. Trucks cant see cyclists.
Burble on aerobubble
You really ranted a crock here. Think again about your mangey right of way even though its safer than sharing roads with trunks, and drunks, and funks.
Not one apology to kids for banning them from footpaths, like old people dont know when kid cycle to school, when workers are cycling to work. A kid was run over by a truck on the way to school. iTs shameful that kids aren’t learning early how to interact with pedestrians, and suffer a life of abuse from old people who think them a threat. Get a brain, oh wait, its senility the real problem.
aerobubble
Your abuse underlines the difficulties that we face when proper facilities that are needed by citizens aren’t provided. But $millions can be put into cycleways intended to appeal to tourism and the recreational rider.
Your attitude aerobubble is worrying, it sounds as if you have such a head of steam, that if I was involved in some sort of collision with a child, you would attack me in anger, perhaps give me a kinghit.
I think you had better restrain yourself, and write down your problem and a practical solution, like making a separated way along a certain bit of footpath that schoolkids use. That would be a positive start and you could campaign for more using your concern and your anger to fuel it. I am sure many people would support you but don’t give me your nastiness. I am only stating what you are stating from a different angle of concern. Leave me alone, stop attacking me on this subject.
Clearly you are incapable of accepting the greater harm, that pedestrians on or off cycles are seroiusly harmed when hit by road vehicles. Whereas a few bruises from a contrived one off accident where kids learn early by being allowed to rideon the pavement, does not cary much merit. And the fact that you’d admit you seeing an accident, involve said behaviour and not merit it worthy to phone police, indicates your a troll.
I was walking to school with my daughter and she got hit from behind by a young boy on a bike. He was riding with his older brother in tandem and his brother didn’t leave him enough room for them both to get around us and the younger one didn’t think to use his brakes and stop until he had room.
Primary age kids should only ride on the pavement if they are under arms length control of an adult.
Hmmmm… what we could do with the millions being wasted on this case on lawyers to ‘help’ poor multimillion dollar US corporations who love to stash their money away in tax havens, while our poor go hungry paying for all this overseas corporate welfare….
And there is that waiver that the NZ government were tricked into signing about if he is found not guilty about costs……
Kinda makes the yokel business agreements with Peter Thiel pale in comparison.
Agree Save NZ, and it’s crazy that this case is being dragged on, at NZ tax payer expense, like it is. National don’t care, they are not the ones having to fork out the money for this favour for their American mates.
Totally agree, the Mana party was talking about this after the last election.
If memory servers me rightly, via adds on trademe and seek. In Auckland alone, the Electoral Commission has gone through at least 2 complete replacements of management (returns officer) since the last election.
The EC should have listened. Interesting info there Adam.
“Speaking with many in my community, the poor fear debt collectors or state agencies using their enrolment details to hunt them down, and many of our domestic violence survivors don’t want their abusers using the electoral roll to find them.
Why can’t the Electoral Commission offer an easy box ticking process for those enrolling to not appear on the published roll to ease the fears of the poor and the abused?”
Cinny and I were discussing this very subject not that long ago. It is a pain for most to go through the process of trying to get on the unpublished roll, one can see why people wouldn’t even bother. There are a number of points that the EC need to get off their butts to do, and do it now, and this is one of them. Make it easy for voters, not harder.
Glen Innes former state house tenant Niki Rauti is challenging her eviction on the basis that the agency trying to evict her is not actually her landlord.
Photo / Greg Bowker
By Simon Collins
A Glen Innes tenant battling against eviction from her former state house has put a surprising argument to the Tenancy Tribunal – that the agency purporting to evict her isn’t actually her landlord.
Tenant Niki Rauti, 62, and her advocate, perennial campaigner Penny Bright, have also discovered that the 2700 former Housing NZ homes that were supposed to have been transferred last year to an entity jointly owned by the Government and Auckland Council have actually gone to another entity that is still almost 100 per cent owned by the Government.
A third entity, Tāmaki Housing Association Limited Partnership, has been set up to manage the houses, but will seek bids next month from other social housing agencies to take over managing the houses from early next year.
By next year the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company, the joint venture owned 59 per cent by the Government and 41 per cent by Auckland Council, will no longer predominantly either own or manage the properties.
Bright told the Tenancy Tribunal today that the complex structure looked like “a massive smoke and mirrors exercise” – with real consequences for Aucklanders.
“The 41 per cent shareholding of Auckland Council seems to have completely evaporated into nothing,” she said.
………
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate
Mt Albert by-election.
mickysavage
We are so important surely that you could extract yourself from something boring and tedious by saying that the show can’t go on here without you – sorry folks have to duck off and keep TS on the road. For all our ups and downs we have shown more stability and lasting power and usefulness than most nz political parties.
All you have is one line mindless slogans so sure if that turns you on or makes you feel better. Truth is if you go over your recent comments they are mostly just negative one line dismissals. You make no attempt to hear any voice except your own or those that you agree with. You disrespect other commenters with your content and style – reminds me of Paul but you seem worse to me. I wonder if you’ll even read all that or just knee-jerk back.
What rubbish. Actually Marty, if anything your rant describes you. And if memory serves, you have been accused of that by others on here, some time back. You have to get a grip with the fact that not everyone is willing to, or wants to support National’s Maori party, that do not speak for, or represent all Maori. A lot of people want to change the government, there are those that feel that the Maori party do not want that. “A vote for the Maori party is a vote for National” still holds relevance today, as it did back in 2014. No one is stopping you or anyone else from supporting the Maori party, that props up National, but we are entitled to our opinions on this, like you are, without getting personal and/or abusive.
Yep they will all learn – the musings of politically motivated spinners are irrelevant and obnoxious. Go and sit with English Little in the thick seats.
Your bigotry is showing – it isnt ALL Māori fault that some or one hurt you you know. It is wrong that you suffered and continue to suffer. It is the person or people that have responsibility not the whole ethnic group.
You are grasping at straws by concocting that story Marty. I thought that you were better than that. Don’t let your desperation re the Maori party get the better of you.
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
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Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. 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 economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
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 ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
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. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
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 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong Fifty years ago, Australian feminist Anne Summers denounced “the ideology of sexism” governing over so many women’s lives. Unfortunately, sexism is as lethal today as it ...
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How many more elections under MMP? It has major flaws IMO that often lead to confusion rather than giving voters clarity and assurance and a real ‘choice’.
The agreements and ‘deals’ are flying Left, Right and Centre. They are not legally binding in any way or they would pervert the intended function and process of democratic elections; coalition deals can only be made afterwards, not beforehand, but they also don’t have legal status AFAIK.
We now have MOUs, coat tailing, overhang, waka jumping, strategic electorate deals, tea gate, etc., and least of all, the dual ballot. It’s a mess!
According to Sir Geoffrey Palmer:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11802883
We would be better off with a truly proportional single vote system with a fixed number of MPs and a truly proportional minimum threshold for a seat (e.g. 0.83% for 120 MPs).
At the same time we need stronger local and grassroots government instead of centralised power and top-down hierarchy.
Whatever structures and institutions are in place, our society should not be managed like a (traditional) corporate business but more like a family, iwi or clan; people’s wellbeing in the short, medium, and long term should come before financial health & wealth and not the other way round.
As long as the economy, surpluses, and tax (cuts) dominate the political conversations, especially with upcoming elections, we’ll have a long way to go …
Hi Incognito
The real difficulty of MMP in my opinion is that it drags un-elected people into Parliament. Thereby betraying the one Person one Vote system.
It also confuses even intelligent everyday citizens who simply have not got time to pore over hundreds of biographies of would be candidates.
In First past the Post elections there is ultimate simplicity. Each candidate is either elected or fails to be elected. So if you want the Wealthy to be supported, you vote National, If you want the Constructive Technical Party (Labour) to rule you would vote accordingly.
It is interesting that the Nationals have absolutely no interest in the Environment. They positively encourage their wealthy members to pollute every river in our Nation. The Green Party tries to resist that, but with so few members they get rubbished.
First past the Post draws together like minded voters. Anything else is a schnozzle.
What a load of bollocks.
If everything you said was true then there wouldn’t have been such a groundswell to change out of the obviously failed system.
MMP may not be perfect but it’s a damn sight better than FPP.
Exactly, Draco. Also, I look at the party list, and when I vote for a list I am electing those on it. It is called reading, OT. Try getting literate. Nobody in Parliament is ‘unelected’ as you wrongly put it.
Observer Tokeroa is literate, and he is talking about coat tailing, which National refused to get rid of. In a sense OT is right.
For coat-tailing, fair enough. Otherwise, no.
That was what he was talking about In Vino.
Sorry. Leftie – ‘he’ makes no mention of coat-tailing. Re-read – ‘he’ wants FPP only, and appears to be totally against MMP party list vote system.
Didn’t think he had to explicitly state the words coat tailing. It’s certainly the impression I got when I read his post.
What if he/she is illiterate? Or partially so.
What if he/she isn’t as gorgeous as you?
Snot Rock Soince – disenfranchoise NOW!
This is still a left wing site, yes? It’s that Broad Church left wing site – or so I’ve been told. One that doesn’t require the intellect of a Hillary Stace, or indeed a Lynne Prentice, OR the compassion of ……. take your pick
….. maybe not. The daylight visible whilst spending time up one’s own arse springs to mind, as well as various other platitudes – like we don’t know how lucky we are.
To that poster and contributor: GET LITERATE NOW!!!!! GET LITERATE NOW !!!!!
ya vol herr commandant!
Perhaps the deep and meaningful @ Weka would care to comment if you’re not too busy trying to understand underlying meaningfulness. I’ve got a set of crystals that might be able to assist.
!!!!!!! BAN !!!!! we do not allow people to call into question anyone who / READ THE !!!!!!!!!!!! (small print) / etc.
+ 1.36 yottaplex
‘Jawohl’, thank you. I can only speculate on where your head is.
ROFL Once was and others etc!
Rubbish. (Anyone as gorgeous as me is in a terrible condition.)
But I am tired of FFP simpletons claiming that MMP list members are ‘unelected’ because they did not stand in an FFP electorate vote. That is a nonsensical – a lot of the losing runner-ups in big FFP electorates are far superior to the donkeys that win FFP in a safe seat.
Your ‘daylight vision’ sentence has now given me an idea of where your own head might be, Once was.
“Anyone as gorgeous as me is in a terrible condition.”
Lol
Thank you for your reply.
Instead of opting for a hybrid system to replace FPP it would have been more courageous (politically speaking) to have adopted a truly proportional single vote system – no, I am not saying it is perfect.
Just consider for a moment how much (air)time and energy goes into the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of MMP and how much it pulls our focus away from much more important issues (and policies as somebody (?) pointed out somewhere here on TS).
I don’t have time to argue for or against FPP so I just provide a link(s) for your perusal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Benefits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Criticisms
Repressed history: New Zealand’s role in the Pacific slave trade and slavery’s curious relationship with the first international rugby match played here: http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2017/02/snatching-and-killing.html
NZ hosted centuries of slavery before Pakeha arrived if Edward Tregear is a reliable source.
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-TreRace-t1-body-d9-d2.html
OK so we want a change of Govt. So what does Labour do? It lies and obfuscates to shut down another Left party— Mana.
On RNZ this morning I heard Kelvin Davis coming across trying to be smart, but just being smarmy .I heard Andrew Little being disingenuous , if not deliberately lying, about the agreement between Mana/Maori. They know damned well the agreement only goes to 23/9, just like their MOU with the Greens( who, incidentally, Labour have been trying to shaft for years).
When is Labour going to grow up and fight the real fight against the real enemy of the Left?
I know the answer…. they won’t because they are still bogged down in their neolib /1984 mistaken policies.
I wonder if the Maori Party want a change of Government?
Cinny, no, I don’t get the impression that the Maori party want a change of government.
Does Labour? (Sarc.)
Yes, of course Labour wants to change the government.
Yes and they won’t change – why? They like being smarmy bullshitters – why? The middle piddles like it.
The middle piddles? Is that where all the trickling down from the elites gathers and pools?
Ha yes could be muddle puddles too
what, the people who work and pay tax you mean?
A lot of people do that Alan – personally I think tax is okay to pay for the collective benefits reaped in society, don’t you?
We all pay tax Alan it’s called GST (except those who are in business or some scheme that they can wangle their way out of it.)
And being in paid work and taxed doesn’t mean they are better than someone working but not being paid and not paying wag tax, they are called volunteers. Or they may be working at something that harms fellow citizens, and pay tax on their earnings, or some of them. Or they might want more work so they can pay more tax, but the government has organised the economy and laws so that they can’t get guaranteed adequate working hours every week.
Or they may be people so damaged by life that they can’t work much but can do work if they can get help with it, and then there are parents and caregivers who look after others but don’t get paid for it. Then there are the real bludgers who don’t do anything like useful work and manage their tax to minimal, some around the lower middle class, and some big earners floating around doing very little that is useful to society but cleverly creaming of millions of dollars from their schemes.
So keep your one liners to yourself. You will just tire your brain out needlessly, telling us the rote learning of street yokels.
you are implying that I am disdainful of people not in paid employment,that is not the case.
My point is that referring to the “middle” as middle piddles etc. does your cause no good whatsoever – but suit yourself
thanks for your concern
1. What Marty said .
2. Yes, “the people who work and pay tax” are being “trickled” upon by those who can afford to avoid tax.
3. The people being hurt the most by this callous incompetence are as always, the poor.
Then there’s all the people who do unpaid work that is essential to the running of society – caring for people in their homes, voluntary organisations that provide support to those in need, etc. And such people still get taxed on their incomes, whether underpaid employment or state benefits.
I heard Hone playing the race card. Sooner’s better than later I guess.
Gabby
Good of you to join in, were you singing the same tune?
“When is Labour going to grow up and fight the real fight against the real enemy of the Left?”
National and their support clowns, Act, Dunne and the Maori party.
Spot on Peter Swift.
That’s politics, Garibaldi. Haven’t the Maori party been just as scathing?
John Waters is someone I respect: but what
the HELL was he doing on this horror show?
It’s pretty desperate when Piers Morgan is the smartest and most honest person in the room. The pathetic reiteration of DNC campaign lies starts with the woman guest at the 3:48 mark….
Anti republican, dismissive of Trump, atheist, supporter of equality, advocate for minorities and he doesn’t mind getting dirty for a cause.
What could Bill Maher possibly have done to be called less honest than Morgan on a left leaning website?
Did he say something that offended you in 1987? lol
You need to listen to the nonsense that Maher and that confused woman were spouting.
I did, watched it all, like I do regularly. Great show, admirable left winger.
The only nonsense is predictably yours.
I did, watched it all,
???? Really? Your comments indicate otherwise.
like I do regularly.
Could I suggest you replace your open-mouthed viewing with some serious READING?
Great show, admirable left winger.
Well, if the word “left winger” has recently changed its meaning to “rabid supporter of U.S. terror and Israel’s right to exterminate the Palestinians”, you’re correct. In the real world, however, your statement is risible.
The only nonsense is predictably yours.
You are, yet again, my befuddled friend, way out of your depth. Again, I urge you to do some READING. Serious reading, that is.
Is there a library nearby?
I unfollowed TDB on twitter today, on the basis of – if I stop to throw stones (unpick the arguments) at every dog that barks, I’ll never get to my destination – got a lot of other things I need to do this week.
Who knew the real reason Paul got banned from TS? i.e content and viewpoints/arguments against fake news and for way forward for the left, and not process or breaching TS policy guide.
Lots of lies being told about the standard at the moment, and Bryce Edwards is putting them out into the Msm. Looks like macho politics to me.
I stopped reading TDB and Chris Trotter a couple of years ago, and I haven’t read anything by Bryce Edwards for some months. Life is too short to read crap by ill-informed blokes who claim to represent the working class, but are really just white, middle-class, middle-aged men who feel threatened by anybody who isn’t the same as them.
Actual left wing people who I follow on twitter sometimes refer to stuff these guys have written and I know I made the right choice.
I stopped reading TDB and Chris Trotter a couple of years ago, and I haven’t read anything by Bryce Edwards for some months. Life is too short to read crap by ill-informed blokes who claim to represent the working class, but are really just white, middle-class, middle-aged men who feel threatened by anybody who isn’t the same as them.
Actual left wing people who I follow on twitter sometimes refer to (and mock) the stuff these guys have written and I know I made the right choice.
Bomber does come from a working class background. I guess he now has achieved middle class status through education. So, I still tend to see him as having a bit of a working class perspective.
Oh dear. There’s some much faction fighting going on. Us vs them in various ways.
And I also looked at a post there at TDB about “identity politics” and class. By a guy who the bio says he’s a postgrad sociologist and researcher. Been there done that – well partly sociology. I know about the theories he’s citing. And I could produce an argument to counter his post, but it’d take me a more time than I have right now.
Basically though, I am a bit confused about his use of (definition of?) “identity politics”. He rubbishes it while still seeing capitalism as patriarchal.
Many people use the term “identity politics” to refer to any feminist, anti-misogynist, anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchy comments/posts/articles.
So I started the day confused about how the term “identity politics” is used.
Then I watched Al Jazerra’s latest up front ep.
I got distracted from the main topic (populism) by the way “identity politics” was being used. One of the panel described Trump’s politics as IP because of the way he divides people into “us” (one identity) and “them” (another identity): i.e. the left behind (us) and Muslims (them).
Other panelists talked about how economics and IP are interconnected.
I decided “identity politics” has become a useless term, like PC, that means whatever a person (or their political position) wants it to mean.
Or just possibly “identity politics” means exactly what it says!
It’s how it’s used, which clearly means different things to different people. So saying it is what it says it is…. adds nothing to the discussion.
Language is only as good as the way it is used. Language is the result of a process where people in a society agree on the meaning of a word or term. these meanings change over time in relation to the way tehy are used.
I don’t like the term Identity politics, because it is used in ways that aren’t the sum total of the 2 words. I prefer to talk about social and economic justice.
Some people seem to assume “identity politics” is separate from social class issues. In fact they are intertwined – as defined by wikipedia:
In political debates it’s often used mainly to refer to and attack politics of race, gender and sexuality, And it is often used in oppositon to class politics.
But as the wikipedia page goes on to say:
i.e. in order to organise politically as a class, workers need to become conscious of their shared identity and exploitation as workers.
Bryce Edwards is putting them out into the Msm. Looks like macho politics to me.
Perhaps its payback because some TS commenters (including me) have over the years pulled his epistles to pieces – usually deservedly so.
I have always found this style of particular trashing meme rather amusing, albeit rather tiresome.
We get it every few years from different groups. It typically happens when some group doesn’t like things being aired that they would prefer never got mentioned (because it would interfere with their wee games).
Over the last 9.5 years, we’d have had similar sustained attempts at denigrating TS about once every 1-2 years. Never works in terms of the site surviving or readership or anything else. We provide a relatively open source of debate which has a pretty active policy of tossing out pirates trying to board it to control the debate. Doesn’t matter if it is right trolls, left trolls, journalists, MPs, party whips, people who picked up bans, blogs that don’t like the site, ardent feminists, ardent dickheads, ardent anything or whatever. It is always pretty damn stupid and usually done by people who fail to understand the basic precept of this site. We agree to disagree, but are also willing to damn well argue about it.
I suspect that the underlying rationale for such attempts is something like they can drive away funders (because why else would they always try to push it into the public sphere?). What they don’t seem to understand is that over the last decade, the site has moved from not needing any money to run, to needing money, and in a determined effort – back to not needing any money to run. It makes it really hard to do anything about. So do our policies about moderating and protecting the privacy or authors and commenters.
The site currently requires about $200 per month which we get from donations and some time from people willing to be authors, moderators, or techs. The latter is usually me. The site is scaleable to at least 4 times the traffic from the last elections. And people are always free to comment here provided they follow our rules about bad behaviour.
Personally, I am looking forward getting over this last year’s project and back to the less time and attention consuming maintenance. That will give me more time for the site again.
Agreed Weka-Bryce Edwards never fails to attack the Left in his articles.
He is dangerous because he purports to be balanced and simply reporting the weeks’ political comings and goings when in fact he sticks it up the Left every time.
This is how god blesses the USA.
The Worlds biggest employers…….
1. US Dept of Defense( sorry that should really be Attack) —- 3,200,000
2. Peoples LIB. Army ( China) ———————————————2,300,000
3. Walmart ———————————————————————-2,100,000
4. Mc Donalds —————————————————————–1,900,000
The PLA number is those who are full time in uniform, whereas the US DoD is nniform full time, uniform, part-time and civilians. If you added the civilians and reservists to the PLA, it would be bigger.
Wow! How terrifying. Given that the USA is many years ahead in high-tech hardware, but Righties like Wayne prefer to mention only what suits them.
Hey he was just filling out the stats with what he does know. Everybody knows something In Vino and even if it is not pleasant to read we should.
It is a petty point that does not outweigh the rest of what Garibaldi quoted.
If it really balanced things up, I would be grateful. I think he is quibbling disingenuously.
How to make bad law? Fail to recognise practice, fail to appreciate need, hear only senile voices speaking to their peculiar issues.
Grey power does not want kids to cycle on pavements. Kids do though, and parnt want them to stay on the pavement. And the earlier, and more experience kids get cycling the more they appriciate others needs. So its insane that grey power is against kids cycling.
But its worse. Ask any cyclist trapped at a red light, undected and now illegally cannot cycle on pavement, and so banned from using the utility of their cycle. And all because a few olds might have an accident?
Take the one way road, cant cycle up the wrong way, cant cycle on the pavement! Cycles effectively banned.
In any accident involving bikes and cars, cyclists come off worse, much like any pedestrian does. So why are we so down on cyclists? Where is their voice? nAtional radio think the only voice for cyclists is someone who cant teach kids to cycle on
pavements in their day job.Thats how lousy laws are.
Cyclists are pedestrians and have the same rights to cycle on pedestrian pavements alongside such wheeled vehicles, as motorized wheelchairs, mopeds deliverying mail, scateboarders, etc. They all use the pavements on wheels and Grey power accidents are not a crisis. Because people naturally do not want to engage with oldies because they are so boring and talk nonsense, kids need to learn this early.
Routinely cyclists ride on pavements, its illegal but its safer than sharing roads with trunks.
Not for pedestrians, especially the elderly. Which is why Age Concern have an issue with cycling on the footpath.
you’ve never really explained why pedestrians should take on the risks of your recreation choice.
A cyclist is not on foot, and therefore cannot possibly be a pedestrian. Don’t mangle our language. (Directed at aerobubble: Cyclists are not motorists, but that does not make them pedestrians.)
I was walking along the Wellington waterfront a year ago and was passed from behind by a cyclist who went by within a meter until I heard the wind of his passing. I don’t have a rear vision mirror as a pedestrian. If I had moved to the right by one step he would have hit me. At his speed and the reaction times needed it could not have been otherwise.
As a former teacher, I once did an experiment with a class of year nine students to test their reaction times and the brakes on their bikes. They thought they were quick enough and safe with what they did, riding on footpaths as cars pulled unseen out of high fenced driveways. I had that day seen a boy ride into the side of a car doing just that.
I set up a similar situation as an experiment.
None passed.
Integrity would suggest the Grey council answer some simple questions. Like where are cyclist to go, its not illehal to ride a bike. As for the smear that Cyclists aren’t trustworthy because they cycle past people who have poor hearing, really, is that supposed to be an objection, are we banning joggers to?
Cyclist use feet power. Cyclists are pedestrians, then comeput just as badly when hit by cars and trucks. They are no different than other wheeled pedestrians, skakeboards, rollerskates, and joggers are fast too.
How utterly innane, Cyclist are not pedestrians because they are not road vehicles, listen to yourself a moment, your ignoring the fact that carless citizens use bikes and roads are dangerous places for them, and liberty beats out death anyday. Cyclists will continue to use pedestrian walkways.
But lets play a bit. Why do olds get free transit after 9. To keep them off the footpaths so employees can cycle to work, kids cycle to school out ofrush hour traffic. Ratepayers fund footpaths and free buses for olds. Olds aren’t using the footpaths as much during rushhour, they wait for free buses. So cyclists who are unfamiliar to non japenese who allow cyclists to use footpaths, should not be funding free old age bus trips. Its about sharing not banning. Most people are in school, at work during time olds are using footpaths, you lazy thinking senile old bats. It has nothing to do with accidents with old people and bikes, its to do with the age problem of old people with too much time on their hand and too senile to give a crap.
And then there is the reality, there is going to be no doubt when accidents do happen that stupid cyclists dont understand how utterly senile deaf old people are tt they ever thought they could cycle anywhere near them. And good on them, senile and stupid people meet. No doubt some old cyclist banned from using his car and whose Grey power, oldie council, have forgotten has rights to movement too. Olds hurting rights of other oldies.
Unfund free buses for olds if they continue to ban pedestrians using the footpath with their bikes, oh, but posties use mopeds, olds use motorised wheel chairs, yet kids aren’t to be trusted. No, its senility that is untrusted.
I don’t know what drugs you’re on, but I want some.
Sorry, I missed the bit where you explained why I, as an actual pedestrian, need to absorb some of the risks that come from your choice of vehicle.
Oh, and according to the Land Transport (Road User) rule 2004:
So yes, bicycles are vehicles, and pedestrians can be on a wheeled thingamagig that’s not a vehicle.
And all because a few olds might have an accident?
Er, yes – because a few olds might “have an accident,” ie be struck and injured by cyclists. On what planet isn’t that a good reason?
On the planet where kids might get struck by cars and trucks if they are on the road.
I’m moderately surprised that primary-school kids aren’t permitted to ride on the footpath.
That having been said, we’re still talking about a voluntary decision to cycle vs that fact that some people have to walk because they can’t drive or cycle, and they’re the ones being put at risk.
Maybe kids shouldn’t cycle unsupervised until they’re old enough to deal with obstacles and hazards, like cars or pedestrians? And if they’re supervised, they should be on the road.
The original premise was that “cyclists” should be allowed to ride on the footpath. If it’s revised down to “kids” (primary-school age, presumably) should be allowed to ride on the footpath, it’s less ridiculous.
There are many, many kids I would trust. But there are a certain number I would not trust with a wheel barrow, let alone a bicycle.
If we are going to do it properly, we do what I remember from Cologne 1979: footpath clearly demarcated into pedestrian and cyclist areas. That worked.
But NZ can never do what overseas countries do. I remember when Hamilton tried to introduce a parking system that I had seen work perfectly in Cambridge, UK. Hamilton gave up because it was ‘too difficult’ for our parkers.. Go figure.
In Vino
That thing about NZ never being able to replicate a successful system successfully is what I have noticed.
and JanM
That’s exactly the same difficulty I notice as I go round. I don’t want little kids on the road, but I don’t want older kids and adult men shooting past me at speed. And I find that family cyclists have a god complex, and will shoot down private lanes as throughways without a thought. Get on two wheels and the world is yours.
When I am on the footpath I don’t want to be as alert as if I was walking on the road. You need to be able to relax pm the footpath, that’s why we have them so you won’t be run into by machine, crazy children, excited dogs, scooting cats, scooting Mums. A fall for an older person can mean permanent disablement for the last of their years, you just don’t heal like a young person does.
Good gracious me – there are two major groups who are vulnerable in our society; the young and the elderly. Both deserve consideration. Some of your language around the elderly practically amounts to abuse – they are as entitled to safety as the children. While I agree that riding a bike on the road is very risky, so is being a pedestrian sharing a footpath with cyclists – especially the young and inexperienced. The faster cycle lanes can be placed everywhere the better – and that’s where all cyclists should go. Until then – a little civility and consideration would go a long way. If you’re really lucky you’ll get to be an ‘oldie’ yourself some day – then you can look back on this sort of language and feel a bit ashamed maybe
Abuse. Banning people who cannot us a oneway road, as they cant cycle on the pavement and risk fine accident goin against traffic! Sorry until you can understand outright banning is undemocratic and the real abuse since the stats are firmly against the harm your side suggests. People do not invite accidents, joggers dont, skateboards dont, posties on mopeds, all us the footpath, any increased harm is in the minds of fools. abuse yeah, stupidity should be called out.
Hang on, are you now arguing that one-way streets are violations of human rights?
Why can’t a cyclist use the same route as every car driver who is also barred from going the wrong way up the same road?
Simple. Pedestrians, under their own power, forced to take side roads, invariable steep, would be a huge impediment to their using cycles. So, yeah its a rights issue, which would then justify asking the question, why ban something outright. Which in Japan they dont. Nobody has yet said why we need to ban cycles, that should tell you something about how bad the laws are. Kids dont learn good behaviour, people ignore the law, cyclists get held up at red lights that never change as they dont detect them. You dont see car drivers getting out and pushing their bikes over the line to behave legally because its a stupid law. Cyclists are no different to any personally power person. Ban moped, ban motorized wheelchairs, dont fund free public transport, all the arguments you will hear to justify no banning apply equally to cyclists. Sure, helmets and bike bells, sure thin typed racing bikes that need a minimum speed as they are unstable at low speed, sure keep them to the roads, but a mountain bike can stop on a ledge, it aint a threat. Any jogger, walker, can be unstable and knock a oldie over, any kid with a ball. Thats not a good enough reason to so restrict cyclists that it makes cyclying unusable. A kid died when run over by a truck on the way to school. Trucks cant see cyclists.
Burble on aerobubble
You really ranted a crock here. Think again about your mangey right of way even though its safer than sharing roads with trunks, and drunks, and funks.
Not one apology to kids for banning them from footpaths, like old people dont know when kid cycle to school, when workers are cycling to work. A kid was run over by a truck on the way to school. iTs shameful that kids aren’t learning early how to interact with pedestrians, and suffer a life of abuse from old people who think them a threat. Get a brain, oh wait, its senility the real problem.
aerobubble
Your abuse underlines the difficulties that we face when proper facilities that are needed by citizens aren’t provided. But $millions can be put into cycleways intended to appeal to tourism and the recreational rider.
Your attitude aerobubble is worrying, it sounds as if you have such a head of steam, that if I was involved in some sort of collision with a child, you would attack me in anger, perhaps give me a kinghit.
I think you had better restrain yourself, and write down your problem and a practical solution, like making a separated way along a certain bit of footpath that schoolkids use. That would be a positive start and you could campaign for more using your concern and your anger to fuel it. I am sure many people would support you but don’t give me your nastiness. I am only stating what you are stating from a different angle of concern. Leave me alone, stop attacking me on this subject.
Clearly you are incapable of accepting the greater harm, that pedestrians on or off cycles are seroiusly harmed when hit by road vehicles. Whereas a few bruises from a contrived one off accident where kids learn early by being allowed to rideon the pavement, does not cary much merit. And the fact that you’d admit you seeing an accident, involve said behaviour and not merit it worthy to phone police, indicates your a troll.
I was walking to school with my daughter and she got hit from behind by a young boy on a bike. He was riding with his older brother in tandem and his brother didn’t leave him enough room for them both to get around us and the younger one didn’t think to use his brakes and stop until he had room.
Primary age kids should only ride on the pavement if they are under arms length control of an adult.
Turn’s out Dotcom is not guilty of copywrite infringement. surprise surprise.
But NZ Government still want to waste money fighting to extradite him….
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/02/20/breaking-media-statement-from-dotcom-legal-team/?utm_content=buffer0fbde&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Hmmmm… what we could do with the millions being wasted on this case on lawyers to ‘help’ poor multimillion dollar US corporations who love to stash their money away in tax havens, while our poor go hungry paying for all this overseas corporate welfare….
And there is that waiver that the NZ government were tricked into signing about if he is found not guilty about costs……
Kinda makes the yokel business agreements with Peter Thiel pale in comparison.
Agree Save NZ, and it’s crazy that this case is being dragged on, at NZ tax payer expense, like it is. National don’t care, they are not the ones having to fork out the money for this favour for their American mates.
“Willie Jackson: The health of our democracy is at risk with the Electoral Commission failing voters”
<a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/manukau-courier/89580371/willie-jackson-the-health-of-our-democracy-is-at-risk
Totally agree, the Mana party was talking about this after the last election.
If memory servers me rightly, via adds on trademe and seek. In Auckland alone, the Electoral Commission has gone through at least 2 complete replacements of management (returns officer) since the last election.
The rest of the country is in a bad way as well.
The EC should have listened. Interesting info there Adam.
“Speaking with many in my community, the poor fear debt collectors or state agencies using their enrolment details to hunt them down, and many of our domestic violence survivors don’t want their abusers using the electoral roll to find them.
Why can’t the Electoral Commission offer an easy box ticking process for those enrolling to not appear on the published roll to ease the fears of the poor and the abused?”
Cinny and I were discussing this very subject not that long ago. It is a pain for most to go through the process of trying to get on the unpublished roll, one can see why people wouldn’t even bother. There are a number of points that the EC need to get off their butts to do, and do it now, and this is one of them. Make it easy for voters, not harder.
TALK IS CHEAP – ACTIVISTS GET THINGS DONE!
Fighting to STOP NIKI’S EVICTION!
Fighting to STOP THE PRIVATISATION of STATE HOUSING!
Well done Niki.
Well done Lisa Gibson.
Well done all of us who are actively supporting Niki and her brave stand!
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11804705
Glen Innes former state house tenant Niki Rauti is challenging her eviction on the basis that the agency trying to evict her is not actually her landlord.
Photo / Greg Bowker
By Simon Collins
A Glen Innes tenant battling against eviction from her former state house has put a surprising argument to the Tenancy Tribunal – that the agency purporting to evict her isn’t actually her landlord.
Tenant Niki Rauti, 62, and her advocate, perennial campaigner Penny Bright, have also discovered that the 2700 former Housing NZ homes that were supposed to have been transferred last year to an entity jointly owned by the Government and Auckland Council have actually gone to another entity that is still almost 100 per cent owned by the Government.
A third entity, Tāmaki Housing Association Limited Partnership, has been set up to manage the houses, but will seek bids next month from other social housing agencies to take over managing the houses from early next year.
By next year the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company, the joint venture owned 59 per cent by the Government and 41 per cent by Auckland Council, will no longer predominantly either own or manage the properties.
Bright told the Tenancy Tribunal today that the complex structure looked like “a massive smoke and mirrors exercise” – with real consequences for Aucklanders.
“The 41 per cent shareholding of Auckland Council seems to have completely evaporated into nothing,” she said.
………
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate
Mt Albert by-election.
Well done Penny and to all that have got involved!! And you beat me to it. I was just about to post that article on here.
Very interesting an enterprising. Looking forward to the tribunal adjudicator’s decision.
Great news. Surely they have to reapply with the correct documentation as it is a legal decision. They can’t ‘fudge’ it!
Apologies i got stuck in meetings and could not put up daily review in time …
mickysavage
We are so important surely that you could extract yourself from something boring and tedious by saying that the show can’t go on here without you – sorry folks have to duck off and keep TS on the road. For all our ups and downs we have shown more stability and lasting power and usefulness than most nz political parties.
Hmmm… wonder what this is about?
Twitter exchange between Hooton and Jodi Ihaka (ex journo now “spin doctor for the red team” according to her twitter profile.
Ends with this from Ihaka:
Labour intends to go to war against the Maori party?
That’s politics, BM.
Stupid ego driven politics from labour
Can say the same about the Maori party, Marty.
All you have is one line mindless slogans so sure if that turns you on or makes you feel better. Truth is if you go over your recent comments they are mostly just negative one line dismissals. You make no attempt to hear any voice except your own or those that you agree with. You disrespect other commenters with your content and style – reminds me of Paul but you seem worse to me. I wonder if you’ll even read all that or just knee-jerk back.
What rubbish. Actually Marty, if anything your rant describes you. And if memory serves, you have been accused of that by others on here, some time back. You have to get a grip with the fact that not everyone is willing to, or wants to support National’s Maori party, that do not speak for, or represent all Maori. A lot of people want to change the government, there are those that feel that the Maori party do not want that. “A vote for the Maori party is a vote for National” still holds relevance today, as it did back in 2014. No one is stopping you or anyone else from supporting the Maori party, that props up National, but we are entitled to our opinions on this, like you are, without getting personal and/or abusive.
At least it was more than 1line – onya
Lol hypocrite much Marty? And I haven’t been making one liners, and you know that.
You’ll love this.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/324976/maori-party-'not-kaupapa-maori'-andrew-little
Yep they will all learn – the musings of politically motivated spinners are irrelevant and obnoxious. Go and sit with English Little in the thick seats.
You can’t force those that want to change the government to support National’s Maori party.
Hmmm… interesting. I’m curious too Carolyn_nth.
follow the money would be my guess, if tuku and his type are around
Your bigotry is showing – it isnt ALL Māori fault that some or one hurt you you know. It is wrong that you suffered and continue to suffer. It is the person or people that have responsibility not the whole ethnic group.
You are grasping at straws by concocting that story Marty. I thought that you were better than that. Don’t let your desperation re the Maori party get the better of you.
Tuku Morgan is ex NZ First.
Winston Peters said Tuku Morgan and his brother in law Tau Henare were “greedy” and had been “disloyal to the people who had put them there.”
See link for newspaper clipping ” Peter’s “sorry” about coalition 14-9-98
<a href="https://fmacskasy2.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/peters-sorry-about-coalition-nzpa-14-september-1998.jpg