Reports are coming in saying, “the siege of Gaza, which Israel has fought so bitterly and for so long to maintain has ended.”
“The [Israeli-Hamas ceasefire] agreement signed on Wednesday states that all crossings into Gaza – presumably not just the Rafah border with Egypt but the ones on the Israeli side as well – will be open to the movement of people and goods.
Isreal and Palestine merge to form one singluar bicultural/multicultural state, where Arabs, Jews, and everyone else are treated as equal in a democratic secular state. Jerusalem to be internationalised as a free city for all peoples and faiths, under UN control. Will require both sides to make consessions, but people actually want to go out without worrying being blown to pieces by some fanatics.
It is reported that the Palistinians are moving new arms through their tunnels from Egypt, although 143 were destroyed, they still have many more which are being used.
In addition at the start of this skirmish they had 15,000 rockets of which only 15% were fired.
Cannot see Kumbaya yet.
It’s being reported? Er, no. It’s being alleged by an Israeli Government shill that the defenders of the Gaza ghetto had 15000 rockets. And these rockets are low tech; unguided and ineffective. On the other side, the invaders have the latest tech and overwhelming strength of numbers. Hardly a fair fight.
And just for fun, can I point out that only a couple of the Gaza rockets have ever landed on Israeli soil. Most are aimed at Palestinian land, stolen by the oppressor.
Except you’d never get either side to agree to a secular state, and demographically Israelis would be quickly outnumbered – so no. I do like the idea of Jerusalem being a free city.
Wow. This is world shaking news. This is almost as momentous as the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Surely the Separation Wall will fall next. We are seeing a complete reshaping of the whole Palestinian Israeli question.
Will these developments see a negotiated peace, where the Israelis have to organise an evacuation of the illegal settlements in the West Bank?
With the borders open can the refugees in Gaza return to their former lands and houses at least in the current occupied territories especially if they are freed up by the evacuation of the settlers?
This is unbelievable and a cause for great celebration and no doubt for the Palestians particularly.
Will there be a formal announcement of the two state solution?
Will Abbass bid to the UN for observer status, be upgraded to a request for full membership?
You, (and the Guardian editorialist), are reading a hell of a lot into a few lines of text.
the borders have been open to the movement of goods and people throughout the seige. It’s how stuff gets in and out, it’s tightly controlled, but not ‘closed’. Presumably during the last week they have been sealed.
Some would claim, and perhaps with good reason, that the All Blacks are probably the best (only) export promotion bill board we have.
Yet, watching a snippet of the Italian – New Zealand game, I could not help noticing the socks of both teams. The Italians were wearing the Canterbury clothing brand and the All Blacks, the Adidas motif …
Yes, proves the point , Canterbury capability and cred came off the back of many successful AB seasons. Now they are one of the premier international suppliers of tech gear for a range of sporting codes.
I was listening to the Secretary for Education on National Radio this a.m. and the ongoing bleating of how complex the payroll system is. The Secretary patiently explained how the gargantuan task of paying our Teachers would cripple Hercules, immobilize Job and probably break DangerMouse , even if Penfold and all the Argonauts popped in to lend a hand.
I began wondering how our Health workers manage to get paid then?
Home help, OT’s, Physios, Nurses, Locums, GP’s, even the Surgeons seem to get paid without weekly drama and that Industry has exactly the same parameters of complex issues the Secretary ascribed to Education.
If the Secretary of Education finds getting the teachers paid all too much then how on earth can we have any confidence that the Secretary is even remotely capable of doing the far more complex and important job of actually educating our kids?
I have a close friend in the senior government IT echelons, while it seems obvious to anyone with half a brain that one could and should replicate well operating IT (and other) systems throughout government and the public service this is not the way the aparatchiks operate as theirs is a system based on troughing, incompetence and reinvention of the wheel – often in non circular form.
And of course those hugely complex teacher payrolls with over 90,000 employees managed in the past, so not really a sudden revelation. Why such a surprise?
Don’t worry freedom, the health sector will be next (and I seem to remember some hooha in the 90s when they changed to a new computing system in hospitals)
I worked as a relief teacher for 10 years and not once did I have a problem with Datacom (the previous payroll company). Also they answered the phone instantly.
Teachers etc got paid ok under the old system without any problems, the old saying, if it ain’t broke, dont fix it.
My thoughts go out to those poor teachers etc that featured on Campbell Live, it’s a terrible
situation.
But the Ministry is still saying that if one has not been paid, then the school should write a cheque out of school funds. More paper work then a payback from someone to someone else. Hell of a way to run a business.
There appears to be a problem with accessing akismet this morning. Comments are lagging through the spam checks and I have this message showing.
Akismet has detected a problem. Some comments have not yet been checked for spam by Akismet. They have been temporarily held for moderation. Please check your Akismet configuration and contact your web host if problems persist.
They are getting through, but there can be a few minutes lag. The peak I have seen has been 8 comments queued and with a delay of a less than 2 minutes (displays comment time only to the minute).
We get these on the odd occasion. They usually only persist for 10 minutes or so. But this one has been running for somewhat longer.
Local NZ connection to root name servers are down ….
Nothing resolves , using hosts file for thestandard at the mo.
Someone should tell Telecom / sprint net
They need to switch their “Local” root server to “Cached-Only” mode 🙂
Been seeing a lot of high numbered port, DOS attacks last 3 – 4 months.
Mainly around the address translation ports, Turkey and southern north american origins.
Attacking “apple” ports as well.
I’d have expected it wouldn’t make a difference. The name -> IP would normally be cached in the server’s client DNS rather than having to resolve all of the time. And we are talking about comments being entered which is something that this site several times per minute during the peaks, and several minutes between for the rest of the NZ day.
Depends on what they set the TTL’s to I guess. If it was extremely short, then we might get DNS resolution lags. If there was a man in the middle attack on the DNS, then they’d set the TTL way up anyway.
More likely there is just maintenance or a DDOS. But this isn’t an area that I focus on that much. More jbc’s than mine.
DNS is a fundamental, slow it down and every spam engine in the world slows down.
And the TTL is meaningless unless u r in “cached-only” mode, it’ll still check the root server, it may time out, but slow is the end result.
It’s a last resort response to DNS DOS, which is what I think is happening , maintenance is not “down time” with revolving dns names etc.
In Peter Watkins’ remarkable BBC film, The War Game,which foresaw the aftermath of an attack on London with a one-megaton nuclear bomb, the narrator says: “On almost the entire subject of thermo-clear weapons, there is now practically total silence in the press, official publications and on TV. Is there hope to be found in this silence?”
The truth of this statement was equal to its irony. On 24 November, 1965, the BBC banned The War Game as “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting”. This was false. The real reason was spelt out by the chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, Lord Normanbrook, in a secret letter to the Secretary to the Cabinet, Sir Burke Trend.
“[The War Game] is not designed as propaganda,” he wrote, “it is intended as a purely factual statement and is based on careful research into official material… But the showing of the film on television might have a significant effect on public attitudes towards the policy of the nuclear deterrent.” Following a screening attended by senior Whitehall officials, the film was banned because it told an intolerable truth. Sixteen years later, the then BBC director-general, Sir Ian Trethowan, renewed the ban, saying that he feared for the film’s effect on people of “limited mental intelligence”. Watkins’ brilliant work was eventually shown in 1985 to a late-night minority audience. It was introduced by Ludovic Kennedy who repeated the official lie.
What happened to The War Game is the function of the state broadcaster as a cornerstone of Britain’s ruling elite. With its outstanding production values, often fine popular drama, natural history and sporting coverage, the BBC enjoys wide appeal and, according to its managers and beneficiaries, “trust”. This “trust” may well apply to Springwatch and Sir David Attenborough, but there is no demonstrable basis for it in much of the news and so-called current affairs that claim to make sense of the world, especially the machinations of rampant power. There are honourable individual exceptions, but watch how these are tamed the longer they remain in the institution: a “defenestration”, as one senior BBC journalist describes it.
This is notably true in the Middle East where the Israeli state has successfully intimidated the BBC into presenting the theft of Palestinian land and the caging, torturing and killing of its people as an intractable “conflict” between equals. Standing in the rubble from an Israeli attack, one BBC journalist went further and referred to “Gaza’s strong culture of martyrdom”. So great is this distortion that young viewers of BBC News have told Glasgow University researchers they are left with the impression that Palestinians are the illegal colonisers of their own country. ….
The Government will build 10,000 new houses a year. Now let’s break that down.
10,000 houses a year is 192 houses a week. Now if you take the working week of 40 hours, that is 4.8 houses per hour. That is a new house every 13 minutes of the working week.
Hands up those who think the Government can build a new house every 13 minutes? If your hand is up, please keep it up and please join the queue for free trips to the North Pole to see Santa Claus.
So can anyone tell me who put forward this obviously unworkable shonky promise and were they on Team Cunliffe trying to discredit Shearer
Still not nearly enough. If by some miracle you can build a house in 500 hours that equates to just 8 houses a week. Still not near one every 13 minutes.
Someone is having a laugh that they allowed Shearer to make a claim that will be forever ridiculed. That was sabotage.
No perhaps fisiani and farrar and all the other pesimists and naysayers are right. The whole thing should be called off. It is just too hard. Everybody go home, the policy has been cancelled as it is impossible to provide less expensive housing in New Zealand……… ffs
The RWNJ logic (if we want to call it that) goes like this:
That’s a house every 13 minutes and nobody can build a house in 13 minutes thus the Labour party must be lying.
Yes, the RWNJs like Fisiani really are that stupid. They’re actually incapable of the basic maths to work out what it would take to build 10000 houses as they’ve just proven.
Care to actually point out the maths of how an EXTRA 10,000 homes can be built in the 40 hours of a 48 week effective working year, bad weather not included. (PS Modular house erection erection does not equate to having a house fit for habitation.)
Virtual Chocolate fish to the first delusionist to prove how it is possible.
I will not accept answers such as ” The Hogwarts school of carpentry” or “300,000 migrant Oompaloompas” or ” there are 170,000 ‘builders’ unemployed”
The only explanation of this mathematical brain fade is that someone has tried and succeeded in making Shearer look utterly incompetent. Perhaps it was just a decimal point in the wrong place.
1000 houses would only take 130 minutes each to construct.
100 would take 1300 minutes or 21.6 hours
Don’t even get me started on the shonky cost calculations………..
It takes two builders 8 weeks to build a 90m2 house (and that’s being generous). That’s two guys building 6 houses per year and we want 10,000 of them in one year. That means we need 1667 teams or 3334 builders.
Now, we actually already have several thousand builders already and many are presently under-employed or unemployed (there’s a reason why builders rates have gone from $34/hour plus to $25/hour) so we will have some spare capacity and possibly even enough without training up more builders and there is that 170k people unemployed some of which would be more than happy to become builders. Remember, the plan is 100k over ten years but it doesn’t have to start out at 10,000 in the first year (it would be nice but probably impractical).
As for the “shonky cost” well, personally, I think their being a little over generous myself especially if they go for medium or high density housing which they should do.
Really, the only things that are shonky are the RWNJs and their attempts at maths.
Two magical superworkers who can do the foundations, framing, plastering plumbing electrics, roofing and painting decorating in eight weeks. Oompa Loompa Land
I was hoping one of you would make a serious attempt .
Come on guys. You cannot defend the indefensible.
Look Fisiani it’s obvious you’ve got a bone too grind with bloggs.
But 10,000 completed homes is a goal, give it a few years.
We are currently building 10,000+- homes a year, if it takes two years then so be it consents means “started”.
Labour want to increase this number by a few hundred to a thousand per month
I.E. GROWTH IN THE BUILDING INDUSTRY.
Instantaneous gratification only exists in the drug addicts mind.
Not to big a stretch considering a basic custom built 90 m sq. house can be done in 12 weeks with two men.
We would always say 16 weeks, and usually take 14, not because the individual house took that long, but because we would have several on the go at once at different stages.
Cookie cutter houses would be even faster once the builders had some practice.
4 of us got a house for a TV show from foundations to roof in 10 days. Despite having to do a lot of demolition and working around bits of an old house.
And your ‘obviously’ means that a house really can be built every 13 minutes??????? Are you ‘aving a larf?
Please please make it the centerpiece of housing policy in 2014.
People may not be able to get to the polls due to laughing.
You cannot win an election without credibility.
Another “show me the money” moment.
I’ll spell it out really simply: Yes, we can as a matter of fact build a house every 13 minutes in NZ over and above the ones being built now (which is probably more than 1 every 13 minutes).
Fisi is the genius who thinks unemployment can’t be going up because ‘more people are employed than ever!’
It’s hard for most us to believe that he’s actually imagining two builders starting a house and 13 minutes later having it completed and moving on to the next one, but he has just admitted that he can’t grasp the concept of percentages so it’s not out of the question.
A skyscraper which could fit what…500 apartments? Built in 2 weeks…35 apartments per day say…WOW amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind and your brains to a problem. Instead of moaning that everything is just too hard.
Yep. amazing alright! The company’s next project is to construct the world’s tallest building. 220 floors, 838 metres, housing for 31,000 people. Ok, it’ll take a wee bit longer than the one in the video to put up …. a mere 90 days.
Even if we had to double the number of needed builders we could still do it. Really, building that number of extra houses every year is easy – barely even touching upon the total resources we have available as a country but you, and the other RWNJs, don’t want to hear that as it goes against the myth that’s been built up over the decades and centuries that we can’t afford to. It’s proof positive that the National Party and the economists that support them have NFI WTF they’re talking about or that they’re lying.
Generally speaking, if we’ve got the builders then we’ve got the rest. The builders will be the ones on site full time from the moment building starts to it’s completion. In other words, you’ll need significantly less of the other workers and they will be in proportion to the number of builders.
That said, there always seems to be a shortage of plumbers…
Builders and I mean qualified shouldn’t pick up a hammer for less than $45, pay peanuts you get monkeys, monkeys build leaky houses, all these extra builders are going to come from where ? 8000 hrs to train a carpenter, 4 years, or are they going to come flooding back for $25 an hr yeah right.
I hope Labour have the numbers to back this up and even if they do Shearer will never be able to remember then unless he writes them on the back of his hand.
Builders and I mean qualified shouldn’t pick up a hammer for less than $45
Considering how much legal work my nephew has been doing in regards to his building (You’d be amazed at the number of building contractors who don’t know the building code) I keep telling him he should be charging out at $120/hour. Nobody seems to want to pay that though and the most he’s got since 2k8 is $32/hour and that was on a single job. All the other times he’s either been unemployed or paid in the mid 20s and Chch actually pays less.
Ah, sorry you’re right, Labour is talking roughly 300k. So that’s $415 per week. Same criticism applies.
Fortunately I can now afford a mortgage, but with the arrival of my second child on a low income and a 160k mortgage, we could barely eat. Turned me into a decent vege gardener, but…
Is the intention for the Govt rather than private sector banks to do the lending?
Don’t want to assume / comment because it may be in their econ policy, just printed to read. But I’d like to see LVR’s, LVT as well as CGT and some re zoning to free up all the land banks, like Giltrap’s down Great North Rd, a lot of apartments could come onto the market if that land was developed, right in the middle of the city within walking distance of jobs, and the local retail / entertainment economy.
I gather work is being done, pressure applied to RBNZ to address the capital flow which is chasing yield from our interest rates.
$550.00 a week? Thats more than I get a week to feed me my partner a 17 year old and a 18 month-er. Buy a house ? Tui Time. And this is why I say Shearer is just way out of touch with the real people.
It’s $300 k, less deposit. So, say, 270k. Weekly payments of around $400. About what you’d pay for rent for a modest family home in that Auckland. And with land being cheaper in the provinces, that $270k might be $240k. Mortgage of $350 pw? That’s realistic for many young couples starting out, I would have thought.
Well, yeah, but then you’d be hard pressed to find a single income working class family on $35K. WFF would lift the household income substantially. But, realistically, both parents need to be working, at least initially, to afford a mortgage. A big ask in the current economy and with a government opposed to a living wage. Hell, opposed to full employment altogether.
Saving for the deposit does take years, but it is also evidence of the ability to budget that banks take into account when granting the mortgage. The banks will only lend to a point where the mortgage payment is the highest proportion of household expenditure. Can’t remember the exact cutoff, but I think the household is likely to need to bring in $800 pw to be granted a mortgage of around half that. So, maybe 40- 50k income and it becomes a runner at $350 – 400 pw payments. Any bankers out there? Can you shine a light on the actual percentages?
The point is increasing the supply of houses in the $300k range is also going to help the availability of rentals and houses in the cheaper ranges. Simple supply and demand.
We tried that Weka, they are now called leacky homes and are now costing you and me mill/bill….of $$ and lets not forget earthquakes, so houses now will have to be stronger than ever and water tight, for a while, till we all forget, and start building cheap houses again in about 10 years, maybe 15 this time.
Well, those houses weren’t actually “cheaper” to the buyer, they were just cheaper to the property developers because of corners cut, and it was the developers who walked away with the difference as profits.
I really think property developers get a bad rap CV , the problems start with the the drawing of plans and what the council will and won’t allow. Some developers will get away with whatever the council lets them get away with and so they all start cheating to keep up, you could liken it to cycling.
“Developing is akin to playing Russian roulette. You can pull the trigger and draw a blank, although why you would want to I can’t imagine, but, because of the addiction factor, developers keep on doing so until sooner or later inevitably they draw the bullet.”
Bob Jones:
Who lobbied for the council changes? Who lobbied for deregulation of the building industry (“self-regulation”)? Who manufactured, sold and profited from the fashionable new building materials which turned out to be rubbish?
Egypt’s President Mohammed Mursi has issued a declaration banning challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions.
The declaration also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution.
President Mursi also sacked the chief prosecutor and ordered the retrial of people accused of attacking protesters when ex-President Mubarak held office.
Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei accused Mr Mursi of acting like a “new pharaoh”.
In a joint news conference held late on Thursday, Mr ElBaradai and other opposition figures described the declaration as a “coup against legitimacy” and called on Egyptians to take to the streets in protest.
I hear Jane Clifton was on the Panel today and discussing the Labour Party conference last weekend.
Did Jim Moira challenge her about a potential conflict of interest?
I tuned in briefly, recognised her voice, so tuned out. To my knowledge she wasn’t there – at least not on the conference floor. She wouldn’t have been far away though… waiting for yet more tid-bits from her new beau that she could then leak (on new beau’s behalf) to her journo pals.
Can YOU help collect signatures on the SIGNATHON for a couple of hours over this weekend?
Have YOU ‘switched off Mercury Energy’?
____________________________________________________________________________
PRESS RELEASE: “The Switch Off Mercury Energy community group urges New Zealanders opposed to asset sales to support the nation-wide SIGNATHON this weekend!” Switch Off Mercury Energy Spokesperson, Penny Bright.
This weekend, 24 -25 November 2012, there is a huge push all over New Zealand by the Keep Our Assets coalition to get the final 80,000 signatures required to help force a Citizens Initiated Referendum on the government’s proposed state asset sales.
At 300 places, from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island, New Zealanders will have an opportunity to sign this petition, which asks the House of Representatives to hold an ‘indicative referendum’ on the following question:
“Do you support the Government selling up to 49% of Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, Solid Energy and Air New Zealand?”
This Signathon site has over 300 collection points .
Those who can help collect signatures at any of these 300 collection points are encouraged to sign on to the one that’s most convenient, and turn up at the location on the day.
Those who can’t make it to one of the Signathon collection points but still have a bit of time to collect signatures on the weekend are being encouraged to download and print some petition forms for themselves.
“National – who campaigned in the 2011 election on asset sales – has only 59 out of 121 MPs – which is not a majority. No majority = no mandate for asset sales,” says a Switch Off Mercury Energy Spokesperson, Penny Bright.
“National were dependent on the votes of ACT Leader John Banks, MP for Epsom and United Future Leader Peter Dunne, MP for Ohariu for the passing of the Mixed Ownership Model Act – which scraped through the House 61 votes to 60.”
“The Switch Off Mercury Energy community group calls on New Zealanders to consider backing up your signatures for this referendum against asset sales, with further ‘people power’ action that will help stop the proposed sale of the first State-Owned electricity asset under the Mixed Ownership Act – Mighty River Power – by ‘switching off’ Mercury Energy.”
Mercury Energy is 100% owned by Mighty River Power, which is the first publicly owned state asset the current National Government is trying to privatise. Originally intended to start in September this year, due to public pressure the Government has delayed the sale until March 2013.
While delayed, asset sales have not stopped. This Switch Off Mercury Energy campaign aims to stop the Government’s first asset sale plans by making Mighty River Power and unattractive investment.
“Remember, ‘People power’ campaigns DO work!
In 2008, Contact Energy (already privatised), increased electricity prices 12% and doubled their Directors’ fees. After public outrage they lost over 40,000 customers within six months and their profit was cut in half!
For more information, on how to ‘Switch Off Mercury Energy’ and recommendations for where to ‘switch’ :
“…a far more frightening work than any of the nightmare novels of George Orwell.With the logic(oooh)
which is the great instrument of French thought, (Ellul) explores and attempts to prove the thesis that
propaganda, whether the ends are demonstrably good or bad, is not only destructive to democracy, it is
perhaps the most serious threat to humanity operating in the modern world.”-L.A Times
“The theme of Propaganda (sans italicisezation) Achtung ma cherie, I digress, is quite simply
that when our new technology encompasses any culture or society, the result is propaganda
(don’t quote me on that.score)
-Marshall McLuhan
oh well, wheels have rolled on since then…
Reading this article about data-centres and how much power they use when I noticed this passage:
Companies also guard their technology for competitive reasons, said Michael Manos, a longtime industry executive. “All of those things play into each other to foster this closed, members-only kind of group,” he said.
Yep, competition, keeping inefficiency high because people are chasing the almighty profit.
A group of CEOs led by Macy’s Terry Lundgren calling itself the Fix the Debt coalition is hoping for a deficit-busting austerity budget this holiday season—not a program to create American jobs.
Why? Because high unemployment “keeps their workers in check” by driving up competition for jobs, writes Lynn Stuart Parramore at AlterNet.
And the party of business in NZ is?
And their leader said?
Grr. The only positive out of this is getting rid of Garner.
Media and both sides of the political spectrum having a great time pissing up together.
Just having a fucking laugh really eh?
No wonder all of them are covertly against the democratisation of the labour party, their cosy little lifestyles would be completely fucked if the idea were to take hold across the political spectrum.
Leadership vote, on that note it isn’t over; first shot back me thinks. I’m thinking of joining the party again.
“a health sector source who worked closely with Cunliffe. He is the right type to lead New Zealand, she told the Herald , having character, brains, heart and being in “politics for all the right reasons”.
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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. ...
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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 ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
David Farrar writes – The Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled: Comments by radio host Kate Hawkesby suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity were misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found. It is a fact such patients are prioritised. ...
PRC and its proxies in Solomons have been preparing for these elections for a long time.A lot of money, effort and intelligence have gone into ensuring an outcome that won’t compromise Beijing’s plans. Cleo Paskall writes – On April 17th the Solomon Islands, a country of ...
Is speeding up the trip to and from Wellington airport by 12 minutes worth spending up more than $10 billion? Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me in the last day to 8:26 am today are:The Lead: Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced ...
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. ...
Changes to minimum wage and benefit indexation means many New Zealanders will get less this year, as the Government gives a big tax break to landlords instead. ...
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 ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced further New Zealand cooperation with the United States in the Pacific Islands region through $16.4 million in funding for initiatives in digital connectivity and oceans and fisheries research. “New Zealand can achieve more in the Pacific if we work together more urgently and ...
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. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/Sydney Theatre Company Decay, terror, revulsion. These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President. The Austrian is one of the greatest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ye In (Jane) Hwang, Postdoctoral Research Associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says threats by ministers Shane Jones and David Seymour to reform or close down the Waitangi Tribunal were “ill-considered”, as legal experts say the ministers may have breached Cabinet Manual conventions. “I think those comments are ill-considered and we expect all ministers to actually exercise good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Pexels/RDNE stock project You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. ...
A new poem by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. Mitochondrial Problem I. It was long drive to Kansas for the man and his dog but you have to understand he said She doesn’t fly. Which calls to mind not carsick shitting barking or whining but a dog who chooses not to as ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)Hot off the press, this debut ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without ...
Chief executive Shaun Robinson said it has not had any government funding cut, but government-funded contracts have not kept pace with rising costs. ...
The Ministry of Health has delayed the release of its evidence brief on the safety, reversibility and mental health and wellbeing outcomes for puberty blockers. While we wait, Julia de Bres speaks to those with firsthand experience. Best practice gender-affirming healthcare is based on trans people’s self-determination and agency. The ...
Barcelona’s city streets have gone from traffic-clogged to pedestrian-friendly. How? Superblocks. Ellen Rykers explains. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week I read a great interview with renowned urbanist Janette Sadik-Khan by The Spinoff’s Wellington editor Joel MacManus: “You can reimagine streets, ...
Student groups ‘Climate Action VUW’, Schools Strike 4 Climate and VUWSA will be on the street in Wellington today, the last day for submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill, with a message that the fight against the Government’s ‘War on ...
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Reports are coming in saying, “the siege of Gaza, which Israel has fought so bitterly and for so long to maintain has ended.”
http://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/gaza-shows-limits-of-force/
My solution:
Isreal and Palestine merge to form one singluar bicultural/multicultural state, where Arabs, Jews, and everyone else are treated as equal in a democratic secular state. Jerusalem to be internationalised as a free city for all peoples and faiths, under UN control. Will require both sides to make consessions, but people actually want to go out without worrying being blown to pieces by some fanatics.
It is reported that the Palistinians are moving new arms through their tunnels from Egypt, although 143 were destroyed, they still have many more which are being used.
In addition at the start of this skirmish they had 15,000 rockets of which only 15% were fired.
Cannot see Kumbaya yet.
It’s being reported? Er, no. It’s being alleged by an Israeli Government shill that the defenders of the Gaza ghetto had 15000 rockets. And these rockets are low tech; unguided and ineffective. On the other side, the invaders have the latest tech and overwhelming strength of numbers. Hardly a fair fight.
And just for fun, can I point out that only a couple of the Gaza rockets have ever landed on Israeli soil. Most are aimed at Palestinian land, stolen by the oppressor.
The Archdruid report says that Israel’s time is going to get harder as the USA declines further
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/in-twilight-of-empires.html
Good luck policing that,,,
Nice sentiment millsy,
Israel appropriated land because Palistinians didn’t believe in Fencing ?
Communal grazing versus “Fenced” farming ?
Israel is the bigoted “Right Wing Authority” in the conflict M8!
No respect for another culture is the underlying cause.
Not disimilar from this interesting plan for the Palestinians..
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-24/why-palestinians-have-time-on-their-side.html
Except you’d never get either side to agree to a secular state, and demographically Israelis would be quickly outnumbered – so no. I do like the idea of Jerusalem being a free city.
Wow. This is world shaking news. This is almost as momentous as the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Surely the Separation Wall will fall next. We are seeing a complete reshaping of the whole Palestinian Israeli question.
Will these developments see a negotiated peace, where the Israelis have to organise an evacuation of the illegal settlements in the West Bank?
With the borders open can the refugees in Gaza return to their former lands and houses at least in the current occupied territories especially if they are freed up by the evacuation of the settlers?
This is unbelievable and a cause for great celebration and no doubt for the Palestians particularly.
Will there be a formal announcement of the two state solution?
Will Abbass bid to the UN for observer status, be upgraded to a request for full membership?
Good lord, steady on.
You, (and the Guardian editorialist), are reading a hell of a lot into a few lines of text.
the borders have been open to the movement of goods and people throughout the seige. It’s how stuff gets in and out, it’s tightly controlled, but not ‘closed’. Presumably during the last week they have been sealed.
Give it a week or two and it will be business as usual. The Israelis talk the talk but still haven’t learnt how to walk.
“Give it a week or two and it will be business as usual.”
That’s a pretty safe bet.
Some would claim, and perhaps with good reason, that the All Blacks are probably the best (only) export promotion bill board we have.
Yet, watching a snippet of the Italian – New Zealand game, I could not help noticing the socks of both teams. The Italians were wearing the Canterbury clothing brand and the All Blacks, the Adidas motif …
Yes, proves the point , Canterbury capability and cred came off the back of many successful AB seasons. Now they are one of the premier international suppliers of tech gear for a range of sporting codes.
Canterbury is majority owned by an English company now anyway
Wonder if our IRD is on to this.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/22/uk-australia-google-tax-idUKBRE8AL04Y20121122
Or is it too much for Finance, Revenue to cope with.
I was listening to the Secretary for Education on National Radio this a.m. and the ongoing bleating of how complex the payroll system is. The Secretary patiently explained how the gargantuan task of paying our Teachers would cripple Hercules, immobilize Job and probably break DangerMouse , even if Penfold and all the Argonauts popped in to lend a hand.
I began wondering how our Health workers manage to get paid then?
Home help, OT’s, Physios, Nurses, Locums, GP’s, even the Surgeons seem to get paid without weekly drama and that Industry has exactly the same parameters of complex issues the Secretary ascribed to Education.
If the Secretary of Education finds getting the teachers paid all too much then how on earth can we have any confidence that the Secretary is even remotely capable of doing the far more complex and important job of actually educating our kids?
For fucks sake what a bloody moron
Another worry is that some teachers are finding out that although their Kiwisaver and PAYE deductions have been made, they haven’t made it to the IRD.
I have a close friend in the senior government IT echelons, while it seems obvious to anyone with half a brain that one could and should replicate well operating IT (and other) systems throughout government and the public service this is not the way the aparatchiks operate as theirs is a system based on troughing, incompetence and reinvention of the wheel – often in non circular form.
And of course those hugely complex teacher payrolls with over 90,000 employees managed in the past, so not really a sudden revelation. Why such a surprise?
And what more
Levy reckons it will take ONE year to get it right!!!!
AND
Talent 0.5 have started to blame to schools for incorrect data entry.
Don’t worry freedom, the health sector will be next (and I seem to remember some hooha in the 90s when they changed to a new computing system in hospitals)
I worked as a relief teacher for 10 years and not once did I have a problem with Datacom (the previous payroll company). Also they answered the phone instantly.
Yes, but Cabinet Ministers didn’t have shares in Datacom, so they had to be axed.
Datacom…a NZ company.
Datacom seemed to manage fine.
Obvious that they had no cronies in National, though.
Teachers etc got paid ok under the old system without any problems, the old saying, if it ain’t broke, dont fix it.
My thoughts go out to those poor teachers etc that featured on Campbell Live, it’s a terrible
situation.
But the Ministry is still saying that if one has not been paid, then the school should write a cheque out of school funds. More paper work then a payback from someone to someone else. Hell of a way to run a business.
There appears to be a problem with accessing akismet this morning. Comments are lagging through the spam checks and I have this message showing.
They are getting through, but there can be a few minutes lag. The peak I have seen has been 8 comments queued and with a delay of a less than 2 minutes (displays comment time only to the minute).
We get these on the odd occasion. They usually only persist for 10 minutes or so. But this one has been running for somewhat longer.
Local NZ connection to root name servers are down ….
Nothing resolves , using hosts file for thestandard at the mo.
Someone should tell Telecom / sprint net
They need to switch their “Local” root server to “Cached-Only” mode 🙂
Been seeing a lot of high numbered port, DOS attacks last 3 – 4 months.
Mainly around the address translation ports, Turkey and southern north american origins.
Attacking “apple” ports as well.
clever
I’d have expected it wouldn’t make a difference. The name -> IP would normally be cached in the server’s client DNS rather than having to resolve all of the time. And we are talking about comments being entered which is something that this site several times per minute during the peaks, and several minutes between for the rest of the NZ day.
Depends on what they set the TTL’s to I guess. If it was extremely short, then we might get DNS resolution lags. If there was a man in the middle attack on the DNS, then they’d set the TTL way up anyway.
More likely there is just maintenance or a DDOS. But this isn’t an area that I focus on that much. More jbc’s than mine.
DNS is a fundamental, slow it down and every spam engine in the world slows down.
And the TTL is meaningless unless u r in “cached-only” mode, it’ll still check the root server, it may time out, but slow is the end result.
It’s a last resort response to DNS DOS, which is what I think is happening , maintenance is not “down time” with revolving dns names etc.
Been seeing a bit of it at work. Seems to have cleared up now.
RAM 🙂
oops, forgot
Spin. Support your local Red, or black.
“She’s mighty mighty, lettin it all hang out”
Masters of War meet Masters of Reality
some rollin radical people (such is plurality)
http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=christian+anarchism&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=8rWuUOPtK6nYigeT6oDYAw&sqi=2&ved=0CE0QsAQ&biw=1003&bih=499
-Dredd
As Gaza is Savaged Again, Understanding the BBC’s Role Requires More Than Sentiment
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33126.htm
by JOHN PILGER November 22, 2012
In Peter Watkins’ remarkable BBC film, The War Game,which foresaw the aftermath of an attack on London with a one-megaton nuclear bomb, the narrator says: “On almost the entire subject of thermo-clear weapons, there is now practically total silence in the press, official publications and on TV. Is there hope to be found in this silence?”
The truth of this statement was equal to its irony. On 24 November, 1965, the BBC banned The War Game as “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting”. This was false. The real reason was spelt out by the chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, Lord Normanbrook, in a secret letter to the Secretary to the Cabinet, Sir Burke Trend.
“[The War Game] is not designed as propaganda,” he wrote, “it is intended as a purely factual statement and is based on careful research into official material… But the showing of the film on television might have a significant effect on public attitudes towards the policy of the nuclear deterrent.” Following a screening attended by senior Whitehall officials, the film was banned because it told an intolerable truth. Sixteen years later, the then BBC director-general, Sir Ian Trethowan, renewed the ban, saying that he feared for the film’s effect on people of “limited mental intelligence”. Watkins’ brilliant work was eventually shown in 1985 to a late-night minority audience. It was introduced by Ludovic Kennedy who repeated the official lie.
What happened to The War Game is the function of the state broadcaster as a cornerstone of Britain’s ruling elite. With its outstanding production values, often fine popular drama, natural history and sporting coverage, the BBC enjoys wide appeal and, according to its managers and beneficiaries, “trust”. This “trust” may well apply to Springwatch and Sir David Attenborough, but there is no demonstrable basis for it in much of the news and so-called current affairs that claim to make sense of the world, especially the machinations of rampant power. There are honourable individual exceptions, but watch how these are tamed the longer they remain in the institution: a “defenestration”, as one senior BBC journalist describes it.
This is notably true in the Middle East where the Israeli state has successfully intimidated the BBC into presenting the theft of Palestinian land and the caging, torturing and killing of its people as an intractable “conflict” between equals. Standing in the rubble from an Israeli attack, one BBC journalist went further and referred to “Gaza’s strong culture of martyrdom”. So great is this distortion that young viewers of BBC News have told Glasgow University researchers they are left with the impression that Palestinians are the illegal colonisers of their own country. ….
Read more…
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33126.htm
Posted from Kiwiblog
The Government will build 10,000 new houses a year. Now let’s break that down.
10,000 houses a year is 192 houses a week. Now if you take the working week of 40 hours, that is 4.8 houses per hour. That is a new house every 13 minutes of the working week.
Hands up those who think the Government can build a new house every 13 minutes? If your hand is up, please keep it up and please join the queue for free trips to the North Pole to see Santa Claus.
So can anyone tell me who put forward this obviously unworkable shonky promise and were they on Team Cunliffe trying to discredit Shearer
yep, and I see farrar gets panned by many kiwiblog punters for the clear silliness and empty-headedness of his post ha ha ha ha ha
Flailing around………. walking in circles ………. trying ever so hard to polish the Nats turds ……..
40 hours times 100 workers = 4000 hours per week.
Still not nearly enough. If by some miracle you can build a house in 500 hours that equates to just 8 houses a week. Still not near one every 13 minutes.
Someone is having a laugh that they allowed Shearer to make a claim that will be forever ridiculed. That was sabotage.
There are 170,000 unemployed …. even if you get 50,000 employed thats ….
5 workers per house per week, a modular house can be erected in 5 days.
How many houses in one week Fisiani ?
Of course we might want to take our time and get it right though.
No perhaps fisiani and farrar and all the other pesimists and naysayers are right. The whole thing should be called off. It is just too hard. Everybody go home, the policy has been cancelled as it is impossible to provide less expensive housing in New Zealand……… ffs
They’ve even “Invented Maths” that prove it!
Quantify the variable, don’t invent it out of thin air M8!
The RWNJ logic (if we want to call it that) goes like this:
That’s a house every 13 minutes and nobody can build a house in 13 minutes thus the Labour party must be lying.
Yes, the RWNJs like Fisiani really are that stupid. They’re actually incapable of the basic maths to work out what it would take to build 10000 houses as they’ve just proven.
Care to actually point out the maths of how an EXTRA 10,000 homes can be built in the 40 hours of a 48 week effective working year, bad weather not included. (PS Modular house erection erection does not equate to having a house fit for habitation.)
Virtual Chocolate fish to the first delusionist to prove how it is possible.
I will not accept answers such as ” The Hogwarts school of carpentry” or “300,000 migrant Oompaloompas” or ” there are 170,000 ‘builders’ unemployed”
The only explanation of this mathematical brain fade is that someone has tried and succeeded in making Shearer look utterly incompetent. Perhaps it was just a decimal point in the wrong place.
1000 houses would only take 130 minutes each to construct.
100 would take 1300 minutes or 21.6 hours
Don’t even get me started on the shonky cost calculations………..
There’s a lot more than 10,000 construction workers in New Zealand Fisiani.
157,000 at the moment.
http://www.careers.govt.nz/default.aspx?id0=10104&id1=6684D868-9D45-4202-8265-027A28B38DEE
Thanks, was looking but couldn’t find it.
boldly going where no man has gone before
Sweet, a breakdown of 2009 here …
http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/lmr/construction-sector/summary.asp
It takes two builders 8 weeks to build a 90m2 house (and that’s being generous). That’s two guys building 6 houses per year and we want 10,000 of them in one year. That means we need 1667 teams or 3334 builders.
Now, we actually already have several thousand builders already and many are presently under-employed or unemployed (there’s a reason why builders rates have gone from $34/hour plus to $25/hour) so we will have some spare capacity and possibly even enough without training up more builders and there is that 170k people unemployed some of which would be more than happy to become builders. Remember, the plan is 100k over ten years but it doesn’t have to start out at 10,000 in the first year (it would be nice but probably impractical).
As for the “shonky cost” well, personally, I think their being a little over generous myself especially if they go for medium or high density housing which they should do.
Really, the only things that are shonky are the RWNJs and their attempts at maths.
Two magical superworkers who can do the foundations, framing, plastering plumbing electrics, roofing and painting decorating in eight weeks. Oompa Loompa Land
I was hoping one of you would make a serious attempt .
Come on guys. You cannot defend the indefensible.
Explain 3,500 building consents per month in 2004 Fisiani….
http://www.dbh.govt.nz/UserFiles/File/Sector%20info/key-indicator-reports/kir-construction.pdf
(Page 2)
The aim of KiwiBuilder is obviously to increase these numbers.
And why oh why are the numbers of workers declining under Nationals Governance Fisiani?
Explain 10,000 EXTRA completed homes and stop wasting time with the number of CONSENTS.
Oh and your other canard.
There are more people employed in New Zealand than at any time in history.
More people = more employed. There also happens to be the most people unemployed.
There’s a reason why such figures are stated a percentage – it’s because nominal counts are inaccurate.
Look Fisiani it’s obvious you’ve got a bone too grind with bloggs.
But 10,000 completed homes is a goal, give it a few years.
We are currently building 10,000+- homes a year, if it takes two years then so be it consents means “started”.
Labour want to increase this number by a few hundred to a thousand per month
I.E. GROWTH IN THE BUILDING INDUSTRY.
Instantaneous gratification only exists in the drug addicts mind.
Not to big a stretch considering a basic custom built 90 m sq. house can be done in 12 weeks with two men.
We would always say 16 weeks, and usually take 14, not because the individual house took that long, but because we would have several on the go at once at different stages.
Cookie cutter houses would be even faster once the builders had some practice.
4 of us got a house for a TV show from foundations to roof in 10 days. Despite having to do a lot of demolition and working around bits of an old house.
5 minutes ago the SUPER builders could knock it up in 8 weeks now its 16. You need to get your lines right. That doubles the number of Oompa Loompas
Obviously you cannot read Fizzer. Or have any knowledge at all of building.
It is 14 to 16 weeks because we are working on several houses at once.
The average for one house is obviously much less.
And that is for bigger than 90 sq m custom builds.
The guys who put up the same design all the time are faster even than us “super builders”.
And your ‘obviously’ means that a house really can be built every 13 minutes??????? Are you ‘aving a larf?
Please please make it the centerpiece of housing policy in 2014.
People may not be able to get to the polls due to laughing.
You cannot win an election without credibility.
Another “show me the money” moment.
I’ll spell it out really simply: Yes, we can as a matter of fact build a house every 13 minutes in NZ over and above the ones being built now (which is probably more than 1 every 13 minutes).
Fisi is the genius who thinks unemployment can’t be going up because ‘more people are employed than ever!’
It’s hard for most us to believe that he’s actually imagining two builders starting a house and 13 minutes later having it completed and moving on to the next one, but he has just admitted that he can’t grasp the concept of percentages so it’s not out of the question.
Poor old Fisi. Here’s an entire skyscraper being built in two weeks.
A skyscraper which could fit what…500 apartments? Built in 2 weeks…35 apartments per day say…WOW amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind and your brains to a problem. Instead of moaning that everything is just too hard.
Yep. amazing alright! The company’s next project is to construct the world’s tallest building. 220 floors, 838 metres, housing for 31,000 people. Ok, it’ll take a wee bit longer than the one in the video to put up …. a mere 90 days.
NZ is currently building 10,000+- homes a year Fisiani,
by your screwed up maths that is indeed one home every 13 minutes.
Even if we had to double the number of needed builders we could still do it. Really, building that number of extra houses every year is easy – barely even touching upon the total resources we have available as a country but you, and the other RWNJs, don’t want to hear that as it goes against the myth that’s been built up over the decades and centuries that we can’t afford to. It’s proof positive that the National Party and the economists that support them have NFI WTF they’re talking about or that they’re lying.
Generally speaking, if we’ve got the builders then we’ve got the rest. The builders will be the ones on site full time from the moment building starts to it’s completion. In other words, you’ll need significantly less of the other workers and they will be in proportion to the number of builders.
That said, there always seems to be a shortage of plumbers…
Builders and I mean qualified shouldn’t pick up a hammer for less than $45, pay peanuts you get monkeys, monkeys build leaky houses, all these extra builders are going to come from where ? 8000 hrs to train a carpenter, 4 years, or are they going to come flooding back for $25 an hr yeah right.
I hope Labour have the numbers to back this up and even if they do Shearer will never be able to remember then unless he writes them on the back of his hand.
“8000 hrs to train a carpenter, 4 years…”
Yeah. Imagine how many we could’ve trained in the last four years if National gave a fuck about unemployment.
Considering how much legal work my nephew has been doing in regards to his building (You’d be amazed at the number of building contractors who don’t know the building code) I keep telling him he should be charging out at $120/hour. Nobody seems to want to pay that though and the most he’s got since 2k8 is $32/hour and that was on a single job. All the other times he’s either been unemployed or paid in the mid 20s and Chch actually pays less.
A quick calculation on a bank calculator to look at the affordability of these *cheap* houses.
$400,000 @ 5.25% for 25 years = $550.00 per week.
This is not low income housing.
Yes, you are right. But who’s talking about $400k being low income housing? I recall the nats saying $380k was ‘affordable’. Is that what you mean?
Ah, sorry you’re right, Labour is talking roughly 300k. So that’s $415 per week. Same criticism applies.
Fortunately I can now afford a mortgage, but with the arrival of my second child on a low income and a 160k mortgage, we could barely eat. Turned me into a decent vege gardener, but…
Government should be able to do mortgages at 2.5% pa.
Is the intention for the Govt rather than private sector banks to do the lending?
Don’t want to assume / comment because it may be in their econ policy, just printed to read. But I’d like to see LVR’s, LVT as well as CGT and some re zoning to free up all the land banks, like Giltrap’s down Great North Rd, a lot of apartments could come onto the market if that land was developed, right in the middle of the city within walking distance of jobs, and the local retail / entertainment economy.
I gather work is being done, pressure applied to RBNZ to address the capital flow which is chasing yield from our interest rates.
Hmmmm that would be a break from neoliberalism and banksterism so I doubt it.
$550.00 a week? Thats more than I get a week to feed me my partner a 17 year old and a 18 month-er. Buy a house ? Tui Time. And this is why I say Shearer is just way out of touch with the real people.
Except it’s not $550 a week, David.
It’s $300 k, less deposit. So, say, 270k. Weekly payments of around $400. About what you’d pay for rent for a modest family home in that Auckland. And with land being cheaper in the provinces, that $270k might be $240k. Mortgage of $350 pw? That’s realistic for many young couples starting out, I would have thought.
Govt could offer zero deposit terms.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a single income working class family on $35K pa who has a $30K deposit.
Maybe a double income working class family on $60K can manage it
Well, yeah, but then you’d be hard pressed to find a single income working class family on $35K. WFF would lift the household income substantially. But, realistically, both parents need to be working, at least initially, to afford a mortgage. A big ask in the current economy and with a government opposed to a living wage. Hell, opposed to full employment altogether.
Saving for the deposit does take years, but it is also evidence of the ability to budget that banks take into account when granting the mortgage. The banks will only lend to a point where the mortgage payment is the highest proportion of household expenditure. Can’t remember the exact cutoff, but I think the household is likely to need to bring in $800 pw to be granted a mortgage of around half that. So, maybe 40- 50k income and it becomes a runner at $350 – 400 pw payments. Any bankers out there? Can you shine a light on the actual percentages?
The point is increasing the supply of houses in the $300k range is also going to help the availability of rentals and houses in the cheaper ranges. Simple supply and demand.
Helping anyone looking for a house.
why not just build cheaper houses?
We tried that Weka, they are now called leacky homes and are now costing you and me mill/bill….of $$ and lets not forget earthquakes, so houses now will have to be stronger than ever and water tight, for a while, till we all forget, and start building cheap houses again in about 10 years, maybe 15 this time.
Well, those houses weren’t actually “cheaper” to the buyer, they were just cheaper to the property developers because of corners cut, and it was the developers who walked away with the difference as profits.
I really think property developers get a bad rap CV , the problems start with the the drawing of plans and what the council will and won’t allow. Some developers will get away with whatever the council lets them get away with and so they all start cheating to keep up, you could liken it to cycling.
“Developing is akin to playing Russian roulette. You can pull the trigger and draw a blank, although why you would want to I can’t imagine, but, because of the addiction factor, developers keep on doing so until sooner or later inevitably they draw the bullet.”
Bob Jones:
Who lobbied for the council changes? Who lobbied for deregulation of the building industry (“self-regulation”)? Who manufactured, sold and profited from the fashionable new building materials which turned out to be rubbish?
sigh…
السيد مانكي
@Sandmonkey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20451208
Egypt’s President Mohammed Mursi has issued a declaration banning challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions.
The declaration also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution.
President Mursi also sacked the chief prosecutor and ordered the retrial of people accused of attacking protesters when ex-President Mubarak held office.
Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei accused Mr Mursi of acting like a “new pharaoh”.
In a joint news conference held late on Thursday, Mr ElBaradai and other opposition figures described the declaration as a “coup against legitimacy” and called on Egyptians to take to the streets in protest.
an interesting few lines of text
I hear Jane Clifton was on the Panel today and discussing the Labour Party conference last weekend.
Did Jim Moira challenge her about a potential conflict of interest?
I tuned in briefly, recognised her voice, so tuned out. To my knowledge she wasn’t there – at least not on the conference floor. She wouldn’t have been far away though… waiting for yet more tid-bits from her new beau that she could then leak (on new beau’s behalf) to her journo pals.
Key and Shearer are on Q & A this Sunday, TV One 9am …
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1211/S00502/qa-this-sunday.htm
Can YOU help collect signatures on the SIGNATHON for a couple of hours over this weekend?
Have YOU ‘switched off Mercury Energy’?
____________________________________________________________________________
PRESS RELEASE: “The Switch Off Mercury Energy community group urges New Zealanders opposed to asset sales to support the nation-wide SIGNATHON this weekend!” Switch Off Mercury Energy Spokesperson, Penny Bright.
Those who can help collect signatures at any of these 300 collection points are encouraged to sign on to the one that’s most convenient, and turn up at the location on the day.
Those who can’t make it to one of the Signathon collection points but still have a bit of time to collect signatures on the weekend are being encouraged to download and print some petition forms for themselves.
http://switchoffmercuryenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SOME-11-September-2012-Switch-off-leaflet6g.pdf ” concludes Ms Bright.
from the back of the hard copy from the fishpond
“…a far more frightening work than any of the nightmare novels of George Orwell.With the logic(oooh)
which is the great instrument of French thought, (Ellul) explores and attempts to prove the thesis that
propaganda, whether the ends are demonstrably good or bad, is not only destructive to democracy, it is
perhaps the most serious threat to humanity operating in the modern world.”-L.A Times
“The theme of Propaganda (sans italicisezation) Achtung ma cherie, I digress, is quite simply
that when our new technology encompasses any culture or society, the result is propaganda
(don’t quote me on that.score)
-Marshall McLuhan
oh well, wheels have rolled on since then…
-Pierrepoint
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrepoint_(film).Tim,or was it pete? one of The Usual Suspects
go figure
pg.1
It was a dark and stormy night, all through the house…”I’m Bored…zzzzzzzzzz.
btw, lots of little bees carved or sculptered, here and there at St Matthews.boing
Reading this article about data-centres and how much power they use when I noticed this passage:
Yep, competition, keeping inefficiency high because people are chasing the almighty profit.
Holy Schemozzle Batman.To the IBM cave….
What Capitalists Want for Christmas
And the party of business in NZ is?
And their leader said?
Check this out:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10849297
Grr. The only positive out of this is getting rid of Garner.
Media and both sides of the political spectrum having a great time pissing up together.
Just having a fucking laugh really eh?
No wonder all of them are covertly against the democratisation of the labour party, their cosy little lifestyles would be completely fucked if the idea were to take hold across the political spectrum.
Gawd I hope the leadership vote happens in Feb.
Leadership vote, on that note it isn’t over; first shot back me thinks. I’m thinking of joining the party again.
“a health sector source who worked closely with Cunliffe. He is the right type to lead New Zealand, she told the Herald , having character, brains, heart and being in “politics for all the right reasons”.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10849606
How may polls due between now and Feb? Lets face it Shearer is going to sink back into obscurity, any media opportunities he gets he will fluff.