I still can’t fathom how forcing teacher to do lots of paper work will assist students except as a means of wealthy schools (who do not have to fill in the forms or have paid help to do it) to leap ahead of the state sector.
So first burden the bottom schools with national standards, then send in the shock managers who will primarily have to enforce the education ministries policy guidance. Now looking back at the thrust of Keys reforms, less teachers, messing teacher pay and jobs around. Yeah, I get it, its just more of the same, just with extra spittle and a hard rub. Expecting a genie to jump out, that the woes of the tail will magically disappear now Key’s on the job, that takes gullibility of an astonishing degree. And its not like the right hasn’t played this bait and switch before, they said trust them they will produce growth, and they did, but it wasn’t them, its was just a huge rush gush of cheap high density fuel and the switch was not managing the transition rather claiming the transition was a chance to do nothing about society (though step in when the bankers had needs). And where has the wealth of the last thirty years ended up? In the hands of the 0.01%. Its the media damn it, that makes us believe we can have egalitarianism and fewer and fewer massively overwhelmed by wealth, its actually an oxymoron to saying an unequal society will maintain the egalitarianism. Our fathers,grandfathers, fought a war against those who would destroy egalitarianism. And here we are Key policies of support first for the richest, and poor people are responsible for their poverty, nothing to do with the choices the wealthy are making. What happen to discovering the choices poor people make and making sure they have real choices like the wealthy. Climate Change, no nothing to do with wealthy making choices, its poor people who have little influence, little wealth, little time…
Attacks on the messenger, and then distracting the thread, based solely on your own inability to fathom text that you must of understood to be so annoyed. You really need to read what I said, yet, you couldn’t, and I’m supposed to care. See another error on your part, assumption that I care.
It hurts Key that his whitewash of sending in managers, after introducing onerous bureaucracy, and whose previous policies have messed around the education sector.
Always supporting the private education and dumbing down the state system.
What’s the matter with you aerobubble. People are interested in what you say if you aren’t too high and mighty to make it decipherable. I guess you aren’t talking to yourself.
Had this debate before. No I don’t care. Its my loss not yours. Oh and since you are still having problems with comprehending this, I suggest social and english classes, social since you seem to believe people owe you comprehensible statements in a political arena (like Key would ever do such a thing when asked, to clarify himself). As for the notion that I must be talking to myself because no one could possible decrypt (or read between the lines) is just so pathetic an argument, like you know everything about everyone, are you still three?
I use a laptop, time poor, or just lazy, but clearly no english mayor, but its all good. Since speach is better said, than silence. People can read something else if it bugs them. An dif they do need to read it, then surely they should respect the writer already. Unless of course its some dull person who can’t specify what they aren’t understanding. Sure they could go back to school.
Thank you, some go defensive, others like you do the right thing and observe some of the problem, i.e. I don’t space out enough, and add to the debate rather than just plugging the debate with how they are not understand and being unreasonable in not having the clarity of mind to express their problem better.
So? One has a far greater rate of mortality than the other – so great is the disparity between death by heroin and cocaine and death by caffeine and sugar that to make any connection is vapid and stupid
If all the people in the world who currently ingest meat, sugar and caffeine were to switch to coke and heroin I think you’d find the world would became a far more unhealthy and terrible place.
I am starting to see a new meme appearing.Yesterday Michelle Boag said NZ was an egalitarian society on the Mora’s dreadful Panel ( which blew me away).
Then today on Radio NZ a story at about 6.40 mentioned Key talking about changes to education proposed by the Nats) in which Key. Have the Nat spin machine decided to play a game which blames the education system for us not being as egalitarian as we can be? As if Key’s kids, brought up in Parnell, Omaha and Hawaii are equal with a kid brought up in Porirua. Is this the way they plan to blunt the levels of poverty and inequality in the country? By saying we are an egalitarian society. If Mora’s and Robertson’s silence to such comments is anything to go by, the media will not challenge such ideas and simply repeat them.
So that’s two times the Nats have used this meme.
“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.”
― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger
The egalitarian meme is there to assuage the conscience of the top 20%. Means that they’ve picked up that the inequality meme is brought too much traction.
..yeah..spin-merchants edwards and boag on that panel –
– had me both face-palming and eye-clawing at the same time..
..truly hideous people…truly hideous ‘views’..
..(boag poo-poohing the idea of giving aid to third world countries..
(cos the money ‘isn’t accountable’..see..!..beyond hideous..!..
..q.e.d..!..)
..with edwards providing one laugh-out-loud-moment..
..with his threats t sue anyone who calls him a ‘spin-merchant’..
..even fellow spin-merchant boag laughed him out the door on that one…
..i tired of it..
..so left the room..and did something far more important/relevant..
..(like laundry?..)
(oh..and edwards has a problem that is fretting him somewhat..
..he is looking for another house..preferably on a beach..
.’cos he likes having two houses to move between..
..so if anyone out there could help..?..)
..brian edwards..both the socialist/left-winger and spin-merchant..
..you are having when you don’t have a ‘socialist/left-winger and spin-merchant’
..eh..?
..and as with breakfast television..if there is no improvements..(and it ain’t looking good so far..)
..i don’t think i will be able to endure that ‘highest-rating hour of radio’..
..for that much longer..
..these same people..all just saying the same things they have been saying..since forever..
..over and fucken over again…
..(it’s like being trapped in a gif..)
..(that is my one-line review of afternoons on nat-rad..it is tired/boring/cliched..
..’trip-to-mars..?..(hey..!..heads-up..!..way past time to retire that wheeze..eh..?..if mora has to dig any deeper to find a way to ‘work’ it that he hasn’t done a hundred times before..he will need a drilling-permit..
..just fucken talk/interview..drop the stoopid construct..)
..and mora is increasingly sounding like he is just going thru the motions..
The Panel so far.
Measure for yourself how representative this group is.
Monday
Andrew Clay
NZ comedian
Elleen Read
Business editor at Stuff, a neoliberal news source.
Tuesday
Graham Bell
Ex policeman and television presenter on Police Ten 7.
Overtly right wing views…
Bernard Hickey
Economist.
Jim gets Bernard on to ask for personal advice about mortgages.
Wednesday
Michelle Boag. Leader of one of one of National’s factions.
Brian Edwards.
A Herne Bay socialist. Friends with Michelle Boag. Always on the Panel with Boag.
On 23 September 2009 Edwards claimed that “Public Libraries are just a Form of Theft” [arguing for “user pays” library books as a compensation to authors.
So if Labour is not completely adverse to deep sea oil drilling then what is their position on getting money out of it?
National’s deal with the oil companies is that NZ gets 5% of any profits, right?
Is Labour happy to go along with that?
Edit: OK, answered my own question… Labour is considering a model similar to Norway, where the government receives royalties from the proceeds of drilling operations, he says, but no decisions have been made.
Personally, I’d retool Solid Energy and turn them into a state owned exploration/drilling company. That way, we’d get both royalties and the profits. Some of those profits could in turn be used to investigate how we can phase carbon based energy out of the NZ environment.
Yep, vto, but it’s also partly a distillation of the opinions of others in Labour. I think most LP activists are of the opinion that this kind of energy is both not sustainable and bad for us. The question is timeframe and replacement.
For those concerned about climate change and sustainablility, socio-economic inequality, democracy and poverty, the way Labour appears to be moving is worrying.
Policy announced on Monday will have to be radical. With the troubling recent pronouncements, it’s looking increasingly likely that Cunliffe is not and was not sincere and is preparing to make soothing noises and to chuck a few pathetic crumbs, while hinting with a big wink at the left that if we just keep schtum, he’ll wow us after the election is safely in the bag.
If he does so, he will prove himself to be just another self-interested fraud as far as I’m concerned.
“For those concerned about climate change and sustainablility, socio-economic inequality, democracy and poverty, the way Labour appears to be moving is worrying.”
No not at all, they should just not bother voting for Labour/National and should deliver their vote to the Greens.
In case you’re not being completely facetious, he could make a committment to some things that give a clear indication of a shift away from neoliberalism. The standard is littered with suggestions, the most frequent one being a clear out of caucus. Concrete policy moves would be good too.
DC said yesterday that they were scrapping 2 social policies to use the money better elsewhere for kiwis. On Monday I’d like to see something substantial on what the replacements are, not just generalised rhetoric about what NZ needs.
Let’s be realistic with the timeline so far. Cunliffe didn’t get the leadership till near the end of the year, nothing happens in politics over the summer holiday period and we’re only just coming out of that. So that’s largely why we haven’t heard much to this point in time.
The clear out of caucus just isn’t something you can do quickly.
If he does turn out to be all piss and wind I definitely won’t be voting for Labour.
At least we haven’t had any bene on the roof anecdotes yet….
imo….unless New Zealanders take control of oil exploration ( as in Norway) and receive 80% of the profits of the oil , the risks of exploration to NZ coasts and the problems of adding to global warming by fossil fuels …..make it not worth while
In other words a few piffly jobs for NZers…. in exchange for oil drilling ( and all the dirty environmental risks and social downside are ours ) …..while all the PROFITS go OUT of the country into the hands of multi national oil companies… ( plus the probability of a few backhanders and shares for the compliant )….as is likely under National …… is theft from NZers!
….Key’s National oil deals and proposals are pathetic and should not be countenanced
….Labour has a lot of work to do to get an acceptable Norwegian model deal on oil… for ALL NZers ….anything else is unacceptable!
Maybe the Labour Party should get Farouk al-Kasam out to advise them on how to go about it. He is an oil expert and has seen the downside of oil drilling in many countries both environmentally and socially. He helped Norway take control of their own oil rather than being a passive ‘victim’ of the oil multi nationals
Farouk al-Kasim, the Iraqi geologist who has been more responsible than anyone else for Norway’s success as an oil power.
Chooky-Norway has 67% of the oil/gas industry through Statoil (and so gets 67% of revenue as well as some jobs from the other 33%).
Labour made noises about looking at this model when it announced the drilling policy-looks good to me.
geoff-Labour needs to set this up. Kiwioil perhaps?
Will cost some money as the state would then be up for 67% of the cost of any exploration, but this is no bad thing as this may slow exploration and Labour really shouldn’t be seen to be promoting drilling.
I’m not convinced that digging up deep sea oil off our coast isn’t a very bad idea. I would need to see a very convincing case before I would support it.
3 points…
1. If a spill occurred it would cause significant damage to our ecology and existing economic enterprises.
2. There is a risk that it financially might not pay off, a risk with any very large project.
3. It definitely would contribute negatively to climate change.
If it is a very bad idea then there’s no point setting up a kiwioil.
We should be requiring that all of the equipment and personnel necessary to contain an oil well blow out is in place before any wells are drilled. That should be an absolute minimum. Anything less than that is just being cheap and hoping that nothing will go wrong.
@ Bearded Git…..great…the more every NZer gets the better…(eg for free tertiary education, health , retirement, living allowance, start up companies, public transport , railway upgrade, cleaning up rivers, full employment, safeguarding DOC estate … etc etc )
@ geoff….well imo that is why the Labour Party need to work and get advice on how to get a get a Statoil
Socialism for cola and sugar industry.
Subsidizing giant corporations and denying those who could do with elective surgery.
Just dumb plain dumb we might as well take seat belts brakes airbags out of cars according to Rich bitches ideology.
An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.
Yes, freedon, but read the comments, using the Most Liked sort option. You have to go along way down before you find the couple of Key supporter comments, with the overwhelming majority of the 52 comments very anti-Key.
Not just hers; same is true of a number of other opinion writers for the Herald. I find I get a better insight by reading the comments using the Most Liked function. IMO there has been a considerable seachange in the comments on Opinion articles over the last year; and not to Key’s liking.
Some overseas boffin talking on Radionz about how we can do education better, I nearly said batter. Freudian slip eh! It must be great to have a job like that touring round countries peddling yourself as a master or mistress of your subject. Funny how governments listen to some but not others.
Key says that NZ education is doing well but NACT is going to bring in better systems and they are sure people will welcome them. Why don’t governments do what The People want? Not whatever great idea that can advance them personally or Partyily?
What a fuc..en arrogant lot they are. Educated holediggers. They know what they know and keep on doing it over and over like an autistic child repetitively and stuck in one place. And are they doing what is needed? Something may be needed but they are unlikely to come up with a workable or elegant solution because they only know about their hole.
Labour needs to follow that old WW1 quip ‘If you know a better ‘ole go to it’. We can guide them to that hole! (Source – Bruce Bairnsfather artist.)
Maybe not so accurate as taken when most hard working Kiwis are on holiday away from their phones. Lets face it they are the core National vote:
“This latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll on voting intention was conducted by telephone – both landline and mobile telephone, with a NZ wide cross-section of 1,509 electors from January 6 – 19, 2014. Of all electors surveyed 4% (unchanged) didn’t name a party”.
Just food for thought but feel free to ‘vent’ at will.
Funny that – when I read ‘hard working kiwis’ or ‘taxpayers’ I feel a blinkered automatic message is coming through from what passes for someone’s brain.
When trainers don’t want racehorses distracted by surrounding and discombobulating activities and people they put blinkers on them. Seems like RWNJs do the same. It facilitates focus and gives them a better chance of winning. Something to learn from that?
Do you really think they don’t take their mobile phones on holiday with them?
Using mobile phone ringing is one of the reasons Roy Morgan polls tend to lean more to the left – they catch people with a life as well as those who don’t have land-lines
Keys education policy is an admission has failed Pisa results for which shcieher is a member has shown has been a failure .
So Now we are Now seeing the coverup before the election.
Hekia Parata failure
Anne Tolley complete failure.
Stephen Joyce complete failure
Ladder pullers
Yup. I’ve noticed Key’s talking about NZ being an “egalitarian society”. It bloody well is not. Not any more. Far from it. So that’s going to be one of the new right wing propaganda themes for this year. Expect to hear it over and over again. At the same time stuff.co is carrying an article about graduating nurses not being able to get jobs http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9639314/Nurses-terrifying-time-job-hunting. No money in the health system is the reason for that.
My girlfriend’s job-hunting. Had to quit her last job because of work stress – exacerbating a heart condition. Hasn’t had a break for the last 3 years because all her jobs have been temporary for only six months so she never qualifies for annual leave and hasn’t been able to get any time off.
A different nobody in a high pressure call centre somewhere in the bowels of WINZ rings her every week. She has to be ready to answer their calls at any time. Feels like being harassed by uncaring robots mindlessly running a programme. How many job interviews has she had this week? Not their fault. They probably hate it but that’s what they have to do to earn a living – otherwise they’d be on the receiving end of the very thing they’re doing every day themselves.
There are fuck all jobs around, the conditions are shit, and she and hundreds of unemployed are being forced to apply for jobs they’re not qualified for and know they won’t get, and all they’re doing is stressing her out, making it harder to find a job, and making her feel like absolute shit. Her health is suffering as well. She can’t afford doctor’s visits. Nobody but me cares. All the media reports is waffle about the economy picking up. Sick of this bullshit. We have to get rid of these arseholes in government.
They are wrecking our society while they are creaming it themselves and they don’t give a shit.
Arfamo
Kia kaha. You are doing good. We are all working for Labour to introduce better conditions for people, reasonable expectations, and acknowledgement of people’s qualities, not having policy based according to sick, derisive, negative ideas thought up by vicious, hateful people.
Can you copy this over to David Cunliffe’s thread as an example of what we feel in our hearts must be alleviated straight away when he achieves government power. It is very straight, informative and something to carry in mind as an example of a large group who are in urgent need of a change in policy not now, but yesterday.
Arfamo, does she have a supportive GP? See if she can get on sickness benefit for a while (or whatever the call the second tier (health issues) of the job seeker benefit now). If she can get that, then the requirements should change and not be so arduous and insane. Fortunately a letter from a GP still carries some weight with WINZ.
John Key’s “big announcement’s” – he’s saying they’ll be based on models from overseas – I’m picking more of the user-chargers/Charter Schools, with funding going to the private sector.
If there are changes being made, let’s see the “big picture”, not just the rhetoric. But remember this marks yet another “change” in 6 years in power – is this how we want our children taught? Constant experimentation?
I have a relative in WA It has been 44C degrees there. We are fortunate not to have such temperatures here. It seems, from reports on the radio this morning, that many of our rivers and swimming holes are polluted with faeces and dangerous to health.
We know how to poop in our own backyard. Even dogs and cats know to go into someone else’s to do their business. We aren’t as clever as them or even dung beetles or ants.
What a shame – all that difficulty for women giving birth because of the large size of the baby’s heads to presumably accommodate brains, when all we need is the head the size of a fly to go about our business of fouling our surroundings.
Any articles remotely critical of the Dairy Industry in Canterbury are pulled from the Press site within hours of first appearing.
The latest today ,regarding Ecan elections.
Yeah it’s a fucking disgrace. The decrease in quality of drinking water in Canterbury is appalling. Why aren’t Cantabrians more fucked off that they’ve gone from drinking pristine water to watered down cowshit?
You might be surprised at the depth of the anger over that whole issue – removing democracy, stealing water, shitting up the rivers. The fact that people are not shouting in the streets does not reflect the depth of feeling. Methinks the farmers have got themselves offside with all others for a very long time to come over this theft.
Every person is aware of it. Most every person is disgusted at the actions taken by this government on behalf of the farmers.
Enough to vote the tories out of Canterbury districts though?
I had a chat with a person from Kaikoura the other day about whether people there were pissed off enough about the oil drilling enough to vote out National. She seemed to think that it still wasn’t enough to stop the traditional voters from voting National, even though they were extremely fucked off about it.
Imo yes, in various enclaves when combined with earthquake issues, certain quarters will give the Nats the biggest dumping of their lives methinks.
As for traditional Nat voters – yes, they will likely stick their heads in the sand and ignore, while at the same time working up some poor weak excuses for this horrid lot. Nothing changes.
Yep. Conservative types can simmer quietly and unobtrusively for a long time on issues of anti-democracy and bad governance, but when they boil over it’s quite something to behold.
I’m not inventing false stories, Manu. Maybe where you are the water is fine, Manu (or maybe you’ve got the taste buds of a bulldozer), but the water where I am, (Canterbury, not Christchurch) has changed significantly for the worse (on par with Dunedin water) and I now have to filter it.
I am regularly in Dunedin. I did my tertiary education in Dunedin. I know exactly what Dunedin water tastes like and it is nasty.
I grew up in Canterbury where the water quality used to be superb. People who grew up in Dunedin often don’t know any better. Then again I know plenty of born and bred Dunedinites who filter their water because of the disgusting taste.
Puckish Rogue
That is a great article, Shearer is a very smart and honest man.
Not surprising then that those with the entitlement mentality white anted him
Nope, that sounds like shear bloody stupidity. Humans are social creatures and the exist within a community. None of them can be self-sufficient – only the community can be and it does that through each individual working with others to provide everything that a community, and the individuals within it, needs.
MEMO Populuxe1:
Time to train your guns on this snitch “Caesar”.
In 2012 you took a few minutes off from your boots-and-all participation in the Soviet-style character assassination campaign against Julian Assange to have a snide dig at John Pilger for his “personal obsession” with seeking justice for whistle-blower Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning. [1] Last year you sneeringly dismissed Edward Snowden as “a bored IT drone with a narcissistic personality disorder wanting to play 007”. [2] It is clear that dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers in general are an insult, a scourge and a vexation to responsible government supporters like you and your friends.
Now it’s time for you to come out against another whistle-blower. The recent release of photos of atrocities in Syria were taken by a defector (or in Populuxe-speak, a “snitch”) calling himself “Caesar”. [3] For argument’s sake, let us assume these are not fabrications like the U.S. claims that Iran used nerve gas in 1988 [4], or the Timisoara massacre photos [5] or the Hill and Knowlton con job about Iraqi soldiers torturing Kuwaiti civilians. [6] Let us assume that the “Caesar” revelations are genuine. If they are, surely the likes of you and your ideological soul-mates that haunt this mostly excellent forum need to be employing every rhetorical trick in the book to undermine and demean and ridicule him (or her).
And if you and your friends do NOT denounce this latest whistleblower, you need to answer this simple question: why the hell not?
One of those aforementioned comrades of Populuxe1 has chosen rather unwisely to wade into waters where he’s perhaps not too confident….
Because even if all your assumptions were correct,
Which assumptions are you talking about?
…some of us don’t have your exquisite cocktail
Uh-oh! Use of an elegant metaphor signals trouble….
…of delusion and obsession.
Sadly, it’s a fizzer, however. Let’s skip over the indolent and vacuous “obsession” jibe and get to the only substantial point of your post: what part of my post constitutes a “delusion”?
“Obsession” seems a pretty reasonable description for someone resurrecting an 18 month old blog argument.
As for delusion, the easiest example is the last sentence in your first paragraph: “It is clear that dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers in general are an insult, a scourge and a vexation to responsible government supporters like you and your friends.” If you believe that comment to be true, then your perception lacks accuracy, therefore you are delusional. But really your inflated sense of importance counts, too.
Every assumption you made in comment 16.
Such as? You really need to be specific, my friend.
“Obsession” seems a pretty reasonable description for someone resurrecting an 18 month old blog argument.
So our friend no longer goes after journalists and political dissenters, taking the lead of such moral giants as Bashar Obama and William Hague? That’s a welcome development—assuming I have assumed correctly.
As for delusion, the easiest example is the last sentence in your first paragraph: “It is clear that dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers in general are an insult, a scourge and a vexation to responsible government supporters like you and your friends.” If you believe that comment to be true, then your perception lacks accuracy, therefore you are delusional.
Populuxe1, and several others who probably have the sense to regret it, did indeed go after dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers—as I showed in my footnotes. Maybe the others, including your good self, were more benign, but Populuxe1 certainly exhibited all those attitudes toward the targeted individuals.
But really your inflated sense of importance counts, too.
Could you back that up? It looks, unfortunately, like another lazy and groundless accusation.
So our friend no longer goes after journalists and political dissenters, taking the lead of such moral giants as Bashar Obama and William Hague? That’s a welcome development—assuming I have assumed correctly.
Again, assuming that your characterization of pop’s arguments is correct, your question is weird. If pop’s arguments had indeed continued to this day in that light, then you wouldn’t need to use 18 month old examples. So either you’re obsessed with that particular comment and correct in your assumption, or you’re obsessed with that particular comment even though it’s no longer relevant (and indeed makes your demands for criticism of “Caesar” even more odd).
Populuxe1, and several others who probably have the sense to regret it, did indeed go after dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers—as I showed in my footnotes.
Nope – you showed two comments a year apart, one questioning pilger’s position (unmitigated gall! That’s persecution, right there!) and one questioning snowden’s motives (calling him a “bored IT drone” – egad, such cruel character assassination!). Hardly “going after” dissenters.
But really your inflated sense of importance counts, too.
Could you back that up? It looks, unfortunately, like another lazy and groundless accusation
Okay, my friend, we’ll take your word for it. I accept Populuxe1 is a genuinely nice guy and would never join in officially sanctioned head-stompings. Nor would he, were he to have found himself living in Rwanda twenty years ago, have heeded the exhortations of Interahamwes radio and got hold of a machete and gone looking for Tutsis. He’s a reformed character, which is good to know.
But what could I expect from a delusional fuck who escalates someone using the phrase “IT drone” to the level of actively participating in genocide.
Except he didn’t just use that phrase, did he? It was part of his ongoing program of parroting everything he could to disparage those officially sanctioned targets.
You say he would have behaved differently in different circumstances; I doubt it. The guys wielding the machetes in 1994 were not monsters, they were simply doing what the regime encouraged them to do. Just like our friend.
The guys wielding the machetes in 1994 were not monsters, they were simply doing what the regime encouraged them to do. Just like our friend.
There are light years between taking a machete to someone and simply saying that they’re probably walter mitties. If you can’t see that yawning chasm, you have yet again astonished me with the extent of your delusion and conceit.
I am an ESL teacher by profession but have just been made redundant yet again in an industry that appears to be on its last legs in NZ at the moment.
For some time I have been pondering a career change to something politically related as I have built considerable experience over the years with political campaigns and as a union delegate so I am treating this situation as a catalyst. Thus, I am seeking any opportunities that you may be aware of in the Auckland area, including low paid positions in the right field, to get formal experience. More details of my political background can be found on my LinkedIn profile. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-pirie/23/85b/98a
In the short term I am also interested in relevant voluntary work as I have about two weeks left to run on my Auckland AT Hop card so transport is not an issue until that runs out. I am thinking my skill set would be helpful in an LEC or MPs office or similar but all suggestions will be considered. Thank you in advance for any assistance provided.
Good on ya and good luck to you, Outrider. Can I suggest you email the NZCTU? They may know of work going in Ak unions. Also Unite might be keen on a pair of helping hands.
Executive principals, leading groups of up to 10 schools.
1. nice size for awarding out property and cleaning contracts etc.
2. and of course diminishing the importance of the connection between school principals and their teaching teams within each school.
3. a conduit for the Government and ministry in a top down regime.
4. leading to easier school mergers, first step being united boards where schools remain on two sites initially etc.
Also muddies responsibilities – who has final say, boards of trustees or executive principal?
“lead teacher” vs head of department and principal?
“change principal” vs board of trustees?
The merger/contracting out is a nice theory – they definitely have ulterior motives for this management merry-go-round
I think we need to consider that all this tinkering is part of a smokescreen.
The Ministry realises that education is entering a totally new phase.
The traditional single cell classroom is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
Technology, whether we like it or not, is going to change schooling as we know it.
The government knows it and does not want to be left with a lot of redundant school grounds/buildings, issues of falling rolls etc.
They want to be in a position to begin to dispose of these “assets” sooner than later.
Another story to compliment 100% pure NZ.
What is happening in Wellington and why was the story downplayed so much by the council, glad to live in Auckland where we can utilise our harbour for fishing and swimming 🙂
Anything over 280cfu is considered an unacceptable risk to health but Greater Wellington Regional Council recorded 69,000cfu on January 26 last year. Just a tad beyond The Acceptable level ! Mmmm
However, when The Dominion Post reported the closure on February 5, water quality was not the primary reason given.
Yesterday, Pike said the safety of rugby fans had contributed to the decision to close the platform but “that was somewhat coincidental because the issue was about the water quality”.
He could not say why he had pointed to the sevens as the reason at the time but said there were security concerns and the two events “overlapped each other”. on February 5, water quality was not the primary reason given. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9639357/Pollution-at-dive-platform-off-the-scale
Great photo op. Swim and catch a meal within Wellington harbour and live to tell of the tale. Especially as we read that Wellington is the 7th cleanest city in the world. Either : the world is a bad filthy place, wellington has gone backwards or don’t believe what you read. http://listtoptens.com/top-10-cleanest-cities-in-the-world/
Very telling only two people cared enough to comment on this if it was cow shit in there they would be all over it.Look the other way towns and cities are not polluting, hell we wont even test down stream from them.
well, no – some farmer would have stimulated a debate by claming that it was all fine and that people pissed off by it were anti-industry.
As it is I know that Dunedin, for example, has spent hundreds of thousands if not millions trying to address the discharge problem, and actively monitors water quality.
Finally someone admits that towns and cities have contributed majorly to the degradation of rivers and streams, good on dunners maybe some day we will get a full picture of how much damage cities and towns have done and are still doing to the waterways
Because he is a dry little legal man who wants to cut down on unnecessary sentiment as not helpful to drawing up tightly scripted legal documents well salted with economic hard-line beliefs about the baseness of human society.
He has managed to handle Maori concepts re the Treatry of Waitangi probably with a tight smile. And NACTs can do anything – humouring Alamein Kopu every day when necessary. But community must be a bridge too far.
I was looking for information about the monopoly purchase of ice cream concession by Fontana – freezing out small businesses – for 10 years. But couldn’t find anything not even when I put NZ Herald first. But I did see about really big payout for overseas trips in business class for ACC officials (Auckland City Council, not to be confused with that other juggernaut).
Note the acronym Ateed – we will be hearing more of this cruisy concession.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11168869
8/12/2013
…spending details come after revelations this week that the council’s events organisation, known as Ateed, also spent $220,000 to send 18 people – including TV3 news anchor Hilary Barry – to the America’s Cup in San Francisco.
That bill, and a further $57,369 for the two Ateed staff to attend a meeting in Dubai and the 2013 Monaco Yacht Show, is under attack from former Auckland City mayor Dick Hubbard and sitting councillor Cameron Brewer.
Ateed should not be doing what NZ Trade & Enterprise already did well, and their targets were “weak” for the money spent, Hubbard said. “It’s a classic case of a pot of money looking for something to do.”
Amounts noted – $57,000+$220,000.
Here’s Radionz item on the ice cream business. The concern by small business was pooh-poohed by Michael Bassett (surprise) who said it was just the market working. Sort of like that bulldozer that’s unstoppable. Can’t stop progress! Progress and the market is righteous! Progress good, concern for others bad! Concern for healthy economy and the livelihoods of small owner traders bad!
The taxi drivers have resorted in Auckland to picketing the monopoly lords of the airport there. Business likes a level playing field by tilting it so its flat but the liquid gold runs down to the pot at the lowest corner.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/234016/ice-cream-deal-criticised
Ice cream deal criticised Updated at 10:35 am today
A small business group says Auckland Council’s move to give a 10-year exclusive ice cream deal to Fonterra is anti-competitive.
The council and Fonterra are negotiating a contract allowing the dairy co-operative to be the sole ice-cream supplier at council venues and events.
The chief executive of Small Business Voice, a group of small- to medium-sized companies, says the potential exclusive contract with one of New Zealand’s biggest businesses is not fair.
Max Whitehead says competition is healthy, but such deals stunt the growth of small companies.
The Auckland Chamber of Commerce says the deal is just business in action, and is no different from a company buying shelf space in a supermarket.
This is where Labour could stand up and say that it is here for workers- workers who are employees and workers who are self employed and workers who are employers, The people who do the work of New Zealand. Why not stand with them. If Labour did this then they would know that,
1. paying the local supermarket duopoly for self space should be outlawed, having a local supermarket duopoly should be outlawed. Anti competitive arrangements between council and fonterra should be outlawed and competition should be allowed to actually happen. Because the funny thing about competition in a capitalist system is that it is not actually efficient at all , it employs a lot of people both directly and indirectly which is a very good thing – if you are a worker. Monopolies on the other hand tend to employ many less people both directly and indirectly.
Plan B
One of the things tht hurts me about supermarkets is that of the big three I can think of, two are Oz. We need a transfusion of NZness, it’s all flowing Ozward and getting diluted in the Tasman, no money staying here.
Well, I have just read one of the best education policies ever. I’m all for backing good teachers and paying them more. Just brilliant.
Supporting it would show some class.
Take the money if you can get it, my friend. Just don’t let them alienate you from the rest of your colleagues. That’s the sole intent of these “reforms”.
That is the plan I intend to follow, NZ education gets along just fine without the intrusion of the blue and red teams of morons, unfortunately they can’t help meddling whenever they get control of the Treasury.
Unfortunately, National has not just been meddling and tinkering. It’s moves against the teaching profession have been aggressive and sustained. Until now the attacks have been obvious: the imposition of spurious National Standards, virtually destroying Night School education, attempting (unsuccessfully) to slash Intermediate Schools’ technology programs, forcing Charter Schools onto devastated communities in Canterbury.
Today’s announcement is more of the same, even if this time it is disguised not as an attack but as a “reward for good teachers”—as if all teachers didn’t have to meet standards in the first place. (Well, in Charter Schools they won’t have to of course.)
The blue team want to spread the money amongst a small team of winners and the rest of the teaching profession are meant to worship them and accept their innate superiority.
The money would be better spent on professional development for all teachers and for improving teachers pay scales so that they would attract the best of students.
There is no way I would even remotely consider putting the wishes of over paid unionists ahead of my children. And besides if teachers are paid more don’t the unions get more out of them?
This is an excellent policy if you are a good teacher, a child, a parent or any body interested in improving the wellbeing of all New Zealanders. Frankly bad teachers (not that there’s that many of them) and greedy unionists are not that important.
Note to David Cunliff – Back this policy and perhaps offer some improvements (keep some votes)
I’d be very careful of playing partisan politics on this one CV most of my colleagues think this is the best initiative out of the MoE in a very long time.
There are definitely more younger teachers coming through who are ignorant of the historical wins that their union has achieved for them. If they allow themselves to be divided then they will all suffer the consequences.
Sounds like you’ve drunk the kool-aid, sockpuppet.
No not at all, if you take the National out of the announcement and replace it with Labour would it be seen as a positive or negative announcement at this site do you think ?
Well considering that National has decades of history of undermining the teachers union then yes I would initially be much more suspicious of a National policy than a Labour policy. But regardless of whether Labour or National implement it, this idea of performance pay is a disaster waiting to happen.
Having a system where some teachers are deemed to be ‘rockstars’ and paid more is going to make the whole thing open for corruption and resentment. In a word, divisive.
And it’s not like they can have an objective criteria to decide who the best teachers are, such as level of qualification, because we all know of the people with amazing quals who are completely shit at teaching.
The criteria will have to be subjective and it is that subjectivity that will leave it open for abuse.
I think there are a couple of documentaries about NZ education that might be worthwhile watching starting with A Civilised Society
There is another good one that was a series … but can’t remember the name at present.
To me, the announcement would be just as reprehensible if it were Labour. But I’m pretty clear that my politics are aligned with my own values – not party branding.
I’d be very careful of playing partisan politics on this one CV most of my colleagues think this is the best initiative out of the MoE in a very long time.
After National Standards, the bar was set very low.
In the middle of the school holidays and within hours of the announcement, you have not only made contact with many of your colleagues (some of whom would also be out on holidays I think) you have managed to get a majority consensus
The majority of my colleagues are back at work and yes there is a consensus amongst us that the announcement is a good thing.
I don’t believe I have any problem with either reading or comprehension, I do note however that you do appear to have some challenges in that direction, along with some other issues.
yes I do sockpuppet
like most humans on this planet.
but I still know the incremental progression of corporatizing education will only damage your profession and eventually cripple the individualism and creativity that children deserve and thrive on.
Manu
If your children have a parent with a closed-down mind then they are already being short-changed for their education. There is a lot to know out there, but when parents are biased and prejudiced, the information comes through in a warped way shaped by that prejudice.
Attitudes like yours hold your children back from learning all they need to know about how the world is.
And 3 News had an education specialist from a US university saying paying teachers was not the way to go – resulting in all sorts of unintended consequences like damaging cooperation among teachers.
He reckons it’s better to give the money to schools, rather than individual teachers.
Manu
Showing off your education and how useful it has been to you and the country, you could direct us to some research on where it has been failing in NZ, or succeeding, and how our teachers measure up to their task, written by an experienced NZ or Australian academic.
And give us the link of the one that strikes you as particularly informative would you please.
As her husband tears apart Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen,
Michelle Obama is having her “Marie Antoinette moment”
What are we to make of Michelle Obama, the first lady of the USA, who grew up in Chicago and was educated at Princeton and Harvard?
by Cathy Newman, Presenter, Channel 4 Daily Telegraph, 20 January 2014
It’s Michelle Obama’s Marie Antoinette moment. As world leaders tussle over how to respond to her husband’s horrifying record of drone killings, kidnappings, torture, harassment and imprisonment of political dissidents, political assassination, his continued support for blood-stained regimes from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia to Israel, and his vast program of illegal surveillance recently revealed by Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers, the first lady of the United States posts cheery pictures of herself on social media cavorting with pop stars and of her murderous husband dancing the “Dougie” on the dance floor at her 50th birthday bash. [1]
If this was an attempt to show her caring, sharing, mother of the people side, it’s badly backfired, with one user commenting that she made Marie Antoinette look like an angel. On Instagram, one Laura Gazzard warned the First Lady: “I’m ashamed to be American if you still have a fucking American citizenship, and Michelle if you ever fucking return to Chicago you will be leaving it in a fucking box, burn in hell you cunt.” In a similar tone, Nadia Eram snarls: “Dirty bitch burn alongside your murdering cunt of a husband.” [2]
Michelle Obama was everything the West used to love about the American presidency. European political leaders thought she was one of them – modern, stylish and approachable. She grew up on the South Side of Chicago, then went to Princeton and Harvard, after which she landed a job at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met Bashar Obama, and married him in 1992.
It’s hard to have any inkling what’s going through the mind of this Western-educated woman as her husband stands accused of war crimes which have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands.
She’s said little in public. More than a year ago, an email from an intermediary, declared: “The president is the president of the United States, not a faction of Americans, and the first lady supports him in that role.”
Elizabeth Lightfoot, author of a book called Michelle Obama: First Lady of Hope, has said she’s now “hunkered down in Washington” and that she’s “standing by her man”.
So is she, then, complicit in mass murder, a Lady Macbeth figure? Or is she at the mercy of events which have spiralled out of control? Does the girl from Chicago’s South Side, like the rest of us, recoil in horror at the killing of perhaps more than half a million innocent civilians, including children?
In the past, she’s spoken of how seeing children caught in the crossfire would break her heart.
As it would any human being. But it seems Michelle left her humanity behind a while ago. A year ago, with Bashar Obama’s violence showing no sign of abating, leaked documents showed Michelle indulging on obscene spending sprees, splashing more than $500,000 on a luxury shopping tour of Spain, including a chauffeur-driven tour of the Costa del Sol which cost a cool $26,670.61. [3]
As the political and diplomatic ructions reverberate across the globe, perhaps Michelle still has time and leisure to go home-shopping, emerging only to pose for photos – the sunny smiles belying the horrors of her husband’s role in the plight of so many countries.
Hey, Moz. This article isn’t actually by Cathy Newman and doesn’t appear to be a genuine Torygraph column (bad as they often are). It reads like the slurred mutterings of a drunken misogynist. Where did you find it?
Click on the first link under the article my friend. Actually the article was by Cathy Newman, and you’re right: she does write like a drunken misogynist. Except the target of her loathing was not the wife of the bloodstained ruler of the United States, it was the wife of an official enemy of the state for which she (Cathy Newman) is a propagandist.
All I did was change the name from Asma al Assad to Michelle Obama, and change some of the place names to fit in with that. The shrieking denunciation, written as you so brilliantly pointed out, “like the slurred mutterings of a drunken misogynist”, is not mine, it’s all Cathy Newman’s.
Oh. Sadly, the bits you’ve inserted (and attributed to Newman) are the sections that I thought were written by the drunken misogynist.
What bits are those? I think you mean the two foul-mouthed rants from Instagram. Apart from the names and the substitution of “Chicago” for “Britain”, those were identical with the original ones, cited approvingly in another right wing rag, the Daily Mail—only the target was Bashar Assad’s wife, not Bashar Obama’s.
So now I guess you’re going to tell me that I shouldn’t have messed with the words of Cathy Newman, that outstanding, dedicated, honest parrot, errrr… journalist.
I think you misunderstand Lord Gnome, Moz. And I get that the quotes were from Instagram. But you claimed that Cathy Newman included them in her piece. She didn’t. I guess the problem is that you read satire, but can’t write it.
Cathy Newman is a fine journalist, btw. Ask Lord Rennard.
I think you misunderstand Lord Gnome, Moz. And I get that the quotes were from Instagram. But you claimed that Cathy Newman included them in her piece. She didn’t.
We all know she didn’t. Anybody with an IQ above the average at an ACT meeting could see that, and I provided the link to her original piece. You are quibbling again, and trying to belittle my post, which was actually very serious. I expect you send off pompous letters to the editor of Private Eye scolding him for pretending the New Coalition Academy is a real school?
I guess the problem is that you read satire, but can’t write it.
Really? Then I advise you to have a browse of the following….
Make up your mind, moz! Was it serious or satire? We already know you mis-attributed the authorship (yet again). Slagging off Newman for your failings is poor form. And Newman got her part-time job at the DT on the back of 20 years of excellent reporting. Ask Rennard how good she is, FFS. Quibble all you like, but she is the journo of the year (so far) in GB.
Now, I wouldn’t work for the Telegraph in the unlikely event I was asked to, and you’re not a good enough writer to be employed by any title anywhere, but Newman was offered a significant role on one of Britain’s most influential papers. You do know that their website is the most popular of all the Brit papers web offerings, right?
It would be a rare journo who wouldn’t consider taking the role, and even rarer one who would turn it down.
Make up your mind, moz! Was it serious or satire?
Satire is serious. There was no one more serious than Jonathan Swift. Or George Orwell.
I’ll skip the unpleasant little quips about my writing ability and deal with a more substantial point….
It would be a rare journo who wouldn’t consider taking the role, and even rarer one who would turn it down.
Yes, of course. Glenn Greenwald, John Pilger, Amy Goodman, Gordon Campbell—any one of them would take the Torygraph‘s money and churn out vile black propaganda like Cathy Newman.
Your claim about her being “journo of the year” is beyond satire.
This “Te Reo Putake” tick seems to me to be a prime example of the type of chap we referred to at prep school as an “ass.”
His familiarity with satire seems to be non-existent, and his critical facilities, as evidenced by his tawdry attack on Mr Breen’s writing ability and his endorsement of that third rate Telegraph hackette, are, to put it mildly, deficient.
Morrissey
You have been taken to task with playing at satire before. Personally I find it a very bad trend to muck up what appear to be facts when there are so many factual liars about. We have to be able to hold onto something definite for our information. Please don’t give me a dose of rudeness back or call my ‘my friend’ in a patronising manner.
Morrissey, You have been taken to task with playing at satire before.
Yes, Warbler, well done. It was satirical, and I didn’t really try to hide it, as evidenced by my link to the original item straight after my little masterpiece.
Personally I find it a very bad trend to muck up what appear to be facts when there are so many factual liars about.
I understand your point and I agree with you, mostly. However, I was making a point about the partiality and hypocrisy of the Daily Torygraph in particular, but also of newspapers in general.
We have to be able to hold onto something definite for our information.
I agree. I think in this case, however, the satirical intention was quite clear. It’s a habit, unfortunate or not, that I picked up from years of reading Private Eye.
Please don’t give me a dose of rudeness back or call my ‘my friend’ in a patronising manner.
Okay, Warbler, I won’t. Let’s keep it civil.
– Ok Cunliffe its a good start with the drilling but now you’ve got a couple of days to come up with something better…good luck, this policy is a winner (election changer maybe…)
That’s the thing isn’t it? After telling us for last two years that the third term was a shoo-in everything Key has done since he got home from Hawaii, every word and every gesture tells us that the Nats aren’t actually that confident about this year.
”This policy is a winner”, really Puckish Rogue??? what this grand announcement from Slippery the Prime Minister looks like from here is after attempts to smash up the teacher’s union’s including the big fizzer policy of ‘charter schools’ have failed miserably in desperation to appease it’s shrinking core vote National have decided to throw 300 million dollars into the middle of the mass and divide them by having them all run over the top of each other to get a slice of it,
Sadly, from listening to news reports many in the profession are happy to do just that…
Just reading some of the attacks on people who happen to disagree with some of you makes me wonder what your motivation is. This “tow the party line or else” attitude bears no fruit especially when on some issues there is yet to be a “party line” stated. Case in point, Labour has yet to counter Nationals latest education policy.
You guys need to chill out and actually take in opposing opinions; you might learn something. I expect insults will come my way now but I don’t care because insulting people through this type of medium is just cowardly so go for it.
Puckish Roague, sockpuppet and one or two others. Well done for standing your ground.
sockpuppet, I hope you get one of the new education rolls, I suspect you will do well, good luck.
[lprent: Actually, the actual problem appears to be that you are incapable of handling people disagree with you. It shows a certain shallowness and weakness of personality that is commonly known as being a pompous and stupid fool.
Incidentally could you please stop changing your handle. You have used three today – one to defend yourself as another “person” – which is a sockpuppet offense. I’d start to suspect a nefarious purpose except you appear to be more of a silly dipstick with an self-assessed ego (that overburdens your actual abilities) playing foolish games.
So I’m going to insist that you only use one. Otherwise you won’t be able to comment here at all. Read the about and the policy. It will help with not attracting my attention. I tend to notice whining idiots as they usually find it difficult to listen to others and so have a problem with the art of being able to argue coherently. ]
Quit stealing our oxygen and bugger off if you can’t hack it bro. This is a left wing blog and if we all want to have a left wing love-in then that’s our business. There’s always kiwiblog if you don’t like it.
Roving the comments and it is apparent some recent visitors to The Standard are very upset about a few basic challenges to their statements. Bodes well. I mean if they are already this defensive after only a couple of policy announcements, what will they be like come the budget? Because, let’s face it, those figures are gonna be fantastic.
fantastic
fanˈtastɪk/
adjective
1. imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality.
NASA has released a new visualization showing how global temperatures have risen since 1950. It’s pretty much what you’d expect given that the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is currently higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years.
probably using the exact same sciencey stuff that was used to explain every other local or regional cold snap that you guys felt were related to global average temperature changes.
The same basic answer as I have given you every other time you have asked
It is called Climate Change for a reason.
Warming is a causation, but warming causes climates to change. They don’t all steadily get hotter uniformly in that way that your simple stupidity appears to feel that it should.
So warming in the northern polar regions means that movements of cold air move further south. Air and ocean currents start getting more active and range further than they have in the historic past.. etc etc Expect more exceptional events of warm, cold, dry and wet for the next thousand years as the liquid and gaseous components at the surface of the planet move towards an equilibrium with the extra greenhouse gases that have been pumped into them.
I guess that you really should name your self “unthinking” rather than “grumpy”. In fact it is probably the causation of why you are grumpy anyway.. Just like greenhouse gases cause warming and ocean acidification. Warming in turn causes climates to change….
By “you guys”, you mean the world scientific community. The scientists have been telling us things that clashed with common sense for a long time now. A few centuries back, people like you looked around them, used their common sense, and scorned this fanciful notion that the world was not flat.
Your grimly stupid anti-science stance toward global warming is just more of the same iron-plated stupidity. You really need to start reading. I mean SERIOUS reading, my friend. But if you’re going to keep listening to Leighton Smith, from whom you obviously draw your opinions, reading doesn’t seem to be a likely option for you.
Why are you on this forum exactly? To be our punching-bag? It’s not much fun for us, frankly. Stupidity like you display in such posts is not interesting, it’s just a bore.
Go back to Kiwiblog, my friend: that’s your natural milieu.
Has anyone covered or discussed this story yet?
It is a great story, it has everything. How it was reported was very amusing, I assume that this was intentional.
It starts off with,
A Chinese man’s holiday to New Zealand took an expensive turn when he crashed into a light pole and wrote off the $200,000 Aston Martin Rapide he had bought for his wife.
It ends with this,
He was in New Zealand on a tourist visa, which had to be extended because of the prosecution.
Away from court, Miss Harding said the drink-driving charge was withdrawn because police did not follow correct procedures. Chen was not offered the chance to have a blood test, nor was he given access to a Mandarin interpreter.
This is a story about the new Auckland, where 26-year-old property managers come on holiday and buy $200,000 cars for their wives, to drive while they are on holiday no doubt.
We seek a 50% reduction in New Zealand’s carbon-equivalent net emissions, as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. 50 by 50. We will write the target into law.
the price of goods and services has risen by 6 percent since the last election, while the after-tax average wage has actually gone up by 16 percent
no, although its a week ago and here I am being interviewed on television about them, I havn’t seen Gerry Brownlee’s comments regarding demolitions in Christchurch and which caused such outrage, but I can talk all about them
oh, maybe our SAS soldiers were in the Kabul hotel gun fight but they weren’t wounded by friendly fire
New Zealand has lost $12 billion from GDP due to the Christchurch earthquake . . . oh, it might actually be around $15 billion from GDP due to the Christchurch earthquake . . . Blinglish said what?
the GCSB needs to spy on New Zealanders because of the terrorist threat, even though official reports released over my signature say there is no risk and the SIS has the matter in hand
National Ltd™ has been working on a number of things with New Zealand First on a number of things one of which has a financial component but I can’t talk about it
the money from the sale of state assets will not be used to prop up Solid Energy
I don’t see a place for a Winston Peters-led New Zealand First in a government that I lead. It’s not a matter of political convenience, it’s a matter of political principle.
This summer is the most active season ever for oil and gas exploration, with the industry spending up to $750 million. At the same time, the Government is strengthening the regulations that govern drilling, particularly in deep water.
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Abstract: Soccer, the global phenomenon captivating millions worldwide, has a rich history that spans centuries. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, but the modern version we know and love emerged through a complex interplay of cultural influences and innovations. This article delves into the fascinating journey of soccer’s evolution, ...
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The pungent smell of gasoline in your car can be an alarming and potentially dangerous problem. Not only is the odor unpleasant, but it can also indicate a serious issue with your vehicle’s fuel system. In this article, we will explore the various reasons why your car may smell like ...
Tree sap can be a sticky, unsightly mess on your car’s exterior. It can be difficult to remove, but with the right techniques and products, you can restore your car to its former glory. Understanding Tree Sap Tree sap is a thick, viscous liquid produced by trees to seal wounds ...
The amount of paint needed to paint a car depends on a number of factors, including the size of the car, the number of coats you plan to apply, and the type of paint you are using. In general, you will need between 1 and 2 gallons of paint for ...
Jump-starting a car is a common task that can be performed even in adverse weather conditions like rain. However, safety precautions and proper techniques are crucial to avoid potential hazards. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed instructions on how to safely jump a car in the rain, ensuring both your ...
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
Chris Trotter writes – MELISSA LEE should be deprived of her ministerial warrant. Her handling – or non-handling – of the crisis engulfing the New Zealand news media has been woeful. The fate of New Zealand’s two linear television networks, a question which the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications ...
TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts and , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and on climate change.The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the ...
Policymakers rarely wish to make plain or visible their desire to dismantle environmental policy, least of all to the young. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent ...
I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in places like the UK, the US, and over the ditch with our good mates the Aussies. Let’s call them AUKUS, for want of a better collective term. More on that in a bit.It used to be, not long ago, that ...
TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
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. ...
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. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Honiara Solomon Islands’ incumbent prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has been re-elected in the East Choiseul constituency. It is the opening move in the political chess match to form the country’s next government. Returning officer Christopher Makoni made the declaration late last night after ...
Headline: The moment of friction. – 36th Parallel Assessments In strategic studies “friction” is a term that it is used to describe the moment when military action encounters adversary resistance. “Friction” is one of four (along with an unofficial fifth) “F’s” in military strategy, which includes force (kinetic mass), ...
The Fast-track Bill, if passed, would allow three Ministers, unchallenged and unchecked, to approve the immediate extraction and exhaustion of one-off resources. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
In apparent defiance of the Biden administration, the Netanyahu government has now initiated missile strikes against Iran. Last Saturday night (Sunday morning in New Zealand) Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against Israeli military targets. With the assistance of US, UK and possibly French forces, ...
Māori representation brings a perspective that encompasses not only the interests of Māori communities but also a broader, holistic approach to environmental stewardship and community well-being, principles deeply embedded in Te Ao Māori (the Māori ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
Zoë Colling’s favourite piece in the ‘That’s So Last Century’ collection is a lubrication chart for a sewing machine from the ’60s. It’s about the size of a postcard, and carefully maintained. “I like it that this piece of ephemera highlights that manual and technical side of the skill involved ...
Kia Ora Gaza A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to ...
With submissions closing today, Macassey-Pickard says groups around the country have been supporting a huge range of people to make their submissions. ...
Our response to the new legislation is informed by targeted conversations with practitioners working in the system and through an implementation lens. ...
The new ‘Fast-track Approvals Bill’ would give just three Ministers the power to approve or deny development projects. They would avoid the usual checks and balances that are in place to protect rivers, land, the ocean, and communities. ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pearce, Professor, School of Allied Heath, Human Services & Sport, La Trobe University, La Trobe University This week, Collingwood AFL player Nathan Murphy announced his retirement, brought on by his concussion history and ongoing issues. The 24-year-old’s seemingly sudden retirement, ...
The Mental Health Foundation provides support and resources for those facing the loss of their job, so it’s wrong in the very week the Government adds another 1000 jobs to its tally of cuts, that this is happening. ...
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here is the promised musical-treat..to start yr day..
..it is someone most will not have either heard of..or heard..
..and this is my personal song to david cunnliffe…
..and as for the singer..?
..be amazed at both her killer voice..
..and how beautiful she was..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnXZopKTqI
(and tomorrow..i will serve up the perfect coalition-song…
..for the green party..
..any guesses..?)
phillip ure..
Hee hee -liked it. What about Nina Simone’s “Put a little sugar in my bowl” as well?
For the greens – how about “You’ll never walk alone”?
Interesting question, Phil. Given Cunliffe’s drilling stance, I’m picking it’ll be The Kinks’ Stop your Sobbing.
jan is warmest..
..as it involves the consequences/outcomes from movement…
..and nina simone..?..
..whoar..!
..i found this last night…
..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfJRX-8SXOs
(it has great audio..)
phillip ure…
Love it!
The PM is going to announce far reaching systemic changes that are evidence based on best practise latter on this morning.
That will be interesting.
I have just read the dim post posting about the hiring of principals to sort out the schools.
“But those initiatives have been overshadowed by controversy, including Education Minister Hekia Parata’s failed budget move to reduce teacher numbers, the bungled reorganisation of Christchurch schools and the abrupt resignation of Education Secretary Lesley Longstone. ”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9640616/Nats-plan-financial-lures-to-turn-around-struggling-schools
Notice how there was no mention of the ongoing Novapay debacle, what a shock.
Evidence based.
I still can’t fathom how forcing teacher to do lots of paper work will assist students except as a means of wealthy schools (who do not have to fill in the forms or have paid help to do it) to leap ahead of the state sector.
So first burden the bottom schools with national standards, then send in the shock managers who will primarily have to enforce the education ministries policy guidance. Now looking back at the thrust of Keys reforms, less teachers, messing teacher pay and jobs around. Yeah, I get it, its just more of the same, just with extra spittle and a hard rub. Expecting a genie to jump out, that the woes of the tail will magically disappear now Key’s on the job, that takes gullibility of an astonishing degree. And its not like the right hasn’t played this bait and switch before, they said trust them they will produce growth, and they did, but it wasn’t them, its was just a huge rush gush of cheap high density fuel and the switch was not managing the transition rather claiming the transition was a chance to do nothing about society (though step in when the bankers had needs). And where has the wealth of the last thirty years ended up? In the hands of the 0.01%. Its the media damn it, that makes us believe we can have egalitarianism and fewer and fewer massively overwhelmed by wealth, its actually an oxymoron to saying an unequal society will maintain the egalitarianism. Our fathers,grandfathers, fought a war against those who would destroy egalitarianism. And here we are Key policies of support first for the richest, and poor people are responsible for their poverty, nothing to do with the choices the wealthy are making. What happen to discovering the choices poor people make and making sure they have real choices like the wealthy. Climate Change, no nothing to do with wealthy making choices, its poor people who have little influence, little wealth, little time…
ooh.!..aero..!
..let the return-button be your friend..eh..?
..it’s like trying to read the runes on a brick..
..the white-stuff/space is free..eh..?
..and no trees are chopped down for it..
..so fill yer boots..!..
..eh..?
phillip ure..
wow
phillip ure is giving people advice on how to lay out their comments so as to aid understanding?
I guess that’s an auto-win for aerobubble.
Attacks on the messenger, and then distracting the thread, based solely on your own inability to fathom text that you must of understood to be so annoyed. You really need to read what I said, yet, you couldn’t, and I’m supposed to care. See another error on your part, assumption that I care.
It hurts Key that his whitewash of sending in managers, after introducing onerous bureaucracy, and whose previous policies have messed around the education sector.
Always supporting the private education and dumbing down the state system.
What’s the matter with you aerobubble. People are interested in what you say if you aren’t too high and mighty to make it decipherable. I guess you aren’t talking to yourself.
Had this debate before. No I don’t care. Its my loss not yours. Oh and since you are still having problems with comprehending this, I suggest social and english classes, social since you seem to believe people owe you comprehensible statements in a political arena (like Key would ever do such a thing when asked, to clarify himself). As for the notion that I must be talking to myself because no one could possible decrypt (or read between the lines) is just so pathetic an argument, like you know everything about everyone, are you still three?
Hi just put a break every couple of sentences. Phil u is pretty ‘spaced out’ but the solidity of the wall of words makes it hard to sort out meaning.
I use a laptop, time poor, or just lazy, but clearly no english mayor, but its all good. Since speach is better said, than silence. People can read something else if it bugs them. An dif they do need to read it, then surely they should respect the writer already. Unless of course its some dull person who can’t specify what they aren’t understanding. Sure they could go back to school.
Thank you, some go defensive, others like you do the right thing and observe some of the problem, i.e. I don’t space out enough, and add to the debate rather than just plugging the debate with how they are not understand and being unreasonable in not having the clarity of mind to express their problem better.
does anyone know where/when key is speaking in west ak..?
..i thought i’d go and see him..and then cunnliffe..
..and then work it up into some sorta tale of two speeches..
..that’s the plan..anyway..
..phillip ure..
some cloistered dungeon full of businessmen
look for the sulphur plumes and you’ll find it for sure
@ freedom..heh..!
..and for anyone interested in expressing a point of view to the prime minister…
..john keys’ office told me those ‘sulphur-fumes’ will be emanating from deep in working class territory..(that rightwing/up-yours! s.o.h.again..?..)
..at the trust stadium in west ak..
..at 11.45 am..
..phillip ure..
Business Forum at Trusts Stadium.
$90.00 – Probably invitation only – got an expensive suit?
Yay! Already Cunliffe’s is free and just a speech.
And where does the $90.00 go??? Not to the poor sods who have to serve food to this bunch of self interested fools. Hope they spit in the soup!
Fight Club
phillip u A tale of two ditties!
tory-trout kathryn rich on tv one-breakfast..
..defending/pimping for..the energy-drink-pushers..
..ew..!
..just fucken ‘ew!’..
..every word out of her mouth just spin/lies..
..(must not interfere with ‘markets’..eh..?..under any circumstances..)
big big proveable ‘rich’-lies..
1)..there is only the caffeine from one coffee in them..
2)..the pushers ‘only market to over 18 yr olds’..
..kathryn rich
..diabetes-pusher..
phillip ure..
So that’s where Tories work after they leave parliament?
Helping out the multinational corporates in another way.
with the now clear/proven health-outcomes from consuming this addictive ‘product’..
..this (low-rent ‘speedball’) of sugar and caffeine..
(diabetes/obesity..?..anyone..?..)
..rich has all the ‘qualities’/’standards’ (pun-intentional) of a p-pusher…
..how could she not..
..and you could argue..that the original ‘speedball’..ie heroin/cocaine mixed together..
..is only marginally worse than this crap..
..as a lifetime of caffeine/sugar will end ‘bad’…
..(and we have an obesity-problem…?..anyone still wondering why..?..
..i’d regulate these fuckers..and all the other pushers of salt/sugar/fat-laden crap disguised/marketed as ‘food’..
..right out the fucken door..
..’cos they sure as hell won’t clean up their act any other way..
..and a new benchmark are-you-fucken-kidding-me?..
..(from the mouth of (that’s!)-rich..)
..’industry-standards’..
..and their policy/practice of:
..’get them addicted to our product..when they are still young..and we will have them for life’..
..peddlers of misery/death..
..all of them…)
phillip ure..
and fuck tvone..!
..they have repackaged richs’-lies..
.and are presenting it as fucken ‘news’..
..(crates of product for the crew..?..)
..craven slaves to their sugar-pushing advertisers…
phillip ure..
“..and you could argue..that the original ‘speedball’..ie heroin/cocaine mixed together…is only marginally worse than this crap.”
Like to see you argue how injecting heroin and cocaine is somehow nearly equivalent to chopping back a few cans of V
same way he thinks that dairy farming equates to full-on antebellum slavery.
@ max fletcher..
..1)..both are addictive..
..2)..long term use of both has serious health-implication..
3)..continued use of both will lead to premature-death..
..(and in fact..if you were using unadulterated heroin/cocaine…
..you will become addicted..as with the sugar/caffeine..
..but it could be argued that heroin/cocaine dosen’t give you diabetes etc..)
..the comparisons are obvious..
phillip ure..
So? One has a far greater rate of mortality than the other – so great is the disparity between death by heroin and cocaine and death by caffeine and sugar that to make any connection is vapid and stupid
@ max..
..given the relative numbers using both different groups of drugs..
..and the proven causing of diabetes etc..from sugar-addiction..
..many many more would be dying prematurely from the consequences of a heavy sugar-addiction..
..mix in caffeine..
..mix in meat..
..mix in animal fats
..mix in dairy-fats etc..
..and you have a cocktail recipie for preventable-disease..
..and a premature/nasty death..
..how could you not..?
..so that ‘disparity’ of which you speak..
..is the exact opposite of what you claim..
..phillip ure..
If all the people in the world who currently ingest meat, sugar and caffeine were to switch to coke and heroin I think you’d find the world would became a far more unhealthy and terrible place.
I am starting to see a new meme appearing.Yesterday Michelle Boag said NZ was an egalitarian society on the Mora’s dreadful Panel ( which blew me away).
Then today on Radio NZ a story at about 6.40 mentioned Key talking about changes to education proposed by the Nats) in which Key. Have the Nat spin machine decided to play a game which blames the education system for us not being as egalitarian as we can be? As if Key’s kids, brought up in Parnell, Omaha and Hawaii are equal with a kid brought up in Porirua. Is this the way they plan to blunt the levels of poverty and inequality in the country? By saying we are an egalitarian society. If Mora’s and Robertson’s silence to such comments is anything to go by, the media will not challenge such ideas and simply repeat them.
So that’s two times the Nats have used this meme.
“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.”
― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger
The egalitarian meme is there to assuage the conscience of the top 20%. Means that they’ve picked up that the inequality meme is brought too much traction.
and to try to con the other 80%. My guess is that a number of the tory activists here are being hit with the same stick as every other average NZer.
@ paul..
..yeah..spin-merchants edwards and boag on that panel –
– had me both face-palming and eye-clawing at the same time..
..truly hideous people…truly hideous ‘views’..
..(boag poo-poohing the idea of giving aid to third world countries..
(cos the money ‘isn’t accountable’..see..!..beyond hideous..!..
..q.e.d..!..)
..with edwards providing one laugh-out-loud-moment..
..with his threats t sue anyone who calls him a ‘spin-merchant’..
..even fellow spin-merchant boag laughed him out the door on that one…
..i tired of it..
..so left the room..and did something far more important/relevant..
..(like laundry?..)
(oh..and edwards has a problem that is fretting him somewhat..
..he is looking for another house..preferably on a beach..
.’cos he likes having two houses to move between..
..so if anyone out there could help..?..)
..brian edwards..both the socialist/left-winger and spin-merchant..
..you are having when you don’t have a ‘socialist/left-winger and spin-merchant’
..eh..?
..and as with breakfast television..if there is no improvements..(and it ain’t looking good so far..)
..i don’t think i will be able to endure that ‘highest-rating hour of radio’..
..for that much longer..
..these same people..all just saying the same things they have been saying..since forever..
..over and fucken over again…
..(it’s like being trapped in a gif..)
..(that is my one-line review of afternoons on nat-rad..it is tired/boring/cliched..
..’trip-to-mars..?..(hey..!..heads-up..!..way past time to retire that wheeze..eh..?..if mora has to dig any deeper to find a way to ‘work’ it that he hasn’t done a hundred times before..he will need a drilling-permit..
..just fucken talk/interview..drop the stoopid construct..)
..and mora is increasingly sounding like he is just going thru the motions..
..and i am fast losing interest..
..phillip ure..
RNZ should be better than Breakfast TVG.
It isn’t when Mora’s show is on.
@ paul..
..with hindsight..
..the summer crew on both morning and afternoon – were far more interesting to listen to..
..than the incumbants..
..and boy..does that panel-guest-list need a good clear/clean-out..
..are there any of them that you think will have anything ‘fresh’ to say..
..the only real reason to listen to them is to get choleric at the unthinking rightwing-bullshit from most of them..
..then..speaking for ‘the left’..we have pagani..?
..beyond fucken irony..eh..?
..phillip ure..
The Panel so far.
Measure for yourself how representative this group is.
Monday
Andrew Clay
NZ comedian
Elleen Read
Business editor at Stuff, a neoliberal news source.
Tuesday
Graham Bell
Ex policeman and television presenter on Police Ten 7.
Overtly right wing views…
Bernard Hickey
Economist.
Jim gets Bernard on to ask for personal advice about mortgages.
Wednesday
Michelle Boag. Leader of one of one of National’s factions.
Brian Edwards.
A Herne Bay socialist. Friends with Michelle Boag. Always on the Panel with Boag.
On 23 September 2009 Edwards claimed that “Public Libraries are just a Form of Theft” [arguing for “user pays” library books as a compensation to authors.
So if Labour is not completely adverse to deep sea oil drilling then what is their position on getting money out of it?
National’s deal with the oil companies is that NZ gets 5% of any profits, right?
Is Labour happy to go along with that?
Edit: OK, answered my own question…
Labour is considering a model similar to Norway, where the government receives royalties from the proceeds of drilling operations, he says, but no decisions have been made.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/233961/labour-stance-on-deep-sea-drilling
Personally, I’d retool Solid Energy and turn them into a state owned exploration/drilling company. That way, we’d get both royalties and the profits. Some of those profits could in turn be used to investigate how we can phase carbon based energy out of the NZ environment.
Good thinking. Did you come up with that yourself?
Yep, vto, but it’s also partly a distillation of the opinions of others in Labour. I think most LP activists are of the opinion that this kind of energy is both not sustainable and bad for us. The question is timeframe and replacement.
Great idea but make it a govt department. Had quite enough of this “state-owned company” bullshit.
+1
Too right, felix. Nationalise the lot, and refocus on job creation and delivering wealth to the nation.
For those concerned about climate change and sustainablility, socio-economic inequality, democracy and poverty, the way Labour appears to be moving is worrying.
Policy announced on Monday will have to be radical. With the troubling recent pronouncements, it’s looking increasingly likely that Cunliffe is not and was not sincere and is preparing to make soothing noises and to chuck a few pathetic crumbs, while hinting with a big wink at the left that if we just keep schtum, he’ll wow us after the election is safely in the bag.
If he does so, he will prove himself to be just another self-interested fraud as far as I’m concerned.
“For those concerned about climate change and sustainablility, socio-economic inequality, democracy and poverty, the way Labour appears to be moving is worrying.”
No not at all, they should just not bother voting for Labour/National and should deliver their vote to the Greens.
How much policy will actually be announced on Monday? I thought it was just going to be a speech giving broad outlines.
I’m willing to give Cunliffe a decent chance. Lord knows that Shearer got plenty of chances.
True. But I’m starting to want to say something like, give him another 6 months, he’ll come right…
How long do we have to wait?
Time is ticking away, yes. But he has had far less than 6m in the job.
What do you think the hold up is?
So what do you want him to do, Weka? Just so we’re clear where your disappointments lie.
lol
In case you’re not being completely facetious, he could make a committment to some things that give a clear indication of a shift away from neoliberalism. The standard is littered with suggestions, the most frequent one being a clear out of caucus. Concrete policy moves would be good too.
DC said yesterday that they were scrapping 2 social policies to use the money better elsewhere for kiwis. On Monday I’d like to see something substantial on what the replacements are, not just generalised rhetoric about what NZ needs.
I’m not being facetious.
Let’s be realistic with the timeline so far. Cunliffe didn’t get the leadership till near the end of the year, nothing happens in politics over the summer holiday period and we’re only just coming out of that. So that’s largely why we haven’t heard much to this point in time.
The clear out of caucus just isn’t something you can do quickly.
If he does turn out to be all piss and wind I definitely won’t be voting for Labour.
At least we haven’t had any bene on the roof anecdotes yet….
imo….unless New Zealanders take control of oil exploration ( as in Norway) and receive 80% of the profits of the oil , the risks of exploration to NZ coasts and the problems of adding to global warming by fossil fuels …..make it not worth while
In other words a few piffly jobs for NZers…. in exchange for oil drilling ( and all the dirty environmental risks and social downside are ours ) …..while all the PROFITS go OUT of the country into the hands of multi national oil companies… ( plus the probability of a few backhanders and shares for the compliant )….as is likely under National …… is theft from NZers!
….Key’s National oil deals and proposals are pathetic and should not be countenanced
….Labour has a lot of work to do to get an acceptable Norwegian model deal on oil… for ALL NZers ….anything else is unacceptable!
Maybe the Labour Party should get Farouk al-Kasam out to advise them on how to go about it. He is an oil expert and has seen the downside of oil drilling in many countries both environmentally and socially. He helped Norway take control of their own oil rather than being a passive ‘victim’ of the oil multi nationals
Farouk al-Kasim, the Iraqi geologist who has been more responsible than anyone else for Norway’s success as an oil power.
Farouk al-Kasim, the man behind Norway’s oil success | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2009/08/31/how-socialized-health-care-made-norway-an-oil-power/#ixzz2rA0UIIyy
Chooky-Norway has 67% of the oil/gas industry through Statoil (and so gets 67% of revenue as well as some jobs from the other 33%).
Labour made noises about looking at this model when it announced the drilling policy-looks good to me.
Yeah but NZ doesn’t have a statoil, right?
geoff-Labour needs to set this up. Kiwioil perhaps?
Will cost some money as the state would then be up for 67% of the cost of any exploration, but this is no bad thing as this may slow exploration and Labour really shouldn’t be seen to be promoting drilling.
I’m not convinced that digging up deep sea oil off our coast isn’t a very bad idea. I would need to see a very convincing case before I would support it.
3 points…
1. If a spill occurred it would cause significant damage to our ecology and existing economic enterprises.
2. There is a risk that it financially might not pay off, a risk with any very large project.
3. It definitely would contribute negatively to climate change.
If it is a very bad idea then there’s no point setting up a kiwioil.
We should be requiring that all of the equipment and personnel necessary to contain an oil well blow out is in place before any wells are drilled. That should be an absolute minimum. Anything less than that is just being cheap and hoping that nothing will go wrong.
We do all of the initial exploration anyway and then we give that information, free, to the multinationals.
@ Bearded Git…..great…the more every NZer gets the better…(eg for free tertiary education, health , retirement, living allowance, start up companies, public transport , railway upgrade, cleaning up rivers, full employment, safeguarding DOC estate … etc etc )
@ geoff….well imo that is why the Labour Party need to work and get advice on how to get a get a Statoil
Socialism for cola and sugar industry.
Subsidizing giant corporations and denying those who could do with elective surgery.
Just dumb plain dumb we might as well take seat belts brakes airbags out of cars according to Rich bitches ideology.
An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.
Seat Belts and Airbags merely give a sense of security to encourage people to drive badly.
jcuknz
Might be right for you. But if I had them I’d feel safer in my car when you’re around.
Looking over Audrey Young’s recent articles, I am having serious trouble differentiating them from a run of the mill National Party press release.
Yes, freedon, but read the comments, using the Most Liked sort option. You have to go along way down before you find the couple of Key supporter comments, with the overwhelming majority of the 52 comments very anti-Key.
the honesty in the comments is the only benefit from her contributions to journalism 🙂
Not just hers; same is true of a number of other opinion writers for the Herald. I find I get a better insight by reading the comments using the Most Liked function. IMO there has been a considerable seachange in the comments on Opinion articles over the last year; and not to Key’s liking.
Some overseas boffin talking on Radionz about how we can do education better, I nearly said batter. Freudian slip eh! It must be great to have a job like that touring round countries peddling yourself as a master or mistress of your subject. Funny how governments listen to some but not others.
Key says that NZ education is doing well but NACT is going to bring in better systems and they are sure people will welcome them. Why don’t governments do what The People want? Not whatever great idea that can advance them personally or Partyily?
What a fuc..en arrogant lot they are. Educated holediggers. They know what they know and keep on doing it over and over like an autistic child repetitively and stuck in one place. And are they doing what is needed? Something may be needed but they are unlikely to come up with a workable or elegant solution because they only know about their hole.
Labour needs to follow that old WW1 quip ‘If you know a better ‘ole go to it’. We can guide them to that hole! (Source – Bruce Bairnsfather artist.)
Roy Morgan Poll
Maybe not so accurate as taken when most hard working Kiwis are on holiday away from their phones. Lets face it they are the core National vote:
“This latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll on voting intention was conducted by telephone – both landline and mobile telephone, with a NZ wide cross-section of 1,509 electors from January 6 – 19, 2014. Of all electors surveyed 4% (unchanged) didn’t name a party”.
Just food for thought but feel free to ‘vent’ at will.
Funny that – when I read ‘hard working kiwis’ or ‘taxpayers’ I feel a blinkered automatic message is coming through from what passes for someone’s brain.
When trainers don’t want racehorses distracted by surrounding and discombobulating activities and people they put blinkers on them. Seems like RWNJs do the same. It facilitates focus and gives them a better chance of winning. Something to learn from that?
Who is really away from their phones these days? And RM randomly call both landlines and mobiles.
Nice try though…
“hard working Kiwis are … the core National vote:”
thats really what you wanted to say isnt it?
Do you really think they don’t take their mobile phones on holiday with them?
Using mobile phone ringing is one of the reasons Roy Morgan polls tend to lean more to the left – they catch people with a life as well as those who don’t have land-lines
very many hard working kiwis don’t get a break during that period – they have to be back at work.
Keys education policy is an admission has failed Pisa results for which shcieher is a member has shown has been a failure .
So Now we are Now seeing the coverup before the election.
Hekia Parata failure
Anne Tolley complete failure.
Stephen Joyce complete failure
Ladder pullers
Yup. I’ve noticed Key’s talking about NZ being an “egalitarian society”. It bloody well is not. Not any more. Far from it. So that’s going to be one of the new right wing propaganda themes for this year. Expect to hear it over and over again. At the same time stuff.co is carrying an article about graduating nurses not being able to get jobs http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9639314/Nurses-terrifying-time-job-hunting. No money in the health system is the reason for that.
My girlfriend’s job-hunting. Had to quit her last job because of work stress – exacerbating a heart condition. Hasn’t had a break for the last 3 years because all her jobs have been temporary for only six months so she never qualifies for annual leave and hasn’t been able to get any time off.
A different nobody in a high pressure call centre somewhere in the bowels of WINZ rings her every week. She has to be ready to answer their calls at any time. Feels like being harassed by uncaring robots mindlessly running a programme. How many job interviews has she had this week? Not their fault. They probably hate it but that’s what they have to do to earn a living – otherwise they’d be on the receiving end of the very thing they’re doing every day themselves.
There are fuck all jobs around, the conditions are shit, and she and hundreds of unemployed are being forced to apply for jobs they’re not qualified for and know they won’t get, and all they’re doing is stressing her out, making it harder to find a job, and making her feel like absolute shit. Her health is suffering as well. She can’t afford doctor’s visits. Nobody but me cares. All the media reports is waffle about the economy picking up. Sick of this bullshit. We have to get rid of these arseholes in government.
They are wrecking our society while they are creaming it themselves and they don’t give a shit.
Arfamo
Kia kaha. You are doing good. We are all working for Labour to introduce better conditions for people, reasonable expectations, and acknowledgement of people’s qualities, not having policy based according to sick, derisive, negative ideas thought up by vicious, hateful people.
Can you copy this over to David Cunliffe’s thread as an example of what we feel in our hearts must be alleviated straight away when he achieves government power. It is very straight, informative and something to carry in mind as an example of a large group who are in urgent need of a change in policy not now, but yesterday.
WINZ are getting worse and worse 🙁
Arfamo, does she have a supportive GP? See if she can get on sickness benefit for a while (or whatever the call the second tier (health issues) of the job seeker benefit now). If she can get that, then the requirements should change and not be so arduous and insane. Fortunately a letter from a GP still carries some weight with WINZ.
John Key’s “big announcement’s” – he’s saying they’ll be based on models from overseas – I’m picking more of the user-chargers/Charter Schools, with funding going to the private sector.
If there are changes being made, let’s see the “big picture”, not just the rhetoric. But remember this marks yet another “change” in 6 years in power – is this how we want our children taught? Constant experimentation?
I have a relative in WA It has been 44C degrees there. We are fortunate not to have such temperatures here. It seems, from reports on the radio this morning, that many of our rivers and swimming holes are polluted with faeces and dangerous to health.
We know how to poop in our own backyard. Even dogs and cats know to go into someone else’s to do their business. We aren’t as clever as them or even dung beetles or ants.
What a shame – all that difficulty for women giving birth because of the large size of the baby’s heads to presumably accommodate brains, when all we need is the head the size of a fly to go about our business of fouling our surroundings.
Something smells at The Press in ChCh.
Any articles remotely critical of the Dairy Industry in Canterbury are pulled from the Press site within hours of first appearing.
The latest today ,regarding Ecan elections.
WTF is going on?
Yeah it’s a fucking disgrace. The decrease in quality of drinking water in Canterbury is appalling. Why aren’t Cantabrians more fucked off that they’ve gone from drinking pristine water to watered down cowshit?
You might be surprised at the depth of the anger over that whole issue – removing democracy, stealing water, shitting up the rivers. The fact that people are not shouting in the streets does not reflect the depth of feeling. Methinks the farmers have got themselves offside with all others for a very long time to come over this theft.
Every person is aware of it. Most every person is disgusted at the actions taken by this government on behalf of the farmers.
Enough to vote the tories out of Canterbury districts though?
I had a chat with a person from Kaikoura the other day about whether people there were pissed off enough about the oil drilling enough to vote out National. She seemed to think that it still wasn’t enough to stop the traditional voters from voting National, even though they were extremely fucked off about it.
Imo yes, in various enclaves when combined with earthquake issues, certain quarters will give the Nats the biggest dumping of their lives methinks.
As for traditional Nat voters – yes, they will likely stick their heads in the sand and ignore, while at the same time working up some poor weak excuses for this horrid lot. Nothing changes.
I hope you’re correct.
Yep. Conservative types can simmer quietly and unobtrusively for a long time on issues of anti-democracy and bad governance, but when they boil over it’s quite something to behold.
At least Christchurch will go back to Labour, along with the new Council.
So should be easier to get things done.
Water is great in Canterbury. We all drink straight from the tap and love it. Inventing false stories helps nobody.
Wrong
I’m not inventing false stories, Manu. Maybe where you are the water is fine, Manu (or maybe you’ve got the taste buds of a bulldozer), but the water where I am, (Canterbury, not Christchurch) has changed significantly for the worse (on par with Dunedin water) and I now have to filter it.
Manu writes such tiresome comments far too often.
i would also put $$ on him not living in cantebury in the first place
When you get a job and have some money, I’ll take that bet.
Paul, you are so manly attacking people through the net. I thought better of you.
You should know that Dunedin has top grade water …. I used to only drink bottled water but now I drink nothing but tap water … it tastes fine.
Dunedin has top grade water ….it tastes fine.
HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
best laugh I’ve had all day!
thanks.
Funny when ideology gets in the way of facts.
I am regularly in Dunedin. I did my tertiary education in Dunedin. I know exactly what Dunedin water tastes like and it is nasty.
I grew up in Canterbury where the water quality used to be superb. People who grew up in Dunedin often don’t know any better. Then again I know plenty of born and bred Dunedinites who filter their water because of the disgusting taste.
Still is in CHCH.
Dull and duller.
Woops! Manu was wrong. We have a team working 20K’s north of Rangiora and the home owner served them bottled water. So my bad.
This film explains a lot…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SAUborWbPw
It’s a coo!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11188949
– Shearers a smart guy
Sadly you aren’t.
Well thats the union-dominated education system for you I guess
Puckish Rogue
That is a great article, Shearer is a very smart and honest man.
Not surprising then that those with the entitlement mentality white anted him
Nope, that sounds like shear bloody stupidity. Humans are social creatures and the exist within a community. None of them can be self-sufficient – only the community can be and it does that through each individual working with others to provide everything that a community, and the individuals within it, needs.
MEMO Populuxe1:
Time to train your guns on this snitch “Caesar”.
In 2012 you took a few minutes off from your boots-and-all participation in the Soviet-style character assassination campaign against Julian Assange to have a snide dig at John Pilger for his “personal obsession” with seeking justice for whistle-blower Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning. [1] Last year you sneeringly dismissed Edward Snowden as “a bored IT drone with a narcissistic personality disorder wanting to play 007”. [2] It is clear that dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers in general are an insult, a scourge and a vexation to responsible government supporters like you and your friends.
Now it’s time for you to come out against another whistle-blower. The recent release of photos of atrocities in Syria were taken by a defector (or in Populuxe-speak, a “snitch”) calling himself “Caesar”. [3] For argument’s sake, let us assume these are not fabrications like the U.S. claims that Iran used nerve gas in 1988 [4], or the Timisoara massacre photos [5] or the Hill and Knowlton con job about Iraqi soldiers torturing Kuwaiti civilians. [6] Let us assume that the “Caesar” revelations are genuine. If they are, surely the likes of you and your ideological soul-mates that haunt this mostly excellent forum need to be employing every rhetorical trick in the book to undermine and demean and ridicule him (or her).
And if you and your friends do NOT denounce this latest whistleblower, you need to answer this simple question: why the hell not?
[1] http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04062012/#comment-478939
[2] http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-10062013/#comment-646568
[3] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/caesars-revenge-assad-photographer-exposes-syrian-regimes-mass-torture-1433131
[4] http://www.matrixmasters.com/wtc/chomsky/prospects/prospects.html
[5] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-03-13/news/9001210292_1_grave-nicolae-ceausescu-bodies
[6] http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/HK/HK2.html
Because even if all your assumptions were correct, some of us don’t have your exquisite cocktail of delusion and obsession.
One of those aforementioned comrades of Populuxe1 has chosen rather unwisely to wade into waters where he’s perhaps not too confident….
Because even if all your assumptions were correct,
Which assumptions are you talking about?
…some of us don’t have your exquisite cocktail
Uh-oh! Use of an elegant metaphor signals trouble….
…of delusion and obsession.
Sadly, it’s a fizzer, however. Let’s skip over the indolent and vacuous “obsession” jibe and get to the only substantial point of your post: what part of my post constitutes a “delusion”?
Every assumption you made in comment 16.
“Obsession” seems a pretty reasonable description for someone resurrecting an 18 month old blog argument.
As for delusion, the easiest example is the last sentence in your first paragraph: “It is clear that dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers in general are an insult, a scourge and a vexation to responsible government supporters like you and your friends.” If you believe that comment to be true, then your perception lacks accuracy, therefore you are delusional. But really your inflated sense of importance counts, too.
Every assumption you made in comment 16.
Such as? You really need to be specific, my friend.
“Obsession” seems a pretty reasonable description for someone resurrecting an 18 month old blog argument.
So our friend no longer goes after journalists and political dissenters, taking the lead of such moral giants as Bashar Obama and William Hague? That’s a welcome development—assuming I have assumed correctly.
As for delusion, the easiest example is the last sentence in your first paragraph: “It is clear that dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers in general are an insult, a scourge and a vexation to responsible government supporters like you and your friends.” If you believe that comment to be true, then your perception lacks accuracy, therefore you are delusional.
Populuxe1, and several others who probably have the sense to regret it, did indeed go after dissenters, whistle-blowers, journalists and truth-tellers—as I showed in my footnotes. Maybe the others, including your good self, were more benign, but Populuxe1 certainly exhibited all those attitudes toward the targeted individuals.
But really your inflated sense of importance counts, too.
Could you back that up? It looks, unfortunately, like another lazy and groundless accusation.
I am being specific.
Again, assuming that your characterization of pop’s arguments is correct, your question is weird. If pop’s arguments had indeed continued to this day in that light, then you wouldn’t need to use 18 month old examples. So either you’re obsessed with that particular comment and correct in your assumption, or you’re obsessed with that particular comment even though it’s no longer relevant (and indeed makes your demands for criticism of “Caesar” even more odd).
Nope – you showed two comments a year apart, one questioning pilger’s position (unmitigated gall! That’s persecution, right there!) and one questioning snowden’s motives (calling him a “bored IT drone” – egad, such cruel character assassination!). Hardly “going after” dissenters.
sure.
By the way: you’re not my friend, buddy.
Okay, my friend, we’ll take your word for it. I accept Populuxe1 is a genuinely nice guy and would never join in officially sanctioned head-stompings. Nor would he, were he to have found himself living in Rwanda twenty years ago, have heeded the exhortations of Interahamwes radio and got hold of a machete and gone looking for Tutsis. He’s a reformed character, which is good to know.
I take my hat off to Populuxe1….
http://pad2.whstatic.com/images/thumb/2/23/Show-Respect-Step-2.jpg/670px-Show-Respect-Step-2.jpg
By the way: you’re not my friend, buddy.
Doh!
Correct response is I’m not your buddy, guy!.
But what could I expect from a delusional fuck who escalates someone using the phrase “IT drone” to the level of actively participating in genocide. 🙄
But what could I expect from a delusional fuck who escalates someone using the phrase “IT drone” to the level of actively participating in genocide.
Except he didn’t just use that phrase, did he? It was part of his ongoing program of parroting everything he could to disparage those officially sanctioned targets.
You say he would have behaved differently in different circumstances; I doubt it. The guys wielding the machetes in 1994 were not monsters, they were simply doing what the regime encouraged them to do. Just like our friend.
There are light years between taking a machete to someone and simply saying that they’re probably walter mitties. If you can’t see that yawning chasm, you have yet again astonished me with the extent of your delusion and conceit.
Hello all,
I am an ESL teacher by profession but have just been made redundant yet again in an industry that appears to be on its last legs in NZ at the moment.
For some time I have been pondering a career change to something politically related as I have built considerable experience over the years with political campaigns and as a union delegate so I am treating this situation as a catalyst. Thus, I am seeking any opportunities that you may be aware of in the Auckland area, including low paid positions in the right field, to get formal experience. More details of my political background can be found on my LinkedIn profile. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-pirie/23/85b/98a
In the short term I am also interested in relevant voluntary work as I have about two weeks left to run on my Auckland AT Hop card so transport is not an issue until that runs out. I am thinking my skill set would be helpful in an LEC or MPs office or similar but all suggestions will be considered. Thank you in advance for any assistance provided.
Good on ya and good luck to you, Outrider. Can I suggest you email the NZCTU? They may know of work going in Ak unions. Also Unite might be keen on a pair of helping hands.
Thanks for that. I will email the NZCTU and see if Unite need any help at the moment but know they are always on a tight budget.
Executive principals, leading groups of up to 10 schools.
1. nice size for awarding out property and cleaning contracts etc.
2. and of course diminishing the importance of the connection between school principals and their teaching teams within each school.
3. a conduit for the Government and ministry in a top down regime.
4. leading to easier school mergers, first step being united boards where schools remain on two sites initially etc.
Also muddies responsibilities – who has final say, boards of trustees or executive principal?
“lead teacher” vs head of department and principal?
“change principal” vs board of trustees?
The merger/contracting out is a nice theory – they definitely have ulterior motives for this management merry-go-round
I think we need to consider that all this tinkering is part of a smokescreen.
The Ministry realises that education is entering a totally new phase.
The traditional single cell classroom is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
Technology, whether we like it or not, is going to change schooling as we know it.
The government knows it and does not want to be left with a lot of redundant school grounds/buildings, issues of falling rolls etc.
They want to be in a position to begin to dispose of these “assets” sooner than later.
Another story to compliment 100% pure NZ.
What is happening in Wellington and why was the story downplayed so much by the council, glad to live in Auckland where we can utilise our harbour for fishing and swimming 🙂
Anything over 280cfu is considered an unacceptable risk to health but Greater Wellington Regional Council recorded 69,000cfu on January 26 last year. Just a tad beyond The Acceptable level ! Mmmm
However, when The Dominion Post reported the closure on February 5, water quality was not the primary reason given.
Yesterday, Pike said the safety of rugby fans had contributed to the decision to close the platform but “that was somewhat coincidental because the issue was about the water quality”.
He could not say why he had pointed to the sevens as the reason at the time but said there were security concerns and the two events “overlapped each other”. on February 5, water quality was not the primary reason given.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9639357/Pollution-at-dive-platform-off-the-scale
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9641370/Beach-bacteria-levels-pose-risk
I’m sure key can find a scientist who will say it’s safe for him to swim in.
In fact, key should go take a dip this afternoon.
Great photo op. Swim and catch a meal within Wellington harbour and live to tell of the tale. Especially as we read that Wellington is the 7th cleanest city in the world. Either : the world is a bad filthy place, wellington has gone backwards or don’t believe what you read.
http://listtoptens.com/top-10-cleanest-cities-in-the-world/
Very telling only two people cared enough to comment on this if it was cow shit in there they would be all over it.Look the other way towns and cities are not polluting, hell we wont even test down stream from them.
well, no – some farmer would have stimulated a debate by claming that it was all fine and that people pissed off by it were anti-industry.
As it is I know that Dunedin, for example, has spent hundreds of thousands if not millions trying to address the discharge problem, and actively monitors water quality.
Finally someone admits that towns and cities have contributed majorly to the degradation of rivers and streams, good on dunners maybe some day we will get a full picture of how much damage cities and towns have done and are still doing to the waterways
nobody’s ever denied it.
I seem to recall that every regional authority is responsible for monitoring its water quality – hence the dive platform being closed.
But 5 million cattle shitting onto the ground next to a waterway is different to a binary sewage treatment and disposal system for 4 million people.
National will FIX education by getting Coloin Crag to enrol a gang of bible bashers with degrees from mail order universities to run evryfing.
Chris Finlayson wants to ban the word ‘community’ – why?
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/chris-finlaysons-battle-with-language.html
Chanelling Thatcher: “there is no such thing as community, only individuals and families.”
Because he is a dry little legal man who wants to cut down on unnecessary sentiment as not helpful to drawing up tightly scripted legal documents well salted with economic hard-line beliefs about the baseness of human society.
He has managed to handle Maori concepts re the Treatry of Waitangi probably with a tight smile. And NACTs can do anything – humouring Alamein Kopu every day when necessary. But community must be a bridge too far.
I was looking for information about the monopoly purchase of ice cream concession by Fontana – freezing out small businesses – for 10 years. But couldn’t find anything not even when I put NZ Herald first. But I did see about really big payout for overseas trips in business class for ACC officials (Auckland City Council, not to be confused with that other juggernaut).
Note the acronym Ateed – we will be hearing more of this cruisy concession.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11168869
8/12/2013
…spending details come after revelations this week that the council’s events organisation, known as Ateed, also spent $220,000 to send 18 people – including TV3 news anchor Hilary Barry – to the America’s Cup in San Francisco.
That bill, and a further $57,369 for the two Ateed staff to attend a meeting in Dubai and the 2013 Monaco Yacht Show, is under attack from former Auckland City mayor Dick Hubbard and sitting councillor Cameron Brewer.
Ateed should not be doing what NZ Trade & Enterprise already did well, and their targets were “weak” for the money spent, Hubbard said. “It’s a classic case of a pot of money looking for something to do.”
Amounts noted – $57,000+$220,000.
Here’s Radionz item on the ice cream business. The concern by small business was pooh-poohed by Michael Bassett (surprise) who said it was just the market working. Sort of like that bulldozer that’s unstoppable. Can’t stop progress! Progress and the market is righteous! Progress good, concern for others bad! Concern for healthy economy and the livelihoods of small owner traders bad!
The taxi drivers have resorted in Auckland to picketing the monopoly lords of the airport there. Business likes a level playing field by tilting it so its flat but the liquid gold runs down to the pot at the lowest corner.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/234016/ice-cream-deal-criticised
Ice cream deal criticised Updated at 10:35 am today
A small business group says Auckland Council’s move to give a 10-year exclusive ice cream deal to Fonterra is anti-competitive.
The council and Fonterra are negotiating a contract allowing the dairy co-operative to be the sole ice-cream supplier at council venues and events.
The chief executive of Small Business Voice, a group of small- to medium-sized companies, says the potential exclusive contract with one of New Zealand’s biggest businesses is not fair.
Max Whitehead says competition is healthy, but such deals stunt the growth of small companies.
The Auckland Chamber of Commerce says the deal is just business in action, and is no different from a company buying shelf space in a supermarket.
This is where Labour could stand up and say that it is here for workers- workers who are employees and workers who are self employed and workers who are employers, The people who do the work of New Zealand. Why not stand with them. If Labour did this then they would know that,
1. paying the local supermarket duopoly for self space should be outlawed, having a local supermarket duopoly should be outlawed. Anti competitive arrangements between council and fonterra should be outlawed and competition should be allowed to actually happen. Because the funny thing about competition in a capitalist system is that it is not actually efficient at all , it employs a lot of people both directly and indirectly which is a very good thing – if you are a worker. Monopolies on the other hand tend to employ many less people both directly and indirectly.
Plan B
One of the things tht hurts me about supermarkets is that of the big three I can think of, two are Oz. We need a transfusion of NZness, it’s all flowing Ozward and getting diluted in the Tasman, no money staying here.
Well, I have just read one of the best education policies ever. I’m all for backing good teachers and paying them more. Just brilliant.
Supporting it would show some class.
I’m all for backing good teachers…
The teachers want nothing to do with this blatant attempt to break their professional association. You obviously are not involved in education.
This is one teacher who is very interested in the proposals that came out today.
Take the money if you can get it, my friend. Just don’t let them alienate you from the rest of your colleagues. That’s the sole intent of these “reforms”.
That is the plan I intend to follow, NZ education gets along just fine without the intrusion of the blue and red teams of morons, unfortunately they can’t help meddling whenever they get control of the Treasury.
Unfortunately, National has not just been meddling and tinkering. It’s moves against the teaching profession have been aggressive and sustained. Until now the attacks have been obvious: the imposition of spurious National Standards, virtually destroying Night School education, attempting (unsuccessfully) to slash Intermediate Schools’ technology programs, forcing Charter Schools onto devastated communities in Canterbury.
Today’s announcement is more of the same, even if this time it is disguised not as an attack but as a “reward for good teachers”—as if all teachers didn’t have to meet standards in the first place. (Well, in Charter Schools they won’t have to of course.)
The blue team want to spread the money amongst a small team of winners and the rest of the teaching profession are meant to worship them and accept their innate superiority.
The money would be better spent on professional development for all teachers and for improving teachers pay scales so that they would attract the best of students.
Morrissey
There is no way I would even remotely consider putting the wishes of over paid unionists ahead of my children. And besides if teachers are paid more don’t the unions get more out of them?
This is an excellent policy if you are a good teacher, a child, a parent or any body interested in improving the wellbeing of all New Zealanders. Frankly bad teachers (not that there’s that many of them) and greedy unionists are not that important.
Note to David Cunliff – Back this policy and perhaps offer some improvements (keep some votes)
Of course, the teacher unions have been the only thing stopping National from fully privatising and wrecking our education system.
Your moaning belies the ugliness and underhandedness of your politics.
I’m sure DC will address National’s education Trojan Horse soon enough, hopefully by burning it to the ground.
I’d be very careful of playing partisan politics on this one CV most of my colleagues think this is the best initiative out of the MoE in a very long time.
There are definitely more younger teachers coming through who are ignorant of the historical wins that their union has achieved for them. If they allow themselves to be divided then they will all suffer the consequences.
Sounds like you’ve drunk the kool-aid, sockpuppet.
Born after 1970 poor thing.
Only knows the neoliberal nightmare.
Oh you are a dear thing, unfortunately no.
No not at all, if you take the National out of the announcement and replace it with Labour would it be seen as a positive or negative announcement at this site do you think ?
Well considering that National has decades of history of undermining the teachers union then yes I would initially be much more suspicious of a National policy than a Labour policy. But regardless of whether Labour or National implement it, this idea of performance pay is a disaster waiting to happen.
Having a system where some teachers are deemed to be ‘rockstars’ and paid more is going to make the whole thing open for corruption and resentment. In a word, divisive.
And it’s not like they can have an objective criteria to decide who the best teachers are, such as level of qualification, because we all know of the people with amazing quals who are completely shit at teaching.
The criteria will have to be subjective and it is that subjectivity that will leave it open for abuse.
I think there are a couple of documentaries about NZ education that might be worthwhile watching starting with A Civilised Society
There is another good one that was a series … but can’t remember the name at present.
To me, the announcement would be just as reprehensible if it were Labour. But I’m pretty clear that my politics are aligned with my own values – not party branding.
After National Standards, the bar was set very low.
That’s true.
Wow sockpuppet
In the middle of the school holidays and within hours of the announcement, you have not only made contact with many of your colleagues (some of whom would also be out on holidays I think) you have managed to get a majority consensus
you are awesome
and I suspect spinning like top
School holidays are for the students not the teachers. I’m back at work my friend preparing for the influx in the middle of next week.
kind of figured you might be, hence the “some of whom would also be out on holidays I think”
reading and comprehension not really your thing then eh?
The majority of my colleagues are back at work and yes there is a consensus amongst us that the announcement is a good thing.
I don’t believe I have any problem with either reading or comprehension, I do note however that you do appear to have some challenges in that direction, along with some other issues.
newsflash ! freedom has issues !
yes I do sockpuppet
like most humans on this planet.
but I still know the incremental progression of corporatizing education will only damage your profession and eventually cripple the individualism and creativity that children deserve and thrive on.
“the wishes of over paid unionists”
As I suspected, you don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
Sadly for you Morrissey, the PPTA, the Principals Union and the Labour leadership all agree with me. It must be lonely down there.
Manu
If your children have a parent with a closed-down mind then they are already being short-changed for their education. There is a lot to know out there, but when parents are biased and prejudiced, the information comes through in a warped way shaped by that prejudice.
Attitudes like yours hold your children back from learning all they need to know about how the world is.
+101110
manu..
yr real name is roger..
..and you live in remuera..
phillip ure..
Home of the 1%.
And 3 News had an education specialist from a US university saying paying teachers was not the way to go – resulting in all sorts of unintended consequences like damaging cooperation among teachers.
He reckons it’s better to give the money to schools, rather than individual teachers.
Can you explain your reasoning and evidence from overseas that this is best practice?
Or are you just trying to provoke?
Paul, he’s quite clearly utterly clueless. Probably an ACT lout.
Manu
Showing off your education and how useful it has been to you and the country, you could direct us to some research on where it has been failing in NZ, or succeeding, and how our teachers measure up to their task, written by an experienced NZ or Australian academic.
And give us the link of the one that strikes you as particularly informative would you please.
He won’t and he can’t.
RSA Replay: The End of Power – Moisés Naím
Hour long talk about political/economic power in the world.
Bad things happening.
http://www.rferl.org/contentlive/kyiv-unrest-euromaidan-ukraine-liveblog/25238126.html
Overtly fascist, racist groups are also taking advantage of the unrest. Not a good situation for anyone.
Old habits.
In only two days, 42 journalists attacked and beaten.
https://twitter.com/TarasKuzio/status/426115047941619712
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/ominous-text-message-sent-to-protesters-in-kiev-sends-chills-around-the-internet/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1
Also, EuroMaidan.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine-abroad/associated-press-ukraines-euromaidan-whats-in-a-name-332812.html
https://twitter.com/euromaidan
Going full medieval.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/APGnKRx67kI
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/01/renewed-protest-in-ukraine/100665/
http://www.rightnow.io/breaking-news/grushevsky-st_bn_1390390963061.html
As her husband tears apart Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen,
Michelle Obama is having her “Marie Antoinette moment”
What are we to make of Michelle Obama, the first lady of the USA, who grew up in Chicago and was educated at Princeton and Harvard?
by Cathy Newman, Presenter, Channel 4
Daily Telegraph, 20 January 2014
It’s Michelle Obama’s Marie Antoinette moment. As world leaders tussle over how to respond to her husband’s horrifying record of drone killings, kidnappings, torture, harassment and imprisonment of political dissidents, political assassination, his continued support for blood-stained regimes from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia to Israel, and his vast program of illegal surveillance recently revealed by Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers, the first lady of the United States posts cheery pictures of herself on social media cavorting with pop stars and of her murderous husband dancing the “Dougie” on the dance floor at her 50th birthday bash. [1]
If this was an attempt to show her caring, sharing, mother of the people side, it’s badly backfired, with one user commenting that she made Marie Antoinette look like an angel. On Instagram, one Laura Gazzard warned the First Lady: “I’m ashamed to be American if you still have a fucking American citizenship, and Michelle if you ever fucking return to Chicago you will be leaving it in a fucking box, burn in hell you cunt.” In a similar tone, Nadia Eram snarls: “Dirty bitch burn alongside your murdering cunt of a husband.” [2]
Michelle Obama was everything the West used to love about the American presidency. European political leaders thought she was one of them – modern, stylish and approachable. She grew up on the South Side of Chicago, then went to Princeton and Harvard, after which she landed a job at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met Bashar Obama, and married him in 1992.
It’s hard to have any inkling what’s going through the mind of this Western-educated woman as her husband stands accused of war crimes which have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands.
She’s said little in public. More than a year ago, an email from an intermediary, declared: “The president is the president of the United States, not a faction of Americans, and the first lady supports him in that role.”
Elizabeth Lightfoot, author of a book called Michelle Obama: First Lady of Hope, has said she’s now “hunkered down in Washington” and that she’s “standing by her man”.
So is she, then, complicit in mass murder, a Lady Macbeth figure? Or is she at the mercy of events which have spiralled out of control? Does the girl from Chicago’s South Side, like the rest of us, recoil in horror at the killing of perhaps more than half a million innocent civilians, including children?
In the past, she’s spoken of how seeing children caught in the crossfire would break her heart.
As it would any human being. But it seems Michelle left her humanity behind a while ago. A year ago, with Bashar Obama’s violence showing no sign of abating, leaked documents showed Michelle indulging on obscene spending sprees, splashing more than $500,000 on a luxury shopping tour of Spain, including a chauffeur-driven tour of the Costa del Sol which cost a cool $26,670.61. [3]
As the political and diplomatic ructions reverberate across the globe, perhaps Michelle still has time and leisure to go home-shopping, emerging only to pose for photos – the sunny smiles belying the horrors of her husband’s role in the plight of so many countries.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10273495/Syria-conflict-Asma-al-Assad-is-having-her-Marie-Antoinette-moment.html
[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/beyonce-attends-michelle-obama-50th-birthday-bash-gallery-1.1584807
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/19/emotional-speech-and-the-dougie-mark-michelle-obamas-50th/
[2] http://instagram.com/p/cmZDhaIzZV/
[3] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135914/Michelle-Obamas-Spanish-vacation-cost-taxpayers-500-000.html
Hey, Moz. This article isn’t actually by Cathy Newman and doesn’t appear to be a genuine Torygraph column (bad as they often are). It reads like the slurred mutterings of a drunken misogynist. Where did you find it?
Click on the first link under the article my friend. Actually the article was by Cathy Newman, and you’re right: she does write like a drunken misogynist. Except the target of her loathing was not the wife of the bloodstained ruler of the United States, it was the wife of an official enemy of the state for which she (Cathy Newman) is a propagandist.
All I did was change the name from Asma al Assad to Michelle Obama, and change some of the place names to fit in with that. The shrieking denunciation, written as you so brilliantly pointed out, “like the slurred mutterings of a drunken misogynist”, is not mine, it’s all Cathy Newman’s.
Oh. Sadly, the bits you’ve inserted (and attributed to Newman) are the sections that I thought were written by the drunken misogynist.
Oh. Sadly, the bits you’ve inserted (and attributed to Newman) are the sections that I thought were written by the drunken misogynist.
What bits are those? I think you mean the two foul-mouthed rants from Instagram. Apart from the names and the substitution of “Chicago” for “Britain”, those were identical with the original ones, cited approvingly in another right wing rag, the Daily Mail—only the target was Bashar Assad’s wife, not Bashar Obama’s.
So now I guess you’re going to tell me that I shouldn’t have messed with the words of Cathy Newman, that outstanding, dedicated, honest parrot, errrr… journalist.
And to think you’re an aficionado of Lord Gnome.
I think you misunderstand Lord Gnome, Moz. And I get that the quotes were from Instagram. But you claimed that Cathy Newman included them in her piece. She didn’t. I guess the problem is that you read satire, but can’t write it.
Cathy Newman is a fine journalist, btw. Ask Lord Rennard.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/56950/rennard-clegg-and-me-cathy-newman-upset-being-booed
I think you misunderstand Lord Gnome, Moz. And I get that the quotes were from Instagram. But you claimed that Cathy Newman included them in her piece. She didn’t.
We all know she didn’t. Anybody with an IQ above the average at an ACT meeting could see that, and I provided the link to her original piece. You are quibbling again, and trying to belittle my post, which was actually very serious. I expect you send off pompous letters to the editor of Private Eye scolding him for pretending the New Coalition Academy is a real school?
I guess the problem is that you read satire, but can’t write it.
Really? Then I advise you to have a browse of the following….
BERNADINE, or “Hell Hath No Fury”
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/nz.general/Ern1_QrFIw8
Incident at Perth Bayswater, Friday 4 June
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.sport.rugby.union/DvySI1Zo-Sw
BOOK PAUL HOLMES FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS FUNCTION!!!!!
http://nz.general.narkive.com/860AbFRI/book-paul-holmes-for-your-function-advertisement
Cathy Newman is a fine journalist, btw.
Oh really? Then how come she wrote that specious piece of crude propaganda for the Torygraph?
Make up your mind, moz! Was it serious or satire? We already know you mis-attributed the authorship (yet again). Slagging off Newman for your failings is poor form. And Newman got her part-time job at the DT on the back of 20 years of excellent reporting. Ask Rennard how good she is, FFS. Quibble all you like, but she is the journo of the year (so far) in GB.
Now, I wouldn’t work for the Telegraph in the unlikely event I was asked to, and you’re not a good enough writer to be employed by any title anywhere, but Newman was offered a significant role on one of Britain’s most influential papers. You do know that their website is the most popular of all the Brit papers web offerings, right?
It would be a rare journo who wouldn’t consider taking the role, and even rarer one who would turn it down.
Make up your mind, moz! Was it serious or satire?
Satire is serious. There was no one more serious than Jonathan Swift. Or George Orwell.
I’ll skip the unpleasant little quips about my writing ability and deal with a more substantial point….
It would be a rare journo who wouldn’t consider taking the role, and even rarer one who would turn it down.
Yes, of course. Glenn Greenwald, John Pilger, Amy Goodman, Gordon Campbell—any one of them would take the Torygraph‘s money and churn out vile black propaganda like Cathy Newman.
Your claim about her being “journo of the year” is beyond satire.
This “Te Reo Putake” tick seems to me to be a prime example of the type of chap we referred to at prep school as an “ass.”
His familiarity with satire seems to be non-existent, and his critical facilities, as evidenced by his tawdry attack on Mr Breen’s writing ability and his endorsement of that third rate Telegraph hackette, are, to put it mildly, deficient.
Morrissey
You have been taken to task with playing at satire before. Personally I find it a very bad trend to muck up what appear to be facts when there are so many factual liars about. We have to be able to hold onto something definite for our information. Please don’t give me a dose of rudeness back or call my ‘my friend’ in a patronising manner.
Morrissey, You have been taken to task with playing at satire before.
Yes, Warbler, well done. It was satirical, and I didn’t really try to hide it, as evidenced by my link to the original item straight after my little masterpiece.
Personally I find it a very bad trend to muck up what appear to be facts when there are so many factual liars about.
I understand your point and I agree with you, mostly. However, I was making a point about the partiality and hypocrisy of the Daily Torygraph in particular, but also of newspapers in general.
We have to be able to hold onto something definite for our information.
I agree. I think in this case, however, the satirical intention was quite clear. It’s a habit, unfortunate or not, that I picked up from years of reading Private Eye.
Please don’t give me a dose of rudeness back or call my ‘my friend’ in a patronising manner.
Okay, Warbler, I won’t. Let’s keep it civil.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9640616/Nationals-financial-lures-for-struggling-schools
– Ok Cunliffe its a good start with the drilling but now you’ve got a couple of days to come up with something better…good luck, this policy is a winner (election changer maybe…)
Is it an election game changer you’re after PR? That suggests to me that you don’t think the game is going as well as you’d like?
they must hate it when they accidentally reveal their true beliefs 🙂
That’s the thing isn’t it? After telling us for last two years that the third term was a shoo-in everything Key has done since he got home from Hawaii, every word and every gesture tells us that the Nats aren’t actually that confident about this year.
”This policy is a winner”, really Puckish Rogue??? what this grand announcement from Slippery the Prime Minister looks like from here is after attempts to smash up the teacher’s union’s including the big fizzer policy of ‘charter schools’ have failed miserably in desperation to appease it’s shrinking core vote National have decided to throw 300 million dollars into the middle of the mass and divide them by having them all run over the top of each other to get a slice of it,
Sadly, from listening to news reports many in the profession are happy to do just that…
(..heh..!..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/album-review-kim-dotcom-good-times-ed-oh-dear-brace-yrslves-its-not-good/
phillip ure..
Just reading some of the attacks on people who happen to disagree with some of you makes me wonder what your motivation is. This “tow the party line or else” attitude bears no fruit especially when on some issues there is yet to be a “party line” stated. Case in point, Labour has yet to counter Nationals latest education policy.
You guys need to chill out and actually take in opposing opinions; you might learn something. I expect insults will come my way now but I don’t care because insulting people through this type of medium is just cowardly so go for it.
Puckish Roague, sockpuppet and one or two others. Well done for standing your ground.
sockpuppet, I hope you get one of the new education rolls, I suspect you will do well, good luck.
[lprent: Actually, the actual problem appears to be that you are incapable of handling people disagree with you. It shows a certain shallowness and weakness of personality that is commonly known as being a pompous and stupid fool.
Incidentally could you please stop changing your handle. You have used three today – one to defend yourself as another “person” – which is a sockpuppet offense. I’d start to suspect a nefarious purpose except you appear to be more of a silly dipstick with an self-assessed ego (that overburdens your actual abilities) playing foolish games.
So I’m going to insist that you only use one. Otherwise you won’t be able to comment here at all. Read the about and the policy. It will help with not attracting my attention. I tend to notice whining idiots as they usually find it difficult to listen to others and so have a problem with the art of being able to argue coherently. ]
Quit stealing our oxygen and bugger off if you can’t hack it bro. This is a left wing blog and if we all want to have a left wing love-in then that’s our business. There’s always kiwiblog if you don’t like it.
You just proved the guys point Scott you idiot
Miracle of miracles! Hekia Parata is actually on Checkoint! And she’s already started droning on in gobbledygook.
Yup just repeating her mantra over and over again.
Not pulled up for it.
RNZ going downhill fast.
Just watching Prime news. It seems now that school principals are now principles. They need to go to school.
They are fresh out of the NZ education system …..
Roving the comments and it is apparent some recent visitors to The Standard are very upset about a few basic challenges to their statements. Bodes well. I mean if they are already this defensive after only a couple of policy announcements, what will they be like come the budget? Because, let’s face it, those figures are gonna be fantastic.
fantastic
fanˈtastɪk/
adjective
1. imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality.
Very similar to Kiwiblog in similar situations
Conspiracy!.
NASA has released a new visualization showing how global temperatures have risen since 1950. It’s pretty much what you’d expect given that the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is currently higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years.
http://io9.com/watch-60-years-of-global-warming-in-15-seconds-1505924322
Why can’t we have broadcasting like this in NZ?
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/ID/2431677875/
How do you guys explain this away?
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/391073/unusual-3-month-cold-spell-in-thailand-claims-63-lives
probably using the exact same sciencey stuff that was used to explain every other local or regional cold snap that you guys felt were related to global average temperature changes.
The same basic answer as I have given you every other time you have asked
It is called Climate Change for a reason.
Warming is a causation, but warming causes climates to change. They don’t all steadily get hotter uniformly in that way that your simple stupidity appears to feel that it should.
So warming in the northern polar regions means that movements of cold air move further south. Air and ocean currents start getting more active and range further than they have in the historic past.. etc etc Expect more exceptional events of warm, cold, dry and wet for the next thousand years as the liquid and gaseous components at the surface of the planet move towards an equilibrium with the extra greenhouse gases that have been pumped into them.
I guess that you really should name your self “unthinking” rather than “grumpy”. In fact it is probably the causation of why you are grumpy anyway.. Just like greenhouse gases cause warming and ocean acidification. Warming in turn causes climates to change….
By “you guys”, you mean the world scientific community. The scientists have been telling us things that clashed with common sense for a long time now. A few centuries back, people like you looked around them, used their common sense, and scorned this fanciful notion that the world was not flat.
Your grimly stupid anti-science stance toward global warming is just more of the same iron-plated stupidity. You really need to start reading. I mean SERIOUS reading, my friend. But if you’re going to keep listening to Leighton Smith, from whom you obviously draw your opinions, reading doesn’t seem to be a likely option for you.
Why are you on this forum exactly? To be our punching-bag? It’s not much fun for us, frankly. Stupidity like you display in such posts is not interesting, it’s just a bore.
Go back to Kiwiblog, my friend: that’s your natural milieu.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11190969
Hefty bill for Aston Martin crash
Has anyone covered or discussed this story yet?
It is a great story, it has everything. How it was reported was very amusing, I assume that this was intentional.
It starts off with,
A Chinese man’s holiday to New Zealand took an expensive turn when he crashed into a light pole and wrote off the $200,000 Aston Martin Rapide he had bought for his wife.
It ends with this,
He was in New Zealand on a tourist visa, which had to be extended because of the prosecution.
Away from court, Miss Harding said the drink-driving charge was withdrawn because police did not follow correct procedures. Chen was not offered the chance to have a blood test, nor was he given access to a Mandarin interpreter.
This is a story about the new Auckland, where 26-year-old property managers come on holiday and buy $200,000 cars for their wives, to drive while they are on holiday no doubt.
I loved it, but I wonder what it is telling us?
John Key’s Big List of Lies
I promise to always be honest
we are not going to sack public servants, the attrition rate will reduce costs
there’s no way one in five New Zealanders will lose their jobs
we are not going to cut working for families
I firmly believe in climate change and always have
We seek a 50% reduction in New Zealand’s carbon-equivalent net emissions, as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. 50 by 50. We will write the target into law.
National Ltd™ will provide a consistent incentive for both biofuel and biodiesel by exempting them from excise tax or road user charges
I didn’t know about The Bretheren election tactics
If they came to us now with that proposal [re trans-Tasman Therapeutic Goods regime], we will sign it
I can’t remember my position on the 1981 Springbok Tour
Tranzrail shares
I did not mislead the House (1)
Lord Ashcroft
National Ltd™ would not have sent troops into Iraq
Standard & Poors credit downgrade
the double-down grade doesn’t really matter and its only about private sector debt
I did not mislead the House (2)
I didn’t say I want wages to drop
I can’t remember why I voted against increasing the minimum wage
lifting the minimum wage to $15 an hour will increase unemployment
the real rate of inflation is 3.3 percent.
the tourism sector has not lost 7,000 jobs
no I have never heard of Whitechapel
I won’t raise GST
people who are on the average wage and have a child are $48 a week better off after the rise in GST
the purchase of farmland, by overseas buyers will be limited to ten farms per purchase
the Pike River Mine was consented to under a Labour Government
no promises were made to get the remains of the miners out of the Pike River mine
I did not provide a view on the safety of the Pike River coalmine
I did not mislead the House (3)
capping, not cutting the public service
raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour will cost 6000 jobs
north of $50 a week
privatisation won’t significantly help the economy
wave goodbye to higher taxes, not your loved ones
I never offered Brash a diplomatic job in London
Tariana Turia is “totally fine” with the Tuhoe Treaty Claim deal
Kiwisaver
National Ltd™ is not going to radically reorganise the structure of the public sector
tax cuts won’t require additional borrowing
New Zealand does not have a debt problem
New Zealand troops in Afghanistan will only be involved in training, not fighting
the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia has closed under my National Ltd™ government
It took 9 years for Labour to make a complete and utter mess of the economy
National Ltd™ has changed the Overseas Investment Act to include 19 different criteria
the price of goods and services has risen by 6 percent since the last election, while the after-tax average wage has actually gone up by 16 percent
no, although its a week ago and here I am being interviewed on television about them, I havn’t seen Gerry Brownlee’s comments regarding demolitions in Christchurch and which caused such outrage, but I can talk all about them
our SAS soldiers were not involved in the Kabul Hotel gunfight
the use of the Vela brother’s helicopter was required so I could attend meetings relating to national/international security concerns
the DPS makes the decision about accompanying the Prime Minister or not, I had no choice but to take them on holiday to Hawaii
I did not mislead the House (4)
oh, maybe our SAS soldiers were in the Kabul hotel gun fight but they weren’t wounded by friendly fire
New Zealand has lost $12 billion from GDP due to the Christchurch earthquake . . . oh, it might actually be around $15 billion from GDP due to the Christchurch earthquake . . . Blinglish said what?
10,000 houses will have to be demolished in Christchurch due to the earthquake
14,000 new apprentices will start training over the next five years, over and above the number previously forecast
our amendments to the ETS ensure we will continue to do our fair share internationally
we are committed to honouring our Kyoto Protocol obligations
any changes to the ETS will be fiscally neutral
New Zealand has grown for eight of the last nine quarters”
National Ltd™ will tender out the government banking contract
we will be back in surplus by 2014-15
Nicky Hager’s book “Other People’s Wars” is a work of fiction
unemployment is starting to fall
we have created 60,000 jobs
we have created 45,000 jobs
the 2011 Budget will create in the order of 170,000 jobs
I don’t know if I own a vineyard
no, I did not mislead the House (5)
the Isreali spy killed in the Christchurch quake had “only one” passport
the Police will not need to make savings by losing jobs
I voted to keep the drinking age at 20
New Zealand is 100% Pure
I’ve been prime minister for four years, and it’s really 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year
baseball in New Zealand is attracting more government support
the decision to buy brand new BMWs was made by the Department of Internal Affairs without reference either to their minister or to me
I didn’t have a clue that Ministerial Services, which I am in charge of, was going to buy brand new BMWs
even though four of my ministers knew all about it, I didn’t have a clue that brand new BMWs were being bought.
even though my Chief of Staff met with officials to discuss purchase of the the brand new BMWs, I didn’t have a clue
even though I personally signed papers discussing the matter, I still didn’t have a clue
Labour forced us into buying the brand new BMWs, its their fault
ummm, look, sorry about that BMW thing , it was because I was so upset
I did not describe David Beckam as thick as batshit
I did not mislead the House (6)
the public demanded that we change the labour laws for The Hobbit
“The Hobbit” created 3000 new jobs
we have delivered 800 extra doctors in the public service
I did not mislead the House (7)
I wasn’t working at Elders when the sham foreign exchange deals took place
I was starting School Certificate exams in 1978
I don’t know who arrived on the CIA jet to visit the spies I am responsible for
reducing barriers to property developers will increase the availability of affordable housing
Labour left the economy in poor shape
forecasts show unemployment will fall
we have closed the wage gap with Australia by $27
Ngati Porou and Whanau Apanui are not opposed to mining
I have not had any meetings with Media Works
our [NZ’s] terms of trade remain high
the TPPA is an example of democracy
the TPPA will still have to be ratified by Parliament
National Ltd™ will use the proceeds of state asset sales to invest in other public assets, like schools and hospitals
New Zealand troops will be out of Afghanistan by April 2013
overseas investment in New Zealand adds to what New Zealanders can invest on their own
overseas investment in New Zealand creates jobs, boosts incomes, and helps the economy grow
National Ltd™ will build 2000 houses over the next two years
there are only 4 New Zealand SAS soldiers in Bamiyan and all working in the area of logistics and planning only
selling state assets will give cash equity to those companies
the Sky City deal will provide 1000 construction jobs and 800 casino jobs
all five bidders for the convention centre were treated equally
my office has had no correspondence, no discussions, no involvement with the Sky City deal
I did not mislead the House (8)
I can’t remember what was discussed at my meeting with the SkyCity Chief Executive on 14 May 2009
I have no record of the 12 November 2009 email from Treasury advising that the SkyCity deal was dodgy and needed to be referred to the Auditor General
there was nothing improper about the Sky City deal
SkyCity will only get “a few more” pokie machines at the margins
any changes to gambling regulations will be subject to a full public submission process
Sky City has approached TVNZ about the purchase/use of government-owned land
I did not mislead the House (9)
this government has been very transparent about all its dealings with SkyCity
I did not mislead the House (10)
the Auditor General has fully vindicated National over the Sky City deal
I did not mislead the House (11)
the Deputy Auditor General supports the view that there was nothing inappropriate about the Sky City deal
I did not mislead the House (12)
I did not breach the confidentiality of the Auditor General’s Report into the Sky City deal
the Labour Government did exactly the same sort of deal back in 2001
Labour has promised to not revoke the Sky City legislation
there’s a 50/50 chance the Hobbit is going off shore unless we do something
David Shearer has signed up for the purchase of shares in Mighty River
Solid Energy asked the government for a $1 billion capital investment
fracking has been going safely on in Taranaki for the past 30 years without any issues
no frontline positions will be lost at DOC
Iain Rennie came to me and recommended Fletcher for the GCSB job
I told Cabinet that I knew Ian Fletcher
I forgot that after I scrapped the shortlist for GCSB job I phoned a life-long friend to tell him to apply for the position
I told Iain Rennie I would contact Fletcher
I haven’t seen Ian Fletcher in a long time.
I did not mislead the House (13)
I have no reason to doubt at this stage that Peter Dunne did not leak the GCSB report
I called directory service to get Ian Fletcher’s number
the new legislation narrows the scope of the GCSB
the GCSB has been prevented from carrying out its functions because of the law governing its functions
because the opposition is opposed the GCSB law ammendments, parliamentary urgency is required
the increasing number of cyber intrusions which I can’t detail or discuss prove that the GCSB laws need to be extended to protect prive enterprise
it was always the intent of the GCSB Act to be able to spy on New Zealanders on behalf of the SIS and police
National Ltd™ is not explanding the activities of the GCSB with this new law
cyber terrorists have attempted to gain access to information about weapons of mass destruction held on New Zealand computers
the law which says the GCSB cannot spy on New Zealanders is not clear
it totally incorrect that the Government effectively through GCSB will be able to wholesale spy on New Zealanders
we self identified that there was a problem with the GCSB spying on Kim Dotcom
the illegal spying on Kim Dotcom was an isolated incident
The advice I have had in 4 years as a Minister is that in no way ever has there been an indication of unlawful spying
the Ministerial Warrant signed by Bill English did not cover anything up
first I heard I heard about Kim Dotcom was on 19 January 2012
first I heard about the illegal spying on Kim Dotcom was in 17 September
I did not mislead the House (14)
I won’t be discussing Kim Dotcom during my Hollywood visit.
The Human Rights Commission couldn’t get its submission on the GCSB legislation in on time.
it would cost too much to for the police and SIS to carry out the spying on New Zealanders that this new legislation will permit
critics of the GCSB legislation, including the Law Society, the Human Rights Commission, and the Privacy Commission, are all uninformed
no, I did not mislead the House (15)
I do not know how Mr Henry is conducting the Enquiry
no, I did not mislead the House (16)
the Henry Enquiry had permission to view Ministers’ emails
no, I did not mislead the House (??)
we do not spy on journalists
the passing of phone records to the Henry Enquiry was an error on the part of a contractor
I wasn’t aware that my own Chief of Staff was instructing Parliamentary Services to hand over information concerning journalist Andrea Vance
National Ltd™ has never tried to impinge on the role of the media
I had nothing to do with information on a journalist being handed over to the inquiry into the leaking of the GCSB report
the terms of the enquiry made it clear to everyone that it was only the phone records of parliamentary staff and ministers that were to be provided
I have the utmost respect for the media and the role it plays in New Zealand’s democracy
the Henry Enquiry did not access a journalist’s building-access records
the Henry Enquiry did not ask for phone and email records
no, I did not mislead the House (17)
the Greens are opposed to the GCSB and the SIS even existing
the GCSB needs to spy on New Zealanders because there are al-Qaeda terrorists in New Zealand
John Minto is in the Green Party
the GCSB needs to spy on New Zealanders because of the terrorist threat, even though official reports released over my signature say there is no risk and the SIS has the matter in hand
the GCSB Bill does not give the GCSB the power to look at the content of communications as part of its cyber-security functions
no, I did not mislead the House (18)
there will be no mining on Conservation land in the Corromendel
no, I did not say we would follow the US and Australia into a war against North Korea
New Zealand has an arrangement to have asylum seekers processed in Australian detention camps
I did not mislead the house (19)
I paid for that lunch and I’ve got the credit card bill to prove it
I am honest and upfront
the only way net new jobs can be created is by private investors putting their money into businesses in New Zealand
you can’t hide if yuu’re Prime Minister
an increase in the number of people looking for work indicates that confidence is returning to the economy
the 10 percent of taxpayers in New Zealand who are the top earners pay 76 percent of all net personal tax.
I did not mislead the House (20)
the substantial wage growth under Labour was eroded by inflation
National Ltd™’s 2010 tax changes were fiscally neutral
I did not mislead the House (21)
the bulk of New Zealanders earn between $45,000 and $75,000 a year
Pike River Coal did not put profits and its production ahead of the safety and lives of those 29 workers.
Radio Live had sought advice from the Electoral Commission about my show just before the election
it is because of National Ltd™’s policies that the price of fresh fruit and vegetables has dropped.
the length-of-the-country cycleway will create 4000 jobs.
police training for next year has not been cancelled
National Ltd™ has only cut back-office jobs in the health service
The Crown’s dividend stream from the Meridians, the Mighty Rivers of the world is large and there is no motivation to sell assets; actually we’re about creating assets not selling assets.”
National believes employment law should treat all parties fairly. It should . . . Protect employees and employers.
I am not trying to tackle such issues in a “fearful” way ahead of the next election
Wellington City is dying.
National Ltd™ has been working on a number of things with New Zealand First on a number of things one of which has a financial component but I can’t talk about it
the best way to get growth in the economy is to reduce public debt
New Zealand mum and dad investors will be our number one priority in the allocation of Mighty River shares
we won’t let “cowboy” oil exploration companies operate here in New Zealand
the Green Party is racist by not allowing Chinese residents in New Zealand to buy a house
the Labour Party is promising a four-bedroom house in Auckland for $300,000
the food in schools programme is in the 2013 budget
the meat exports are being held up in China because of issues in relation to the Chinese looking to trace counterfeit meat
its notoriously difficult to win three elections in a row
I am deeply concerned about every child in New Zealand who is in poverty
there is no manufacturing crisis in New Zealand
the government’s exposure to MediaWorks’ going into receivership is reasonably limited
the money from the sale of state assets will not be used to prop up Solid Energy
I don’t see a place for a Winston Peters-led New Zealand First in a government that I lead. It’s not a matter of political convenience, it’s a matter of political principle.
The vast majority of the buildings in Christchurch came through the earthquakes in good shape
the commemoration of New Zealand’s involvement in the Korean War will not be used to bolster trade talks
third generation Chinese New Zealanders will be required to present their passport before buying a house under the Labour government
the Labour housing policy is an attempt by David Shearer to save his leadership
the Labour housing policy is in breach of free trade agreements
only 2% of the proceeds of the sale of Mighty River will be spent on the sales process
David Cunliffe is lying to you
Labour wants to nationalise the super market industry
The government will engage in no further negotiations with Rio Tinto
Without a government subsidy of hundreds of millions of dollars Chorus will go broke
No, I did not mislead the House (??)
the justice system is already adequate for handling situations involving new evidence
my Minister Nick Smith was not aware of the content of the leaked draft submission on the Ruataniwha situation until 17 September
New Zealand First will nationalise a host of industries and businesses
I have no responsibility for the statements I make
Mark Mitchell was just gossiping at a cocktail party when he tipped Webster off about Len Brown’s affair
it was a lack of external analysis and accountability which put Solid Energy into its debt crisis
the Commerce Commission misinterpreted the law when deciding the price for access to the Chorus copper infrastructure
no analyist predicted that the cost of access to the copper infrastructure would go down
there has been only one problem with oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
If it was my vote, it would be no pay increases for Mps
Greenpeace are just scare mongering about any oil leaks off the New Zealand coast
For every election for the last five elections , we have had royal visitors to New Zealand.
No decision has been made on the timing of the sale of Air New Zealand shares
its not true that in New Zealand the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer
This summer is the most active season ever for oil and gas exploration, with the industry spending up to $750 million. At the same time, the Government is strengthening the regulations that govern drilling, particularly in deep water.
big ups to ya blip..
..you have built a valuable resource..
and..
..all those lies the mainstream/corporate/access-media never ever call him on..
..do they all have stockholm-syndrome..?
..phillip ure..