I know TRP thinks the Guardian is the font of all knowledge from the UK, but the anti-Brexit partisanship of the liberal urban elites is reaching a fever pitch of hysteria.
Chief amongst these neolib Blairite apologists is Polly Toynbee, who wrote a most amazing column today that recklessly calls for an elite coup against the Brexit referendum result.
Let’s make no mistake – she is calling for a coup. She wants the Westminster political class – mostly members of the Oxbridge elite like her – to walk away from the manifesto promises they were elected on the ensure that the UK does not leave the E.U.
Toynbee is an old woman (72) and a noted turncoat from the days of the SDP split (which guaranteed Thatcher’s majority for a decade) but even for a spiteful old woman this call for a palace coup and elite seizure of power is extraordinary.
Whatever you think of the economic and social consequences of Brexit, it will amount to the most crushing defeat of the hegemony of the Oxbridge leadership class in a century – a breaking that the UK badly needs, since that class’s leadership has been calamitous for the fortunes of that country.
In a sense, Toynbee is right – Brexit will define the British political struggle for a generation or more – and her class will be sidelined from that struggle, and she loathes that idea more than anything else.
It’s not Polly Toynbee’s fault that Corbyn has had no leadership to offer for the last couple of years because he’s on the same side as May on this issue. That lack of leadership is reflected in the polls – Labour should have been giving the Tories a hiding the last couple of years, but are about equal with them in the polls, which reflects its performance being as woeful as the Tories’.
Whatever you think of the economic and social consequences of Brexit, it will amount to the most crushing defeat of the hegemony of the Oxbridge leadership class in a century…
I can never follow this concept that a country being plunged into economic disaster and misery is a good thing because misery will make people rise up against their political masters. Go out and try to sell that one to voters, if you dare.
“Corbyn has had no leadership to offer for the last couple of years”
I hear this a bit – Corbyn lacks leadership.What does leadership look like under these circumstances? Is ‘leadership’ just shorthand for calling for a 2nd referendum in the hope of stopping Brexit?
In a way I hope he would do this – rather than insist he can negotiate a better deal than May, which seems rather unlikely given Europe’s determination to make it difficult. I think it would probably increase his appeal to the electorate. There is a lot to dislike about the EU – especially the insistence on austerity at its deprived margins. But maybe Corbyn should back-burner those concerns for now because it is essential to kill the Tories.
Let me re-phrase that. The EU has made it difficult for May to cherry-pick the bits the Tories want – such as no freedom of movement for people but with unrestricted access to markets for goods and services.
Corbyn’s teams sole mission is to make sure Brexit is owned 100% by the Tories, keep the spotlight on them and simultaneously try and keep their own equally split party out of the headlines – especially important for a Corbyn led Labour because the left-policing liberal elites like Toynbee and the Labour “centrists” (who basically want a continuation of Thatcherism with diversity quotas) hate Corbyn even more than they do Brexit. Just look at how the self-styled “independent group” has switched the media circus back to Labour, and given the Oxbridge class another chance to write another round of wildly imtemperate attack pieces and to smear Corbyn. It isn’t like he isn’t constantly smeared by the Murdoch papers as well.. oh wait…
The thing to remember about the polls is Labour was miles behind in 2017 until the rules around fair reporting kicked in and then they almost won, so given the hysterical tone of the establishment media opposition to Corbyn plus the redtops I reckon level pegging is a bit of a miracle.
Secondly, if you haven’t noticed the UK is currently in an existential crisis, a crisis a century in the making and a crisis entirely the making of an utterly decadent class structure that hasn’t changed since the 1870s. Brexit won’t plunge the UK into “…into economic disaster and misery…” – the underlying economic crisis that put in train Brexit has been brewing for forty years and has been exacerbated by the squandering of North Sea oil wealth and a failure (at the behest of finance) to deal with the consequences of an over-inflated currency on the competitiveness of British industry.
Britain is facing a very bleak future with or without Brexit unless something fundamental changes. Even without Brexit it is an over-populated island with exhausted natural resources, facing an existential identity crisis, and an economy entirely reliant on a narrow, London based, bloated and corrupt financial sector and ruled over by a decadent elite comprising a recklessly irresponsible ruling elite propped up by a smug, out of touch and complacent (neo) liberal middle class.
Such old school socialist thinking. The UK is much more than a London based financial sector. There are in fact huge amounts of innovative and creative businesses that have sprung up over the past 30 to 40 years.
Evidently respect for age and experience is not a feature of this world you live in,
Quite a few people here indulge in this ageist bashing as if they never plan on being old themselves. And even then as an identity group it’s an especially daft one at best.
Well said Anne – I too belong in that age group and found that description quite hurtful. At 73 I don’t think of myself as old and ready to be written off on that basis
I now tend to think of people as being of undefined gender, race, culture and an age as this means no offence can be taken. There are many ways this can be translated into speech, such as, “so you are a Grey Power member of mixed age?” or “ah.. the man of mixed race?” or “Oh sorry, I’m meaning the entity of mixed age, random culture and unidentified gender.”
Unfortunately you, like I, are in the same age bracket as Michael Cullen.
Now there is a spiteful and bitter old man. He still hasn’t got over the fact that New Zealand dumped him and his ilk because there was a far better option available.
He is still taking digs at John Key, in spite of all the kind things the Key Government did for him.
Cullen is the best finance minister NZ has had since the Savage administration, admittedly a mighty low bar.
The Key government on the other hand was morally and intellectually bankrupt – the hordes of foreigners they brought in were the only way their backward, irresponsible and frequently corrupt policies could be faked up as GDP growth.
The biggest failing of the coalition to date is not throwing the crooks in jail. SCF, Christchurch, a number of irrigation schemes and financial improprieties in respect of the soft loans to Mediaworks would have had those responsible locked up in most countries with any pretense to a rule of law.
i hear the chinese government tents to kill high ranking officers that are caught double dipping, or defrauding the government, or for any other corruption if it finds it needy.
wonder if someone like the double dipper would have been left to ‘reorganise’ their affairs after being caught defrauding the government for personal gain?
The pattern I saw when I was in China suggests that someone like Bill would have been imprisoned for a couple of years, and taught a trade like hairdressing or floristry, and told – “don’t let us catch you screwing up again”.
The Korean prosecution service enjoys the power to imprison former politicians while it completes its investigations, which was found necessary to prevent them running around ‘tidying up’ after investigations begin. They also routinely select politicians to audit on the basis of anomalous growth of net wealth. It is safe to say that under Korean justice, a thoroughly corrupt operator like Key would be spending the next two decades minimum, in durance vile.
Of course most of the Key administration’s crimes have not been properly investigated. But SCF stands out, the misappropriation of the assets of one of the wealthiest and most astute self-made businesspeople in the South Island, without a whiff of legal process. Hubbard’s only error was in reposing any trust in the likes of Key and English, who stripped him of his wealth and did him to death as cynically as Stalin did to the kulaks.
You follow politics to some degree Gosman – you know damned well which of the Gnats are as crooked as dogs’ hind legs. Key’s insider trading in railway shares alone would’ve sufficed to have him in prison in the US.
I doubt it – but I believe that there is a very unhealthy convention, of not going after the crooks in previous governments, which is part of the reason we have such high levels of entrenched systemic corruption.
The China Investment Bank is another example – created to provide sinecures for the likes of Jenny Shipley, it will never return value on a par with its start up costs to NZ unless it is run by qualified and experienced financial managers instead of politicised primary teachers.
“admittedly a mighty low bar”.
Indeed yes. I’m sure you will excuse my laughter at the thought that Walter Nash is your examplar of a great Finance Minister?
On the other hand he was certainly better than Michael.
But then anyone would have been better that Michael.
Let us just say that Walter was better than 3 or 4 of those since 1935.
Certainly he was better than Muldoon, Peters and Cullen. Perhaps there is another one.
No, let us not say “anyone would’ve been better than Michael”.
There’s no room for lies that fatuous.
And before you have go at Nash, you’d do well to recall that he managed a housing scheme that dwarfs anything a New Zealand government has run since, without creating problems on the finance end.
Cullen was and remains infinitely better than the much lauded but frankly fucking hopeless Bill English for example. If you read MSM descriptions of English you’d’ve thought he was the fucking messiah – but outside our goldfish bowl no-one ever heard of him and no-one wanted a bar of him, which is why he had to shoot through to Oz to get a job with Nathans after he finally destroyed his political career.
English never met a single Treasury target and they had nothing but praise for him; Cullen invariably outperformed their predictions – and they hated him for it – he repeatedly proved their incompetence. The only pity is that he didn’t sack most of them, it’s the most overstaffed and least productive outfit in the civil service – and that includes the farcically inept Immigration service.
What a bunch of old farts. Whining and demanding Extreme Respect just because you are old. Old people who care about the world and other people can’t afford to be PC. And can’t demand to be regarded as saint-like and above approach. I hate smarmy saints; give them a few transgressions so that real aware humans can integrate with them and understand each other and the complex world that it always has been.
Sanctuary often goes OTT. It’s not fair Sanctuary to call Toynbee spiteful and old; either would convey an aspect to be considered. It seems when you get old the essence of meanness and selfishness in you concentrates, or you wake up from Rip Van Winkle state, start, and gather yourself for a foray into things. By the way I turned 77 this month. So i know something about the world and being old.
With that group of ‘old farts’ no-one should afford some respect to them as they are always running down all those who they don’t see eye to eye with, and they don’t show respect for others either.
Many of us are old farts only in patches. My thought is that we had all last century with things getting better for us and ignored warnings that should have prompted us to do some thinking about our own and society’s directions.
In this century we can’t sit back in our comfy chairs and and behave like little lords and ladies, and let the world go by. We’ve had a hand in making this present debacle, and anyone ‘old’ who isn’t concerned about doing some hard yakka from time to time and putting up with some language that’s off-side, aren’t responding to the call to duty. Goodwill to the young and the planet that birthed us demands it.
I agree we are all guilty of not paying attention to the warnings of scientists and people out in the field. Being precious about getting old is just a distraction. We have not been good guardians. That is a hard sad truth. We need to work at what we personally can do to turn things around. Cheers Greywarshark.
Thanks to the commenters who pointed out that there was no need for the gender based sentence. I’d like to think we’re all capable of formulating our criticisms in a way that is respectful, thoughtful and nuanced. A big ask, sometimes, I know, but we should aim higher than other, lesser blogs, I reckon.
And, Sanctuary, the Grauniad is No3 on my list of go to media outlets, behind the Morning Star and Private Eye. However, the Guardian is far easier to link to than the other two, so it’s the one I use most often as a resource for posting here.
I agree with the fact that the Grauniad is easier to download. Similarly, my first blog visit each morning is now PG’s – because he is an early riser as are some of his commenters. So, by the time I am surfacing , PG has usually already posted about the news stories of the day and it saves me searching! I then go and read his links rather than his abridged versions and the comments.
Since a certain departure, TS tends to get off to slower (more civilised?) starts these days like myself. LOL.
“Departure“? Sounds like landlord spin. Wouldn’t ‘permanent eviction‘ be more accurate?
I understand that permanent ban was welcomed by some who still seem to find it a source of amusement (LOL) – not so keen on post-facto ridicule myself.
While not a cheerleader for Ed’s ‘style’, some of the links they posted were useful to me. I personally found their presence on The Standard less irritating than (say) James, or Bewildered, or Shadrach, or BM, or Alwyn, or Naki man, or infused, or Tuppence Shrewsbury, whose ‘contributions’ to yesterday’s ‘Tax Working Group Proposals’ post ‘helped’ to dampen down ‘echos’.
“It’s simply too much. North Americans consume 638 per cent more meat than the planet can handle, with livestock responsible for about 8 per cent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions owing to burping cows, manure management, and other factors. The world as a whole is at nearly triple its meat carrying capacity according the EAT-Lancet report that outlines the planetary health plate diet.”
Well, she’s just giving us a quick flick with her long tail. I fear it won’t be enough for some places, but others might get a bit of a bollocking if a deep low forms to the east of us. 🙂
if the ‘farmers’ aka those that specialise in resource extraction forget the drought by tomorrow they will be reminded next week that todays piddle was not enough.
I think Labour will propose to bring in a watered down version of the recommendation, most likely the rate payable will be 15% to 20% maximum or inflation indexed. Just a political reality as they will need NZF on board with this one.
Grey is referring to the middle classes who aspire to be like the ‘rich pricks’, so they support tax policies that only advantage the ‘rich pricks’, even when it doesn’t benefit them directly.
This is akin to non-wealthy people buying expensive lotto tickets even though the chances of winning anything is less than miniscule, and even if they do happen to win they realise that doesn’t bring them happiness either.
‘Middle class’ numbers have been shrinking after 2008 if you haven’t noticed?
Now the lower class is much larger now and the remainder “middle class” are now rich as part of the 10% and we are all part of the remainder 90% who are poorer then we were 10 yrs ago.
Labour needs to make the argument about the reduction in income tax for the lower and middle class that can come about as a result of this. How they’ll now be able to afford indexing tax bands for inflation. Make it a tax cut argument rather than a higher tax nightmare
Anything but confronting the skiing and would-be-skiing middle class will put the kiss on the death of Labour. But they can off-lay this onto NZ First this time.
Confrontation of the parasite, subservient class born of freemarket/ rule of the jungle 84 will be hard to avoid to restore a fair society.
Duncan Garner has come out all guns blazing in full support . I know wtf.
This is a slam dunk James old boy .
hooton has know credibility in this country.
Yeah hollow man hooton knows lol what a tosspot James try hard. Hooton is a nothing that nobodies listen to – he’s an egg. A hollow plastic pretend chocolate egg.
how many properties and business investment does Hooton have to be frothing at the mouth at a recommendation that has yet to pass to law?
Still talking up that boy with the sausage sizzler? the one with multiple ownership of properties and the likes?
Does it occur to you that many people in this country don’t own multiple investments and thus are fairly nonplussed that the rich and the very rich have to pay tax on income derived from investment and the likes just like a kid has to pay taxes on his / her paper run?
oh, you own a large property you said, you might be eligible? Bummer dude.
As for Jacinda Ardern being a one term Prime Minister for wanting to levy taxes aimed squarely at her income and investment class, your No Mates Party needs a quick overhaul, cause the current lot is useless, vile, unattractive, unlikable, sexist, dumb and uninspired and has an approval of some 6 % as ‘preferred PM’.
I would say that you just get used to the idea that when you sell your property (and if you only own a ‘family home’ you might even find you are exempt) that you might have to pay a Capital Gain Tax on the profits and find something else to whine about.
oh i get it, you are a temporarily embarrassed millionaire in the making and this tax would not apply to you at all today but maybe in a gazillion years when you are all grown up and rich, and then you would of course not want to pay that tax. I get it. Its future proofing with you. 🙂
Hooton nails it. The capital gains tax is dead on arrival.
People who think “the kiwi way of life” involves owning multiple investment properties will certainly do their damnedest to ensure it is, but they won’t necessarily succeed.
The great majority of voters don’t have investments to pay tax on. The government can pitch this to that great majority on the basis that the wealthy who’ve been avoiding taxes will have to pay some, while the people who work for a living will get an income tax cut. The only thing that will make that an uphill struggle is lying propaganda from Simon and co, and the fact that Winston First is beholden to its donors.
It will have an effect. A damper on the idea that NZ is wiiiiiide open to every money-making schemer, and hopefully we will soon lose our supremacy as being the easiest country in the world to start a business. We have enough of the shams and scams and buying a house as a way of turning promises into real estate. Money is just promises in token or written form, it may not even be good for starting fires.
Hooten is such a fount of knowledge!! sarc..
Hysterical screamer would be closer to the truth. He really screams when losing it. Kathryn Ryan has been known to tell him to tone it down when he lost the plot.
The govt will come out with something minor – maybe just extend the brightline test on property sales to 10 or 20 years and leave the sale of businesses alone for now. It will look all balanced and reasonable.
The key is to move the public discourse in the right direction. Overcoming the initial inertia is the big challenge, but once it’s moving then it’s easier to eventually get somewhere near where you need to be. Overton windows are like gummed-up ranchsliders – it takes sh*tloads of CRC and pushing at the start.
So you’ll keep James, you’ll keep.
The ridiculous comments from Simon Bridges, which has seen him lampooned about what actually constitutes “the Kiwi way of life”, will have the Gnats fuming. Instead of talking about a CGT, his hamfistedness has got people talking about how out of touch he is.
He is a complete embarrassment to them – long may it last.
Talking about the Kiwi way of life, Amy Adams was interviewed by Guyon Espiner on Morning Report and became quite put out when he raised the fact that she was listed in the 2018 Register of Pecuniary Interests for all MPs as owning eight properties. She responded that is was now only six properties …
Re the annual Parliamentary Register of Pecuniary Interests, I have provided some information on this and links to the current 2018 and previous Registers at comment 9 under the “In defense of taxing the family home” post.
I won’t attempt to link to that comment as such links don’t work currently. (Latter is not a complaint.)
Thank you VV for this and the list of pecuniary interests.
Excellent to hear that Guyon E has already used this line of questioning to address Gnat MPs who are attempting to critique the tax proposal without disclosing that they have related personal interests.
Good goveranace practice is to declare all pecuniary interest before entering into discussion from the position of the privilege of your position – in this case as a representative of the people.
Breaking News…
Simon Bridges lays compliant to Police, in his statement he describes being ‘assaulted’ by a ‘Big hairy chested man’. Witnesses said the perpetrator laughingly pulled on Bridges hair, the alleged assault took place at a local Golf Club BBQ fundraiser.
More details to follow…
Genesis 27:11
Verse Concepts
Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth man.
It was important to differentiate because there was a bit of skullduggery going on: In Genesis, Esau returned to his twin brother Jacob, famished from the fields. … In Genesis 27:1–40, Jacob uses deception, motivated by his mother Rebecca, to lay claim to his blind father Isaac’s blessing that was inherently due to the firstborn, Esau.
So JK could claim about being pretty smooth and playing with hair, that – they did it first!
China isn’t being mean to us (at the moment) – that’s just National propaganda.
The thing to remember about China is that everyone’s job is on the line, all the time. That means all underlings have to uphold the absolute letter of the law – any minor screw-up they let through will probably cost them their job. So NZers can’t do the “she’ll be right” thing and get away with it.
When China wants to screw with us, the stop buying our milk (in their usual quantities).
“Geopolitics is now a game best played with financial and commercial weapons. The new geoeconomic game may be more efficient and subtle than past geopolitical competitions, but it is no less ruthless and destructive.”
“Virgin Group founder Richard Branson announced last week he is organising a fundraising concert in Colombia on Friday featuring stars such as former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel to raise “US$100 million” for “those millions that need it the most.”
But Roger Waters said Branson had been fooled by a US “shtick.”
“I have friends in Caracas right now, there is so far no civil war, no mayhem, no murder, no apparent dictatorship, no mass imprisonment of opposition, no suppression of the press,” said Waters in a post liked 12,000 times.
“None of that is going on even though that is the narrative that is being sold to the rest of us.”
after losing the last election the corrupt national Govt left the NZ economy in a weak and vulnerable condition …
“Our national debt has topped half a trillion dollars and is still rising,”
” The latest Reserve Bank figures (for the year to April 30) show household debt has topped $250b, driven by rising property prices and an increase in consumer borrowing.
That’s an increase of more than 60 per cent in 10 years.”
And although John Key personally made a million dollars per year out of the housing bubble / crisis … the cost has been workers unable to buy homes and live in a city like Auckland.
Many farmers got burned by the Nats bubble economics ….
“Rural debt appears to have topped $60 billion ”
“Banks tell dairy farmers: it’s time to pay it back ” ….
So piss weak is our economy after 9 years of national mismanagement …. that a 3% rise in interest rates would stall the economy …. and a 5% rise would crash it.
If the banks called in their farm overdrafts …. they could crash the rural economy, shortly followed by the entire economy
If the ‘foot and mouth” disease entered NZ our economy would crash … thanks to nationals cowenomics, which besides poisoning our fresh water with cow piss, shit and farm chemicals … has left our economy so weak a animal disease could bring it down.
And If either the Chinese or the Aussies told us to get fucked ………. they could crash our economy.
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NZ just about wets itself every-time we have a credit rating review … such is the weakness of our economy.
Now imagine what would happen if the usa declared NZ a “national security threat” , such as Obama did to Venezuela in 2015
“The United States declared Venezuela a national security threat” …..”U.S. President Barack Obama signed and issued the executive order,”..”Declaring any country a threat to national security is the first step in starting a U.S. sanctions program. The same process has been followed with countries such as Iran and Syria, U.S. officials said. ” ….. and to which I’d add Vietnam Libya, Yugoslavia, Cuba, China and all the other countries the usa has attacked in modern history.
Being declared a “national security threat” by the usa would probably result in a D- credit rating and 25%+ interest rates for NZ borrowers ….
What would 20% or higher interest rates on mortgages and farm debt do to the Nz economy ???
Think about that the next time Gooseman or Warmonger Mapp blame socialism for all of Venezuela ills…..
Or ask them …. What would happen to our eonomy …..if the usa was always supporting coups in our country ….and declared NZ a hostile state ?…..
Ummm…. why was Venezuela dependent on the US to the extent that if the US President classifies them a security threat the whole economy implodes? That is not exactly a glowing endorsement of 20 years of Bolivarian Socialism is it? They couldn’t ensure the Venezuelan economy would be able to ride out a mere threat from the US. How pathetic and powerless the Chavista regime is not being able to manage that.
The point being you don’t really understand the economic prblems of Venezuela. You just parrot the regimes excuses. Tell me how the US causes hyper-inflation in Venezuela just by declaring it a security threat?
Gooseman ….I’m not going to answer your crap….. until you answer me and explain why NZ s economy would be trashed if we got the Venezuela treatment from the usa.
Ie our economy would shit itself and die if the usa was always supporting coups in our country ….and declared NZ a hostile state …..
Despite your refusal to answer …honest people know New Zealand would be a bsket case if the USA gave us anything like the same treatment…..
Here’s a second question for you to fail at …..
Can you produce any capatilist or market economy / country that delivered an equal or greater improvement for its people, in the same or shorter period of time …. than Libya achieved by using socialisim. ???????? can ya gosboy ?
Libya, in 1951 was officially the poorest country in the world, …….when its corrupt king and British Petroleum were ousted it was still one of the poorest nations in Africa and the world ….
in a little over a generation , using socialisim and Prior to the US-led bombing campaign in 2011, Libya had the highest Human Development Index, the lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy in all of Africa.
infant mortality rates have decreased from 105 per 1000 live births in 1970, to 18 in 2005. Mortality rates amongst children under five have seen a similar shift, with 24 per 1000 live births in 2005.
A high rate of trachoma formerly left 10 percent or more of the population blinded or with critically impaired vision, but by the late 1970s the disease appeared to have been brought under control.
Public works ( socialisim ) had solved the previous problem of a country beset with cholera and unsafe water problems ….. They built the largest underground network of pipes and aqueducts in the world. It consists of more than 1300 wells, most more than 500 m deep, and supplies 6,500,000 m of freshwater per day to the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirt and elsewhere….. before being destroyed by usa / nato democracy bombs only 3 percent of Libyian were without access to safe water …. … which is probaly better than NZ after Nationals trashing of our water
Before socialisim only 25% of Libyans were literate. Prior to the usa and Nato destroying the country the figure was up to 87% .In a relative short period of time, Libya achieved universal access for primary education, with 98% gross enrollment for secondary, and 46% for tertiary education.The pupil teacher ratio in Libyas primary schools was of the order of 17 (1983 UNESCO data), 74% of school children graduating from primary school were enrolled in secondary school (1983 UNESCO data)
in 1969, few women went to university. Today, more than half of Libyas university students are women. One of the first laws passed in 1970 was an equal pay for equal work law.
Public Health Care in Libya prior to NATO s Humanitarian Interventionwas the best in Africa. Health care is [was] available to all citizens free of charge by the public sector.
The facts and statistics showed a country which went from one of the poorest nations in its continent into the richest nation….it also gained the highest Human Development Index, the lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy.
As Gooseman will come up empty again …..We’ll give him a third question
Does he agree with Nelson Mandela about the usa ….. “Mandela …..” If you look at those mattersm, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace. If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities upon the world, it is the USA. They don’t care for human beings .” ,……” No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do ”
“it is no secret that Venezuela, unlike Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, is targeted for regime change by the US precisely because of Venezuela’s leadership in resisting US hegemony and the imposition of the neoliberal model in Latin America. And of course, Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the world, attracting more unwanted attention from Washington.”
….”American sanctions are contributing to the issues facing Venezuela is all the more egregious considering that the sanctions violate international law, contravening both UN Resolution 2625, which forbids “the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another state” and the charter of the Organization of American States, which bars the “use of coercive measures of an economic or political character.” As usual (e.g., FAIR.org, 9/19/13, 12/8/17), US media do not deem American violations of international law newsworthy.”
Basically the usa is like a mafia gangster nation ….. their negotiations are ‘ do what we say and wan’t…. or we will kill you and make your children suffer ‘.
Yes PB. Occasionally the door opens enough to see that the whole thing is founded on conflicting economic interests. That my ‘getting ahead’ may be dependent on you staying put, or going backwards. Then the door gets slammed and we witter on about being ‘Kiwis’, as if we were all the same.
When you look at the substance of those bills it’s even worse. The 7 bills of Bernie were mostly real important stuff like naming post offices etc. None of this frivolous shit like setting up the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau like Warren did.
During his 25 years in Congress, Sanders introduced 324 bills, three of which became law. This includes a bill in a Republican Congress naming a post office in Vermont and two more while Democrats had control (one naming another Vermont post office and another increasing veterans’ disability compensation). Clinton, for the record, also passed three bills in eight years.
But the sparse number of bills isn’t surprising. Volden and Vanderbilt University’s Alan Wiseman assess the legislative effectiveness of House members by comparing their records to a benchmark. According to this analysis, Sanders has either met or exceeded expectations during his tenure in the House
We wrote an article today about this loss of our water by global bottling companies now invading our country and now taking much of our best water sources now and damaging our health and properties as they truck freight the product through our poorer areas to our export ports now. These foreign bottling companies are now seen as ‘environmental thugs’ wrecking our communities lives and health.
‘A new water tax is needed for foreign water bottling companies currently paying no water tax while they are causing harm to our public health and environment.‘
Press release – Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre Incorporated. 22nd February 2019.
The environmental impacts of business activities of water bottling in NZ are currently not being considered by “The Tax Working Party” group, as to the environmental impacts these foreign overseas companies are causing to our residential communities health and wellbeing now; – consider the cost and harm they are causing us now by only using truck freight transport;
We are supporting placing a new water tax on those foreign overseas companies taking our best water around our country today as they are choosing to exclusively use only road truck freight which has a large carbon footprint and impact on residential health from noise, vibration and air pollution.
Facts;
• The transporting of that water by trucks to production plants and for export is harming our roads as more trucks are gridlocking the roads causing accidents and road damage.
• But the elephant in the room is the harm the extra truck transport going through our cities and causing noise, vibration and air pollution is now adversely affecting the health and wellbeing of many residential areas around the country and councils claim now have no funds to mitigate the adverse effects of these trucks carrying water for export through their residential zones to export.
• The “Tax Working Party” should be a proposing an ‘environmental harm’ cost as part of a tax on the “user pays” principal, to pay for mitigation on those transport effects to our citizens.
Since these water export companies are now choosing to use only the roads to move millions of litres of water and causing damage both to our residential environment, and impacting large costs to us paying for road repairs on the roads they are using we must place a tax on the cost of transport of that ‘so called free water’ then it is only fair these foreign companies are required to pay tax to mitigate for their damages they are causing in their business.
We think this is a fairer system to give local councils and NZTA the funding to repair the roads and repair the water infrastructure also.
All NZ citizens should be not paying tax for a for a ‘natural recourse’ if they are not using it for financial gain, so only commercial water users should pay a tax and NZ business should only pay a limited tax far less then foreign companies as they are not citizens.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel would never have a government without political horse-trading. Governments form when parties win enough seats in the Knesset and cobble together enough partners to form a ruling, majority coalition.
But one trade is raising eyebrows and even alarm, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being seen as brokering a marriage of convenience between an extremist right-wing party, Otzma Yehudit, and a more moderate right-wing party, Jewish Home.
Otzma Yehudit, which means “Jewish power,” is the spiritual godchild of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach party, which was banned from the Knesset under a Basic Law outlawing incitement to violence and later exiled entirely in Israel. Kahane was the American immigrant founder of the militant Jewish Defense League, who before his assassination in 1990 promoted the immediate annexation of disputed territories and the expulsion of Arabs from the West Bank.
To lighten the mood
IMO a little gem I was previously unaware of, and thought it is worth sharing …
Just wondering if any out there were aware of this song ??
Do like the influence of Brian Jones, even when he is playing the recorder (IMO Greatest song with a recorder) in Ruby Tuesday.
Note to ones self-Take time to look up early works of gifted musician, especially those with R&B DNA
Half of freedom is damage to yourself and others — witness my 70s childhood. Our surrounds suffered so we could learn and laugh. Wouldn’t be without that dangerous freedom the religious swop for safety.
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
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I know TRP thinks the Guardian is the font of all knowledge from the UK, but the anti-Brexit partisanship of the liberal urban elites is reaching a fever pitch of hysteria.
Chief amongst these neolib Blairite apologists is Polly Toynbee, who wrote a most amazing column today that recklessly calls for an elite coup against the Brexit referendum result.
Let’s make no mistake – she is calling for a coup. She wants the Westminster political class – mostly members of the Oxbridge elite like her – to walk away from the manifesto promises they were elected on the ensure that the UK does not leave the E.U.
Toynbee is an old woman (72) and a noted turncoat from the days of the SDP split (which guaranteed Thatcher’s majority for a decade) but even for a spiteful old woman this call for a palace coup and elite seizure of power is extraordinary.
Whatever you think of the economic and social consequences of Brexit, it will amount to the most crushing defeat of the hegemony of the Oxbridge leadership class in a century – a breaking that the UK badly needs, since that class’s leadership has been calamitous for the fortunes of that country.
In a sense, Toynbee is right – Brexit will define the British political struggle for a generation or more – and her class will be sidelined from that struggle, and she loathes that idea more than anything else.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/21/brexit-two-party-system-mps-independent-group
T’ponies aren’t going back down t’mines no matter how long you hold your breath sanky.
It’s not Polly Toynbee’s fault that Corbyn has had no leadership to offer for the last couple of years because he’s on the same side as May on this issue. That lack of leadership is reflected in the polls – Labour should have been giving the Tories a hiding the last couple of years, but are about equal with them in the polls, which reflects its performance being as woeful as the Tories’.
Whatever you think of the economic and social consequences of Brexit, it will amount to the most crushing defeat of the hegemony of the Oxbridge leadership class in a century…
I can never follow this concept that a country being plunged into economic disaster and misery is a good thing because misery will make people rise up against their political masters. Go out and try to sell that one to voters, if you dare.
“Corbyn has had no leadership to offer for the last couple of years”
I hear this a bit – Corbyn lacks leadership.What does leadership look like under these circumstances? Is ‘leadership’ just shorthand for calling for a 2nd referendum in the hope of stopping Brexit?
In a way I hope he would do this – rather than insist he can negotiate a better deal than May, which seems rather unlikely given Europe’s determination to make it difficult. I think it would probably increase his appeal to the electorate. There is a lot to dislike about the EU – especially the insistence on austerity at its deprived margins. But maybe Corbyn should back-burner those concerns for now because it is essential to kill the Tories.
too late for a referendum to be organised.
The options are to crash out, take whatever the EU offered on the hope it’s still on the table, or cancel Brexit.
You missed the delay for a bit longer. That is probably the most likely one at this stage.
Fair call.
But like taking the offer, delay is contingent on EU agreement, which might put constraints on that option.
So still a pool of shit no matter what the UK pollies choose.
Yes, it’s great fun watching all sides turn themselves in to pretzels trying to square the Brexit circle.
How has the EU made it difficult for the UK?
Let me re-phrase that. The EU has made it difficult for May to cherry-pick the bits the Tories want – such as no freedom of movement for people but with unrestricted access to markets for goods and services.
Corbyn’s teams sole mission is to make sure Brexit is owned 100% by the Tories, keep the spotlight on them and simultaneously try and keep their own equally split party out of the headlines – especially important for a Corbyn led Labour because the left-policing liberal elites like Toynbee and the Labour “centrists” (who basically want a continuation of Thatcherism with diversity quotas) hate Corbyn even more than they do Brexit. Just look at how the self-styled “independent group” has switched the media circus back to Labour, and given the Oxbridge class another chance to write another round of wildly imtemperate attack pieces and to smear Corbyn. It isn’t like he isn’t constantly smeared by the Murdoch papers as well.. oh wait…
The thing to remember about the polls is Labour was miles behind in 2017 until the rules around fair reporting kicked in and then they almost won, so given the hysterical tone of the establishment media opposition to Corbyn plus the redtops I reckon level pegging is a bit of a miracle.
Secondly, if you haven’t noticed the UK is currently in an existential crisis, a crisis a century in the making and a crisis entirely the making of an utterly decadent class structure that hasn’t changed since the 1870s. Brexit won’t plunge the UK into “…into economic disaster and misery…” – the underlying economic crisis that put in train Brexit has been brewing for forty years and has been exacerbated by the squandering of North Sea oil wealth and a failure (at the behest of finance) to deal with the consequences of an over-inflated currency on the competitiveness of British industry.
Britain is facing a very bleak future with or without Brexit unless something fundamental changes. Even without Brexit it is an over-populated island with exhausted natural resources, facing an existential identity crisis, and an economy entirely reliant on a narrow, London based, bloated and corrupt financial sector and ruled over by a decadent elite comprising a recklessly irresponsible ruling elite propped up by a smug, out of touch and complacent (neo) liberal middle class.
Such old school socialist thinking. The UK is much more than a London based financial sector. There are in fact huge amounts of innovative and creative businesses that have sprung up over the past 30 to 40 years.
Having been brought up on Carlyle’s difficult-to-survive sentences I really must drape my head in salute to your last over-stuffed magnificence.
Lovely writing Sanc….and I 90% agree
It strikes me as pandora’s box stuff via myopic unaccountability.
A mistake of ideological shadows for the prudence of yesteryears.
but even for a spiteful old woman
Evidently respect for age and experience is not a feature of this world you live in,
Quite a few people here indulge in this ageist bashing as if they never plan on being old themselves. And even then as an identity group it’s an especially daft one at best.
Sanctuary, I’m in my 70s and I’m far from old in thought or deed. Nor am I spiteful and never have been.
Please be more careful with your phrasing eh?
Well said Anne – I too belong in that age group and found that description quite hurtful. At 73 I don’t think of myself as old and ready to be written off on that basis
In my late 70s methinks that this Middle age is OK. That kid Simon is spiteful though and he is only 40ish.
Yes, let’s all police the identity politics. Much easier than dealing with fact or the Brexit crisis.
It’s got nothing to do with identity politics dick, it’s basic manners.
I now tend to think of people as being of undefined gender, race, culture and an age as this means no offence can be taken. There are many ways this can be translated into speech, such as, “so you are a Grey Power member of mixed age?” or “ah.. the man of mixed race?” or “Oh sorry, I’m meaning the entity of mixed age, random culture and unidentified gender.”
Unfortunately you, like I, are in the same age bracket as Michael Cullen.
Now there is a spiteful and bitter old man. He still hasn’t got over the fact that New Zealand dumped him and his ilk because there was a far better option available.
He is still taking digs at John Key, in spite of all the kind things the Key Government did for him.
What nonsense you talk.
Cullen is the best finance minister NZ has had since the Savage administration, admittedly a mighty low bar.
The Key government on the other hand was morally and intellectually bankrupt – the hordes of foreigners they brought in were the only way their backward, irresponsible and frequently corrupt policies could be faked up as GDP growth.
The biggest failing of the coalition to date is not throwing the crooks in jail. SCF, Christchurch, a number of irrigation schemes and financial improprieties in respect of the soft loans to Mediaworks would have had those responsible locked up in most countries with any pretense to a rule of law.
Really??? Can you give me the names of these countries where the members of the last government would have been locked up by now?
i hear the chinese government tents to kill high ranking officers that are caught double dipping, or defrauding the government, or for any other corruption if it finds it needy.
wonder if someone like the double dipper would have been left to ‘reorganise’ their affairs after being caught defrauding the government for personal gain?
The Chinese government doesn’t change ruling parties very much in case you missed it. 😉🤣
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China
yes dear.
The pattern I saw when I was in China suggests that someone like Bill would have been imprisoned for a couple of years, and taught a trade like hairdressing or floristry, and told – “don’t let us catch you screwing up again”.
The Korean prosecution service enjoys the power to imprison former politicians while it completes its investigations, which was found necessary to prevent them running around ‘tidying up’ after investigations begin. They also routinely select politicians to audit on the basis of anomalous growth of net wealth. It is safe to say that under Korean justice, a thoroughly corrupt operator like Key would be spending the next two decades minimum, in durance vile.
Of course most of the Key administration’s crimes have not been properly investigated. But SCF stands out, the misappropriation of the assets of one of the wealthiest and most astute self-made businesspeople in the South Island, without a whiff of legal process. Hubbard’s only error was in reposing any trust in the likes of Key and English, who stripped him of his wealth and did him to death as cynically as Stalin did to the kulaks.
You follow politics to some degree Gosman – you know damned well which of the Gnats are as crooked as dogs’ hind legs. Key’s insider trading in railway shares alone would’ve sufficed to have him in prison in the US.
Why isn’t the current government pursuing him then? Are they just as corrupt?
I doubt it – but I believe that there is a very unhealthy convention, of not going after the crooks in previous governments, which is part of the reason we have such high levels of entrenched systemic corruption.
The China Investment Bank is another example – created to provide sinecures for the likes of Jenny Shipley, it will never return value on a par with its start up costs to NZ unless it is run by qualified and experienced financial managers instead of politicised primary teachers.
“admittedly a mighty low bar”.
Indeed yes. I’m sure you will excuse my laughter at the thought that Walter Nash is your examplar of a great Finance Minister?
On the other hand he was certainly better than Michael.
But then anyone would have been better that Michael.
Let us just say that Walter was better than 3 or 4 of those since 1935.
Certainly he was better than Muldoon, Peters and Cullen. Perhaps there is another one.
No, let us not say “anyone would’ve been better than Michael”.
There’s no room for lies that fatuous.
And before you have go at Nash, you’d do well to recall that he managed a housing scheme that dwarfs anything a New Zealand government has run since, without creating problems on the finance end.
Cullen was and remains infinitely better than the much lauded but frankly fucking hopeless Bill English for example. If you read MSM descriptions of English you’d’ve thought he was the fucking messiah – but outside our goldfish bowl no-one ever heard of him and no-one wanted a bar of him, which is why he had to shoot through to Oz to get a job with Nathans after he finally destroyed his political career.
English never met a single Treasury target and they had nothing but praise for him; Cullen invariably outperformed their predictions – and they hated him for it – he repeatedly proved their incompetence. The only pity is that he didn’t sack most of them, it’s the most overstaffed and least productive outfit in the civil service – and that includes the farcically inept Immigration service.
‘Spiteful and bitter’ ? Satisfied to the point of ‘self’.
What a bunch of old farts. Whining and demanding Extreme Respect just because you are old. Old people who care about the world and other people can’t afford to be PC. And can’t demand to be regarded as saint-like and above approach. I hate smarmy saints; give them a few transgressions so that real aware humans can integrate with them and understand each other and the complex world that it always has been.
Sanctuary often goes OTT. It’s not fair Sanctuary to call Toynbee spiteful and old; either would convey an aspect to be considered. It seems when you get old the essence of meanness and selfishness in you concentrates, or you wake up from Rip Van Winkle state, start, and gather yourself for a foray into things. By the way I turned 77 this month. So i know something about the world and being old.
greywarshark,
With that group of ‘old farts’ no-one should afford some respect to them as they are always running down all those who they don’t see eye to eye with, and they don’t show respect for others either.
Many of us are old farts only in patches. My thought is that we had all last century with things getting better for us and ignored warnings that should have prompted us to do some thinking about our own and society’s directions.
In this century we can’t sit back in our comfy chairs and and behave like little lords and ladies, and let the world go by. We’ve had a hand in making this present debacle, and anyone ‘old’ who isn’t concerned about doing some hard yakka from time to time and putting up with some language that’s off-side, aren’t responding to the call to duty. Goodwill to the young and the planet that birthed us demands it.
1000%
Thanks patricia. I appreciate your opinion, so when you don’t agree or want to add something to things I say, please pass the thought on.
I agree we are all guilty of not paying attention to the warnings of scientists and people out in the field. Being precious about getting old is just a distraction. We have not been good guardians. That is a hard sad truth. We need to work at what we personally can do to turn things around. Cheers Greywarshark.
Jeez, try being pale, male, stale. Then you become fair game for discrimination, with no argument allowed.
Yebbit you’re not Polly Toynbee are you. Or ARE you?
Thanks to the commenters who pointed out that there was no need for the gender based sentence. I’d like to think we’re all capable of formulating our criticisms in a way that is respectful, thoughtful and nuanced. A big ask, sometimes, I know, but we should aim higher than other, lesser blogs, I reckon.
And, Sanctuary, the Grauniad is No3 on my list of go to media outlets, behind the Morning Star and Private Eye. However, the Guardian is far easier to link to than the other two, so it’s the one I use most often as a resource for posting here.
I agree with the fact that the Grauniad is easier to download. Similarly, my first blog visit each morning is now PG’s – because he is an early riser as are some of his commenters. So, by the time I am surfacing , PG has usually already posted about the news stories of the day and it saves me searching! I then go and read his links rather than his abridged versions and the comments.
Since a certain departure, TS tends to get off to slower (more civilised?) starts these days like myself. LOL.
“Departure“? Sounds like landlord spin. Wouldn’t ‘permanent eviction‘ be more accurate?
I understand that permanent ban was welcomed by some who still seem to find it a source of amusement (LOL) – not so keen on post-facto ridicule myself.
While not a cheerleader for Ed’s ‘style’, some of the links they posted were useful to me. I personally found their presence on The Standard less irritating than (say) James, or Bewildered, or Shadrach, or BM, or Alwyn, or Naki man, or infused, or Tuppence Shrewsbury, whose ‘contributions’ to yesterday’s ‘Tax Working Group Proposals’ post ‘helped’ to dampen down ‘echos’.
I like Bobby McFerrin. He sings ‘So your rent is late, The landlord says he’ll have to lift the gate. Don’t Worry Be Happy.’
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy” is good advice, so thanks for that Grey.
As the hourglass runs out I’m tending to ‘worry’ even less about myself and more about others – an ‘advantage’ of age and ‘life perspective’.
Quack quack: https://www.blogthings.com/whatsyourlifeperspectivequiz/
Yes, TS saves my sanity knowing that there are other people thinking about others, reporting on what is being done to help, and doing what they can.
Never read her Pa, Arnold. What would he think?
Rain today. Farmers will forget they had a drought by tomorrow.
All entirely avoidable. Even flood proofing is possible.
Embrace change and save the farm.
Oma comin’ yo.
Well, she’s just giving us a quick flick with her long tail. I fear it won’t be enough for some places, but others might get a bit of a bollocking if a deep low forms to the east of us. 🙂
if the ‘farmers’ aka those that specialise in resource extraction forget the drought by tomorrow they will be reminded next week that todays piddle was not enough.
Thanks WTB, What we used to call mixed farming using natural rotations. Cheers.
WtB Very timely thinking thanks for link. See email.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12206085
Hooton nails it. The capital gains tax is dead on arrival.
As I’ve said many times before – I can’t wait for labour to campaign on it.
Jacinda will go down in history as a 1 term PM (and not a good one at that)
I think Labour will propose to bring in a watered down version of the recommendation, most likely the rate payable will be 15% to 20% maximum or inflation indexed. Just a political reality as they will need NZF on board with this one.
Still won’t appeal to the middle class.
Anything, other than a total rejection by Labour, will consign them to history.
Nothing appeals to the middle class who don’t think about the reality of the economy or politics and have $signs in their irises.
So the middle class are the “rich pricks” now, by your reckoning.
Grey is referring to the middle classes who aspire to be like the ‘rich pricks’, so they support tax policies that only advantage the ‘rich pricks’, even when it doesn’t benefit them directly.
This is akin to non-wealthy people buying expensive lotto tickets even though the chances of winning anything is less than miniscule, and even if they do happen to win they realise that doesn’t bring them happiness either.
Is that you reckon I said by your reckoning?
Roflcopter
‘Middle class’ numbers have been shrinking after 2008 if you haven’t noticed?
Now the lower class is much larger now and the remainder “middle class” are now rich as part of the 10% and we are all part of the remainder 90% who are poorer then we were 10 yrs ago.
Labour needs to make the argument about the reduction in income tax for the lower and middle class that can come about as a result of this. How they’ll now be able to afford indexing tax bands for inflation. Make it a tax cut argument rather than a higher tax nightmare
Anything but confronting the skiing and would-be-skiing middle class will put the kiss on the death of Labour. But they can off-lay this onto NZ First this time.
Confrontation of the parasite, subservient class born of freemarket/ rule of the jungle 84 will be hard to avoid to restore a fair society.
Duncan Garner has come out all guns blazing in full support . I know wtf.
This is a slam dunk James old boy .
hooton has know credibility in this country.
Rather than slobbering over Hooten’s partisan nonsense you could read Liam Dann and get an idea of what the government is most likely going to do?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12205998
Yeah hollow man hooton knows lol what a tosspot James try hard. Hooton is a nothing that nobodies listen to – he’s an egg. A hollow plastic pretend chocolate egg.
Hootie Blowhard dreads the tax he’d pay when he offloads Excretium. Not sure he needs to worry too much.
Lol – is that the name of his boat!
And not a Kinder one at all.
nice 🙂
They just need to reassure Slick that he won’t have to pay tax on selling the house he lives in, just the other ones.
how many properties and business investment does Hooton have to be frothing at the mouth at a recommendation that has yet to pass to law?
Still talking up that boy with the sausage sizzler? the one with multiple ownership of properties and the likes?
Does it occur to you that many people in this country don’t own multiple investments and thus are fairly nonplussed that the rich and the very rich have to pay tax on income derived from investment and the likes just like a kid has to pay taxes on his / her paper run?
oh, you own a large property you said, you might be eligible? Bummer dude.
As for Jacinda Ardern being a one term Prime Minister for wanting to levy taxes aimed squarely at her income and investment class, your No Mates Party needs a quick overhaul, cause the current lot is useless, vile, unattractive, unlikable, sexist, dumb and uninspired and has an approval of some 6 % as ‘preferred PM’.
I would say that you just get used to the idea that when you sell your property (and if you only own a ‘family home’ you might even find you are exempt) that you might have to pay a Capital Gain Tax on the profits and find something else to whine about.
oh i get it, you are a temporarily embarrassed millionaire in the making and this tax would not apply to you at all today but maybe in a gazillion years when you are all grown up and rich, and then you would of course not want to pay that tax. I get it. Its future proofing with you. 🙂
Hooton nails it. The capital gains tax is dead on arrival.
People who think “the kiwi way of life” involves owning multiple investment properties will certainly do their damnedest to ensure it is, but they won’t necessarily succeed.
The great majority of voters don’t have investments to pay tax on. The government can pitch this to that great majority on the basis that the wealthy who’ve been avoiding taxes will have to pay some, while the people who work for a living will get an income tax cut. The only thing that will make that an uphill struggle is lying propaganda from Simon and co, and the fact that Winston First is beholden to its donors.
For Hooton to be this excited suggests an aura of fear for himself and for his client base. Like Simon Over The Top?
It will have an effect. A damper on the idea that NZ is wiiiiiide open to every money-making schemer, and hopefully we will soon lose our supremacy as being the easiest country in the world to start a business. We have enough of the shams and scams and buying a house as a way of turning promises into real estate. Money is just promises in token or written form, it may not even be good for starting fires.
Where was Hooten when National extended CGT, with the bright line test.
Is it only a problem when Labour does it?
James, Jacinda will go down in history as a 1term PM and not a good one at that……
Ha ha ha ha ha. That is the level of response your comment deserves.
Hooten is such a fount of knowledge!! sarc..
Hysterical screamer would be closer to the truth. He really screams when losing it. Kathryn Ryan has been known to tell him to tone it down when he lost the plot.
The govt will come out with something minor – maybe just extend the brightline test on property sales to 10 or 20 years and leave the sale of businesses alone for now. It will look all balanced and reasonable.
The key is to move the public discourse in the right direction. Overcoming the initial inertia is the big challenge, but once it’s moving then it’s easier to eventually get somewhere near where you need to be. Overton windows are like gummed-up ranchsliders – it takes sh*tloads of CRC and pushing at the start.
So you’ll keep James, you’ll keep.
The ridiculous comments from Simon Bridges, which has seen him lampooned about what actually constitutes “the Kiwi way of life”, will have the Gnats fuming. Instead of talking about a CGT, his hamfistedness has got people talking about how out of touch he is.
He is a complete embarrassment to them – long may it last.
Talking about the Kiwi way of life, Amy Adams was interviewed by Guyon Espiner on Morning Report and became quite put out when he raised the fact that she was listed in the 2018 Register of Pecuniary Interests for all MPs as owning eight properties. She responded that is was now only six properties …
Audio here https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018683615/tax-proposals-an-attack-on-the-kiwi-way-of-life-national
Re the annual Parliamentary Register of Pecuniary Interests, I have provided some information on this and links to the current 2018 and previous Registers at comment 9 under the “In defense of taxing the family home” post.
I won’t attempt to link to that comment as such links don’t work currently. (Latter is not a complaint.)
Thank you VV for this and the list of pecuniary interests.
Excellent to hear that Guyon E has already used this line of questioning to address Gnat MPs who are attempting to critique the tax proposal without disclosing that they have related personal interests.
Good goveranace practice is to declare all pecuniary interest before entering into discussion from the position of the privilege of your position – in this case as a representative of the people.
Breaking News…
Simon Bridges lays compliant to Police, in his statement he describes being ‘assaulted’ by a ‘Big hairy chested man’. Witnesses said the perpetrator laughingly pulled on Bridges hair, the alleged assault took place at a local Golf Club BBQ fundraiser.
More details to follow…
Oh, in the footsteps of… “trumpets sound”… JK?
But Adrian, Key wasn’t very hairy.
Yeah nah, he just had a hair fetish.
This hairy man thing – it’s as deep as the Bible.
Genesis 27:11
Verse Concepts
Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth man.
It was important to differentiate because there was a bit of skullduggery going on:
In Genesis, Esau returned to his twin brother Jacob, famished from the fields. … In Genesis 27:1–40, Jacob uses deception, motivated by his mother Rebecca, to lay claim to his blind father Isaac’s blessing that was inherently due to the firstborn, Esau.
So JK could claim about being pretty smooth and playing with hair, that – they did it first!
I think you may mean not very visibly hairy…
Thread.
https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1098646532075728896
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1098646532075728896.html
Bloody hell. Never use one word when 2000 will do, eh.
In case anyone thought China was just being mean to us…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-21/china-bans-coal-import-and-send-dollar-tumbling/10835136
China isn’t being mean to us (at the moment) – that’s just National propaganda.
The thing to remember about China is that everyone’s job is on the line, all the time. That means all underlings have to uphold the absolute letter of the law – any minor screw-up they let through will probably cost them their job. So NZers can’t do the “she’ll be right” thing and get away with it.
When China wants to screw with us, the stop buying our milk (in their usual quantities).
Lol. Is this a threat?
– Judith Collins
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/02/judith-collins-says-capital-gains-tax-will-make-simon-bridges-the-prime-minister.html
Of course “they” being Simon supporters wouldn’t vote for Jacinda anyway.
The higher you push them the further they have to fall eh judith.
“Geopolitics is now a game best played with financial and commercial weapons. The new geoeconomic game may be more efficient and subtle than past geopolitical competitions, but it is no less ruthless and destructive.”
– Juan C. Zarate
“Virgin Group founder Richard Branson announced last week he is organising a fundraising concert in Colombia on Friday featuring stars such as former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel to raise “US$100 million” for “those millions that need it the most.”
But Roger Waters said Branson had been fooled by a US “shtick.”
“I have friends in Caracas right now, there is so far no civil war, no mayhem, no murder, no apparent dictatorship, no mass imprisonment of opposition, no suppression of the press,” said Waters in a post liked 12,000 times.
“None of that is going on even though that is the narrative that is being sold to the rest of us.”
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2019/02/20/pink-floyd-singer-hits-out-at-bransons-venezuela-aid-concert/?fbclid=IwAR2ui5nyZAkR_o0Uk2gJYJKBE-UXRftp1jwAnCxxiQGtEAFydBpHVAwYP7g
National and Venezuela ….
after losing the last election the corrupt national Govt left the NZ economy in a weak and vulnerable condition …
“Our national debt has topped half a trillion dollars and is still rising,”
” The latest Reserve Bank figures (for the year to April 30) show household debt has topped $250b, driven by rising property prices and an increase in consumer borrowing.
That’s an increase of more than 60 per cent in 10 years.”
And although John Key personally made a million dollars per year out of the housing bubble / crisis … the cost has been workers unable to buy homes and live in a city like Auckland.
Many farmers got burned by the Nats bubble economics ….
“Rural debt appears to have topped $60 billion ”
“Banks tell dairy farmers: it’s time to pay it back ” ….
So piss weak is our economy after 9 years of national mismanagement …. that a 3% rise in interest rates would stall the economy …. and a 5% rise would crash it.
If the banks called in their farm overdrafts …. they could crash the rural economy, shortly followed by the entire economy
If the ‘foot and mouth” disease entered NZ our economy would crash … thanks to nationals cowenomics, which besides poisoning our fresh water with cow piss, shit and farm chemicals … has left our economy so weak a animal disease could bring it down.
And If either the Chinese or the Aussies told us to get fucked ………. they could crash our economy.
%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%
NZ just about wets itself every-time we have a credit rating review … such is the weakness of our economy.
Now imagine what would happen if the usa declared NZ a “national security threat” , such as Obama did to Venezuela in 2015
“The United States declared Venezuela a national security threat” …..”U.S. President Barack Obama signed and issued the executive order,”..”Declaring any country a threat to national security is the first step in starting a U.S. sanctions program. The same process has been followed with countries such as Iran and Syria, U.S. officials said. ” ….. and to which I’d add Vietnam Libya, Yugoslavia, Cuba, China and all the other countries the usa has attacked in modern history.
Being declared a “national security threat” by the usa would probably result in a D- credit rating and 25%+ interest rates for NZ borrowers ….
What would 20% or higher interest rates on mortgages and farm debt do to the Nz economy ???
Think about that the next time Gooseman or Warmonger Mapp blame socialism for all of Venezuela ills…..
Or ask them …. What would happen to our eonomy …..if the usa was always supporting coups in our country ….and declared NZ a hostile state ?…..
Links which I have quoted from
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/89539071/rural-debt-appears-to-have-topped-60-billion
Nation of Debt: Half a trillion dollars and still rising https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11873204
Venezuela’s Public Debt: Total data was reported at 148.707 USD bn in Dec 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 171.999 USD bn for Dec 2015. ….. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/venezuela/public-debt/public-debt-total
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11986023
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-venezuela-idUSKBN0M51NS20150310
Ummm…. why was Venezuela dependent on the US to the extent that if the US President classifies them a security threat the whole economy implodes? That is not exactly a glowing endorsement of 20 years of Bolivarian Socialism is it? They couldn’t ensure the Venezuelan economy would be able to ride out a mere threat from the US. How pathetic and powerless the Chavista regime is not being able to manage that.
The point being you don’t really understand the economic prblems of Venezuela. You just parrot the regimes excuses. Tell me how the US causes hyper-inflation in Venezuela just by declaring it a security threat?
Gosman = parrot king.
Gooseman ….I’m not going to answer your crap….. until you answer me and explain why NZ s economy would be trashed if we got the Venezuela treatment from the usa.
Ie our economy would shit itself and die if the usa was always supporting coups in our country ….and declared NZ a hostile state …..
Despite your refusal to answer …honest people know New Zealand would be a bsket case if the USA gave us anything like the same treatment…..
Here’s a second question for you to fail at …..
Can you produce any capatilist or market economy / country that delivered an equal or greater improvement for its people, in the same or shorter period of time …. than Libya achieved by using socialisim. ???????? can ya gosboy ?
Libya, in 1951 was officially the poorest country in the world, …….when its corrupt king and British Petroleum were ousted it was still one of the poorest nations in Africa and the world ….
in a little over a generation , using socialisim and Prior to the US-led bombing campaign in 2011, Libya had the highest Human Development Index, the lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy in all of Africa.
infant mortality rates have decreased from 105 per 1000 live births in 1970, to 18 in 2005. Mortality rates amongst children under five have seen a similar shift, with 24 per 1000 live births in 2005.
A high rate of trachoma formerly left 10 percent or more of the population blinded or with critically impaired vision, but by the late 1970s the disease appeared to have been brought under control.
Public works ( socialisim ) had solved the previous problem of a country beset with cholera and unsafe water problems ….. They built the largest underground network of pipes and aqueducts in the world. It consists of more than 1300 wells, most more than 500 m deep, and supplies 6,500,000 m of freshwater per day to the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirt and elsewhere….. before being destroyed by usa / nato democracy bombs only 3 percent of Libyian were without access to safe water …. … which is probaly better than NZ after Nationals trashing of our water
Before socialisim only 25% of Libyans were literate. Prior to the usa and Nato destroying the country the figure was up to 87% .In a relative short period of time, Libya achieved universal access for primary education, with 98% gross enrollment for secondary, and 46% for tertiary education.The pupil teacher ratio in Libyas primary schools was of the order of 17 (1983 UNESCO data), 74% of school children graduating from primary school were enrolled in secondary school (1983 UNESCO data)
in 1969, few women went to university. Today, more than half of Libyas university students are women. One of the first laws passed in 1970 was an equal pay for equal work law.
Public Health Care in Libya prior to NATO s Humanitarian Interventionwas the best in Africa. Health care is [was] available to all citizens free of charge by the public sector.
The facts and statistics showed a country which went from one of the poorest nations in its continent into the richest nation….it also gained the highest Human Development Index, the lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy.
As Gooseman will come up empty again …..We’ll give him a third question
Does he agree with Nelson Mandela about the usa ….. “Mandela …..” If you look at those mattersm, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace. If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities upon the world, it is the USA. They don’t care for human beings .” ,……” No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do ”
Mandela versus gosman ….
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/21/us-media-erase-years-chavismos-gains
Thanks for the excellent link KJT … I suspect gosman like Mapp is a racist and lifting poor brown people out of poverty means nothing to him …
Your link lead to a good one about the us sanctions … https://fair.org/home/exonerating-the-empire-in-venezuela/
“it is no secret that Venezuela, unlike Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, is targeted for regime change by the US precisely because of Venezuela’s leadership in resisting US hegemony and the imposition of the neoliberal model in Latin America. And of course, Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the world, attracting more unwanted attention from Washington.”
….”American sanctions are contributing to the issues facing Venezuela is all the more egregious considering that the sanctions violate international law, contravening both UN Resolution 2625, which forbids “the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another state” and the charter of the Organization of American States, which bars the “use of coercive measures of an economic or political character.” As usual (e.g., FAIR.org, 9/19/13, 12/8/17), US media do not deem American violations of international law newsworthy.”
Basically the usa is like a mafia gangster nation ….. their negotiations are ‘ do what we say and wan’t…. or we will kill you and make your children suffer ‘.
If we ever wondered who would support fairer taxes.. now we know!!!
Those who have assets are “against” CGT.
Those who would like better income to afford to buy an asset are “for” CGT
This is a wonderful discussion about what is fair. Bring it on.
Some straw arguments looking pretty hollow, Simon and Amy.
Yes PB. Occasionally the door opens enough to see that the whole thing is founded on conflicting economic interests. That my ‘getting ahead’ may be dependent on you staying put, or going backwards. Then the door gets slammed and we witter on about being ‘Kiwis’, as if we were all the same.
Not an awful lot to show for his 27 years.
https://twitter.com/TheSWPrincess/status/1098585937087483905
When you look at the substance of those bills it’s even worse. The 7 bills of Bernie were mostly real important stuff like naming post offices etc. None of this frivolous shit like setting up the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau like Warren did.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/24/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-was-roll-call-amendment-king-1995-2/
People tend to forget that over the past 30 years ago, the wealthiest of this country have had their taxes slashed by 50-60%.
Public services have suffered.
We wrote an article today about this loss of our water by global bottling companies now invading our country and now taking much of our best water sources now and damaging our health and properties as they truck freight the product through our poorer areas to our export ports now. These foreign bottling companies are now seen as ‘environmental thugs’ wrecking our communities lives and health.
‘A new water tax is needed for foreign water bottling companies currently paying no water tax while they are causing harm to our public health and environment.‘
Press release – Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre Incorporated. 22nd February 2019.
The environmental impacts of business activities of water bottling in NZ are currently not being considered by “The Tax Working Party” group, as to the environmental impacts these foreign overseas companies are causing to our residential communities health and wellbeing now; – consider the cost and harm they are causing us now by only using truck freight transport;
We are supporting placing a new water tax on those foreign overseas companies taking our best water around our country today as they are choosing to exclusively use only road truck freight which has a large carbon footprint and impact on residential health from noise, vibration and air pollution.
Facts;
• The transporting of that water by trucks to production plants and for export is harming our roads as more trucks are gridlocking the roads causing accidents and road damage.
• But the elephant in the room is the harm the extra truck transport going through our cities and causing noise, vibration and air pollution is now adversely affecting the health and wellbeing of many residential areas around the country and councils claim now have no funds to mitigate the adverse effects of these trucks carrying water for export through their residential zones to export.
• The “Tax Working Party” should be a proposing an ‘environmental harm’ cost as part of a tax on the “user pays” principal, to pay for mitigation on those transport effects to our citizens.
Since these water export companies are now choosing to use only the roads to move millions of litres of water and causing damage both to our residential environment, and impacting large costs to us paying for road repairs on the roads they are using we must place a tax on the cost of transport of that ‘so called free water’ then it is only fair these foreign companies are required to pay tax to mitigate for their damages they are causing in their business.
We think this is a fairer system to give local councils and NZTA the funding to repair the roads and repair the water infrastructure also.
All NZ citizens should be not paying tax for a for a ‘natural recourse’ if they are not using it for financial gain, so only commercial water users should pay a tax and NZ business should only pay a limited tax far less then foreign companies as they are not citizens.
Very good from Craig Foster
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/dear-scott-and-bill-we-ve-strayed-from-our-values-a-socceroo-s-plea-20190221-p50zbm.html
Kahanist Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians and wounded 125 while they prayed in a Hebron mosque.
But Hamas.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel would never have a government without political horse-trading. Governments form when parties win enough seats in the Knesset and cobble together enough partners to form a ruling, majority coalition.
But one trade is raising eyebrows and even alarm, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being seen as brokering a marriage of convenience between an extremist right-wing party, Otzma Yehudit, and a more moderate right-wing party, Jewish Home.
Otzma Yehudit, which means “Jewish power,” is the spiritual godchild of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach party, which was banned from the Knesset under a Basic Law outlawing incitement to violence and later exiled entirely in Israel. Kahane was the American immigrant founder of the militant Jewish Defense League, who before his assassination in 1990 promoted the immediate annexation of disputed territories and the expulsion of Arabs from the West Bank.
https://www.jta.org/2019/02/20/israel/netanyahu-brokered-a-deal-with-the-political-heirs-of-meir-kahane-heres-why-and-why-it-matters?
edit:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/jewish-defense-league
To lighten the mood
IMO a little gem I was previously unaware of, and thought it is worth sharing …
Just wondering if any out there were aware of this song ??
Off the Hook 1964
More from the same show
1967
Do like the influence of Brian Jones, even when he is playing the recorder (IMO Greatest song with a recorder) in Ruby Tuesday.
Note to ones self-Take time to look up early works of gifted musician, especially those with R&B DNA
Not to forget the other Mr Jones.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/david-bowies-10-greatest-davy-jones-era-tracks-31887/silly-boy-blue-37000/
rain,
glorious
beautiful
rain.
feeling very grateful tonight to be honest. finally some water.
Where, where?
Must watch!
Even the dogs love AOC 😂
https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/status/1098700066150334465?s=21
this is actually not funny.
the dog was not controlled, no one was getting the dog of her, and she is very very lucky that this was a nice dog.
Except she knows Charlie the dog and his owner.
still. A lot of good dogs get put down because they are not under control by their owners. Usually its because they injure a human.
its cute, and its not cute at the same time.
Half of freedom is damage to yourself and others — witness my 70s childhood. Our surrounds suffered so we could learn and laugh. Wouldn’t be without that dangerous freedom the religious swop for safety.
and its still the dog that would be put down if you would have been playing with an uncontrolled dog and got bitten.
i don’t care about damage to her, i care about the dog.
Except we believed in and believe in the fair go. As does AOC I think despite the undeclared war in US society. Dogs bite and we understand often.
It’s true I haven’t read much about Africa lately. I had a look to see if it was still there.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-22/the-worst-humanitarian-crises-youve-never-heard-of/10825046
In countries like Niger, crises like hunger and poverty are being largely under-reported in the global media, according to a new report from CARE.…