Power is off all day for us so a swap/buy/exchange market up the road for us, then the beach – not bad practice for the times ahead where fun and experience will be had closer to home and closer to hand.
Capitalist extremist identifies homelessness as democracy.
During the Cold War, terms like ‘Democratic Society’, ‘The Free World’ became synonymous with capitalism. These terms were often used interchangeably, (and opportunistically, IMO), as antonyms in reference to Communist societies like Soviet Russia.
In an extraordinary blast from the past, this cold war dog whistle is being dragged up to justify keeping families in cars, on the streets, or bunked up in motels at huge expense to the taxpayer, while tens of thousands of perfectly good houses stand empty.
The problems of homelessness, housing stress, and the housing crisis in this country have been laid at the feet of the past National Government by the current Housing Minister, Phil Twyford. But that we should reverse this policy has been labeled, “Extremist nonsense” by Property Institute of New Zealand chief executive Ashley Church
The notion that people should be penalised for owning empty homes is “extremist nonsense” in a democratic society, he says.
Stuff.co.nz reporters Rob Stock and John Anthony debunk Ashley Church’s fallacious and self serving justification, noting that other democratic societies have implemented measures to crackdown on empty home owners.
Vancouver in Canada recently introduced a tax on empty homes expected to bring in C$30m (NZ$32.8m) of revenue in its first year.
I would encourage the current housing minister to push past the nasty bed baiting spin of Ashley Church, and other self interested parties, and copy Vancouver’s courageous, (and dare I say it, socialist) example.
New Zealand’s Housing Minister Phil Twyford blames the National Government for the proliferation of ghost houses but has stopped short of offering up any measures to discourage the practice.
See that? It’s the invisible hand of the market giving we the people the invisible finger…
Anthony Robins – June 16, 2015
To which I would add Anthony Robins’ invisible hand is attached to the very visible and self interested wrist of Ashley Church and the Property Institute, and the landlords and speculators whose interests his organisation exists to protect.
The notion that people should be penalised for owning empty homes is “extremist nonsense” in a democratic society, he says.
Proof, if you needed it, that capitalists don’t give a shit about anybody but themselves.
In a democratic society we’d ensure that everyone had a place to live and food on the table. It’s only in capitalism that we start accepting excuses from the capitalists as to why people need to be poor and oppressed.
That data doesn’t really tell us much Jenny. What we don’t know is how many of those 33,360 vacant homes are potentially available for rental/sale.
At any given point in time there will always be a large quantity of vacant properties and the reasons they’re empty are many & varied as is the duration of their vacancies. That 33.36k were only vacant at the time of the census, it didn’t mean they were permanently vacant.
Stats give this info;
“An unoccupied dwelling is classified as ’empty’ if it clearly has no current occupants and new occupants are not expected to move in on or before census night. Unoccupied dwellings that are being repaired or renovated are defined as empty dwellings. Unoccupied baches or holiday homes are also defined as empty dwellings.
A dwelling is classified as having ‘residents away’, where occupants of a dwelling are known to be temporarily away and are not expected to return on or before census night.”
The data table for the census unoccupied dwelling count has this at note 1;
“1. Unoccupied dwelling count is made up of ‘residents away’ and ‘empty dwelling’. ”
Anyone on holiday at the time of the census would be ‘residents away’ if they left the house vacant (no-one left behind)
The census recorded 36,597 cases of overcrowding, affecting 203,820 people.
There were two main classifications for unoccupied homes in the census “empty dwelling” and “residents away”. Just as you say, it seems that there was no further breakdown.
We can argue around the margins about how many houses might be empty for valid reasons, And I admit that I may be making a subjective call here, but I the sheer numbers, “empty dwellings” recorded, 141,366 nationally and 33,360 in Auckland, tells a story of unaffordability, in rents and house prices, that puts the majority of these “empty dwellings” out of the reach of many of the people captured in this survey suffering from housing distress.
Maybe when we can get to compare the 2013 figures, with the latest 2018 census figures for housing we might be better informed.
In the meantime we will have to go to other sources to get a handle on the problem.
Figures from the last census showed there were 141,366 empty dwellings in New Zealand, which are separate from houses that are vacant because their owners are away around census time.* More than 33,000 houses in Auckland were officially classified as empty in 2016.
Colleen Hawkes – May 16, 2018
*(My emphasis) J.
Minister of Housing Phil Twyford stated earlier this month that New Zealand will not be following Vancouver’s example in introducing taxes on empty houses.
“The Labour-led government has a comprehensive plan to address the housing shortage including cracking down on offshore speculators and changing rules around negative gearing,” Twyford said.
Christchurch Progressive Network convenor John Minto, who is advocating such a scheme, has criticised the government’s “poor use of money”. “It is stupid for the government to spend tens of millions on motel accommodation for homeless families when we have 33,000 empty homes in Auckland (2016 figures).”
I might ask Phil Twyford and Phil Goff both: is the suffering of middle and upper class bach owners, and housing speculators really comparable with the suffering of families living with overcrowding, insecurity and homelessness?
I don’t dispute the seriousness of the lack of housing Jenny. I was just making the observation that the numbers look to be wrong on the empty houses and it may be a dead duck. Wrong numbers lead to wrong decisions.
I honestly can’t see that many investors sitting on property like that, they exist for sure but my expectations are that it occurs in the high-wealth areas mostly. You’d need to be pretty cash rich to not need rental income, interest on borrowing chews capital and eats up profits real fast.
Kia ora DH, I strongly suspect that your expectations that many of the 33,360 “empty houses” recorded in Auckland in the census are at the high end of the market. (Of course it would be good to know for sure). But anecdotal evidence seems to back up this expectation.
But forcing these houses back onto the rental or housing market should free up more houses further down the housing ladder. The sheer numbers guarantee it.
Vancouver thought it was worth it.
Vancouver’s tax on empty homes will bring in $30-million of revenue in its first year, but that will come from only a tiny proportion of homeowners.
More than 5,000 properties out of 8,500 deemed vacant by city staff received exemptions under rules of the new tax bylaw, which is a first for Canada and is being watched closely around the world.
Nearly 61% of the homes declared empty in Vancouver were condos, and other multi-family properties made up almost 6%, according to the city government. More than a quarter of the empty properties were in downtown Vancouver.
The City of Vancouver released a heat map Thursday showing the distribution of residential properties where owners haven’t yet made a declaration to avoid its new empty-homes tax, and the highest concentration is in condo-rich Yaletown.
The city says about 182,000 residential property owners — about 98 per cent — have submitted their declarations but another 4,000 still haven’t. Most of the undeclared properties are in the downtown core and the highest concentrations are in Yaletown, Coal Harbour and the West End.
Homeowners in the three condo-dense neighbourhoods who have not declared occupancy risk paying a one per cent tax on their properties’ assessed values. Assessed values of residential strata units — such as condos — in Metro Vancouver skyrocketed this year by five to 35 per cent.
Residential property owners had until Feb. 2 to declare occupancy, however, the city extended the deadline to March 5 in order to give the 4,000 who had not declared a chance to avoid penalties and fines.
The empty-homes tax, a nationwide-first, was approved by councillors in 2016 as a tool to spur owners to rent out their empty homes. Any property owner that fails to declare by March 5 is subject to the tax plus a $250 fee. Declarations will be subject to an audit process and false declarations could result in fines of up to $10,000 per day, according to the city.
“With a near-zero vacancy rate in Vancouver, our key goal is to shift empty or under-used housing into the rental market. The city has done extensive advertising and notifications about the Empty Homes Tax for more than a year — all homeowners should know that they have to file a declaration, or their homes will be considered empty by default,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a news release.
Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, who has been researching the distribution of empty homes in Vancouver, said the city’s heat map matches well with a map he generated from city data identifying private dwellings not occupied by usual residents. It also matches closely with a map of population density he prepared based on 2016 census data.
I was moved to make my original comment about this issue by the Stuff.co.nz report yesterday that mentioned Ghost Houses. And also because I had followed Victoria Crone and Phil Goff’s debate on this issue with keen interest. I was hardly aware of what was going on in Vancouver.
However, the more I read yesterday about the Vancouver example, the more fascinated I became. It’s incredible really, Many of the exact same arguments, for and against, that were made by Goff and Crone during the Auckland Mayoral debate were shadowed by the opponents and supporters of this scheme in Vancouver.
One of the arguments made by opponents of the scheme in Vancouver was that it would penalise owners of two homes.
Yes it would, that’s the point, you will be penalised if you keep one of them empty, while other people are struggling to find accomodation.
The lack of self awareness of the ridiculous nature of this objection, as seen by families without any home at all, is breathtaking.
One of the biggest criticisms made here by Goff of Crone’s proposal, was that there would be no method of telling which homes were being left empty.
In reply Crone suggested that water usage would give a good indication of which houses were being left idle and unused.
In opposition to Crone’s suggestion that water use would give a good indication of whether a house was being parked up, I remember one numpty commenting at the time on this website, criticising Crone’s suggestion, writing that this would just encourage absent owners to leave the taps running.
In the end, it seems that Vancouver settled on using the lack of electricity consumption as an indicator of an empty address.
More Innovatively Vancouver also did a poll on property owners asking them to declare whether their properties were empty or not.
This gave some very interesting results, for instance the first thing revealed was that contrary to the racist scape goating of Asians and immigrants as being behind the Ghost House problem, many of the owners of these empty houses were revealed as being Canadians or Americans from across the border. Another thing revealed was that most of the empty properties were in condominiums.
Revealed by the tax itself, was that (in line with DH’s expectations above) many of these empty homes were higher valued properties. Another thing revealed is that the owners of these high end properties were prepared to pay the tax rather than let them out, or put them on the market. (Some paying as much as $250,000 for the 2018 tax period.)
In total the owners of the these properties paid the city $30 million for the privilege of keeping these properties empty.
But Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is pleased with the results anyway.
“Thank you for contributing to Vancouver’s affordable-housing fund,” the mayor said wryly at a news conference outlining the details of the new tax. He acknowledged it’s not clear yet whether the tax has caused any owners to rent out their apartments or houses, which is one of the city’s goals.
But, he said, the city needed to do something to ensure that desperately needed housing is available.
“It’s unacceptable to have homes sitting empty when so many people are looking for a place to live.”
The 1,200 to 2,300 homeowners who may eventually pay the tax are far less than the numbers that have circulated for years about empty units.
Two years ago, the city said 10,800 units were unoccupied for a year or more, after a comprehensive study of electrical use.
At last count, 7 per cent of Auckland’s homes sit empty.
New Zealand’s Housing Minister Phil Twyford blames the National Government for the proliferation of ghost houses but has stopped short of offering up any measures to discourage the practice.
Maybe Phil Twyford instead of stopping short of offering up any measures to discourage the practice, could take a leaf out Victoria Crone’s mayoral campaign
In 2016 Independent Mayoral Candidate, Victoria Crone championed action to address Ghost houses as part of her Mayoral campaign.
Labour Party candidate Phil Goff vehemently opposed Crone over this policy, characterising it as unfairly affecting “bach owners”.
(For God’s sakes, as if bach owners hardships could be anyway comparable to the hardships faced by families with out any home at all, let alone a spare one to go to on for holidays.)
Instead Phil Goff, echoing the Trump Presidential campaign, chose a more traditionally Right Wing strategy; scapegoating immigrants for the housing crisis.
Not only was Goff’s anti-immigrant strategy Right Wing, it was dishonest – immigration policy is set by central government not by the Auckland Region, a fact which he well knows.
* (Except it seems, the interests of property developers, landlords and speculators and other wide boys. A fact we may all come to regret when the housing market is flooded with even more empty and unaffordable houses.)
‘A collection of research published last week in a special edition of the major scientific journal Nature showed that Antarctica has lost 3 trillion tonnes of ice over the past 25 years. Half of that melting has happened in the past 5 years. Professor Tim Naish is from the Victoria University of Wellington’s Antarctic Research Centre says we have less than a decade to stop a catastrophe.’
Top work Ireland taking out Australia in their Rugby series.
I’m really, really sorry about the last-minute decision by the ref.
Really, really sorry not.
Q&A (TV1) had a very good panel this morning.
I’m hopeless remembering names so you will need to link through yourselves.
Subjects: Business confidence taking a dip… the Mexican Border fiasco fallout… and EU Trade negotiations. No babies.
An inherent message to the Labour-led government:
You will need to do a much better job explaining your policy positions/decisions if you want to avoid confusion among voters and mischievous spin from your political opponents gaining traction.
Could not agree more. At the moment those opponents are having a free run on misrepresentation because ministers (with a few exceptions) are not stepping up to properly counter them. If they can’t do the political side of the job, then they need to be replaced with those who can. My cent-worth for the day.
Q&A (TV1) had a very good panel this morning.
I’m hopeless remembering names so you will need to link through yourselves.
Subjects: Business confidence taking a dip… the Mexican Border fiasco fallout… and EU Trade negotiations. No babies.
An inherent message to the Labour-led government:
You will need to do a much better job explaining your policy positions/decisions if you want to avoid confusion among voters and false spin from your political opponents gaining traction.
Could not agree more. At the moment those opponents are having a free run on misrepresentation because ministers (with a few exceptions) are not stepping up to properly counter them. If they can’t do the political side of the job, then they need to be replaced with those who can. My cent-worth for the day.
Yes, an interesting Q & A. Not one of Grant’s better performances. Very monotone, he looked tired and listless.
On business confidence, and in fact on forward spending/investment plans, as mentioned by Barnett, I can’t think of one thing the government has done to encourage business.
But I can think of plenty of government decisions that will increase regulatory burdens, that look capricious (oil and gas virtually out of the blue) and which will increase costs (fuel taxes, $20 min wage, a lot more union control, proposed CGT).
In these circumstances, it is not surprising that business are not making new investments, it looks too risky. Safer to keep spare capital in passive investments (either in NZ or offshore) or alternatively not borrow. The business will operate at a lower but safer level.
The cost is lower growth, lower taxes, less employment growth.
Why should business expect to be led by the government?
New Zealand business has had oblique and small policy markers from central government under National’s 9 long and directionless years.
Under Labour’s government, they are being led by the public sector through construction and transport funding, which are the economic policy areas this government really care about anyway. Those areas will continue to boom under this government for the foreseeable future.
Unless your business is rent, housing rent, in which case you are about to be shown the door. The Productivity Commission would firmly encourage landlords to find something else more productive to invest in.
Broadly speaking, this government seeks to tilt real estate capitalism, and that’s about it.
Business organizations in New Zealand don’t want to be led. They’ve been clear about that for a while. They are virulently and relentlessly anti-Labour and they don’t care who knows it, and it won’t change. It’s on business to determine if they want to make something useful out of this Labour-led government.
Meanwhile, headline unemployment is great, property prices are stabilizing, the governments’ investment direction and savings culture are fantastic, and the government is really popular.
”(fuel taxes, $20 min wage, a lot more union control, proposed CGT).””
How dare a govt actually do shit . And try make the country function ,I long for the days we had a bunch of greasy middle management tossers doing fuck all other than tell us how good they are.
On business confidence, and in fact on forward spending/investment plans, as mentioned by Barnett, I can’t think of one thing the government has done to encourage business.
How could you say that, Wayne? This Government signed TPPA-11!
And there are proposals for an ‘Amazon Tax’ and for R & D tax loss credits for companies that spend more than $100k pa on R & D.
CPTPP 11I will concede, although it has a sting in the tail with the new restrictions on foreign investment. The R& D tax credit is essentially the Callaghan growth grant repackaged (though expanded somewhat).
The furore over the Te Arai exemption just illustrated the problems. Quite a few proposed tourist resort projects had the intent of selling the units to overseas investors as a means of raising the capital.
Not one of Grant’s better performances. Very monotone, he looked tired and listless.
And there’s the standard RWNJ ad hominem.
I can’t think of one thing the government has done to encourage business.
The government isn’t actually there for business – it’s there for the people.
But I can think of plenty of government decisions that will increase regulatory burdens
That’s good. A market system can’t work without proper regulation. It was the lack of regulation and then followed by bad regulation that brought us the ‘legal highs’ fiasco.
and which will increase costs (fuel taxes, $20 min wage, a lot more union control, proposed CGT).
You don’t seem to be concerned with the rising costs of living that needs to be covered by wages. Costs that the capitalists almost always ignore which is why we need a minimum wage in the first place. It would actually be better to have a universal income rather than a minimum wage to ensure that everyone has a good living standard. Although, considering how greedy the capitalists are, I think we’d still need a minimum wage to ensure that they actually paid.
The cost is lower growth, lower taxes, less employment growth.
Which is, of course, a load of bollocks. We’ve been cutting taxes and regulations for the last thirty years and it’s made us all worse off. It’s cut productivity increases and wages while rewarding the bludging shareholders and speculators.
Maybe Grant Robertson needed a Redbull drink to pep him up before the interview. I have seen him give plenty more energetic and therefore more engaging interviews than this mornings on Q & A.
Saying grant looks tired listless is not at an ad hom. You throw it round so often I am beginning to think you don’t know what words mean.
An ad hom would be “Grant is fat/lazy/stupid therefore his argument is invalid”. Ad hom means to attack the person to denigrate the argument or point they are putting forward. Saying someone looks tired and listless is not an ad hom.
This is the second time I have had to point this out to you. Please try harder
“In these circumstances, it is not surprising that business are not making new investments, it looks too risky. Safer to keep spare capital in passive investments (either in NZ or offshore) or alternatively not borrow. The business will operate at a lower but safer level.”
There’s also the actions of a lot of New Zealand business that are causing these reactions as well. Take the actual and perceived losses of around 4 billion from Fletcher Building and Fontera, along with the M. Bovis debacle and there’s more than enough to give business the willies. This occurred under the leadership of the previous National government.
I look around Queenstown and see a lot of similarity to the situation in 2007 with a lot of developments that are unlikely to be profitable first time around. This has a chilling effect on business confidence.
Maybe New Zealand business, and the National Party, should look at their own actions and leadership before trying to blame someone else for their problems.
Unfortunately our “business leaders” and National politicians won’t be terribly affected by the fallout from the fuck-ups above, that will fall on the workers, subcontractors and share-milkers who will have their lives destroyed.
Wayne increasing wages means more money in businesses where this money is spent.
$880 million to bail out farmer’s.
Business confidence is over 50 which means business ha got over National loosing the election.
Just business leaders doing their expected “it’s a Labour government” hissy fit.
Saw it in 2000, same again.
Put Thompson & Clark onto them as they clearly need monitoring as a threat to the democratic process.
the Prime Minister’s baby name just announced: Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford. I am so proud of this Kiwi family, with both Jacinda and Clarke new role models of how men and women can be in the world – in my life time.
It has finally been revealed. Little Prime Miniature’s real name is – Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford. (Snap -I now see Venezia has already announced the name.)
An uncommon first name which apparently is ( or maybe from) from an Old Irish feminine name “Niamh” pronounced Neev, meaning “bright” or radiant”, according to Wikipedia.
The first part of this bit in the Wikipedia entry made me laugh vis a vis the proud new father – ” In Irish mythology, Niamh is the daughter of the god of the sea, Manannán mac Lir and one of the queens of Tír na nÓg, the land of eternal youth. She was the lover of the poet-hero Oisín” .
As mentioned by Jacinda Ardern in the press conference at 11am at the hospital before the Ardern Gayford family left for home, “Neve” also means “snow” in some languages – eg Latin, Italian and Portuguese.
Here is a link to the TVNZ article which includes video of the short press conference.
Mum looked radiant and not at all like someone who had had very little sleep over the last few days; and Dad is as proud as punch. Baby slept …
For the fashion conscious:
Neve was wearing a soft green home knitted hat, which virtually matched the jacket (and shoes) of one of their DPS minders. (LOL)
Mum wore a white top and black pants and white sneakers.
Dad wore his “trial father’s cardigan” as it was described in a (rather funny double act) video some months ago when he wore it for the first time. According to JA it was bought in an op shop.
I wondered who would bite when I submitted my comment – and sure enough … LOL.
Just the usual One Two type of shitty comment. He/she thinks they are soooo clever. I gave up reading his/her comments a long time ago and just pass over them so did not see this one until someone pointed it out to me.
As for knowing JA, I am pretty sure that you and I are in the same position there if I correctly remember a comment of yours some months ago – but I am not going to say what that was. LOL
The Dad cardie is getting a lot of air time – apparently from the Sally’s op shop in Gisborne according to JA in her latest Facebook video.
Jacinda and Clarke with their daughter, showed wonder grace happiness and kindness.
In her speech and answers she acknowledged all the kindness they had received, mentioning some had come from loss and sadness as well as open acceptance from NZers who had given love freely, from home made gifts to names, to the offer of placenta burial by Ngapui.
They looked a lovely wee family we can be proud of. I have had the good fortune to meet her prior to the election. She has gone from strength to strength and does us all proud, along with her clearly loving supportive partner.
Their selection of names shows a nod to their own choices coupled with a strong connection to love. “Love and happiness” the expectations for their daughter, Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford, are simple but profound.
OK, it SAYS “Flying car”, but it functions more like a human carrying drone. A car would surely be a more apt description if it had wheels and used the air current to lift about a meter or so off road so to speak.
Even so the Kitty Hawk is cool. Needs a roll bar type device.
It will be interesting to watch how this all develops. Safety will be a big concern I’d think, the potential for midair collisions will magnify very quickly if/when they become mainstream. Lots to think about.
I can imagine the rozzers scratching their heads wondering how they’ll get speed cameras up there…
Abstract:
Low Flying Aircraft (LFA) may be used to smuggle illicit drugs or illegal immigrants across borders. Sound radiated by LFA was used for their detection, tracking and classification by the developed Acousto Seismic Air Detection (ASAD) system. ASAD consists of several nodes, where each node has five microphone clusters and three geophones. Single ASAD node can detect aircraft sound, determine their bearing, and classify the target. Two or mode nodes provide target localization. Extended tests of various small aircraft flying according to planned test patterns were conducted in difficult mountainous areas. The comparison of acoustic detection and tracking with ground truth from the GPS carried by the targets allowed the estimation of acoustic detection, bearing and localization distances and their accuracy.
Weka disappeared at least two months ago. I recall ‘tracey’ responding to the same question with words to the effect “Weka is fine”.
I don’t know why she has left TS but suspect it might have something to do with some stoush in what is termed “the backend”. But that is no more than a guess and could be wrong.
Pile your firewood inside so you don’t have to go out.
Next three days is going to be incredibly cold; snow between 100 and 200 metres above sea level from Stewart Island and Fiordland right through Otago, and a long cold snap all the way up the centre and east of the North Island.
We’ve already had it pretty cold lately Ad. Highs of 4 or 5 and lows of -5 to -6 at my place most of last week. Ice has been building up in shady areas of the garden. The woodburner has been running day and night.
A snow laden southerly usually means temps around 0 to 2 across the board so a bit of a relief really.
Good morning The Am Show one should not count there chickens Peter Burling came second .
Loyd would have still celebrated as a Kiwi salior won the race on Chinese boat Dong Fang and Blair Tuke came 3rd Ka pai.
Duncan everyone knows that buildings construction slow down in the winter one just makes a mess when you dig holes in the rain also the timber framing don’t pass there moisture test so there cladding cannot be installed many other reason that construction slows in winter less day light hours. Thats were prefab house increase house building productivity . These prefab building could target using the renewable resource we have a lot of laminated timber this product is alot less energy in producing this laminated timber products
The Kiwi Rugby League team and management are in rebuild mode you wait and see they will get back to there best form .
With the Roseanne Show in the USA that shows that te Papatuanuku has had enough of the racial discriminating slander Ka pai but the show gives US a view into the reality’s of common tangata in the USA and how hard they have it just to survive in the USA the big picture is we were heading in that direction till the changes we have had with the new Labour lead Coalition Government. Duncan Te kumara never tells how sweet it is
Ka kite ano P.S it is a super food loaded with good minerals good for the mokopunas
Many thanks to Saudi Arabia for granting the rights for ladies to drive cars this is a win for Ladies Equality around Papatuanuku as Saudi ladies have won the right to drive there are many more rights these ladies need to be granted to get to Equality its all about a bright healthy future for all Tangata link below.
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The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
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Watched “The Old Curiosity Shop” last night. Daniel Quilp shoulda let go those money bags!
Power is off all day for us so a swap/buy/exchange market up the road for us, then the beach – not bad practice for the times ahead where fun and experience will be had closer to home and closer to hand.
Capitalist extremist identifies homelessness as democracy.
During the Cold War, terms like ‘Democratic Society’, ‘The Free World’ became synonymous with capitalism. These terms were often used interchangeably, (and opportunistically, IMO), as antonyms in reference to Communist societies like Soviet Russia.
In an extraordinary blast from the past, this cold war dog whistle is being dragged up to justify keeping families in cars, on the streets, or bunked up in motels at huge expense to the taxpayer, while tens of thousands of perfectly good houses stand empty.
The problems of homelessness, housing stress, and the housing crisis in this country have been laid at the feet of the past National Government by the current Housing Minister, Phil Twyford. But that we should reverse this policy has been labeled, “Extremist nonsense” by Property Institute of New Zealand chief executive Ashley Church
Stuff.co.nz reporters Rob Stock and John Anthony debunk Ashley Church’s fallacious and self serving justification, noting that other democratic societies have implemented measures to crackdown on empty home owners.
I would encourage the current housing minister to push past the nasty bed baiting spin of Ashley Church, and other self interested parties, and copy Vancouver’s courageous, (and dare I say it, socialist) example.
Related:
The hidden homeless and the speculators
Ashley Church gives the finger to the homeless
To which I would add Anthony Robins’ invisible hand is attached to the very visible and self interested wrist of Ashley Church and the Property Institute, and the landlords and speculators whose interests his organisation exists to protect.
Proof, if you needed it, that capitalists don’t give a shit about anybody but themselves.
In a democratic society we’d ensure that everyone had a place to live and food on the table. It’s only in capitalism that we start accepting excuses from the capitalists as to why people need to be poor and oppressed.
In another context, it was Edward Snowden who once said he regarded meta-data as more valuable than personal data.
The raw data tells the story.
According to the 2013 census, New Zealand’s usually resident population count at 5 March 2013 was 4.242048 million.
In Auckland, the 2013 census counted 33,360 vacant homes.
Nation wide the census counted 36,597 overcrowded residences*
Nation wide 203,820 people in total were recorded as living in these overcrowded residences
Source: Statistics NZ, Census 2013
last updated 26 February, 2018
*Overcrowded means more than two people per bedroom, or bedrooms shared by adults other than couples or by opposite-sex children.
That data doesn’t really tell us much Jenny. What we don’t know is how many of those 33,360 vacant homes are potentially available for rental/sale.
At any given point in time there will always be a large quantity of vacant properties and the reasons they’re empty are many & varied as is the duration of their vacancies. That 33.36k were only vacant at the time of the census, it didn’t mean they were permanently vacant.
Stats give this info;
“An unoccupied dwelling is classified as ’empty’ if it clearly has no current occupants and new occupants are not expected to move in on or before census night. Unoccupied dwellings that are being repaired or renovated are defined as empty dwellings. Unoccupied baches or holiday homes are also defined as empty dwellings.
A dwelling is classified as having ‘residents away’, where occupants of a dwelling are known to be temporarily away and are not expected to return on or before census night.”
The data table for the census unoccupied dwelling count has this at note 1;
“1. Unoccupied dwelling count is made up of ‘residents away’ and ‘empty dwelling’. ”
Anyone on holiday at the time of the census would be ‘residents away’ if they left the house vacant (no-one left behind)
Kia ora DH,
The census recorded 36,597 cases of overcrowding, affecting 203,820 people.
There were two main classifications for unoccupied homes in the census “empty dwelling” and “residents away”. Just as you say, it seems that there was no further breakdown.
We can argue around the margins about how many houses might be empty for valid reasons, And I admit that I may be making a subjective call here, but I the sheer numbers, “empty dwellings” recorded, 141,366 nationally and 33,360 in Auckland, tells a story of unaffordability, in rents and house prices, that puts the majority of these “empty dwellings” out of the reach of many of the people captured in this survey suffering from housing distress.
Maybe when we can get to compare the 2013 figures, with the latest 2018 census figures for housing we might be better informed.
In the meantime we will have to go to other sources to get a handle on the problem.
From an attached link to the main report, Stuff.co.nz reporter Colleen Hawkes asks; “Is it time to address the question of empty ‘ghost houses’?”
*(My emphasis) J.
I might ask Phil Twyford and Phil Goff both: is the suffering of middle and upper class bach owners, and housing speculators really comparable with the suffering of families living with overcrowding, insecurity and homelessness?
I don’t dispute the seriousness of the lack of housing Jenny. I was just making the observation that the numbers look to be wrong on the empty houses and it may be a dead duck. Wrong numbers lead to wrong decisions.
I honestly can’t see that many investors sitting on property like that, they exist for sure but my expectations are that it occurs in the high-wealth areas mostly. You’d need to be pretty cash rich to not need rental income, interest on borrowing chews capital and eats up profits real fast.
Kia ora DH, I strongly suspect that your expectations that many of the 33,360 “empty houses” recorded in Auckland in the census are at the high end of the market. (Of course it would be good to know for sure). But anecdotal evidence seems to back up this expectation.
But forcing these houses back onto the rental or housing market should free up more houses further down the housing ladder. The sheer numbers guarantee it.
Vancouver thought it was worth it.
This is how you do it.
I was moved to make my original comment about this issue by the Stuff.co.nz report yesterday that mentioned Ghost Houses. And also because I had followed Victoria Crone and Phil Goff’s debate on this issue with keen interest. I was hardly aware of what was going on in Vancouver.
However, the more I read yesterday about the Vancouver example, the more fascinated I became. It’s incredible really, Many of the exact same arguments, for and against, that were made by Goff and Crone during the Auckland Mayoral debate were shadowed by the opponents and supporters of this scheme in Vancouver.
One of the arguments made by opponents of the scheme in Vancouver was that it would penalise owners of two homes.
Yes it would, that’s the point, you will be penalised if you keep one of them empty, while other people are struggling to find accomodation.
The lack of self awareness of the ridiculous nature of this objection, as seen by families without any home at all, is breathtaking.
One of the biggest criticisms made here by Goff of Crone’s proposal, was that there would be no method of telling which homes were being left empty.
In reply Crone suggested that water usage would give a good indication of which houses were being left idle and unused.
In opposition to Crone’s suggestion that water use would give a good indication of whether a house was being parked up, I remember one numpty commenting at the time on this website, criticising Crone’s suggestion, writing that this would just encourage absent owners to leave the taps running.
In the end, it seems that Vancouver settled on using the lack of electricity consumption as an indicator of an empty address.
More Innovatively Vancouver also did a poll on property owners asking them to declare whether their properties were empty or not.
This gave some very interesting results, for instance the first thing revealed was that contrary to the racist scape goating of Asians and immigrants as being behind the Ghost House problem, many of the owners of these empty houses were revealed as being Canadians or Americans from across the border. Another thing revealed was that most of the empty properties were in condominiums.
Revealed by the tax itself, was that (in line with DH’s expectations above) many of these empty homes were higher valued properties. Another thing revealed is that the owners of these high end properties were prepared to pay the tax rather than let them out, or put them on the market. (Some paying as much as $250,000 for the 2018 tax period.)
In total the owners of the these properties paid the city $30 million for the privilege of keeping these properties empty.
“Nothing is sacred…..”*
And it seems that nothing is profane, either.
Maybe Phil Twyford instead of stopping short of offering up any measures to discourage the practice, could take a leaf out Victoria Crone’s mayoral campaign
In 2016 Independent Mayoral Candidate, Victoria Crone championed action to address Ghost houses as part of her Mayoral campaign.
Labour Party candidate Phil Goff vehemently opposed Crone over this policy, characterising it as unfairly affecting “bach owners”.
(For God’s sakes, as if bach owners hardships could be anyway comparable to the hardships faced by families with out any home at all, let alone a spare one to go to on for holidays.)
“Crone would up rates on empty baches”
Instead Phil Goff, echoing the Trump Presidential campaign, chose a more traditionally Right Wing strategy; scapegoating immigrants for the housing crisis.
“Phil Goff: Limit immigration to fix housing crisis”
Not only was Goff’s anti-immigrant strategy Right Wing, it was dishonest – immigration policy is set by central government not by the Auckland Region, a fact which he well knows.
* (Except it seems, the interests of property developers, landlords and speculators and other wide boys. A fact we may all come to regret when the housing market is flooded with even more empty and unaffordable houses.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2531852/Exorcising-Irelands-ghost-estates-Demolition-begins-housing-projects-built-economic-boom-left-country-300-000-homes.html
This TED talk is inspiring as hell. Ft. Curtis “Wall Street” Carroll. *must watch* (although best bits 3 or 4 mins in)
https://youtu.be/F89eycANUrQ
‘A collection of research published last week in a special edition of the major scientific journal Nature showed that Antarctica has lost 3 trillion tonnes of ice over the past 25 years. Half of that melting has happened in the past 5 years. Professor Tim Naish is from the Victoria University of Wellington’s Antarctic Research Centre says we have less than a decade to stop a catastrophe.’
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018650659/tim-naish-says-we-can-still-save-antarctic-ice
a timely and well conducted interview on RNZ this morning.
Top work Ireland taking out Australia in their Rugby series.
I’m really, really sorry about the last-minute decision by the ref.
Really, really sorry not.
Ireland! Celebrate long and hard!
Spiritual sunday tune
another
3rd uplifting hymn from the good oils
Q&A (TV1) had a very good panel this morning.
I’m hopeless remembering names so you will need to link through yourselves.
Subjects: Business confidence taking a dip… the Mexican Border fiasco fallout… and EU Trade negotiations. No babies.
An inherent message to the Labour-led government:
You will need to do a much better job explaining your policy positions/decisions if you want to avoid confusion among voters and mischievous spin from your political opponents gaining traction.
Could not agree more. At the moment those opponents are having a free run on misrepresentation because ministers (with a few exceptions) are not stepping up to properly counter them. If they can’t do the political side of the job, then they need to be replaced with those who can. My cent-worth for the day.
Q&A (TV1) had a very good panel this morning.
I’m hopeless remembering names so you will need to link through yourselves.
Subjects: Business confidence taking a dip… the Mexican Border fiasco fallout… and EU Trade negotiations. No babies.
An inherent message to the Labour-led government:
You will need to do a much better job explaining your policy positions/decisions if you want to avoid confusion among voters and false spin from your political opponents gaining traction.
Could not agree more. At the moment those opponents are having a free run on misrepresentation because ministers (with a few exceptions) are not stepping up to properly counter them. If they can’t do the political side of the job, then they need to be replaced with those who can. My cent-worth for the day.
Anne,
Yes, an interesting Q & A. Not one of Grant’s better performances. Very monotone, he looked tired and listless.
On business confidence, and in fact on forward spending/investment plans, as mentioned by Barnett, I can’t think of one thing the government has done to encourage business.
But I can think of plenty of government decisions that will increase regulatory burdens, that look capricious (oil and gas virtually out of the blue) and which will increase costs (fuel taxes, $20 min wage, a lot more union control, proposed CGT).
In these circumstances, it is not surprising that business are not making new investments, it looks too risky. Safer to keep spare capital in passive investments (either in NZ or offshore) or alternatively not borrow. The business will operate at a lower but safer level.
The cost is lower growth, lower taxes, less employment growth.
Why should business expect to be led by the government?
New Zealand business has had oblique and small policy markers from central government under National’s 9 long and directionless years.
Under Labour’s government, they are being led by the public sector through construction and transport funding, which are the economic policy areas this government really care about anyway. Those areas will continue to boom under this government for the foreseeable future.
Unless your business is rent, housing rent, in which case you are about to be shown the door. The Productivity Commission would firmly encourage landlords to find something else more productive to invest in.
Broadly speaking, this government seeks to tilt real estate capitalism, and that’s about it.
Business organizations in New Zealand don’t want to be led. They’ve been clear about that for a while. They are virulently and relentlessly anti-Labour and they don’t care who knows it, and it won’t change. It’s on business to determine if they want to make something useful out of this Labour-led government.
Meanwhile, headline unemployment is great, property prices are stabilizing, the governments’ investment direction and savings culture are fantastic, and the government is really popular.
”(fuel taxes, $20 min wage, a lot more union control, proposed CGT).””
How dare a govt actually do shit . And try make the country function ,I long for the days we had a bunch of greasy middle management tossers doing fuck all other than tell us how good they are.
How could you say that, Wayne? This Government signed TPPA-11!
And there are proposals for an ‘Amazon Tax’ and for R & D tax loss credits for companies that spend more than $100k pa on R & D.
CPTPP 11I will concede, although it has a sting in the tail with the new restrictions on foreign investment. The R& D tax credit is essentially the Callaghan growth grant repackaged (though expanded somewhat).
The furore over the Te Arai exemption just illustrated the problems. Quite a few proposed tourist resort projects had the intent of selling the units to overseas investors as a means of raising the capital.
And there’s the standard RWNJ ad hominem.
The government isn’t actually there for business – it’s there for the people.
That’s good. A market system can’t work without proper regulation. It was the lack of regulation and then followed by bad regulation that brought us the ‘legal highs’ fiasco.
You don’t seem to be concerned with the rising costs of living that needs to be covered by wages. Costs that the capitalists almost always ignore which is why we need a minimum wage in the first place. It would actually be better to have a universal income rather than a minimum wage to ensure that everyone has a good living standard. Although, considering how greedy the capitalists are, I think we’d still need a minimum wage to ensure that they actually paid.
Which is, of course, a load of bollocks. We’ve been cutting taxes and regulations for the last thirty years and it’s made us all worse off. It’s cut productivity increases and wages while rewarding the bludging shareholders and speculators.
Maybe Grant Robertson needed a Redbull drink to pep him up before the interview. I have seen him give plenty more energetic and therefore more engaging interviews than this mornings on Q & A.
He likes rugby and beer I believe .
Dissapointed to see you advocate for such lowlife company.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39427291
Saying grant looks tired listless is not at an ad hom. You throw it round so often I am beginning to think you don’t know what words mean.
An ad hom would be “Grant is fat/lazy/stupid therefore his argument is invalid”. Ad hom means to attack the person to denigrate the argument or point they are putting forward. Saying someone looks tired and listless is not an ad hom.
This is the second time I have had to point this out to you. Please try harder
Within context, within the opening statement, yeah it is. It was a declaration that he can’t handle the job.
No, it was a comment on how he appeared in the interview. Maybe you disagree with the statement but it was a statement, not an argument.
It was not an ad him however much you want to believe it was.
“In these circumstances, it is not surprising that business are not making new investments, it looks too risky. Safer to keep spare capital in passive investments (either in NZ or offshore) or alternatively not borrow. The business will operate at a lower but safer level.”
There’s also the actions of a lot of New Zealand business that are causing these reactions as well. Take the actual and perceived losses of around 4 billion from Fletcher Building and Fontera, along with the M. Bovis debacle and there’s more than enough to give business the willies. This occurred under the leadership of the previous National government.
I look around Queenstown and see a lot of similarity to the situation in 2007 with a lot of developments that are unlikely to be profitable first time around. This has a chilling effect on business confidence.
Maybe New Zealand business, and the National Party, should look at their own actions and leadership before trying to blame someone else for their problems.
Unfortunately our “business leaders” and National politicians won’t be terribly affected by the fallout from the fuck-ups above, that will fall on the workers, subcontractors and share-milkers who will have their lives destroyed.
“The cost is lower growth, lower taxes, less employment growth.”
Did you ever stop and consider that the problem may be growth?
Wayne increasing wages means more money in businesses where this money is spent.
$880 million to bail out farmer’s.
Business confidence is over 50 which means business ha got over National loosing the election.
Just business leaders doing their expected “it’s a Labour government” hissy fit.
Saw it in 2000, same again.
Put Thompson & Clark onto them as they clearly need monitoring as a threat to the democratic process.
QFT
the Prime Minister’s baby name just announced: Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford. I am so proud of this Kiwi family, with both Jacinda and Clarke new role models of how men and women can be in the world – in my life time.
Aww that’s nice.
Irish and Maori – love pure as snow
You’ve made that comment entirely about yourself…Despite the vicarious nature of the comment…
Focus on your own journey, family and personal development…
Don’t look outward for inward inspiration…
Don’t shit on someone else’s inoffensive happiness just because your ego wants you to be Buddha.
Thank you One Two. Food for thought.
Sadly lacking you are sad it is
Millsy came 2nd in the Sweep, they guessed Aroha a few days ago.
It has finally been revealed. Little Prime Miniature’s real name is – Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford. (Snap -I now see Venezia has already announced the name.)
An uncommon first name which apparently is ( or maybe from) from an Old Irish feminine name “Niamh” pronounced Neev, meaning “bright” or radiant”, according to Wikipedia.
The first part of this bit in the Wikipedia entry made me laugh vis a vis the proud new father –
” In Irish mythology, Niamh is the daughter of the god of the sea, Manannán mac Lir and one of the queens of Tír na nÓg, the land of eternal youth. She was the lover of the poet-hero Oisín” .
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niamh
As mentioned by Jacinda Ardern in the press conference at 11am at the hospital before the Ardern Gayford family left for home, “Neve” also means “snow” in some languages – eg Latin, Italian and Portuguese.
Here is a link to the TVNZ article which includes video of the short press conference.
Mum looked radiant and not at all like someone who had had very little sleep over the last few days; and Dad is as proud as punch. Baby slept …
For the fashion conscious:
Neve was wearing a soft green home knitted hat, which virtually matched the jacket (and shoes) of one of their DPS minders. (LOL)
Mum wore a white top and black pants and white sneakers.
Dad wore his “trial father’s cardigan” as it was described in a (rather funny double act) video some months ago when he wore it for the first time. According to JA it was bought in an op shop.
https://www.facebook.com/1NEWSNZ/videos/10155101511151218/
Ooops, forgot to put in the link to the TVNZ video of the press conference.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/name-pm-jacinda-ardern-and-clarke-gayfords-newborn-baby-announced
Here is also the RNZ article with videos, photos, live blog.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/360285/watch-pm-jacinda-ardern-leaves-hospital-with-neve-te-aroha
VV, are you as passionate and expressive about and towards people you know personally?
You’re an a******e One Two.
For all you know “vv” does personally know Jacinda.
Piss off and play your puerile little games elsewhere.
Well said, Anne.
I wondered who would bite when I submitted my comment – and sure enough … LOL.
Just the usual One Two type of shitty comment. He/she thinks they are soooo clever. I gave up reading his/her comments a long time ago and just pass over them so did not see this one until someone pointed it out to me.
As for knowing JA, I am pretty sure that you and I are in the same position there if I correctly remember a comment of yours some months ago – but I am not going to say what that was. LOL
The Dad cardie is getting a lot of air time – apparently from the Sally’s op shop in Gisborne according to JA in her latest Facebook video.
.
She is going to be a Green!
Absolutely! I’m sure she won’t be a neoliberal Labourite like uncle Grant or uncle Stuart.
With the need for additional workers within some sectors e.g. “While the construction sector is set to get policy tweaks to allow for more migrant workers, the aged-care sector has been lobbying Lees-Galloway for more people.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/104863218/government-set-to-greenlight-skilled-foreign-workers-for-construction-sector
Can anyone out there point out if this will still be requirement ?
“Construction firms will be exempt from applying the existing labour market test to bring in up to 1,500 foreign tradespeople at any one time if employers promise to take on a local apprentice for every migrant under a new ‘KiwiBuild Visa’ proposed by Labour.”
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/88240/labours-immigration-policy-targets-kiwibuild-workers-and-apprentice-boost-aims-cut-20000
Fine to source overseas works BUT shouldn’t we also expect the same industries to “future proof” themselves and give a little back in exchange for this govt intervention ?
Jacinda and Clarke with their daughter, showed wonder grace happiness and kindness.
In her speech and answers she acknowledged all the kindness they had received, mentioning some had come from loss and sadness as well as open acceptance from NZers who had given love freely, from home made gifts to names, to the offer of placenta burial by Ngapui.
They looked a lovely wee family we can be proud of. I have had the good fortune to meet her prior to the election. She has gone from strength to strength and does us all proud, along with her clearly loving supportive partner.
Their selection of names shows a nod to their own choices coupled with a strong connection to love. “Love and happiness” the expectations for their daughter, Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford, are simple but profound.
https://youtu.be/aBkHb8e3UAk
OK, it SAYS “Flying car”, but it functions more like a human carrying drone. A car would surely be a more apt description if it had wheels and used the air current to lift about a meter or so off road so to speak.
Even so the Kitty Hawk is cool. Needs a roll bar type device.
It will be interesting to watch how this all develops. Safety will be a big concern I’d think, the potential for midair collisions will magnify very quickly if/when they become mainstream. Lots to think about.
I can imagine the rozzers scratching their heads wondering how they’ll get speed cameras up there…
You can’t have flying cars while humans pilot them. Far too dangerous.
Acoustic detection, tracking and classification of Low Flying Aircraft
Yeah, not difficult.
Where is Weka? Is Weka ok?
Weka disappeared at least two months ago. I recall ‘tracey’ responding to the same question with words to the effect “Weka is fine”.
I don’t know why she has left TS but suspect it might have something to do with some stoush in what is termed “the backend”. But that is no more than a guess and could be wrong.
around the time psycho milt was banned if my recollection is correct.
Doors opening soon.
Be there, or be square
https://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/auckland-fundraising-event-this-sunday/
Wrap up warm New Zealand.
Pile your firewood inside so you don’t have to go out.
Next three days is going to be incredibly cold; snow between 100 and 200 metres above sea level from Stewart Island and Fiordland right through Otago, and a long cold snap all the way up the centre and east of the North Island.
http://www.metservice.com/maps-radar/rain-forecast/rain-forecast-3-day
Its shaping up to be a significant cold event.
mean sea level pressure
http://cr.acg.maine.edu/wx_frames/gfs/ds/gfs_nh-sat6_mslp_1-day.png
500 hpa mass levels.
http://cr.acg.maine.edu/wx_frames/gfs/ds/gfs_nh-sat6_gph500_1-day.png
Jetstream (the polar night jet) coming straight from the Antarctic.
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We’ve already had it pretty cold lately Ad. Highs of 4 or 5 and lows of -5 to -6 at my place most of last week. Ice has been building up in shady areas of the garden. The woodburner has been running day and night.
A snow laden southerly usually means temps around 0 to 2 across the board so a bit of a relief really.
what region are you?
Southern Lakes near Queenstown. It’s currently about 1c and rain has turned to a sleety mix.
Good morning The Am Show one should not count there chickens Peter Burling came second .
Loyd would have still celebrated as a Kiwi salior won the race on Chinese boat Dong Fang and Blair Tuke came 3rd Ka pai.
Duncan everyone knows that buildings construction slow down in the winter one just makes a mess when you dig holes in the rain also the timber framing don’t pass there moisture test so there cladding cannot be installed many other reason that construction slows in winter less day light hours. Thats were prefab house increase house building productivity . These prefab building could target using the renewable resource we have a lot of laminated timber this product is alot less energy in producing this laminated timber products
The Kiwi Rugby League team and management are in rebuild mode you wait and see they will get back to there best form .
With the Roseanne Show in the USA that shows that te Papatuanuku has had enough of the racial discriminating slander Ka pai but the show gives US a view into the reality’s of common tangata in the USA and how hard they have it just to survive in the USA the big picture is we were heading in that direction till the changes we have had with the new Labour lead Coalition Government. Duncan Te kumara never tells how sweet it is
Ka kite ano P.S it is a super food loaded with good minerals good for the mokopunas
Many thanks to Saudi Arabia for granting the rights for ladies to drive cars this is a win for Ladies Equality around Papatuanuku as Saudi ladies have won the right to drive there are many more rights these ladies need to be granted to get to Equality its all about a bright healthy future for all Tangata link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/24/saudi-arabia-women-celebrate-as-driving-ban-lifted Ka kite ano
Pity the rest of the laws in that country are based on a brutal and backward religion.