“Mr Parker says the current model has led to huge profits from holders of hydro power stations which use water – a public resource – as fuel.
“The value of that has been captured by the generators and capitalised into their revalued balance sheets.”
Labour and the Greens’ solution is NZ Power’s “differential” pricing model, where generators would receive payment based on operating costs and a “fair” return on capital.”
Quote from NZ Herald – Adam Bennett 24/4
Re Greens/Labour NZ Power – does anybody know whether the “”Fair” return on capital” is going to be calculated on the pre revaluation capital (Historical cost) or the post over inflated revaluation of capital?
“does anybody know whether the “”Fair” return on capital” is going to be calculated on the pre revaluation capital”
They are a bit vague on that aren’t they? I doubt even they know, this is Labour here. When the dust settles people will start asking the right questions and I’m betting they won’t be able to answer them all.
Asset revaluations make up 76% of MRP’s equity. Just what are Labour’s intentions there?
The Geoff Bertram research paper on power showed the increase in power prices between 1990-2011 came mostly via the rising costs of the retail model, the retail side now making up 40% of the domestic price today (see page 13). NZ Power doesn’t look to be addressing that and Labour want to separate the generators from their retail arms which will add another layer of costs.
It’s very entertaining listening to the shrieking from the right but Labour will need to come up with the details & numbers sometime and until then it’s just politics IMO. These are, after all, the same people who bled us dry for nine years.
Essentially the same model that is used for Network Companies and that allows for such excessive “line charges”.
The profits will still be high as under that model it is good business for a Chinese company, closely linked to the Chinese Government to own all of the Wellington electricity network. I wonder who was in power when that lovely deal was done?
Of course the electricity market is dysfunctional and of course it produces excessive profits for the plethora of so called “power companies”.
The chief lobbyist on behalf of the proposed “power companies” to Bradford and other idiots was none other than that doyen of the left, Roger Sutton, now head of CERA and part of the Green Party royalty.
That is interesting DH, the Revaluation Reserve dwarfs the actual capital invested in the business…you’ve got to feel for people on low incomes having to pay returns on huge revaluations when they should be allowed to take advantage of low cost hydro electricity, one of our few competitive advantages as a nation. As a former Business Analysts in the Paper industry, if Greens/Labour are successful in reducing the cost of power , this has the potential to drive capacity and jobs away from Aus to NZ. I did a lot of analysis on this sort of thing over the years and because of Bradfords reforms NZ electricity costs were higher than Aussie’s, so we certainly didnt get any benefit in this area when we should have.
We hear panic from institutions that will take advantage of the MRP Float but we havent heard what industry people such as Graham Hart and SCA have to say about NZ Power. I would imagine that they would be pretty keen on the initiative. Maybe we could see a little more work on this by our hopeless MSM media?
If you look at page 13 you can see what the residential price of power is made up of. Generation looks to be only about 30% and as grumpy mentions above the ratio of distribution costs has gone up via their asset revaluations etc. To get a 10% cut in domestic retail prices just from generation alone would require something like a 35% drop in the wholesale price.
Further adding to the problem is Transpower haven’t kept depreciation reserves so now they’re charging for upgrades that should have been paid for by depreciation.
It may well be workable but there’s a hell of a lot more to it than meets the eye and until we hear some solid details I’m reserving my judgment.
Almost cries out for local government owned electricity distributors/retailers and central government owned generators and main trunk distributors eh? Oh….wait…..!
. . . These are, after all, the same people who bled us dry for nine years . . .
Seriously, if you take your facts from John Key you run the very real risk of being accused of being a liar. I think you’re just a parrot but if you repeat this sort of nonsense again, my position may have to change. Here’s what Blinglish said when faced with no option other than to tell the truth. . .
” . . . In the midst of the horrible outlook and depressing uncertainty about how bad it might get, English was forced to change his message about his inheritance from Labour . . . “In New Zealand we have room to respond. This is the rainy day that Government has been saving up for” he said . . .
Get that? Labour had done such a good job of running the economy in the nine years prior to National Ltd™ there was room to move and savings on hand.
“Seriously, if you take your facts from John Key you run the very real risk of being accused of being a liar. ”
And if you jump to wild conclusions you run the risk of being taken for a troll & ignored.
I was referring to the price of power, of which we were indeed severely bled during Labours nine year reign. If you want facts see Mike Smith’s graph on it here;
Note the blip is the Bradford years, the big rise in prices after that is… guess who
There’s a certain irony in the fact that Labour gleefully banked the bloated profits from the SOEs for nine years & now they’re using that very situation to turn the tables on the Nats. Good for them, I don’t like this Govt either, but you’ll have to forgive my doubts and cynicism when I see people who showed no sign of a conscience over power prices previously now having us believe they’ve developed one. Does a leopard really change its spots?
I’ve been thinking. Let’s assume that Mr Key believed at the time that he was acting unlawfully in his recruitment. He would feel obliged to duck and dive to avoid scrutiny. And did so until a week after the question was raised, he discovered that what he did was actually legal. Oh the agony! Oh the irony!
All that ducking for nothing. Fire that PR man and lick your unnecessary wounds.
Other events may have highlighted his personality, such as the bufoonery of the threeway, the schmoozing of his crush on Obama but I expect the Fletcher Files have exposed his true character moreso than any of his numerous blunders to date.
If he had nothing to hide, why did he see fit to hide everything ?
“If he had nothing to hide, why did he see fit to hide everything ?”
Either:
a) He does have something to hide.
b) He thinks he has something to hide but is really just a bit paranoid.
c) He’s so arrogant about his lying that bullshitting the public is now a default mode for him that he’s confident about slipping into for no good reason.
I agree ianmac, that is what prompted my reflection on the behaviour displayed and how this is different from the playful gleebug that delivered such clangers as the catwalk and David Letterman. I think we all agree, at the very least, the lies to parliament were an instinctive defence. This was the PM backing up to the electric fence after trying to cut through a siring pen.
Unfortunately, they’ve long taken over modern society. So this is not about resisting an invader, that was lost when Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.
Now, it’s about ejecting an occupying force who has massive and oversized influence over corporates, governments, central banks and media.
As well CV knows, look at how little punishment the banking/financial system has received in countries where they have caused far greater carnage than they have, so far, in NZ.
I would expect the *scientists* behind geo-engineering might have some idea Jenny, at least once the technology had developed, and the opportunity to study decades of *experimental results*, allowed great levels of control.
Ha! Don’t know where you dug that one up from, Joe 90, but it’s a classic. Muzza; it’s a video of your mum talking about the link between HAARP and Maurice Williamson’s rainbow. Boy, is she onto it!
Do you, jenny, joe90, and any others, like to state your view/position on geo-engineering, or do you want to pretend that its not going on, and attempt to draw conclusions about CC, and the environment, while factoring out, what could be a major influence.
Or you can continue to throw immature comments around the place..
Joe90, how’s SFO working out for you, didn’t see that information I asked you provide, perhaps I missed it…
To be fair if someone asked me to show where an airport, located on the coast was in relation to a pic of supposed contrails, looking like they were crossing the angles of a land-locked location, I would rather not provide it either eh 😉
You can look up the BBC contrails video, the one which now sells the story, that airline contrails are the *new cirrus clouds*, being seen around the world, and how the *cirrus clouds* were helping protect the earth from solar heat, and *keeping the temp down* – They even cite the planes grounded on 911, as some sort of evidence the *contrails*, are helping keep the earths temperature down. Look it up, and see how many holes you might identify in the propaganda!
It’s quite something to see the BBC deteriorate to such drivel, Voice you will love it, cos its on the beeb!
Muzz,
if it A) exists and B) is a major effect on climate change, then the IPCC and others would need to account for it in their reports to avoid major errors (due to not accommodating “geoengineering”). Do they?
If it A) exists but B) has no appreciable effect, it is pointless, so why would they bother?
It’s not my field (nor, I suspect, is it yours), but it seems to me that the major reports and peer-reviewed research have been pretty accurate about the trends, effects and rate of progression of climate change over the last couple of decades without including “geo-engineering”.
So “geo-engineering” is not necessary to incorporate into any theories about what’s going on with the climate.
So Occam’s Razor comes into play.
AND So you’re suggesting that at least thousands of people and dozens of countries are spending millions if not billions or trillions on a global conspiracy that has no appreciable effect.
McFlock, there are many assumptions in your response, as you could argue there are in my comments, and I would have to accept that.
Your faith/assumptions in the *system*, scientific community, is well meaning, as always though, its who ever controls the funding, controls the research, and its outputs, and that’s only what the public are told about, such as the IPCC published reports/findings etc.
Take the FDA as an example, why would the IPCC be any less open to similar takeover or corruption! – To leave out data from any research, is to steal opportunity for full disclosure, which is theft to be avoided at all costs, as it means people forms their views, make decisions, on an imcomplete data set!
Its a dangerous position for people’s own well being, to think they *know* such things are not happening, my position, if wrong, impacts no-one, not so the opposite position, which impacts everyone!
TC – Below, yes mate, I come from a family who have spent considerable time in the air (many moon miles awards actually), and in service, working in planes, on planes, and around planes, going back long before WW2
The lines in the sky these days, are not contrails, you can tell this because the genuine contrails are still rare, and beautiful, and look the same as they ever have, they don’t hang in the sky for hours, days or longer.
“The lines in the sky these days, are not contrails, you can tell this because the genuine contrails are still rare, and beautiful, and look the same as they ever have, they don’t hang in the sky for hours, days or longer.”
The same ‘persistent contrail’ phenomena have been observed since World War 2. They looked the same back then as they do now.
If the IPCC were wrong, then you would be able to point to a massive geo-engineering shaped gap between what they predict and the observed climate. Monckton et al have been trying this for years from another direction, and the only credibility they have eroded is their own.
But the real problem, why I give a damn about your delusions, is this:
, my position, if wrong, impacts no-one, not so the opposite position, which impacts everyone!
Your position, if wrong, is a distraction and diversion from the myriad of problems that exist today, Climate Change probably being the most serious. That does actually impact everyone. So you really need to be objectively correct, with actual evidence and a contiguous, strong case constantly being matched against observations in the real world.
McFlock – Again you’re not addressing my contention which is fraud, and corruption, via control of the information/data sets – I for one do not believe for a minute that there has not been massive fraud inside the scientific community over the CC information flows, research etc, and ultimately the lies which are being sold to the plebs, because thats what incomplete data leads to, lies!
The IPCC is as fraudulent as Monkton, the UN is a fraud, the IMF and WB are a fraud etc, there is no differentiating, the funds/backing come from the same place, the power rests in the same hands, really its rather straight forward. In simple terms for you, the world is a mess, because thats how its wanted to be, and if it was peace that was wanted, there would be peace!
Its as if you’re pretending to ignore that money controls everything, including science, scientists, the data, the research, and therefore the *results*. I know it hard for people to accept, but science is as controlled as any other industry!
*Science will save us* – That’s what many want to believe, it won’t, the system will not allow it to be that way!
As for your contention that I’m a distraction, when the truth comes out (note, it is already out), you’ll be wishing that’s what I had been!
In the meantime, we all have to live underneath, and with the policies of lies!
I for one do not believe for a minute that there has not been massive fraud inside the scientific community over the CC information flows, research etc, and ultimately the lies which are being sold to the plebs, because thats what incomplete data leads to, lies!
You know I’m not wholly unsympathetic with your thinking muzza. But I come from a different background to you, I’ve an engineering degree, I worked for a major science organisation for five years, I’ve worked in science and technology related areas more than 30 years, and many of my closest and most trusted friends are PhD’s who’ve worked directly in various geo-physical fields all their lives.
I can count four of them who have all direct field work and specific experience. I’ve had personal one on one conversations with them covering all manner of aspects of this topic. And yet even these four people are just a small random slice of the ‘science community’ whom I personally know by happenstance. The depth and detail they command of this subject, that they know from first-hand work leaves me gasping in their wake.
In the most sincere and genuine manner muzza I have to tell you that the idea that all these people are somehow involved in a world-wide conspiracy, over dozens of nations, thousands of institutions and tens of thousands of cranky, highly trained skeptics … is just plain wrong. The idea that all these people have been lying in unison for decades, all telling the same made up yet perfectly synchronised story ….without so much as one scrap of evidence of such a massively coordinated conspiracy anywhere…just cannot be sustained.
I’m not attacking you muzza. I’m simply asking you to consider that the science community is something a lot more complex and powerful than you’re imagining. It can make mistakes, it can get things wrong, it can take a while to correct it’s course, but one thing it doesn’t tolerate is fraud.
RL – I appreciate that you’re one of the more open minded on this site, and I respect what you have to say, and your comments and posts on this site. I usually take away a thought provoking angle in your writings.
However, with respect, your background lends no more kudos to the discussion than mine does, in real terms, and you have also assumed that I believe there is a wholesale cover up, which is not something I have ever eluded to on this topic!
Its needs not be far reaching, in fact given the history of *intelligence/covert* (Operation Popeye) nature of such industry of which details make the public arena, why do people expect that it would be wide spread, or that those involved could not keep it off radar, imagine how much has gone on, and is going on, that we may never hear of Red, that’s my point, always. Human history of top level lies and cover ups, is why I have this view, and it strikes me as naïve when people want to believe such undertakings are not happening!
In any case, the old adage that , its simply too big, too many people involved, it must have come out….Take a look at the banking industry Red, people know the fraud exists, heck, its the biggest open *non cover up* in the history of mankind, plus or minus, its in broad daylight, and what’s being done about it so far, NOTHING!
Consider the power of the money strings (I know you do), and how those who control the entire global financial structure, might just also use that monetary control in such nefarious ways, that mere mortals, including your PhD friends, and mine, have no understanding of whatsoever! Money controls the world, which includes the scientific, R&D industry, not to mention the tertiary structures of the world.
By the time the MSM (controlled by the intelligence industry, through the likes of GE), have rinsed any information, and sanitized it for public consumption, is it any surprise that cover up’s exist, you know as well as I do, it’s not!
I also have many PhD level friends, come in Europe, who are very liberal with sharing their research projects, and lab work carried out, where the funding came from etc not only by them, but those they also know, and I can tell that what I hear from them, would blow your mind!
Put it this way, I have friends who are CEO’s of huge NZ enterprises, and senior executives in many of the big four banks, and, when we speak, seem relatively supportive of what the neoliberal programme is doing, not exhaustively, but overall, that are good with it. My point is that those inside industry, have a large vested interest in it, and prone to bias, the same as any other, if not more so, science is no different, much as people might want to believe it is.
What is more complex and powerful (than any industry named), than you or I can ever imagine Red, is the control over every/any aspect of our existence, by the power players, whose names or faces , are the stuff of *conspiracy* !
Science, and scientists want to believe that they’re special, and in many ways they are, but when it comes to being controlled and or corrupted, at an individual level, or as big as IPCC, they are no different from your average human being, when the screws are turned, careers to protect, families to feed, lies to protect!
Quite why people need to believe that science, and related industry is above such behavior, can only be down to ego! – Note, this is not aimed at you, this is in a general sense!
Flooding after drought is typical, esp where you have land management practices that decrease drought resistance (that’s the kind we mostly use in NZ). If you keep pasture short and use other techniques to dehydrate that land, then the soil becomes hydrophobic ie it will repel water instead of absorbing it. Gardeners are usually well familiar with this phenomenon too. So when you get a lot of rain, it simply runs over the top of the ground, hence flooding. Our current river and stream management practices add to the problem, because they are generally kept clear and so water flows through them much faster, taking along with it much of the bank stability and any bare soil it comes into contact with..
The way around this is to conserve water in the ground all the time, and to build organic matter in the soil (it absorbs water).
A parallel would be losing your job, getting the dole, then picking up another job but continuing getting the dole while you ‘build back your reserves’
Running rings around a naïve Kiwi radio host
Radio NZ National, Nights with Bryan Crump
Tuesday 23 April 2013, 8:45 p.m.
Every two months, Bryan Crump speaks to someone from Israel, to find out what’s happening there. Sounds like a good idea, right?
Wrong. For some reason, Crump’s producers have seen fit to saddle him with Liat Colliins, a columnist on the extreme right Jerusalem Post. Liat Collins is an utterly notorious propagandist, an uncritical and unceasing booster of the Holy State, and she never loses a chance to get one past Crump, who seems ill-informed and naïve to an almost criminal extent….
LIAT COLLINS: Ehhhmmmm. We had two rocket attacks from the south last week. Ehhhmmm.
BRYAN CRUMP: Oh no, have they started launching rockets again?
LIAT COLLINS: No, no, these were from Egyptian-occupied Sinai. These incidents have increased since the fall of Mubarak.
BRYAN CRUMP: Ohhhhh, I seeeeee….
LIAT COLLINS: We had basically a WAR last year.
BRYAN CRUMP:[sympathetically] Mmmmm, mmmm.
LIAT COLLINS: It’s only getting worse since the Arab Spring. I was never optimistic about the Arab Spring, I’m afraid.
BRYAN CRUMP: Mmmmmm, mmmmmm…
Not one of Collins’ statements is challenged by Crump. Not one.
Bryan Crump is one of the smartest and most sensitive people on the radio, but when it comes to Israel-Palestine, he apparently knows nothing. Which means people like Liat Collins, who are nothing more than fanatics posing as journalists, just walk all over him.
Here are a few other observations I have made about Bryan Crump and the dodgy “middle east correspondents” his producers have lumped on him….
“I was never optimistic about the Arab Spring, I’m afraid”.
Oh of course not you poor oppressed thing. Zionist fanatics are optimistic about nothing, to the point where they caricature themselves.
Except of course as to the singular “exceptionalism” they claim on behalf of the fanatical, oppressed turned oppressors, Zionist state. Where a cold, advised, virulent, evil apartheid prevails.
Fast recovery though on graph on the Rodrigo twit after that fall – BAU. Fantails say a lot which I don’t understand, human twitters seem likely to be stream of consciousness stuff still hard to comprehend the reasoning.
remember, traders make the most money on volatility not on stability. Price stability actually means frak all profits for the banksters and the money traders. And with high speed automated algorithmic trading, they can cause “flash crashes” at will (or accidentally).
We can see the stocks traded but because we can’t see the related and highly leveraged derivative activity, its quite likely the transactions around the movement were much larger than that in total.
But all you hear the RWNJ drum beat for is austerity on the already poor.
I prefer piwakawaka tweets…what they are saying to me as I walk the path is “Be a useful creature and disturb my food so that I might eat”. This of course makes perfect sense.
Digital tweets I don’t understand, yes the language can be comprehended but the thinking is anybodies guess. You can make noise on any instrument you like but without tuning it and learning to play music…….
as the above events indicates, this “value” is simply a pyramid scheme casino based scam. And RWNJs think that this is what the economy should be all about.
I can see that this is true. Every time there is a change in the market value of stock, someone has an opportunity to hedge or something on a further change. It is very casino-like. Meanwhile the currency that we exchange to provide for our necessities is being turned into monopoly money but we still go on with the game earnestly trying to buy that attractive property here and here and here.
To anyone interested in National Standards, or education in general, I highly recommend Puddleglum’s three part investigation at ‘The Political Scientist’.
Note: I have linked to the site rather than one of the three individual posts. The top of the page is part three, so you might want to scroll down to part one if you haven’t already read it.
A teaser from part three:
Given that a good part of the justification for introducing National Standards is to do with the so-called ‘long tail’ of underachieving students, it is remarkable that those standards explicitly embody a monitoring and assessment strategy well known – from psychological research – to exacerbate initial inequalities in ‘expertise’, or ‘achievement’. ‘Novices’ will not do well under observation.
Once again, Gray (2013, p. 133) says it so much better:
…with their incessant monitoring and evaluation of students’ performance, schools seem to be ideally designed to boost the performances of those who are already good and to interfere with learning… of those who are not so proficient*
……of those who have somehow already learned the school tasks, maybe at home, generally perform well in this setting, but those who haven’t tend to flounder. Evaluation drives a wedge between those who already know how and those who don’t, pushing the former up and the latter down.
It gets worse.
We are, today, almost incessantly told that creativity and innovation are the keys to success in the modern economy – whether as individuals or as nations. An interesting study of rates of creativity in succeeding generations of American children was recently reported by Kyung Hee Kim (2011) – (see her own outline of the research here). Briefly, on all sub-measures of creativity, the evidence is that it is declining in the United States – supposedly the Western home of creativity and innovation.
*I added my own words here to try and clarify the meaning. I hope that was okay Puddleglum?
Pink Floyd Animals is an incredible album that is severely underrated in the context of their other work. Its so good it makes the world seem ok when listening to it. =)
Garth McVicar is STILL being treated seriously by Radio New Zealand. Why?
Radio NZ National, Wednesday 24 April 2013
I’ve just heard something slimy and extremely unpleasant on the 11 a.m. news. S.S. Führer Garth “The Knife” McVicar is ranting again, and grooming another victim of a violent crime. This time he’s moving on the mother of murdered Christchurch schoolgirl Jade Bayliss.
There are several reasons why this monster of hypocrisy should not be given any air-time:
1.) McVicar himself is currently being tried on very serious charges;
2.) McVicar cannot even remotely be regarded as a “victims’ advocate” (as Radio New Zealand persists in calling him) in light of his outrageous and callous behaviour following the knife-killing of Pihema Cameron in 2008;
3.) Following his loud and frequently reiterated support for the grave-robber, serial sexual harasser and doctor-basher David Garrett, McVicar surely has no credibility whatsoever.
But he is being reported, and quoted, on National Radio as if he is a serious commentator.
A lawyer for the Human Rights Commission has told a court the Sensible Sentencing Trust not only broke name suppression for a convicted paedophile, but breached his privacy by getting his private police record.
The commission is prosecuting the trust at the Auckland District Court on Wednesday for breaching the rights of the man who was jailed in 1995 for 12 months for five offences that took place in 1975 and 1978 against two girls….
Read the rest and find out who the S.S. Trust’s lawyer is…..
Indeed it is. We didn’t need any further confirmation of course, but keeping that discredited, almost universally reviled villain on as a “legal counsel” underlines the fact that McVicar, as well as being completely shameless, lacks even a semblance of common sense.
Why? Well, because he lends himself rather nicely to the culture that relies on vaccuous soundbites that can masquerade as informed opinion. You can’t have thoughtful people ‘entertained’ by todays media. That wouldn’t be entertaining at all, as it would require a level of engagement. Which is to say that the formally passive listener would be afforded the opportunity to invest time, analysis, thought and reflection that would lead to the formation of informed opinions. And at that point, things are getting ‘out of hand’; beyond a comforting nicely packaged presentation that has ‘everything in its right place’ – ie, where everything is more or less ordered and controled.
Yup. He is. And that requires no great thought or reflection. And that’s then posited against whatever. And it’s the simple juxtaposition that is meant to determine the breadth and depth of your opinions…basically an invitation to indulge in pinning flags to masts.
what about this tragedy whereby some no-nuts has taken the lives of two young people, one in Aus, one here. The lives some people live is unbelievable; very sad.
Facts are so often fiction these days. It is increasingly difficult to trust the figures in the stated numbers of jobs available. Just now, when going over all the jobs listed on-line for my area, over half of the positions advertised where already filled, or the application date had passed, yet were still listed in the total jobs available. These are the very same listings that are being quoted in Parliament and parroted in the media every week.
It is kind of sad that the MSM are simply not bothering to investigate the data they report on. Guess there is no real need for reality anymore.
The only jobs really vacant in New Zealand are to do with farming, IT (though you are underpaid and overworked compared to overseas), crap temporary services jobs (a few months and you are out) and recruitment agencies. Every week skilled, unskilled or highly qualified, everyone is leaving the no job, low pay economy under National. Think of how Romney supporters believed their idol couldn’t lose, National supporters in the MSM are the same…they refuse to accept reality. 😉
It’s worse than that freedom – and its been going on for years. One job advertised by many different agencies – i.e. the same job.
Anyone that’s ever placed a vacancy in the hands of agencies should know this – and they’ll be aware of the bullshit you’ve identified as well – i.e. listings still current once the position has been filled. At one time, agencies used to do it in order to get prospective candidates and CVs on their books.
It’d be useful for one of those ‘consumer watchdogs’ to investigate.
Oh wait – we don’t have any that are effective, or that have the means to access the necessary information. And IF we did, how the hell would those bank financial gurus be able to justify various ‘business confidence’ claims?
It’s 2013, time for the News
The Neo-Liberal agenda got a solid thirty year opportunity to prove itself. Any basic measure proves complete failure on its stated promise of trickle down economic benefits to the general populace. All benchmarks show real world inflation adjusted incomes are lower, living costs are higher and every single day more and more people are worse off than when the crew of the good ship SelfishFuck put this raft to sea in the early 80’s. It is time to scuttle the ship and swim back to land, there is no new frontier across the way. Just the everyday necessity of work and homes and lives that need protecting and support. The sad part is we increasingly need protecting from those who are elected to represent us.
That blithering nincompoop Peter Dunne could not organise drinkies in a champaign bar!
His inability to sort out the “Synthetic Cannabis” nonsense is on par with his incompetence on Revenue.
Labour should be hitting The Lord of Ohariu like a billio!
That blithering nincompoop Peter Dunne could not organise drinkies in a champaign bar!
Dunne couldn’t organise a root in a brothel, he couldn’t organise a right-wing rant at a Sensible Sentencing Trust meeting, he couldn’t organise a high tackle in a Samoa versus Tonga football match, he couldn’t organise a glib remark in an episode of Jim Mora’s Panel show, he couldn’t organise an inappropriate remark in a pub conversation involving Bob Clarkson, Winston Peters, Pam Corkery and Richard Prosser.
Wellington Labour is now afraid to take on Dunne in Ohariu.
Charles Chauvel would have rolled Dunne at the next election, had he not been pushed out of the party by Grant Robertson.
Robertson led Labour to THIRD place behind the Greens in Wellington. And he still thinks he should be treated like he is a competent street politician or something! Grant Robertson is still only a back-room jostler and only comfortable between the Westpac Stadium and the Basin Reserve. Outside of there Robertson is a wus and a legend in his own lunchtime.
Look at the combined Wellington Labour party-vote over the past few elections and you will see ROT. And you will see Grant Robertson.
Dunne is safe as long as Wellington Labour continues to repeat the same same same .
If and when the Brethren-financed National M.P. Maurice Williamson appears on Ellen, will he be obliged to dance his way on to the stage, like every other guest on this horrible, horrible programme?
Thanks, Paul, but today’s show is just too dull to get excited about. So far, anyway. (It’s 4:39 right now.) Highlight so far was when Mora used the word “obesogenic”, which impressed me if nobody else.
Less impressively, he has again quoted David Brooks, the right wing New York Times columnist. He has done that a lot over the years, and it’s a worry. He invariably quotes Brooks with approval, which raises grave questions about Mora’s judgement, as well as the depth and breadth of his reading.
Otherwise, the discussions have been pretty ho-hum.
Did I just hear Jeremy Ellwood say just now that NZers are now more interested in ANZAC Day because we’ve been involved in wars recently…like Iraq?
Obviously members of the panel are not required to be informed to pontificate on subjects!
No one picked him up on it either.
Yes, you heard right, my friend. Elwood is not particularly well informed. It’s just a pity that some crusty old right winger wasn’t on the show today, so that Elwood could have bent over backwards to agree with everything the old codger said. That’s when Elwood is at his (unintentional) funniest.
Elwood’s schtick on 7 Days consists of sitting with a glum look of rebuke on his puss whenever Dai Henwood and the others veer off into insensitive or politically incorrect territory, which is of course for practically the whole show. The only person who has ever looked unhappier and more dispproving is Elwood’s similarly “right on” partner Michelle Acourt.
This arvo, Greenpeace activists have occupied a coal ship bound for Sth Korea. The occupied ship is near Aussies’s Great Barrier reef. They are protesting about Aussie’s coal industry.
I guess they don’t have to worry about legislation restricting protests.
That BP lied about the amount of oil it discharged into the gulf is already established. Lying to Congress about that was one of 14 felonies to which BP pleaded guilty last year in a legal settlement with the Justice Department that included a $4.5 billion fine, the largest fine ever levied against a corporation in the U.S.
What has not been revealed until now is how BP hid that massive amount of oil from TV cameras and the price that this “disappearing act” imposed on cleanup workers, coastal residents, and the ecosystem of the gulf. That story can now be told because an anonymous whistleblower has provided evidence that BP was warned in advance about the safety risks of attempting to cover up its leaking oil. Nevertheless, BP proceeded. Furthermore, BP appears to have withheld these safety warnings, as well as protective measures, both from the thousands of workers hired for the cleanup and from the millions of Gulf Coast residents who stood to be affected.
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
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 ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
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Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
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I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
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“Mr Parker says the current model has led to huge profits from holders of hydro power stations which use water – a public resource – as fuel.
“The value of that has been captured by the generators and capitalised into their revalued balance sheets.”
Labour and the Greens’ solution is NZ Power’s “differential” pricing model, where generators would receive payment based on operating costs and a “fair” return on capital.”
Quote from NZ Herald – Adam Bennett 24/4
Re Greens/Labour NZ Power – does anybody know whether the “”Fair” return on capital” is going to be calculated on the pre revaluation capital (Historical cost) or the post over inflated revaluation of capital?
“does anybody know whether the “”Fair” return on capital” is going to be calculated on the pre revaluation capital”
They are a bit vague on that aren’t they? I doubt even they know, this is Labour here. When the dust settles people will start asking the right questions and I’m betting they won’t be able to answer them all.
This is Mighty River’s equity;
Issued capital 377,561,000
Retained earnings 487,628,000
Asset revaluation reserves 2,300,652,000
Cash flow hedge reserve -118,872,000
Forex reserve -32,048,000
Total equity $3.014 billion
Asset revaluations make up 76% of MRP’s equity. Just what are Labour’s intentions there?
The Geoff Bertram research paper on power showed the increase in power prices between 1990-2011 came mostly via the rising costs of the retail model, the retail side now making up 40% of the domestic price today (see page 13). NZ Power doesn’t look to be addressing that and Labour want to separate the generators from their retail arms which will add another layer of costs.
It’s very entertaining listening to the shrieking from the right but Labour will need to come up with the details & numbers sometime and until then it’s just politics IMO. These are, after all, the same people who bled us dry for nine years.
Essentially the same model that is used for Network Companies and that allows for such excessive “line charges”.
The profits will still be high as under that model it is good business for a Chinese company, closely linked to the Chinese Government to own all of the Wellington electricity network. I wonder who was in power when that lovely deal was done?
Of course the electricity market is dysfunctional and of course it produces excessive profits for the plethora of so called “power companies”.
The chief lobbyist on behalf of the proposed “power companies” to Bradford and other idiots was none other than that doyen of the left, Roger Sutton, now head of CERA and part of the Green Party royalty.
That is interesting DH, the Revaluation Reserve dwarfs the actual capital invested in the business…you’ve got to feel for people on low incomes having to pay returns on huge revaluations when they should be allowed to take advantage of low cost hydro electricity, one of our few competitive advantages as a nation. As a former Business Analysts in the Paper industry, if Greens/Labour are successful in reducing the cost of power , this has the potential to drive capacity and jobs away from Aus to NZ. I did a lot of analysis on this sort of thing over the years and because of Bradfords reforms NZ electricity costs were higher than Aussie’s, so we certainly didnt get any benefit in this area when we should have.
We hear panic from institutions that will take advantage of the MRP Float but we havent heard what industry people such as Graham Hart and SCA have to say about NZ Power. I would imagine that they would be pretty keen on the initiative. Maybe we could see a little more work on this by our hopeless MSM media?
you read it here first 😉
Aye, there is a whole lot more to it than simply reducing generation charges. Mike Smith linked to the Bertram research paper here;
https://www.dropbox.com/s/82w3do7x96enjv2/LHREnergySectors.pdf
If you look at page 13 you can see what the residential price of power is made up of. Generation looks to be only about 30% and as grumpy mentions above the ratio of distribution costs has gone up via their asset revaluations etc. To get a 10% cut in domestic retail prices just from generation alone would require something like a 35% drop in the wholesale price.
Further adding to the problem is Transpower haven’t kept depreciation reserves so now they’re charging for upgrades that should have been paid for by depreciation.
It may well be workable but there’s a hell of a lot more to it than meets the eye and until we hear some solid details I’m reserving my judgment.
Almost cries out for local government owned electricity distributors/retailers and central government owned generators and main trunk distributors eh? Oh….wait…..!
haha someone with a working memory!
Seriously, if you take your facts from John Key you run the very real risk of being accused of being a liar. I think you’re just a parrot but if you repeat this sort of nonsense again, my position may have to change. Here’s what Blinglish said when faced with no option other than to tell the truth. . .
Get that? Labour had done such a good job of running the economy in the nine years prior to National Ltd™ there was room to move and savings on hand.
“Seriously, if you take your facts from John Key you run the very real risk of being accused of being a liar. ”
And if you jump to wild conclusions you run the risk of being taken for a troll & ignored.
I was referring to the price of power, of which we were indeed severely bled during Labours nine year reign. If you want facts see Mike Smith’s graph on it here;
http://thestandard.org.nz/power-profits-and-the-consumer/
Note the blip is the Bradford years, the big rise in prices after that is… guess who
There’s a certain irony in the fact that Labour gleefully banked the bloated profits from the SOEs for nine years & now they’re using that very situation to turn the tables on the Nats. Good for them, I don’t like this Govt either, but you’ll have to forgive my doubts and cynicism when I see people who showed no sign of a conscience over power prices previously now having us believe they’ve developed one. Does a leopard really change its spots?
“Does a leopard really change its spots?”
Chameleons more like it, but really just one more reason to vote Green don’t you think DH
Fantastic question! If its only $300 a year saving per person and hydro costs 1c/kWh then I bet it is on the inflated book value.
Yet another one for BliP’s big list ‘o’ lies; it turns out Key met Fletcher for brekkie during the selection process.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8588475/Key-met-spy-candidate-for-breakfast
The really fun stuff will be when Key’s going/gone and Felcher turns on him.
I see what you did there 😉
And now it appears that Key’s involvement in Fletcher’s hiring was covered up even before the scandal broke: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10879399
I’ve been thinking. Let’s assume that Mr Key believed at the time that he was acting unlawfully in his recruitment. He would feel obliged to duck and dive to avoid scrutiny. And did so until a week after the question was raised, he discovered that what he did was actually legal. Oh the agony! Oh the irony!
All that ducking for nothing. Fire that PR man and lick your unnecessary wounds.
Other events may have highlighted his personality, such as the bufoonery of the threeway, the schmoozing of his crush on Obama but I expect the Fletcher Files have exposed his true character moreso than any of his numerous blunders to date.
If he had nothing to hide, why did he see fit to hide everything ?
“If he had nothing to hide, why did he see fit to hide everything ?”
Either:
a) He does have something to hide.
b) He thinks he has something to hide but is really just a bit paranoid.
c) He’s so arrogant about his lying that bullshitting the public is now a default mode for him that he’s confident about slipping into for no good reason.
My thought was that Key thought what he had done was illegal. Hence the lying about it. Then found that what he did was legal after all. Ironic?
Yep. The point is that none of these possibilities are a good look for Key.
I agree ianmac, that is what prompted my reflection on the behaviour displayed and how this is different from the playful gleebug that delivered such clangers as the catwalk and David Letterman. I think we all agree, at the very least, the lies to parliament were an instinctive defence. This was the PM backing up to the electric fence after trying to cut through a siring pen.
Chris Trotter on consulting economic “gurus”.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/04/23/no-dog-in-the-fight-whatever-happened-to-academic-expertise/
Nice piece. So sick of the bank men on network news shows, with their soul patches and smug expressions, acting as though they’re unbiased.
Banks like to get in the veins of society. That is why they must be heavily resisted and controlled. Like drugs.
I like your thinking.
Unfortunately, they’ve long taken over modern society. So this is not about resisting an invader, that was lost when Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.
Now, it’s about ejecting an occupying force who has massive and oversized influence over corporates, governments, central banks and media.
As well CV knows, look at how little punishment the banking/financial system has received in countries where they have caused far greater carnage than they have, so far, in NZ.
Steal a £15 bottle of Pimms during the London riots, get a year in prison.
Steal £150,000,000 from workers pension funds, get a knighthood.
A year for £15 Pimms? – that person got off lightly. How about 6 months imprisonment for £3.50 of water?
When it comes to agriculture…. Drought, Flood, Drought, is predicted to be the “New Normal”.
But who knew they could exist at the same time?
Drought status likely to remain until September
I would expect the *scientists* behind geo-engineering might have some idea Jenny, at least once the technology had developed, and the opportunity to study decades of *experimental results*, allowed great levels of control.
New normal – As if any of this is *normal* !
Without being able to see the link Joe, hows about you let me know the key points, just a summary will do!
Ha! Don’t know where you dug that one up from, Joe 90, but it’s a classic. Muzza; it’s a video of your mum talking about the link between HAARP and Maurice Williamson’s rainbow. Boy, is she onto it!
Poor taste use of *the mum comment* aside..
Do you, jenny, joe90, and any others, like to state your view/position on geo-engineering, or do you want to pretend that its not going on, and attempt to draw conclusions about CC, and the environment, while factoring out, what could be a major influence.
Or you can continue to throw immature comments around the place..
Joe90, how’s SFO working out for you, didn’t see that information I asked you provide, perhaps I missed it…
To be fair if someone asked me to show where an airport, located on the coast was in relation to a pic of supposed contrails, looking like they were crossing the angles of a land-locked location, I would rather not provide it either eh 😉
You can look up the BBC contrails video, the one which now sells the story, that airline contrails are the *new cirrus clouds*, being seen around the world, and how the *cirrus clouds* were helping protect the earth from solar heat, and *keeping the temp down* – They even cite the planes grounded on 911, as some sort of evidence the *contrails*, are helping keep the earths temperature down. Look it up, and see how many holes you might identify in the propaganda!
It’s quite something to see the BBC deteriorate to such drivel, Voice you will love it, cos its on the beeb!
Muzz,
if it A) exists and B) is a major effect on climate change, then the IPCC and others would need to account for it in their reports to avoid major errors (due to not accommodating “geoengineering”). Do they?
If it A) exists but B) has no appreciable effect, it is pointless, so why would they bother?
It’s not my field (nor, I suspect, is it yours), but it seems to me that the major reports and peer-reviewed research have been pretty accurate about the trends, effects and rate of progression of climate change over the last couple of decades without including “geo-engineering”.
So “geo-engineering” is not necessary to incorporate into any theories about what’s going on with the climate.
So Occam’s Razor comes into play.
AND So you’re suggesting that at least thousands of people and dozens of countries are spending millions if not billions or trillions on a global conspiracy that has no appreciable effect.
McFlock, there are many assumptions in your response, as you could argue there are in my comments, and I would have to accept that.
Your faith/assumptions in the *system*, scientific community, is well meaning, as always though, its who ever controls the funding, controls the research, and its outputs, and that’s only what the public are told about, such as the IPCC published reports/findings etc.
Take the FDA as an example, why would the IPCC be any less open to similar takeover or corruption! – To leave out data from any research, is to steal opportunity for full disclosure, which is theft to be avoided at all costs, as it means people forms their views, make decisions, on an imcomplete data set!
Its a dangerous position for people’s own well being, to think they *know* such things are not happening, my position, if wrong, impacts no-one, not so the opposite position, which impacts everyone!
TC – Below, yes mate, I come from a family who have spent considerable time in the air (many moon miles awards actually), and in service, working in planes, on planes, and around planes, going back long before WW2
The lines in the sky these days, are not contrails, you can tell this because the genuine contrails are still rare, and beautiful, and look the same as they ever have, they don’t hang in the sky for hours, days or longer.
Only the very foolish will believe that nonsense!
“The lines in the sky these days, are not contrails, you can tell this because the genuine contrails are still rare, and beautiful, and look the same as they ever have, they don’t hang in the sky for hours, days or longer.”
The same ‘persistent contrail’ phenomena have been observed since World War 2. They looked the same back then as they do now.
No, they don’t!
Amazing how they have only started to show up in NZ looking this way over the past 5-10 years though!
“No, they don’t!”
Well, yeah they did.
http://contrailscience.com/contrail-photos-through-history/
Nothing about the recent arrival of these *hybrid* trails in NZ from you then,,,why is that you think!
TC – Oh dear, and you call people with my POV conspiracy theorists..
At least learn to read through what is an obvious disinfo site, my goodness!
Muzz,
If the IPCC were wrong, then you would be able to point to a massive geo-engineering shaped gap between what they predict and the observed climate. Monckton et al have been trying this for years from another direction, and the only credibility they have eroded is their own.
But the real problem, why I give a damn about your delusions, is this:
Your position, if wrong, is a distraction and diversion from the myriad of problems that exist today, Climate Change probably being the most serious. That does actually impact everyone. So you really need to be objectively correct, with actual evidence and a contiguous, strong case constantly being matched against observations in the real world.
Much like the IPCC did with its reports.
McFlock – Again you’re not addressing my contention which is fraud, and corruption, via control of the information/data sets – I for one do not believe for a minute that there has not been massive fraud inside the scientific community over the CC information flows, research etc, and ultimately the lies which are being sold to the plebs, because thats what incomplete data leads to, lies!
The IPCC is as fraudulent as Monkton, the UN is a fraud, the IMF and WB are a fraud etc, there is no differentiating, the funds/backing come from the same place, the power rests in the same hands, really its rather straight forward. In simple terms for you, the world is a mess, because thats how its wanted to be, and if it was peace that was wanted, there would be peace!
Its as if you’re pretending to ignore that money controls everything, including science, scientists, the data, the research, and therefore the *results*. I know it hard for people to accept, but science is as controlled as any other industry!
*Science will save us* – That’s what many want to believe, it won’t, the system will not allow it to be that way!
As for your contention that I’m a distraction, when the truth comes out (note, it is already out), you’ll be wishing that’s what I had been!
In the meantime, we all have to live underneath, and with the policies of lies!
I for one do not believe for a minute that there has not been massive fraud inside the scientific community over the CC information flows, research etc, and ultimately the lies which are being sold to the plebs, because thats what incomplete data leads to, lies!
You know I’m not wholly unsympathetic with your thinking muzza. But I come from a different background to you, I’ve an engineering degree, I worked for a major science organisation for five years, I’ve worked in science and technology related areas more than 30 years, and many of my closest and most trusted friends are PhD’s who’ve worked directly in various geo-physical fields all their lives.
I can count four of them who have all direct field work and specific experience. I’ve had personal one on one conversations with them covering all manner of aspects of this topic. And yet even these four people are just a small random slice of the ‘science community’ whom I personally know by happenstance. The depth and detail they command of this subject, that they know from first-hand work leaves me gasping in their wake.
In the most sincere and genuine manner muzza I have to tell you that the idea that all these people are somehow involved in a world-wide conspiracy, over dozens of nations, thousands of institutions and tens of thousands of cranky, highly trained skeptics … is just plain wrong. The idea that all these people have been lying in unison for decades, all telling the same made up yet perfectly synchronised story ….without so much as one scrap of evidence of such a massively coordinated conspiracy anywhere…just cannot be sustained.
I’m not attacking you muzza. I’m simply asking you to consider that the science community is something a lot more complex and powerful than you’re imagining. It can make mistakes, it can get things wrong, it can take a while to correct it’s course, but one thing it doesn’t tolerate is fraud.
RL – I appreciate that you’re one of the more open minded on this site, and I respect what you have to say, and your comments and posts on this site. I usually take away a thought provoking angle in your writings.
However, with respect, your background lends no more kudos to the discussion than mine does, in real terms, and you have also assumed that I believe there is a wholesale cover up, which is not something I have ever eluded to on this topic!
Its needs not be far reaching, in fact given the history of *intelligence/covert* (Operation Popeye) nature of such industry of which details make the public arena, why do people expect that it would be wide spread, or that those involved could not keep it off radar, imagine how much has gone on, and is going on, that we may never hear of Red, that’s my point, always. Human history of top level lies and cover ups, is why I have this view, and it strikes me as naïve when people want to believe such undertakings are not happening!
In any case, the old adage that , its simply too big, too many people involved, it must have come out….Take a look at the banking industry Red, people know the fraud exists, heck, its the biggest open *non cover up* in the history of mankind, plus or minus, its in broad daylight, and what’s being done about it so far, NOTHING!
Consider the power of the money strings (I know you do), and how those who control the entire global financial structure, might just also use that monetary control in such nefarious ways, that mere mortals, including your PhD friends, and mine, have no understanding of whatsoever! Money controls the world, which includes the scientific, R&D industry, not to mention the tertiary structures of the world.
By the time the MSM (controlled by the intelligence industry, through the likes of GE), have rinsed any information, and sanitized it for public consumption, is it any surprise that cover up’s exist, you know as well as I do, it’s not!
I also have many PhD level friends, come in Europe, who are very liberal with sharing their research projects, and lab work carried out, where the funding came from etc not only by them, but those they also know, and I can tell that what I hear from them, would blow your mind!
Put it this way, I have friends who are CEO’s of huge NZ enterprises, and senior executives in many of the big four banks, and, when we speak, seem relatively supportive of what the neoliberal programme is doing, not exhaustively, but overall, that are good with it. My point is that those inside industry, have a large vested interest in it, and prone to bias, the same as any other, if not more so, science is no different, much as people might want to believe it is.
What is more complex and powerful (than any industry named), than you or I can ever imagine Red, is the control over every/any aspect of our existence, by the power players, whose names or faces , are the stuff of *conspiracy* !
Science, and scientists want to believe that they’re special, and in many ways they are, but when it comes to being controlled and or corrupted, at an individual level, or as big as IPCC, they are no different from your average human being, when the screws are turned, careers to protect, families to feed, lies to protect!
Quite why people need to believe that science, and related industry is above such behavior, can only be down to ego! – Note, this is not aimed at you, this is in a general sense!
Muzza, did you know persistent contrails have been recorded since World War 2?
Every single photograph of a persistent contrail before 1993 is a fake WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!
heh – the sirens in the background are kind of appropriate on that one 🙂
“But who knew they could exist at the same time?”
Flooding after drought is typical, esp where you have land management practices that decrease drought resistance (that’s the kind we mostly use in NZ). If you keep pasture short and use other techniques to dehydrate that land, then the soil becomes hydrophobic ie it will repel water instead of absorbing it. Gardeners are usually well familiar with this phenomenon too. So when you get a lot of rain, it simply runs over the top of the ground, hence flooding. Our current river and stream management practices add to the problem, because they are generally kept clear and so water flows through them much faster, taking along with it much of the bank stability and any bare soil it comes into contact with..
The way around this is to conserve water in the ground all the time, and to build organic matter in the soil (it absorbs water).
Colin Craig says you should blame gay marriage.
A parallel would be losing your job, getting the dole, then picking up another job but continuing getting the dole while you ‘build back your reserves’
Only for farmers.
Running rings around a naïve Kiwi radio host
Radio NZ National, Nights with Bryan Crump
Tuesday 23 April 2013, 8:45 p.m.
Every two months, Bryan Crump speaks to someone from Israel, to find out what’s happening there. Sounds like a good idea, right?
Wrong. For some reason, Crump’s producers have seen fit to saddle him with Liat Colliins, a columnist on the extreme right Jerusalem Post. Liat Collins is an utterly notorious propagandist, an uncritical and unceasing booster of the Holy State, and she never loses a chance to get one past Crump, who seems ill-informed and naïve to an almost criminal extent….
LIAT COLLINS: Ehhhmmmm. We had two rocket attacks from the south last week. Ehhhmmm.
BRYAN CRUMP: Oh no, have they started launching rockets again?
LIAT COLLINS: No, no, these were from Egyptian-occupied Sinai. These incidents have increased since the fall of Mubarak.
BRYAN CRUMP: Ohhhhh, I seeeeee….
LIAT COLLINS: We had basically a WAR last year.
BRYAN CRUMP: [sympathetically] Mmmmm, mmmm.
LIAT COLLINS: It’s only getting worse since the Arab Spring. I was never optimistic about the Arab Spring, I’m afraid.
BRYAN CRUMP: Mmmmmm, mmmmmm…
Not one of Collins’ statements is challenged by Crump. Not one.
Bryan Crump is one of the smartest and most sensitive people on the radio, but when it comes to Israel-Palestine, he apparently knows nothing. Which means people like Liat Collins, who are nothing more than fanatics posing as journalists, just walk all over him.
Here are a few other observations I have made about Bryan Crump and the dodgy “middle east correspondents” his producers have lumped on him….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29032011/#comment-314173
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04072011/#comment-347912
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-12072011/#comment-352724
“I was never optimistic about the Arab Spring, I’m afraid”.
Oh of course not you poor oppressed thing. Zionist fanatics are optimistic about nothing, to the point where they caricature themselves.
Except of course as to the singular “exceptionalism” they claim on behalf of the fanatical, oppressed turned oppressors, Zionist state. Where a cold, advised, virulent, evil apartheid prevails.
This is how you do economic sabotage.
RT @Didz1234 “AP’s fake tweet erased $136 billion in equity market value in 3 minutes”
https://twitter.com/Official_SEA6/status/326786844266229760
https://twitter.com/RodrigoEBR/status/326747829160775681/photo/1
Fast recovery though on graph on the Rodrigo twit after that fall – BAU. Fantails say a lot which I don’t understand, human twitters seem likely to be stream of consciousness stuff still hard to comprehend the reasoning.
remember, traders make the most money on volatility not on stability. Price stability actually means frak all profits for the banksters and the money traders. And with high speed automated algorithmic trading, they can cause “flash crashes” at will (or accidentally).
Yep, that $136b loss recovered rapidly – who got the $136b? Somebody did, be very sure of that.
We can see the stocks traded but because we can’t see the related and highly leveraged derivative activity, its quite likely the transactions around the movement were much larger than that in total.
But all you hear the RWNJ drum beat for is austerity on the already poor.
I prefer piwakawaka tweets…what they are saying to me as I walk the path is “Be a useful creature and disturb my food so that I might eat”. This of course makes perfect sense.
Digital tweets I don’t understand, yes the language can be comprehended but the thinking is anybodies guess. You can make noise on any instrument you like but without tuning it and learning to play music…….
“equity market value”
as the above events indicates, this “value” is simply a pyramid scheme casino based scam. And RWNJs think that this is what the economy should be all about.
I can see that this is true. Every time there is a change in the market value of stock, someone has an opportunity to hedge or something on a further change. It is very casino-like. Meanwhile the currency that we exchange to provide for our necessities is being turned into monopoly money but we still go on with the game earnestly trying to buy that attractive property here and here and here.
http://www.thepoliticalscientist.org/
To anyone interested in National Standards, or education in general, I highly recommend Puddleglum’s three part investigation at ‘The Political Scientist’.
Note: I have linked to the site rather than one of the three individual posts. The top of the page is part three, so you might want to scroll down to part one if you haven’t already read it.
A teaser from part three:
*I added my own words here to try and clarify the meaning. I hope that was okay Puddleglum?
But it won’t be once Puddleglum posts something else and the whole point of the links is so that people can find what you’re talking about.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Great thanks just saying and Puddlegum. Have bookmarked it and on-posted to those in the trade.
Thanks just saying. And it’s perfectly ok to add your own words.
Of course, if this blog was The Civilian you might be hearing from my lawyers. 🙂
Pink Floyd Animals is an incredible album that is severely underrated in the context of their other work. Its so good it makes the world seem ok when listening to it. =)
😀 (listened to Half of The Dark Side while hanging curtains this morning; may I recommend Bay FM to you all, again)
Garth McVicar is STILL being treated seriously by Radio New Zealand. Why?
Radio NZ National, Wednesday 24 April 2013
I’ve just heard something slimy and extremely unpleasant on the 11 a.m. news. S.S. Führer Garth “The Knife” McVicar is ranting again, and grooming another victim of a violent crime. This time he’s moving on the mother of murdered Christchurch schoolgirl Jade Bayliss.
There are several reasons why this monster of hypocrisy should not be given any air-time:
1.) McVicar himself is currently being tried on very serious charges;
2.) McVicar cannot even remotely be regarded as a “victims’ advocate” (as Radio New Zealand persists in calling him) in light of his outrageous and callous behaviour following the knife-killing of Pihema Cameron in 2008;
3.) Following his loud and frequently reiterated support for the grave-robber, serial sexual harasser and doctor-basher David Garrett, McVicar surely has no credibility whatsoever.
But he is being reported, and quoted, on National Radio as if he is a serious commentator.
Why?
“McVicar himself is currently being tried on very serious charges”
Really? What’s this all about then?
A lawyer for the Human Rights Commission has told a court the Sensible Sentencing Trust not only broke name suppression for a convicted paedophile, but breached his privacy by getting his private police record.
The commission is prosecuting the trust at the Auckland District Court on Wednesday for breaching the rights of the man who was jailed in 1995 for 12 months for five offences that took place in 1975 and 1978 against two girls….
Read the rest and find out who the S.S. Trust’s lawyer is…..
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/133016/sensible-sentencing-trust-broke-suppression-lawyer
Garrett, isn’t it? That’s how he got on the ACT list in the first place.
Indeed it is. We didn’t need any further confirmation of course, but keeping that discredited, almost universally reviled villain on as a “legal counsel” underlines the fact that McVicar, as well as being completely shameless, lacks even a semblance of common sense.
I’m struggling to figure out which of them reflects more poorly on the other.
Why? Well, because he lends himself rather nicely to the culture that relies on vaccuous soundbites that can masquerade as informed opinion. You can’t have thoughtful people ‘entertained’ by todays media. That wouldn’t be entertaining at all, as it would require a level of engagement. Which is to say that the formally passive listener would be afforded the opportunity to invest time, analysis, thought and reflection that would lead to the formation of informed opinions. And at that point, things are getting ‘out of hand’; beyond a comforting nicely packaged presentation that has ‘everything in its right place’ – ie, where everything is more or less ordered and controled.
McVicar, the apologist for criminal mates.
China’s Purchasing Managers Index slower than March; a tissue anyone?
NZ 10-year bonds at all time low yield.
Yup. He is. And that requires no great thought or reflection. And that’s then posited against whatever. And it’s the simple juxtaposition that is meant to determine the breadth and depth of your opinions…basically an invitation to indulge in pinning flags to masts.
hows the villa today Bill; sunny down your way?
what about this tragedy whereby some no-nuts has taken the lives of two young people, one in Aus, one here. The lives some people live is unbelievable; very sad.
Remember Travelin’ Light? when you were young?
Facts are so often fiction these days. It is increasingly difficult to trust the figures in the stated numbers of jobs available. Just now, when going over all the jobs listed on-line for my area, over half of the positions advertised where already filled, or the application date had passed, yet were still listed in the total jobs available. These are the very same listings that are being quoted in Parliament and parroted in the media every week.
It is kind of sad that the MSM are simply not bothering to investigate the data they report on. Guess there is no real need for reality anymore.
only the free one we create, or not.
Guess there is no real need for reality anymore.
it is being able to differentiate,someone needs to tell the computer models
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-23/fake-report-erasing-136-billion-shows-market-s-fragility.html
And all because of a q rather than a g.
http://jimromenesko.com/2013/04/23/ap-warned-staffers-just-before-ap-was-hacked/
The only jobs really vacant in New Zealand are to do with farming, IT (though you are underpaid and overworked compared to overseas), crap temporary services jobs (a few months and you are out) and recruitment agencies. Every week skilled, unskilled or highly qualified, everyone is leaving the no job, low pay economy under National. Think of how Romney supporters believed their idol couldn’t lose, National supporters in the MSM are the same…they refuse to accept reality. 😉
It’s worse than that freedom – and its been going on for years. One job advertised by many different agencies – i.e. the same job.
Anyone that’s ever placed a vacancy in the hands of agencies should know this – and they’ll be aware of the bullshit you’ve identified as well – i.e. listings still current once the position has been filled. At one time, agencies used to do it in order to get prospective candidates and CVs on their books.
It’d be useful for one of those ‘consumer watchdogs’ to investigate.
Oh wait – we don’t have any that are effective, or that have the means to access the necessary information. And IF we did, how the hell would those bank financial gurus be able to justify various ‘business confidence’ claims?
just for laughs
visit scarfolk
a town where time stopped in 1979
Very clever.
This too – 1993 – 2013
they should advertise in “The St Cleve Chronicle and Linwell Advertiser” 😀
in light of this new census mooted (“your health records”), these came to mind;
The Open Society, and it’s enemies and Civilization and it’s Discontents
Good Lord! These folk down in Christchurch are doing it hard
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/christchurch-earthquake/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502981&objectid=10879246 and hacking into data-bases (Uni etc) appears to be going through a productive season…
It’s 2013, time for the News
The Neo-Liberal agenda got a solid thirty year opportunity to prove itself. Any basic measure proves complete failure on its stated promise of trickle down economic benefits to the general populace. All benchmarks show real world inflation adjusted incomes are lower, living costs are higher and every single day more and more people are worse off than when the crew of the good ship SelfishFuck put this raft to sea in the early 80’s. It is time to scuttle the ship and swim back to land, there is no new frontier across the way. Just the everyday necessity of work and homes and lives that need protecting and support. The sad part is we increasingly need protecting from those who are elected to represent us.
here’s Tom with the weather
Stuff: “Justice Minister Judith Collins is calling for law changes to allow the public better access to criminal histories. ”
Right on schedule?
That blithering nincompoop Peter Dunne could not organise drinkies in a champaign bar!
His inability to sort out the “Synthetic Cannabis” nonsense is on par with his incompetence on Revenue.
Labour should be hitting The Lord of Ohariu like a billio!
That blithering nincompoop Peter Dunne could not organise drinkies in a champaign bar!
Dunne couldn’t organise a root in a brothel, he couldn’t organise a right-wing rant at a Sensible Sentencing Trust meeting, he couldn’t organise a high tackle in a Samoa versus Tonga football match, he couldn’t organise a glib remark in an episode of Jim Mora’s Panel show, he couldn’t organise an inappropriate remark in a pub conversation involving Bob Clarkson, Winston Peters, Pam Corkery and Richard Prosser.
Morrissey, you do have your moments…….
Wellington Labour is now afraid to take on Dunne in Ohariu.
Charles Chauvel would have rolled Dunne at the next election, had he not been pushed out of the party by Grant Robertson.
Robertson led Labour to THIRD place behind the Greens in Wellington. And he still thinks he should be treated like he is a competent street politician or something! Grant Robertson is still only a back-room jostler and only comfortable between the Westpac Stadium and the Basin Reserve. Outside of there Robertson is a wus and a legend in his own lunchtime.
Look at the combined Wellington Labour party-vote over the past few elections and you will see ROT. And you will see Grant Robertson.
Dunne is safe as long as Wellington Labour continues to repeat the same same same .
Mmmm, I’ve heard said that Grant Robsetson is better at fighting inside the tent. It’s a bit chilly outside for the weee boy! !
Will Maurice be required to dance?
If and when the Brethren-financed National M.P. Maurice Williamson appears on Ellen, will he be obliged to dance his way on to the stage, like every other guest on this horrible, horrible programme?
Eight minutes of embarrassment HERE….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PpjhYfKuvU
Looking forward to the next instalment of the Mora show by Morrissey.
Thanks, Paul, but today’s show is just too dull to get excited about. So far, anyway. (It’s 4:39 right now.) Highlight so far was when Mora used the word “obesogenic”, which impressed me if nobody else.
Less impressively, he has again quoted David Brooks, the right wing New York Times columnist. He has done that a lot over the years, and it’s a worry. He invariably quotes Brooks with approval, which raises grave questions about Mora’s judgement, as well as the depth and breadth of his reading.
Otherwise, the discussions have been pretty ho-hum.
perhaps Warner Bros will insist he wears Hobbit feet whilst he dances?
LOL. At least he won’t be any worse than Pete Hodgson, Marion Hobbs and those other Labour Party conference-goers caught on tape a few years ago.
Surely not?
Did I just hear Jeremy Ellwood say just now that NZers are now more interested in ANZAC Day because we’ve been involved in wars recently…like Iraq?
Obviously members of the panel are not required to be informed to pontificate on subjects!
No one picked him up on it either.
Yes, you heard right, my friend. Elwood is not particularly well informed. It’s just a pity that some crusty old right winger wasn’t on the show today, so that Elwood could have bent over backwards to agree with everything the old codger said. That’s when Elwood is at his (unintentional) funniest.
Jeremy Ellwood, the “comedian”? If thats what he said, I guess we can at least assume his material is improving.
Elwood’s schtick on 7 Days consists of sitting with a glum look of rebuke on his puss whenever Dai Henwood and the others veer off into insensitive or politically incorrect territory, which is of course for practically the whole show. The only person who has ever looked unhappier and more dispproving is Elwood’s similarly “right on” partner Michelle Acourt.
what’s there to pick him up on, precisely?
Or do you think that the war in Iraq stopped after the invasion?
I’m surprised a comedian has such a poor grasp and knowledge of Current Events.
Not in the calibre of Bill Hicks or George Carlin then…
What did he say that leads you to believe he’s uninformed?
Soooo…. nothing?
He’s more of the calibre of Mike King, who like Elwood was also co-opted to go over to Afghanistan to entertain our brave troops.
Elwood has not uttered a word critical of the occupation ever since.
Embedded comedians..
The US government’s list of “terrorist” suspects is so long, they had one of the alleged Boston Bombers on their list, but he didn’t stand out enough to trigger any action.
If we are all
Spartacusvipertacus, who will they surveil first?He did stand out.
Former FBI employee says that the Tsarnaev brothers were recruited by FBI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wZoCIydCgg
http://www.infowars.com/tsarnaev-aunt-claims-naked-man-in-video-is-tamerlan/
This arvo, Greenpeace activists have occupied a coal ship bound for Sth Korea. The occupied ship is near Aussies’s Great Barrier reef. They are protesting about Aussie’s coal industry.
I guess they don’t have to worry about legislation restricting protests.
More reason not to trust the oil companies
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/04/22/what-bp-doesn-t-want-you-to-know-about-the-2010-gulf-spill.html
That BP lied about the amount of oil it discharged into the gulf is already established. Lying to Congress about that was one of 14 felonies to which BP pleaded guilty last year in a legal settlement with the Justice Department that included a $4.5 billion fine, the largest fine ever levied against a corporation in the U.S.
What has not been revealed until now is how BP hid that massive amount of oil from TV cameras and the price that this “disappearing act” imposed on cleanup workers, coastal residents, and the ecosystem of the gulf. That story can now be told because an anonymous whistleblower has provided evidence that BP was warned in advance about the safety risks of attempting to cover up its leaking oil. Nevertheless, BP proceeded. Furthermore, BP appears to have withheld these safety warnings, as well as protective measures, both from the thousands of workers hired for the cleanup and from the millions of Gulf Coast residents who stood to be affected.