New Zealand has entered a new debt-fuelled phase of economic growth, say Westpac.
The bank is forecasting that “real” house prices will drop by 1.4 per cent in 2018.
Westpac said Kiwis were in a “borrow and spend” cycle that could not be sustained and it expected economic growth would also slow from 2018.
The report said the average household had debts equivalent to 162 per cent of their annual disposable income.
That was higher than the peak of 159 per cent reached in 2009 during the “global financial crisis” and had “completely reversed the reduction in debt levels seen over the last few years.
Russia and China buying hundreds of thousands of ounces of physical, delivered gold a month (as opposed to paper promises/paper options) is also a factor.
Budget coming up. My Nat contacts seem to be in the know and appear to be excited. No doubt the Budget will set the scene and strengthen campaigning that’ll start just under seven months. Last year, Labour didn’t put out an alternative Budget, maybe because Grant was still new and in his first year in the Finance portfolio. Hoping Labour will have a promising alternative Budget this year that’ll energise supporters.
i’d expect another solid increase in the minimum wage as well, as part of National’s early positioning. Them workers derserve their share of our successful economy you know.
Meanwhile, Labour have not yet concretely backed a move to the living wage $19/hr, and National will soon move the minimum wage to $15.75/hr is my bet.
I think they will just continue to cover the total Crown debt with a media headline of tax cuts to come.
The counter-narrative isn’t easy but the collective Opposition has to stick to theme of housing bubble, dairy decline, and a directionless country led by the corrupt and the cruel.
If I were Labour I would announce nothing at all. No need, and has no effect.
Key and English have set 2017 as theirs to lose and there’s very little this Opposition can do about it, other than let the pattern of NZ political history take over.
Temer has said he is prepared to make unpopular decisions because he does not intend to stand for re-election in 2018. He is barred from running due to previous electoral violations – and is so widely disliked that he would not stand a chance of winning even if he could.
“I do not need to practice gestures or actions leading to a possible re-election. I can even be – shall we say – unpopular as long as it produces benefits for the country. For me, that would be enough,” he told a local news program.
“· info)); French: blow of state; plural: coups d’état), also known simply as a coup, or an overthrow, is the sudden and forced seizure of a state, usually instigated by a small group of the existing government establishment to depose the established regime and replace it with a new ruling body.”
think you will find that coup d’etat is exactly the correct description ….and are you seriously going to try to suggest the instigators are not neoliberal given the policy outlined immediately they seized power?
Sobering isn’t it CV? Wonder why the Establishment doesn’t like Noam?
Here of course Bill manipulates the figures to make the books look better. But here Bill gets praise not impeachment.
NZ yearly GHG Emmission Inventory report. Some sober reading, esp the 25 yr perspective, but interesting too. It’s not just about the carbon, and bold pointers to where the most emissions are coming from (ag, transport)
Irrelevant tosh CV. New Zealand has a peculiar emissions foot-print among developed, high emitting nations, but seeing as how AGW is a global problem…
If the principle focus is put on land use, then concentrations of CO2 (or CO2e if you prefer) are going to keep increasing with an increase in surface temperatures tacking along behind.
Land use emissions need to be reduced – no argument from anyone there. Fossil emissions need to be eliminated altogether.
Question. If coal and other fossil hadn’t been adopted as primary sources of energy back in the mid to late 1800s and carbon neutral energy sources adopted instead, and if modern, industrial agriculture had developed to be exactly as it is today under that scenario, then would we be facing anything like the level of AGW that we’re currently faced with?
Answer. No.
Question. If modern industrial agriculture had developed in a different direction – if it had trod lightly and mindfully with regards environmental impacts – but fossil was still the principle source of energy, then would we be facing anything like the level of AGW that we are today?
So why are we not designing a GHG emissions limitation programme for NZ which is a unique fit with where we as a nation are doing the most climate change damage, instead of implementing a generic emissions limitation programme which is generically suited to the rest of the developed, high emitting world, and which ignores our own special characteristics?
Because it’s a global problem that will only be solved by eradicating the burning of fossil across the entire globe. It doesn’t matter what else NZ does with regards emissions (and yes, other stuff absolutely should be done) if the eradication of fossil is ignored.
You think NZ sits on another planet from the rest of the world or should promote itself as a ‘special case’ with regards fossil?
See, there are special cases, at least in the short term, with regards fossil CV – swathes of Asia and Africa. In the interests of the equity contained in all of the Accords or Agreements our government signed up to, those places that are developing nations get to use fossil for a little longer to lay in infrastructure (hospitals, energy systems etc) so that the people living in them can have reasonable lives in the future.
Then they (the Annex 2 countries) must be fossil free by 2050 if we (the entire global population) want to afford ourselves even a slim chance of achieving anything like merely two degrees of warming.
Bill, I’m not convinced that that No and Yes are quite as unequivocal as you’ve presented.
Yes, the headline figure is the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and the rise from 280ppm to 405ppm is almost entirely due to using fossil fuels, with a small contribution from burning forests, releasing carbon from soils and wetlands due to agriculture. But the important figure for warming on say a ten-year timescale is the CO2 equivalent. I’ve seen some credible estimates we’re as high as 700ppm CO2eq, driven primarily by methane. I haven’t seen credible breakdowns of how that rise in methane splits between domestic animals, land clearance, fracking/coal mining, warming arctic/seafloor releases, etc.
The way I’d put it is that CO2 releases from (really stupid) burning of fossil fuels gives us a long-term warming problem that’s going to be really difficult to correct. The releases of methane and other GHGs from (really stupid) unsustainable agricultural practices gives us a short-term warming problem that will largely go away within a few decades of ceasing the stupid practices.
You noted that in the “no fossil and same land use” scenario I didn’t suggest no AGW, but rather that the scale of AGW would not be the same, yes?
The overall effects arising from basket of GHG isn’t something I profess to understanding. I think it’s fair to say that nobody quite gets it because of the convoluted interactions of positive and negative forcings involved.
In one of Kevin Anderson’s presentations, he suggests that the positive and negative forcings are as close as damn it to cancelling one another out, and so that on current concentrations, if we want a workable picture of what the hell is going on, we can put them to one side and focus on CO2. I don’t know if that’s a reasonable way to view things but I’m not aware of that approach having been taken to task on the grounds it’s either unrealistic or irresponsible.
Methane breaks down into CO2 btw. So after the 20 or 30 years of it having a x20 or x30 impact on warming, it doesn’t just stop, but breaks down to produce a given volume of CO2 that has a lesser but much longer impact.
I took your two scenarios to be “fossil fuels burned, no increase in land-use emissions” which would be 400ppm CO2, wild guess 500ppm CO2eq including fracking/mining emissions, vs “no fossil fuels, changed agricultural land-use” which would be 280ppm CO2, wild guess 450ppm CO2eq from the added methane from domestic animals, draining wetlands etc. Not a huge difference between the two (but both nowhere near as bad as what we’re actually facing). But the “no fossil fuels” scenario has the potential to revert to 280ppm CO2/300ish CO2eq within a few decades if ag emissions stopped, whereas the 400ppm CO2 will take millennia to drop back.
Yes, well aware that CH4 oxidises to CO2 in the atmosphere with a half-life of 8-ish years. And that a molecule of CH4 has a warming effect over a hundred times stronger than a molecule of CO2. The 80x stronger over 20 years or 20x stronger over 100 years figures are the integrated “warming strength x probability of survival” calculations. Which highlights that methane’s effects happen now but mostly tail off relatively quickly, whereas CO2 is effectively forever.
Don’t forget about atmospheric pollution contributing between 1 deg C to 2 deg C worth of “global dimming” to the planet.
A massive cut in the burning of fossil fuels leading to a big drop in atmospheric pollution will immediately send us into 2.5 deg C to 3.5 deg C of warming.
Ahhhh, OK, so typing this, whoops it looks to me like we’re now officially fucked regardless of which way we turn, i.e. whether or not we cut fossil fuel emissions by 0%, by 50% or by 100%.
Global dimming due to atmospheric pollution is currently providing 1 deg C to 2 deg C of cooling to the world. AFAIK that is the state of the art understanding of the phenomenon.
Oh, I know there’s a cooling effect offered by particulates from burning coal for example. (you stated it was 1 – 2 degrees C worth) Then you gleefully stated an immediate 2.5 – 3 degree C of warming would result from not burning fossil. I asked for a verifiable source that would echo or back those numbers.
Do you have a source that says all ‘dimming’ is the result of fossil fuel combustion…cause that’s what you’re claiming.
The dimming observed over recent decades is due to atmospheric pollutants. Whether all those atmospheric pollutants are a result of fossil fuel combustion – I have no idea.
Alternatively, do you have a source that says all fossil related ‘dimming’ amounts to a one or two degrees Celsius suppression of temperatures?
All I know is that the best guess for total global dimming is that it sits between one degree and two degree Celsius.
You already know how I read all of this. We’re already well past 2 deg C warming, any way that we turn now.
I can’t quite see why you reckon there would only be a difference of 50ppm CO2e in the two scenarios.
I’d suggest that if we hadn’t burned fossil, but somehow arrived at the same land use pattern as today then yes, there’d be some signs of warming…. if anyone bothered to look for it. (ie, it would be more or inconsequential at this stage). And we’d have hundreds and hundreds of years in which to change our land use patterns and avert any noticeable climatic impact from any potential long term warming we were causing.
Because our agricultural land-use patterns of draining wetlands, clearing forests, growing shallow rooted annuals (instead of deep-rooted perennials), choosing ruminant species for livestock, all contribute to putting a lot of methane into the atmosphere. On an ongoing basis.
I’ve seen a few credible papers that suggest that without the global warming due to pre-industrial farming, the late 1800s climate we now take as a pre-industrial baseline would likely have been closer to the “little ice age” of the 1600s. (No, I’m not getting confused with the popular press misrepresentations of the 70s that “an ice age is coming, get prepared”).
But even taking that as read for the sake of argument (that the climate of the 1800s was already warmer due to land use), how do you get the point whereby you more or less equate current land use emissions to fossil related emissions? (in your ppm CO2e numbers)
If today has an atmospheric CO2e of around 550ppm (I don’t think that’s too far off the mark, but haven’t looked it up), then to get a very rough estimate of land use contributions, we’d subtract the 80% of CO2 that comes from fossil and then we’d subtract all the other GHG that come from coal burning and what not to arrive at a figure for land use.
On the other side of the coin, we’d take the 550ppm CO2e and subtract some agreed portion of the 20% of CO2 that comes from land use (there would always be some GHG from land use no matter what) and we’d also subtract whatever proportion of the other GHGs that come from land use.
The first calculation might look something like 550 – 80 – 80 (is assuming similar proportions by source, and so up towards ~ 80% of GHG from fossil way too high?) = 410ppmCO2e
The second might run approximately somewhere like 550 – 20 – 20 = 510ppmCO2e.
So I’m getting somewhere in the region of a 100ppm difference to your 50ppm difference. Regardless, the claim that the interplay of the forcings from GHG – other than CO2 – more or less negate one another, if a reasonable claim, makes all these rough back of the envelope sums irrelevant. And we both pick fossil as the principle driver of AGW.
So Ag is by far the biggest contributor of GHGs, more than 20% bigger than transport which is no. 2.
You may not like some of the “vegan propaganda” in Cowspiracy but it appears that they have a point, does it not.
It’s an interesting question CV. I guess for me it rests on whether we consider propaganda to be a useful tool in addressing climate change. By propaganda I mean basing one’s argument on ideology but not being upfront about that, and using misleading facts and arguments that push that underlying ideology. At its worst, Cowspiracy looks like its using CC to try and convert society to being vegan. If this wasn’t about ideology, the message would be very different (eat less meat/dairy, eat local, support small growers etc. You can’t argue that if you are a fundamentalist, evangelical vegan though).
I have no problem with someone being vegan. Nor with the idea that developped countries should be eating less meat and dairy because of AGW. But there is a huge difference between eating less meat/dairy and becoming vegan. I’m not convinced that proselytising veganism is a useful strategy. Most people aren’t going to do well on a vegan diet, so how would they be convinced to stay on it for any length of time? (plus all the other arguments I’m sure you’ve heard me make).
I also think there are serious problems with using misleading facts and arguments to try and shift culture. When people find out, they’re going to be angry.
In relation to the report, most of the increase in emissions in the last 25 years is from industrialised dairy (enteric gases, fertiliser use). I think we establised the other day that most milk grown in NZ is exported, so basically NZ is producing emissions to make money. Nothing to do with feeding ourselves. NZ doesn’t have to become vegan in order to reduce those emissions again.
Pretty sure you know my base argument is that it’s not what you grow (or eat) it’s how you do it that matters. The problem with vegan proselytising is that it traps people into a path that isn’t necessarily going to help us in the long run. We need to be reducing food miles far more than becoming vegan. We need conversions to sustainable agriculture far more than we need conversions to veganism. In NZ a vegan diet is generally an industrially produced, imported one, and it relies on the Monsanto-ed monocropping nightmare that destroys soil and emits carbon. I’d prefer to encourage people to eat local, eat seasonal, reduce meat/dairy consumption, increase veges, and prioritise small growers esp regenag ones. All of those things bring multiple benefits that becoming vegan doesn’t. They’re much more achieveable for NZ too.
“I’m fascinated that you think that this is a discussion on becoming vegan.”
I don’t. You are the one that specifically asked me about a film made by vegans and promoting veganism as a way of reducing GHG emissions. I took your question in good faith.
Here’s what you said in its entirety,
So Ag is by far the biggest contributor of GHGs, more than 20% bigger than transport which is no. 2.
You may not like some of the “vegan propaganda” in Cowspiracy but it appears that they have a point, does it not.
“This is a discussion on addressing the fact that in NZ, agriculture generates a lot more GHGs than transport does, and it is the no 1 source of GHGs.”
I posted a link to the NZ report, which is about a lot of things. You responded by asking me about a vegan film and NZ’s agricultural emissions. If you wanted to limit the conversation to NZ ag, then maybe you could have been clearer in your question.
tbh, I have no idea what you are doing. If you look at my last comment, I talked about a lot more than veganism so you could easily just clarify that that’s not what you meant and then focussed on the other things. Instead you appear to be trying to have a go at me. Not in the mood for a fight today. Really happy to share my ideas on what NZ could or should do to reduce ag GHG emissions though.
“Modern” agriculture and fossil fuel use go hand in hand because the adoption of those ‘cultures’ springs from the same source; producing more than the producer can eat at point source. Build a grain silo, Buzz, and you’re on your way to 400 ppm and beyond!
” Build a grain silo, Buzz, and you’re on your way to 400 ppm and beyond!”
I guess that could be extrapolated to be accurate but note that the ancients had grain silos and farmed for excess (for the obvious reasons) and C ppm didn’t move until industrial revolution…along with population explosion.
we could equally say develop speech and have an opposable thumb and your on your way to 400 ppm and beyond
Pat – speech and an opposable thumb don’t lead to the creation of silo-guards charged with the protection of stored wealth, nor the need to pay those guards to do their job. Many communities consisting humans that could talk and hold a feather to the light didn’t go down the agricultural path, but instead, trod more delicately on the bosom of their Mother. Farming for excess was not a necessity, it was a choice. The wrong choice, it turns out.’cause, fossil fuels.
and which lifestyle choice became dominant , almost exclusive?
Humans are dominant as they are the most successful manipulators…we manipulate items, we manipulate the environment, we manipulate ourselves and each other….and those most skilled of us at this are deemed successful.
The silo-builders won dominance and are still holding that position as we approach Farmergeddon. That doesn’t sound like a win to me. “The most skilled at this are deemed successful”, indeed, deemed as such by the members of their tribe but regarded as pariah by those who are outside of that culture.
Do you, Pat, believe the environment has been skillfully manipulated, given its present state and outlook?
Well, when your ‘manipulation’ involves guns and visiting ‘total war’ on cultures and societies that may have neither guns nor an appetite for ‘total war’…then sure, ‘your’ way becomes successful 😉
When we cunningly manipulate materials to come up with stuff like diesel engines and then, in short order, re-design them to run on fossil fuel while knowing full well the physics behind fossil fuel combustion (the CO2)…is that even intelligent, never mind successful?
There’s smart stuff and cunning stuff, but wa-aa-a-y over there on the other hand, there’s intelligent stuff.
As to intelligent (or wise) ..I imagine those of our ancestors who founded the worlds various religions were considered wise and intelligent in their time…..little did they know how that would turn out I suspect.
Well, maybe I should have said ‘European civilisation’ instead of the collective ‘your’, seeing as how I was thinking of colonisation when making the comment.
As for religion…yes, I think you’re probably right to say that they were considered wise and what not. Whether the saw themselves that way, or laughed up their sleeves at the very thought of it as they got on with plotting and scheming over how to better accrue more privilege and wealth….
At every point in the humanity’s progress through time there have been humans saying tai hoa to the progress of the “dominant manipulators” (call them what you will). This message is not new, it’s been delivered multiple times, to little effect, until now. ’cause climate change/species extinction/acidic oceans te mea te mea.
We’re agreed on the need for a new one – good.
That “they’ll” fight is of no consequence, we have no choice but to put 100% of our energies into it. Ditto being maybe “too late”, that “maybe” is all the hope we need. That’s how great challenges are overcome, discounting the opposition and wasting no time.
I’m not preaching optimism here, just the pragmatism required to succeed.
Imagine if…we simply stopped following people and followed ideas instead.
Overnight, this model we have, and all possible variations of this model we have, and all the people who head all the institutions that would defend this model we have, or justify this model we have, and all the people who would hope to exploit or manipulate this model we have – all of that would be gone.
Wouldn’t that be a fine thing?
No bad ideas or dodgy ideas getting forced by someone wielding the delightful instruments of persuasion, such as, the whip or the chain or the gun.
If we only followed ideas, then no-one could ever hope to be followed or ‘lifted up’ by associating themselves with an idea, or by forcing the adoption of an idea.
“That’s how great challenges are overcome, discounting the opposition and wasting no time.
I’m not preaching optimism here, just the pragmatism required to succeed.”
that’s the plan….and hope springs eternal….except when it dosn’t
So if Hope was all that was left inside Pandora’s Box, then what, do you think, was it within Pandora’s Box that created all the despair in the first place…springing eternal an all an all 😉
There was nothing good in Pandora’s Box. Just all the evil (or despair) of the world.
Which ideas? Why, the good ones of course! Okay – very broad brush stroke…
…principally ideas that flourish and that are rooted deep within concepts of meaningful democracy. Ideas, sans illegitimate authority, tend to spread rhizomatically. And ideas that need to be forcibly transplanted or grafted are probably just bad ideas…
…and I’m over trying to work this on a nature angle
Good ideas are those ideas generated by you and your community, that affect you and your community, and that you and your community execute. (note: assume the community to be an elastic and ever changing social entity.)
Bad ideas are those that are imposed from the outside and that disempower those who will be affected.
Ideas that come with a person attached in a way that the person is then afforded authority, are bad ideas. Always. History keeps trying to teach us that lesson and we keep ‘just not getting it’ for some reason.
edit – when I say ‘authority’ I’m referring to permanent, institutional or entrenched authority, not the transient authority that the builder’s knowledge may give the builder on aspects of a building project.
Nothing good in Pandora’s box, Bill?
There was hope for starters.
Those ills you list were already in the world. What was really in Pandora’s box were endless possibilities, some of which represented wise choices for Mankind, others which were disastrous. Once we opened the box and began choosing this and that, our future was determined by those choices. But always, there was hope. Good and bad doesn’t come into it. It’s difficult to converse without using those words, but attempting to is a worthwhile exercise when exploring this topic (the most important topic of all, in my view). There is a dichotomy that is useful though, and that’s life-giving (pro-biotic) and life-taking (anti-biotic). Addressing challenges probiotically gives different results from when antibiotic actions are applied. Adding.v.taking away. Racism in a bi-racial community? Remove one of the parties or bring in a multitude of races to diminish-to-zero the conflict. One dominant ideology creating imbalance and injustice in a community/country/world? Bring in a multitude of ideologies to occupy space being held by the Dominator. Other polarities that are useful models for our new way(s): multiplicity.v.singularity – keep it multitudinous, avoid over-simplification – polyculture.v.monoculture. There’s much more to this, naturally enough, but those starters might stimulate some interest. I apologise for not using the model you offered, I enjoyed reading your comment and agree with your view.
weka, producing less meat and dairy is what I was aiming at in terms of significantly reducing both global and NZ ag GHG emissions, who knows what world you live in though where that necessarily means people becoming vegan.
BTW if you can’t watch something like Cowspiracy or read something like the Bible and not get some value out of it without having to convert to whatever their proselytizing about, that’s not my issue its yours.
For the record again, I’m never becoming vegan, good luck to those who do.
edit – you are full of good ideas and insights that I often learn from, but having discussions with you nowadays is full of fucking minefields and who needs it, thanks.
I’ll just repeat, the only reason I’ve said anything about vegans is because you brought up Cowspiracy and asked me specifically if I thought the film had a point. I answered in good faith 🙂 Personally, I don’t think the vegan issue is particularly relevant to the discussion. It only comes up as a political issue when people use it as a reference point in CC discussions. The meme that is developping around the film is IMO dangerous, which is why I tend to respond in the way I do about it.
“producing less meat and dairy is what I was aiming at in terms of significantly reducing both global and NZ ag GHG emissions,”
I guess there’s an issue there about who is responsible for the dairying GHG emissions, us or the people buying and consuming the products (I think it’s us). My general approach to CC is think global, act local. So we need to think about CC in its global context (because of the obvious), but that we have pretty limited control over other nations and peoples. We can instead act locally, find the solutions that work here, share them with other people, learn from other people , do the politically responsible things (foreign aid, lobbying etc), but let other countries and peoples find their own solutions.
Maybe as well as reducing our GHG emissions, reducing dairying is a service to the rest of the world, both in terms of limiting the supply of meat/dairy, and in demonstrating that a country this size can make a living without polluting. That’s at an ideas level obviously, it’s not like anyone in power is even considering lowering dairying (apart from the Greens). Mostly I think one job at the moment is to initiate discussion of other ways.
That’s why for a number of years I’ve been making comments about regenag (and a post coming soon). It’s technically feasible for NZ to convert its farming to something sustainable right now, there are enough farmers here who have pioneered the techniques. I don’t believe the solution to NZ’s GHG emissions is BAU and GE ryegrass.
As ever it’s the lack of political and public will that’s the problem. Nevertheless there are people who are continuing to do the right thing and if NZ does get it’s act together politically I can see agriculture here changing quite fast.
This article claims that Sandersism has won, whether Bernie wins the nomination or not. The writer might be a bit too optimistic, but the Sanders movement has at least exposed business-as-usual for what it is and is seriously aiming a stake at TINA’s vampire heart.
Hopeful Olwyn? “The Democratic Party as the Clintons remade it in the 1990s is dead, and the most Clinton can do is steer her little ghost-ship a few more miles until it finally wrecks itself on an offshore sandbar.
Clinton may win the battle in 2016, but only political neophytes — and a few Washington Post columnists, I suppose — fail to see that she’s already lost the war.”
I am always a bit cautious in my optimism 🙂 – look at what is happening in Brazil, for instance. I am confident that the third-way left have lost whatever credibility they may have had, but am also aware of how well-resourced and determined the TINA gang are.
If the Labour Party operated on a ‘one person one vote’ basis, then I’d be inclined to suggest it would already have happened and that Cunliffe would likely still be the leader of the Labour Party. Just look at how UK Labour is changing under Corbyn with their ‘one person one vote’ system – caucus, for all their antipathy towards him and his politics, can’t touch him.
Unfortunately for us in NZ, with a system that allows a caucus 40% of the vote and the unions 15% of the vote…okay, would Corbyn still be leading the UK Labour Party under NZs set up?
I don’t know the numbers and I’m not about to go away and crunch them. But suffice to say I have my doubts.
Based on what I’ve heard from members, I can, but it might be a while.
The Labour caucus and the moderating committee is now largely under the control of the following factions:
1) the “young” careerists, typically 45 and under
2) the right wing, typically 45 plus
The fucked/zero leverage factions are the pro-Cunliffe, formerly pro-Cunliffe, and left wing. I estimate that together they now represent around, or less than, 25% of caucus.
Notice how Little has no faction in caucus to call his own, but he does have affiliate muscle behind him.
Now, IMO Labour has two more General Elections left in it. If it loses both of them (2017 and 2020) it will permanently slide into minor party status (sub 20%).
My call for 2017 is Labour 25% (=2014) +/-3%, with a negative outlook. Labour is unlikely to take the Treasury benches on those numbers.
So the question is – does your comment “but it might be quite a while” suggest a time frame before 2020, or a timeframe after 2020.
Instead, they believe that appealing to the centrist middle class swing voter because they are the ones who decide election outcomes is what they need to do.
@ CV: They need to remember that Key did not win any elections by dumping his core constituency and replacing it with a middle class one – instead he (or Brash before him) consolidated his wealthy, right wing constituency and worked to add the middle class to what he already had.
Right Faction
1 Shearer
2 Goff (retiring)
3 King (possibly retiring)
4 Davis
5 Parker
6 Nash
7 Cosgrove (retiring)
8 O’Connor
9 Fa’afoi
Young Careerists Faction
1 Robertson
2 Hipkins
3 Ardern
4 Twyford
5 Curran
6 Clark
7 Mallard (or should he be in Right Faction ?)
8 Woods (or Left ?)
9 Dyson (or Left ?)
Approx 85% accurate. A very good job mate. A few of the line calls. Tirikatene and Fa’foi I would place in the careerist camp. Sepuloni former Cunliffe camp. Mallard definitely right. I have my suspicions on some of the newer MPs in the not sure camp but we will let them show their hand a bit more clearly first. Woods careerist, Dyson more left I think.
Oh, someone just mentioned to me that we could actually introduce one full additional category – the ‘hasbeens, never will be’s and incompetents’. A few names would instantly slide out of where they sit now into that new category.
Also swordfish, you may find it interesting to asterisk* the list MPs separately, and to reflect on how they are feeling about life and their political job security in general.
Sepuloni is Left. I wouldn’t describe Twyford , Woods or Dyson as “young careerists”. Especially Dyson. She’s in the twilight of her parliamentary career now.
King is on record as having said she’s definitely standing again but as a list MP. A nice way to hand over the seat to Little? Both Woods and Dyson are more centre Left than right. In the “not sure”category I think most would fall into the centre Left category too.
As Crown Treaty negotiations with Moriori hit the mainstream media all sorts of old myths and prejudices are oozing out of the Kiwi public. Any Crown settlement with Moriori needs to include not only massive land transfers but a sustained public education campaign: http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2016/05/moriori-history-and-treaty-politics.html
Pretty sure that Moriori know a hell of a lot more about themselves as a people than non-Moriori know. They’re hardly blind. That might be a good place to start.
More than $15,000 has been donated to murdered woman’s Blessie Gotingco’s family, only hours after they announced that they want to hold the Government accountable.
The comment by Collins on the news re the killing that really struck me was
“Oh well he was always going to kill again”
What was implied was what the f**k could I/we do about.
There is so much pissing around today in Government..
Just frikkin’ get on and build some housing.. stop talking about it and do it. Get some Crown land, design some low-cost housing, and build it. Should take 12 months maximum….
….. but oh no, can’t do that, must go through “process”, must write reports, must set up committee, must not make decision, must find Minister to make decision, Minister must not make decision without “process”, report, recommendation
this lot are bloody useless
public bodies today are bloody useless
cut through the shit why don’t you. Engage an architect and builder on Monday and get into it…
the incompetence would be funny were it not so serious
and even more funny is that despite National parading themselves as an action government, the history shows (and would certainly be repeated) that it is Labour that would get something like this done much quicker and better
‘A sustained public education programme teaching what?’
Moriori history. Follow the link. Michael King’s Moriori: a people rediscovered is a good lengthier introduction.
‘There is a huge amount yet to be discovered, let alone be certain enough to begin an “education programme”.
Moriori and the scores of scholars who’ve investigated their history disagree.
‘pre-maori (pre-1300’s approx.) New Zealand’
You think the ancestors of Maori got here in the fourteenth century? There are dozens of radiocarbon results for artefacts and sites older than that. Wairau Bar was inhabited in the twelfth century, at least.
It will be interesting to see what history and archaeology discovers in the next 100 years.
I am picking multiple peoples from much further back. I pick this for most of the last parts of the planet to supposedly be inhabited, not just our islands. I am picking several waves of human-type species migrating out of Africa (and/or Asia), yet to be discovered. Anthropology is a very young science, making new discoveries at a fast clip and accelerating. On the threshold of vast new human discoveries methinks …
Assuming we have full and complete knowledge today in 2016 is, well, just silly. See previous history scholars and their past findings cf todays knowledge, in evidence.
Unfortunately though this area of our history gets all tied up in today’s politics to see anything clearly. As you highlight.
it is interesting – this argument will continue neverendingly imo – too much resting on the right and wrong, too must vesting and investing on it – and that is just the celtic/chinese/giants/alien/egyptian/anyoneexceptMāori settlers before Māori line 🙂
‘Assuming we have full and complete knowledge today in 2016 is, well, just silly’
Nobody assumes that. What’s silly is to assert that because everything about the past isn’t known nothing can be said about the past. We know, thanks to the work of dozens of scholars, that Moriori were a Polynesian people closely related but distinct from Maori, that they lived in isolation for centuries on the Chathams, that they evolved, over time, an egalitarian and pacifist culture, that they were invaded in 1835, and that the stories created about them by nineteenth century Pakeha and still widely believed by Pakeha are false.
‘I am picking multiple peoples from much further back [settled NZ].’
The trouble is that, despite the efforts of advocates of Celtic and Viking and Atlantean settlement conspiracy theories, evidence is rather thin on the ground. The absence of artefacts and skeletons under the tephra from the Taupo eruptions and the analysis of ancient pollen spores suggests that humans were not living in NZ in any numbers more than a thousand years ago. If the conspiracy theorists were right and an ancient civilisation existed here then we’d expect to find all sorts of stuff under the tephra, as well as evidence from pollen spores and other sources of the presence of rats and the clearance of forests in ancient times.
Re your last paragraph, noted and aware. “conspiracy theorists” and “ancient civilisations” are terms not conducive to considered thought and debate, but merely rhetoric designed to denigrate. Let’s put those terms to one side..
Sure, evidence is thin on the ground – but as I said, this is a very young science, especially in NZ. There is some evidence, as you note. As more time passes and more digs completed then more will become apparent.
Tell me I am curious – what is your view of Maori history which itself tells of various and numerous people already living here when they arrived?
But a new transport strategy will consider whether mobile devices could actually help to make our roads safer.
The Safer Journeys Strategy is calling for a review of legislation by the end of the year to identify “unnecessary barriers” to the use of technology, including accessing road safety information safely on mobile devices in vehicles.
The strategy aims for increased use of emerging technology to enable smart and safe choices on the road, reduce unintended errors and increase compliance.
Well, that’s the stated reason. It’s all bollocks of course. If you take people’s attention away from the road while they’re driving then the chances of them having an accident go up.
The real reason is this:
A 2009 law change made it illegal to use phones behind the wheel, and police have since raked in millions of dollars in fines.
I assume some rich person somewhere got fined for breaking the law and complained to National about it. And now the attacks on it just being a revenue gatherer for police are coming out.
‘“conspiracy theorists” and “ancient civilisations” are terms not conducive to considered thought and debate’
In my experience the proponents of claims that non-Polynesians settled NZ thousands of years ago are all motivated at least in part by a far right political agenda, engage in conspiracy theories to try to account for the lack of evidence for their claims, and lack any training in a relevant discipline. In the piece for SRB I linked to earlier I tried to show the neo-Nazi connections of the most high profile proponents of ancient civilisations theory.
‘Sure, evidence is thin on the ground’
Evidence is non-existent, which is why the likes of Martin Doutre and Kerry Bolton have to resort to claims that a vast conspiracy is suppressing evidence.
‘There is some evidence, as you note. As more time passes and more digs completed then more will become apparent.’
There have been thousands of digs around NZ, extensive analysis of environmental evidence like spollen spores, tests of human and rat DNA, and no evidence at all has been found for a pre-Polynesian civilisation. There simply isn’t anything under the tephra left by even the most recent Taupo eruption, which means that humans simply couldn’t have been here thousands of years ago in any numbers.
What’s interesting is the desire of so many Pakeha to believe in something for which we have no evidence.
‘what is your view of Maori history which itself tells of various and numerous people already living here when they arrived?’
There is no single Maori oral history: each iwi has multiple versions of its past, and each is more akin to the oral epics of ancient Greece than to what we understand as history today. Just as we wouldn’t take Homer’s talk of sirens and a cyclops literally, so we shouldn’t take legends of taniwha, fairy folk, hairy men of the bush, kehua, and so on literally.
In my own research I’ve found that even in the twentieth century memories of events got tangled and confused in just a few years.
I don’t get it – you suggest Maori history should be discounted yet use Moriori history in support of a view.. how does that work?
Also this “What’s interesting is the desire of so many Pakeha to believe in something for which we have no evidence. ” – that is not interesting at all. That smacks of the “politics of today” confusing the picture, as mentioned before. Plays no part except in the minds of those with vested interests. Not interested.
. . . . .
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to bat back and forth today. However, when it comes to tales of “fairy folk, tall people, fair-skinned people etc” you do realise those same tales exist in other parts of the globe yes? You don’t think there might be something to them? Like perhaps there were other people around? An earlier species of human out of Africa perhaps? Such as the red deer cave people perhaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer_Cave_people ?
When do you imagine the last Neanderthal died RTM? Have we found the last one to die?
When did the last mammoth die?
The certainty in your points RTM is not accepted.
This entire area of human history is so very far from certain. It is fascinating. It is also in the very very close past (last mammoth died about 3,000 years ago, and I would suggest the last Neanderthals were around that time too… like yesterday, leading to the legends of yetis and the like). Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ? Or those other species of human? You do realise we have the worst lands on the planet for preservation of early peoples, with our pluviality and flora growth rates, not to mention erosion and coastal retreat.
“Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ? ”
Does the quality of thinking on our current right-wing blogs constitute evidence? Has it been established that Neanderthals were expert navigators and sailors like those other cultures who settled here?
This is an excerpt from the petition. I’m sure that all thoughtful people will agree with the statement. The petition is aiming for 6000 and nearly there so give it a push in the right direction.
Why is this important?
When people are in desperate need, Winz loan people money so they can rent out a motel room as emergency housing. [1] People then have to repay the debt, and many say that is just not possible.
This is a ridiculous and inhumane policy in effect locking people who are already in such dire straits that they are homeless, into further debt.
Furthermore, it does nothing to solve the housing crisis and is open to exploitation by the Motel owners, and the people themselves have little choice but to agree.
In some cases, providing the people travelling have a current passport, it maybe cheaper for them to go overseas to visit family or a travel package until a house is made available. Travel insurance would be required. At least a trip would be a stress braker.
People have been financed by the government to travel to Australia for cancer treatment.
It would not surprise me that people are so pushed over the edge that they may contemplate the unthinkable. (It is fine if this comment is removed).
I beg to differ, vto: I think the attitude you represent is interesting, because in my experience it is widespread amongst Pakeha.
You haven’t spent much time thinking about the history of these islands’ Polynesian inhabitants and their ancestors in the tropical Pacific, but you have a very strong desire to believe in an ancient civilisation that is extremely unlikely to have existed here. You combine, in other words, a lack of interest in the real history of this part of the world with a fascination with a fantasy history. I think that this combination of incuriosity and fantastic yearning is a symptom of the fact that many Pakeha still don’t feel entirely at home down here in New Zealand. It reflects a sort of unease that I think some of our finest poets and artists diagnose.
‘you suggest Maori history should be discounted yet use Moriori history in support of a view’
I’ve been talking about the understanding of the history of Moriori that has been built up out of hard evidence – artefacts excavated, words analysed, skeletons studied, old texts recovered and interpreted and so on – not about old legends taken at face value. Legends about ancient events have to be taken very carefully, especially when they are full of supernatural events.
If you want to use the various legends of iwi as evidence for a pre-Maori civilisation, because some of these legends include stories of pale-skinned fairy folk and hairy men of the bush, then you’ve got to explain why you’re not also using the taniwha and so on. But even if you want to press the scattered traditions of fairy folk into service as evidence for ancient pale-skinned settlers of these islands, you run into the insurmountable obstacle of the complete absence of material evidence for such settlers. There’s nothing under the tephra.
‘perhaps there were other people around? An earlier species of human out of Africa perhaps?’
So you think there was a wave of white-skinned people that came out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago and had the aquatechnology to spread all the way to NZ, when the Europeans couldn’t even get to the Azores until less than a thousand years ago, and that these ancient settlers left no trace of their coming except some Maori folk tales about fairies who hid in the bush and played flutes? I guess you could work taniwha into your theory, and claim that the fairies rode them across the ocean to these islands.
‘When do you imagine the last Neanderthal died RTM?’
I’m not sure what this has to do with NZ history, but the last Neanderthals died out about thirty thousand years ago at the bottom of the Iberian peninsula.
‘When did the last mammoth die?’
About four thousand years ago on Wrangel Island.
Archaeology is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? We can know about Neanderthals and mammoths, and we can discard claims about ancient civilisations in NZ after digging and finding nothing to support them.
‘You do realise we have the worst lands on the planet for preservation of early peoples’
How did you get this idea? We have a very good stratigraphic record, with the tephra laid down nicely in layers. We’re not like a tropical atoll, where stratigraphy is very hard to establish.
‘Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ?’
With their sophisticated aquatechnology, who knows? Seriously, I think you’ve wandered down a pretty curious path here.
Sorry RTM but your assumptions about me discount your otherwise known, though conservative and status quo, points. Example:
“You haven’t spent much time thinking about the history of these islands’ Polynesian inhabitants and their ancestors in the tropical Pacific, but you have a very strong desire to believe in an ancient civilisation that is extremely unlikely to have existed here”……. is horseshit and you have no way of knowing what you claim there about what I have been looking into.. I have no desire to believe anything thanks. It is a curiousity borne of many seemingly illogical facts.
The rest of your comment is similarly presumptive and emotive … for example, continual use of the words “ancient civilization” with all its underlying implications of great cities and fortifications and associated infrastructure. I have mentioned none of that. You do.
I just love the certainty that some people have about the past and the future – they make me smile. You are right up there with that certainty RTM, evidenced by this comment “There’s nothing under the tephra.”
If only humans in the past had been so certain about the future eh RTM… you are a ground-breaker with your certainty that the past is now known, … lol
. .
here is a question for you: how many tonnes of pounamu were found spread across Aotearoa when the Europeans arrived?
Interesting article on the Spinoff about the dearth of women in NZ business, though there is the odd inclusion of Paula Bennett in the list. Is it a joke/irony? Any thoughts?
Shiv Prakash Chanda, who works as a nursing officer in the hospital, said: “It is incredibly hot. None of the air-conditioners or coolers are working. We have running water, but the water is stored in tanks on top the buildings, and when it comes out of the tap the water is so hot that you can’t even wash your hands with it. You can’t even go to the toilet.”
As an aside, it’s interesting they appear to be charged through the Conservation Act for removing fish that are an introduced apex predator (and are recognised as one of the biggest threats to native fish species) in the NZ environment. But who am I to question..
& congrats to Murdoch for winning Canon Media Award for Political Cartooning, she’s one of the more abrasive anti-right wing ones too, amazing recognition for a great political cartoonist in a field rich in brilliant biting political cartoonists.
But despite describing the current state of dislocation fairly well, he seems unable to grasp that we are close to the end of the 35 year neoliberal paradigm, which substituted asset price booms and increased consumer access to borrowing for policies that focused on increasing average worker wages. In the topsy-turvy world of the new orthodoxy, worker prosperity was bad because…gasp…it might create inflation!
And economists and policymakers have done such a splendid job of fighting the last war long after the inflation threat was vanquished that they are now on the verge of creating deflation, which is far more destructive than inflation, particularly in debt-burdened economies….
The very fact that these monetary innovations are unprecedented means that their impact is unpredictable. This necessarily increases the scope for policy errors and conflicts. Indeed, the lack of consensus on what needs or can be done is palpable. One sign that all is not well is the recent emergence of a vitriolic debate about helicopter money, whereby central banks create money to distribute to citizens directly or via the government.
And on avoiding tax owing by USA corporates sending funds overseas. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/bogus-defenses-of-tax-dodging-corporate-inversions.html
Posted by Yves Smith 20 May 2016 The crucial motive in transferring corporations’ “nationality” and official headquarters to low-tax nations is that inversions shield the “foreign” profits of U.S. corporations from federal taxation and ease access to these assets. This protects total U.S. corporate profits held outside the United States—a stunning $2.1 trillion—from any U.S. corporate taxes until they are “repatriated” back to the United States.
Major corporations benefit hugely from the infinite deferral of taxes purportedly generated by their foreign subsidiaries. “If you are a multinational corporation, the federal government turns your tax bill into an interest-free loan,” wrote David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and author of two books on corporate tax avoidance. Thanks to this deferral, he explained, “Apple and General Electric owe at least $36 billion in taxes on profits being held tax-free offshore, Microsoft nearly $27 billion, and Pfizer $24 billion.”
Nonetheless, top CEOs and their political allies constantly reiterate the claim that the U.S. tax system “traps” U.S. corporate profits overseas and thereby block domestic investment of these funds. But these “offshore” corporate funds are anything but trapped outside the United States. “The [typical multinational] firm … chooses to keep the earnings offshore simply because it does not want to pay the U.S. income taxes it owes,” explains Thomas Hungerford of the Economic Policy Institute. “This is a very strange definition of ‘trapped’.”
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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 ...
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. ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
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 ...
The protest outside the White House correspondents’ dinner hotel. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR More than two dozen Palestinian journalists had called for a boycott of the dinner, writing an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend. “You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and ...
“Our exporters should, therefore, be deeply concerned that the Fast-track Approvals Bill was not assessed for consistency with any of our free trade commitments prior to being introduced to the House,” says Gary Taylor, Chief Executive of the Environmental ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with a track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go wrong for him. ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
Thank you, Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, for your brilliant invention. I’m another mid-20s Kiwi who had an OE last year. I hopped on my bicycle where France meets the Atlantic and cycled east. I pedalled through the Loire Valley, down rivers lined with willows and ancient wisteria-draped chateaus. I relished ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
New Zealand has entered a new debt-fuelled phase of economic growth, say Westpac.
The bank is forecasting that “real” house prices will drop by 1.4 per cent in 2018.
Westpac said Kiwis were in a “borrow and spend” cycle that could not be sustained and it expected economic growth would also slow from 2018.
The report said the average household had debts equivalent to 162 per cent of their annual disposable income.
That was higher than the peak of 159 per cent reached in 2009 during the “global financial crisis” and had “completely reversed the reduction in debt levels seen over the last few years.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/80066702/NZ-house-prices-to-drop-in-real-terms-from-2018-as-borrow-and-spend-cycle-burns-out-Westpac
Thoughts?
it’s not just NZ. Derivative liabilities globally are now well above GFC levels. Its going to be big.
http://goldprice.org/gold-price-chart.html
That might be why gold is heating up.
Russia and China buying hundreds of thousands of ounces of physical, delivered gold a month (as opposed to paper promises/paper options) is also a factor.
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160330/1037221433/gold-russia-china-dedollarization.html
TC if I said my thoughts, John Keys GCSB would be having a long chat with me about it.
Budget coming up. My Nat contacts seem to be in the know and appear to be excited. No doubt the Budget will set the scene and strengthen campaigning that’ll start just under seven months. Last year, Labour didn’t put out an alternative Budget, maybe because Grant was still new and in his first year in the Finance portfolio. Hoping Labour will have a promising alternative Budget this year that’ll energise supporters.
i’d expect another solid increase in the minimum wage as well, as part of National’s early positioning. Them workers derserve their share of our successful economy you know.
Meanwhile, Labour have not yet concretely backed a move to the living wage $19/hr, and National will soon move the minimum wage to $15.75/hr is my bet.
I think they will just continue to cover the total Crown debt with a media headline of tax cuts to come.
The counter-narrative isn’t easy but the collective Opposition has to stick to theme of housing bubble, dairy decline, and a directionless country led by the corrupt and the cruel.
People have been sick of Labour’s negativity for years now.
Labour needs to announce big positive plans for the nation, and it needs to stop daily referencing how shit National and John Key are.
As for the housing bubble and unaffordable Auckland house prices, everyone remembers that was all in full swing during Labour years.
If I were Labour I would announce nothing at all. No need, and has no effect.
Key and English have set 2017 as theirs to lose and there’s very little this Opposition can do about it, other than let the pattern of NZ political history take over.
Ahh yes, the old paradigm of the tide going out on the incumbent, and coming in for the opposition.
That’s over with.
Wtf is happening in Brazil?
Temer has said he is prepared to make unpopular decisions because he does not intend to stand for re-election in 2018. He is barred from running due to previous electoral violations – and is so widely disliked that he would not stand a chance of winning even if he could.
“I do not need to practice gestures or actions leading to a possible re-election. I can even be – shall we say – unpopular as long as it produces benefits for the country. For me, that would be enough,” he told a local news program.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/brazil-rightwing-government-michel-temer
neolib coup d’etat
No Pat, a hard right turn.
“· info)); French: blow of state; plural: coups d’état), also known simply as a coup, or an overthrow, is the sudden and forced seizure of a state, usually instigated by a small group of the existing government establishment to depose the established regime and replace it with a new ruling body.”
think you will find that coup d’etat is exactly the correct description ….and are you seriously going to try to suggest the instigators are not neoliberal given the policy outlined immediately they seized power?
Naom Chomsky explains on the Real News
Sobering isn’t it CV? Wonder why the Establishment doesn’t like Noam?
Here of course Bill manipulates the figures to make the books look better. But here Bill gets praise not impeachment.
NZ yearly GHG Emmission Inventory report. Some sober reading, esp the 25 yr perspective, but interesting too. It’s not just about the carbon, and bold pointers to where the most emissions are coming from (ag, transport)
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/climate-change/reporting-greenhouse-gas-emissions/nzs-greenhouse-gas-inventory
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/304393/greenhouse-gases-hit-25-year-high
So Ag is by far the biggest contributor of GHGs, more than 20% bigger than transport which is no. 2.
You may not like some of the “vegan propaganda” in Cowspiracy but it appears that they have a point, does it not.
Irrelevant tosh CV. New Zealand has a peculiar emissions foot-print among developed, high emitting nations, but seeing as how AGW is a global problem…
If the principle focus is put on land use, then concentrations of CO2 (or CO2e if you prefer) are going to keep increasing with an increase in surface temperatures tacking along behind.
Land use emissions need to be reduced – no argument from anyone there. Fossil emissions need to be eliminated altogether.
Question. If coal and other fossil hadn’t been adopted as primary sources of energy back in the mid to late 1800s and carbon neutral energy sources adopted instead, and if modern, industrial agriculture had developed to be exactly as it is today under that scenario, then would we be facing anything like the level of AGW that we’re currently faced with?
Answer. No.
Question. If modern industrial agriculture had developed in a different direction – if it had trod lightly and mindfully with regards environmental impacts – but fossil was still the principle source of energy, then would we be facing anything like the level of AGW that we are today?
Answer. Yes.
Hear hear
The two alternative scenarios you posit, they are not NZ-centric, right but global?
They are scenarios around how the world as a whole has developed since the mid 1800s re: industrial ag and also fossil fuel use?
The questions were posed with a global scenario in mind, yes.
So why are we not designing a GHG emissions limitation programme for NZ which is a unique fit with where we as a nation are doing the most climate change damage, instead of implementing a generic emissions limitation programme which is generically suited to the rest of the developed, high emitting world, and which ignores our own special characteristics?
Because it’s a global problem that will only be solved by eradicating the burning of fossil across the entire globe. It doesn’t matter what else NZ does with regards emissions (and yes, other stuff absolutely should be done) if the eradication of fossil is ignored.
You think NZ sits on another planet from the rest of the world or should promote itself as a ‘special case’ with regards fossil?
See, there are special cases, at least in the short term, with regards fossil CV – swathes of Asia and Africa. In the interests of the equity contained in all of the Accords or Agreements our government signed up to, those places that are developing nations get to use fossil for a little longer to lay in infrastructure (hospitals, energy systems etc) so that the people living in them can have reasonable lives in the future.
Then they (the Annex 2 countries) must be fossil free by 2050 if we (the entire global population) want to afford ourselves even a slim chance of achieving anything like merely two degrees of warming.
Bill, I’m not convinced that that No and Yes are quite as unequivocal as you’ve presented.
Yes, the headline figure is the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and the rise from 280ppm to 405ppm is almost entirely due to using fossil fuels, with a small contribution from burning forests, releasing carbon from soils and wetlands due to agriculture. But the important figure for warming on say a ten-year timescale is the CO2 equivalent. I’ve seen some credible estimates we’re as high as 700ppm CO2eq, driven primarily by methane. I haven’t seen credible breakdowns of how that rise in methane splits between domestic animals, land clearance, fracking/coal mining, warming arctic/seafloor releases, etc.
The way I’d put it is that CO2 releases from (really stupid) burning of fossil fuels gives us a long-term warming problem that’s going to be really difficult to correct. The releases of methane and other GHGs from (really stupid) unsustainable agricultural practices gives us a short-term warming problem that will largely go away within a few decades of ceasing the stupid practices.
You noted that in the “no fossil and same land use” scenario I didn’t suggest no AGW, but rather that the scale of AGW would not be the same, yes?
The overall effects arising from basket of GHG isn’t something I profess to understanding. I think it’s fair to say that nobody quite gets it because of the convoluted interactions of positive and negative forcings involved.
In one of Kevin Anderson’s presentations, he suggests that the positive and negative forcings are as close as damn it to cancelling one another out, and so that on current concentrations, if we want a workable picture of what the hell is going on, we can put them to one side and focus on CO2. I don’t know if that’s a reasonable way to view things but I’m not aware of that approach having been taken to task on the grounds it’s either unrealistic or irresponsible.
Methane breaks down into CO2 btw. So after the 20 or 30 years of it having a x20 or x30 impact on warming, it doesn’t just stop, but breaks down to produce a given volume of CO2 that has a lesser but much longer impact.
I took your two scenarios to be “fossil fuels burned, no increase in land-use emissions” which would be 400ppm CO2, wild guess 500ppm CO2eq including fracking/mining emissions, vs “no fossil fuels, changed agricultural land-use” which would be 280ppm CO2, wild guess 450ppm CO2eq from the added methane from domestic animals, draining wetlands etc. Not a huge difference between the two (but both nowhere near as bad as what we’re actually facing). But the “no fossil fuels” scenario has the potential to revert to 280ppm CO2/300ish CO2eq within a few decades if ag emissions stopped, whereas the 400ppm CO2 will take millennia to drop back.
Yes, well aware that CH4 oxidises to CO2 in the atmosphere with a half-life of 8-ish years. And that a molecule of CH4 has a warming effect over a hundred times stronger than a molecule of CO2. The 80x stronger over 20 years or 20x stronger over 100 years figures are the integrated “warming strength x probability of survival” calculations. Which highlights that methane’s effects happen now but mostly tail off relatively quickly, whereas CO2 is effectively forever.
Don’t forget about atmospheric pollution contributing between 1 deg C to 2 deg C worth of “global dimming” to the planet.
A massive cut in the burning of fossil fuels leading to a big drop in atmospheric pollution will immediately send us into 2.5 deg C to 3.5 deg C of warming.
Ahhhh, OK, so typing this, whoops it looks to me like we’re now officially fucked regardless of which way we turn, i.e. whether or not we cut fossil fuel emissions by 0%, by 50% or by 100%.
This stage of the game is already over.
Immediately send us into 2.5 – 3 degrees of warming? Really? And you have some reliable citable reference or source to back that statement, yes?
Global dimming due to atmospheric pollution is currently providing 1 deg C to 2 deg C of cooling to the world. AFAIK that is the state of the art understanding of the phenomenon.
Oh, I know there’s a cooling effect offered by particulates from burning coal for example. (you stated it was 1 – 2 degrees C worth) Then you gleefully stated an immediate 2.5 – 3 degree C of warming would result from not burning fossil. I asked for a verifiable source that would echo or back those numbers.
Do you have one?
1.3 deg C already + (1deg C or 2 deg C from loss of global dimming) = 2.3 deg C to 3.3 deg C.
Check it on a calculator if you like.
Do you have a source that says all ‘dimming’ is the result of fossil fuel combustion…cause that’s what you’re claiming.
Alternatively, do you have a source that says all fossil related ‘dimming’ amounts to a one or two degrees Celsius suppression of temperatures?
The dimming observed over recent decades is due to atmospheric pollutants. Whether all those atmospheric pollutants are a result of fossil fuel combustion – I have no idea.
All I know is that the best guess for total global dimming is that it sits between one degree and two degree Celsius.
You already know how I read all of this. We’re already well past 2 deg C warming, any way that we turn now.
I can’t quite see why you reckon there would only be a difference of 50ppm CO2e in the two scenarios.
I’d suggest that if we hadn’t burned fossil, but somehow arrived at the same land use pattern as today then yes, there’d be some signs of warming…. if anyone bothered to look for it. (ie, it would be more or inconsequential at this stage). And we’d have hundreds and hundreds of years in which to change our land use patterns and avert any noticeable climatic impact from any potential long term warming we were causing.
Because our agricultural land-use patterns of draining wetlands, clearing forests, growing shallow rooted annuals (instead of deep-rooted perennials), choosing ruminant species for livestock, all contribute to putting a lot of methane into the atmosphere. On an ongoing basis.
I’ve seen a few credible papers that suggest that without the global warming due to pre-industrial farming, the late 1800s climate we now take as a pre-industrial baseline would likely have been closer to the “little ice age” of the 1600s. (No, I’m not getting confused with the popular press misrepresentations of the 70s that “an ice age is coming, get prepared”).
But even taking that as read for the sake of argument (that the climate of the 1800s was already warmer due to land use), how do you get the point whereby you more or less equate current land use emissions to fossil related emissions? (in your ppm CO2e numbers)
If today has an atmospheric CO2e of around 550ppm (I don’t think that’s too far off the mark, but haven’t looked it up), then to get a very rough estimate of land use contributions, we’d subtract the 80% of CO2 that comes from fossil and then we’d subtract all the other GHG that come from coal burning and what not to arrive at a figure for land use.
On the other side of the coin, we’d take the 550ppm CO2e and subtract some agreed portion of the 20% of CO2 that comes from land use (there would always be some GHG from land use no matter what) and we’d also subtract whatever proportion of the other GHGs that come from land use.
The first calculation might look something like 550 – 80 – 80 (is assuming similar proportions by source, and so up towards ~ 80% of GHG from fossil way too high?) = 410ppmCO2e
The second might run approximately somewhere like 550 – 20 – 20 = 510ppmCO2e.
So I’m getting somewhere in the region of a 100ppm difference to your 50ppm difference. Regardless, the claim that the interplay of the forcings from GHG – other than CO2 – more or less negate one another, if a reasonable claim, makes all these rough back of the envelope sums irrelevant. And we both pick fossil as the principle driver of AGW.
Yeah, the argument’s getting a little involved over hand-wavy responses to hypothetical scenarios…
So Ag is by far the biggest contributor of GHGs, more than 20% bigger than transport which is no. 2.
You may not like some of the “vegan propaganda” in Cowspiracy but it appears that they have a point, does it not.
It’s an interesting question CV. I guess for me it rests on whether we consider propaganda to be a useful tool in addressing climate change. By propaganda I mean basing one’s argument on ideology but not being upfront about that, and using misleading facts and arguments that push that underlying ideology. At its worst, Cowspiracy looks like its using CC to try and convert society to being vegan. If this wasn’t about ideology, the message would be very different (eat less meat/dairy, eat local, support small growers etc. You can’t argue that if you are a fundamentalist, evangelical vegan though).
I have no problem with someone being vegan. Nor with the idea that developped countries should be eating less meat and dairy because of AGW. But there is a huge difference between eating less meat/dairy and becoming vegan. I’m not convinced that proselytising veganism is a useful strategy. Most people aren’t going to do well on a vegan diet, so how would they be convinced to stay on it for any length of time? (plus all the other arguments I’m sure you’ve heard me make).
I also think there are serious problems with using misleading facts and arguments to try and shift culture. When people find out, they’re going to be angry.
In relation to the report, most of the increase in emissions in the last 25 years is from industrialised dairy (enteric gases, fertiliser use). I think we establised the other day that most milk grown in NZ is exported, so basically NZ is producing emissions to make money. Nothing to do with feeding ourselves. NZ doesn’t have to become vegan in order to reduce those emissions again.
Pretty sure you know my base argument is that it’s not what you grow (or eat) it’s how you do it that matters. The problem with vegan proselytising is that it traps people into a path that isn’t necessarily going to help us in the long run. We need to be reducing food miles far more than becoming vegan. We need conversions to sustainable agriculture far more than we need conversions to veganism. In NZ a vegan diet is generally an industrially produced, imported one, and it relies on the Monsanto-ed monocropping nightmare that destroys soil and emits carbon. I’d prefer to encourage people to eat local, eat seasonal, reduce meat/dairy consumption, increase veges, and prioritise small growers esp regenag ones. All of those things bring multiple benefits that becoming vegan doesn’t. They’re much more achieveable for NZ too.
I’m fascinated that you think that this is a discussion on becoming vegan.
This is a discussion on addressing the fact that in NZ, agriculture generates a lot more GHGs than transport does, and it is the no 1 source of GHGs.
As you noted, most dairy in NZ is exported. That wouldn’t change one whit even if all NZers stopped eating dairy.
“I’m fascinated that you think that this is a discussion on becoming vegan.”
I don’t. You are the one that specifically asked me about a film made by vegans and promoting veganism as a way of reducing GHG emissions. I took your question in good faith.
Here’s what you said in its entirety,
So Ag is by far the biggest contributor of GHGs, more than 20% bigger than transport which is no. 2.
You may not like some of the “vegan propaganda” in Cowspiracy but it appears that they have a point, does it not.
“This is a discussion on addressing the fact that in NZ, agriculture generates a lot more GHGs than transport does, and it is the no 1 source of GHGs.”
I posted a link to the NZ report, which is about a lot of things. You responded by asking me about a vegan film and NZ’s agricultural emissions. If you wanted to limit the conversation to NZ ag, then maybe you could have been clearer in your question.
tbh, I have no idea what you are doing. If you look at my last comment, I talked about a lot more than veganism so you could easily just clarify that that’s not what you meant and then focussed on the other things. Instead you appear to be trying to have a go at me. Not in the mood for a fight today. Really happy to share my ideas on what NZ could or should do to reduce ag GHG emissions though.
“Modern” agriculture and fossil fuel use go hand in hand because the adoption of those ‘cultures’ springs from the same source; producing more than the producer can eat at point source. Build a grain silo, Buzz, and you’re on your way to 400 ppm and beyond!
” Build a grain silo, Buzz, and you’re on your way to 400 ppm and beyond!”
I guess that could be extrapolated to be accurate but note that the ancients had grain silos and farmed for excess (for the obvious reasons) and C ppm didn’t move until industrial revolution…along with population explosion.
we could equally say develop speech and have an opposable thumb and your on your way to 400 ppm and beyond
Pat – speech and an opposable thumb don’t lead to the creation of silo-guards charged with the protection of stored wealth, nor the need to pay those guards to do their job. Many communities consisting humans that could talk and hold a feather to the light didn’t go down the agricultural path, but instead, trod more delicately on the bosom of their Mother. Farming for excess was not a necessity, it was a choice. The wrong choice, it turns out.’cause, fossil fuels.
and which lifestyle choice became dominant , almost exclusive?
Humans are dominant as they are the most successful manipulators…we manipulate items, we manipulate the environment, we manipulate ourselves and each other….and those most skilled of us at this are deemed successful.
The silo-builders won dominance and are still holding that position as we approach Farmergeddon. That doesn’t sound like a win to me. “The most skilled at this are deemed successful”, indeed, deemed as such by the members of their tribe but regarded as pariah by those who are outside of that culture.
Do you, Pat, believe the environment has been skillfully manipulated, given its present state and outlook?
Well, when your ‘manipulation’ involves guns and visiting ‘total war’ on cultures and societies that may have neither guns nor an appetite for ‘total war’…then sure, ‘your’ way becomes successful 😉
When we cunningly manipulate materials to come up with stuff like diesel engines and then, in short order, re-design them to run on fossil fuel while knowing full well the physics behind fossil fuel combustion (the CO2)…is that even intelligent, never mind successful?
There’s smart stuff and cunning stuff, but wa-aa-a-y over there on the other hand, there’s intelligent stuff.
@ Bill
My manipulation?…”our” manipulation surely?
As to intelligent (or wise) ..I imagine those of our ancestors who founded the worlds various religions were considered wise and intelligent in their time…..little did they know how that would turn out I suspect.
Well, maybe I should have said ‘European civilisation’ instead of the collective ‘your’, seeing as how I was thinking of colonisation when making the comment.
As for religion…yes, I think you’re probably right to say that they were considered wise and what not. Whether the saw themselves that way, or laughed up their sleeves at the very thought of it as they got on with plotting and scheming over how to better accrue more privilege and wealth….
do I believe the environment has been skillfully manipulated?
No…indeed the opposite….but then I have the benefit of hindsight.
So we’ve been lauding the wrong guys and the wrong model.
Time for a new one:
https://www.minds.com/blog/view/370619333145006080
At every point in the humanity’s progress through time there have been humans saying tai hoa to the progress of the “dominant manipulators” (call them what you will). This message is not new, it’s been delivered multiple times, to little effect, until now. ’cause climate change/species extinction/acidic oceans te mea te mea.
time for a new one, agreed….couple of problems however…the existing one will fight like hell and we may be too late
We’re agreed on the need for a new one – good.
That “they’ll” fight is of no consequence, we have no choice but to put 100% of our energies into it. Ditto being maybe “too late”, that “maybe” is all the hope we need. That’s how great challenges are overcome, discounting the opposition and wasting no time.
I’m not preaching optimism here, just the pragmatism required to succeed.
Imagine if…we simply stopped following people and followed ideas instead.
Overnight, this model we have, and all possible variations of this model we have, and all the people who head all the institutions that would defend this model we have, or justify this model we have, and all the people who would hope to exploit or manipulate this model we have – all of that would be gone.
Wouldn’t that be a fine thing?
No bad ideas or dodgy ideas getting forced by someone wielding the delightful instruments of persuasion, such as, the whip or the chain or the gun.
If we only followed ideas, then no-one could ever hope to be followed or ‘lifted up’ by associating themselves with an idea, or by forcing the adoption of an idea.
“Imagine if…we simply stopped following people and followed ideas instead.”
I can Imagine Moses,Mohamed, Bhudda et al saying something similar back in the day….but we digress.
“That’s how great challenges are overcome, discounting the opposition and wasting no time.
I’m not preaching optimism here, just the pragmatism required to succeed.”
that’s the plan….and hope springs eternal….except when it dosn’t
The very nature of hope is that is does spring eternal.
When Pandora’s box emptied so spectacularly, there crouched hope, ready to spring into action.
So if Hope was all that was left inside Pandora’s Box, then what, do you think, was it within Pandora’s Box that created all the despair in the first place…springing eternal an all an all 😉
It’s an old take on it, I know.
Following ideas, Bill?
Which ones?
*edit – what was in the box, Bill. All sorts of opportunities, I imagine.
There was nothing good in Pandora’s Box. Just all the evil (or despair) of the world.
Which ideas? Why, the good ones of course! Okay – very broad brush stroke…
…principally ideas that flourish and that are rooted deep within concepts of meaningful democracy. Ideas, sans illegitimate authority, tend to spread rhizomatically. And ideas that need to be forcibly transplanted or grafted are probably just bad ideas…
…and I’m over trying to work this on a nature angle
Good ideas are those ideas generated by you and your community, that affect you and your community, and that you and your community execute. (note: assume the community to be an elastic and ever changing social entity.)
Bad ideas are those that are imposed from the outside and that disempower those who will be affected.
Ideas that come with a person attached in a way that the person is then afforded authority, are bad ideas. Always. History keeps trying to teach us that lesson and we keep ‘just not getting it’ for some reason.
edit – when I say ‘authority’ I’m referring to permanent, institutional or entrenched authority, not the transient authority that the builder’s knowledge may give the builder on aspects of a building project.
Nothing good in Pandora’s box, Bill?
There was hope for starters.
Those ills you list were already in the world. What was really in Pandora’s box were endless possibilities, some of which represented wise choices for Mankind, others which were disastrous. Once we opened the box and began choosing this and that, our future was determined by those choices. But always, there was hope. Good and bad doesn’t come into it. It’s difficult to converse without using those words, but attempting to is a worthwhile exercise when exploring this topic (the most important topic of all, in my view). There is a dichotomy that is useful though, and that’s life-giving (pro-biotic) and life-taking (anti-biotic). Addressing challenges probiotically gives different results from when antibiotic actions are applied. Adding.v.taking away. Racism in a bi-racial community? Remove one of the parties or bring in a multitude of races to diminish-to-zero the conflict. One dominant ideology creating imbalance and injustice in a community/country/world? Bring in a multitude of ideologies to occupy space being held by the Dominator. Other polarities that are useful models for our new way(s): multiplicity.v.singularity – keep it multitudinous, avoid over-simplification – polyculture.v.monoculture. There’s much more to this, naturally enough, but those starters might stimulate some interest. I apologise for not using the model you offered, I enjoyed reading your comment and agree with your view.
weka, producing less meat and dairy is what I was aiming at in terms of significantly reducing both global and NZ ag GHG emissions, who knows what world you live in though where that necessarily means people becoming vegan.
BTW if you can’t watch something like Cowspiracy or read something like the Bible and not get some value out of it without having to convert to whatever their proselytizing about, that’s not my issue its yours.
For the record again, I’m never becoming vegan, good luck to those who do.
edit – you are full of good ideas and insights that I often learn from, but having discussions with you nowadays is full of fucking minefields and who needs it, thanks.
I’ll just repeat, the only reason I’ve said anything about vegans is because you brought up Cowspiracy and asked me specifically if I thought the film had a point. I answered in good faith 🙂 Personally, I don’t think the vegan issue is particularly relevant to the discussion. It only comes up as a political issue when people use it as a reference point in CC discussions. The meme that is developping around the film is IMO dangerous, which is why I tend to respond in the way I do about it.
“producing less meat and dairy is what I was aiming at in terms of significantly reducing both global and NZ ag GHG emissions,”
I guess there’s an issue there about who is responsible for the dairying GHG emissions, us or the people buying and consuming the products (I think it’s us). My general approach to CC is think global, act local. So we need to think about CC in its global context (because of the obvious), but that we have pretty limited control over other nations and peoples. We can instead act locally, find the solutions that work here, share them with other people, learn from other people , do the politically responsible things (foreign aid, lobbying etc), but let other countries and peoples find their own solutions.
Maybe as well as reducing our GHG emissions, reducing dairying is a service to the rest of the world, both in terms of limiting the supply of meat/dairy, and in demonstrating that a country this size can make a living without polluting. That’s at an ideas level obviously, it’s not like anyone in power is even considering lowering dairying (apart from the Greens). Mostly I think one job at the moment is to initiate discussion of other ways.
That’s why for a number of years I’ve been making comments about regenag (and a post coming soon). It’s technically feasible for NZ to convert its farming to something sustainable right now, there are enough farmers here who have pioneered the techniques. I don’t believe the solution to NZ’s GHG emissions is BAU and GE ryegrass.
As ever it’s the lack of political and public will that’s the problem. Nevertheless there are people who are continuing to do the right thing and if NZ does get it’s act together politically I can see agriculture here changing quite fast.
This article claims that Sandersism has won, whether Bernie wins the nomination or not. The writer might be a bit too optimistic, but the Sanders movement has at least exposed business-as-usual for what it is and is seriously aiming a stake at TINA’s vampire heart.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/make-no-mistake-sanderism_b_10008136.html
The point being this: the ideological revolution within the Democratic Party has already happened, and Sandersism won. The only question now is how long Democrats and the country will have to wait to see its gains in real-time.
Hopeful Olwyn?
“The Democratic Party as the Clintons remade it in the 1990s is dead, and the most Clinton can do is steer her little ghost-ship a few more miles until it finally wrecks itself on an offshore sandbar.
Clinton may win the battle in 2016, but only political neophytes — and a few Washington Post columnists, I suppose — fail to see that she’s already lost the war.”
I am always a bit cautious in my optimism 🙂 – look at what is happening in Brazil, for instance. I am confident that the third-way left have lost whatever credibility they may have had, but am also aware of how well-resourced and determined the TINA gang are.
+1
And I still can’t see NZ Labour shifting out of the neo-liberal paradigm.
Based on what I’ve heard from members, I can, but it might be a while.
If the Labour Party operated on a ‘one person one vote’ basis, then I’d be inclined to suggest it would already have happened and that Cunliffe would likely still be the leader of the Labour Party. Just look at how UK Labour is changing under Corbyn with their ‘one person one vote’ system – caucus, for all their antipathy towards him and his politics, can’t touch him.
Unfortunately for us in NZ, with a system that allows a caucus 40% of the vote and the unions 15% of the vote…okay, would Corbyn still be leading the UK Labour Party under NZs set up?
I don’t know the numbers and I’m not about to go away and crunch them. But suffice to say I have my doubts.
The Labour caucus and the moderating committee is now largely under the control of the following factions:
1) the “young” careerists, typically 45 and under
2) the right wing, typically 45 plus
The fucked/zero leverage factions are the pro-Cunliffe, formerly pro-Cunliffe, and left wing. I estimate that together they now represent around, or less than, 25% of caucus.
Notice how Little has no faction in caucus to call his own, but he does have affiliate muscle behind him.
Now, IMO Labour has two more General Elections left in it. If it loses both of them (2017 and 2020) it will permanently slide into minor party status (sub 20%).
My call for 2017 is Labour 25% (=2014) +/-3%, with a negative outlook. Labour is unlikely to take the Treasury benches on those numbers.
So the question is – does your comment “but it might be quite a while” suggest a time frame before 2020, or a timeframe after 2020.
If it is after 2020, then Labour is history.
Labour needs to do a Corbyn/Sanders and go full Left wing rather than hanging on to the failed right-wing policies that they have.
Instead, they believe that appealing to the centrist middle class swing voter because they are the ones who decide election outcomes is what they need to do.
@ CV: They need to remember that Key did not win any elections by dumping his core constituency and replacing it with a middle class one – instead he (or Brash before him) consolidated his wealthy, right wing constituency and worked to add the middle class to what he already had.
Indeed, Labour have got the formula wrong. And it shows in their election results.
Interesting typology, CV.
How accurate would you say my list is here ? …
Right Faction
1 Shearer
2 Goff (retiring)
3 King (possibly retiring)
4 Davis
5 Parker
6 Nash
7 Cosgrove (retiring)
8 O’Connor
9 Fa’afoi
Young Careerists Faction
1 Robertson
2 Hipkins
3 Ardern
4 Twyford
5 Curran
6 Clark
7 Mallard (or should he be in Right Faction ?)
8 Woods (or Left ?)
9 Dyson (or Left ?)
Left/Cunliffe/Formerly Cunliffe Faction
1 Cunliffe
2 Mahuta
3 Wall
4 Moroney
5 Sio
6 Tirikatene
7 Lees-Galloway
8 Little (vaguely associated with Left Faction ?)
Not Sure
1 Sepuloni (Left ? / Young Careerist ?)
2 Whaitiri
3 Salesa
4 Henare
5 Williams (Left ? / Young Careerist ?)
6 Rurawhe (Right ?)
Wow wow wow 😎
Approx 85% accurate. A very good job mate. A few of the line calls. Tirikatene and Fa’foi I would place in the careerist camp. Sepuloni former Cunliffe camp. Mallard definitely right. I have my suspicions on some of the newer MPs in the not sure camp but we will let them show their hand a bit more clearly first. Woods careerist, Dyson more left I think.
Oh, someone just mentioned to me that we could actually introduce one full additional category – the ‘hasbeens, never will be’s and incompetents’. A few names would instantly slide out of where they sit now into that new category.
Also swordfish, you may find it interesting to asterisk* the list MPs separately, and to reflect on how they are feeling about life and their political job security in general.
Sepuloni is Left. I wouldn’t describe Twyford , Woods or Dyson as “young careerists”. Especially Dyson. She’s in the twilight of her parliamentary career now.
King is on record as having said she’s definitely standing again but as a list MP. A nice way to hand over the seat to Little? Both Woods and Dyson are more centre Left than right. In the “not sure”category I think most would fall into the centre Left category too.
My goodness there are some lessons for Labour NZ to learn from this excellent Huff Post article, if only they would
As Crown Treaty negotiations with Moriori hit the mainstream media all sorts of old myths and prejudices are oozing out of the Kiwi public. Any Crown settlement with Moriori needs to include not only massive land transfers but a sustained public education campaign: http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2016/05/moriori-history-and-treaty-politics.html
A sustained public education programme teaching what?
There is a huge amount yet to be discovered, let alone be certain enough to begin an “education programme”.
the blind leading the blind
. . . .
pre-maori (pre-1300’s approx.) New Zealand is fascinating in its mystic unknowns and old tales…..
… which is all of course entirely separate from the contract the British Crown entered into with Maori some centuries later.
Pretty sure that Moriori know a hell of a lot more about themselves as a people than non-Moriori know. They’re hardly blind. That might be a good place to start.
thanks for the link RTM.
Great read RTM, thanks.
Who lives on Rekohu now? Is it Moriori, the two iwi, and Pākehā?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/80234058/blessie-gotingcos-family-call-for-support-as-they-consider-suing-corrections
Up to $60,000 now I read.
NOW 106K!!!!!
who’s spotted this in the Herald todayt
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11642132
There is so much pissing around today in Government..
Just frikkin’ get on and build some housing.. stop talking about it and do it. Get some Crown land, design some low-cost housing, and build it. Should take 12 months maximum….
….. but oh no, can’t do that, must go through “process”, must write reports, must set up committee, must not make decision, must find Minister to make decision, Minister must not make decision without “process”, report, recommendation
this lot are bloody useless
public bodies today are bloody useless
cut through the shit why don’t you. Engage an architect and builder on Monday and get into it…
the incompetence would be funny were it not so serious
and even more funny is that despite National parading themselves as an action government, the history shows (and would certainly be repeated) that it is Labour that would get something like this done much quicker and better
National – useless conservatives since inception
I bet comments will be closed off pretty shortly on that bit of spin
‘A sustained public education programme teaching what?’
Moriori history. Follow the link. Michael King’s Moriori: a people rediscovered is a good lengthier introduction.
‘There is a huge amount yet to be discovered, let alone be certain enough to begin an “education programme”.
Moriori and the scores of scholars who’ve investigated their history disagree.
‘pre-maori (pre-1300’s approx.) New Zealand’
You think the ancestors of Maori got here in the fourteenth century? There are dozens of radiocarbon results for artefacts and sites older than that. Wairau Bar was inhabited in the twelfth century, at least.
‘mystic unknowns and old tales’
I’d be wary about people telling tales of ancient lost civilisations in NZ. They tend to lack training in anything but conspiracy theories.
http://books.scoop.co.nz/2008/11/18/no-to-nazi-pseudo-history-an-open-letter/
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/new-zealand-old-lemuria.html
It will be interesting to see what history and archaeology discovers in the next 100 years.
I am picking multiple peoples from much further back. I pick this for most of the last parts of the planet to supposedly be inhabited, not just our islands. I am picking several waves of human-type species migrating out of Africa (and/or Asia), yet to be discovered. Anthropology is a very young science, making new discoveries at a fast clip and accelerating. On the threshold of vast new human discoveries methinks …
Assuming we have full and complete knowledge today in 2016 is, well, just silly. See previous history scholars and their past findings cf todays knowledge, in evidence.
Unfortunately though this area of our history gets all tied up in today’s politics to see anything clearly. As you highlight.
This digging around for the truth re: the Moriori is very, very unpopular in some circles.
Yes it is and it always gets in the way
it is interesting – this argument will continue neverendingly imo – too much resting on the right and wrong, too must vesting and investing on it – and that is just the celtic/chinese/giants/alien/egyptian/anyoneexceptMāori settlers before Māori line 🙂
What, along the lines of these?
oops. i had only posted a link. had not intended the paste-job to appear like this and so big. sorry
Not your fault as TS is set to display links to YouTube like this.
Mmmm, I think Jadred Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel has a more credible thesis.
‘Assuming we have full and complete knowledge today in 2016 is, well, just silly’
Nobody assumes that. What’s silly is to assert that because everything about the past isn’t known nothing can be said about the past. We know, thanks to the work of dozens of scholars, that Moriori were a Polynesian people closely related but distinct from Maori, that they lived in isolation for centuries on the Chathams, that they evolved, over time, an egalitarian and pacifist culture, that they were invaded in 1835, and that the stories created about them by nineteenth century Pakeha and still widely believed by Pakeha are false.
‘I am picking multiple peoples from much further back [settled NZ].’
The trouble is that, despite the efforts of advocates of Celtic and Viking and Atlantean settlement conspiracy theories, evidence is rather thin on the ground. The absence of artefacts and skeletons under the tephra from the Taupo eruptions and the analysis of ancient pollen spores suggests that humans were not living in NZ in any numbers more than a thousand years ago. If the conspiracy theorists were right and an ancient civilisation existed here then we’d expect to find all sorts of stuff under the tephra, as well as evidence from pollen spores and other sources of the presence of rats and the clearance of forests in ancient times.
I think we are on the same page mostly RTM.
Re your last paragraph, noted and aware. “conspiracy theorists” and “ancient civilisations” are terms not conducive to considered thought and debate, but merely rhetoric designed to denigrate. Let’s put those terms to one side..
Sure, evidence is thin on the ground – but as I said, this is a very young science, especially in NZ. There is some evidence, as you note. As more time passes and more digs completed then more will become apparent.
Tell me I am curious – what is your view of Maori history which itself tells of various and numerous people already living here when they arrived?
Time to reassess phones in cars
Well, that’s the stated reason. It’s all bollocks of course. If you take people’s attention away from the road while they’re driving then the chances of them having an accident go up.
The real reason is this:
I assume some rich person somewhere got fined for breaking the law and complained to National about it. And now the attacks on it just being a revenue gatherer for police are coming out.
Actually rich people have flash new cars, flash new cars tether to your smartphone via bluetooth, no problem with the cops there.
‘“conspiracy theorists” and “ancient civilisations” are terms not conducive to considered thought and debate’
In my experience the proponents of claims that non-Polynesians settled NZ thousands of years ago are all motivated at least in part by a far right political agenda, engage in conspiracy theories to try to account for the lack of evidence for their claims, and lack any training in a relevant discipline. In the piece for SRB I linked to earlier I tried to show the neo-Nazi connections of the most high profile proponents of ancient civilisations theory.
‘Sure, evidence is thin on the ground’
Evidence is non-existent, which is why the likes of Martin Doutre and Kerry Bolton have to resort to claims that a vast conspiracy is suppressing evidence.
‘There is some evidence, as you note. As more time passes and more digs completed then more will become apparent.’
There have been thousands of digs around NZ, extensive analysis of environmental evidence like spollen spores, tests of human and rat DNA, and no evidence at all has been found for a pre-Polynesian civilisation. There simply isn’t anything under the tephra left by even the most recent Taupo eruption, which means that humans simply couldn’t have been here thousands of years ago in any numbers.
What’s interesting is the desire of so many Pakeha to believe in something for which we have no evidence.
‘what is your view of Maori history which itself tells of various and numerous people already living here when they arrived?’
There is no single Maori oral history: each iwi has multiple versions of its past, and each is more akin to the oral epics of ancient Greece than to what we understand as history today. Just as we wouldn’t take Homer’s talk of sirens and a cyclops literally, so we shouldn’t take legends of taniwha, fairy folk, hairy men of the bush, kehua, and so on literally.
In my own research I’ve found that even in the twentieth century memories of events got tangled and confused in just a few years.
I don’t get it – you suggest Maori history should be discounted yet use Moriori history in support of a view.. how does that work?
Also this “What’s interesting is the desire of so many Pakeha to believe in something for which we have no evidence. ” – that is not interesting at all. That smacks of the “politics of today” confusing the picture, as mentioned before. Plays no part except in the minds of those with vested interests. Not interested.
. . . . .
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to bat back and forth today. However, when it comes to tales of “fairy folk, tall people, fair-skinned people etc” you do realise those same tales exist in other parts of the globe yes? You don’t think there might be something to them? Like perhaps there were other people around? An earlier species of human out of Africa perhaps? Such as the red deer cave people perhaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer_Cave_people ?
When do you imagine the last Neanderthal died RTM? Have we found the last one to die?
When did the last mammoth die?
The certainty in your points RTM is not accepted.
This entire area of human history is so very far from certain. It is fascinating. It is also in the very very close past (last mammoth died about 3,000 years ago, and I would suggest the last Neanderthals were around that time too… like yesterday, leading to the legends of yetis and the like). Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ? Or those other species of human? You do realise we have the worst lands on the planet for preservation of early peoples, with our pluviality and flora growth rates, not to mention erosion and coastal retreat.
“Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ? ”
Does the quality of thinking on our current right-wing blogs constitute evidence? Has it been established that Neanderthals were expert navigators and sailors like those other cultures who settled here?
Something to make you feel good today. Sign the petition to go to Ann Tolley calling for waiver of the cost of motel accommodation for people in dire straits. The gummint is expecting them to pay it back FGS.
See – http://thestandard.org.nz/petition-to-forgive-emergency-accommodation-debt/
This is an excerpt from the petition. I’m sure that all thoughtful people will agree with the statement. The petition is aiming for 6000 and nearly there so give it a push in the right direction.
Why is this important?
When people are in desperate need, Winz loan people money so they can rent out a motel room as emergency housing. [1] People then have to repay the debt, and many say that is just not possible.
This is a ridiculous and inhumane policy in effect locking people who are already in such dire straits that they are homeless, into further debt.
Furthermore, it does nothing to solve the housing crisis and is open to exploitation by the Motel owners, and the people themselves have little choice but to agree.
In some cases, providing the people travelling have a current passport, it maybe cheaper for them to go overseas to visit family or a travel package until a house is made available. Travel insurance would be required. At least a trip would be a stress braker.
People have been financed by the government to travel to Australia for cancer treatment.
It would not surprise me that people are so pushed over the edge that they may contemplate the unthinkable. (It is fine if this comment is removed).
I beg to differ, vto: I think the attitude you represent is interesting, because in my experience it is widespread amongst Pakeha.
You haven’t spent much time thinking about the history of these islands’ Polynesian inhabitants and their ancestors in the tropical Pacific, but you have a very strong desire to believe in an ancient civilisation that is extremely unlikely to have existed here. You combine, in other words, a lack of interest in the real history of this part of the world with a fascination with a fantasy history. I think that this combination of incuriosity and fantastic yearning is a symptom of the fact that many Pakeha still don’t feel entirely at home down here in New Zealand. It reflects a sort of unease that I think some of our finest poets and artists diagnose.
‘you suggest Maori history should be discounted yet use Moriori history in support of a view’
I’ve been talking about the understanding of the history of Moriori that has been built up out of hard evidence – artefacts excavated, words analysed, skeletons studied, old texts recovered and interpreted and so on – not about old legends taken at face value. Legends about ancient events have to be taken very carefully, especially when they are full of supernatural events.
If you want to use the various legends of iwi as evidence for a pre-Maori civilisation, because some of these legends include stories of pale-skinned fairy folk and hairy men of the bush, then you’ve got to explain why you’re not also using the taniwha and so on. But even if you want to press the scattered traditions of fairy folk into service as evidence for ancient pale-skinned settlers of these islands, you run into the insurmountable obstacle of the complete absence of material evidence for such settlers. There’s nothing under the tephra.
‘perhaps there were other people around? An earlier species of human out of Africa perhaps?’
So you think there was a wave of white-skinned people that came out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago and had the aquatechnology to spread all the way to NZ, when the Europeans couldn’t even get to the Azores until less than a thousand years ago, and that these ancient settlers left no trace of their coming except some Maori folk tales about fairies who hid in the bush and played flutes? I guess you could work taniwha into your theory, and claim that the fairies rode them across the ocean to these islands.
‘When do you imagine the last Neanderthal died RTM?’
I’m not sure what this has to do with NZ history, but the last Neanderthals died out about thirty thousand years ago at the bottom of the Iberian peninsula.
‘When did the last mammoth die?’
About four thousand years ago on Wrangel Island.
Archaeology is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? We can know about Neanderthals and mammoths, and we can discard claims about ancient civilisations in NZ after digging and finding nothing to support them.
‘You do realise we have the worst lands on the planet for preservation of early peoples’
How did you get this idea? We have a very good stratigraphic record, with the tephra laid down nicely in layers. We’re not like a tropical atoll, where stratigraphy is very hard to establish.
‘Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ?’
With their sophisticated aquatechnology, who knows? Seriously, I think you’ve wandered down a pretty curious path here.
RTM, is there a reason you aren’t using the reply buttons and keeping this conversation in one thread? It would be easier to follow if you did.
Sorry RTM but your assumptions about me discount your otherwise known, though conservative and status quo, points. Example:
“You haven’t spent much time thinking about the history of these islands’ Polynesian inhabitants and their ancestors in the tropical Pacific, but you have a very strong desire to believe in an ancient civilisation that is extremely unlikely to have existed here”……. is horseshit and you have no way of knowing what you claim there about what I have been looking into.. I have no desire to believe anything thanks. It is a curiousity borne of many seemingly illogical facts.
The rest of your comment is similarly presumptive and emotive … for example, continual use of the words “ancient civilization” with all its underlying implications of great cities and fortifications and associated infrastructure. I have mentioned none of that. You do.
I just love the certainty that some people have about the past and the future – they make me smile. You are right up there with that certainty RTM, evidenced by this comment “There’s nothing under the tephra.”
If only humans in the past had been so certain about the future eh RTM… you are a ground-breaker with your certainty that the past is now known, … lol
. .
here is a question for you: how many tonnes of pounamu were found spread across Aotearoa when the Europeans arrived?
🙄
You can lead a horse to water…
do you know why sometimes a horse wont drink the water it is shown?
Yes: because contradictory facts harden false beliefs.
no
because it is not suitable for drinking
http://thespinoff.co.nz/media/20-05-2016/you-asked-where-are-the-women-in-nz-boardrooms-here-they-are/
Interesting article on the Spinoff about the dearth of women in NZ business, though there is the odd inclusion of Paula Bennett in the list. Is it a joke/irony? Any thoughts?
Maybe because of this?
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/queenstown-lakes/384008/anecdotes-entertain-conference
Conference of NZ business women with Bennett as guest speaker. Why was she a speaker for women in business? I have no idea.
That could be it, but I agree it’s odd that she’s conflated with ‘women crushing it in New Zealand business’. It’s bizarre.
I know, right? Her advice was to “work hard & not take yourself seriously”.
Meanwhile, in India…what 51°C can look like.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/indians-demand-government-action-after-temperatures-hit-51c
Any thoughts?
Good at wrecking, e.g. state housing.
agreed
80k + priviledge = 0
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11639591
10 fish + brown skin = jail
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11641836
THIS is what is wrong with our country
But it was a white man’s fish he stole marty!
As an aside, it’s interesting they appear to be charged through the Conservation Act for removing fish that are an introduced apex predator (and are recognised as one of the biggest threats to native fish species) in the NZ environment. But who am I to question..
“One law for all” !!! Man I feel for the poacher, his ‘crime’ is being brown, our justice system needs some work.
Like I said “white man’s fish” 😉
That is appallingly bad. It’s like something out of the 19th century.
hear hear
& congrats to Murdoch for winning Canon Media Award for Political Cartooning, she’s one of the more abrasive anti-right wing ones too, amazing recognition for a great political cartoonist in a field rich in brilliant biting political cartoonists.
Mr Chomsky speaking sense again
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/may/20/noam-chomsky-on-donald-trump-almost-a-death-knell-for-the-human-species
While looking up a report referred to by Madtom on the Charter schools post, I found this analysis of the present financial situation in the world.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/the-new-abnormal-disequilibrium-flirting-with-deflationary-depression.html
20 May 2016 posted by Yves Smith
But despite describing the current state of dislocation fairly well, he seems unable to grasp that we are close to the end of the 35 year neoliberal paradigm, which substituted asset price booms and increased consumer access to borrowing for policies that focused on increasing average worker wages. In the topsy-turvy world of the new orthodoxy, worker prosperity was bad because…gasp…it might create inflation!
And economists and policymakers have done such a splendid job of fighting the last war long after the inflation threat was vanquished that they are now on the verge of creating deflation, which is far more destructive than inflation, particularly in debt-burdened economies….
The very fact that these monetary innovations are unprecedented means that their impact is unpredictable. This necessarily increases the scope for policy errors and conflicts. Indeed, the lack of consensus on what needs or can be done is palpable. One sign that all is not well is the recent emergence of a vitriolic debate about helicopter money, whereby central banks create money to distribute to citizens directly or via the government.
And on avoiding tax owing by USA corporates sending funds overseas.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/bogus-defenses-of-tax-dodging-corporate-inversions.html
Posted by Yves Smith 20 May 2016
The crucial motive in transferring corporations’ “nationality” and official headquarters to low-tax nations is that inversions shield the “foreign” profits of U.S. corporations from federal taxation and ease access to these assets. This protects total U.S. corporate profits held outside the United States—a stunning $2.1 trillion—from any U.S. corporate taxes until they are “repatriated” back to the United States.
Major corporations benefit hugely from the infinite deferral of taxes purportedly generated by their foreign subsidiaries. “If you are a multinational corporation, the federal government turns your tax bill into an interest-free loan,” wrote David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and author of two books on corporate tax avoidance. Thanks to this deferral, he explained, “Apple and General Electric owe at least $36 billion in taxes on profits being held tax-free offshore, Microsoft nearly $27 billion, and Pfizer $24 billion.”
Nonetheless, top CEOs and their political allies constantly reiterate the claim that the U.S. tax system “traps” U.S. corporate profits overseas and thereby block domestic investment of these funds. But these “offshore” corporate funds are anything but trapped outside the United States. “The [typical multinational] firm … chooses to keep the earnings offshore simply because it does not want to pay the U.S. income taxes it owes,” explains Thomas Hungerford of the Economic Policy Institute. “This is a very strange definition of ‘trapped’.”
doesn’t make for pleasant reading does it
Linda Tirado on RNZ 8.40am Sunday
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday
@ mickysavage
You left an interesting note recently in a comment by Mike Bond on AL’s alleged visit to that overcrowded house.
You may be interested that the NZ Herald blundered tonight and briefly posted on its website a piece by good old Rodney Hide that is to appear tomorrow I presume. It has since been removed from the NZH website but can still be found at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eS7z9Cj8BmYJ:www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm%3Fc_id%3D466%26objectid%3D11642642+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz