I get bollock bored reiterating to my “centrist” middle class Key voting associates that we have a train wreck of youth unemployment here in NZ. I know Canterbury has a had a quake but look at this:
The number of Cantabrians aged 15 to 24 in employment has dropped by 12,300, the September 2011 Household Labour Force Survey revealed.
The fall comes despite 8700 people in the age bracket leaving the city last year.
In effect this says that in an area of 350,000 we might expect to find 12% of the population aged 18-24…..roughly 42000 people, of whom 12,300 are out of work (nearly a third), and if you count those who have gone 21,000…a half.
This is a huge indictment on the failure of all recent governments, especially the current NACT crop who don’t appear to even acknowledge the issue or give a rats arse. And worse still its a giant j’acuse at those voter who work on the “I am all right Jack” principle.
There may be a significant breakthrough in the Affco dispute this morning; it looks like pressure from Iwi has forced Talley’s back to the table and an agreement now looks likely.
If someone is currently on a one week ban here (guess who) and posts a comment on another blog (KB, General Debate today) asking for someone there to post their comment on the Standard for them, what is the position? I have no intention of doing so; the comment appears to include a link to the banned person’s own blog……
PS – FYI the same banned person was also using the other blog yesterday to respond to/comment on comments posted here subsequent to the TS ban being invoked.
I should think he can do whatever he wants on another site.
Anyone who was foolish enough to copy his comments over to here should expect moderator attention – probably deleting the comments to start with and escalating from there as necessary.
It’s up to us how we moderate. Pete’s politics may be remiss but his heart is in the right place. He is, however, a bit obsessive (as are some other regular commenters) – I’ve seen this with commenters before and it generally ends in tears. I think it’s time to let it go.
I’d also recommend that anyone who finds themselves taking the blogs too seriously, and I include obsessing over who said what to who on another blog, should take a few days off to spend some time in the real world. It’ll do you good.
For the most part Pete provides good debate here and does obviously put a lot of time into knowing his stuff.
Where he becomes annoying is the frequency at which he posts.
Anyway,
I see stuff have an article on how the majority of people still blame Labour for debt. A perfect opportunity for Labour to get some media spotlight and point out the flaws in this.
You guys run this excellent site. I am happy to accept your moderation/banning. I wouldn’t complain just as I wouldn’t should a householder asked me to leave their property. Not that that has ever happened!
I enjoy watching Rural Delivery in the weekends. They’ve been running stories recently about developments in farm effluent treatment systems, and this made me hopeful that we might finally see a reduction in the amount of pollution going into New Zealand waterways…
PROTEST TODAY, Monday 21 May 2012
12 noon – 2pm
OUTSIDE JOHN BANK’S EPSOM OFFICE
27 Gillies Ave
Newmarket
A protest has been called today, calling for the resignation of – the arguably not so ‘Honorable’ MP for Epsom, because he is not, in my considered opinion, ‘fit for duty’ as an MP – let alone a Minister.
How come former Labour MP Taito Phillip Field got sentenced for SIX years for ‘bribery and corruption’, for providing ‘immigration advice’ to Thai nationals in exchange for work on his properties – while Minister John Banks gets political protection from NZ Prime Minister John Key, after giving ‘immigration assistance’ and Coatsville property purchase ‘assistance’ to a German/ Finnish national, in return for $50,000 donated to ‘Banksie’s’ 2010 Auckland Mayoral campaign fund, and gifts valued at over $500 which he failed to declare?
It is also of great concern to me, as a fighter against ‘white collar’ crime, that ACT’s ‘one law for all’ has yet to apply to both the current and former Leaders of the ACT Party, whom, as former fellow directors of Huljich Wealth Management (NZ) Ltd, both signed Huljich Kiwisaver Scheme registered prospectuses dated 22 August 2008 and 18 September 2009, which contained untrue statements, but were never charged for so doing. This is a strict liability offence under s58(3) of the Securities Act 1978, but neither the old Securities Commission, the Finance Markets Authority (FMA), the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) , nor the NZ Police arguably ‘did their job’ and charged Banks or Brash. Have they been politically protected at the highest levels?
John Banks is now the Minister of Regulatory Reform, yet four different ‘regulatory’ bodies failed to act against him, someone, who arguably couldn’t properly run a Kiwisaver Scheme, yet now has a key Ministerial post and is supposedly helping to run the country ‘perceived’ to be the ‘least corrupt in the world’? (According to Transparency Internaional’s 2011 ‘Corruption Perception Index, http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/ which obviously, in my considered opinion, is not worth the paper upon which it is written.)
I don’t expect the ACT MP for Epsom, Minister of Regulatory Reform, the ‘Honorable’ John Banks, to be particularly keen to see me, or this protest, which is intended to ‘hold his feet to the fire’.
“Mr Carter told TVNZ’s Q & A yesterday that local governments were in a similar position to central government, which intends to balance the books by selling up to 49 per cent of shares in the state-owned energy companies, and a further stake in Air NZ”
“I think if you look at my own city of Christchurch where we clearly have an extraordinary situation, the Christchurch balance sheet is strong with a number of assets, the council needs to make the decision.”
— One can see how this is going to play out in advance!
Matthew Hooton this morning got into his stride on his favourite subject, his own opinion about our economic situation and why it’s Labour’s fault. He talked over the top of Josie Pagani quite a lot. One swingeing quote – “No government anywhere in the world creates jobs”.
I’m sick of cynical negative right-wingers who quote figures from the sweepings of the economist floor as a reason for governments not doing anything. When we need practical policies to stimulate business or advance policies that will assist the mass of small taxpayers we get this do-nothing chant. We should be putting in Auckland’s rail while prices are cheap and spending on infrastructure resulting in more employment. Of course we do have to try to employ New Zealanders, not shoot ourselves in the foot bringing in cheap labour while our own people languish and despair and drink and drug or steal so they can have regular food, good housing that presently they are shut away from.
Also he talks about having a surplus in the 1990s and refers first to Ruth Richardson and Bill Birch with Michael Cullen added on. He was all right until the last three years and then spent on policies. ‘Working for Families is one of his insane policies that delivers welfare to the wealthy.’
He ignores what he must have learned in any studies he has done, that paying this sort of assistance to everyone cuts across the wealthy drone about how they are supporting low income drones and it’s not fair they should pay out all the time! Also it tends to be easier and cheaper to administrate when going to all in the target group, rather than scrutinising people’s rather than trying to sieve out the goodies from the bad low incomes.
And lastly this thing about ‘welfare’ – we all have advantage from the provisions that government makes for the nation. One of the things the wealthy and those in power have done is to trade most of our manufacturing jobs, a continuing process, because the world has gone free market which has had some advantages and massive disadvantages. It was obvious that jobs would be lost, the pr…ks knew this so now they are cynically blaming conditions on the poor and resenting every assistance.
prism:”Also it tends to be easier and cheaper to administrate when going to all in the target group, rather than scrutinising people’s rather than trying to sieve out the goodies from the bad low incomes.”
Pretty sure that at the time that is exactly Mr Cullens point. So true.
Drug lords are okay if they keep a high income and off the dole? The problem with fishing the pool of poor is that you aren’t as diligent at higher incomes. Providing welfare has never been justification for criminalization of the poorest – except by fascists. Sure there will always be some, like the lady who didn’t declare she was living with her husband. Just because one banker creates a ponsi scheme doesn’t mean all bankers are criminals.
The solution is to provide the basic limited income to survive as a negative income tax, that rewards people who have little to engage in economic activity, presently the system punitively scraps any extra income at 70c in the dollar blocking the stepping stone from a little work to part-time work.
Give the social injustice of large parts of the population leveraging themselves into massive debt exposure, and then desperate wanting tax cuts to continue their bubble economic vision. At the expense of future generations, the environment, all the activity economics of selling stuff sideways to create paper profit growth (asset sales), shows up the lying conceit in our elites.
Hooton does interrupt far too much. I think it’s a tactic to destroy the point that the other speaker is making. Certainly, I found it very hard to follow the thread of the arguments. I wish that Nat Radio took notice of that complaint.
Pleased to see you returned safely from the gorse fields, Felix.
Makes for bad radio all round, the shouty Hooten and the underpowered Pagani…..a couple of go to media commentators with egos way out of proportion to their ability.
It would good to have more of a green commentator ‘from the left’ sometimes. Today’s comment about nobody being against growth would then be challenged. I’m more for redistribution, personally, and not in favour of ‘growth’ if it means exploitation of the planet’s limited resources.
Not even the NZ Green party is advocating for a zero-growth economic policy. You might as well find a militant Trotskyite to offer their perspectives for all the relevance for mainstream NZ politics.
How right you are, nobody will advocate a zero growth policy. I suspect the Greens will go as far as a zero balance policy on the “externalities” (especially environmental) that are currently unpaid in our economic system.
More importantly we had better get used to a zero growth economy because that is what we have now, and will have for good in the future. There is a methodology prior NZ governments have used for this scenario: its called “balancing the books”. Its got these nasty little necessities such as import controls etc. It used to upset most people, they will be again.
Your second paragraph makes little sense. Something along the lines of we currently have zero growth now and should get used to it in future, (does this mean you are cool with everything), and then something about import controls. Truly bizarre shift in thinking there.
Gos, we currently have zero growth full stop.No problem so far, its demonstrable.
The next contention is get used to it: I happen to believe that resource depletion (in particular energy depletion) will result in a declining economy (as opposed to either growth or zero balance). There is lots of evidence (dont ask me to cite).
Final contention (also historically demonstrable) is that before growth became the accepted norm governments and businesses lived on their current balance, therefore had to balance their books.
Bizarre? What I find truly bizarre is the number of people walking blindfolded into a very evident future because they cant get out of the cornucopian mindset.
Funnily enough I’ve been having a similar discussion with someone on the Hot Topic blog recently (see, I haven’t been away from the internet completely).
I happen to think it reflects poorly on Hooten which I don’t mind at all, but it also reflects poorly on Pagani that she allows it. Williams doesn’t let Hooten shout him down. Neither does McCarten.
They all do it to an extent. Hooten tends to interupt when he spots BS during a long diatribe from the left wing commentator. Kathryn Ryan struggles at time to control him, (and the others), but generally does an okay job. Williams and Hooten end up agreeing with each more often than not so perhaps that is why he doesn’t interupt as much.
Williams and Hooten end up agreeing with each more often than not so perhaps that is why he doesn’t interupt as much.
Weirdness about 2 weeks ago, when Ryan messed up and said “From the Right, Mike Williams!”
That wasn’t the weird part – that happened when Williams said in response to her apology “That’s all right, I am really on the right, when I stop and think about it”.
With Ryan herself, that episode became a love fest of agreement amongst the three. 🙁
Well yeah, boil it down enough and they’re all discussing the issues of the day from strictly within the boundaries of our neo-liberal right wing economic paradigm.
Joint Media Statement
21st May 2012 Significant Progress in AFFCO dispute
After a full day of negotiations in Auckland yesterday the parties to the long running industrial dispute at the AFFCO meat works have made significant progress and are now working quickly towards trying to reach a final agreement for union members to ratify.
The parties today reached provisional agreement on the core document and are now working towards the settlement of specific site documents.
As part of a joint commitment to building a new type of relationship the parties have agreed and committed to a return to work within a short time frame of all workers and the withdrawal or suspension of all legal action while the final details are agreed.
The union and the owners of AFFCO (Talley Group) have been greatly assisted by the Iwi Leaders Forum who were represented at the negotiations today and wish to jointly acknowledged the role this group has played in working with both sides to find solutions that will enable the company to thrive in the future and the workers to work under fair and reasonable conditions.
The Iwi leadership forum members including Ken Mair, Tukoroirangi Morgan and Sonny Tau are adamant that in order to achieve an enduring settlement between the two parties it must be hinged around trust and confidence.
“The commitment by Andrew Talley and senior management to an open and regular dialogue with Union officials goes a long way to restoring confidence and certainty,” said the Iwi leaders.
“We have both sought to learn from this dispute and ensure that moving forward we build in the opportunity for a new type of relationship between the company, the union and its members. We also both value the ongoing commitment from Iwi to support this relationship” Andrew Talley said on behalf of AFFCO.
“Our members will be greatly relieved that we have made this progress today and keenly interested in us moving towards a full settlement. They are very open to making these meat works the best in the country and will welcome a different type of relationship, “ Dave Eastlake Meat Workers General Secretary said.
The parties will be making no further comment while the process is continuing.
Any other people who hadn’t heard of Louis Crimp and wondered .. I’ve just put some informative links on Open Mike for yesterday 20/5. I meant to put it on today’s.
Guess how he made his money – pokies and not winning on them haha. You didn’t think that did you. No his business is in the machines – for the players he’s the ghost in the machine perhaps.
On Louis Crimp. Couldn’t easily get info about Andrew Housing but there was quite a lot about him. I am fascinated by his big hearted philanthropy. He bought a house sold as a fundraiser by hospice for three times the expected price was one thing that raised his profile. He always has plenty to say and seems to be consulted for comment ad nauseum.
Well there has to be a circut breaker sometimes, and Sonny and the Moerewa people were getting well pissed off with Talley’s in Northland. Maybe the frozen pea sales were dropping a bit too in the odd Pak ’n Save.
Not everything must be talked about on blogs. But, “the withdrawal or suspension of all legal action while the final details are agreed” is a worry because an ‘in favour of the union ruling’ as per Open Country Cheese as to the legality of employing scabs, not to mention the legality of the targeted lockouts while the MWU was in bargaining, could help a number of workers in the very near future with Talley’s favourite charity, the Natz about to take us all back to 1991.
Looks like a typical Talley’s tactical tit pull to me at first glance.
Tapu Misa on the lack of sacrifice by the rich and the excess sacrifice by the poor dealt by this government.
“Judged by the yardstick of international norms,” he writes, “New Zealand under-taxes high income earners and over-taxes low income earners.” Using the preferred OECD “tax wedge” measure, for example, New Zealand’s tax rate among the 28 high-income OECD countries at the $100,000 salary level is 15 percentage points lower than the average, “representing over US$26,000 in tax that the average high income OECD country collects from these workers and their employers [that] New Zealand does not”.
Well, so much for the rich running off to other countries if we raise taxes on them. If they did they’d be taxed more.
That was exactly the para that I toyed with reposting here Draco. It is funny how higher taxes are always painted as a disaster and yet those northern European countries tax higher and do better. Especially when lower taxes are used as support for the myth that rich people provide the jobs rather than the poorer spending and working provide the wealth.
In addition to discourse, what types of activities are opponents to the current Neo-Liberal Capitalist Growth Economic Ideology Regime taking?
Subverting the forms of propaganda previously dominated by those abusing power.
But what Action; What translation into behaviour,care and guidance?
Downsizing?
Downshifting?
Deleveraging (urrgh!)
Reducing Reusing Recycling
Deinsuring
Disestablishing
Dissent before dishonour.
Leaving the payment of all greedy accounts till the 3 Month business payment schedule elapses?
Public transport use.
Kai gathering, home gardening, home cooking
I mean shutting off the blood supply to the greedy parasites.
There is always the ‘5.56 option of last resort’, but I expect to see that in Europe sometime in the near future, not here. Maybe that will make a few of the corporate bludgers sit-up and take notice.
Yes, there are some good suggestions in there. As always, it is the doing that matters, at the personal level, rather than any list of possibles for the undefined masses. In that context then, here’s what a particular philosopher had to say a long time ago, shortly before he left a country that was descending into chaos:
“When the great Tao is forgotten,
goodness and piety appear.
When the body’s intelligence declines,
cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
Patriotism is born.”.
LaoTzu said the Tao was a way of natural harmony, greater than and existing before god. It’s interesting to see how the concept moves past good and bad as final resting points of human behaviour – listing them, really, as lesser evils – and reaches past that to an absolute kind of flowing/alternating order/disorder.
Within the context of your question on what each of us can do, via behaviour care and guidelines, we could do worse than use these guidelines as measure for action. LaoTzu’s political comments would also be echoed thousands of years later in social movements that understood that the overall good of the people as a collective mattered more than anything else; more than leaders careers, empire building or even the sciences. He was of the idea that materialism undermined the health of people and the earth.
Of course, his work has been fantastically abused by various Chinese leaders and historical figures since then, distorting it from a route to peace into sexual warfare and justification for totalitarianism and oppressions, but then so has Christianity under the capitalists. So as long as we understand this is a guide for our behaviour towards peace, not war and oppression, not as tool of offense, then we’ll stay the right side of the line – I hope. Shouldn’t be too hard to translate into modern terminology: you touch on several points already, such as “downsizing”, “downshifting” etc.
“Throw away holiness and wisdom’
and the people will be a hundred times happier.
Throw away morality and justice,
and people will do the right thing.
Throw away industry and profit,
and there won’t be any thieves.
If these three aren’t enough,
just stay at the centre of the circle
and let all things take their course.”
This pretty much spells out the main idea: while man cannot hope to not act in response to events, he should know how to do the least amount of damage and reach for the action of in-action that will naturally lead to the best action. As left eventually becomes right, why get into the power struggle at all?
“The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centred within the Tao.
When rich speculators prosper,
while farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money,
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn –
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.”
The Tao Te Ching is somewhat of an oxymoron, since it’s existence contradicts the goal of the masters, which was to not speak, but do. It was written, we are told, because someone asked for guidelines to the art of living as a master was leaving a particular part of the country. I think that “leaving” actually meant he was approaching death, but we could get lost in metaphors and lose the message: action, above all else.
There is another frequently cited tale that says a region was under all kinds of trouble, environmentally and socially, and a master was called to settle it. He camped on the outskirts of the region, isolated and seeing no one, until things returned to normal – which was within a few days. The idea is that he was so in tune with the natural way of things, that his presence, his act of relocating, brought natural balance back to the region. He didn’t talk, and neither should anyone, is the meaning. Do something that moves toward balance, instead.
The Master doesn’t try to be powerful;
Thus he is truly powerful.
The ordinary man keeps reaching for power;
Thus he never has enough.
The Master does nothing,
Yet leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
Yet many more things are left to be done.
The kind man does something,
Yet something remains undone
The just man does something,
And leaves many things to be done.
The moral man does something,
And when no one responds
He rolls up his sleeves and uses force.
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
The beginning of chaos.
Therefore the Master concerns himself
With the depths and not the surface,
With the fruit and not the flower.
He has no will of his own.
He dwells in reality,
And lets all illusion go.”
That second to last verse, the following backwards of effect and stages of decline are echoed in the other famous Book of Changes, which precedes our modern Leftist ideas that there is a reason for everything, by a long way; that nothing is simple, and that there is only the point where you stop looking. Unfortunately, Taoism also condemns statistics completely as an idiocy.
And the final example, with the dry humour and realism that many of the verses hold:
Governing a large country is like frying a small fish.
You spoil it too much with poking.
Centre your country in the Tao
And evil will have no power.
Not that it isn’t there,
But you’ll be able to step out of its way.
Give evil nothing to oppose
And it will disappear by itself.”
Or as you put it: “… shutting off the blood supply to the greedy parasites.”
That Louis Crimp chappie from down south, who gave 100K+ to ACT to “do somethng about the maoris” who are “full of welfare and crime”, and who ACT now say they think says offensive things but they’ll take his money, (given to achieve offensive things), anyway…
… will be on Campbell live tonight, even though he didn’t know the camera was rolling.
It is enough to make a person embarrassed to have even walked the same streets as he did!
I have looked in vain for the $500,000,000.00 that he says is going into finding Te Reo but if we are cutting Māori Language funding even though it is a legal language of this country, then I presume that monies dedictaed to the teaching of English and NZ Sign will also be cut freeing up that funding for something else?!
The man is an idiot and a bully. I notice that he has threatened that he will not fund Act if they don’t make the abolition of Te Reo funding a non-negotiable. That is what he did to Stadium Southland Trust vis a vis the acknowledgment of ILT funding for the project. ILT has poured far more money into the Invercargill community than Louis Crimp ever will but the trustees gave into his blackmail. It will be interesting to see how Act respond
I saw that, and now I see why the Hell Pizza owners decided to approach Clive to put their case and refused to appear on Sunday on TV1…
The interviewer on Clive are giving the owner a sympathetic ear, she’s oozing with sweet kind questions (no hard ones) and it’s obvious why he chose to refuse Sunday and appear on Clive, after all, how many times has TV 3 ever criticised business men?
Don Brash was one of the few hopes for New Zealand he said at the time about 5 years ago it would be harder than the second world war to get New Zealand to a Growing sustainable country catching up with Australia. That was over 5 years ago and he was ignored along with many of Acts initial policy’s. So if was as hard as war then well.
The Solution is:
I really see it, first we need pleading to international help to help us recover and get international aid. We need to outsource Government departments such as entire health sector to Australia to administer. We need to have boarder-less “passport free” crossing to Australia, common currency just for start.
We then need to remove RMA completely and privatize the Building Department and all associated acts.
Sell the entire Tertiary Education sector.
Reduce income tax to 10%
Removed GST of all food, and basic living items.
Introduce Capital gains tax
Sell parts or New Zealand to Europe and America allowing them to create cities such as a French city in South island ran and administered by France.
Increase school standards. (Longer Day- Real economic teaching learn anther language from early on.)
Remove the treaty of Wiatangi form many government items.
Put some Politicians in jail. ( And look at performance pay- Electronic Elections on the internet).
Write a CONSTITUTION based on the American.
Removed number of MPs make it 99 and fix MMP i.e. party percent list choice elected from public.
Remove Government Standards: i.e allow cheap quality small electric cars on road. Allow Insurance companies to take risk analysis – not Government
Increase tax on alcohol. Also other government arbitrary standards which may not have cost benefit logical ratio.
Sell some roads completely.
Remove many testing and certification schemes.
Reduce all fines by 50%
Sell ACC and allow privatization and suing
Removed 50% of Government Agency’s and ministry’s.
Stop putting money in the Rugby industry.
Sue the transport minister for spending millionths on motorways for the Roading Lobby.
Invest in heavy public transport and bike lanes for the big city’s.
Don’t think we’ve really tried it Draco at all National are just keeping the same old Labour Policies but doing things slower with the exception of Motorway Lust.
Key always said Don Brash and Roger Douglas policies where unworkable and extreme. Well perhaps we need some “extreme” stuff to get NZ on track.
Driving NZ off a cliff is extreme, but it won’t get us back on track.
Giving every NZer a decent wage is the way to get us back on track. We print the money, we implement a CGT, we implement an FTT and we implement a 0.5% pa wealth tax to pay for it.
Capital which leaves the country for reasons other than the facilitation of direct trade is also taxed.
Oh yeah, the nationalisation of core economic infrastructure back into public and community ownership and control.
Not really Colonial that extreme – good to see you thinking. Printing credit is well overdue- absolutely Should funded some council projects for a few years.
Basically one side of the economic philosophy here is to allow quicker and rapid exchange of service and expertise between citizens of this country without third-party holdups and Government intervention. This is probably one of the quickest ways to allow society to exchange goods services and find a natural system which benefits all parties.
Allowing business to open run services people want rapidly. (Super Rapid – Houses built in a week sort of fast) In fact no building consents, all done on buyer choice buyer insurance schemes and “enforced” contract law.
So you could quickly find the service you are best to aid society with and also reap rewards of other diligent members of the commerce community for a price your happy with.
We’re all adults we don’t need Government checking every transaction and business idea to make sure they fit all governments rules and regulations.
Ah, a libertarian or, in other words, someone who’s all for oppressing the majority of people. Yes, that is the result of the BS you peddle.
A major reason why we have regulation is so that everyone is working with the best knowledge. We all adults, yes, we’re not all omniscient gods. The consent process is there to ensure that houses are built to best standards (well, that’s the theory unfortunately the government seems to have forgotten that and set minimum standards well bellow what they should be). If you remove those standards and remove the process to ensure those standards then what we will have would be a situation much worse than the leaking homes saga and no one would be accountable for it. People would start a business, make millions and then, as soon as trouble looked like it was starting, liquidate the business.
We’re a democracy so government happens to be us, what we call government is actually our administrative arm and, like all administration, it’s needed. Unfortunately, idiots like you go round telling people that our needed administration is evil.
“People would start a business, make millions and then, as soon as trouble looked like it was starting, liquidate the business.”
That’s what happens now.
Perhaps under contract law, when you purchase a Product you look to see if they have a long history and perhaps their underwriters.
And perhaps even write and agreement which binds your purchase to the personal seller of the product and not the business. ( guess in Contract Law you could write any terms and conditions in you wanted, as long as you both agree and sign off on it.)
In fact business models could start which take care of purchasing contracts and could even insure the product as security. Sort of like Safeseller on trademe
They way I see it things get more and more interesting and more productive and harmonious in Libertarian economics.
They way I see it things get more and more interesting and more productive and harmonious in Libertarian economics.
LOL, no, they get more litigious and most people can’t afford the lawyers required to help negotiate the contracts or enforce the contracts that are signed.
outsourcing government departments to Australia? Really. I heard on RNZ in the last few days that some Australian states are complaining that they aren’t given equal treatment nationally with the bigger more powerful states like NSW. I think it’s to do with being given less funding and consideration in policies.
And you think NZ wouldn’t be undermined by any Australian-based governance of NZ?
Ditto for any control of cities by French or US interests – it would open these cities to yet more plundering by wealthy and powerful overseas interests.
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Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
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 ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
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 Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
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 ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
I was initially resistant to the idea often suggested to me that the Government should deliver an arts strategy. The whole point of the arts and creativity is that people should do whatever the hell they want, unbound by the dictates of politicians in Wellington. Peter Jackson, Kiri Te Kanawa, Eleanor ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
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The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
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The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 26 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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A must watch piss take on bankers….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmU3xoFrPJM&feature=player_embedded
Those sad little rich men. Scrooge had a better Christmas?
I get bollock bored reiterating to my “centrist” middle class Key voting associates that we have a train wreck of youth unemployment here in NZ. I know Canterbury has a had a quake but look at this:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/6955597/More-young-people-out-of-work-in-city
The number of Cantabrians aged 15 to 24 in employment has dropped by 12,300, the September 2011 Household Labour Force Survey revealed.
The fall comes despite 8700 people in the age bracket leaving the city last year.
In effect this says that in an area of 350,000 we might expect to find 12% of the population aged 18-24…..roughly 42000 people, of whom 12,300 are out of work (nearly a third), and if you count those who have gone 21,000…a half.
This is a huge indictment on the failure of all recent governments, especially the current NACT crop who don’t appear to even acknowledge the issue or give a rats arse. And worse still its a giant j’acuse at those voter who work on the “I am all right Jack” principle.
“And worse still its a giant j’acuse at those voter who work on the “I am all right Jack” principle”
— Yup, and those same selfish fools who think that they are out of harms way, will be in the line of fire eventually, on current course!
There may be a significant breakthrough in the Affco dispute this morning; it looks like pressure from Iwi has forced Talley’s back to the table and an agreement now looks likely.
Good news! 🙂
Question for a moderator
If someone is currently on a one week ban here (guess who) and posts a comment on another blog (KB, General Debate today) asking for someone there to post their comment on the Standard for them, what is the position? I have no intention of doing so; the comment appears to include a link to the banned person’s own blog……
PS – FYI the same banned person was also using the other blog yesterday to respond to/comment on comments posted here subsequent to the TS ban being invoked.
Out of sight, out of mind. Please don’t remind me.
Link is to a Stuff article, not his blog. Agreed, Carol, but trying to preempt…..
I should think he can do whatever he wants on another site.
Anyone who was foolish enough to copy his comments over to here should expect moderator attention – probably deleting the comments to start with and escalating from there as necessary.
It’s up to us how we moderate. Pete’s politics may be remiss but his heart is in the right place. He is, however, a bit obsessive (as are some other regular commenters) – I’ve seen this with commenters before and it generally ends in tears. I think it’s time to let it go.
I’d also recommend that anyone who finds themselves taking the blogs too seriously, and I include obsessing over who said what to who on another blog, should take a few days off to spend some time in the real world. It’ll do you good.
For the most part Pete provides good debate here and does obviously put a lot of time into knowing his stuff.
Where he becomes annoying is the frequency at which he posts.
Anyway,
I see stuff have an article on how the majority of people still blame Labour for debt. A perfect opportunity for Labour to get some media spotlight and point out the flaws in this.
You guys run this excellent site. I am happy to accept your moderation/banning. I wouldn’t complain just as I wouldn’t should a householder asked me to leave their property. Not that that has ever happened!
Fonterra environmental bullies
I enjoy watching Rural Delivery in the weekends. They’ve been running stories recently about developments in farm effluent treatment systems, and this made me hopeful that we might finally see a reduction in the amount of pollution going into New Zealand waterways…
Its quite amusing in a sad way but true that if you want to catch a trout go to a sheep farming area.
PROTEST TODAY, Monday 21 May 2012
12 noon – 2pm
OUTSIDE JOHN BANK’S EPSOM OFFICE
27 Gillies Ave
Newmarket
A protest has been called today, calling for the resignation of – the arguably not so ‘Honorable’ MP for Epsom, because he is not, in my considered opinion, ‘fit for duty’ as an MP – let alone a Minister.
( http://www.dodgyjohnhasgone.com/give-a-grrl-a-banner/ shows some of the banners that will be on display, and should attract attention at this busy part of Newmarket during the flow of lunchtime traffic.)
How come former Labour MP Taito Phillip Field got sentenced for SIX years for ‘bribery and corruption’, for providing ‘immigration advice’ to Thai nationals in exchange for work on his properties – while Minister John Banks gets political protection from NZ Prime Minister John Key, after giving ‘immigration assistance’ and Coatsville property purchase ‘assistance’ to a German/ Finnish national, in return for $50,000 donated to ‘Banksie’s’ 2010 Auckland Mayoral campaign fund, and gifts valued at over $500 which he failed to declare?
It is also of great concern to me, as a fighter against ‘white collar’ crime, that ACT’s ‘one law for all’ has yet to apply to both the current and former Leaders of the ACT Party, whom, as former fellow directors of Huljich Wealth Management (NZ) Ltd, both signed Huljich Kiwisaver Scheme registered prospectuses dated 22 August 2008 and 18 September 2009, which contained untrue statements, but were never charged for so doing. This is a strict liability offence under s58(3) of the Securities Act 1978, but neither the old Securities Commission, the Finance Markets Authority (FMA), the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) , nor the NZ Police arguably ‘did their job’ and charged Banks or Brash. Have they been politically protected at the highest levels?
(Copies of this correspondence are avaialbe on http://www.pennybright4epsom.org.nz )
John Banks is now the Minister of Regulatory Reform, yet four different ‘regulatory’ bodies failed to act against him, someone, who arguably couldn’t properly run a Kiwisaver Scheme, yet now has a key Ministerial post and is supposedly helping to run the country ‘perceived’ to be the ‘least corrupt in the world’? (According to Transparency Internaional’s 2011 ‘Corruption Perception Index, http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/ which obviously, in my considered opinion, is not worth the paper upon which it is written.)
I don’t expect the ACT MP for Epsom, Minister of Regulatory Reform, the ‘Honorable’ John Banks, to be particularly keen to see me, or this protest, which is intended to ‘hold his feet to the fire’.
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
Penny, Good luck with the protest.
Has there ever been any official explanation why Banks and Brash were not charged after the investigation into Huljich Wealth Management?
Ahead of the council’s budget announcement, Local Government Minister David Carter urged councils around the country to consider the sale of strategic assets rather than rates rises to fund projects.
“Mr Carter told TVNZ’s Q & A yesterday that local governments were in a similar position to central government, which intends to balance the books by selling up to 49 per cent of shares in the state-owned energy companies, and a further stake in Air NZ”
“I think if you look at my own city of Christchurch where we clearly have an extraordinary situation, the Christchurch balance sheet is strong with a number of assets, the council needs to make the decision.”
— One can see how this is going to play out in advance!
Not really surprising, National are all about getting the hands of the rich on our assets so that they can become even bigger
thievesrentiers.Matthew Hooton this morning got into his stride on his favourite subject, his own opinion about our economic situation and why it’s Labour’s fault. He talked over the top of Josie Pagani quite a lot. One swingeing quote – “No government anywhere in the world creates jobs”.
I’m sick of cynical negative right-wingers who quote figures from the sweepings of the economist floor as a reason for governments not doing anything. When we need practical policies to stimulate business or advance policies that will assist the mass of small taxpayers we get this do-nothing chant. We should be putting in Auckland’s rail while prices are cheap and spending on infrastructure resulting in more employment. Of course we do have to try to employ New Zealanders, not shoot ourselves in the foot bringing in cheap labour while our own people languish and despair and drink and drug or steal so they can have regular food, good housing that presently they are shut away from.
Also he talks about having a surplus in the 1990s and refers first to Ruth Richardson and Bill Birch with Michael Cullen added on. He was all right until the last three years and then spent on policies. ‘Working for Families is one of his insane policies that delivers welfare to the wealthy.’
He ignores what he must have learned in any studies he has done, that paying this sort of assistance to everyone cuts across the wealthy drone about how they are supporting low income drones and it’s not fair they should pay out all the time! Also it tends to be easier and cheaper to administrate when going to all in the target group, rather than scrutinising people’s rather than trying to sieve out the goodies from the bad low incomes.
And lastly this thing about ‘welfare’ – we all have advantage from the provisions that government makes for the nation. One of the things the wealthy and those in power have done is to trade most of our manufacturing jobs, a continuing process, because the world has gone free market which has had some advantages and massive disadvantages. It was obvious that jobs would be lost, the pr…ks knew this so now they are cynically blaming conditions on the poor and resenting every assistance.
prism:”Also it tends to be easier and cheaper to administrate when going to all in the target group, rather than scrutinising people’s rather than trying to sieve out the goodies from the bad low incomes.”
Pretty sure that at the time that is exactly Mr Cullens point. So true.
Drug lords are okay if they keep a high income and off the dole? The problem with fishing the pool of poor is that you aren’t as diligent at higher incomes. Providing welfare has never been justification for criminalization of the poorest – except by fascists. Sure there will always be some, like the lady who didn’t declare she was living with her husband. Just because one banker creates a ponsi scheme doesn’t mean all bankers are criminals.
The solution is to provide the basic limited income to survive as a negative income tax, that rewards people who have little to engage in economic activity, presently the system punitively scraps any extra income at 70c in the dollar blocking the stepping stone from a little work to part-time work.
Give the social injustice of large parts of the population leveraging themselves into massive debt exposure, and then desperate wanting tax cuts to continue their bubble economic vision. At the expense of future generations, the environment, all the activity economics of selling stuff sideways to create paper profit growth (asset sales), shows up the lying conceit in our elites.
lolz at Hooton yelling “Josie Josie Josie CALM DOWN!”
His self-awareness is hilariously low, even for a Golem.
felix 😀
Hooton does interrupt far too much. I think it’s a tactic to destroy the point that the other speaker is making. Certainly, I found it very hard to follow the thread of the arguments. I wish that Nat Radio took notice of that complaint.
Pleased to see you returned safely from the gorse fields, Felix.
Much quicker than I thought! Now for the blackberry…
Goats, its easier.
Goats! Don’t talk to me about goats.
They taste good after they have eaten the blackberries…..Rasa on Cuba St cooks a mean South Indian goat curry.
Makes for bad radio all round, the shouty Hooten and the underpowered Pagani…..a couple of go to media commentators with egos way out of proportion to their ability.
It would good to have more of a green commentator ‘from the left’ sometimes. Today’s comment about nobody being against growth would then be challenged. I’m more for redistribution, personally, and not in favour of ‘growth’ if it means exploitation of the planet’s limited resources.
Not even the NZ Green party is advocating for a zero-growth economic policy. You might as well find a militant Trotskyite to offer their perspectives for all the relevance for mainstream NZ politics.
How right you are, nobody will advocate a zero growth policy. I suspect the Greens will go as far as a zero balance policy on the “externalities” (especially environmental) that are currently unpaid in our economic system.
More importantly we had better get used to a zero growth economy because that is what we have now, and will have for good in the future. There is a methodology prior NZ governments have used for this scenario: its called “balancing the books”. Its got these nasty little necessities such as import controls etc. It used to upset most people, they will be again.
What???
Your second paragraph makes little sense. Something along the lines of we currently have zero growth now and should get used to it in future, (does this mean you are cool with everything), and then something about import controls. Truly bizarre shift in thinking there.
Gos, we currently have zero growth full stop.No problem so far, its demonstrable.
The next contention is get used to it: I happen to believe that resource depletion (in particular energy depletion) will result in a declining economy (as opposed to either growth or zero balance). There is lots of evidence (dont ask me to cite).
Final contention (also historically demonstrable) is that before growth became the accepted norm governments and businesses lived on their current balance, therefore had to balance their books.
Bizarre? What I find truly bizarre is the number of people walking blindfolded into a very evident future because they cant get out of the cornucopian mindset.
Funnily enough I’ve been having a similar discussion with someone on the Hot Topic blog recently (see, I haven’t been away from the internet completely).
Especially the Greens! They’re a farce, honestly. Blue-Greens, opportunists and irredeemably middle class…
Read Growth Fetish by Clive Hamilton
Do you have a better alternative from the left and the right then?
I don’t mind Hooton as a spokesperson for the right.
Some people seem to do though. Why all the complaining about him shouting down poor Josie Pagani?
I happen to think it reflects poorly on Hooten which I don’t mind at all, but it also reflects poorly on Pagani that she allows it. Williams doesn’t let Hooten shout him down. Neither does McCarten.
They all do it to an extent. Hooten tends to interupt when he spots BS during a long diatribe from the left wing commentator. Kathryn Ryan struggles at time to control him, (and the others), but generally does an okay job. Williams and Hooten end up agreeing with each more often than not so perhaps that is why he doesn’t interupt as much.
Who would you like to see doing these spots, presuming we stick with the “left v right” format?
Weirdness about 2 weeks ago, when Ryan messed up and said “From the Right, Mike Williams!”
That wasn’t the weird part – that happened when Williams said in response to her apology “That’s all right, I am really on the right, when I stop and think about it”.
With Ryan herself, that episode became a love fest of agreement amongst the three. 🙁
Well yeah, boil it down enough and they’re all discussing the issues of the day from strictly within the boundaries of our neo-liberal right wing economic paradigm.
goose only because style is more important than substance
Oh yes, a totally weird moment!
Maffoo and Josie, a greater and a lesser RWNJ! Who will speak for the Left?
Super token leftie Chris Trotter?
At least he knows that he is a lefty, Pagani would not even be able to define the term.
A press release on an end to the AFFCO dispute:
Joint Media Statement
21st May 2012
Significant Progress in AFFCO dispute
After a full day of negotiations in Auckland yesterday the parties to the long running industrial dispute at the AFFCO meat works have made significant progress and are now working quickly towards trying to reach a final agreement for union members to ratify.
The parties today reached provisional agreement on the core document and are now working towards the settlement of specific site documents.
As part of a joint commitment to building a new type of relationship the parties have agreed and committed to a return to work within a short time frame of all workers and the withdrawal or suspension of all legal action while the final details are agreed.
The union and the owners of AFFCO (Talley Group) have been greatly assisted by the Iwi Leaders Forum who were represented at the negotiations today and wish to jointly acknowledged the role this group has played in working with both sides to find solutions that will enable the company to thrive in the future and the workers to work under fair and reasonable conditions.
The Iwi leadership forum members including Ken Mair, Tukoroirangi Morgan and Sonny Tau are adamant that in order to achieve an enduring settlement between the two parties it must be hinged around trust and confidence.
“The commitment by Andrew Talley and senior management to an open and regular dialogue with Union officials goes a long way to restoring confidence and certainty,” said the Iwi leaders.
“We have both sought to learn from this dispute and ensure that moving forward we build in the opportunity for a new type of relationship between the company, the union and its members. We also both value the ongoing commitment from Iwi to support this relationship” Andrew Talley said on behalf of AFFCO.
“Our members will be greatly relieved that we have made this progress today and keenly interested in us moving towards a full settlement. They are very open to making these meat works the best in the country and will welcome a different type of relationship, “ Dave Eastlake Meat Workers General Secretary said.
The parties will be making no further comment while the process is continuing.
Any other people who hadn’t heard of Louis Crimp and wondered .. I’ve just put some informative links on Open Mike for yesterday 20/5. I meant to put it on today’s.
Guess how he made his money – pokies and not winning on them haha. You didn’t think that did you. No his business is in the machines – for the players he’s the ghost in the machine perhaps.
His original source of wealth was Andrew Housing, as far as I am aware. The bars and pokies came later
On Louis Crimp. Couldn’t easily get info about Andrew Housing but there was quite a lot about him. I am fascinated by his big hearted philanthropy. He bought a house sold as a fundraiser by hospice for three times the expected price was one thing that raised his profile. He always has plenty to say and seems to be consulted for comment ad nauseum.
Another project was to buy a carpark by a licensing trust tavern with the idea of building a hospital for alzheimers patients there. He has regular run ins with the Invercargill Licensing Trust which might be a hint about this idea. Here is a background link on this.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/5068041/Crimp-leaves-trees-across-tavern-driveway
Well there has to be a circut breaker sometimes, and Sonny and the Moerewa people were getting well pissed off with Talley’s in Northland. Maybe the frozen pea sales were dropping a bit too in the odd Pak ’n Save.
Not everything must be talked about on blogs. But, “the withdrawal or suspension of all legal action while the final details are agreed” is a worry because an ‘in favour of the union ruling’ as per Open Country Cheese as to the legality of employing scabs, not to mention the legality of the targeted lockouts while the MWU was in bargaining, could help a number of workers in the very near future with Talley’s favourite charity, the Natz about to take us all back to 1991.
Looks like a typical Talley’s tactical tit pull to me at first glance.
Tapu Misa on the lack of sacrifice by the rich and the excess sacrifice by the poor dealt by this government.
Well, so much for the rich running off to other countries if we raise taxes on them. If they did they’d be taxed more.
Perhaps they are bouyed by such articles…
NZ rated highly for investment safety
I guess they did not factor in the internal investor issues, about $10b lost of investors cash in the financial companies theft!
The drivel the quoted from the bloke at D & B is , confused, bob each way stuff!
That was exactly the para that I toyed with reposting here Draco. It is funny how higher taxes are always painted as a disaster and yet those northern European countries tax higher and do better. Especially when lower taxes are used as support for the myth that rich people provide the jobs rather than the poorer spending and working provide the wealth.
In addition to discourse, what types of activities are opponents to the current Neo-Liberal Capitalist Growth Economic Ideology Regime taking?
Subverting the forms of propaganda previously dominated by those abusing power.
But what Action; What translation into behaviour,care and guidance?
Downsizing?
Downshifting?
Deleveraging (urrgh!)
Reducing Reusing Recycling
Deinsuring
Disestablishing
Dissent before dishonour.
Leaving the payment of all greedy accounts till the 3 Month business payment schedule elapses?
Public transport use.
Kai gathering, home gardening, home cooking
I mean shutting off the blood supply to the greedy parasites.
Any more suggestions?
There is always the ‘5.56 option of last resort’, but I expect to see that in Europe sometime in the near future, not here. Maybe that will make a few of the corporate bludgers sit-up and take notice.
Yes, there are some good suggestions in there. As always, it is the doing that matters, at the personal level, rather than any list of possibles for the undefined masses. In that context then, here’s what a particular philosopher had to say a long time ago, shortly before he left a country that was descending into chaos:
“When the great Tao is forgotten,
goodness and piety appear.
When the body’s intelligence declines,
cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
Patriotism is born.”.
LaoTzu said the Tao was a way of natural harmony, greater than and existing before god. It’s interesting to see how the concept moves past good and bad as final resting points of human behaviour – listing them, really, as lesser evils – and reaches past that to an absolute kind of flowing/alternating order/disorder.
Within the context of your question on what each of us can do, via behaviour care and guidelines, we could do worse than use these guidelines as measure for action. LaoTzu’s political comments would also be echoed thousands of years later in social movements that understood that the overall good of the people as a collective mattered more than anything else; more than leaders careers, empire building or even the sciences. He was of the idea that materialism undermined the health of people and the earth.
Of course, his work has been fantastically abused by various Chinese leaders and historical figures since then, distorting it from a route to peace into sexual warfare and justification for totalitarianism and oppressions, but then so has Christianity under the capitalists. So as long as we understand this is a guide for our behaviour towards peace, not war and oppression, not as tool of offense, then we’ll stay the right side of the line – I hope. Shouldn’t be too hard to translate into modern terminology: you touch on several points already, such as “downsizing”, “downshifting” etc.
“Throw away holiness and wisdom’
and the people will be a hundred times happier.
Throw away morality and justice,
and people will do the right thing.
Throw away industry and profit,
and there won’t be any thieves.
If these three aren’t enough,
just stay at the centre of the circle
and let all things take their course.”
This pretty much spells out the main idea: while man cannot hope to not act in response to events, he should know how to do the least amount of damage and reach for the action of in-action that will naturally lead to the best action. As left eventually becomes right, why get into the power struggle at all?
“The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centred within the Tao.
When rich speculators prosper,
while farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money,
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn –
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.”
The Tao Te Ching is somewhat of an oxymoron, since it’s existence contradicts the goal of the masters, which was to not speak, but do. It was written, we are told, because someone asked for guidelines to the art of living as a master was leaving a particular part of the country. I think that “leaving” actually meant he was approaching death, but we could get lost in metaphors and lose the message: action, above all else.
There is another frequently cited tale that says a region was under all kinds of trouble, environmentally and socially, and a master was called to settle it. He camped on the outskirts of the region, isolated and seeing no one, until things returned to normal – which was within a few days. The idea is that he was so in tune with the natural way of things, that his presence, his act of relocating, brought natural balance back to the region. He didn’t talk, and neither should anyone, is the meaning. Do something that moves toward balance, instead.
The Master doesn’t try to be powerful;
Thus he is truly powerful.
The ordinary man keeps reaching for power;
Thus he never has enough.
The Master does nothing,
Yet leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
Yet many more things are left to be done.
The kind man does something,
Yet something remains undone
The just man does something,
And leaves many things to be done.
The moral man does something,
And when no one responds
He rolls up his sleeves and uses force.
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
The beginning of chaos.
Therefore the Master concerns himself
With the depths and not the surface,
With the fruit and not the flower.
He has no will of his own.
He dwells in reality,
And lets all illusion go.”
That second to last verse, the following backwards of effect and stages of decline are echoed in the other famous Book of Changes, which precedes our modern Leftist ideas that there is a reason for everything, by a long way; that nothing is simple, and that there is only the point where you stop looking. Unfortunately, Taoism also condemns statistics completely as an idiocy.
And the final example, with the dry humour and realism that many of the verses hold:
Governing a large country is like frying a small fish.
You spoil it too much with poking.
Centre your country in the Tao
And evil will have no power.
Not that it isn’t there,
But you’ll be able to step out of its way.
Give evil nothing to oppose
And it will disappear by itself.”
Or as you put it: “… shutting off the blood supply to the greedy parasites.”
Oh very nice. I appreciated this.
Post of the week. Thanks 🙂
Plus you got us all talking slopely 😀
Thank you from the deepest parts of me. “This is the way, step inside(the Storm and non-act)
Did you see the Joy Division reference, did ya see it……
Richard Wolff, Professor of Economics,University of Massachusetts: The Costs of Capitalism’s Crisis: Who Will Pay.
(YouTube: 1.35.01)
Fifty one percent local ownership, Mugabe style.
What is this madness? http://wonderfulnow.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/one-more-thing-before-i-go.html
That Louis Crimp chappie from down south, who gave 100K+ to ACT to “do somethng about the maoris” who are “full of welfare and crime”, and who ACT now say they think says offensive things but they’ll take his money, (given to achieve offensive things), anyway…
… will be on Campbell live tonight, even though he didn’t know the camera was rolling.
“… will be on Campbell live tonight, even though he didn’t know the camera was rolling.”
Like shooting fish in a barrel.
” not a native tree, but a nice English tree like an oak” lol. That reporter was very good.
(Crimp had asked her if she had ever had sex against a tree)
It is enough to make a person embarrassed to have even walked the same streets as he did!
I have looked in vain for the $500,000,000.00 that he says is going into finding Te Reo but if we are cutting Māori Language funding even though it is a legal language of this country, then I presume that monies dedictaed to the teaching of English and NZ Sign will also be cut freeing up that funding for something else?!
The man is an idiot and a bully. I notice that he has threatened that he will not fund Act if they don’t make the abolition of Te Reo funding a non-negotiable. That is what he did to Stadium Southland Trust vis a vis the acknowledgment of ILT funding for the project. ILT has poured far more money into the Invercargill community than Louis Crimp ever will but the trustees gave into his blackmail. It will be interesting to see how Act respond
I saw that, and now I see why the Hell Pizza owners decided to approach Clive to put their case and refused to appear on Sunday on TV1…
The interviewer on Clive are giving the owner a sympathetic ear, she’s oozing with sweet kind questions (no hard ones) and it’s obvious why he chose to refuse Sunday and appear on Clive, after all, how many times has TV 3 ever criticised business men?
Why is everything in italics? Weird…
That’s what happens when the kids don’t put their tags away.
Alright, who left their tags on the stairs?
That was UTurn.
http://www.3news.co.nz/No-regret-for-Maori-comments-says-Crimp/tabid/817/articleID/255038/Default.aspx
He’s lost his marbles. If he ever had too many to begin with…
Act sure does attract them!!!
and who is Susan English’s brother in law??
SOUTHERN EQUITIES LIMITED (156001)
Shareholders in Allocation:
Allocation 1:13333334 shares
Susan Joy ENGLISH
22 Vera Street, Karori, Wellington 6012 , New Zealand
Rex Thomas CHAPMAN
42 Don Street, Invercargill 9810 , New Zealand
James Bartholomew HENNESSY
345 Bainfield Road, Rd 2, Invercargill, 9872 , New Zealand
Louis Mervyn CRIMP
164 Mill Road South, No 1 R D, Invercargill 9871 , New Zealand
Don Brash was one of the few hopes for New Zealand he said at the time about 5 years ago it would be harder than the second world war to get New Zealand to a Growing sustainable country catching up with Australia. That was over 5 years ago and he was ignored along with many of Acts initial policy’s. So if was as hard as war then well.
The Solution is:
I really see it, first we need pleading to international help to help us recover and get international aid. We need to outsource Government departments such as entire health sector to Australia to administer. We need to have boarder-less “passport free” crossing to Australia, common currency just for start.
We then need to remove RMA completely and privatize the Building Department and all associated acts.
Sell the entire Tertiary Education sector.
Reduce income tax to 10%
Removed GST of all food, and basic living items.
Introduce Capital gains tax
Sell parts or New Zealand to Europe and America allowing them to create cities such as a French city in South island ran and administered by France.
Increase school standards. (Longer Day- Real economic teaching learn anther language from early on.)
Remove the treaty of Wiatangi form many government items.
Put some Politicians in jail. ( And look at performance pay- Electronic Elections on the internet).
Write a CONSTITUTION based on the American.
Removed number of MPs make it 99 and fix MMP i.e. party percent list choice elected from public.
Remove Government Standards: i.e allow cheap quality small electric cars on road. Allow Insurance companies to take risk analysis – not Government
Increase tax on alcohol. Also other government arbitrary standards which may not have cost benefit logical ratio.
Sell some roads completely.
Remove many testing and certification schemes.
Reduce all fines by 50%
Sell ACC and allow privatization and suing
Removed 50% of Government Agency’s and ministry’s.
Stop putting money in the Rugby industry.
Sue the transport minister for spending millionths on motorways for the Roading Lobby.
Invest in heavy public transport and bike lanes for the big city’s.
Gee its going to be hard for someone.
Right, so your solution to the problem is more of the same?
I’ll put it this way: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Don’t think we’ve really tried it Draco at all National are just keeping the same old Labour Policies but doing things slower with the exception of Motorway Lust.
Key always said Don Brash and Roger Douglas policies where unworkable and extreme. Well perhaps we need some “extreme” stuff to get NZ on track.
Driving NZ off a cliff is extreme, but it won’t get us back on track.
Giving every NZer a decent wage is the way to get us back on track. We print the money, we implement a CGT, we implement an FTT and we implement a 0.5% pa wealth tax to pay for it.
Capital which leaves the country for reasons other than the facilitation of direct trade is also taxed.
Oh yeah, the nationalisation of core economic infrastructure back into public and community ownership and control.
Extreme enough for you?
Not really Colonial that extreme – good to see you thinking. Printing credit is well overdue- absolutely Should funded some council projects for a few years.
Basically one side of the economic philosophy here is to allow quicker and rapid exchange of service and expertise between citizens of this country without third-party holdups and Government intervention. This is probably one of the quickest ways to allow society to exchange goods services and find a natural system which benefits all parties.
Allowing business to open run services people want rapidly. (Super Rapid – Houses built in a week sort of fast) In fact no building consents, all done on buyer choice buyer insurance schemes and “enforced” contract law.
So you could quickly find the service you are best to aid society with and also reap rewards of other diligent members of the commerce community for a price your happy with.
We’re all adults we don’t need Government checking every transaction and business idea to make sure they fit all governments rules and regulations.
Ah, a libertarian or, in other words, someone who’s all for oppressing the majority of people. Yes, that is the result of the BS you peddle.
A major reason why we have regulation is so that everyone is working with the best knowledge. We all adults, yes, we’re not all omniscient gods. The consent process is there to ensure that houses are built to best standards (well, that’s the theory unfortunately the government seems to have forgotten that and set minimum standards well bellow what they should be). If you remove those standards and remove the process to ensure those standards then what we will have would be a situation much worse than the leaking homes saga and no one would be accountable for it. People would start a business, make millions and then, as soon as trouble looked like it was starting, liquidate the business.
We’re a democracy so government happens to be us, what we call government is actually our administrative arm and, like all administration, it’s needed. Unfortunately, idiots like you go round telling people that our needed administration is evil.
I’ll think about what you wrote for a while.
“People would start a business, make millions and then, as soon as trouble looked like it was starting, liquidate the business.”
That’s what happens now.
Perhaps under contract law, when you purchase a Product you look to see if they have a long history and perhaps their underwriters.
And perhaps even write and agreement which binds your purchase to the personal seller of the product and not the business. ( guess in Contract Law you could write any terms and conditions in you wanted, as long as you both agree and sign off on it.)
In fact business models could start which take care of purchasing contracts and could even insure the product as security. Sort of like Safeseller on trademe
They way I see it things get more and more interesting and more productive and harmonious in Libertarian economics.
LOL, no, they get more litigious and most people can’t afford the lawyers required to help negotiate the contracts or enforce the contracts that are signed.
..
Anthony – thanks for your random assortment of unworkable, nation destroying fantasies.
outsourcing government departments to Australia? Really. I heard on RNZ in the last few days that some Australian states are complaining that they aren’t given equal treatment nationally with the bigger more powerful states like NSW. I think it’s to do with being given less funding and consideration in policies.
And you think NZ wouldn’t be undermined by any Australian-based governance of NZ?
Ditto for any control of cities by French or US interests – it would open these cities to yet more plundering by wealthy and powerful overseas interests.