“….When it launched the campaign, the Chinese Government estimated that 16,000 to 18,000 corrupt officials and employees of state-owned enterprises had fled with pilfered assets of more than 800 billion yuan ($166 billion) since the mid-1990s. …”
Gosh – I wonder where exactly these corrupt Chinese officials and employees of state-owned enterprises have stashed their ‘pilfered assets’?
$100,000 donation to the National Party. Soon thereafter the donor or a connected party is benefitted with access to/gift of/advantage from government funds 70 fold of that donation.
Well…….unless from day one you’ve got proof beyond a shadow of doubt that what looks and quacks like a duck is a duck…….you must say nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The perfect climate in which corruption balloons. In this land of “Higher Standards”.
AL this morning on RNZ. No BS- just , ‘Here are the facts and because of these facts he’d like the AG to investigate:
– welcomed the Hagaman’s willingness to cooperate in any inquiry
-and yes he’s been threatened with court action by rich people many times before
-and he dismissed the attempts by Natz to distract.
A good solid interview .
I think ‘McCullygate’ has a better ring than ‘Hagamangate’ or is it ‘Mc Gillicuddy?’
Good to see AL is standing by his guns on this topic of corruption and not getting diverted by ‘Labour does it too’ discourses. National has got away with this far too long!
Still waiting to see those tax returns from John Key, nothing to hide nothing to fear!
This process was foreshadowed and objected to in an open letter dated 15 May 2015. The signatories from Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, and New Zealand include prominent former parliamentarians as well as current leaders of political parties, spokespersons for trade, and members of committees with responsibility for the TPP.
As current and former legislators with responsibility for making the laws for our countries we are gravely concerned about the potential for the Government of the United States of America to apply the process known as ‘certification’ to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
In the implementing bills of its recent past Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), the US
government has included a requirement to withhold implementation of that agreement until the other government has satisfied the US understanding of that country’s obligations under the agreement by changing its laws, regulations and procedures to satisfy the US demands. Until it has done so, the United States will not complete the exchange of letters with that country, which is necessary to bring the agreement into force between them. In past US FTAs, this has resulted in the United States extracting additional concessions from countries, its officials drafting the other country’s laws, agreements going into effect at different times for different countries, and lengthy delays in trade pacts’ implementation for some countries. If applied to the TPP, this practice would infringe on the sovereignty of our governments to determine the meaning and extent of the obligations they have agreed to and adopted under the TPP; it would impugn the constitutional authority and responsibility of legislatures and lawmakers; and it would constitute interference by a foreign government in the sovereignty of our countries.
Just sent a letter to the Editor for our local paper.
The Government is delaying the adding of a levy or royalty on bottled water being exported by foreign owned companies. By procrastinating until after the TPPA is ratified, they will then be unwilling or unable to levy, even if they wanted to, as those foreign companies would sue NZ for millions and millions. This brings the complicated TPPA documents into the real world.
” ” Should we even believe that he is worth $180m? The NBR wrote of the couple that “all of their wealth is tied up in trusts, which means they are, personally, as poor as church mice”. Lani Hagaman likes that bit about church mice.
“The trusts hold most of the wealth,” Hagaman says. “If you own it personally, somebody will try to take it away, for sure.
“I had an ex-wife problem a while back. It’s all settled now. She got half and claimed she was entitled to more. I paid her a sum to go, and she went.” ”
& ” Of course it was good news that the Government opted not to green light a new ferry terminal at Clifford Bay, which could have killed off Picton.
“Fabulous news,” she says. “[Transport Minister] Gerry Brownlee and I have had many conversations about that. Every time I got in his ear, I said: ‘You have to be kidding.’ ”
Political influence? It’s not that far-fetched. The Hagamans have been big contributors to both National and ACT. Ten years ago, ACT gave Hagaman a Sir Roger Douglas Award for his continuing support.
“I’ve supported Sir Roger pretty much from day one,” he says. “He’s got good, solid ideas about what the economy ought to be doing, how it ought to be run and whatnot.”
He says he doesn’t recall exactly how much he has given to the party over the years. Only one $10,000 donation is recorded under his name since 1996. The support continues – even the ACT website is sponsored by the Scenic Hotel Group. “
1. Trusts need to be done away with and
2. Private political donations need to be either stopped or capped at $1000 per person per year and no legal entity (trusts, businesses, unions, etc) can donate at all.
Listening to Hillary Clinton’s New York victory speech yesterday, I thought the game must surely be up for her kind of politics, whether she ends up as president this time around or not. All platitudes and triangulation, roared in a tone to suggest conviction – “I can imagine an America where….whaa whaa.” Then the obvious step into Bernie’s slipstream, and out again with an adjusted focus. I am sick to death of people whose primary skills are working a room and attracting donors, and can understand those who will vote for Trump if Clinton gets the Democratic nomination.
+1 – people do not want meaningless drivel – people actually need REAL policies from politicians to get their countries out of these messes. Doing more of the same is neoliberal death to the people by politicians, paid by donations for policy to make the super rich even richer (mostly by tax avoidance and keeping wages as low as possible while making basic expenses as high as possible).
Newsflash, if most people, i.e. poor, working and middle class are too poor to buy anything than the basics then deflation will occur!
The difference between Bernie versus Clinton, John Key and most of the other leaders of the western world is that he is innately engaging to listen to because he is speaking the truth. He’s also a very entertaining speaker.
Yep, while the potency of Sanders’ campaign has forced Hillary to shift ground to the Left (at least in rhetorical terms) – with the centre of gravity in the Democratic Party arguably shifting quite dramatically – …
,,, as one analyst has said: Clinton “has a thousand talking points but when the lights are turned off and all the glare of the election fades, politics-as-normal will return, the lobbyists will get to work and nothing at all will happen”.
Platitudes, triangulation, carefully-adjusted focus, required lip-service – what Blairite political operatives like Phil Quin would eulogize as finely calibrated messaging delivered with machine gun efficiency.
She’s quite rightly disliked and distrusted by a huge chunk of Democrats and Independents. One of the things I noticed in the detail of some of the New York State Polls (mirroring those in other States and nationwide) is that Clinton supporters hold far more favourable attitudes towards Sanders (and have far greater levels of trust in him) than Sanders supporters express towards Clinton.
I read yesterday that to vote in New York you had to enrol by October 2015. There would have been another 3,000,000 voters had they enrolled in time. Most of those would then have been disinterested and young. Long before the Sanders fire was lit. USA the leading light for Democracy.
Yeah. Quite apart from purged electoral rolls and what looks like some systematic voter suppression on the day … this was a closed primary for registered Democrats only. That excludes the nearly 3 million (out of 11 million) voters in New York State who are Independents (and they’re, as you’ve suggested, Ian, disproportionately younger). We know from previous primaries that both Young and Independent voters have gone overwhelmingly for The Bern (as the under-30s did once again yesterday).
Not all 3 million NYS Independents, of course, would have been Democrat leaners … but, you know, with a gap of less than 300,000 between Hillary and Sanders …
Why should “independent” voters be entitled to get involved in choosing a Party’s representative in an election? It doesn’t make any sense to me.
After all, although not a member of the Green Party, should I be allowed to vote for the leader of that party, which automatically puts them in Parliament of the party gets 5% of the vote?
The logic that says that independent should have a say in a party primary process is exactly the same surely?
Quite right – and with the same argument – why should Trump think just because he has the most, (but not the overall majority of delegates) he should be the Republican candidate?
Parties should be free to choose the most suitable candidate to represent their interests in the election. The fact that each Party put beans in their ears, so as not to hear the mutterings of the population at large, is neither here nor there. Let them eat cake!
Thing is: It’s a little more fluid in the US than you’re assuming. Voters can change their affiliation whenever they want (from, say, Independent to Democrat) … but New York State’s 6 month cut-off date is by far the strictest in the Country. And it’s clear that large numbers of NYS Independents were planning to register as Democrats, vote for Sanders but were unaware of the deadline.
Most of those states with closed primaries have cut-off dates of less than 3 months prior to the primary, some less than 1 month, a couple (Maine and Wyoming) just 2 weeks. (only 11 States have closed primaries)
Fact is: across the US as a whole, 43% of Americans are political Independents (far exceeding registered Democrats (30%) and Republicans (26%)). They’re the crucial voters that Presidential candidates need to win – so it might just be in the Democrat Party’s interest to include them in its primaries. Problem for the Clintonesque Party Establishment, of course, is that Sanders has been winning Independents by 2 to 1 over Hillary (which is why he does appreciably better than her in one-on-one match-ups with various possible Republican nominees).
I think that Blairite behaviour worked to some degree prior to 2008, when the “shareholders’ democracy” story could still hold water. After 2008, the colonisation of the have-nots by the haves quickly became too apparent for “finely calibrated messaging” to have traction. It might suit some people to have an establishment left transformed into a series of “nice jobs in public life” parties, but the left cannot do without the have-nots – they after all, are the people the Labour Party was formed to defend. And there are just not enough nice, salaried leftish professionals to make up for their loss. Moreover, when someone is, say, drowning, they are very attuned to the difference between, “I can swim and I will do my best to save you” and “I really, really feel for you.”
Check out Episode 6 of Media take (30 mins long), it covers how we remember NZs colonial history and how we look at the New Zealand Wars (we tend to ignore it). Stars historian James Belich. Theres also an extended panel discussion further down the page.
“Bill English — Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and now prospective Big Brother; he wants to bring together the data held by 10 government agencies so that more can be known about Kiwis.
The agencies include health, education, social development, justice and Inland Revenue. It will create what he calls a “data highway”.
He’ll give government workers access to it, even on their smartphones, so they can draw information on people from multiple sources before making decisions that affect them.
The data has already shown New Zealand’s 10,000 most vulnerable people will cost taxpayers $6.5 billion over their lifetimes.
—
$6.5 Billion is not that much. About a years worth of tax avoidance in the corporate world.
Good, I hope they go through with it and everyone can then make up their minds about the deal
“I can assure the public that for us the only thing that will ‘stink to the high heavens’ will be smell of roses which blossom from the fertiliser Andrew Little likes to spread around to gain his own notoriety.”
So do I Puckish Rogue. And I’m happy to donate to the opposition parties who pursue it and take it public through the courts. I hope Winny and the Greens are in with Labour, supporting looking into this disgusting “aid” deal with a fine tooth comb!
Back in January, the Greens proposed the not very radical idea of a policy costings unit to provide independent information on political party promises. National immediately denounced it as costing too much (while shovelling $26 million towards John Key’s vanity flag referendum). So, the Greens sought to have the policy costed by Treasury under existing rules. You’ll never guess what happened next:
I had an hour long talk with William Black yesterday while on Vinny Eastwood’s show. Over the next couple of weeks I will be writing and transcribing the in all two hour interview (Vinny talked with him for two hours) and connect it back to John Key and his banking history.
Wellington’s trolley buses ‘saved’ by $43m deal to fit them with electric motors
That’s the headline…
Yes, it seems that at least one journalist, probably the editor or sub-editor, doesn’t realise that the electric buses already have electric motors in them.
What’s happening is that the buses are having batteries added and a small charging motor. In other words, they’re becoming a type of hybrid vehicle. Would be interesting to see what sort of savings the change will make.
Well, if saturdays and sundays don’t exist anymore, then it must be beer on a thursday morning. Cheers to an old grain variety organic pilsner, actually cheaper in Germany than NZ’s beer, that might give you the craps.
Then to contemplate environmentally wise ways to mine our resources. Or shall we stay dependent an housing based economy, oh or yet more tourism? Titanium and Thorium may be two good reasons NZ can be independent of the debt hammer. High energy, but technically possible eco-friendly, just takes long term planning, and obviously not an interest-rate-based accounting model.
Hey, some iwi groups are actually kicking ass with goats n honey on small blocks. Can you imagine sending that to Japan organic as cheese? They would give you the worlds best solar units in return. Perfect for urban families wanting to go inde-electric with ozonation for their grow rooms. Or those air ionising units that mitigate the waves from the electro-magnetic ocean. See if those ionisers can improve the health of our politicians. Some of those back-bench MPs probably also need some Bill Hicks style “mandatory marijuana”.
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 ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Priestley Habru, PhD candidate, public diplomacy, University of Adelaide Former foreign minister Jeremiah Manele has been elected the next prime minister of Solomon Islands, defeating the opposition leader, Matthew Wale, in a vote in parliament. The result is a mixed bag for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shaun Eaves, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Jamey Stutz, CC BY-SA How often do mountains collapse, volcanoes erupt or ice sheets melt? For Earth scientists, these are important questions as we try ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Flood, Professor of Sociology, Queensland University of Technology Shutterstock Most young adult men in Australia reject traditional ideas of masculinity that endorse aggression, stoicism and homophobia. Nonetheless, the ongoing influence of those ideas continues to harm men and the people ...
The NZQA proposal released to staff today would involve a net loss of 35 roles. There are 66 roles being disestablished with 13 of those currently vacant, and 31 new roles proposed, said Fleur Fitzsimons Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga ...
Alex Casey talks to Loren Taylor, the writer, director and star of new film The Moon is Upside Down, about assembling her dream ensemble cast, toilet paper pads and turning literal dreams into reality. There’s a moment in The Moon is Upside Down where frazzled anaesthetist Briar (Loren Taylor) gets ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassy Dittman, Senior Lecturer/Head of Course (Undergraduate Psychology), Research Fellow, Manna Institute, CQUniversity Australia With winter sports swinging into action, adults around the country have volunteered or been volunteered by others (humorously known as being “volun-told”) to coach junior sports teams. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University richardernestyap/Shutterstock Parents are often advised to burp their babies after feeding them. Some people think burping after feeding is important to reduce or prevent discomfort crying, or to ...
Workers at a major ASB contact centre in Auckland have voted to take strike action and withdraw their labour following disappointing pay negotiations with the employer and an "offer" to workers that would leave them worse off than the previous year. ...
As the government tries to get the country back on track with a school phone ban, Tara Ward has an idea for where they should turn their attention to next.New Zealand students returned to school on Monday morning, but their cellphones did not. The government’s new phone ban began ...
The Labour Party is demanding Peters be stood down, saying "he's embarrassed the country" with a "totally unacceptable" attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. ...
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance, whose members were victims of a China-backed cyber attack, is discussing forming a standing committee to deal with foreign influence. ...
The PSA is concerned that the voluntary redundancies being offered to staff by Stats NZ will impact on the agency’s ability to deliver on its core functions. ...
Results ranged from surprisingly yum to soul-destroying. I love cooking. The kitchen is a hearth of culinary creation, of sensory delights, of gastronomic poetry. I also can’t afford anything nice. Why does a pack of instant noodles and some milk cost ten bucks? I love you, Aotearoa, but I miss ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Police in Solomon Islands are on high alert ahead of the election of the prime minister today. The two candidates for the top job are former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele at the head of the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation, which is ...
He’s fine but it feels like I’m losing a friend and it’s making me bitter. How do I say ‘enough is enough’? Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzHey Hera,I’ve recently moved in with a girlfriend, her partner Steve, and his friend. We all live in a lovely little house. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney shutterstockAhmet Misirligul/Shutterstock You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
Labour market figures came in softer than the Reserve Bank had forecast, but they won’t be enough to move the needle on interest rates, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Unemployment ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
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Why has New Zealand slipped from third to 12th on Quality of Death Indexes over the past decade or so? Hospice New Zealand Chief Executive Wayne Naylor has a list of reasons. “We don’t have a current national strategy – the Government hasn’t renewed our 2001 strategy, so we don’t ...
While women’s sport is exploding in Aotearoa and around the world, you still don’t hear a lot of talk about athletes and their periods, RED-S, breastfeeding and visible panty-lines. SASS (Suze and Sez Sports)Talk isn’t afraid to have that kōrero.LockerRoom founder Suzanne McFadden and Olympian broadcaster Sarah ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has apologised in Parliament after National accused her of intimidating and attacking one of its ministers in the House. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders met on Wednesday as the national cabinet to discuss a crisis gripping Australia – the horrific number of women murdered this year. The killings have shocked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Radhika Raghav, Teaching Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Otago Netflix Indian director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is known for his big-budget Bollywood production, featuring grand sets, star casts, meticulously choreographed dance sequences and lavish costumes, jewellery and furnishings. ...
Sir Robert devoted his life to disability rights after living in institutions in his younger years, says Kaihautū Tika Hauātanga | Disability Rights Commissioner Prudence Walker. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility. Those were the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle Snapshot freddy/ShutterstockPlans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station ...
Responding to the long-awaited release of judges’ special allowances, including free air travel and hotels for spouses, generous sabbaticals, and access to limousines, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said: “In what world does your employer ...
Analysis - The United States has unveiled plans to boost the weapons trade with Australia and the UK, on the same day that Winston Peters is expected to sketch NZ's position on AUKUS. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media ...
Lawyers representing two iwi as well as the Māori Women’s Welfare League on Wednesday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn last week’s High Court decision on the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision to summons Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Tribunal is currently investigating the Government’s decision to repeal section 7AA of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies. The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue ...
Average ordinary time hourly earnings, as measured by the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), increased 5.2 percent in the year to the March 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. Annual wage cost inflation, as measured by the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech Capability Lead | Senior Lecturer, Emerging Technologies and FinTech, Swinburne University of Technology Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash In the digital era, the job market is increasingly becoming a minefield – demanding and difficult to navigate. According to the Australian Bureau ...
As of the March 2024 quarter, we can now look back on 20 years of data related to youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), as collected by the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), according to figures released by Stats NZ today. "The ...
Thousands of workers attended public events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch today to celebrate International Workers’ Day (May Day), but union representatives are urging caution and vigilance over the Government’s blatantly "anti-worker" ...
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in the March 2024 quarter, compared with 4.0 percent in the previous quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
The PSA is warning the Government that the sensitive information of New Zealanders held by various agencies will fall into the wrong hands if the latest round of proposed cuts goes ahead. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Talitha Best, Professor of Psychology, CQUniversity Australia Victoria Rodriguez/Unsplash How do sugar rushes work? – W.H, age nine, from Canberra What a terrific question W.H! Let’s explore this, starting with some of the basics. What is sugar? ...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11626012
Bill Liu number 5 on Chinas extradition list.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11340600
Dodgy Shane Jones, Sky City money laundering, political donations to both Labour & National, Tax Havens, …
“….When it launched the campaign, the Chinese Government estimated that 16,000 to 18,000 corrupt officials and employees of state-owned enterprises had fled with pilfered assets of more than 800 billion yuan ($166 billion) since the mid-1990s. …”
Gosh – I wonder where exactly these corrupt Chinese officials and employees of state-owned enterprises have stashed their ‘pilfered assets’?
In New Zealand ‘foreign trusts’ – perchance?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
How low can we go ?
$100,000 donation to the National Party. Soon thereafter the donor or a connected party is benefitted with access to/gift of/advantage from government funds 70 fold of that donation.
Well…….unless from day one you’ve got proof beyond a shadow of doubt that what looks and quacks like a duck is a duck…….you must say nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The perfect climate in which corruption balloons. In this land of “Higher Standards”.
It ain’t over till it’s over ….
30 April 2015 – Bernie Sanders announces he’s standing for President.
(That was less than a year ago.)
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/29/politics/bernie-sanders-announces-presidential-run/
“In interviews before his campaign announcement, Sanders said trade, income inequality and health care would be key tenants of his run.
But despite having vocal liberal supporters on these issues, Sanders is a dark horse candidate and has acknowledged that his run will be uphill.
A CNN/ORC poll in March found that Sanders has the support of only 3% of Democratic voters.
….”
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
AL this morning on RNZ. No BS- just , ‘Here are the facts and because of these facts he’d like the AG to investigate:
– welcomed the Hagaman’s willingness to cooperate in any inquiry
-and yes he’s been threatened with court action by rich people many times before
-and he dismissed the attempts by Natz to distract.
A good solid interview .
I think ‘McCullygate’ has a better ring than ‘Hagamangate’ or is it ‘Mc Gillicuddy?’
I agree. Little stood his ground and did not let the interviewer set the terms.
possibly Little’s best interview to date….sounded righteous and determined….and a tad annoyed
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11625901
Will be interesting if they move forward with it.
Generally people that talk about it – never do. But if they do move forward it will be good entertainment.
+1 Pat
Good to see AL is standing by his guns on this topic of corruption and not getting diverted by ‘Labour does it too’ discourses. National has got away with this far too long!
Still waiting to see those tax returns from John Key, nothing to hide nothing to fear!
Tax havens and hidden money is not going away…. Panama Papers: US launches criminal inquiry into tax avoidance claims
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/19/panama-papers-us-justice-department-investigation-tax-avoidance?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H&utm_term=168017&subid=13842748&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Jane Kelsey’s press release yesterday titled Why is the US TPPA ‘Implementation Team’ Meddling in NZ? highlights the ways in which US gets what it wants from other TPP countries. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1604/S00278/why-is-the-us-tppa-implementation-team-meddling-in-nz.htm
This process was foreshadowed and objected to in an open letter dated 15 May 2015. The signatories from Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, and New Zealand include prominent former parliamentarians as well as current leaders of political parties, spokespersons for trade, and members of committees with responsibility for the TPP.
http://tppnocertification.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Legislators-letter-rev.pdf
+1 Tautoko Mangō Mata
Just sent a letter to the Editor for our local paper.
The Government is delaying the adding of a levy or royalty on bottled water being exported by foreign owned companies. By procrastinating until after the TPPA is ratified, they will then be unwilling or unable to levy, even if they wanted to, as those foreign companies would sue NZ for millions and millions. This brings the complicated TPPA documents into the real world.
“Hagaman was honoured as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.” 2014 http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/9725378/Hagamans-building-an-empire
” ” Should we even believe that he is worth $180m? The NBR wrote of the couple that “all of their wealth is tied up in trusts, which means they are, personally, as poor as church mice”. Lani Hagaman likes that bit about church mice.
“The trusts hold most of the wealth,” Hagaman says. “If you own it personally, somebody will try to take it away, for sure.
“I had an ex-wife problem a while back. It’s all settled now. She got half and claimed she was entitled to more. I paid her a sum to go, and she went.” ”
& ” Of course it was good news that the Government opted not to green light a new ferry terminal at Clifford Bay, which could have killed off Picton.
“Fabulous news,” she says. “[Transport Minister] Gerry Brownlee and I have had many conversations about that. Every time I got in his ear, I said: ‘You have to be kidding.’ ”
Political influence? It’s not that far-fetched. The Hagamans have been big contributors to both National and ACT. Ten years ago, ACT gave Hagaman a Sir Roger Douglas Award for his continuing support.
“I’ve supported Sir Roger pretty much from day one,” he says. “He’s got good, solid ideas about what the economy ought to be doing, how it ought to be run and whatnot.”
He says he doesn’t recall exactly how much he has given to the party over the years. Only one $10,000 donation is recorded under his name since 1996. The support continues – even the ACT website is sponsored by the Scenic Hotel Group. “
+1 – scary stuff
A a Sir Roger Douglas Award haha!!!
It figures that they’d be Douglies.
He said he also donated to the Labour Party. No. He donated to the Roger Douglas Party.
Proof that:
1. Trusts need to be done away with and
2. Private political donations need to be either stopped or capped at $1000 per person per year and no legal entity (trusts, businesses, unions, etc) can donate at all.
new zealanders using there houses as ATM machines what could possible go wrong???
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=225043&fm=psp,tsf
will the day reckoning arrive for the debtors???? or will houses rise for ever?????
yep, like my customer with three mortgages. 🙂 pray for nothing to happen or else shit creek raises up to the nostrils.
Listening to Hillary Clinton’s New York victory speech yesterday, I thought the game must surely be up for her kind of politics, whether she ends up as president this time around or not. All platitudes and triangulation, roared in a tone to suggest conviction – “I can imagine an America where….whaa whaa.” Then the obvious step into Bernie’s slipstream, and out again with an adjusted focus. I am sick to death of people whose primary skills are working a room and attracting donors, and can understand those who will vote for Trump if Clinton gets the Democratic nomination.
And there it is.
+1 – people do not want meaningless drivel – people actually need REAL policies from politicians to get their countries out of these messes. Doing more of the same is neoliberal death to the people by politicians, paid by donations for policy to make the super rich even richer (mostly by tax avoidance and keeping wages as low as possible while making basic expenses as high as possible).
Newsflash, if most people, i.e. poor, working and middle class are too poor to buy anything than the basics then deflation will occur!
The difference between Bernie versus Clinton, John Key and most of the other leaders of the western world is that he is innately engaging to listen to because he is speaking the truth. He’s also a very entertaining speaker.
Yep, while the potency of Sanders’ campaign has forced Hillary to shift ground to the Left (at least in rhetorical terms) – with the centre of gravity in the Democratic Party arguably shifting quite dramatically – …
,,, as one analyst has said: Clinton “has a thousand talking points but when the lights are turned off and all the glare of the election fades, politics-as-normal will return, the lobbyists will get to work and nothing at all will happen”.
Platitudes, triangulation, carefully-adjusted focus, required lip-service – what Blairite political operatives like Phil Quin would eulogize as finely calibrated messaging delivered with machine gun efficiency.
She’s quite rightly disliked and distrusted by a huge chunk of Democrats and Independents. One of the things I noticed in the detail of some of the New York State Polls (mirroring those in other States and nationwide) is that Clinton supporters hold far more favourable attitudes towards Sanders (and have far greater levels of trust in him) than Sanders supporters express towards Clinton.
I read yesterday that to vote in New York you had to enrol by October 2015. There would have been another 3,000,000 voters had they enrolled in time. Most of those would then have been disinterested and young. Long before the Sanders fire was lit. USA the leading light for Democracy.
Yeah. Quite apart from purged electoral rolls and what looks like some systematic voter suppression on the day … this was a closed primary for registered Democrats only. That excludes the nearly 3 million (out of 11 million) voters in New York State who are Independents (and they’re, as you’ve suggested, Ian, disproportionately younger). We know from previous primaries that both Young and Independent voters have gone overwhelmingly for The Bern (as the under-30s did once again yesterday).
Not all 3 million NYS Independents, of course, would have been Democrat leaners … but, you know, with a gap of less than 300,000 between Hillary and Sanders …
Why should “independent” voters be entitled to get involved in choosing a Party’s representative in an election? It doesn’t make any sense to me.
After all, although not a member of the Green Party, should I be allowed to vote for the leader of that party, which automatically puts them in Parliament of the party gets 5% of the vote?
The logic that says that independent should have a say in a party primary process is exactly the same surely?
Quite right – and with the same argument – why should Trump think just because he has the most, (but not the overall majority of delegates) he should be the Republican candidate?
Parties should be free to choose the most suitable candidate to represent their interests in the election. The fact that each Party put beans in their ears, so as not to hear the mutterings of the population at large, is neither here nor there. Let them eat cake!
Thing is: It’s a little more fluid in the US than you’re assuming. Voters can change their affiliation whenever they want (from, say, Independent to Democrat) … but New York State’s 6 month cut-off date is by far the strictest in the Country. And it’s clear that large numbers of NYS Independents were planning to register as Democrats, vote for Sanders but were unaware of the deadline.
Most of those states with closed primaries have cut-off dates of less than 3 months prior to the primary, some less than 1 month, a couple (Maine and Wyoming) just 2 weeks. (only 11 States have closed primaries)
Fact is: across the US as a whole, 43% of Americans are political Independents (far exceeding registered Democrats (30%) and Republicans (26%)). They’re the crucial voters that Presidential candidates need to win – so it might just be in the Democrat Party’s interest to include them in its primaries. Problem for the Clintonesque Party Establishment, of course, is that Sanders has been winning Independents by 2 to 1 over Hillary (which is why he does appreciably better than her in one-on-one match-ups with various possible Republican nominees).
I think that Blairite behaviour worked to some degree prior to 2008, when the “shareholders’ democracy” story could still hold water. After 2008, the colonisation of the have-nots by the haves quickly became too apparent for “finely calibrated messaging” to have traction. It might suit some people to have an establishment left transformed into a series of “nice jobs in public life” parties, but the left cannot do without the have-nots – they after all, are the people the Labour Party was formed to defend. And there are just not enough nice, salaried leftish professionals to make up for their loss. Moreover, when someone is, say, drowning, they are very attuned to the difference between, “I can swim and I will do my best to save you” and “I really, really feel for you.”
Check out Episode 6 of Media take (30 mins long), it covers how we remember NZs colonial history and how we look at the New Zealand Wars (we tend to ignore it). Stars historian James Belich. Theres also an extended panel discussion further down the page.
http://www.maoritelevision.com/tv/shows/media-take
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11622064
Trev’s last line.
Why is there not more investigation by media into how much influence the Communist Party of China has bought within the National Party?
Is it because the CPC also owns Labour and the NZ MSM as well?
This story, broken by David Fisher should be making headlines.
Why is there not a follow up.
Is the NZ Herald too frightened to go any further?
Very good article on
Bill English wants to end your privacy
http://www.norightturn.blogspot.co.nz
“Bill English — Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and now prospective Big Brother; he wants to bring together the data held by 10 government agencies so that more can be known about Kiwis.
The agencies include health, education, social development, justice and Inland Revenue. It will create what he calls a “data highway”.
He’ll give government workers access to it, even on their smartphones, so they can draw information on people from multiple sources before making decisions that affect them.
The data has already shown New Zealand’s 10,000 most vulnerable people will cost taxpayers $6.5 billion over their lifetimes.
—
$6.5 Billion is not that much. About a years worth of tax avoidance in the corporate world.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11625901
Good, I hope they go through with it and everyone can then make up their minds about the deal
“I can assure the public that for us the only thing that will ‘stink to the high heavens’ will be smell of roses which blossom from the fertiliser Andrew Little likes to spread around to gain his own notoriety.”
So do I Puckish Rogue. And I’m happy to donate to the opposition parties who pursue it and take it public through the courts. I hope Winny and the Greens are in with Labour, supporting looking into this disgusting “aid” deal with a fine tooth comb!
I will freely admit that I’m going to enjoy Andrew Little being made to look the complete tool over this
Of course it probably won’t come to it, Little will make some mealy-mouth half-apology and the case then won’t go ahead
Another good point
http://www.norightturn.blogspot.co.nz
Proving their point
Back in January, the Greens proposed the not very radical idea of a policy costings unit to provide independent information on political party promises. National immediately denounced it as costing too much (while shovelling $26 million towards John Key’s vanity flag referendum). So, the Greens sought to have the policy costed by Treasury under existing rules. You’ll never guess what happened next:
Well would you look at that, a policy from the Greens that I agree with, who’da thunk it?
Proving their point
Hey its a bad call by Bill
It’s political interference which is a form of corruption. It’s also one of those actions which are legal but immoral.
I had an hour long talk with William Black yesterday while on Vinny Eastwood’s show. Over the next couple of weeks I will be writing and transcribing the in all two hour interview (Vinny talked with him for two hours) and connect it back to John Key and his banking history.
I sometime wonder about the basic knowledge of journalists:
That’s the headline…
Yes, it seems that at least one journalist, probably the editor or sub-editor, doesn’t realise that the electric buses already have electric motors in them.
What’s happening is that the buses are having batteries added and a small charging motor. In other words, they’re becoming a type of hybrid vehicle. Would be interesting to see what sort of savings the change will make.
Raybon Kan slugs it to Key for his emptiness. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11625904
Goodness me! Was that published in the Herald? Bye Raybon.
Well, if saturdays and sundays don’t exist anymore, then it must be beer on a thursday morning. Cheers to an old grain variety organic pilsner, actually cheaper in Germany than NZ’s beer, that might give you the craps.
Then to contemplate environmentally wise ways to mine our resources. Or shall we stay dependent an housing based economy, oh or yet more tourism? Titanium and Thorium may be two good reasons NZ can be independent of the debt hammer. High energy, but technically possible eco-friendly, just takes long term planning, and obviously not an interest-rate-based accounting model.
Hey, some iwi groups are actually kicking ass with goats n honey on small blocks. Can you imagine sending that to Japan organic as cheese? They would give you the worlds best solar units in return. Perfect for urban families wanting to go inde-electric with ozonation for their grow rooms. Or those air ionising units that mitigate the waves from the electro-magnetic ocean. See if those ionisers can improve the health of our politicians. Some of those back-bench MPs probably also need some Bill Hicks style “mandatory marijuana”.