Blessings on the Summer Solstice Paul 😀 Solstice begins today and the weather here is just stunning.
I’m so with you on this, so over the damage of alcohol, over the beatings, the killings, the child abuse, the bullying, the rapes over everything that goes with it. People lose control of themselves in the most aggressive way and it’s horrid and they can’t even remember what happened the next day.
National was responsible for lowering the drinking age and allowing alcohol to be sold in supermarkets. Yes they are the enablers, and we wonder why we have such a drinking problem in NZ.
How much of our health budget goes towards drunks at A&E? Too much I’d say, and we wonder why our health system is being stretched.
We see glamorous advertising on the TV, flyers in the newspaper and letter boxes and then it’s in our face right next to the fruit and vege at New World. Shameless promotion of the national parties class B drug of choice, readily available to so many. Paul Henry on the fucken TV swilling it down before 9am, what a fucken hero not. Excuse language but it’s something I feel very strongly about. Am not anti alcohol I’m anti drunk idiots, big difference.
Good on you Dr Bonning for speaking out and good on the Herald and Stuff for giving it coverage.
I’m anti alcohol.
It is a destructive drug which we promote at our peril.
Imagine if we saw advertisements for other Class B Drugs.
We should be tackling it the way Portugal tackles hard drugs.
It should be legal – but that’s about all.
Personally I’m not into drinking, I don’t like not being in control of my own body, I don’t have a drinking problem never have. And it’s funny because so many people become shocked that I don’t drink, like I’m a weirdo. It’s like oh she must be an alcoholic if she doesn’t drink.. um no it just makes me on to it.
Freedom of choice with loads of education is so important. And because I don’t drink my kids are anti alcohol, helps to show them the drunks on the telly in the big cities. Kids are smart, even they can’t fathom why everyone drinks. One time when the kids were with their dad (ex husband) at a bbq my youngest almost drowned, because yarning with a friend while drinking beers was more important than keeping an eye on the kids in the pool.
However I won’t lie I do smoke pot and my drink of choice at a party is a cuppa tea. Yes I rock on up with my teabags and milk, even at the biker parties. Funny thing is the bikers never give me a hard time about preferring to drink tea rather than booze. Ironic really.
Yes, I think when I say I don’t drink, people must either assume I have a drink problem, ….. or, most noticeably, they seem to treat me as a socially/religiously conservative, up-tight person.
I’m not religious, and reckon I’m pretty strong on fairly strongly left-wing on social policies and social issues.
ikr and it’s nutters, you don’t drink dang something wrong with us, i’d call it intelligence 😀 Hey I’ll tell you something funny Carolyn, sometimes my friends ring to ask me to come and pick them up cause they are too drunk to drive. I relish this… am so cheeky.
I rock on up and loudly announce that the ‘cougar taxi’ is here, shit it’s funny.
C’mon Paul, national Mp’s including former PM shonky have extensive financial interests in wineries and probably shares in the big brewers etc so that’s never happening while they remain in govt.
Even if they did, they’d be reimbursing or compensating those effected with other taxpayer subsidies ensuring personal gain using public resources…a well worn theme with national.
How about the hospitals charge the cost of treating alcohol related injuries to the alcohol industry.
A fund could be set up paid for by the alcohol industry for hospitals to claim back the costs of treatment. Sort of like hospital do with accidents and the ACC
Stop all advertising for alcohol.
Start Public Education Programme and publicise heath warnings ( eg alcohol is a carcinogen)
More counselling services to assist with issues that caused alcohol addictions
Stop supermarket sales
Raise taxes – as has been done with cigarettes
Plain packaging of alcohol
Make it illegal for foreign companies to have a share in any alcohol sale in New Zealand – to make it harder for governments to be lobbied by massive corporate interests
Divest all government savings and funds from investing in liquor.
Cut funding for sports that continue to take drug money.
Aim to make alcohol ‘uncool’ as smoking has become.
And most importantly, deal to the economic system that makes people so in need of a class b drug.
Cinny
But thinking of it as a now problem where the hospital staff are working at the drunkface, and the financial problems that the booze causes the administration, a special tax on booze that gets paid to hospitals to aid staff and provide security and repair booze-nut damage would be good. http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11770517
Then of course there is the treatment of booze damaged people who become a blot on society after they have spoiled their own lives and family relationships. That is a cost to hospitals and the health budget of the nation.
Then there is my observation that killing people with a car after you have had a drink or two is not treated as seriously as shooting, knifing someone personally. Recidivist drink drivers are a menace to society and there should be prison farms where they are confined and can work to help support themselves away from temptation where they should be able to have a happy life and society be safe instead of society being co-dependent.
1. Attempts to regulate the liquor industry properly have been frustrated by the government. The main recommendations from an enquiry were completed ignored.
2. Saturation advertising tends to make ‘citizens’ want alcohol.
Attitudes to cigarettes have changed without the marketing propaganda.
Attitudes to cigarettes have changed because these days people won’t put up with other people blowing smoke all over them and stinking the place up, and because cigarettes make you die – not because the government banned their advertising, much as the government might want to take the credit for it.
Also, cigarettes are a classic example of what happens when the government lets hand-wringers persuade it to over-regulate and over-tax a recreational drug: we’re now seeing armed robberies and a black market specifically for cigarettes. Let’s learn from that debacle and not follow the same path with alcohol.
Maybe people are also sick of drunks punching them and raping them.
Alcohol also kills people . It is a high level carcinogen and causes cirrhosis of the liver for starters.
I’m amazed you don’t think advertisements influence people. I wonder why corporates spend so much on them.
I sense you are just being a contrarian for the sake of it.
I don’t debate with climate change deniers and I won’t wSte my breath on someone talking the bs you are about alcohol.
Maybe people are also sick of drunks punching them and raping them.
We have a criminal justice system to deal with people who commit crimes. If you have complaints about it, that’s for another post because it’s another subject.
Alcohol also kills people . It is a high level carcinogen and causes cirrhosis of the liver for starters.
If you drink enough of it, sure. The same is true for a lot of food and drink, and the best advice is not to consume enormous quantities of things. Cigarettes are in an entirely different category: they’ll kill you when used as directed.
I’m amazed you don’t think advertisements influence people.
Of course advertisements influence people. I just think you’re overstating the level of influence.
PM did you know that at least a third of all police recorded offences are committed by an offender who has consumed alcohol prior to committing the offence.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of your argument.
How are facts about alcohol and crime misused?
How are facts about alcohol and sexual abuse misused?
How are facts about alcohol and hospital usage being misused?
How are facts about alcohol and violence being misused?
Do you work for the liquor drug industry or have you benefited from their largesse?
It contains an implied argument:
Premise: It is a fact that a third of crime is committed by people who are drunk.
Conclusion: therefore, alcohol is responsible for a third of crime and something must be done about alcohol.
My comment demonstrates the misuse by providing a more-obviously-wrong example of the fallacy:
Premise: it is a fact that nearly half of crime is committed by people who are Maori.
Conclusion: therefore, Maori are responsible for nearly half the crime and something must be done about Maori.
Do you often struggle to understand the meanings of people’s arguments?
Psycho Milt – the fallacy you describe is one I witness often around the council table. I wonder how well your explanation is received by Paul et al as providing it to my fellow councillors has been an exercise in futility; can those who use it, get their heads around the reasoning? I just don’t know. Maybe Paul’s response will show.
@ Robert.
PM is a ‘sophisticated drinker’ and ‘personally responsible’.
Far be it for others to lecture him on why we should tighten up on liquor laws because ‘others’ (probably a majority) aren’t as sophisticated as he is.
It’s probably pointless debating with a ‘respectable’ pisshead anyway.
I just saw one in the supermarket (a Nat MP of high profile). He came complete with hangers-on – one with a walkie talkie heading for the wine racks ffs!
I’m not sure what happens though when the entire population of people that consume alcohol claim to be ‘sophisticated drinkers’ and are ‘personally responsible’.
Probably not much different from now – it’s everybody else that’s the problem……….and we get to nowehere.
We once had a 6 o’clock swill. Not much has changed really except we’ve shifted it to the early hours of the morning
The government agreeing with industry lobbyists rather than anti-alcohol lobbyists over increased restrictions on the sale of alcohol also isn’t what I’d call “support.” If Collins had decided the other way and increased restrictions on the sale of alcohol, would that mean the government was “supporting” anti-alcohol activists?
PM.. whom has done the enabling?
The National Party, they are the ones that lowered the drinking age and allowed alcohol in supermarkets.
Class B legal drug it is. Whom allows promotion of it via advertising etc… the national party. Whom does not want pot to be decrimilised because it might cut into the profits of their legal class B drug… the national party.
PM are you an enabler? Do you condone the violence, the rape, murder, the abuse of children and others and the abuse of hospital staff? The national party does, otherwise they would have taken action rather than making alcohol more accessible.
I wonder how many alcohol related beatings there will be this Christmas? Are you ok with that PM? If not what do you suggest, or are you reliant on the alcohol so are anti anything being done about it?
Remove all alcohol advertising
Remove alcohol from supermarkets
PM.. whom has done the enabling?
The National Party, they are the ones that lowered the drinking age and allowed alcohol in supermarkets.
Pedant corner: “Who” has done the enabling – no ‘m’ on the end.
Yes, those are among the few things the National Party has managed to get right, and much appreciated by the nation’s drinkers (ie, most of the country). How is that a problem?
Class B legal drug it is. Whom allows promotion of it via advertising etc… the national party. Whom does not want pot to be decrimilised because it might cut into the profits of their legal class B drug… the national party.
Er, the National Party and the overwhelming majority of the country’s voters. I don’t care much about the advertising, other than that, as a general principle we should avoid imposing restrictions on people unless there are compelling reasons for it, but there is no political party outside of the Muslim countries that could propose criminalising alcohol and expect to be elected to government.
PM are you an enabler? Do you condone the violence, the rape, murder, the abuse of children and others and the abuse of hospital staff? … etc
PM i have been a beaten wife so pull your fucken head in for starts. Ever been kidnapped? How about having a gun or a knife held to your head? Have you been kicked in the face by steelcaps because you left a cup on the table.. I have. Yeah take the piss out of domestic violence why don’t ya.
And you know what more power to me for getting through that. I don’t usually bring that up to anyone, my story, but seeing you mentioned it above, i thought i would.
I don’t want to criminalize alcohol, I just want people to wake the fuck up at the damage it does and find some better ways to deal with what is obviously a massive problem in this country.
You can turn a blind eye all you want, but that still does naught to solve the issue.
So what do you suggest is done about NZs alcohol problem and the abuse A&E among others are suffering?
So what do you suggest is done about NZs alcohol problem and the abuse A&E among others are suffering?
For a start, we could stop blaming alcohol for the actions of people. “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been drunk” is no more relevant to consideration of someone’s actions than “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been angry/greedy/misogynist/you-name-it.”
Re the specific A&E problems, until we get people to stop thinking alcohol excuses their behaviour (which we’ve managed pretty successfully with drunk driving) we just have to fork out for security guards in A&E and make sure anyone who gets abusive or violent to paramedics or A&E staff gets prosecuted aggressively and sentenced accordingly. I’d be happy to see attacking or interfering with a paramedic or A&E worker counted as a severe aggravating factor at sentencing. It would be good if we started treating intoxication as an aggravating rather than mitigating factor as well.
So, Psycho Milt – no controls over the supply of alcohol or its promotion?
Would you regard other behaviour changing drugs in the same way you do alcohol ( “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been baked”)?
…no controls over the supply of alcohol or its promotion?
Wouldn’t go that far, but we already have plenty and certainly don’t need any more.
Would you regard other behaviour changing drugs in the same way you do alcohol ( “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been baked”)?
Some drugs have more of a case to be made, eg they can induce hallucinations or psychosis. I’m dubious about disavowing agency even in those cases, though – if someone goes on a “P-fuelled rampage,” they’re pushing it uphill if they want to claim they had no idea that was a potential outcome of taking P.
“…we don’t need any more.” Agreed. Further regulation will drive the issue further into the public realm where individuals make their decisions. Do they need assistance to make those? Should we weaken the arm of the industry devoted to profiting from alcohol sales? It has to go somewhere.
Re: “…they want to claim they had no idea that was a potential outcome of taking P” – decisions made at that juncture are difficult to tie to responsibility, I reckon. It’s such a vexed topic, this. Best to go for the most effective actions with regard the hoped-for outcome.
“Re the specific A&E problems, until we get people to stop thinking alcohol excuses their behaviour (which we’ve managed pretty successfully with drunk driving) we just have to fork out for security guards in A&E and make sure anyone who gets abusive or violent to paramedics or A&E staff gets prosecuted aggressively and sentenced accordingly. I’d be happy to see attacking or interfering with a paramedic or A&E worker counted as a severe aggravating factor at sentencing. It would be good if we started treating intoxication as an aggravating rather than mitigating factor as well.”
I think that is a great idea, when i was a volunteer fireman a couple of us had to hold down a drunk aggressive driver who was trying to pull the ambos off a patient with a back injury. He had driven at pedestrians on the footpath, hit a power pole and badly injured one of his passengers.
Faaaaaaaaaaark!
” I’d be happy to see attacking or interfering with a paramedic or A&E worker counted as a severe aggravating factor at sentencing. It would be good if we started treating intoxication as an aggravating rather than mitigating factor as well.”
There’s something we agree on.
But then how would you deal with PM? – the ‘sophisticated drinker’?
You keep putting “sophisticated drinker” in quotation marks as though it were a claim I’d made, which it isn’t. That’s effectively a lie, and you should stop doing it.
Alcohol has an effect on the actions of people and so does anger, greed, misogyny etc.
The difference is that alcohol is something people consume (willingly or unwillingly) but anger, greed and misogyny are already inside them and outside influences can only change what is already there.
Alcohol consumption due to addiction or peer pressure, in my opinion is a mitigating factor in people’s harmful actions because it weakens willpower.
Interestingly, I know people who say that as free individuals they do what they like and yet drink excessively.
Cinny – you should know that the question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” (regardless of what you have lived through) was always the standard example quoted by English teachers of a leading question, which condemns the replier even before he/she answers. That is the only reason Psycho Milt used it.
Your response is as unsatisfactory as the leading questions you asked.
In Vino (how apt is that name for this discussion in vino – in wine truth – sounds like someone enjoys the vino)
Are you beating your wife? How is one supposed to respond to that if one is unaware of such a quote to start with? Shame on me for not knowing everything, I’ve never heard of that ‘have you stopped beating your wife’ thing before, but hey i guess i’ve learned something.
Thanks for explaining it to me In Vino, at least someone took the time to do it
Maybe any one whom loves the booze would have found any of my questions and responses unsatisfactory. JS
The health professionals say they’ve had enough of boozers at the hospital clogging up the A&E and I say that putting security in there to help protect the staff is like putting a plaster on cancer.
Goodness me they are talking about the drunks again on the wireless this morning, it’s still topical and obviously a problem in NZ.
Yes Cinny, I do enjoy some vino without beating up medicos..
Didn’t mean to shame you, but you had come on so hard. Sorry.
For those who do the dugs, alcohol, violence, I suspect that restricting alcohol access in whatever way will achieve nothing. There are other social factors that have been wrecking us for many years – these people need hope and a belief in a positive future. Fiddling the price of alcohol will be an empty gesture.
I say that putting security in there to help protect the staff is like putting a plaster on cancer.
And increased restrictions on alcohol is like putting a carcinogenic plaster on a cancer. I proposed putting security guards in A&E as a temporary measure to provide some immediate relief; fixing the “cancer” involves refusing to blame alcohol for the actions of people. Your proposed solution would actually make the “cancer” worse, in that it puts the blame for people’s actions squarely on alcohol.
Apologies for the use of the phrase “Have you stopped beating your wife?” to reject your trap questions. It’s such a standard debating term I use it without thinking about how it would make a victim of domestic violence feel – which looks stupid now I write it down. I’ll think of another phrase to use in future.
PM & In Vino, thanks for your replies, there is something we can all agree on, too many are suffering due to booze and something needs to change. Its a matter i obviously feel passionate about, have seen too much misery due to booze across all walks of life. But hey i have learnt something from your comments, am always trying to look for a silver linings 😀
In the mean time over the silly season could you all do me a favour, if you see or hear abuse please take action, dont walk by or turn a blind eye. Because it does save lives, it really does and there are psycho abusive women out there as well as men, so many chicks go mental on the booze.
I honestly feel that many problems carry on because so many turn a blind eye, one time i dropped the glass bottle of milk i was carrying when walking home with him, he beat me on the side of the road, people just walked or drove past, no one stopped, and ive never felt so helpless as i did that day. And the really messed up thing, it was in a very well to do area, not all abusers are the stereotype people think they are.
I am lucky my abuser is dead, but i still react a bit strangely when certain things happen something i usually remember to keep in check. Apologies if my words were to strong in the comments above. Bit of a tender spot for me it is.
Okies better change the tune its getting a bit morbid.
Have a fun holiday season, the weather here today is stunning, may it be a wonderful summer where you are too. If you are ever in Motueka and see a chick chalking the sidewalk, come say hi.
Happy Solstice and Seasons Greetings 😀
I remember back then when the Supermarkets were first allowed to sell Liquor, restrictions regarding advertising and discounting were put in place.
Have they been repealed?
If you come to a supermarket you get bombarded with displays announcing “specials” and often the product is not separated from the food areas.
I was under the impression that there is also a time restriction and who is policing that?
This is like a sick joke, 100% access for all – the $ for the private business speaks louder than the carnage that is left for the taxpayer to pick up the costs. A true case of corporate welfare.
Challenges blind worshipers at the altar of Christmas Consumerism to put the planet and their children’s future first….capitalism will be the end of us.
“It’s getting beyond urgent but, hey, let’s all have a cutesy cultural norm of a festive season. The economy depends on it, and the unequal wealth generated from it needs to be distributed to the usual suspects. Growth, growth, growth!
While you’re sitting around the tucker table and raising a glass to family, all misty-eyed about how much you care about future generations, raise the subject of just how serious climate change is becoming. How the Arctic ice is melting as quickly as the ice cream left out of the freezer by Uncle Bob. See how that conversation goes down.”
Rachel Stewart is superb.
We need more fearless writers like her to challenge what we are doing.
Here is another excellent excerpt.
‘Because here we are in 2016. The planet is burning in front of our eyes but we’re still going to buy those gifts, damn it! Because the world’s a grim and depressing place, so shut up and let me do this for strangers, as well as friends and family. I want to make them smile. Don’t judge me!
But I am going to judge you, and judge you hard. Strap yourself in.
If you’re not consciously thinking about this stuff, then you’re part of the problem.
Study after study shows that consumption now dwarfs population as the main environmental threat on earth.
Indeed, most of the extra consumption has so far been – but is rapidly changing – in wealthy countries that have long since stopped adding substantial numbers to their population. Like us.
Moreover, is it making anybody happy? Will those carefully wrapped presents in all their plastic glory keep anyone deeply delighted for more than an hour or two? Let’s be honest with ourselves.
Sure, I get that you want to please your kids but, really? Is this the way to go? Is there not an argument for opting out of this madness and telling them why?’
garibaldi
I dont need champagne, I know that was just an expression of joy in having a festive season and I agree with you. We have dreadful problems to face but if we face them by becoming grim and grinding down and refusing to have laughter, friendship, attempting to be kind to our annoying relations and looking to come together and enjoy the others, what is worth living for?
Take the opportunity to give them a subscription to the New Internationalist magazine, to Greenpeace, a bar of chocolate. a lovely mat. a jute shopping bag all from Trade Aid, buy them a pack of Trade Aid tea from the supermarket.
But keep being human and kind, not human and slightly vicious as we can find ourselves being so quickly, and so differently than our own understanding of ourselves. Everyone has a nasty side that gets managed but be aware, and have a look at it after the gift-giving and do something next year to help us all in the near future, and look at our beautiful planet, the colour of flowers, the delicacy of leaves, the kindness of strangers, the innocence of little toddlers trying to walk and help to give them something to walk to.
Sorry to butt in marty mars, but surely we should be asking ‘why did you opt in to this madness?’ rather than accept the default setting of ‘do christmas or forever be labelled as super grinch?
Rachel Stewart is asking (and I do well understand what reaction this provokes) for folk to think carefully about why they are buying into this seasonal shit.
Because, when you think about it…its really stupid.
Well I’m not a Christian or a follower of Santa. I do like the equinox and the coming together of family – so we celebrate ??? something anyway. The last 2 days the 2 year old has been playing a lot with a bit of cardboard on a small slope – doesn’t take much if the intent is there.
I just don’t buy stuff. But that’s agreed within my family. There’s nothing my family members are in need of. I do attend a family Christmas meal – though not always on Xmas Day – tis on the 24th this year. Is usually catered by my bro and his wife.
In return (kind of) I usually donate something to the City Mission (in December and during the winter) – there are people more in need of give-aways than my family.
I’m glad to read Stewart also doesn’t like secret Santa – I thought I was alone in that.
And, yes agreed again with Stewart – need to do more to work/fight for a non-consumerist type of society, and for a sustainable environment in the age of life-threatening climate change.
Pompous moralising consumes precious oxygen and produces greenhouse gases. Would you consider smirking smugly while I pick at my own special lentil trifle as an acceptable rebuke to my less virtuous relatives?
I just don’t think I’m pompous and selfrighteous enough. If I sat on a pointy stick and practised making ‘poffpoff’ noises would my rellies be more convinced of my rightness?
I just don’t think I’m pompous and selfrighteous enough.
Actually, that’s exactly what you are as you dismiss reality and the damage that we’re doing by trying to use ad hominems. It’s the I’m right, you’re wrong BS that we always get from those too stupid to accept that the status quo is wrong.
This article explains how identity politics divides us into smaller groups with limited power. We need to UNITE as the exploited to tackle the problems of exploitation of both people and the environment. In the coming election year we need to spend less time arguing about subtle differences between the groups of the exploited and combine our resources more effectively.
Yesterday there was much media attention on Bill English’s “not a feminist” statement and Paula Bennett’s “most days a feminist” one. In the meantime, the still homeless, the Pike River families, the foreign students who have been defrauded, those trying to get on a waiting list for hospital operations, those looking after disabled family members 24/7, those struggling to pay rising rents, etc… remain in their desperate states. Instead of taking the attitude of ” well I don’t care about that because it doesn’t directly affect me” , we need to stick together and say ” this is yet another example of exploitation from a government which introduced a tax system which further advantaged the poor, and one which touts tourism as a great earner while encouraging farming practices which are rapidly degrading the very environment that attracts tourists. We need to call exploitation whatever the target.
It’s not racism that creates the difference between classes; it’s capitalism. And it’s not anti-racism that can combat the difference; it’s socialism. We’re frequently told that black poverty is worse than white poverty—more isolating, more concentrated—and maybe that’s true. But why, politically, should it matter? You don’t build the left by figuring out which victim has been most victimized; you build it by organizing all the victims. When it comes to the value of universal health care, for example, we don’t need to worry for a second about whether the black descendants of slaves are worse off than the white descendants of coal miners. The goal is not to make sure that black people are no sicker than white people; it’s to make everybody healthy. That’s why they call it universal.
Progressive parties forgot ( were too scared/too compromised ?) to focus on economic and class issues and instead focused on identity politics.
The result – 30 plus years of neoliberal economics , with all the ensuing social issues.
That ‘analysis’ is flawed paul – change your lens. The rise of neoliberalism is a direct result of leftish parties being SUCKED in to the economic debate – as if it is the be all and end all. You have it completely wrong and round the rong way too.
Anyone in the thick of ‘identity politics’ knows it is never a them or us scenario and it isn’t the oppression olymipics either – those concepts are used to deride ‘identity politics’ whether by the right, the economic pointy heads, those that think class is everything or at least the main thing and other assorted lefties, righties and centreees and so on. Always reminds me of, “Hey guys let’s work as a team and do it my way”
Yes. And as I said yesterday, there’s more than one kind of feminism.
And critiques of some vague, misinformed notion of “identity politics” don’t get to define other people’s feminist views and politics.
The caricature of feminism that is invoked by anti-identity politics folk, is more that of “liberal feminism”
Judith Collins yesterday said her feminist influences were Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem – puts her in the ranks of liberal feminists. They tend to want equality within the existing capitalist and patriarchal system – usually through changes to the law.
radical feminism – though contrary to that definition, some radical feminists also agree with Marxist critiques of society.
and more. Some people probably are more social democratic feminists.
Basically, feminism tends not to stand out on its own separated from other kinds of politics. Feminists also tend to have other political views that are integrated with their feminist values and politics.
Capitalism was built on the backs (and lands and resources) of black and brown bodies, as well as those of the white working classes.
Racism, initially in the form of imperialism/colonisation and chattel slavery, was intertwined with the growth of capitalism. And that legacy has been repeated from generation to generation.
I wrote a bit about that, as happened in the US, in my 2 part review of the TV mini-series “Roots”.
The abolition of slavery was replaced by what often was referred to as “wage slavery”, with a large number of young black men, and some poor white men, in the south of the US, working for little money in harsh, prison-like conditions. A high proportion of black such men ended up in prison. There they became cheap labour for the developing enterprises of the rapid industrialisation of the US, and the rise of capitalism (Fraser, pp. 50-3).
“And while young African American males languished in industrial and agricultural prison camps, black women (if they weren’t also working in prisons, sometimes as unpaid prostitutes), once the helpmates of their husbands on small family plots, found work instead as wage earners in canning and tobacco factories, as domestics, in mechanized laundries and textile mills, and in the fields.” (Fraser, p.53)
High unemployment was a frightening reality. The US’s early phases of industrialisation developed on the backs and bodies of the poor, a high proportion of them being black people.
“… 35,000 workers died each year in industrial accidents, many of them skilled mechanics.…
“The bones of thousands of workmen were encased in the concrete of dams and bridges…” (Fraser, pp. 56-57)
Basically, if your into the oppression olympics, it can be argued that imperialism and colonisation and chattel slavery preceded and enabled capitalism – that it laid the foundation for capitalism.
“This results in George being sold to an Englishman, and taken to England for over 20 years, leaving behind his wife Matilda (Erica Tazel) and several children.”
That simple sentence sums up so much of the destruction of people, their families and all they hold important. So much contained within one sentence.
I always thought slavery/racism against POC, was designed in those times, to ensure profits for the South. When the war finished the profits had to continue as best they could thus wage slavery and the various other ways to get work from someone for nothing began in earnest.
Yes, chattel slavery (where the slave and his/her life was totally owned ) was replaced by wage slavery – but also by cheap prison labour, of which African-Americans made up a high proportion of the imprisoned. That prison labour was a significant part of the building of US capitalism.
And that legacy continues today with the high proportion of African-Americans in 21st century prisons.
And that destruction of families and things of value in people’s lives was a huge consequence of the the drive for wealth and power by the US dominant classes.
I agree with all that is being said…but have doubts that the organisation SR works for actually follows the same philosophy.
We all have a ‘group’ we identify with, whose particular needs dictate the lens through which we see and hear a conversation.
Wearing our ‘disability community hats’ rather than our ‘pay family carers of disabled people’ hats we attended a meeting in Auckland a while ago organised by PSA and Auckland Disability Law.
PSA were very concerned about the rights of care workers employed by disabled people using individulalised Funding. Employers could just ‘fire’ a worker for little or no good reason and hence these workers’ rights needed ‘protecting’ from their disabled employers.
PSA, it seemed, had not considered the vulnerability of a disabled person who employs someone in good faith, then discovers they are not suitable for the work. These workers are coming into the disabled person’s home and performing care tasks of an extremely intimate nature and PSA seemed to be insisting that if there are problems then the disabled employer should be reasonable and give that employee another chance and let them work out their notice.
I am not sure that I was able to explain just how unreasonable and potentially dangerous this stance was for the person with the disability…forced to use IF, and hence become an employer, by virtue of the fact that the services through Contracted Providers were so poor and inflexible.
For all the PSA, and other unions have their roots firmly in the political struggle for workers rights, it had not occurred to PSA that Government policy had created the situation where a union was defending the rights of workers against people with significant impairments dependent of others for their most basic of care.
That looks to be yet another instance of divide-and-rule, the thing that neoliberal governments are so good at. The problem seems to be the IF model, which pits the PSA, whose obligation is to advocate for workers, against the disabled and their advocates who must take the part of the employers. Solidarity would involve collectively challenging the IF model, but the disabled themselves might not have a unified attitude here – some might feel as if the IF model allows their concerns to be taken seriously at long last, while others might see it as making demands they are ill-equipped to meet. As long as people are stuck with the IF model, the next best solution is for both sides to actually listen to each other, avoid talking past each other and engage in good faith negotiation. You do not want workers thrown onto the scrap-heap, but you do not want the disabled employers being terrified of visits from their so-called employees either.
“You do not want workers thrown onto the scrap-heap, but you do not want the disabled employers being terrified of visits from their so-called employees either.”
No, you do not want disabled people terrified of visits from their caregivers, nor do you want carers thrown on the scrap heap.
The caregiver is secondary in this situation.
The thing that gets me is the latest bid by, I think PSA, to have guaranteed hours of work for home based carers. The very nature of the work is casual and often finite. If a carer want set hours and stable work and a predictable future then they should go and work in one of the hundreds of residential facilities.
There is no shortage of care work, be it in facilities or private homes, for well trained, competent, honest, reliable and above all respectful carers.
IF was born out if what was called ‘Discretionary Funding’, and what is known elsewhere as ‘Personal Budget” Most suited for those who need more flexibility around what is done for them and when.
It soon became the default option for those with high and very high and complex care needs…the clients that the Contracted providers can decline to support…usually because they do not have staff with the right level of expertise…and hiring such workers would undermine their profit margin.
It would be an absolutely fantastic scheme for many disabled people if there were not so many conditions on how one can use the funds.
Ideally, the Miserly of Health should have said… “here’s $1500 per week….sort your own shit out and bother us no more.” But no, they just had to say you can’t pay this person and you must do that…the whole scheme is unreasonably complex.
Then the unions jump in to protect ‘at risk’ workers and the very people who need a flexible way of sourcing the care that is vital to them are too scared to take up IF in case they end up in the Employment Court because they had to fire some fuckwit who turned up in the morning off their face from the previous night’s partying.
Even the attempt to modify IF through what is called “Enhanced IF” has largely been a failure. I would put up a link to the evaluation report, but I can’t be bothered.
You see, it’s all very well saying “avoid talking past each other and engage in good faith negotiation.” when it is the person with the disability who is going to be forced to compromise…again.
And on a personal note…I was unimpressed to read that unions were concerned that if family carers were allowed to be paid as any other person doing the same work it would take employment away from those currently doing the work.
Again…one group fighting for their rights not being supported, in fact being actively opposed by another group purporting to be defending the rights of others.
one group fighting for their rights not being supported, in fact being actively opposed by another group purporting to be defending the rights of others.
It all gets very complicated…
Everything you say highlights the difficulties involved in establishing real solidarity, especially given that the two groups you are talking about – disabled people and their caregivers – both have very limited rights in the first place.
Ironman competitor Cameron Brown has been attacked on social media after publicly supporting disgraced footballer Richie McCaw.
McCaw arrived in Auckland on Sunday and met with Brown for a kick around in an Auckland park.
Brown took his son on the ride and posted a photo of the trio on Facebook, to which he was heavily trolled for his involvement with McCaw.
“Well I am disappointed for you Cam in my view it tarnishes your achievements and he shouldn’t be validated by association with you. You grafted hard for everything you achieved you should protect that,” one follower commented.
“Sorry Cam. But he was a relentless cheat. The way he and his team-mates ruined our memory of the 2011 RWC final with his cheating is possibly even worse than the way they cheated their opponents,” added another. “Cheat not to be looked up to.”
However, not all were bad, with many people simply commenting on the meeting as “awesome”.
Brown spoke of his admiration for McCaw on NewstalkZB, in spite of the ex-captain’s low reputation in France.
“I watched him for 10 years competing in the All Blacks and it was quite incredible to kick with him,” Brown said. “I’d never met him before so it was pretty special. My little boy’s getting into rugby now so I took him along and Richie was great. I think he’s probably just trying to forget about the past and move on. And hopefully rugby fans can forgive him but probably there’s a lot of people—especially in France—that can’t.”
However, the reaction to Brown and McCaw’s meeting drew severe reaction online, resulting in the Ironman withdrawing from a scheduled interview with Mike “Contra” Hosking this morning.
Not the end of the story re 2011. The French have not forgotten, and neither have people in New Zealand who actually care for the integrity of the game.
The “drubbing” of France in that disgraceful capitulation last year was nothing less than a joke. You noticed perhaps that France did not even compete?
Is Prince William in line for that 8:30-to-noon spot at NewstalkZB?
Actually, compared to Leighton Smith, the prince is a silver-tongued devil.
Tribute to Michael Phelps at the 2016 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards.
Loud applause, whistling, clapping….
GARY LINEKER: Uh, firstly, er, Your Highness, er, I’m sure you’d like to say a few words on behalf of everyone here, in fact everyone in the country.
PRINCE WILLIAM: Thank you Gary. Uh, it’s a huge honour for me to be here this evening, ahhh, on what has been a, an incredible memorable year for, for sports. Ahhhh, it’s also a particular privilege to be here tonight Michael, ahhhh, to give you your lifetime achievement award. Ahhh, you’re one of the greatest sporting icons, ahh, this world has ever had and, ahh, your twenty-three gold medals —never mind all the other colours!— [supportive cluck from woman in audience]…. ahhhmm, uh, pales into, uh, sheer superhuman history.
Uh, you should be so proud of your achievements and it’ll be many, many years before, if ever, anyone stands here again and calls you the greatest, um, athlete in history. So, many, many congratulations and hopefully your retirement gives someone else a chance now!
“For the first time ever, scientists have observed the light spectrum of antimatter. ALPHA, an international collaboration based at CERN, made history by capturing a measurement of the optical spectrum of the 1S-2S transition in trapped antihydrogen. Progressing scientific techniques in this area will lead to more precision comparisons of antihydrogen and hydrogen, further illuminating the mysterious study area of antimatter. With this breakthrough from the ALPHA collaboration, a new era of research begins.”
Among the thousand-plus galaxies in the Coma cluster, a massive clump of matter some 300 million light-years away, is at least one — and maybe a few hundred — that shouldn’t exist.
Dragonfly 44 is a dim galaxy, with one star for every hundred in our Milky Way. But it spans roughly as much space as the Milky Way. In addition, it’s heavy enough to rival our own galaxy in mass, according to results published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters at the end of August. That odd combination is crucial: Dragonfly 44 is so dark, so fluffy, and so heavy that some astronomers believe it will either force a revision of our theories of galaxy formation or help us understand the properties of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that interacts with normal matter via gravity and not much else. Or both.
There’s exiting stuff being found through science.
A team of European scientists has identified a surprising new feature of the Earth’s outer core – a molten river of iron hundreds of kilometres wide that’s speeding deep beneath Russia and Canada.
Basically, earth’s magnetic field has been weakening over the centuries, and that field protects earth from the sun’s heat.
furthermore, eventually there will be a polarity reversal – the magnetic characteristics of the 2 poles changing place.
There was an interview on the radio with some rich ‘style queen’. She has been paid lots and lots of public money for the last 8 years to tell poor young people how to dress to get a job. She goes along to those boot camps which Paula B started and which young unemployed people have to go on or lose their benefit. They have no evidence base but are a good way to privatise public money. She is one who personally profits by getting paid some exorbitant rate.
I know some young people who have been on these camps. They are hard work and there is often misery and bullying. They endure them because they have no choice, but also there is that promise of a job at the end.
But there is never a job at the end and getting back on the benefit can be another battle. And instead of having quality clothing and styled hair as recommended by the rich lady they are doomed to WINZ vouchers for a cheap pair of trackpants at the Warehouse.
More drama about whether the FBI asking for a warrant to look for new Clinton e-mails days before the election was even legal or violated the Fourth Amendment.
“The warrant application seems to reflect a belief that any email sent by Hillary Clinton from a private email server is probably evidence of a crime,” Katkin said. “If so, then it must be seen as a partisan political act, rather than a legitimate law enforcement action.”
Unbelievable though it is, that is exactly what appears to have happened. Such criteria means that everyone of us who sends an email to anyone on our private servers – which most of us do on almost a daily basis – is therefore potentially guilty of committing crimes. I wonder sometimes if that traitorous act on the part of FBI Director, James Coney and his pals will eventually bring down the Trump administration.
The indicators of increasing community stress and displacement are all there. These stories are not going away, they are getting more frequent and worse and the Key/English National government have produced these outcomes, there is no doubt about it.
I wonder if this is their form of collateral damage in that they saw the once great New Zealand as too fair and were determined to bring it into line with a decadent and gross America.
Imagine what next winter is going to be like for some people in this country…
It’s what happens when the government gives all of the countries wealth to rich people. A few people become very well off while the rest suffer. We’ve seen this throughout history and the inevitable result is the collapse of society.
Oh, they want to “play a part in helping their community”. I bet they do. Increasing their portfolios and becoming increasingly wealthy would just be a fortuitous byproduct. Bless them.
I don’t see that there’s much to complain about, given he was caught long before he actually harmed anyone, and he gets called a white supremacist and KKK member very prominently.
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to June 3 include:PM Christopher Luxon is expected to hold his weekly post-cabinet news conference at 4:00pm today.Parliament’s Environment Select Committee resumes hearing submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm today.Auckland ...
Tomorrow the AT board meet again and I’ve taken a look through the items on their public agenda to see what’s interesting. It’s also the first meeting for two recently appointed directors, former director at Ritchies Transport, Andrew Ritchie and former mayor of Hamilton, Julie Hardaker. The public session starts ...
The Government is looking again at changing fringe benefit tax rules to make it harder to claim a personally-used double-cab ute as a company vehicle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Having repealed the previous Government’s ‘ute tax’ last year, the new Government is looking at removing a defacto tax ...
Hi,I pitched a documentary to a big streamer last week and they said “no thanks” which is a bummer, because we’d worked on the concept for ages and I think it would have been a compelling watch. But I would say that because I was the one pitching it, right?As ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 19, 2024 thru Sat, May 25, 2024. Story of the week This week's typiclal compendium of stories we'd rather were plot devices in science ficition novels but instead ...
This National government has been aggressively anti-environment, and is currently ramming through its corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" legislation to give three ministers dictatorial powers over what gets built and where. But that's not the only thing they're doing. On Thursday they introduced a Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, ...
Whenever politicians dole out taxpayer funding to groups or individuals, they must do so in a wholly transparent way with due process to ensure conflicts of interest don’t occur and that the country receives value for money. Unfortunately, it’s not clear that this has occurred in the announcement this week ...
Last night began earlier than usual. In bed by 6:30pm, asleep an hour later. Sometimes I do sleep odd hours, writing late and/or getting up very early - complemented with the occasional siesta, but I’m usually up a bit later than that on a Saturday night. Last night I was ...
Early in the COVID-19 days, the Boris Johnson government pressed a Big Red Button marked: act immediately, never mind about the paperwork.Their problem was: not having enough PPE gear for all the hospital and emergency staff. Their solution was to expedite things and get them the gear ASAP.This, along with ...
Up until 1989, you could attend a New Zealand University, and never need to pay a cent for your education. That then changed, of course. The sadists of the Fourth Labour Government introduced substantial fees for study, never having had to pay a cent for their own education. The even ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Minister for Children Karen Chhour is putting children first: Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I move, That the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill.It’s a privilege ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Applause and cheers erupted in the House on Wednesday afternoon as Children’s Minister Karen Chhour condemned Te Pāti Māori’s insults about her upbringing. Chhour, who grew up in state care, is repealing section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act – sparking uproar from ...
I could corrupt youIt would be uglyThey could sedate youBut what good would drugs be?Good Morning all,Today there’s a guest newsletter from Gerard Otto (G). By which I mean I read his post this morning and he has kindly allowed me to share it with you.If you don’t already I ...
Is the solution to any of the serious, long term issues we all have to face as a nation, because many governments of all stripes we can probably all admit if we’re deeply truthful with ourselves haven’t done near enough work at the very times they should have, to basically ...
The 2018 Social Security Act suggests that Labour may have retreated to the minimalist (neo-liberal) welfare state which has developed out of the Richardson-Shipley ‘redesign’. One wonders what Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser and Walter Nash would have thought of the Social Security Act passed by the Ardern Labour Government ...
MPs are supposed to serve the public interest, not their own self-interest. And according to the New Zealand Parliament’s website, democracy and integrity are tarnished whenever politicians seek to enrich themselves or the people they are connected with. For this reason, the Parliament has a “Register of Pecuniary Interests” in ...
By now, most of you will have heard about the FLICC taxonomy of science denial techniques and how you can train your skills in detecting them with the Cranky Uncle game. If you like to quickly check how good you are at this already, answer the 12 quiz questions in the ...
Buzz from the Beehive The hacks of the Parliamentary Press Gallery have been able to chip into a rich vein of material on the government’s official website over the past 24 hours. Among the nuggets is the speech by Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and a press statement to announce ...
When Labour was in power, they wasted time, political capital, and scarce policy resources on trying to extend the parliamentary term to four years, in an effort to make themselves less accountable to us. It was unlikely to fly, the idea having previously lost tworeferendums by huge margins - ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: When Whanau Ora chief executive John Tamihere was asked what his expectations for the Budget next Thursday were, he said: “All hope is lost.” Last year Whānau Ora was allocated $163.1 million in the Budget to last for the next four years ...
Nick Hanne writes – There’s a common malady suffered by bureaucracies the world over. They wish to save us from ourselves. Sadly, NZ officials are no less prone to exhibiting symptoms of this occupational condition.Observe, for instance, the reaction from certain public figures to the news ...
Peter Dunne writes – As the city of Tauranga prepares to elect a new Mayor and Council after three and a half years being run by government-appointed Commissioners, the case for replacing the Wellington City Council with Commissioners strengthens. The Wellington City Council has been dysfunctional for years, ...
This will be s short post. It stems from observations I made elsewhere about what might be characterised as some macro and micro aspects of contemporary collective violence events. Here goes. The conflicts between Israel and Palestine and France and … Continue reading → ...
It may be a relic of a previous era of egalitarianism, but many of us like to think that, in general, most New Zealanders are as honest as the day is long. We’re good like that, and smart as. If we’re not punching above our weight on the world stage, ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Why aren’t politicians taking more action on the housing affordability crisis? The answer might lie in the latest “Register of Pecuniary Interests.” This register contains details of the various financial interests of parliamentarians. It shows that politicians own real estate in significant numbers. The ...
I built a time machine to see you againTo hear your phone callYour voice down the hallThe way we were back thenWe were dancing in the rainOur feet on the pavementYou said I was your second headI knew exactly what you meantIn the country of the blind, or so they ...
Why aren’t politicians taking more action on the housing affordability crisis? The answer might lie in the latest “Register of Pecuniary Interests.” This register contains details of the various financial interests of parliamentarians. It shows that politicians own real estate in significant numbers. The register published on Tuesday contains a ...
Microsoft’s transparency about its failure to meet its own net-zero goals is creditable, but the response to that failure is worrying. It is offering up a set of false solutions, heavily buttressed by baseless optimism. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in ...
Another Friday, another Rāmere Roundup! Here are a few things that caught our eye this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday, our new writer Connor Sharp roared into print with a future-focused take on the proposed Auckland Future Fund, and what it could invest in. On ...
Still Waiting: Māori land remains in the hands of Non-Māori. The broken promises of the Treaty remain broken. The mana of the tangata whenua languishes under racist neglect. The right to wear the huia feather remains as elusive as ever. Perhaps these three transformations are beyond the power of a ...
Posters opposing the proposed Fast-Track Approvals legislation were pasted around Wellington last week. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: One of the architects of the RMA and a former National Cabinet Minister, Simon Upton, has criticised the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals bill as potentially disastrous for the environment, arguing just 1% ...
There was less sharing of the joy this week than at the Chinese New Year celebrations in February. China’s ambassador to NZ (2nd from right above) has toldLuxon that relations between China and New Zealand are now at a ‘critical juncture’ Photo: Getty / Xinhua News AgencyTL;DR: The podcast ...
The importance of New Zealand’s relationship with China was surely demonstrated yesterday with the surprise arrival in the capital of top Chinese foreign policy official Liu Jianchao. The trip was apparently organized a week ago but kept secret. Liu is the Minister of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) International Liaison ...
With a crushing 20-plus point lead in the opinion polls, all the signs are that Labour leader Keir Starmer will be the PM after the general election on 4 July, called by Conservative incumbent Rishi Sunak yesterday. The stars are aligned for Starmer. Rival progressives are in abeyance: the Liberal-Democrat ...
We returned last week from England to London. Two different worlds. A quarter of an hour before dropping off our car, we came to a complete stop on the M25. Just moments before, there had been six lanes of hurtling cars and lorries. Now, everything was at a standstill as ...
Buzz from the Beehive A triumvirate of ministers – holding the Agriculture, Environment and RMA Reform portfolios – has announced the introduction of legislation “to slash the tangle of red and green tape throttling development in key sectors”, such as farming, mining and other primary industries. The exact name of ...
The Social Services and Community Committee has called for submissions on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill. Submissions are due by Wednesday, 3 July 2024, and can be made at the link above. And if you're wondering what to say: section 7AA was enacted because Oranga Tamariki ...
Michael Reddell writes – The Reserve Bank doesn’t do independent fiscal forecasts so there is no news in the fiscal numbers in today’s Monetary Policy Statement themselves. The last official Treasury forecasts don’t take account of whatever the government is planning in next week’s Budget, and as the Bank notes ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – We know the old saying, “Never trust a politician”, and the Charter School debate is a good example of it. Charter Schools receive public funding, yet “are exempt from most statutory requirements of traditional public schools, including mandates around .. human capital management .. curriculum ...
How Do We Silence Them? The ruling obsession of the contemporary Left is that political action undertaken by individuals or groups further to the right than the liberal wings of mainstream conservative parties should not only be condemned, but suppressed.WEB OF CHAOS, a “deep dive into the world of disinformation”, ...
Muriel Newman writes – As the new Government puts the finishing touches to this month’s Budget, they will undoubtedly have had their hands full dealing with the economic mess that Labour created. Not only was Labour a grossly incompetent manager of the economy, but they also set out ...
Today the British PM, Rishi Sunak, called a general election for the 4th of July. He spoke of the challenging times and of strong leadership and achievements. It was as if he was talking about someone else, a real leader, rather than he himself or the woeful list of Tory ...
This post marks the return of an old format: Photo of the Day. Recently I was in an apartment in one of those new buildings on Great North Road Grey Lynn at rush hour, perfect day, the view was stunning, so naturally I whipped out my phone: GNR 5pm Turns ...
The Government may struggle with the political optics of scrapping assistance for first home buyers while also cutting the tax burden on landlords, increasing concerns over the growing generational divide. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government confirmed it will dump first home buyer grants in the Budget next ...
Yesterday, the Reserve Bank confirmed there will be no free card for the economy to get out of jail during the current term of the Government. Regardless of what the Budget next week says, we are in for three years of austerity. Over those three years, we will have to ...
It doesn’t inspire confidence when politicians change their minds. But you must give credit when a bad idea is dropped. Last year, we reported on the determination of British PM Rishi Sunak to lead the world in regulating the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. Perhaps he changed his mind after meeting ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Is carbon dioxide removal - aka "negative emissions" - going to save us from climate change? Or is it just a ...
Headed for the legislative wastepaper basket… Buzz from the Beehive It looks like this government is just as ready as its predecessor to dip into the public funds it is managing to dispense millions of dollars to finance – and favour – the parties it fancies. Or ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – National and Labour and ACT have at various times waxed on about their “vision” of NZ as a high value-added world tech centerWhat subject is tech based upon? Mathematics. A Chicago mathematician just told me that whereas last decade ...
Eric Crampton writes – Danyl McLauchlan over at The Listener on the recent shift toward more contestability in public policy advice in education: Education Minister Erica Stanford, one of National’s highest-ranked MPs, is trying to circumvent the establishment, taking advice from a smaller pool of experts – ...
Ele Ludemann writes – That Kāinga Ora is a mess is no surprise, but the size of the mess is. There have been many reports of unruly tenants given licence to terrorise neighbours, properties bought and left vacant, and the state agency paying above market rates in competition ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result ...
The scathing “independent” review of Kāinga Ora barely hit the table before the coalition government had acted on it. The entire Kāinga Ora board will be replaced, and a new chair (Simon Moutter) has been announced. Hmm. No aspersions on Bill English, but the public would have had more confidence ...
I'll light the fireYou place the flowers in the vaseThat you bought todayA warm dry home, you’d think that would be bread and butter to politicians. Home ownership and making sure people aren’t left living on the street, that’s as Kiwi as Feijoa and Apple Crumble. Isn’t it?The coalition are ...
Politics is about compromise, right? And framing it so the voters see your compromise as the better one. John Key was a skilful exponent of this approach (as was Keith Holyoake in an earlier age), and Chris Luxon isn’t too bad either. But in politics, the process whereby an old ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result of his non-disclosure could even see ...
The relentless drone coming out of the Prime Minister and his deputy for a million days now has been that the last government was just hosing money all over the show and now at last the grownups are in charge and shutting that drunken sailor stuff down. There is a word ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to riot-torn New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. Today’s flight will carry around 50 passengers with the most ...
Precious declaration saysYours is yours and mine you leave alone nowPrecious declaration saysI believe all hope is dead no longerTick tick tick Boom!Unexploded ordnance. A veritable minefield. A National caucus with a large number of unknowns, candidates who perhaps received little in the way of vetting as the party jumped ...
Rex Ahdar writes – The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, likes to trace his political lineage back to the pioneers of parliamentary Maoridom. I will refer to these as the ‘big four’ or better still, the Four Knights. Just as ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper ...
That is the only way to describe an MP "forgetting" to declare $178,000 in donations. The amount of money involved - more than five times the candidate spending cap, and two and a half times the median income - is boggling. How do you just "forget" that amount of money? ...
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and spoke about the upcoming US elections and what the possibility of another Trump presidency means for the US role in world affairs. We also spoke about the problems Joe … Continue reading → ...
Hi,Two years ago I briefly featured in Justin Pemberton’s Web of Chaos documentary, which touched on things like QAnon during the pandemic.I mostly prattled on about how intertwined conspiracy narratives are with Evangelical Christian thinking, something Webworm’s explored in the past.(The doc is available on TVNZ+, if you’re not in ...
The Government is leaving the entire construction sector and the community housing sector in limbo. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government released the long-awaited Bill English-led review of Kāinga Ora yesterday, but delayed key decisions on its build plan and how to help community housing providers (CHPs) build ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll ...
New Zealand’s relationship with China is becoming harder to define, and with that comes a worry that a deteriorating political relationship could spill over into the economic relationship. It is about more than whether New Zealand will join Pillar Two of Aukus, though the Chinese Ambassador, more or less, suggested ...
Been hoping we would see something like this from Sir Geoffrey Palmer. This is excellent.The present Bill goes further than the National Development Act 1979 in stripping away procedures designed to ensure that environmental issues are properly considered. The 1979 approach was not acceptable then and this present approach is ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect New Zealanders' right of free speech. The “Protection of Freedom of Expression Bill” will ensure that no organisation or individual, when acting within the law, is unreasonably denied use of a public venue for an organised event or ...
The Green Party unequivocally condemns the governing parties’ attempts to limit the public’s say on the controversial Māori wards legislation, after the select committee considering the legislation set a deadline for submissions of just five days. ...
Disabled children and families nationwide have recently found out they’re no longer able to use disability support funding for programmes during school hours in another quiet update from the Government. ...
Following a horrific case of stalking that ended in tragedy, Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen has drafted a bill that would add stalking to the Crimes Act. ...
The Rt Hon Winston Peters, joined by Mike King, has announced $24 million over four years for the ‘I Am Hope Foundation’, and will provide young people aged between 5 to 25 years with free mental health counselling services. This funding will help I Am Hope’s ‘Gumboot Friday’ initiative give ...
Te Pāti Māori have launched a petition to stop the repeal of Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act. This announcement comes prior to the first reading of the Section 7AA repeal bill in Parliament today. “Section 7AA forces the Government to adhere to Te Tiriti o Waitangi with respect ...
The Government has yet again failed to do the one thing that needs to happen to ensure houses can be built – commit to ongoing funding, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Treasury officials have outlined many ways in which the Fast Track Approvals Bill is deeply flawed, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick used this year's State of the Planet to call on the Government to prioritise people and planet as the delivery of the Budget approaches. A full transcript of their speeches can be found below. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches. ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Over the next four years, Budget 24 will support the training and recruitment of 1,500 teachers into the workforce, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced today. “To raise achievement and develop a world leading education system we’re investing nearly $53 million over four years to attract, train and retain our valued ...
1. New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Rt Hon Winston Peters; Minister of Health and Minister for Pacific Peoples Hon Dr Shane Reti; and Minister for Climate Change Hon Simon Watts hosted Cook Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Hon Tingika Elikana and Minister of Health Hon Vainetutai Rose Toki-Brown on 24 May ...
The Government has approved two-year extensions for four New Zealand Defence Force deployments to the Middle East and Africa, Defence Minister Judith Collins and Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced today. “These deployments are long-standing New Zealand commitments, which reflect our ongoing interest in promoting peace and stability, and making active ...
The Climate Change Commission Chair, Dr Rod Carr, has confirmed his plans to retire at the end of his term later this year, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Prior to the election, Dr Carr advised me he would be retiring when his term concluded. Dr Rod Carr has led ...
Nine highly respected experts have been appointed to the inaugural board of the new Integrity Sport and Recreation Commission, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Integrity Sport and Recreation Commission is a new independent Crown entity which was established under the Integrity Sport and Recreation Act last year, ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters confirmed today that Vote Foreign Affairs in Budget 2024 will balance two crucial priorities of the Coalition Government. While Budget 2024 reflects the constrained fiscal environment, the Government also recognises the critical role MFAT plays in keeping New Zealanders safe and prosperous. “Consistent with ...
New social housing funding in Budget 2024 will ensure the Government can continue supporting more families into warm, dry homes from July 2025, Housing Ministers Chris Bishop and Tama Potaka say. “Earlier this week I was proud to announce that Budget 2024 allocates $140 million to fund 1,500 new social ...
Introduction Today, we are sharing a red-letter occasion. A Blackball event on hallowed ground. Today we underscore the importance of our mineral estate. A reminder that our natural resource sector has much to offer. Such a contribution will not come to pass without investment. However, more than money is needed. ...
Increasing national and regional prosperity, providing the minerals needed for new technology and the clean energy transition, and doubling the value of minerals exports are the bold aims of the Government’s vision for the minerals sector. Resources Minister Shane Jones today launched a draft strategy for the minerals sector in ...
The coalition Government’s legislation to restore the rights of communities to determine whether to introduce Māori wards has passed its first reading in Parliament, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says. “Divisive changes introduced by the previous government denied local communities the ability to determine whether to establish Māori wards.” The ...
The coalition Government has today introduced legislation to slash the tangle of red and green tape throttling some of New Zealand’s key sectors, including farming, mining and other primary industries. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop says the Government is committed to unlocking development and investment while ensuring the environment is ...
The decision by Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to approve the continued use of hydrogen cyanamide, known as Hi-Cane, has been welcomed by Environment Minister Penny Simmonds and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay. “The EPA decision introduces appropriate environmental safeguards which will allow kiwifruit and other growers to use Hi-Cane responsibly,” Ms ...
Kia ora, Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou kātoa Tāmaki Herenga Waka, Tāmaki Herenga tangata Ngā mihi ki ngā mana whenua o tēnei rohe Ngāti Whātua ō Ōrākei me nga iwi kātoa kua tae mai. Mauriora. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the EMA for hosting this event. Let me acknowledge ...
The coalition Government is investing in social housing for New Zealanders who are most in need of a warm dry home, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. Budget 2024 will allocate $140 million in new funding for 1,500 new social housing places to be provided by Community Housing Providers (CHPs), not ...
Thousands more young New Zealanders will have better access to mental health services as the Government delivers on its commitment to fund the Gumboot Friday initiative, says Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey. “Budget 2024 will provide $24 million over four years to contract the ...
The Coalition Government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which will improve tenancy laws and help increase the supply of rental properties, has passed its first reading in Parliament says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “The Bill proposes much-needed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 that will remove barriers to increasing private ...
Standing here in Cassino War Cemetery, among the graves looking up at the beautiful Abbey of Montecassino, it is hard to imagine the utter devastation left behind by the battles which ended here in May 1944. Hundreds of thousands of shells and bombs of every description left nothing but piled ...
I present a legislative statement on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill Mr. Speaker, I move that the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the Bill. Thank you, Mr. ...
The Bill to repeal Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has had its first reading in Parliament today. The Bill reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the care and safety of children in care, says Minister for Children Karen Chhour. “When I became the Minister for Children, I made ...
Kia ora koutou, good morning, and zao shang hao. Thank you Fran for the opportunity to speak at the 2024 China Business Summit – it’s great to be here today. I’d also like to acknowledge: Simon Bridges - CEO of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. His Excellency Ambassador - Wang ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing them ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing ...
The Coalition Government will introduce legislation this year that will enable roadside drug testing as part of our commitment to improve road safety and restore law and order, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand. In ...
The Government has announced a series of immediate actions in response to the independent review of Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “Kāinga Ora is a large and important Crown entity, with assets of $45 billion and over $2.5 billion of expenditure each year. It ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour is pleased that Pseudoephedrine can now be purchased by the general public to protect them from winter illness, after the coalition government worked swiftly to change the law and oversaw a fast approval process by Medsafe. “Pharmacies are now putting the medicines back on their ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Da jia hao. Good morning everyone. Prime Minister Luxon, your excellency, a great friend of New Zealand and my friend Ambassador Wang, Mayor of what he tells me is the best city in New Zealand, Wayne Brown, the highly respected Fran O’Sullivan, Champion of the Auckland business ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
A $53m budget boost will see 1,500 new teachers recruited over the next four years, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Another ...
Four years ago, we voted against legalising cannabis. But what if the referendum had gone the other way? It’s a Saturday afternoon in Ponsonby, and an impeccably dressed woman is buying supplies for the 40th birthday party she is throwing herself that evening. After filling the car with drinks and ...
Ray Chung is running for mayor. Who is he, and does he have a chance? Wellington editor Joel MacManus talks to the city councillor for the second edition of Windbag, The Spinoff’s Wellington issues column. Are we doing this already? The 2025 local body elections are 17 months away, but ...
The Olympics have a way of bringing into focus the world as it is right now. Each Games gifts us a snapshot of world history in the making. At Tokyo 2020 we witnessed mask-wearing athletes flanked by empty stands. In the 90s we grappled with new country names like Kazakhstan ...
Police are returning to crime-fighting ways of old in their fight against gangs, as technology becomes harder to hack, experts in New Zealand’s criminal underworld say. In light of the recent police announcement on national and local gang units, today’s episode of The Detail looks at how police and governments ...
Comment: Overshadowed in the highly critical report by Sir Bill English and his team into Kāinga Ora’s finances, debt and performance was a rare public defenestration of the public housing agency’s board of directors. The review’s findings painted a board asleep at the wheel as billions of public money was ...
The Reserve Bank’s monetary policy statement contains some bad news for the Government’s goal of doubling export value The post Reserve Bank’s rough news for exports goal appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: All up, defence cost us more than $6.7 billion in 2023/24. There were 14,996 people working for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) at June 2023, while others dealt with procurement and policy in the non-military wing, the Ministry of Defence. Why does our small, remote country have such ...
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Asia Pacific Report Pro-Palestinian protesters today condemned Google for sacking protesting staff and demanded that the New Zealand government immediately “cut ties with Israeli genocide”. Wearing Google logo masks and holding placards saying “Google complicit in genocide” and “Google drop Project Nimbus”, the protesters were targeting the global tech company ...
Fresh off the back of episode one of Married at First Sight NZ’s new season, Alex Casey and Tara Ward fire up the chat to dissect what the hell we all just watched. Alex Casey: Tara, are you still screaming? I’m screaming. Tara Ward: I started screaming the moment I ...
Fresh off the back of episode one of Married at First Sight NZ’s new season, Alex Casey and Tara Ward fire up the chat to dissect what the hell we all just watched. Alex Casey: Tara, are you still screaming? I’m screaming. Tara Ward: I started screaming the moment I ...
Asia Pacific Report A West Papuan independence group has condemned French “modern-day colonialism in action” in Kanaky New Caledonia and urged indigenous leaders to “fight on”. In a statement to the Kanak pro-independence leadership, exiled United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) president Benny Wenda said the proposed electoral changes ...
“The situation in Gaza is desperate,” Will Alexander said. “It’s obvious to everyone that if Christopher Luxon truly cared, our government could do a lot more.” ...
ANALYSIS:By Nicole George, The University of Queensland New Caledonia’s capital city, Nouméa, has endured widespread violent rioting over the past three days. This crisis intensified rapidly, taking local authorities by surprise. Peaceful protests had been occurring across the country in the preceding weeks as the French National Assembly in ...
EDITORIAL:By Fred Wesley, editor-in-chief of The Fiji Times So 40 Fiji members of Parliament voted in favour of the Special Committee on Emoluments Report on the review of MPs’ salaries, allowances and benefits in Parliament on Friday. Now that’s not going down well with the masses, with many venting ...
First Hovel Grant Bishop Chris ventured out of the High Keep For his annual tour of the slums of the Holey Land. His litter bearers held his palanquin high Above the muck strewn and dilapidated alleys Of the Capital. The menials and peons swarmed around And pleaded for Alms from ...
Opinion: Following France’s President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to New Caledonia on Thursday, attention has turned to the country’s political future beyond the ongoing crisis. The uprising, which began on May 14, has demonstrated the capacity and determination of those involved to shut down the country and to inflict extensive economic ...
Asia Pacific ReportBy a Kanak from Aotearoa New Zealand in Kanaky I’ve been trying to feel cool and nice on this beautiful sunny day in Kanaky. But it has already been spoiled by President Emmanuel Macron’s flashy day-long visit on Thursday. Currently special French military forces are trying to ...
RNZ Pacific The survivors of a massive landslide in a remote village in Papua New Guinea’s highlands are still waiting for official help, more than 24 hours after the disaster. Hundreds are feared dead in Yambali village in Enga province after the landslide bulldozed homes and buried families alive early ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby The United States has said it is “ready to lend a helping hand” to the people of Mulitaka, Enga province, after a devasting landslide swallowed an entire village in Papua New Guinea’s highlands yesterday. US President Joe Biden and his wife said in a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Housing remains one of Australia’s most pressing issues in both state and federal politics. The RBA keeping rates up and high mortgage repayments have left many Australians struggling. For those Australians who don’t own a ...
This plan lacks any thought on how to drive New Zealand forward. Giving away rare minerals owned by every New Zealander for a measly return of 2.1% to the crown last year is simply ludicrous. ...
A West Coast conservation leader is lodging a complaint with Police after an officer barred her from a public meeting in Blackball, called by Resources Minister Shane Jones. The NZ First politician was in the historic coal-mining town on Thursday to launch the Government’s new draft minerals strategy, promising to ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman meets an old rival and wonders what could’ve been. Mōrena and welcome to The Weekend, where dreams and regrets have time and space to flower. What’s the thing in your life that you wish you had given more energy to? It could be a relationship, an exam, ...
This year, Tori Peeters will compete at the Paris Olympics in the javelin. Ten years ago, Madeleine Chapman thought she might be in the same position. She talks to Peeters about what it takes to go all the way and mulls her own life decisions in the process.No New ...
The star of High Country talks Tinkerbell, her love for Hawkeye Pierce and why a 98-year-old environmentalist is the most stylish man on television. Sara Wiseman has been a fixture on New Zealand television screens for nearly three decades. First appearing in Hercules and Xena Warrior Princess during the mid ...
Alex Casey takes a trip to Lincoln to visit the only couple from the first season of Married at First Sight NZ that’s still together. To cross the threshold into Brett and Angel’s marital abode is to be greeted with a welcome that sums up the MAFSNZ season one golden ...
In a new weekly interview series, we ask a different local artist to curate their dream weekend soundtrack. First up: Troy Kingi. Troy Kingi is a man on a well-documented mission to make 10 albums, in 10 genres, over 10 years. But finding himself creatively blocked while making his eighth ...
Reflections on a childhood split across Hong Kong and Auckland. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I arrive in Hong Kong with my mother in the middle of summer. t’s not a good time to travel here, she tells me. It’s June. We’re ...
Pacific Media Watch Pro-Palestinian protesters dressed in blue “press” vests tonight staged a vigil calling on New Zealand journalists to show solidarity with the media of Gaza who have suffered the highest death toll in any war. They staged the vigil at the Viaduct venue of NZ’s annual Voyager Media ...
Opinion: Outside my house, the autumn breeze blows crisp leaves off trees and leaks through the gap in my ranchslider while I slump on my couch listening to our CEO announcing our restructure. With many ums and ahs, he reads his script, talking of “prioritisation,” “working differently,” and “reconceiving the ...
Just days after Taiwan’s new president called on China to stop making threats, Beijing has launched “punishment” military drills around the island. Everyone was watching to see what China’s reaction to the swearing in of President William Lai Ching-te would be. On Thursday night we found out. China had already ...
For the past six weeks Annie has been sleeping with a teacher named Patrick Drury. Twice he has tried to call it an affair. Twice she has considered correcting him. But she likes how he looks when he says it. She likes that he’s older than her. That he’s recently ...
MONDAY Fast-Track Jones stood in the shade beneath an awning of a train station and waited for the 3:10 to Blackball. He narrowed his eyes and studied the view. A water tower. A windmill. A cattle fence. All else was empty land. Locomotive smoke rose over the horizon. The 3:10 ...
A groundbreaking investigative podcast into the death of Gore three-year-old Lachie Jones has won Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner two notable awards at the Voyager Media Awards. Their in-depth reporting and nine-part first season of The Boy in the Water, which led to the case being reopened twice and preceded ...
By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist Scores of people have died in a huge landslide which has struck a remote village in the Papua New Guinean highlands. The landslide reportedly hit Yambali village in Enga Province, about 600 km north-west of Port Moresby. The landslip has buried homes and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, Griffith University Red-Diamond/Shutterstock We’ve now been living with COVID for well over four years. Although there’s still much to learn about SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) at least one thing seems ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clive Schofield, Professor, Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), University of Wollongong The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has found countries are obliged to protect the oceans from climate change impacts under the law of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca McGirr, Postdoctoral research fellow, Australian National University Bernhard Staehli/Shutterstock Imagine you’re standing near the edge of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, gazing out over the ocean, when the ice near you starts to melt very rapidly. A surge of meltwater flows ...
The Finance Minister prepares to present one of the most difficult budgets, National MP David MacLeod gets himself into trouble and the First Home Buyers Grant is scrapped. ...
The Iranian Solidarity Group NZ met with Minister For Foreign Affairs Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, urging the NZ government to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. The group continues to advocate for justice ...
On 24th May, 6pm, Palestinian journalists covering Gaza will be honoured in a silent and visually impactful vigil outside Shed 10, 89 Quay Street, Auckland, where the Voyager Media Awards are being held. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney This should be a golden age for Australian soccer. After all, the big picture is good: the Matildas are waltzing, the Socceroos are well supported and Australia was just awarded hosting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Wellings, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, Monash University Assuming a Labour win in the UK general election – always a risky assumption given Labour’s proclivity for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory – the “Global Britain” bombast emanating ...
The community group People Against Prisons Aotearoa is holding a protest against mass incarceration tomorrow against the Government’s proposed expansion of Waikeria prison. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University Shutterstock OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, and News Corp, the international media conglomerate, have signed a deal that will let OpenAI use and learn from News Corp’s content. In ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jaimon Kelly, Senior Research Fellow in Telehealth delivered health services, The University of Queensland Shutterstock/Nils Versemann For many Australians the emergency department (ED) is the physical and emblematic front door to accessing urgent health-care services. But health-care services are evolving rapidly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Trelease, Senior Lecturer in Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Following the hugely successful recent season of Married At First Sight (MAFS) Australia, fans of the format – and the reality romance genre in general – will be ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic Redfern, Associate Professor, School of Art, RMIT University We Are All Unique by Universal Everything commissioned by Hyundai Motorstudio Senayan Park in Beings at ACMI.Image by Michelle Tran At this week’s launch of Beings by Universal Everything, ACMI board member ...
As Married at First Sight New Zealand returns to our screens this Sunday, Tara Ward speaks to the show’s new relationship experts about what lies ahead. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. John Aiken is teasing Jo Robertson about her cup of ...
A new poem by Wellington writer Erin Donohue. The body’s score Here is what happens if you starve yourself for years. Your body will forget herself. She will have to learn new how a heart beats and she will not get it right. She will need MRIs and a quiet ...
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 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $25)A charming, smash-hit book about ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle “Only the struggle counts . . . death is nothing.” Éloi Machoro — “the Che Guevara of the Pacific” — said this shortly before he was gunned down by a French sniper on 12 January 1985. Machoro, one of the leaders of the newly-formed FLNKS (Kanak ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Wake, Associate Professor, Journalism, RMIT University Photo by Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels The news media play a vital role in shaping the public conversation and covering complex issues such as war, the economy, climate change and technology. Yet our new research ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aviroop Gupta, PhD Candidate, Curtin University Narendra Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has resorted to religious polarisation as it tries to rally its Hindu nationalist base in India’s ongoing general election, which ends on June 1. Just days after voting started ...
The government’s support of the liquor industry is costing us socially, financially and morally. Our lax laws on alcohol are destroying so many lives.
A strong and courageous government would tackle these booze barons and drug peddlers. Our mob sadly is beholden to them and takes their tainted money.
Again, another example of this country’s corrupt ‘elite’that defends international corporate power against the country’s citizens.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11770517
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/87785603/one-in-four-hospital-ed-admissions-related-to-alcohol
Blessings on the Summer Solstice Paul 😀 Solstice begins today and the weather here is just stunning.
I’m so with you on this, so over the damage of alcohol, over the beatings, the killings, the child abuse, the bullying, the rapes over everything that goes with it. People lose control of themselves in the most aggressive way and it’s horrid and they can’t even remember what happened the next day.
National was responsible for lowering the drinking age and allowing alcohol to be sold in supermarkets. Yes they are the enablers, and we wonder why we have such a drinking problem in NZ.
How much of our health budget goes towards drunks at A&E? Too much I’d say, and we wonder why our health system is being stretched.
We see glamorous advertising on the TV, flyers in the newspaper and letter boxes and then it’s in our face right next to the fruit and vege at New World. Shameless promotion of the national parties class B drug of choice, readily available to so many. Paul Henry on the fucken TV swilling it down before 9am, what a fucken hero not. Excuse language but it’s something I feel very strongly about. Am not anti alcohol I’m anti drunk idiots, big difference.
Good on you Dr Bonning for speaking out and good on the Herald and Stuff for giving it coverage.
I’m anti alcohol.
It is a destructive drug which we promote at our peril.
Imagine if we saw advertisements for other Class B Drugs.
We should be tackling it the way Portugal tackles hard drugs.
It should be legal – but that’s about all.
Personally I’m not into drinking, I don’t like not being in control of my own body, I don’t have a drinking problem never have. And it’s funny because so many people become shocked that I don’t drink, like I’m a weirdo. It’s like oh she must be an alcoholic if she doesn’t drink.. um no it just makes me on to it.
Freedom of choice with loads of education is so important. And because I don’t drink my kids are anti alcohol, helps to show them the drunks on the telly in the big cities. Kids are smart, even they can’t fathom why everyone drinks. One time when the kids were with their dad (ex husband) at a bbq my youngest almost drowned, because yarning with a friend while drinking beers was more important than keeping an eye on the kids in the pool.
However I won’t lie I do smoke pot and my drink of choice at a party is a cuppa tea. Yes I rock on up with my teabags and milk, even at the biker parties. Funny thing is the bikers never give me a hard time about preferring to drink tea rather than booze. Ironic really.
Yes, I think when I say I don’t drink, people must either assume I have a drink problem, ….. or, most noticeably, they seem to treat me as a socially/religiously conservative, up-tight person.
I’m not religious, and reckon I’m pretty strong on fairly strongly left-wing on social policies and social issues.
ikr and it’s nutters, you don’t drink dang something wrong with us, i’d call it intelligence 😀 Hey I’ll tell you something funny Carolyn, sometimes my friends ring to ask me to come and pick them up cause they are too drunk to drive. I relish this… am so cheeky.
I rock on up and loudly announce that the ‘cougar taxi’ is here, shit it’s funny.
LOL. She’s I’ve often been the designated driver.
C’mon Paul, national Mp’s including former PM shonky have extensive financial interests in wineries and probably shares in the big brewers etc so that’s never happening while they remain in govt.
Even if they did, they’d be reimbursing or compensating those effected with other taxpayer subsidies ensuring personal gain using public resources…a well worn theme with national.
How about the hospitals charge the cost of treating alcohol related injuries to the alcohol industry.
A fund could be set up paid for by the alcohol industry for hospitals to claim back the costs of treatment. Sort of like hospital do with accidents and the ACC
And some other ideas.
Stop all advertising for alcohol.
Start Public Education Programme and publicise heath warnings ( eg alcohol is a carcinogen)
More counselling services to assist with issues that caused alcohol addictions
Stop supermarket sales
Raise taxes – as has been done with cigarettes
Plain packaging of alcohol
Make it illegal for foreign companies to have a share in any alcohol sale in New Zealand – to make it harder for governments to be lobbied by massive corporate interests
Divest all government savings and funds from investing in liquor.
Cut funding for sports that continue to take drug money.
Aim to make alcohol ‘uncool’ as smoking has become.
And most importantly, deal to the economic system that makes people so in need of a class b drug.
Good idea DV, but the problem would still be there
Cinny
But thinking of it as a now problem where the hospital staff are working at the drunkface, and the financial problems that the booze causes the administration, a special tax on booze that gets paid to hospitals to aid staff and provide security and repair booze-nut damage would be good.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11770517
Then of course there is the treatment of booze damaged people who become a blot on society after they have spoiled their own lives and family relationships. That is a cost to hospitals and the health budget of the nation.
Then there is my observation that killing people with a car after you have had a drink or two is not treated as seriously as shooting, knifing someone personally. Recidivist drink drivers are a menace to society and there should be prison farms where they are confined and can work to help support themselves away from temptation where they should be able to have a happy life and society be safe instead of society being co-dependent.
The government’s support of the liquor industry…
I’m not sure you can call intensive regulation and the application of excise duty “support”…
1. Attempts to regulate the liquor industry properly have been frustrated by the government. The main recommendations from an enquiry were completed ignored.
2. Saturation advertising tends to make ‘citizens’ want alcohol.
Attitudes to cigarettes have changed without the marketing propaganda.
Attitudes to cigarettes have changed because these days people won’t put up with other people blowing smoke all over them and stinking the place up, and because cigarettes make you die – not because the government banned their advertising, much as the government might want to take the credit for it.
Also, cigarettes are a classic example of what happens when the government lets hand-wringers persuade it to over-regulate and over-tax a recreational drug: we’re now seeing armed robberies and a black market specifically for cigarettes. Let’s learn from that debacle and not follow the same path with alcohol.
Maybe people are also sick of drunks punching them and raping them.
Alcohol also kills people . It is a high level carcinogen and causes cirrhosis of the liver for starters.
I’m amazed you don’t think advertisements influence people. I wonder why corporates spend so much on them.
I sense you are just being a contrarian for the sake of it.
I don’t debate with climate change deniers and I won’t wSte my breath on someone talking the bs you are about alcohol.
Maybe people are also sick of drunks punching them and raping them.
We have a criminal justice system to deal with people who commit crimes. If you have complaints about it, that’s for another post because it’s another subject.
Alcohol also kills people . It is a high level carcinogen and causes cirrhosis of the liver for starters.
If you drink enough of it, sure. The same is true for a lot of food and drink, and the best advice is not to consume enormous quantities of things. Cigarettes are in an entirely different category: they’ll kill you when used as directed.
I’m amazed you don’t think advertisements influence people.
Of course advertisements influence people. I just think you’re overstating the level of influence.
PM did you know that at least a third of all police recorded offences are committed by an offender who has consumed alcohol prior to committing the offence.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of your argument.
Did you know that nearly half of all police recorded offences are committed by an offender who is Maori?
People with an agenda often misuse facts.
How are facts about alcohol and crime misused?
How are facts about alcohol and sexual abuse misused?
How are facts about alcohol and hospital usage being misused?
How are facts about alcohol and violence being misused?
Do you work for the liquor drug industry or have you benefited from their largesse?
How are facts about alcohol and crime misused?
See Cinny’s comment 1.4.2.
It contains an implied argument:
Premise: It is a fact that a third of crime is committed by people who are drunk.
Conclusion: therefore, alcohol is responsible for a third of crime and something must be done about alcohol.
My comment demonstrates the misuse by providing a more-obviously-wrong example of the fallacy:
Premise: it is a fact that nearly half of crime is committed by people who are Maori.
Conclusion: therefore, Maori are responsible for nearly half the crime and something must be done about Maori.
Do you often struggle to understand the meanings of people’s arguments?
Psycho Milt – the fallacy you describe is one I witness often around the council table. I wonder how well your explanation is received by Paul et al as providing it to my fellow councillors has been an exercise in futility; can those who use it, get their heads around the reasoning? I just don’t know. Maybe Paul’s response will show.
@ Robert.
PM is a ‘sophisticated drinker’ and ‘personally responsible’.
Far be it for others to lecture him on why we should tighten up on liquor laws because ‘others’ (probably a majority) aren’t as sophisticated as he is.
It’s probably pointless debating with a ‘respectable’ pisshead anyway.
I just saw one in the supermarket (a Nat MP of high profile). He came complete with hangers-on – one with a walkie talkie heading for the wine racks ffs!
I’m not sure what happens though when the entire population of people that consume alcohol claim to be ‘sophisticated drinkers’ and are ‘personally responsible’.
Probably not much different from now – it’s everybody else that’s the problem……….and we get to nowehere.
We once had a 6 o’clock swill. Not much has changed really except we’ve shifted it to the early hours of the morning
Thanks for providing an example of the “exercise in futility” Robert mentioned.
OK so let the police charge back to the alcohol cost fund too.
Too many links, but you can start with this one. An oldie but a goody on how the Government supports the alcohol industry..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7994823/Liquor-lobbyists-press-Collins
The government agreeing with industry lobbyists rather than anti-alcohol lobbyists over increased restrictions on the sale of alcohol also isn’t what I’d call “support.” If Collins had decided the other way and increased restrictions on the sale of alcohol, would that mean the government was “supporting” anti-alcohol activists?
yes.
Well, OK, but if we accept that definition of “support” I’m all in favour of the government “supporting” the liquor industry.
Also:
…another example of this country’s corrupt ‘elite’that defends international corporate power against the country’s citizens.
1. Who do you imagine is buying all this alcohol? Hint: it’s the country’s citizens.
2. Who doesn’t want greater restrictions/taxes on alcohol? The country’s citizens, for reason 1 above.
PM.. whom has done the enabling?
The National Party, they are the ones that lowered the drinking age and allowed alcohol in supermarkets.
Class B legal drug it is. Whom allows promotion of it via advertising etc… the national party. Whom does not want pot to be decrimilised because it might cut into the profits of their legal class B drug… the national party.
PM are you an enabler? Do you condone the violence, the rape, murder, the abuse of children and others and the abuse of hospital staff? The national party does, otherwise they would have taken action rather than making alcohol more accessible.
I wonder how many alcohol related beatings there will be this Christmas? Are you ok with that PM? If not what do you suggest, or are you reliant on the alcohol so are anti anything being done about it?
Remove all alcohol advertising
Remove alcohol from supermarkets
I’d like more done, but that could be a start.
Wasn’t JK the one giving away bottles of wine from his winery (supposed to be part of his blind trust)?
Yup to the woman he sexual assaulted by molesting her hair.
PM.. whom has done the enabling?
The National Party, they are the ones that lowered the drinking age and allowed alcohol in supermarkets.
Pedant corner: “Who” has done the enabling – no ‘m’ on the end.
Yes, those are among the few things the National Party has managed to get right, and much appreciated by the nation’s drinkers (ie, most of the country). How is that a problem?
Class B legal drug it is. Whom allows promotion of it via advertising etc… the national party. Whom does not want pot to be decrimilised because it might cut into the profits of their legal class B drug… the national party.
Er, the National Party and the overwhelming majority of the country’s voters. I don’t care much about the advertising, other than that, as a general principle we should avoid imposing restrictions on people unless there are compelling reasons for it, but there is no political party outside of the Muslim countries that could propose criminalising alcohol and expect to be elected to government.
PM are you an enabler? Do you condone the violence, the rape, murder, the abuse of children and others and the abuse of hospital staff? … etc
Cinny, have you stopped beating your wife?
PM i have been a beaten wife so pull your fucken head in for starts. Ever been kidnapped? How about having a gun or a knife held to your head? Have you been kicked in the face by steelcaps because you left a cup on the table.. I have. Yeah take the piss out of domestic violence why don’t ya.
And you know what more power to me for getting through that. I don’t usually bring that up to anyone, my story, but seeing you mentioned it above, i thought i would.
I don’t want to criminalize alcohol, I just want people to wake the fuck up at the damage it does and find some better ways to deal with what is obviously a massive problem in this country.
You can turn a blind eye all you want, but that still does naught to solve the issue.
So what do you suggest is done about NZs alcohol problem and the abuse A&E among others are suffering?
Don’t waste your time on him.
So what do you suggest is done about NZs alcohol problem and the abuse A&E among others are suffering?
For a start, we could stop blaming alcohol for the actions of people. “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been drunk” is no more relevant to consideration of someone’s actions than “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been angry/greedy/misogynist/you-name-it.”
Re the specific A&E problems, until we get people to stop thinking alcohol excuses their behaviour (which we’ve managed pretty successfully with drunk driving) we just have to fork out for security guards in A&E and make sure anyone who gets abusive or violent to paramedics or A&E staff gets prosecuted aggressively and sentenced accordingly. I’d be happy to see attacking or interfering with a paramedic or A&E worker counted as a severe aggravating factor at sentencing. It would be good if we started treating intoxication as an aggravating rather than mitigating factor as well.
So, Psycho Milt – no controls over the supply of alcohol or its promotion?
Would you regard other behaviour changing drugs in the same way you do alcohol ( “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been baked”)?
…no controls over the supply of alcohol or its promotion?
Wouldn’t go that far, but we already have plenty and certainly don’t need any more.
Would you regard other behaviour changing drugs in the same way you do alcohol ( “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been baked”)?
Some drugs have more of a case to be made, eg they can induce hallucinations or psychosis. I’m dubious about disavowing agency even in those cases, though – if someone goes on a “P-fuelled rampage,” they’re pushing it uphill if they want to claim they had no idea that was a potential outcome of taking P.
“…we don’t need any more.” Agreed. Further regulation will drive the issue further into the public realm where individuals make their decisions. Do they need assistance to make those? Should we weaken the arm of the industry devoted to profiting from alcohol sales? It has to go somewhere.
Re: “…they want to claim they had no idea that was a potential outcome of taking P” – decisions made at that juncture are difficult to tie to responsibility, I reckon. It’s such a vexed topic, this. Best to go for the most effective actions with regard the hoped-for outcome.
“Re the specific A&E problems, until we get people to stop thinking alcohol excuses their behaviour (which we’ve managed pretty successfully with drunk driving) we just have to fork out for security guards in A&E and make sure anyone who gets abusive or violent to paramedics or A&E staff gets prosecuted aggressively and sentenced accordingly. I’d be happy to see attacking or interfering with a paramedic or A&E worker counted as a severe aggravating factor at sentencing. It would be good if we started treating intoxication as an aggravating rather than mitigating factor as well.”
I think that is a great idea, when i was a volunteer fireman a couple of us had to hold down a drunk aggressive driver who was trying to pull the ambos off a patient with a back injury. He had driven at pedestrians on the footpath, hit a power pole and badly injured one of his passengers.
Faaaaaaaaaaark!
” I’d be happy to see attacking or interfering with a paramedic or A&E worker counted as a severe aggravating factor at sentencing. It would be good if we started treating intoxication as an aggravating rather than mitigating factor as well.”
There’s something we agree on.
But then how would you deal with PM? – the ‘sophisticated drinker’?
You keep putting “sophisticated drinker” in quotation marks as though it were a claim I’d made, which it isn’t. That’s effectively a lie, and you should stop doing it.
Alcohol has an effect on the actions of people and so does anger, greed, misogyny etc.
The difference is that alcohol is something people consume (willingly or unwillingly) but anger, greed and misogyny are already inside them and outside influences can only change what is already there.
Alcohol consumption due to addiction or peer pressure, in my opinion is a mitigating factor in people’s harmful actions because it weakens willpower.
Interestingly, I know people who say that as free individuals they do what they like and yet drink excessively.
Some backup for the claim that alcohol affects willpower.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18453466
This is why policy should be made with the minimal of emotions.
I’m disappointed. I thought this was going to be the latest from Venezuela.
“minimal (sic) of emotions”
Yes, because decisions based on emotions (love etc.) are always wrong, eh, Gosman.
Gee you sound like a cold hearted bastard Gosman no wonder our country is in such a mess with people like you living here
Cinny – you should know that the question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” (regardless of what you have lived through) was always the standard example quoted by English teachers of a leading question, which condemns the replier even before he/she answers. That is the only reason Psycho Milt used it.
Your response is as unsatisfactory as the leading questions you asked.
In Vino (how apt is that name for this discussion in vino – in wine truth – sounds like someone enjoys the vino)
Are you beating your wife? How is one supposed to respond to that if one is unaware of such a quote to start with? Shame on me for not knowing everything, I’ve never heard of that ‘have you stopped beating your wife’ thing before, but hey i guess i’ve learned something.
Thanks for explaining it to me In Vino, at least someone took the time to do it
Maybe any one whom loves the booze would have found any of my questions and responses unsatisfactory. JS
The health professionals say they’ve had enough of boozers at the hospital clogging up the A&E and I say that putting security in there to help protect the staff is like putting a plaster on cancer.
Goodness me they are talking about the drunks again on the wireless this morning, it’s still topical and obviously a problem in NZ.
Yes Cinny, I do enjoy some vino without beating up medicos..
Didn’t mean to shame you, but you had come on so hard. Sorry.
For those who do the dugs, alcohol, violence, I suspect that restricting alcohol access in whatever way will achieve nothing. There are other social factors that have been wrecking us for many years – these people need hope and a belief in a positive future. Fiddling the price of alcohol will be an empty gesture.
I say that putting security in there to help protect the staff is like putting a plaster on cancer.
And increased restrictions on alcohol is like putting a carcinogenic plaster on a cancer. I proposed putting security guards in A&E as a temporary measure to provide some immediate relief; fixing the “cancer” involves refusing to blame alcohol for the actions of people. Your proposed solution would actually make the “cancer” worse, in that it puts the blame for people’s actions squarely on alcohol.
Apologies for the use of the phrase “Have you stopped beating your wife?” to reject your trap questions. It’s such a standard debating term I use it without thinking about how it would make a victim of domestic violence feel – which looks stupid now I write it down. I’ll think of another phrase to use in future.
PM & In Vino, thanks for your replies, there is something we can all agree on, too many are suffering due to booze and something needs to change. Its a matter i obviously feel passionate about, have seen too much misery due to booze across all walks of life. But hey i have learnt something from your comments, am always trying to look for a silver linings 😀
In the mean time over the silly season could you all do me a favour, if you see or hear abuse please take action, dont walk by or turn a blind eye. Because it does save lives, it really does and there are psycho abusive women out there as well as men, so many chicks go mental on the booze.
I honestly feel that many problems carry on because so many turn a blind eye, one time i dropped the glass bottle of milk i was carrying when walking home with him, he beat me on the side of the road, people just walked or drove past, no one stopped, and ive never felt so helpless as i did that day. And the really messed up thing, it was in a very well to do area, not all abusers are the stereotype people think they are.
I am lucky my abuser is dead, but i still react a bit strangely when certain things happen something i usually remember to keep in check. Apologies if my words were to strong in the comments above. Bit of a tender spot for me it is.
Okies better change the tune its getting a bit morbid.
Have a fun holiday season, the weather here today is stunning, may it be a wonderful summer where you are too. If you are ever in Motueka and see a chick chalking the sidewalk, come say hi.
Happy Solstice and Seasons Greetings 😀
I remember back then when the Supermarkets were first allowed to sell Liquor, restrictions regarding advertising and discounting were put in place.
Have they been repealed?
If you come to a supermarket you get bombarded with displays announcing “specials” and often the product is not separated from the food areas.
I was under the impression that there is also a time restriction and who is policing that?
This is like a sick joke, 100% access for all – the $ for the private business speaks louder than the carnage that is left for the taxpayer to pick up the costs. A true case of corporate welfare.
Cheers 😀
Rachel Stewart is all excited about the Silly Season….
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11770187
Challenges blind worshipers at the altar of Christmas Consumerism to put the planet and their children’s future first….capitalism will be the end of us.
“It’s getting beyond urgent but, hey, let’s all have a cutesy cultural norm of a festive season. The economy depends on it, and the unequal wealth generated from it needs to be distributed to the usual suspects. Growth, growth, growth!
While you’re sitting around the tucker table and raising a glass to family, all misty-eyed about how much you care about future generations, raise the subject of just how serious climate change is becoming. How the Arctic ice is melting as quickly as the ice cream left out of the freezer by Uncle Bob. See how that conversation goes down.”
Rachel Stewart is superb.
We need more fearless writers like her to challenge what we are doing.
Here is another excellent excerpt.
‘Because here we are in 2016. The planet is burning in front of our eyes but we’re still going to buy those gifts, damn it! Because the world’s a grim and depressing place, so shut up and let me do this for strangers, as well as friends and family. I want to make them smile. Don’t judge me!
But I am going to judge you, and judge you hard. Strap yourself in.
If you’re not consciously thinking about this stuff, then you’re part of the problem.
Study after study shows that consumption now dwarfs population as the main environmental threat on earth.
Indeed, most of the extra consumption has so far been – but is rapidly changing – in wealthy countries that have long since stopped adding substantial numbers to their population. Like us.
Moreover, is it making anybody happy? Will those carefully wrapped presents in all their plastic glory keep anyone deeply delighted for more than an hour or two? Let’s be honest with ourselves.
Sure, I get that you want to please your kids but, really? Is this the way to go? Is there not an argument for opting out of this madness and telling them why?’
I totally agree with all the sentiments above, but I just love expensive champagne on the 25th as a celebration of the season. Cheers everyone.
garibaldi
I dont need champagne, I know that was just an expression of joy in having a festive season and I agree with you. We have dreadful problems to face but if we face them by becoming grim and grinding down and refusing to have laughter, friendship, attempting to be kind to our annoying relations and looking to come together and enjoy the others, what is worth living for?
Take the opportunity to give them a subscription to the New Internationalist magazine, to Greenpeace, a bar of chocolate. a lovely mat. a jute shopping bag all from Trade Aid, buy them a pack of Trade Aid tea from the supermarket.
But keep being human and kind, not human and slightly vicious as we can find ourselves being so quickly, and so differently than our own understanding of ourselves. Everyone has a nasty side that gets managed but be aware, and have a look at it after the gift-giving and do something next year to help us all in the near future, and look at our beautiful planet, the colour of flowers, the delicacy of leaves, the kindness of strangers, the innocence of little toddlers trying to walk and help to give them something to walk to.
Nice one greywarshark. Your last sentence… make sure we all do at least one of those things every day.
Have you opted out Paul – how did you do it?
“Have you opted out Paul – how did you do it?”
Sorry to butt in marty mars, but surely we should be asking ‘why did you opt in to this madness?’ rather than accept the default setting of ‘do christmas or forever be labelled as super grinch?
Rachel Stewart is asking (and I do well understand what reaction this provokes) for folk to think carefully about why they are buying into this seasonal shit.
Because, when you think about it…its really stupid.
Well I’m not a Christian or a follower of Santa. I do like the equinox and the coming together of family – so we celebrate ??? something anyway. The last 2 days the 2 year old has been playing a lot with a bit of cardboard on a small slope – doesn’t take much if the intent is there.
Partly opted out.
Stopped buying pap – instead buy food treats and clothes.
No Secret Santa
It helps that kids are now adult.
I admire the way Rachel Stewart challenges us to consider our behaviours.
We need more like her.
I just don’t buy stuff. But that’s agreed within my family. There’s nothing my family members are in need of. I do attend a family Christmas meal – though not always on Xmas Day – tis on the 24th this year. Is usually catered by my bro and his wife.
In return (kind of) I usually donate something to the City Mission (in December and during the winter) – there are people more in need of give-aways than my family.
I’m glad to read Stewart also doesn’t like secret Santa – I thought I was alone in that.
And, yes agreed again with Stewart – need to do more to work/fight for a non-consumerist type of society, and for a sustainable environment in the age of life-threatening climate change.
Pompous moralising consumes precious oxygen and produces greenhouse gases. Would you consider smirking smugly while I pick at my own special lentil trifle as an acceptable rebuke to my less virtuous relatives?
So, what’s your problem with considering the real world and how our delusional economic system affects it?
I just don’t think I’m pompous and selfrighteous enough. If I sat on a pointy stick and practised making ‘poffpoff’ noises would my rellies be more convinced of my rightness?
Actually, that’s exactly what you are as you dismiss reality and the damage that we’re doing by trying to use ad hominems. It’s the I’m right, you’re wrong BS that we always get from those too stupid to accept that the status quo is wrong.
I’ll bet your family’s looking forward to the annual Christmas lecture. Do you let them eat if they don’t pass the test?
And another ad hominem attack from a RWNJ.
This article explains how identity politics divides us into smaller groups with limited power. We need to UNITE as the exploited to tackle the problems of exploitation of both people and the environment. In the coming election year we need to spend less time arguing about subtle differences between the groups of the exploited and combine our resources more effectively.
Yesterday there was much media attention on Bill English’s “not a feminist” statement and Paula Bennett’s “most days a feminist” one. In the meantime, the still homeless, the Pike River families, the foreign students who have been defrauded, those trying to get on a waiting list for hospital operations, those looking after disabled family members 24/7, those struggling to pay rising rents, etc… remain in their desperate states. Instead of taking the attitude of ” well I don’t care about that because it doesn’t directly affect me” , we need to stick together and say ” this is yet another example of exploitation from a government which introduced a tax system which further advantaged the poor, and one which touts tourism as a great earner while encouraging farming practices which are rapidly degrading the very environment that attracts tourists. We need to call exploitation whatever the target.
Progressive parties forgot ( were too scared/too compromised ?) to focus on economic and class issues and instead focused on identity politics.
The result – 30 plus years of neoliberal economics , with all the ensuing social issues.
That ‘analysis’ is flawed paul – change your lens. The rise of neoliberalism is a direct result of leftish parties being SUCKED in to the economic debate – as if it is the be all and end all. You have it completely wrong and round the rong way too.
No link
Anyone in the thick of ‘identity politics’ knows it is never a them or us scenario and it isn’t the oppression olymipics either – those concepts are used to deride ‘identity politics’ whether by the right, the economic pointy heads, those that think class is everything or at least the main thing and other assorted lefties, righties and centreees and so on. Always reminds me of, “Hey guys let’s work as a team and do it my way”
Yes. And as I said yesterday, there’s more than one kind of feminism.
And critiques of some vague, misinformed notion of “identity politics” don’t get to define other people’s feminist views and politics.
The caricature of feminism that is invoked by anti-identity politics folk, is more that of “liberal feminism”
Judith Collins yesterday said her feminist influences were Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem – puts her in the ranks of liberal feminists. They tend to want equality within the existing capitalist and patriarchal system – usually through changes to the law.
Then there’s Eco-feminism,
socialist feminism,
anarcho-feminism,
radical feminism – though contrary to that definition, some radical feminists also agree with Marxist critiques of society.
and more. Some people probably are more social democratic feminists.
Basically, feminism tends not to stand out on its own separated from other kinds of politics. Feminists also tend to have other political views that are integrated with their feminist values and politics.
The missing link to article quoted above.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/12/18/its-not-racism-vs-anti-racism-its-capitalism-vs-socialism
Capitalism was built on the backs (and lands and resources) of black and brown bodies, as well as those of the white working classes.
Racism, initially in the form of imperialism/colonisation and chattel slavery, was intertwined with the growth of capitalism. And that legacy has been repeated from generation to generation.
I wrote a bit about that, as happened in the US, in my 2 part review of the TV mini-series “Roots”.
I commented on that historical legacy in Part Two:
Basically, if your into the oppression olympics, it can be argued that imperialism and colonisation and chattel slavery preceded and enabled capitalism – that it laid the foundation for capitalism.
Nice – interesting review.
“This results in George being sold to an Englishman, and taken to England for over 20 years, leaving behind his wife Matilda (Erica Tazel) and several children.”
That simple sentence sums up so much of the destruction of people, their families and all they hold important. So much contained within one sentence.
I always thought slavery/racism against POC, was designed in those times, to ensure profits for the South. When the war finished the profits had to continue as best they could thus wage slavery and the various other ways to get work from someone for nothing began in earnest.
Thanks, Marty.
Yes, chattel slavery (where the slave and his/her life was totally owned ) was replaced by wage slavery – but also by cheap prison labour, of which African-Americans made up a high proportion of the imprisoned. That prison labour was a significant part of the building of US capitalism.
And that legacy continues today with the high proportion of African-Americans in 21st century prisons.
And that destruction of families and things of value in people’s lives was a huge consequence of the the drive for wealth and power by the US dominant classes.
Weka linked to a post by Stephanie Rodgers, Public Service Association, last night…
https://overland.org.au/2016/12/this-is-what-solidarity-looks-like/
….saying pretty much the same thing.
I agree with all that is being said…but have doubts that the organisation SR works for actually follows the same philosophy.
We all have a ‘group’ we identify with, whose particular needs dictate the lens through which we see and hear a conversation.
Wearing our ‘disability community hats’ rather than our ‘pay family carers of disabled people’ hats we attended a meeting in Auckland a while ago organised by PSA and Auckland Disability Law.
PSA were very concerned about the rights of care workers employed by disabled people using individulalised Funding. Employers could just ‘fire’ a worker for little or no good reason and hence these workers’ rights needed ‘protecting’ from their disabled employers.
PSA, it seemed, had not considered the vulnerability of a disabled person who employs someone in good faith, then discovers they are not suitable for the work. These workers are coming into the disabled person’s home and performing care tasks of an extremely intimate nature and PSA seemed to be insisting that if there are problems then the disabled employer should be reasonable and give that employee another chance and let them work out their notice.
I am not sure that I was able to explain just how unreasonable and potentially dangerous this stance was for the person with the disability…forced to use IF, and hence become an employer, by virtue of the fact that the services through Contracted Providers were so poor and inflexible.
For all the PSA, and other unions have their roots firmly in the political struggle for workers rights, it had not occurred to PSA that Government policy had created the situation where a union was defending the rights of workers against people with significant impairments dependent of others for their most basic of care.
That looks to be yet another instance of divide-and-rule, the thing that neoliberal governments are so good at. The problem seems to be the IF model, which pits the PSA, whose obligation is to advocate for workers, against the disabled and their advocates who must take the part of the employers. Solidarity would involve collectively challenging the IF model, but the disabled themselves might not have a unified attitude here – some might feel as if the IF model allows their concerns to be taken seriously at long last, while others might see it as making demands they are ill-equipped to meet. As long as people are stuck with the IF model, the next best solution is for both sides to actually listen to each other, avoid talking past each other and engage in good faith negotiation. You do not want workers thrown onto the scrap-heap, but you do not want the disabled employers being terrified of visits from their so-called employees either.
“You do not want workers thrown onto the scrap-heap, but you do not want the disabled employers being terrified of visits from their so-called employees either.”
No, you do not want disabled people terrified of visits from their caregivers, nor do you want carers thrown on the scrap heap.
The caregiver is secondary in this situation.
The thing that gets me is the latest bid by, I think PSA, to have guaranteed hours of work for home based carers. The very nature of the work is casual and often finite. If a carer want set hours and stable work and a predictable future then they should go and work in one of the hundreds of residential facilities.
There is no shortage of care work, be it in facilities or private homes, for well trained, competent, honest, reliable and above all respectful carers.
IF was born out if what was called ‘Discretionary Funding’, and what is known elsewhere as ‘Personal Budget” Most suited for those who need more flexibility around what is done for them and when.
It soon became the default option for those with high and very high and complex care needs…the clients that the Contracted providers can decline to support…usually because they do not have staff with the right level of expertise…and hiring such workers would undermine their profit margin.
It would be an absolutely fantastic scheme for many disabled people if there were not so many conditions on how one can use the funds.
Ideally, the Miserly of Health should have said… “here’s $1500 per week….sort your own shit out and bother us no more.” But no, they just had to say you can’t pay this person and you must do that…the whole scheme is unreasonably complex.
Then the unions jump in to protect ‘at risk’ workers and the very people who need a flexible way of sourcing the care that is vital to them are too scared to take up IF in case they end up in the Employment Court because they had to fire some fuckwit who turned up in the morning off their face from the previous night’s partying.
Even the attempt to modify IF through what is called “Enhanced IF” has largely been a failure. I would put up a link to the evaluation report, but I can’t be bothered.
You see, it’s all very well saying “avoid talking past each other and engage in good faith negotiation.” when it is the person with the disability who is going to be forced to compromise…again.
And on a personal note…I was unimpressed to read that unions were concerned that if family carers were allowed to be paid as any other person doing the same work it would take employment away from those currently doing the work.
Again…one group fighting for their rights not being supported, in fact being actively opposed by another group purporting to be defending the rights of others.
It all gets very complicated…
one group fighting for their rights not being supported, in fact being actively opposed by another group purporting to be defending the rights of others.
It all gets very complicated…
Everything you say highlights the difficulties involved in establishing real solidarity, especially given that the two groups you are talking about – disabled people and their caregivers – both have very limited rights in the first place.
Kiwi Ironman told kicking with Richie McCaw ‘tarnishes his achievements’
TVNZ, Monday, Dec. 19, 2016
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/sport/other/kiwi-ironman-told-riding-lance-armstrong-tarnishes-his-achievements
Ironman competitor Cameron Brown has been attacked on social media after publicly supporting disgraced footballer Richie McCaw.
McCaw arrived in Auckland on Sunday and met with Brown for a kick around in an Auckland park.
Brown took his son on the ride and posted a photo of the trio on Facebook, to which he was heavily trolled for his involvement with McCaw.
“Well I am disappointed for you Cam in my view it tarnishes your achievements and he shouldn’t be validated by association with you. You grafted hard for everything you achieved you should protect that,” one follower commented.
“Sorry Cam. But he was a relentless cheat. The way he and his team-mates ruined our memory of the 2011 RWC final with his cheating is possibly even worse than the way they cheated their opponents,” added another. “Cheat not to be looked up to.”
However, not all were bad, with many people simply commenting on the meeting as “awesome”.
Brown spoke of his admiration for McCaw on NewstalkZB, in spite of the ex-captain’s low reputation in France.
“I watched him for 10 years competing in the All Blacks and it was quite incredible to kick with him,” Brown said. “I’d never met him before so it was pretty special. My little boy’s getting into rugby now so I took him along and Richie was great. I think he’s probably just trying to forget about the past and move on. And hopefully rugby fans can forgive him but probably there’s a lot of people—especially in France—that can’t.”
However, the reaction to Brown and McCaw’s meeting drew severe reaction online, resulting in the Ironman withdrawing from a scheduled interview with Mike “Contra” Hosking this morning.
build a bridge, AB 8 Fr 7 end of story Ab RWC champions 2011 and just to cement the point likewise 2015, including 60 pt drubbing of Fr
Not the end of the story re 2011. The French have not forgotten, and neither have people in New Zealand who actually care for the integrity of the game.
The “drubbing” of France in that disgraceful capitulation last year was nothing less than a joke. You noticed perhaps that France did not even compete?
Is Prince William in line for that 8:30-to-noon spot at NewstalkZB?
Actually, compared to Leighton Smith, the prince is a silver-tongued devil.
Tribute to Michael Phelps at the 2016 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards.
Loud applause, whistling, clapping….
GARY LINEKER: Uh, firstly, er, Your Highness, er, I’m sure you’d like to say a few words on behalf of everyone here, in fact everyone in the country.
PRINCE WILLIAM: Thank you Gary. Uh, it’s a huge honour for me to be here this evening, ahhh, on what has been a, an incredible memorable year for, for sports. Ahhhh, it’s also a particular privilege to be here tonight Michael, ahhhh, to give you your lifetime achievement award. Ahhh, you’re one of the greatest sporting icons, ahh, this world has ever had and, ahh, your twenty-three gold medals —never mind all the other colours!— [supportive cluck from woman in audience]…. ahhhmm, uh, pales into, uh, sheer superhuman history.
Uh, you should be so proud of your achievements and it’ll be many, many years before, if ever, anyone stands here again and calls you the greatest, um, athlete in history. So, many, many congratulations and hopefully your retirement gives someone else a chance now!
Laughter and applause…
Fake news is a genuine problem that needs addressing. But jeez, this proposed “solution” looks worse than the problem.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/german-fake-news-fines_us_585843d5e4b03904470a1dfb
The problem is with those who are sucked into the discussion, thus promoting the narrative!
A formless void regulates personal force fields
food for thought
“For the first time ever, scientists have observed the light spectrum of antimatter. ALPHA, an international collaboration based at CERN, made history by capturing a measurement of the optical spectrum of the 1S-2S transition in trapped antihydrogen. Progressing scientific techniques in this area will lead to more precision comparisons of antihydrogen and hydrogen, further illuminating the mysterious study area of antimatter. With this breakthrough from the ALPHA collaboration, a new era of research begins.”
http://inhabitat.com/scientists-observe-light-spectrum-of-antimatter-for-the-first-time-ever/
Along a similar vein. Astronomers discover galaxies:
There’s exiting stuff being found through science.
And also this I saw on Al Jazeera news today:
“New Jet Stream discovered below earth’s crust
Basically, earth’s magnetic field has been weakening over the centuries, and that field protects earth from the sun’s heat.
furthermore, eventually there will be a polarity reversal – the magnetic characteristics of the 2 poles changing place.
‘Information’ published by those who control it should be regarded the same as that which is published from war zones and by financial entities
eh wot
The eighth day of Christmas and another quote on Friendship.
The eighth day of Christmas is 1st of January – the 12 days start on Christmas Eve
Thanks but I am just using it as a theme so using the phrase loosely.
A picture of the state of poverty in NZ from someone who knows:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/320931/departing-city-missioner-says-poverty-'a-scandal‘
The real legacy of John Key – to be ably continued by his anointed successor.
There was an interview on the radio with some rich ‘style queen’. She has been paid lots and lots of public money for the last 8 years to tell poor young people how to dress to get a job. She goes along to those boot camps which Paula B started and which young unemployed people have to go on or lose their benefit. They have no evidence base but are a good way to privatise public money. She is one who personally profits by getting paid some exorbitant rate.
I know some young people who have been on these camps. They are hard work and there is often misery and bullying. They endure them because they have no choice, but also there is that promise of a job at the end.
But there is never a job at the end and getting back on the benefit can be another battle. And instead of having quality clothing and styled hair as recommended by the rich lady they are doomed to WINZ vouchers for a cheap pair of trackpants at the Warehouse.
Watch the film ‘I Daniel Blake.’
Heartrending.
Yes, it covers what so many people in NZ also face every day.
Here are the links Ethica….http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201828512/nzdf-pays-thousands-to-stylists-for-grooming-tips
(I was listening peripherally this morning and thought perhaps the Natrad crew were having a joke.)
And Stuff did it too…http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/fashion/87830421/rhoakls-angela-stone-paid-15000-by-defence-force-for-styling-lessons
If you paid $7.60 per minute, I might be persuaded to make like the Fairy Godmother…
That grooming woman was paid more for an hour than beneficiaries earn in a week. How could she possibly understand?
More drama about whether the FBI asking for a warrant to look for new Clinton e-mails days before the election was even legal or violated the Fourth Amendment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-subpoena-that-rocked-the-election-is-legal-garbage-attorney-say_us_58597cd9e4b03904470b0633
From the link:
Unbelievable though it is, that is exactly what appears to have happened. Such criteria means that everyone of us who sends an email to anyone on our private servers – which most of us do on almost a daily basis – is therefore potentially guilty of committing crimes. I wonder sometimes if that traitorous act on the part of FBI Director, James Coney and his pals will eventually bring down the Trump administration.
Thanks for keeping us informed Andre.
John ponytail Key’s legacy.
The scandal of poverty.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/320931/departing-city-missioner-says-poverty-'a-scandal‘
The indicators of increasing community stress and displacement are all there. These stories are not going away, they are getting more frequent and worse and the Key/English National government have produced these outcomes, there is no doubt about it.
I wonder if this is their form of collateral damage in that they saw the once great New Zealand as too fair and were determined to bring it into line with a decadent and gross America.
Imagine what next winter is going to be like for some people in this country…
It’s what happens when the government gives all of the countries wealth to rich people. A few people become very well off while the rest suffer. We’ve seen this throughout history and the inevitable result is the collapse of society.
The pony tail saga seems to get you rather excited Paul
Well you don’t often see a pervy PM break cover.
Here we go. The circle is complete and the true intent behind the state house sell off becomes apparent.
Private landlords lobby to buy state houses…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11770997
Oh, they want to “play a part in helping their community”. I bet they do. Increasing their portfolios and becoming increasingly wealthy would just be a fortuitous byproduct. Bless them.
Wensleydale: “play their part in helping themselves to the community” more likely. Bless them.
How Brexit, Trump are reactions to neoliberalism’s failure: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-brexit-trump-syndrome/
Both are more likely a reaction to progressive leftism’s failure to protect citizens and their western culture.
That’s some nice shanking of Trump and his secretary of state before leaving office.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38387525
Well done Mr Obama.
People working to restore damaged waterways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH5htujLpQ8
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11769372
Bloody good work doing that – kia kaha! Thanks for the links
The media are messed up, here is a very good example.
If you google “glendon scott crawford” plenty of mainstream media hits come up like these…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/19/death-ray-plot-muslims-obama-glendon-scott-crawford-new-york
http://time.com/4002184/kkk-member-death-ray/
I don’t see that there’s much to complain about, given he was caught long before he actually harmed anyone, and he gets called a white supremacist and KKK member very prominently.
More fucken exploitation by corrupt businesses enabled by corrupt policies:
It’s because of shit like this that is why we’re seeing increasing poverty in NZ.