Collins: she and Key are guilty and they have to be held to account. Keep up the good work Grant Robertson.
Dunne: allowing him to continue with the legal highs job while his son is making a fortune from the sales of the shit is not tolerable in this society. Key is failing in his role.
Jones? An oxygen thief not worth any further effort.
Totally agree there, Karol.
And so it continues. He just can’t help it, can he. It’s his overinflated ego and the imaginary hurt because the plebs haven’t figured out what a great leader he is.
I’m waiting for the term “naked ambition” to be applied to Jones – remember when it was used by the MSM regularly about Cunliffe? Compare and contrast.
Far from it. In fact the sentence “Labour has now got to find a way of appealing to its traditional blue collar workers” and variations on it, has been repeated like a mantra on this morning’s Morning Report, with David Shearer and Damien O’Connor among those quoted.
Never mind the fact that Jones offered such people nothing concrete – that whatever appeal he had rested on a smoko-room-anecdote way of talking. Never mind either that the whole sentence seems code for “the building contractor who owns several rentals and hires people from overseas, having judged the locals as bloody useless,” and others of similar persuasion.
The whole business looks more and more like an attempt by the right wing from both inside and outside of the Labour Party to subvert the will of left-voting people while pretending to heed it.
Well I for one am appalled at what’s been happening in the Labour Party. Jones? a minor distraction, blown out of all proportion by the MSM, and reinforced by dickheads in the Labour Party. Glad it happened now, so I can now look to another party that will WANT my vote (Greens, Mana). and not Labour saying we don’t care if you vote for us. Because that’s the message I am getting. That and ‘We can’t organise Sex in a brothel’.
Here in Wanaka people just laugh when I talk about Labour or Greens. Phrases like “a house divided cannot stand” and “country’s doing great” for Labour, and “ewwww!” And “ha hahaaa” for Greens.
Everyone’s income is addicted to real estate, tourism, and superannuation. Those in agriculture can’t get comprehensive irrigation fast enough.
The GP candidate in the Waitaki electorate is a well known Wanaka person and did quite well over there.
“Everyone’s income is addicted to real estate, tourism, and superannuation. Those in agriculture can’t get comprehensive irrigation fast enough.”
In other words, Wanaka is being turned into an industrial dairying cesspit like everywhere else. Will be interesting to see how the farmers get on with the tourism lobby and lifestyle block real estate agents in ten years time.
Ooops, didn’t see your comment here when i posted one on the same thing below, Slippery and un-Housing Minister Nick Smith must have picked up a sense of disquiet from among the voters in the ‘focus groups’ about the ripping apart of the HousingNZ estate to be using the media in what seems like a week long ‘charm offensive’ where they are spending time ‘highlighting’ what few new build HousingNZ complexes have been completed by this regime…
Nice to see that they were warmly received, and that the people were so happy with the truth they were being told by the TricKey one. Why they even donated eggs for his dinner. And still he moans.
Interesting framing for the first article to be posted on this in the Herald yesterday, which manages to insinuate Mana Party for staging it all: PM’s car egged during state housing protests.
Comments allowed on this article, unsurprisingly, and some live up to the quality of reporting.
”One, two, three, four, stop the war on the poor, Maraenui under attack, stand up and fight back”, so chanted the kids of Maraenui a Napier suburb with a heavy concentration of State housing as Slippery the Prime Minister arrived to gush over the opening of some new pensioner housing,
Having all the gastronomic fortitude of your average Rat the PM then tried to do a bunk out the back way to avoid the protest, unfortunately someone forgot to tell the driver of the limo of the change of plan and the local kids again had the pleasure of voicing their displeasure in the face of the PM along with tossing the occasional missile in the direction of the limo which eventually left bearing the scars,
Slippery later claimed that the kids, mostly 10 to 12 year old’s were ”saying things they didn’t understand” and i suppose to preserve His ego He has to think that, but, can assure the PM that subjecting HousingNZ estates to the forced evictions and demolitions of the current regime and its 20%– $2.5 billion HousingNZ sell off leaves those kids knowing full well what is in store for them,
While it is hard to oppose such actions in the face of the publicity stunts being organized by the current regime where the tame media are being lead around by the nose by the likes of the PM and un-Housing Minister Nick Smith ‘gushing’ over the few completed ‘new build’ HousingNZ complexes we have to remember that for all their worth, and in the future pensioner housing will be like gold with the growth of the aged population, with the proposed shrinking of the States Housing stock by 20% it will be those 10 and 12 year old’s protesting befor the Prime Minister who will be all the worse off in the future,
Poverty has not lessened in this country, the reverse is true, it is not 20% less State Houses that are needed now in our society, it is at least 20% more of such housing that is needed with urgency…
What a silly comment Pete. I thought you would be coming out with the “Labour is ignoring the working class” line that is being perpetrated right now. By all means do that but how about you do a bit of fact checking beforehand. Read the party’s policy platform and then try and argue the party is not interested in ordinary people.
I think it’s a fair question Greg, it’s something that’s being widely discussed. I understand that it’s the done thing in politics to stoically say everything is fine and a win is imminent, but when the chasm between reality is so wide then it is counter-productive.
The party’s policy is not the problem. The perception of the party is tending towards pathetic.
The party might be interested in ordinary people but it doesn’t show much. I’ve seen here and elsewhere since the loss in 2008 that the Labour caucus in particular is out of touch and doesn’t want to hear from ordinary people.
Ex Labour minister Michael Bassett may not be a party favourite but what he said on Radio New Zealand half an hour ago about Labour now are common sentiments.
It’s a difficult hole to get out of, but continuing to dig and deny won’t do it.
Labour looks out of touch with people and out of touch with reality. If they don’t turn this around very soon it could be terminal.
The first step is admitting the problems. It’s to far gone for stoic bullshit.
If the Labour totara uproots and crashes other parties will grow in the gap, but that takes time, and in the meantime Parliament will be significantly weakened.
No it is not a fair question Pete. It is fact free loaded spin. I thought you were trying to appear balanced.
Michael Basset reflecting common sentiments? Feck his party is now at less than 1% of the vote.
There may be a perception problem. It is because of a bunch of nodding heads reinforcing all the right wing spin that is fed to them and you should reflect on your comments in this regard.
Blame right wing spin.
Blame National.
Blame McCully.
Blame the media.
Blame Shane Jones.
Blame small party support that’s irrelevant.
Blame anyone pointing out the emperor’s clothes are in tatters here.
And see how you get on in September.
It may be that a million non-voters are suddenly attracted to a party fiddling while it’s Rome burns.
It’s not about the policies Greg. I can agree with most of most of Labour’s policies, and sure, some of them would help ‘ordinary people’ (although spending too much on policies could have negative effects for ordinary people too).
Very few voters read policies. Most people vote mostly on personalities and perceptions of competence.
Policies without power are paltry. If voters think a party doesn’t have the people or competence to win power and run a government then they won’t care what policies promise.
Cool. There’s more data there too of course that my be relevant to this discussion.
As I noted, the data isn” as good as we might like it, but it’s what we have, unless you have better data to share of course.
So, bearing in mind that:
“Fact checking isn’t a waste of time – it can help people perceive more accurately and not get fooled by party propaganda and ignorance.”
have a quick look at the following statements, and see if the facts revealed by that data can help clear up any propaganda or ignorance regarding what people think:
1) “Labour looks out of touch with people and out of touch with reality. If they don’t turn this around very soon it could be terminal.”
2) ” The perception of the party is tending towards pathetic.”
3) “Ex Labour minister Michael Bassett may not be a party favourite but what he said on Radio New Zealand half an hour ago about Labour now are common sentiments”
If this question is for me – none. The election isn’t being held today. The parties and politicians haven’t put all their offerings and abilities on show yet.
If I vote I’ll decide who for close to or on election day.
But I’ll give you a possibility – if Labour are at 20% in the polls just before the election I’d consider voting for them to help keep them alive, if I thought they deserved it.
“If an election is held today, which party would get your party vote?”
Pete, you know full well it is a hypothetical question.
Now if you do not want to share who you vote for that is your choice, just stand up tall and proud and say that you prefer not to share such intimate secret knowledge of your deepest soul. People would respect that. But to hide behind such pitiful reasoning when discussing a hypothetical situation is even more bizarre than you being Editor in Chief of a fact checking site.
But I’ll give you a possibility – if Labour are at 20% in the polls just before the election I’d consider voting for them to help keep them alive, if I thought they deserved it.
So basically it seems that you will decide who to vote for near election day based on their polices, but you will not be voting for Labour unless they need you to “save them”.
In other words, it seems that you have a rather strong disdain for Labour, as you will not consider voting for them on the merits of their actual policies. This is also evident in many other comments you post: whether or not you will admit to it, many of your comments here are strongly anti-Labour in tone or message.
Given this bias against Labour, I fail to see how your position as an independent “fact-checker” is tenable.
The has been Petty George trying to tell other parties how they should do their bizz, having helped make His own political vehicle United Future a political irrelevancy has to be the joke of the day,
A piece of toilet paper while not being as ”transparent’ as Petty George is a 100 times more useful, and this 🙄 …
So what is the definition of “ordinary people”? Because according to the 2012 New Zealand Social Survey just 21% of New Zealanders reported satisfactory results across all four of the surveyed areas of health, money, relationships and housing.
Now relationships generally isn’t the domain of government policy (unless it’s to keep abusive behaviour in check), but Labour is putting in the effort to address the other three areas. I know people who have been helped enormously by Working For Famiilies. Kiwisaver helped me buy my home and plan for my future. And interest free student loans has saved me thousands. By contrast over the past 5 years National has done nothing that it can point to that benefits the people of New Zealand, aside from not rolling back those Labour programmes in the first place. Further, Michael Cullen’s stewardship laid the foundations to weather the GFC better than most countries, although I think he could have done more to keep the housing bubble in check.
Let me ask you a question, Pete. What do you think is the legacy of this government? How do you think history will remember John Key’s administration? Because I’m really struggling to see any area at all where Key has improved New Zealand social wellbeing.
Any improvements have been modest and you have to look hard.
Key’s nearly two terms is best known for minimising things getting worse over the course of a New Zealand recession (started under Labour), a Global financial crisis, and major disasters in Christchurch.
Many people see that as a creditable achievement, and probably at least as good as any alternative government could have managed.
It’s been unusual circumstances of economic survival that the country seems to have come through better than expected.
If the National government survives into another term then we will get to see the Key legacy – if it’s any more than a cautious conservative treading water or not when we are expected to recover and grow.
Oh FFS Petey can’t you just answer the fucking questions.
What do you think is the legacy of this government? A: The Blatant Corruption,
How do you think history will remember John Key’s administration? A:For the Corruption and deals for the Boys.
See that’s how it’s done Question. Answer. Simple.. And none of your useless bullshit waffling and link whoring!. And no one screaming at you for being a useless T 🙄
Oh pete – labour are the forest not the tree and (even as a non-labour person I can see) that forest is an ecosystem that is complete – until the chainsaws arrive and start cutting – are you a chainsaw pete? Do you want the forest cut down? If a tree is old or diseased a big gust of Mcgully-wind can blow it down – that tree is uprooted. The forest remains, ever changing.
.I would like to see what the new tree Kelvin Davis has to offer and what he stands on….get to know him….a guest post/interview ?…. or a statement from him on open mike would be much appreciated
…particularly on where he stands on Charter Schools and Standards testing…there does seem to be a bit of confusion on where exactly he does stand on these issues
…the sooner we get to know him the sooner Jones will recede into the past
NZ also needs to hear Labour’s clearly stated views on the new EDUCANZ group.
We currently have a Minister of Education who says that Teachers need to lead the charge whilst not wanting teachers involved in deciding where that charge is headed.
Labour’s caucus righties still don’t get how strong the base of the party is. We have comprehensively outplayed them. Jones simply figured that the path to leadership is now determined not by caucus factions, but by the whole.
Goff and King and Mallard will see caucus slowly tilt away from factions, and towards merit alone demonstrated to us all.
This PG bullshit is getting tedious, I wish he would advise on how the TS site should be run…
[lprent: ummm… I’m not sure how I feel about people trying to encourage push people into the propeller blades. Perhaps you should desist so I don’t find out how I feel about it. ]
PG just Fuck Off, you are nothing but a waste of Oxygen.
[lprent: If you don’t put a point or even some wit to go with the abuse, then don’t make the comment. Otherwise I’ll eventually get irritated and start banning repeat offenders. ]
So Jones sells out for a few pieces of silver.
The Noise Jones made over the Countdown super market chain
Was obviously designed to up his transfer fees.
The snide flipant attitude over shower flow rates prior to 2008 election were designed to unseat Labour so Hey could have a tilt at leading labour.
Now all chances of becoming leader have gone.
Sabotage is his payback for not getting what He wants .
For all his intellect.
Jones is just a self centered highly egotistical dickhead.
I think what came up about Shane Jones donors supports the arguement for the Trust account DC set up. He didn’t know the donors, so could not be influence by them. That was the intention. Shows integrity.
Jones knew whos his donors were and what a surprize! not. Anti green, pro mining and secret meetings with National about a job………….Shane “what’s in it for me” Jones.
I seem to remember him saying about DC after the leadership contest that he lost, “I offer DC my unstinting loyalty”…………..Yeah right.
Dover Samuels, John Tamihere, Bassett, all has been’s, yesterday’s men, all trumpeting the right wing framing of Jones having tossed His toys, class traitors in other words,
Shane Who, has been a waste of space in both the Labour Government and the Labour Opposition, His quitting is the only positive in a career that has been singularly damaging to the Party,
Jones touted as the ‘champion’ of the blue collar workers by the media and the ever growing list of political commentators is a joke, and those touting Him as such an even worse joke,
Good riddance is what the left should be shouting back at the fools touting Jones as any champion of the working class,
The sooner Labour clean out the old gaurd right wingers from the Caucus the better, Jones wont be missed past the next ‘frenzy item’ seized upon by what is an obviously bored media…
i don’t usually bother addressing your comments BM, that is probably because conversing with the dumb while having its amusing moments is really an exercise in futility,
Take your current comment for instance, ”Labour winning the election” is the thinking of the Neanderthal,
Labour has No chance of winning the election, in 2014 though, the Left has every chance of doing just that….
Employees must once again unionise and organise in order to exercise collective bargaining power over employers, particularly larger and corporate employers.
Even better, co-ops of workers need to start taking over and democratically running their own work places, instead of taking orders from some faraway Man who doesn’t even understand the business.
I think all businesses need to become cooperatives with the present shareholders becoming either bond or loan holders and no say in the running of the company. Only those who work there would have any say in the direction of the company.
Why don’t workers just set up businesses like this? There’s nothing to stop them.
Yes there is. Several things in fact:
1.) Finances (this is systemic – our entire system is against it)
2.) Improper education
3.) Raised in an abusive and dysfunctional family (admittedly, 2 & 3 tend to go together)
and more that I just can’t think of right now.
How many workers want to take on the responsibility of running the business they work for?
Are you just thick or a complete idiot? The Labour party was formed for the betterment of the people and the country by the workers who were exploited by the wealthy. In the modern world, workers come from innumerable professions, not just miners etc that helped form the party in its beginning days. It is the Labour party principles, policies and programmes that has made New Zealand a better place for everyone, men and women, children and the elderly, employees and the employers, the unemployed and the poor, and even the rich pricks that now infest the greedy ungrateful right wing parties such as National and ACT that are spitting on the poor and the ordinary people with their unfair, unjust, selfish policies, while happily copying many of the great social policies of the last Labour government.
But for the Labour’s socialist principles, you would be on pittance wages languishing on 12 hour days, women’s rights would be pretty much non existent like in some middle east countries, homophobia and discrimination would continue unabated etc, etc. Innumerable progress has been made and lots more needs to be done for justice, environment, equity, freedom, true prosperity etc
“Jones touted as the ‘champion’ of the blue collar workers by the media and the ever growing list of political commentators is a joke, and those touting Him as such an even worse joke,”
He’d only be a class traitor if he was a blue collar worker. But he never was blue collar. Groomed as a future leader from a very early age, wasn’t he?
Anyway as far as I’m concerned it’s a clean out out of the Labour right, who contradict L(l)abour ideals anyway.
It’s a class war BM and you know that because you are one of its participants. An ongoing class war that the 1% who hold the largest share of capital wealth wages every day against the 99% who do not.
You’re on a site with many who are well versed in political economics, so have some respect and please don’t treat the rest of us as ignorant.
It is not a class war, there will never be a class war in NZ.
If you picked out 100 random people in the street and then told them we’re fighting a class war, they’d think you’re a complete lunatic that should be locked in a padded cell.
“It is not a class war, there will never be a class war in NZ.”
ROFL why are you still trying it on? When you are one of the participants in this very class war?
Perhaps you should learn about NZ history, check out the great strike of 1913, also how the Liberal Government broke up all the large land holdings of the richest families in the 1890’s. And of course, the dispossesion of the entire working class in the 1980’s and 1990’s due to Rogernomics and Ruthanasia.
Class traitor, phfft what a load of shit, you’re not Pomgolia now, we don’t do classes down here.
Really, and I could have sworn that we just had a couple of high-class bludgers go through NZ at our expense.
This hang up you lefties have on putting people in boxes/classes is the reason why you’re failing.
That has got to be psychological projection. It’s the left that are trying to break down the class barriers while the RWNJs always seem to be trying to build them up.
Yes there are. there’s the rich, the middle class, the poor and now the precariat. Just because you want to deny reality and insist these classes don’t exist doesn’t make them any less true.
I’ve already given you the broad categories, look it up for yourself. Not your research service.
And I’ll add one more: deliberately reduced and declining income share of labour (i.e. workers) with respect to GDP, with the difference siphoned off to corporations and capitalist owners.
In their book on inequality The Spirit Level, British researchers Wilkinson and Pickett devote a whole chapter to showing the different ways that entrenched inequality reduces social mobility.
But you have researched this more of course by reading Slater’s opinion and then repeating it.
“if you want to make the effort …. the opportunity is there.”
Ever play video games BM?
I ask coz there’s this thing on many of them in ‘settings’ where you can dial things up and down, and make the game easier.
You know?
Your dude might have more hit points, or it might make the enemies a bit dumber, or fewer, that sort of thing.
Imagine that in a multi-player game, and some folks get their settings set, by society, a bit easier on most of the settings. They will find it easier, and if they don;t get that are playing at an advantage, they are gonna think they are shit hot at this game.
It’s in the interest of the Tories to pretend that they are not waging war against the under class and working class – stealth is the only way they can get away with it.
That is ridiculous. The Government (I assume the “Tories” is some unheard of label you have for the New Zealand Government. Funny I thought it was some ancient English political faction) presides over a $27 billion welfare safety net. You are seriously deluded.
Hey Shitlands. All you’ve pointed out is that the Tories have some remnant electoral self preservation instinct. They know that they cannot dismantle the NZ welfare state expeditiously and have to instead dismantle it bit by bit, while demonising the vulnerable and the poor on the way. And your point is?
You are seriously deluded.
What’s a servant of the power elite like you who has never voted in NZ care anyway?
SSpylands, I have serious concerns about your memory. Your confusion about the word “tory” sounded familiar, and less that 30sec using the search box says you were taught about that word last September, and again in October. Try reading those comment branches again before (once again) removing all doubt as to your stupidity.
I’m especially concerned that such a stupid fucking idiot, as you obviously must be, claims to be/have been involved in formulation of government policy.
Perhaps that would explain why you are obviously unaware that the nats are destroying the $27bil welfare safety net loop by “application declined” loop.
Or maybe you think it’s a sophisticated distraction to plead ignorance about a two-syllable word and then argue that the fact the government hasn’t completely destroyed something means that the government must be actively preserving it. Well, an idiot feels compelled to double down on his own idiocy, I guess.
Politics is hard mistress. I just watched the David Cunliffe interview on the Paul Henry Show from Tuesday night. Respect! Respect! David was very calm despite the best efforts of that psychotic arse. I’ll bathe in Dettol!
Education
The US middle class income falling faster than any OECD country WHy.
Education has been identified as the cause of decline.
Decline in Pisa scores directly related to decline in income.
And we are adopting the same policies that have lead to this decline.
Yes as Kelvin Davis is a teacher …i would like to see/hear his views on Charter Schools and Standards Testing enunciated here for all to see/hear…just so we can have confidence in him.
On the surface he looks like a very fortunate replacement for Shane
btw….why is Morning Report bringing out Bassett….of ACT to criticise the Labour Party and Cunliffe….Bassett is an old ‘has been’ Rogernom….he is the last person who should be critiquing Labour and Cunliffe….he was part of the cabal that just about destroyed Labour
….what is Morning Report doing?…is it now a mouthpiece for ACT?
….that said I thought John Tamihere was very good ….cant he be brought back into the Labour Party fold?…he has done his time for his ‘crime’ insensitivity to women ( a crime many others have committed on the Left) ….and he was very popular on radio …he could be a big draw card for Neathandral Man …Labour working men.
What did you really expect when they put Espiner in there the other week. I have listened only once to Morning Report since he took over, it took me about 40 mins of Espiner to change the channel to something reasonable, like Radio Live.
The US middle class income falling faster than any OECD country WHy.
Education has been identified as the cause of decline.
Decline in Pisa scores directly related to decline in income.
Uh, you’re incorrect on this count, unfortunately. You’ve mistaken cause and effect.
What getting a higher education means today in the USA is being highly qualifiedand stacking shelves or flipping burgers on the minimum wage, with a massive and unrepayable student loan.
The true cause of the collapse of the US middle class is far more complex – and has to do with the power elite exporting all solid working class jobs out of the nation and then systematically destroying the value of peoples property and pension funds.
ONE News headline ” Labour in damage control “:National a safe pair of hands “.
“Labour party has definately been hurt”- Corinn Dann.
yet “Jones often acted as a wedge between Labour and the Greens” , refused to work with Norman – Michael Parkin with a side order of Pagani spin, “it’s a warning sign”
Gower- “…risks being punished in the polls.”
Plenty of balance there was, Not!
Further to the harms of fructose, The WHO new recommendations for daily sugar intake, 5% of total daily food intake. Equals about 6 teaspoons.
If cut back, takes about four days of unsettling withdrawals.
That doesn’t quite make sense, the WHO 5% of daily food intake that is, i would have to weigh my total food intake for a day,(which is probably a good idea to do for a week), but, am pretty sure that if liquids are included then the daily intake is over ‘ a kilo’,
Me thinks i will do that starting next Monday, weighing both solid food and liquid intake to see what my normal diet weighs,(weekends are now the ‘fasting diet’ to keep the kilo’s falling off),
Dieting is interesting, i have found that even the vege and fruit diet can add body weight, which suggests weight loss is more a matter of ‘how much’ of ‘anything’ is the key,
Still think unless a ‘scientific case’ can be made for adding sugar to food can be made then Legislation is needed to have it removed from food items that are not classed specifically as sweets,or at the least, a large label being a requirement to show the number of spoons of sugar a serving of the product contains per serving,
Last nights Third Degree was a shallow look at the other side of the health issue ‘fats’, i wasn’t impressed at all,
Obviously the body ‘needs’ some fat/oil so as to be able to transport vital nutrients around the body which otherwise would simply be discharged via the liver down the toilet, i am though sticking with the view of good fats/bad fats…
Dieting is interesting, i have found that even the vege and fruit diet can add body weight, which suggests weight loss is more a matter of ‘how much’ of ‘anything’ is the key,
Weight loss is more a question of getting some exercise.
Exercise is important of course but it is just one factor. For instance, Dr Lustig’s presentation on how large quantities of sugar in the modern diet screws up energy-behaviour metabolism at the brain level is instructive.
Agree and disagree Draco, for those able to ‘up’ the amount of physical activity to burn off the calories its not bad advice,
However, if like me a person has bone or muscle issues which prohibit the ‘upping’ of physical exercise then it has to be diet alone which can be used as the weight loss mechanism…
molasses can be a good substitute for sugar cravings…this is all the minerals /vits etc left over from sugar refining…it is very strong but it can be put in gravies and cakes or on porridge..or just a tsp as a tonic…Red Seal Black Strap Molasses has for a few dollars… manganese( lots), magnesium(lots), iron, calcium( lots), sodium
…a good book to get is : ‘Stay Healthy by Supplying Whats lacking in Your Diet’ by David Coorey….for $25..(NZ publishing House .Private Bag 12029, Tauranga…(Tel: 0800 140 141)
( it gives an index of health symptoms/deficiencies /foods that supply essential vits/minerals for these deficiences eg …advice for weight loss, diabetes, alcohol cravings ,eye sight , dementia, gout, migraines , chloresterol, osteoporosis, gum disease, chronic fatigue, tinnitus….etc.etc.).. you can be your own doctor before your symptoms get out of control…it is very budget friendly …i hardly ever see a doctor!..nor does my family)
Lolz thanks Chooky, but, spending 25 bucks on a book here isn’t an option, i have tho Google as a friend and can find it all out from the basic to the uni studies online,
Molasses sounds quite interesting and i will check out the cost on my next food forage in the supermarket, still sugar tho,(even tho it contains a good amount of those essential minerals), and, i have to watch total intake,
That sugar craving at a certain point as you cut down is quite an acute one, psychological more than physical,(for me anyway), i have cut down from 2 teaspoons in my tea mug all the time to 1 teaspoon and then onto 1 teaspoon every fourth cuppa,
My fruit intake has tho tripled from what has been the lifelong (bad) habit and there are plenty of sugars in fruit, weight has dropped to 95 kilo from 110 kilo at Christmas, i am tho doing mini crash diets on weekends to make up for my bad habit of making big yummy veg and fish meals and then scoffing the lot…
Political junkie question of the day.
What do Dunedin North, Mangere Maungakiekie, Mt Albert, Rongotai, and the 7 Maori electorates have in common and why is this grim news for Labour?
No party has been the sole inhabitant of government for more than 20 years – National may have the numbers to be sole inhabitant in September but John Key will share government with willing support parties as he plans to win in 2017 and 2021 assuming we have a 4 year term by then.
National don’t like sharing power – that was why they took over Act. Sure, they still had to get UF and the mP on board but they knew that they’d be able to buy them up quite easily and that, once bought, they’d stay bought as the mP just proved.
Sure, I think davis is better than jones by a country mile but…
“It gives me a platform and the resources of an MP to campaign. Otherwise, I would have just been an unemployed bum trying to be a candidate. So it helps my profile and there are more opportunities to get in the media.”
…yes Davis needs to be open about what he stands for ..we need to get statements from him so he is on record
Shane chose him…this is a worry!…also that he worked for the Ministry of Education, which has been hopelessly compromised by its Minister and ACT private company lobbyists for Charter Schools
We dont want another new Trojan Horse in the Labour Party
Cunliffe’s job is hard enough as it is….. with all the old Rogernomes guard still unretired
Has labour got so desperate that they have to have children protest.
Can they no longer find any adults to do their protesting.
Perhaps they are getting ready with twelve year olds to try and win the 2022 election.
Just saying.
I am a pensioner and this time my vote is with national.
[lprent: Looking at your email address, I’d have been surprised if you’d ever voted for anyone apart from National and/or Act.
In my experience, Labour and the left usually manages to turn out thousands for their larger protests when the right and National can usually turn out mere handfuls. So I’d suspect that the reason that children were turning out would probably have something to do with how whatever it is affects them.
However, putting a link or even a reference into the story you’re talking about would probably help people with understanding what you are indignant about. I currently have no idea and your comment gives no hint. Please try to do better next time.
Jim47 seems to believe from this article that it was a Labour Party – day out holiday activity for the kiddies. Reading comprehension levels shown by his comment indicate that it is probably fairly unlikely that any written comment “helping him out” will do much to change his mind.
Well put Molly, Jim47 is obviously an idiot by design or genetic irresponsibility on the part of other’s,
The kids involved in giving Slippery the Prime Minister ‘the message’ were all locals who fully understand what is happening as the PM and un-Housing Minister Smith re-arrange the deck chairs of the HousingNZ estate using the publicity of the mass media to mask the 20%–42.5 billion dollar asset sale they are attempting by flogging off the housing of the poorest in our communities,
The State Houses bowled over to make way for the ‘pensioner housing’ would have previously housed their cousins and friends so on whatever level they understand what is occurring understand it they do,
The only visible political presence at this protest,was that of the Mana Party…
Lolz the Bank Robbery of the century, with inflation at a miserly 1.5% the Reserve Bank Governor in an act of ”kill it befor it grows” kneecaps the economy and acts to profit the Trading Banks with windfall profits of billions of dollars in added interest payments…
Even if some people aren’t concerned by the rise in interest rates, Stuff’s website shows one of its notorious polls, just putting its foot in the water for the elite, as it knows damn well that people struggling to pay their mortgages is electoral poison. http://www.stuff.co.nz/
BTW The wording of these polls is appalling.
Will higher interest rates hurt you?
Yes, I’m not happy
No, I planned for them
Bring them on, I’m a saver
I disagree there Draco, assuming you are talking about NZ printing our own cash not continuing to borrow from the Central Banks.
If a 1% interest rate was levied on all loans from the Government to home owners, new business ventures etc, then that is another stable resource for making contributions to the UBI fund. Of course this is in addition to the % taken by the Robin hood Tax when the loan is made operational.
You’re still working with the false assumption that the government needs a source of income. It doesn’t. The repayment of a loan is nothing more than the removal of money that has been injected into the economy so as to maintain the apparent value of money.
Not sure I am completely clear on your endgame there Draco.
No taxes of any sort?
How does Government function without an income? Do Governments just print money with no controls at all? That is what the central Banks do now and look where that has gotten us.
How do roads get built?
How does Healthcare function?
Education?
Civil Defence?
Police and the Military ?? (if we still have to have them 🙂 )
I must be missing something obvious …
(no-job stress has me missing sleep, I know that much )
Yes money is a lie and interest compounds that lie.
Yes together they are a powerful force but it does not have to be a destructive force.
As I said, maybe I have misunderstood what you mean.
How does Government function without an income? Do Governments just print money with no controls at all?
It’s not a question of functioning without an income but realising that taxes are solely the destruction of money already created and spent into the economy by government. And, yes, there would be rules.
How do roads get built?
How does Healthcare function?
Education?
Civil Defence?
Police and the Military ?
The same way that they do now – by paying the people doing them.
(excuse the delay in responding Draco, I had stuff to do)
Originally you were talking about interest not being needed.
“When there’s no reason for them to have interest rates on at all. No loans should have interest on them.”
“The repayment of a loan is nothing more than the removal of money that has been injected into the economy so as to maintain the apparent value of money.”
You then seemed to shift the same idea onto taxes.
“realising that taxes are solely the destruction of money already created and spent into the economy by government”
In any economy, taxes and interest are not really the same thing.
“You’re still working with the false assumption that the government needs a source of income.” Taxes are Government income. As much as created or borrowed funds are.
The not repaying loans idea is pretty out there, I just do not see how an economy functions that way. Governments supply new money, check. It gets distributed into the economy via bank loans, mortgages etc, check. . . .and then what?
It just doesn’t get repaid ?
In any economy, taxes and interest are not really the same thing.
Good job I didn’t treat them as being the same then. Repayment of the loan does not include interest – that’s added on top in the present system and I’ve specifically said that loans won’t have interest.
The not repaying loans idea is pretty out there, I just do not see how an economy functions that way. Governments supply new money, check. It gets distributed into the economy via bank loans, mortgages etc, check. . . .and then what?
It just doesn’t get repaid ?
Well, you certainly didn’t get that from me either. Nowhere did I say that the money wouldn’t be removed from the system afterwards. All, I’ve said is that there was no need of interest and that there shouldn’t be any interest charged. In fact, you even quoted the bit where I said it would be returned/removed/destroyed.
When Interest Rates are low, Key/English trumpet their clever stewardship.
When Interest Rates rise it is the independent Reserve Bank’s work.
Funny that?
Can’t recall Labour ever boasting about low interest rates but I can remember them saying that the interest rates weren’t up to them due to the RBNZ being independent and the rates were the result of the market. I don’t think many people bought it though as most were already starting to realise that the market was code for the rich getting richer at everyone else’s expense.
The OCR increasing 3% won’t just hurt those who already have mortgages, it will lock many middle income home buyers out of the market. Also, the amount of mortgagee auctions will likely continue to increase under this regime.
People having less money to spend will assuredly slow the economy, which is only showing signs of recovery because commodity prices have increased. Increased spending is a result of things costing more, not because people are buying more. A lack of competition in the retail sector will also effect the housing bubble in a bad way because people won’t be able to save for a deposit on their first home.
Along with the 20% lending criteria, an already slowing market and unprecedented overinflation, now is clearly not the right time to be locked into a mortgage. Such assets will not be liquid because many thousands of Kiwis will be trapped renting forever.
If some better policies aren’t implemented soon, homeowners and investors will start to lose equity and our housing stock will be further degraded. In the long run that won’t benefit anybody, not even the speculators.
“policies” have a very limited role in halting climate change when a centuries worth of built economic and logistical infrastructure of your entire country is predicated on fossil fuels.
I wonder what the rest of the Labour MPs are thinking about Jones leaving, I mean it must be pretty gutting knowing that National think that Jones is such a big threat that they create a job for him but for every other Labour MP theres nothing 🙂
Of course he was a threat, waitakere man and all that. He was smart, spoke well and appealed to a cross-section of people and National took out one of Labours weapons
That’d be another plus for labour but I doubt if he will. He actually seems to want to do something about poverty unfortunately he still thinks capitalism can.
Drivel, 5 and a half years of Opposition and all Jones has come out with is a rave about supermarkets which the Commerce Commission is likely to have the final say of ”nothing to see here folks”, on,
Jones is gone, good riddance, a waste of space in every sense of the word…
Revisiting the Fossil Fuel company contributions to global warming printed by the Guardian some months ago (noted by a Standardista), and thought to have a look at what other graphics may have been produced.
They were working on an Open Corporates map, one that shows the complex web of company ownership and control on a global scale. One problem is that small countries often were the best locations for companies to operate from, and so would have too much overlap when plotting companies. Their solution: to upscale the country in a honeycomb fashion to indicate the company’s presence there.
I had a look at Goldman Sachs – on their live version which was produced in UK summer of 2013, and was surprised to the relative size of NZ.
(To see the chain of ownership, just hover over one of the companies (circles) on the map)
We discover now that ACC, Collins, thinks people having accidents is a choice. We’ve understood for sometime now that Bennett believes people choose unemployment and under-employment. How
long is it before Key believes, like ACT, that proportionality is wrong in sentencing, and retrospective laws are all okay.
It beggars belief that any liberty loving citizen could vote for this far right government and not vomit in shame.
Referring to Jones, Mr Cunliffe stated that when a totara falls, other totara will grow in its place. Mr Parekura Horamia was a true totara. To me, Jones is no totara. In my opinion he has instead just shown himself to be a farterer creating bad stink.
I asked my uncle about the first world war and he talked about the horses.
I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines that they shot horses who were stuck or could no longer pull the guns and he thought it was wrong that animals who had nothing to do with the war were made to suffer and die, while men who could choose did the goading and the killing.
I don’t remember him going to Anzac Day Parades or wearing the red poppy, and he never showed me his medals.
Yep. Let us remember…the sheer brutality and utter inhumanity of outright warfare, where it is virtually always the civilians and the children who suffer the most egregious crimes.
My post was not about Le Quesnoy, it was about something altogether different: the rounding up and murder of more than one hundred unarmed men and boys in the village of Surafend. And the fact that the RSA’s magazine ran poems PRAISING the massacre.
Courage takes many forms , being a keyboard warrior isn’t one of them.
And rounding up civilians and battering them to death certainly is not courageous.
Or perhaps “Blue” thinks those Anzac murderers and the others who said nothing were courageous?
Blair’s anti-democratic tirade
by SEUMAS MILNE, The Guardian
Wednesday 23 April 2014
The neocons are back. That toxic blend of messianic warmongering abroad and McCarthyite witch-hunting at home – which gave us Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and the London bombings – is coursing through our public life again. Yesterday the liberal interventionists’ hero, Tony Blair, was once more demanding military action against the “threat of radical Islam”.
Reprising the theme that guided him and George Bush through the deceit and carnage of the “war on terror”, the former prime minister took his crusade against “Islamism” on to a new plane. The west should, he demanded, make common cause with Russia and China to support those with a “modern” view against the tide of political Islam.
But he also demanded military intervention against Syria – backed by Russia – along with more “active measures” to help the armed opposition, which is dominated by Islamists and jihadists. It’s a crazy combination with an openly anti-democratic core: the Middle East peace envoy also warmly endorsed the Egyptian dictatorship, along with the repressive autocracies of the Gulf.
Quite why the views of a man whose military interventions in the Muslim world have been so widely discredited, who has been funded by the Kazakhstan dictator and is regarded by up to a third of the British public as a war criminal, should be treated with such attention by the media isn’t immediately obvious. But one reason is that they chime with those of a powerful section of the political and security establishment.
In Britain, the campaign against Islamist “extremism” is once again in full flow. In fact, it is open season on the Muslim community. For the past few weeks reports have multiplied about an alleged “Islamic plot”, code-named Operation Trojan Horse, to take control of 25 state schools in Birmingham and run them on strict religious principles.
The education secretary, Michael Gove, a long-time neoconservative supporter of Blair’s wars and Islamist witchfinder general, responded by sending in an army of inspectors to hunt down extremists and appointing….
So Jones is off to help the Pacific Islands exploit the fish that swim in “their” waters.
When is this organism – homo sapiens – going to understand that it does not have domain over
and automatic right to gather the creatures of the sea?
No problem with people catching fish off the rocks but once they put to sea in boats …
I look forward to viewing your link showing where any cetacean comes ashore to pillage the land!
🙄
Just looking at ministerial expenses. Thanks No right turn. Why on earth doesn’t the NZ government have a blanket no alcohol policy. If you want to drink, you pay for it yourself. I’m sure other governments would be delighted to get their people back alcohol free.
For example Tim Grosser went to the Atlantic on the 9th Oct 13 for a “working dinner” food was $678 and drinks $433 the bulk of which was alcohol.How much much work was likely to be done when drinking.
And in New York he appears to be spending about $300 for three bottles of wine. And in July his P/S ( private secretary ) had lunch at the Circa Foggy Bottom. Near headquarters perhaps?
Apologies if it’s has already been noted (I haven’t been around for the last two days since the news of Jone’s departure has hit) but aren’t the right getting all frothy about it?
The RWNJ’s have come out from under their damp logs en masse to comment here, the media are spinning so hard that they could collectively, if connected to a generator power a large city (Just one example among many, from yesterday: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9968055/Jones-job-offer-not-shot-at-Labour-PM ) and the real life righties are agog.
The real life examples:
Discussion with visitor, a former ACT Party member and National voter on the topic of Shane Jone’s decision to leave, their view: ” I’m really disappointed, Shane Jones was the only decent down to earth one among the lot of them”…………Fine if you like misogynist corporate lobbyists, oh, right, you do………
And this little gem seen one an outdoor cafe blackboard in the Ohariu electorate: “Shane Jones: A loss to us all”. This guys’ not taking the piss. Its the same business owner that had “The jury is always right” written on his blackboard the day after Clint Rickards was not found guilty of rape in 2006 and once had a sign saying “if you don’t want to pay the surcharge on public holidays turn around and leave now”. (Touching that Jone’s inspired such sorrow in such a RWNJ’s heart)
What’s got them so ruffled? The prospect of a Labour Green led government advancing forward after 20th September, unencumbered by Jones, no longer there to “keep the Greenies in check”? I guess they are scared………….
I am very scared at the thought of the Greens anywhere near finance books. Labour near the books is not so bad but the Greens will wreck this country quicker then you can say green economy
Lol you PR. If you’re scared (of your imagination telling you “the Greens will wreck this country…) does that mean you have reason to expect that there will be a win for the Left and the Natz will be out?
“does that mean you have reason to expect that there will be a win for the Left and the Natz will be out?”
I expect National regain power (in fact I’d bet on it but most of the people on here are gutless so no one would take it) however a Labour/greens win is of course always a possibility
I’d be more worried by these jokers remaining in power.
Gradually indebting the country to foreign interests.
And yet you slavishly support them pr.
Pathetic, really.
“Government debt has reached $60 billion, having climbed $27 million a day since John Key became prime minister – and forecasts show it will rise for years to come.
Despite tax revenue being higher than expected and expenses lower in recent months, Treasury figures show net Crown debt reached the highest yet at $60,015,000,000 at the end of September.
It already equates to 28 per cent of New Zealand’s economic output, is more than $13,000 for every person in New Zealand and is forecast to climb by another $10b by 2017.
When National took control of the Beehive in 2008, debt was just over $10b.”
…because an approach of winning on merit just wouldn’t work for crap-policies-and-no-friends-National
….and spreading dissent is the only way they can get votes -that is by creating disharmony amongst us is it not?
‘Vote for National and have an increasingly divided country.’
National in power is whats best for NZ so National will do what it needs to do to win, Labour will attempt to do what it needs to do to win (it will fail though)
“its the right trying to spread dissent so that less people will vote for Labour”
Aha! Which comes back to being scared. Or at least a bit anxious and uncomfortable about the possibility of a Left win, which you do admit above, could happen.
I expect it could happen too, especially if UF, ACT and Maori fail to prop up the Natz.
The earth has warmed rapidly over the past century due mainly to human activity, and especially over the past few decades. The increased greenhouse effect has warmed the land and air and melted ice, but most of it (about 90%) has gone into heating the oceans. Several Skeptical Science contributors worked together to publish a scientific paper1 which combined the land, air, ice, and ocean warming data. It found that for recent decades the earth has been heating at a rate of 250 trillion Joules per second.
“Joules per second” is a difficult unit of measure to appreciate, and is especially foreign to people who are unfamiliar with science. This widget attempts to put that heating into terms that are easier to visualize. 250 trillion Joules per second is equivalent to:
Detonating four Hiroshima atomic bombs per second
Experiencing two Hurricane Sandys per second
Enduring four 6.0 Richter scale earthquakes per second
Being struck by 500,000 lightning bolts per second
Exploding more than eight Big Ben towers, with every inch packed full of dynamite, per second
Is “joules per second” too hard for you, Fisiani? That why they make picture books and widgets. Now remember to use your manners and say thank you.
sorry, couldnt reply to BM above. not all of us want to be rich, some of us like working for a wage, i enjoy my job. but that doesn’t mean i should get shit wages &/or job insecurity. there’s got to be a better way of structuring wealth & work, so people can earn decent wages & the bosses still get to buy their convertables for their latest barbie girl etc…
Yeah and it’s a curious one that the establishment applies to the teaching profession, particularly primary level. Apparently the meme is that individuals enter teaching for the love of it and not for the money. This has been twisted to, “We don’t have to pay them much because they do it for love.”
same with the aged care workers, & nurses i imagine, where a lot of work gets done not because they get paid for it but because they care, they will go the extra mile & help each other out. must run into the millions this unpaid work ppl do.
It’s pretty much across every sector. If you love you’re work you’ll get paid less and no employer will hire anybody who doesn’t love the work and they won’t hire you if you show no enthusiasm for working for the company either.
I sent an email to David Cunliffe and am interested in his reply. I wanted to know what his motives are for repairing the Gisborne/Napier rail if elected. There are concerns among the locals in Gisborne that Labour are using this to get Napier votes. Many locals here feel he wants to take a piece of Gisborne’s booming forestry to create opportunities for Napier. Unfortunately for us, this means making Napier Port busy, creating large volumes of logs for them. It seems a cynical move by Labour, compounded by the fact Mr Cunliffe and Ms Mackey are silent on the issue, declaring they want to open up the Gisborne to Napier rail line without properly explaining how it will benefit Gisborne. I am a Labour voter but personally I agree with National (which I have never done before) that it is not viable enough and will cost millions to repair the damaged line. It also hits home as we are employees in the forestry industry here, the good wages help us enjoy a reasonable quality of life and we can give our kids opportunities. I hope Mr Cunliffe can assure us that our jobs and our Eastland Port are not at threat and will not be impacted by diverting logs directly to Napier, affecting employees whom service those logs here.
Napier port has far superior log handling and storage facilities than Gisborne. Major shipping lines actually stop in Napier. The rail line is no threat to the jobs from the forests.
The alternative of no rail line is all those logging trucks going onto the highway on High Volume trailer trucks – which is dangerous and expensive. That highway maintenance and safety cost falls on us taxpayers. By rail that cost falls where it should onto the logging companies.
Remember when there was a rail station and jobs in Gisborne? Time to bring those jobs back.
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Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from 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 public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
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:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
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 ...
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. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
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 Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Collins: she and Key are guilty and they have to be held to account. Keep up the good work Grant Robertson.
Dunne: allowing him to continue with the legal highs job while his son is making a fortune from the sales of the shit is not tolerable in this society. Key is failing in his role.
Jones? An oxygen thief not worth any further effort.
Pam Corkery had a go at the Dunne father and son connection yesterday.
Jones afraid that a Labour-Green government was a real possibility?
Mr Jones, ask not what your party can do for you: ask what you can do for your party.
Left politics are not helped by politicians more focused on their own career ambitions than the good of the country.
Totally agree there, Karol.
And so it continues. He just can’t help it, can he. It’s his overinflated ego and the imaginary hurt because the plebs haven’t figured out what a great leader he is.
Seriously, Shane, can’t you just STFU?
I’m waiting for the term “naked ambition” to be applied to Jones – remember when it was used by the MSM regularly about Cunliffe? Compare and contrast.
Far from it. In fact the sentence “Labour has now got to find a way of appealing to its traditional blue collar workers” and variations on it, has been repeated like a mantra on this morning’s Morning Report, with David Shearer and Damien O’Connor among those quoted.
Never mind the fact that Jones offered such people nothing concrete – that whatever appeal he had rested on a smoko-room-anecdote way of talking. Never mind either that the whole sentence seems code for “the building contractor who owns several rentals and hires people from overseas, having judged the locals as bloody useless,” and others of similar persuasion.
The whole business looks more and more like an attempt by the right wing from both inside and outside of the Labour Party to subvert the will of left-voting people while pretending to heed it.
Shearer has been a bit more of a dick over the past few days.
Well said Olwyn.
+1
“..“Labour has now got to find a way of appealing to its traditional blue collar workers”..”
there is a simple three word answer/solution to that:..
..policy..policy..policy..
@ olwyn..+ 1…
Well I for one am appalled at what’s been happening in the Labour Party. Jones? a minor distraction, blown out of all proportion by the MSM, and reinforced by dickheads in the Labour Party. Glad it happened now, so I can now look to another party that will WANT my vote (Greens, Mana). and not Labour saying we don’t care if you vote for us. Because that’s the message I am getting. That and ‘We can’t organise Sex in a brothel’.
Here in Wanaka people just laugh when I talk about Labour or Greens. Phrases like “a house divided cannot stand” and “country’s doing great” for Labour, and “ewwww!” And “ha hahaaa” for Greens.
Everyone’s income is addicted to real estate, tourism, and superannuation. Those in agriculture can’t get comprehensive irrigation fast enough.
Quite bracing. Pour me a Pinot.
you need to get to know more local Wanaka families, and fewer recent (last 10 years) imports from Auckland, Wellington and overseas.
lolz, nice on CV.
The GP candidate in the Waitaki electorate is a well known Wanaka person and did quite well over there.
“Everyone’s income is addicted to real estate, tourism, and superannuation. Those in agriculture can’t get comprehensive irrigation fast enough.”
In other words, Wanaka is being turned into an industrial dairying cesspit like everywhere else. Will be interesting to see how the farmers get on with the tourism lobby and lifestyle block real estate agents in ten years time.
Is that where they truck in cheap labour,oh thats QTN.your next though.
John Key in denial as he visits the front line for the war on the poor.
He’s talking up the better state houses on offer, and fails to mention the cut backs in amount of state housing, while communtiies are destroyed.
Ooops, didn’t see your comment here when i posted one on the same thing below, Slippery and un-Housing Minister Nick Smith must have picked up a sense of disquiet from among the voters in the ‘focus groups’ about the ripping apart of the HousingNZ estate to be using the media in what seems like a week long ‘charm offensive’ where they are spending time ‘highlighting’ what few new build HousingNZ complexes have been completed by this regime…
Nice to see that they were warmly received, and that the people were so happy with the truth they were being told by the TricKey one. Why they even donated eggs for his dinner. And still he moans.
It’s nice to know the poor aren’t so badly off that they can’t afford to waste eggs… our brighter future
Interesting framing for the first article to be posted on this in the Herald yesterday, which manages to insinuate Mana Party for staging it all: PM’s car egged during state housing protests.
Comments allowed on this article, unsurprisingly, and some live up to the quality of reporting.
Molly. I notice that a lot of the comments have disappeared, and there are only 13 left. WTF.
Herald comments are bizarre – never really know what is going on there…
so..jones and mccully have been talking about this ‘job’ for jones since 2009..
..key sez that national ‘has had good dialogue with jone..for a long time’..
..basically..jones has been nationals’ mole/man within labour..
..since at least 2009…
..yeah..some ‘loss’ for labour he’s now surfaced/broken cover..and returned to his paymasters…
..and walk like a traitor..quack like a traitor..
..you probably are nothing more that a traitor..
..(jones gone is good news for labour..
..the braying/bought-fool will bray no more..
..but he still stays ‘bought’..
..forever..
..what a shabby ending to a political-career..eh..?
..by his ongoing treachery jones has guaranteed himself a small historical-footnote..
..but we are told..he ‘coulda been a contender!’…
..a man sunk by his hubris/ignorances/for sale sign around his neck..
..when you look at jones..
..he was/is pretty much on ‘the wrong side’ of everything..
..his latest move just confirms that long pattern..
..jones sells out to the planet-fuckers..
..those really on ‘the wrong side’..)
”One, two, three, four, stop the war on the poor, Maraenui under attack, stand up and fight back”, so chanted the kids of Maraenui a Napier suburb with a heavy concentration of State housing as Slippery the Prime Minister arrived to gush over the opening of some new pensioner housing,
Having all the gastronomic fortitude of your average Rat the PM then tried to do a bunk out the back way to avoid the protest, unfortunately someone forgot to tell the driver of the limo of the change of plan and the local kids again had the pleasure of voicing their displeasure in the face of the PM along with tossing the occasional missile in the direction of the limo which eventually left bearing the scars,
Slippery later claimed that the kids, mostly 10 to 12 year old’s were ”saying things they didn’t understand” and i suppose to preserve His ego He has to think that, but, can assure the PM that subjecting HousingNZ estates to the forced evictions and demolitions of the current regime and its 20%– $2.5 billion HousingNZ sell off leaves those kids knowing full well what is in store for them,
While it is hard to oppose such actions in the face of the publicity stunts being organized by the current regime where the tame media are being lead around by the nose by the likes of the PM and un-Housing Minister Nick Smith ‘gushing’ over the few completed ‘new build’ HousingNZ complexes we have to remember that for all their worth, and in the future pensioner housing will be like gold with the growth of the aged population, with the proposed shrinking of the States Housing stock by 20% it will be those 10 and 12 year old’s protesting befor the Prime Minister who will be all the worse off in the future,
Poverty has not lessened in this country, the reverse is true, it is not 20% less State Houses that are needed now in our society, it is at least 20% more of such housing that is needed with urgency…
David Cunliffe on Shane Jones “When a totara falls in the forest another totara grows to take it’s place”.
How rooted is the Labour totara?
🙄 , Not near as rooted as the United Future Party which you obviously helped along the way with your ”contribution” George,
Your comment is obviously designed to inflame ‘Open Mike’ this morning and deserves nothing more then this, 🙄 , this 🙄 ,and this, 🙄 …
What a silly comment Pete. I thought you would be coming out with the “Labour is ignoring the working class” line that is being perpetrated right now. By all means do that but how about you do a bit of fact checking beforehand. Read the party’s policy platform and then try and argue the party is not interested in ordinary people.
I think it’s a fair question Greg, it’s something that’s being widely discussed. I understand that it’s the done thing in politics to stoically say everything is fine and a win is imminent, but when the chasm between reality is so wide then it is counter-productive.
The party’s policy is not the problem. The perception of the party is tending towards pathetic.
The party might be interested in ordinary people but it doesn’t show much. I’ve seen here and elsewhere since the loss in 2008 that the Labour caucus in particular is out of touch and doesn’t want to hear from ordinary people.
Ex Labour minister Michael Bassett may not be a party favourite but what he said on Radio New Zealand half an hour ago about Labour now are common sentiments.
It’s a difficult hole to get out of, but continuing to dig and deny won’t do it.
Labour looks out of touch with people and out of touch with reality. If they don’t turn this around very soon it could be terminal.
The first step is admitting the problems. It’s to far gone for stoic bullshit.
If the Labour totara uproots and crashes other parties will grow in the gap, but that takes time, and in the meantime Parliament will be significantly weakened.
🙄 absolute drivel George, 🙄 🙄 🙄 …
No it is not a fair question Pete. It is fact free loaded spin. I thought you were trying to appear balanced.
Michael Basset reflecting common sentiments? Feck his party is now at less than 1% of the vote.
There may be a perception problem. It is because of a bunch of nodding heads reinforcing all the right wing spin that is fed to them and you should reflect on your comments in this regard.
“..a bunch of nodding heads reinforcing all the right wing spin that is fed to them and you should reflect on your comments in this regard..”
given he is one of those (albeit less literate examples of) rightwing nodding-heads..
..that is a bit of an ask..
..and quoting/citing rabid-rightwinger michael ‘just walk on the poor!’ bassett..?
..as the voice of ‘the common man’..?
..heh..!
..that’s funny..!
I didn’t expect a sudden emergence from denial.
Blame right wing spin.
Blame National.
Blame McCully.
Blame the media.
Blame Shane Jones.
Blame small party support that’s irrelevant.
Blame anyone pointing out the emperor’s clothes are in tatters here.
And see how you get on in September.
It may be that a million non-voters are suddenly attracted to a party fiddling while it’s Rome burns.
getting a bit tetchy there Pete!
hey, don’t you have a Budget for Poor People to be working on?
or have you decided it is in the too-hard basket and Politicheck won’t be doing any fact-checking articles on poverty in New Zealand?
Still waiting for the facts Pete. Go on. Have a look at Labour’s policies and tell me which ones will not help ordinary people.
It’s not about the policies Greg. I can agree with most of most of Labour’s policies, and sure, some of them would help ‘ordinary people’ (although spending too much on policies could have negative effects for ordinary people too).
Very few voters read policies. Most people vote mostly on personalities and perceptions of competence.
Policies without power are paltry. If voters think a party doesn’t have the people or competence to win power and run a government then they won’t care what policies promise.
So reality does not matter and perception is all important? So I guess fact checking is a waste of time.
Both reality and perception matter, because people can perceive disconnects from reality.
People can be fooled to perceive things that aren’t real some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
Fact checking isn’t a waste of time – it can help people perceive more accurately and not get fooled by party propaganda and ignorance.
pg..
..you fool none of the people…all the time..
(and..)
“..Fact checking isn’t a waste of time..”
..when are ya gonna go and do some..?
..how is that poverty-fact-check coming along.?
(and..)
“..and not get fooled by party propaganda and ignorance..?..”
but that is yr oxygen..there..petey..
..’party propaganda and ignorance’..
..eh..?
..that is what you peddle here..
Isn’t it important for a fact checker to put aside perception and determine matters on what is actually occurring?
Ok, can you say what is actually occurring in Labour? Like, actually, and not party spin?
I get it that they are gradually releasing policies.
What is Cunliffe achieving? and What is Labour achieving? You can set the record straight.
“..It’s not about the policies Greg…”
fucken bullshit..
..national promised tax cuts as their way to office..
..an agreement on working towards a guaranteed minimum income from the progressive parties..
..would get many of that million to the ballot-box..
..and surely by now labour must realise this is their path to power..?
..and labour may well have some good policy..
..maybe now the jones-circus/obstacle has left town..
..they can focus on selling that policy..
..talking directly to those ‘blue-collar-workers’..
..telling ‘blue-collar workers’ how a progressive coalition will improve their day-to-day life..
Here’s some data Pete, it’s not as good as we might like, but if you know of better, please share.
What does this data say about who people think “Is out of touch with ordinary people”?
http://www.reidresearch.co.nz/TV3+POLL+RESULTS.html
fact check yo’self Pete.
“Is out of touch with ordinary people”
National leader – 52%
Labour leader – 22%
Estimated from chart January 2014 (a bit outdated).
Cool. There’s more data there too of course that my be relevant to this discussion.
As I noted, the data isn” as good as we might like it, but it’s what we have, unless you have better data to share of course.
So, bearing in mind that:
“Fact checking isn’t a waste of time – it can help people perceive more accurately and not get fooled by party propaganda and ignorance.”
have a quick look at the following statements, and see if the facts revealed by that data can help clear up any propaganda or ignorance regarding what people think:
1) “Labour looks out of touch with people and out of touch with reality. If they don’t turn this around very soon it could be terminal.”
2) ” The perception of the party is tending towards pathetic.”
3) “Ex Labour minister Michael Bassett may not be a party favourite but what he said on Radio New Zealand half an hour ago about Labour now are common sentiments”
If an election is held today, which party would get your party vote?
If this question is for me – none. The election isn’t being held today. The parties and politicians haven’t put all their offerings and abilities on show yet.
If I vote I’ll decide who for close to or on election day.
But I’ll give you a possibility – if Labour are at 20% in the polls just before the election I’d consider voting for them to help keep them alive, if I thought they deserved it.
Save your pity vote Pete, it’s not needed.
“If an election is held today, which party would get your party vote?”
Pete, you know full well it is a hypothetical question.
Now if you do not want to share who you vote for that is your choice, just stand up tall and proud and say that you prefer not to share such intimate secret knowledge of your deepest soul. People would respect that. But to hide behind such pitiful reasoning when discussing a hypothetical situation is even more bizarre than you being Editor in Chief of a fact checking site.
http://thesaurus.com/browse/hypothetical
So basically it seems that you will decide who to vote for near election day based on their polices, but you will not be voting for Labour unless they need you to “save them”.
In other words, it seems that you have a rather strong disdain for Labour, as you will not consider voting for them on the merits of their actual policies. This is also evident in many other comments you post: whether or not you will admit to it, many of your comments here are strongly anti-Labour in tone or message.
Given this bias against Labour, I fail to see how your position as an independent “fact-checker” is tenable.
The has been Petty George trying to tell other parties how they should do their bizz, having helped make His own political vehicle United Future a political irrelevancy has to be the joke of the day,
A piece of toilet paper while not being as ”transparent’ as Petty George is a 100 times more useful, and this 🙄 …
Hey Bad that’s how Petey gets his answers. If the shit soaks thru then…
Only according to the RWNJs and their pets in the MSM.
So what is the definition of “ordinary people”? Because according to the 2012 New Zealand Social Survey just 21% of New Zealanders reported satisfactory results across all four of the surveyed areas of health, money, relationships and housing.
Now relationships generally isn’t the domain of government policy (unless it’s to keep abusive behaviour in check), but Labour is putting in the effort to address the other three areas. I know people who have been helped enormously by Working For Famiilies. Kiwisaver helped me buy my home and plan for my future. And interest free student loans has saved me thousands. By contrast over the past 5 years National has done nothing that it can point to that benefits the people of New Zealand, aside from not rolling back those Labour programmes in the first place. Further, Michael Cullen’s stewardship laid the foundations to weather the GFC better than most countries, although I think he could have done more to keep the housing bubble in check.
Let me ask you a question, Pete. What do you think is the legacy of this government? How do you think history will remember John Key’s administration? Because I’m really struggling to see any area at all where Key has improved New Zealand social wellbeing.
Any improvements have been modest and you have to look hard.
Key’s nearly two terms is best known for minimising things getting worse over the course of a New Zealand recession (started under Labour), a Global financial crisis, and major disasters in Christchurch.
Many people see that as a creditable achievement, and probably at least as good as any alternative government could have managed.
It’s been unusual circumstances of economic survival that the country seems to have come through better than expected.
If the National government survives into another term then we will get to see the Key legacy – if it’s any more than a cautious conservative treading water or not when we are expected to recover and grow.
Oh FFS Petey can’t you just answer the fucking questions.
What do you think is the legacy of this government? A: The Blatant Corruption,
How do you think history will remember John Key’s administration? A:For the Corruption and deals for the Boys.
See that’s how it’s done Question. Answer. Simple.. And none of your useless bullshit waffling and link whoring!. And no one screaming at you for being a useless T 🙄
🙄
@ pg..
..are you using ‘rooted’ in its’ conjugal-sense/meaning..?
He’s not using any of the words in any of their senses to convey any meaning, and he’ll probably cry if you ascribe any.
😈 😆
Oh pete – labour are the forest not the tree and (even as a non-labour person I can see) that forest is an ecosystem that is complete – until the chainsaws arrive and start cutting – are you a chainsaw pete? Do you want the forest cut down? If a tree is old or diseased a big gust of Mcgully-wind can blow it down – that tree is uprooted. The forest remains, ever changing.
in this case the ‘mccully-wind’..
..has proven for labour the axiom that ‘it’s an ill wind that bows nobody any good’…
..the diseased-totara has fallen..
..quick may it rot..
marty mars +100.. very good analogy
.I would like to see what the new tree Kelvin Davis has to offer and what he stands on….get to know him….a guest post/interview ?…. or a statement from him on open mike would be much appreciated
…particularly on where he stands on Charter Schools and Standards testing…there does seem to be a bit of confusion on where exactly he does stand on these issues
…the sooner we get to know him the sooner Jones will recede into the past
NZ also needs to hear Labour’s clearly stated views on the new EDUCANZ group.
We currently have a Minister of Education who says that Teachers need to lead the charge whilst not wanting teachers involved in deciding where that charge is headed.
Yep Chooky. Especially “…the sooner we get to know him (Davis) the sooner Jones will recede into the past.” Hear hear.
Kelvin Davis’ statement on FB. Well worth a read.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=776801432351706&id=776784779020038&fref=nf
Labour’s caucus righties still don’t get how strong the base of the party is. We have comprehensively outplayed them. Jones simply figured that the path to leadership is now determined not by caucus factions, but by the whole.
Goff and King and Mallard will see caucus slowly tilt away from factions, and towards merit alone demonstrated to us all.
Get back under your bridge, the Gruff family is due any minute.
united future..not so much a ‘totora’..
..as a twig of ti-tree…
Trying to be clever? Beneath even you Pete 🙄
The Petty George Show roll(eye)s on.
Yesterday he was offering his “support” to The Greens. Today he’s on a ring-barking mission, and he keeps his little bag of poison handy just in case.
This PG bullshit is getting tedious, I wish he would advise on how the TS site should be run…
[lprent: ummm… I’m not sure how I feel about people trying to encourage push people into the propeller blades. Perhaps you should desist so I don’t find out how I feel about it. ]
Don’t argue with an idiot like PG. Onlookers might not be able to tell the difference. Just eye-roll him and he will go away. 🙄
Sure lprent I’ll “desist” from advising PG, cos he always takes my advice 🙄
PG just Fuck Off, you are nothing but a waste of Oxygen.
[lprent: If you don’t put a point or even some wit to go with the abuse, then don’t make the comment. Otherwise I’ll eventually get irritated and start banning repeat offenders. ]
Sorry just got sick of the continual negativity.
David Cunliffe on Shane Jones “When a totara falls in the forest another totara grows to take it’s place”
Is that a quote Pete? Can you please attribute it?
So you see him ( as I do ) as a “Jonesling”, Phillip.
without doubt..
..and the further we get from these revelations of this ongoing treachery/double-dealing of/by jones…
..the stronger the stench will be..
..(i wonder if he/jones realises this yet..?..his guaranteed place in the halls of political infamy..?..)
..now..imagine were this a national party ‘high-flyer’..
..who had been in ‘good dialogue’ with the labour party ‘for a long time’..
..and had now left national..at a crucial pre-election moment..(designed to do the most harm to ‘his’ party..)..
..to ‘work for labour’..in a plum/created/troughing-‘job’..
..i wonder how our corporate/access-media wd handle that scenario..?
..differently from how they are handling this breaking from cover of jones..?
..i’m betting it wouldn’t be ‘national in disarray’..
..it’d likely be all about ‘the treachery/undemocratic-practices of labour’..
..eh..?..
Shane Who???…
They’d be saying how great it is for National now that a cuckoo had left.
I wonder if Murray allowed for Jones 5 knuckle shuffle, when over seas on the company credit card.
So Jones sells out for a few pieces of silver.
The Noise Jones made over the Countdown super market chain
Was obviously designed to up his transfer fees.
The snide flipant attitude over shower flow rates prior to 2008 election were designed to unseat Labour so Hey could have a tilt at leading labour.
Now all chances of becoming leader have gone.
Sabotage is his payback for not getting what He wants .
For all his intellect.
Jones is just a self centered highly egotistical dickhead.
At least Shane Jones told us who donated to his challenge
I think what came up about Shane Jones donors supports the arguement for the Trust account DC set up. He didn’t know the donors, so could not be influence by them. That was the intention. Shows integrity.
Jones knew whos his donors were and what a surprize! not. Anti green, pro mining and secret meetings with National about a job………….Shane “what’s in it for me” Jones.
I seem to remember him saying about DC after the leadership contest that he lost, “I offer DC my unstinting loyalty”…………..Yeah right.
Shane Jones……………good for Tui adds.
Countdown’s proxies will be called on by National for donations. Ralph Norris will be very pleased.
LOL Trotter and Bassett on RNZ morning report commenting on Labour and Jones, no agendas there…
Dover Samuels, John Tamihere, Bassett, all has been’s, yesterday’s men, all trumpeting the right wing framing of Jones having tossed His toys, class traitors in other words,
Shane Who, has been a waste of space in both the Labour Government and the Labour Opposition, His quitting is the only positive in a career that has been singularly damaging to the Party,
Jones touted as the ‘champion’ of the blue collar workers by the media and the ever growing list of political commentators is a joke, and those touting Him as such an even worse joke,
Good riddance is what the left should be shouting back at the fools touting Jones as any champion of the working class,
The sooner Labour clean out the old gaurd right wingers from the Caucus the better, Jones wont be missed past the next ‘frenzy item’ seized upon by what is an obviously bored media…
Yes what labour needs right now is a public purging of people such as Goff,Shearer,Cosgrove,O’Conner.
If Cunliffe is any leader, he’ll start wielding his sword today.
Their destabilizing influence is destroying labour and must be removed before labour can win this years election.
Thanks for your concern, T.R.O.L.L.
Just agreeing with Bad12. 😉
🙂
i don’t usually bother addressing your comments BM, that is probably because conversing with the dumb while having its amusing moments is really an exercise in futility,
Take your current comment for instance, ”Labour winning the election” is the thinking of the Neanderthal,
Labour has No chance of winning the election, in 2014 though, the Left has every chance of doing just that….
As a right wing supporter, why do you post as a Labour party well-wisher?
The post to Bad12 was purely a piss-take of his ridiculous ramblings.
I’m predominantly right wing but would have no issue voting labour, if they had decent people and policies.
I hope one day labour ditches the unions,their last century thought process and becomes a decent party again.
Employees must once again unionise and organise in order to exercise collective bargaining power over employers, particularly larger and corporate employers.
Even better, co-ops of workers need to start taking over and democratically running their own work places, instead of taking orders from some faraway Man who doesn’t even understand the business.
I think all businesses need to become cooperatives with the present shareholders becoming either bond or loan holders and no say in the running of the company. Only those who work there would have any say in the direction of the company.
Why don’t workers just set up businesses like this? There’s nothing to stop them.
How many workers want to take on the responsibility of running the business they work for?
Yes there is. Several things in fact:
1.) Finances (this is systemic – our entire system is against it)
2.) Improper education
3.) Raised in an abusive and dysfunctional family (admittedly, 2 & 3 tend to go together)
and more that I just can’t think of right now.
I suspect more than most people realise.
PG’s comments are those of someone completely ignorant of the power of corporate forces and big banking in our economy.
If he was serious about supporting small community owned businesses he would have more to offer us than “get to it then.”
FTFY
You’ll never vote anything other than radical right which means National or Act.
Are you just thick or a complete idiot? The Labour party was formed for the betterment of the people and the country by the workers who were exploited by the wealthy. In the modern world, workers come from innumerable professions, not just miners etc that helped form the party in its beginning days. It is the Labour party principles, policies and programmes that has made New Zealand a better place for everyone, men and women, children and the elderly, employees and the employers, the unemployed and the poor, and even the rich pricks that now infest the greedy ungrateful right wing parties such as National and ACT that are spitting on the poor and the ordinary people with their unfair, unjust, selfish policies, while happily copying many of the great social policies of the last Labour government.
But for the Labour’s socialist principles, you would be on pittance wages languishing on 12 hour days, women’s rights would be pretty much non existent like in some middle east countries, homophobia and discrimination would continue unabated etc, etc. Innumerable progress has been made and lots more needs to be done for justice, environment, equity, freedom, true prosperity etc
Don’t bad mouth the Labour party, you nitwit.
“Jones touted as the ‘champion’ of the blue collar workers by the media and the ever growing list of political commentators is a joke, and those touting Him as such an even worse joke,”
He’d only be a class traitor if he was a blue collar worker. But he never was blue collar. Groomed as a future leader from a very early age, wasn’t he?
Anyway as far as I’m concerned it’s a clean out out of the Labour right, who contradict L(l)abour ideals anyway.
Class traitor, phfft what a load of shit, you’re not Pomgolia now, we don’t do classes down here.
This hang up you lefties have on putting people in boxes/classes is the reason why you’re failing.
It’s a class war BM and you know that because you are one of its participants. An ongoing class war that the 1% who hold the largest share of capital wealth wages every day against the 99% who do not.
You’re on a site with many who are well versed in political economics, so have some respect and please don’t treat the rest of us as ignorant.
It is not a class war, there will never be a class war in NZ.
If you picked out 100 random people in the street and then told them we’re fighting a class war, they’d think you’re a complete lunatic that should be locked in a padded cell.
“It is not a class war, there will never be a class war in NZ.”
ROFL why are you still trying it on? When you are one of the participants in this very class war?
Perhaps you should learn about NZ history, check out the great strike of 1913, also how the Liberal Government broke up all the large land holdings of the richest families in the 1890’s. And of course, the dispossesion of the entire working class in the 1980’s and 1990’s due to Rogernomics and Ruthanasia.
Really, and I could have sworn that we just had a couple of high-class bludgers go through NZ at our expense.
That has got to be psychological projection. It’s the left that are trying to break down the class barriers while the RWNJs always seem to be trying to build them up.
There are no classes to break down, do you not understand this?
Yes there are. there’s the rich, the middle class, the poor and now the precariat. Just because you want to deny reality and insist these classes don’t exist doesn’t make them any less true.
But the poor can become middle class and the middle class can become rich.
Where are the barriers?
Debt peonage
Lack of cheap credit to start/expand your own business
Economic rentier behaviour from the 0.1% and corporatocracy
An economic and social system which inherently advantages white property owning males
Debt peonage
Examples?
Lack of cheap credit to start/expand your own business
last thing we need is under capitalized businesses starting up, fast way to the poor house
Economic rentier behaviour from the 0.1% and corporatocracy
Examples?
An economic and social system which inherently advantages white property owning males
it’s all the fault of white males, seriously?
I’ve already given you the broad categories, look it up for yourself. Not your research service.
And I’ll add one more: deliberately reduced and declining income share of labour (i.e. workers) with respect to GDP, with the difference siphoned off to corporations and capitalist owners.
“But the poor can become middle class and the middle class can become rich.
Where are the barriers?”
Oh BM, I didn’t realise you were quite this lost. How do you think you’ll ever be rich without poor people?
But there’s no barriers if you want to make the effort, you may not succeed but the opportunity is there.
No barriers at all.
Of course not BM
In their book on inequality The Spirit Level, British researchers Wilkinson and Pickett devote a whole chapter to showing the different ways that entrenched inequality reduces social mobility.
But you have researched this more of course by reading Slater’s opinion and then repeating it.
https://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/wolfson.institute/events/Wilkinson372010.pdf
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2010/05/inequality-and-social-mobility.html
BM, would you like to address my question please?
How will you manage to be rich without poor people?
“if you want to make the effort …. the opportunity is there.”
gee thanks BM,
I never knew the only reason I am poor, is I am lazy
In your world no rich person has ever actively worked against poor people doing better
know what?
for a guy who no-doubt imagines his initials stand for Big Man,
you sure do have a tiny mind.
There will always be poor people, it’s always been that way and always will.
How much money I make is irrelevant.
[my emphasis]
lol
So even if you make an effort, you might remain poor? But there are no barriers?
Fuck you’re a slippery liar.
“if you want to make the effort …. the opportunity is there.”
Ever play video games BM?
I ask coz there’s this thing on many of them in ‘settings’ where you can dial things up and down, and make the game easier.
You know?
Your dude might have more hit points, or it might make the enemies a bit dumber, or fewer, that sort of thing.
Imagine that in a multi-player game, and some folks get their settings set, by society, a bit easier on most of the settings. They will find it easier, and if they don;t get that are playing at an advantage, they are gonna think they are shit hot at this game.
Aren’t they?
Absolutely.
Many people have busted their nuts and never succeeded, that’s just how the game goes.
Maybe their idea was shit, maybe people didn’t want their product, maybe they ran out of money or the timing was wrong.
No one is ever guaranteed success.
So the poor can become middle class and the middle class can become rich, but even if the poor do everything right they might not succeed, in which case through no fault of their own they can’t become middle class / rich.
Are you suffering from severe cognitive dissonance, or are you just a shit liar?
Ooh ooh I know this one, he’s a shit liar McF.
He still won’t answer my q either: How can he be rich without poor people?
Who does he think is going to do the shit jobs? The other rich people? Good luck getting them to work for peanuts.
Fucking idiot liar.
Cool BM will support 100% death duties and the law that makes it illegal to transfer your personal wealth to anyone else.
That way we all start with nothing and only the sum of our personal endeavors will get us anywhere.
“Who does he think is going to do the shit jobs? ”
The failures. If we get rich enough the guest workers. You are being stupid.
Nope sryass, BM said the poor will become middle class, and then rich. So no more poor people.
You can’t have it both ways, dicks.
It’s in the interest of the Tories to pretend that they are not waging war against the under class and working class – stealth is the only way they can get away with it.
I know.
That is ridiculous. The Government (I assume the “Tories” is some unheard of label you have for the New Zealand Government. Funny I thought it was some ancient English political faction) presides over a $27 billion welfare safety net. You are seriously deluded.
Hey Shitlands. All you’ve pointed out is that the Tories have some remnant electoral self preservation instinct. They know that they cannot dismantle the NZ welfare state expeditiously and have to instead dismantle it bit by bit, while demonising the vulnerable and the poor on the way. And your point is?
What’s a servant of the power elite like you who has never voted in NZ care anyway?
SSpylands, I have serious concerns about your memory. Your confusion about the word “tory” sounded familiar, and less that 30sec using the search box says you were taught about that word last September, and again in October. Try reading those comment branches again before (once again) removing all doubt as to your stupidity.
I’m especially concerned that such a stupid fucking idiot, as you obviously must be, claims to be/have been involved in formulation of government policy.
Perhaps that would explain why you are obviously unaware that the nats are destroying the $27bil welfare safety net loop by “application declined” loop.
Or maybe you think it’s a sophisticated distraction to plead ignorance about a two-syllable word and then argue that the fact the government hasn’t completely destroyed something means that the government must be actively preserving it. Well, an idiot feels compelled to double down on his own idiocy, I guess.
Oh god so stupid.
could be useful here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npj2U1PdIhI#t=109
a suggested sign-language-for-deaf ‘sign’ for ‘shane jones’:
..a rhythmic half-closed-fist hand-motion should do it/the trick..
Politics is hard mistress. I just watched the David Cunliffe interview on the Paul Henry Show from Tuesday night. Respect! Respect! David was very calm despite the best efforts of that psychotic arse. I’ll bathe in Dettol!
Education
The US middle class income falling faster than any OECD country WHy.
Education has been identified as the cause of decline.
Decline in Pisa scores directly related to decline in income.
And we are adopting the same policies that have lead to this decline.
Yes as Kelvin Davis is a teacher …i would like to see/hear his views on Charter Schools and Standards Testing enunciated here for all to see/hear…just so we can have confidence in him.
On the surface he looks like a very fortunate replacement for Shane
btw….why is Morning Report bringing out Bassett….of ACT to criticise the Labour Party and Cunliffe….Bassett is an old ‘has been’ Rogernom….he is the last person who should be critiquing Labour and Cunliffe….he was part of the cabal that just about destroyed Labour
….what is Morning Report doing?…is it now a mouthpiece for ACT?
….that said I thought John Tamihere was very good ….cant he be brought back into the Labour Party fold?…he has done his time for his ‘crime’ insensitivity to women ( a crime many others have committed on the Left) ….and he was very popular on radio …he could be a big draw card for Neathandral Man …Labour working men.
What did you really expect when they put Espiner in there the other week. I have listened only once to Morning Report since he took over, it took me about 40 mins of Espiner to change the channel to something reasonable, like Radio Live.
Uh, you’re incorrect on this count, unfortunately. You’ve mistaken cause and effect.
What getting a higher education means today in the USA is being highly qualifiedand stacking shelves or flipping burgers on the minimum wage, with a massive and unrepayable student loan.
The true cause of the collapse of the US middle class is far more complex – and has to do with the power elite exporting all solid working class jobs out of the nation and then systematically destroying the value of peoples property and pension funds.
+1111
ONE News headline ” Labour in damage control “:National a safe pair of hands “.
“Labour party has definately been hurt”- Corinn Dann.
yet “Jones often acted as a wedge between Labour and the Greens” , refused to work with Norman – Michael Parkin with a side order of Pagani spin, “it’s a warning sign”
Gower- “…risks being punished in the polls.”
Plenty of balance there was, Not!
Further to the harms of fructose, The WHO new recommendations for daily sugar intake, 5% of total daily food intake. Equals about 6 teaspoons.
If cut back, takes about four days of unsettling withdrawals.
That doesn’t quite make sense, the WHO 5% of daily food intake that is, i would have to weigh my total food intake for a day,(which is probably a good idea to do for a week), but, am pretty sure that if liquids are included then the daily intake is over ‘ a kilo’,
Me thinks i will do that starting next Monday, weighing both solid food and liquid intake to see what my normal diet weighs,(weekends are now the ‘fasting diet’ to keep the kilo’s falling off),
Dieting is interesting, i have found that even the vege and fruit diet can add body weight, which suggests weight loss is more a matter of ‘how much’ of ‘anything’ is the key,
Still think unless a ‘scientific case’ can be made for adding sugar to food can be made then Legislation is needed to have it removed from food items that are not classed specifically as sweets,or at the least, a large label being a requirement to show the number of spoons of sugar a serving of the product contains per serving,
Last nights Third Degree was a shallow look at the other side of the health issue ‘fats’, i wasn’t impressed at all,
Obviously the body ‘needs’ some fat/oil so as to be able to transport vital nutrients around the body which otherwise would simply be discharged via the liver down the toilet, i am though sticking with the view of good fats/bad fats…
Weight loss is more a question of getting some exercise.
Exercise is important of course but it is just one factor. For instance, Dr Lustig’s presentation on how large quantities of sugar in the modern diet screws up energy-behaviour metabolism at the brain level is instructive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y
Agree and disagree Draco, for those able to ‘up’ the amount of physical activity to burn off the calories its not bad advice,
However, if like me a person has bone or muscle issues which prohibit the ‘upping’ of physical exercise then it has to be diet alone which can be used as the weight loss mechanism…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T'ai_chi_ch'uan
Lolz stop it, next you will be advising me how to prepare mung beans and lentils…
Boil until dead and then throw it in the garden as compost 😛
If you’re dead you can’t throw it in the garden.
@ bad 12
molasses can be a good substitute for sugar cravings…this is all the minerals /vits etc left over from sugar refining…it is very strong but it can be put in gravies and cakes or on porridge..or just a tsp as a tonic…Red Seal Black Strap Molasses has for a few dollars… manganese( lots), magnesium(lots), iron, calcium( lots), sodium
…a good book to get is : ‘Stay Healthy by Supplying Whats lacking in Your Diet’ by David Coorey….for $25..(NZ publishing House .Private Bag 12029, Tauranga…(Tel: 0800 140 141)
( it gives an index of health symptoms/deficiencies /foods that supply essential vits/minerals for these deficiences eg …advice for weight loss, diabetes, alcohol cravings ,eye sight , dementia, gout, migraines , chloresterol, osteoporosis, gum disease, chronic fatigue, tinnitus….etc.etc.).. you can be your own doctor before your symptoms get out of control…it is very budget friendly …i hardly ever see a doctor!..nor does my family)
Lolz thanks Chooky, but, spending 25 bucks on a book here isn’t an option, i have tho Google as a friend and can find it all out from the basic to the uni studies online,
Molasses sounds quite interesting and i will check out the cost on my next food forage in the supermarket, still sugar tho,(even tho it contains a good amount of those essential minerals), and, i have to watch total intake,
That sugar craving at a certain point as you cut down is quite an acute one, psychological more than physical,(for me anyway), i have cut down from 2 teaspoons in my tea mug all the time to 1 teaspoon and then onto 1 teaspoon every fourth cuppa,
My fruit intake has tho tripled from what has been the lifelong (bad) habit and there are plenty of sugars in fruit, weight has dropped to 95 kilo from 110 kilo at Christmas, i am tho doing mini crash diets on weekends to make up for my bad habit of making big yummy veg and fish meals and then scoffing the lot…
And here’s me thinking that was just the lack of coffee.
Political junkie question of the day.
What do Dunedin North, Mangere Maungakiekie, Mt Albert, Rongotai, and the 7 Maori electorates have in common and why is this grim news for Labour?
2 hours and no one got it.
These are the only constituencies where National lost the Party Vote.
New Zealand is blue and will get even bluer.
Nope, you don’t get it – it’s no longer a two horse race an no party will be the sole inhabitant of government ever again.
No party has been the sole inhabitant of government for more than 20 years – National may have the numbers to be sole inhabitant in September but John Key will share government with willing support parties as he plans to win in 2017 and 2021 assuming we have a 4 year term by then.
National don’t like sharing power – that was why they took over Act. Sure, they still had to get UF and the mP on board but they knew that they’d be able to buy them up quite easily and that, once bought, they’d stay bought as the mP just proved.
Sure, I think davis is better than jones by a country mile but…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11243097
yeah don’t want to be an ‘unemployed bum’ do we – not for the ‘headhunted by jones’ davis who wants to be the electorate mp by beating Hone.
Sure, I think davis is better than jones by a country mile but…
…yes Davis needs to be open about what he stands for ..we need to get statements from him so he is on record
Shane chose him…this is a worry!…also that he worked for the Ministry of Education, which has been hopelessly compromised by its Minister and ACT private company lobbyists for Charter Schools
We dont want another new Trojan Horse in the Labour Party
Cunliffe’s job is hard enough as it is….. with all the old Rogernomes guard still unretired
My view, Davis stands for the Labour Party that represents the New Zealand middle class, full stop…
Has labour got so desperate that they have to have children protest.
Can they no longer find any adults to do their protesting.
Perhaps they are getting ready with twelve year olds to try and win the 2022 election.
Just saying.
I am a pensioner and this time my vote is with national.
[lprent: Looking at your email address, I’d have been surprised if you’d ever voted for anyone apart from National and/or Act.
In my experience, Labour and the left usually manages to turn out thousands for their larger protests when the right and National can usually turn out mere handfuls. So I’d suspect that the reason that children were turning out would probably have something to do with how whatever it is affects them.
However, putting a link or even a reference into the story you’re talking about would probably help people with understanding what you are indignant about. I currently have no idea and your comment gives no hint. Please try to do better next time.
Could someone help this guy out. ]
I don’t know whether anyone could help Jim47, given that he has obviously had 65 years to sort himself out, and this is the best he can do.
However, I think he is referring to the story mentioned above by both karol and bad12, regarding the egging of the PM’s car in Maraenui.
Jim47 seems to believe from this article that it was a Labour Party – day out holiday activity for the kiddies. Reading comprehension levels shown by his comment indicate that it is probably fairly unlikely that any written comment “helping him out” will do much to change his mind.
After all, his vote is with National.
Well put Molly, Jim47 is obviously an idiot by design or genetic irresponsibility on the part of other’s,
The kids involved in giving Slippery the Prime Minister ‘the message’ were all locals who fully understand what is happening as the PM and un-Housing Minister Smith re-arrange the deck chairs of the HousingNZ estate using the publicity of the mass media to mask the 20%–42.5 billion dollar asset sale they are attempting by flogging off the housing of the poorest in our communities,
The State Houses bowled over to make way for the ‘pensioner housing’ would have previously housed their cousins and friends so on whatever level they understand what is occurring understand it they do,
The only visible political presence at this protest,was that of the Mana Party…
Real important news as opposed to the Jones beat up.
Wonder what people think of Key and his crew as their mortgages rise.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11243323
Lolz the Bank Robbery of the century, with inflation at a miserly 1.5% the Reserve Bank Governor in an act of ”kill it befor it grows” kneecaps the economy and acts to profit the Trading Banks with windfall profits of billions of dollars in added interest payments…
Meh, mortgage rates rise and mortgage rates fall
When there’s no reason for them to have interest rates on at all. No loans should have interest on them.
+1
Even if some people aren’t concerned by the rise in interest rates, Stuff’s website shows one of its notorious polls, just putting its foot in the water for the elite, as it knows damn well that people struggling to pay their mortgages is electoral poison.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/
BTW The wording of these polls is appalling.
Will higher interest rates hurt you?
Yes, I’m not happy
No, I planned for them
Bring them on, I’m a saver
I disagree there Draco, assuming you are talking about NZ printing our own cash not continuing to borrow from the Central Banks.
If a 1% interest rate was levied on all loans from the Government to home owners, new business ventures etc, then that is another stable resource for making contributions to the UBI fund. Of course this is in addition to the % taken by the Robin hood Tax when the loan is made operational.
You’re still working with the false assumption that the government needs a source of income. It doesn’t. The repayment of a loan is nothing more than the removal of money that has been injected into the economy so as to maintain the apparent value of money.
Not sure I am completely clear on your endgame there Draco.
No taxes of any sort?
How does Government function without an income? Do Governments just print money with no controls at all? That is what the central Banks do now and look where that has gotten us.
How do roads get built?
How does Healthcare function?
Education?
Civil Defence?
Police and the Military ?? (if we still have to have them 🙂 )
I must be missing something obvious …
(no-job stress has me missing sleep, I know that much )
Yes money is a lie and interest compounds that lie.
Yes together they are a powerful force but it does not have to be a destructive force.
As I said, maybe I have misunderstood what you mean.
No, there’d still be taxes.
It’s not a question of functioning without an income but realising that taxes are solely the destruction of money already created and spent into the economy by government. And, yes, there would be rules.
The same way that they do now – by paying the people doing them.
(excuse the delay in responding Draco, I had stuff to do)
Originally you were talking about interest not being needed.
“When there’s no reason for them to have interest rates on at all. No loans should have interest on them.”
“The repayment of a loan is nothing more than the removal of money that has been injected into the economy so as to maintain the apparent value of money.”
You then seemed to shift the same idea onto taxes.
“realising that taxes are solely the destruction of money already created and spent into the economy by government”
In any economy, taxes and interest are not really the same thing.
“You’re still working with the false assumption that the government needs a source of income.” Taxes are Government income. As much as created or borrowed funds are.
The not repaying loans idea is pretty out there, I just do not see how an economy functions that way. Governments supply new money, check. It gets distributed into the economy via bank loans, mortgages etc, check. . . .and then what?
It just doesn’t get repaid ?
Good job I didn’t treat them as being the same then. Repayment of the loan does not include interest – that’s added on top in the present system and I’ve specifically said that loans won’t have interest.
Well, you certainly didn’t get that from me either. Nowhere did I say that the money wouldn’t be removed from the system afterwards. All, I’ve said is that there was no need of interest and that there shouldn’t be any interest charged. In fact, you even quoted the bit where I said it would be returned/removed/destroyed.
When Interest Rates are low, Key/English trumpet their clever stewardship.
When Interest Rates rise it is the independent Reserve Bank’s work.
Funny that?
You mean like Clark and Cullen when the global market was booming? Its what politicians do on both sides
Can’t recall Labour ever boasting about low interest rates but I can remember them saying that the interest rates weren’t up to them due to the RBNZ being independent and the rates were the result of the market. I don’t think many people bought it though as most were already starting to realise that the market was code for the rich getting richer at everyone else’s expense.
The OCR increasing 3% won’t just hurt those who already have mortgages, it will lock many middle income home buyers out of the market. Also, the amount of mortgagee auctions will likely continue to increase under this regime.
People having less money to spend will assuredly slow the economy, which is only showing signs of recovery because commodity prices have increased. Increased spending is a result of things costing more, not because people are buying more. A lack of competition in the retail sector will also effect the housing bubble in a bad way because people won’t be able to save for a deposit on their first home.
Along with the 20% lending criteria, an already slowing market and unprecedented overinflation, now is clearly not the right time to be locked into a mortgage. Such assets will not be liquid because many thousands of Kiwis will be trapped renting forever.
If some better policies aren’t implemented soon, homeowners and investors will start to lose equity and our housing stock will be further degraded. In the long run that won’t benefit anybody, not even the speculators.
If you prefer discussing the continuing evidence of climate change and our governments failure to amend our policies to avoid this, read this
http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/9973720/Taupo-sized-iceberg-B-31-on-the-move
Or you could talk to Pete about totaras..,..
“policies” have a very limited role in halting climate change when a centuries worth of built economic and logistical infrastructure of your entire country is predicated on fossil fuels.
I wonder what the rest of the Labour MPs are thinking about Jones leaving, I mean it must be pretty gutting knowing that National think that Jones is such a big threat that they create a job for him but for every other Labour MP theres nothing 🙂
Apparently, They didn’t think Jones was a big threat – they thought, and still think, of him as a good friend.
Of course he was a threat, waitakere man and all that. He was smart, spoke well and appealed to a cross-section of people and National took out one of Labours weapons
Well played National
Mostly to Labour as far as I could tell from his screwups.
Yeah of course because Jones was responsible for:
The baby bonus debacle
The power generation announcement dogs breakfast
Keys leafy suburb botch up
Cunliffes secret trusts
Nigella Lawson
Just as an example
National tr*lls for Shane Jones. You should make a T-shirt.
at this stage..p.r..
..it wd seem jones was the only(?) labour mp..in their pocket..
..’their’ man/mole in labour….
..and i am sure many labour mp’s are glad this embarassment has sprayed his way off the stage..
Wouldn’t be surprised if Shearer exits stage right.
Maybe sometime in June?
That’d be another plus for labour but I doubt if he will. He actually seems to want to do something about poverty unfortunately he still thinks capitalism can.
The only Labour MP deemed a threat, he probably could have gone toe to toe with Key in the debates but we’ll never know now
jones wouldn’t have gone ‘toe to toe’ with key..
..it’d be more lips (attached firmly) to arse…
..with key as the receiver..
Drivel, 5 and a half years of Opposition and all Jones has come out with is a rave about supermarkets which the Commerce Commission is likely to have the final say of ”nothing to see here folks”, on,
Jones is gone, good riddance, a waste of space in every sense of the word…
“The only Labour MP deemed a threat”
Yeah, but weirdly the govt and the PM’s office spend all their time attacking Cunliffe and the Greens.
🙄
Revisiting the Fossil Fuel company contributions to global warming printed by the Guardian some months ago (noted by a Standardista), and thought to have a look at what other graphics may have been produced.
They were working on an Open Corporates map, one that shows the complex web of company ownership and control on a global scale. One problem is that small countries often were the best locations for companies to operate from, and so would have too much overlap when plotting companies. Their solution: to upscale the country in a honeycomb fashion to indicate the company’s presence there.
I had a look at Goldman Sachs – on their live version which was produced in UK summer of 2013, and was surprised to the relative size of NZ.
(To see the chain of ownership, just hover over one of the companies (circles) on the map)
that’s an important/must-read link you have posted there molly…
We discover now that ACC, Collins, thinks people having accidents is a choice. We’ve understood for sometime now that Bennett believes people choose unemployment and under-employment. How
long is it before Key believes, like ACT, that proportionality is wrong in sentencing, and retrospective laws are all okay.
It beggars belief that any liberty loving citizen could vote for this far right government and not vomit in shame.
Referring to Jones, Mr Cunliffe stated that when a totara falls, other totara will grow in its place. Mr Parekura Horamia was a true totara. To me, Jones is no totara. In my opinion he has instead just shown himself to be a farterer creating bad stink.
Tumbleweed will never be totara..
Why you should NOT wear a red poppy
Far from apologizing, the RSA ran poems in its magazine praising this….
In late 1918, after the war had ended, New Zealand and Australian soldiers rounded up more than one hundred boys and men in the Palestinian village of Surafend, then methodically clubbed them to death…..
http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/index.blog?topic_id=1115959
This is one of many reasons people should wear a red poppy.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/le-quesnoy/the-liberation-of-le-quesnoy.
Courage takes many forms , being a keyboard warrior isn’t one of them.
I asked my uncle about the first world war and he talked about the horses.
I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines that they shot horses who were stuck or could no longer pull the guns and he thought it was wrong that animals who had nothing to do with the war were made to suffer and die, while men who could choose did the goading and the killing.
I don’t remember him going to Anzac Day Parades or wearing the red poppy, and he never showed me his medals.
Yep. Let us remember…the sheer brutality and utter inhumanity of outright warfare, where it is virtually always the civilians and the children who suffer the most egregious crimes.
Something calling itself “Blue” seemed just a tad bewildered the day before Anzac Day.
This is one of many reasons people should wear a red poppy.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/le-quesnoy/the-liberation-of-le-quesnoy.
My post was not about Le Quesnoy, it was about something altogether different: the rounding up and murder of more than one hundred unarmed men and boys in the village of Surafend. And the fact that the RSA’s magazine ran poems PRAISING the massacre.
Courage takes many forms , being a keyboard warrior isn’t one of them.
And rounding up civilians and battering them to death certainly is not courageous.
Or perhaps “Blue” thinks those Anzac murderers and the others who said nothing were courageous?
Blair’s anti-democratic tirade
by SEUMAS MILNE, The Guardian
Wednesday 23 April 2014
The neocons are back. That toxic blend of messianic warmongering abroad and McCarthyite witch-hunting at home – which gave us Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and the London bombings – is coursing through our public life again. Yesterday the liberal interventionists’ hero, Tony Blair, was once more demanding military action against the “threat of radical Islam”.
Reprising the theme that guided him and George Bush through the deceit and carnage of the “war on terror”, the former prime minister took his crusade against “Islamism” on to a new plane. The west should, he demanded, make common cause with Russia and China to support those with a “modern” view against the tide of political Islam.
But he also demanded military intervention against Syria – backed by Russia – along with more “active measures” to help the armed opposition, which is dominated by Islamists and jihadists. It’s a crazy combination with an openly anti-democratic core: the Middle East peace envoy also warmly endorsed the Egyptian dictatorship, along with the repressive autocracies of the Gulf.
Quite why the views of a man whose military interventions in the Muslim world have been so widely discredited, who has been funded by the Kazakhstan dictator and is regarded by up to a third of the British public as a war criminal, should be treated with such attention by the media isn’t immediately obvious. But one reason is that they chime with those of a powerful section of the political and security establishment.
In Britain, the campaign against Islamist “extremism” is once again in full flow. In fact, it is open season on the Muslim community. For the past few weeks reports have multiplied about an alleged “Islamic plot”, code-named Operation Trojan Horse, to take control of 25 state schools in Birmingham and run them on strict religious principles.
The education secretary, Michael Gove, a long-time neoconservative supporter of Blair’s wars and Islamist witchfinder general, responded by sending in an army of inspectors to hunt down extremists and appointing….
Read more….
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/23/war-islamism-hatred-violence-blair-cameron-toxic
this blair/putin cartoon is on the money..
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-daily-cartoon-8117874.html?origin=internalSearch
So Jones is off to help the Pacific Islands exploit the fish that swim in “their” waters.
When is this organism – homo sapiens – going to understand that it does not have domain over
and automatic right to gather the creatures of the sea?
When are we going to realise that we can’t extract wealth from the environment without consequences?
The Treaty of Waitangi begs to differ
So you’ll be wanting to ban dolphins then?
No problem with people catching fish off the rocks but once they put to sea in boats …
I look forward to viewing your link showing where any cetacean comes ashore to pillage the land!
🙄
Roflcopter, what makes you think dolphins don’t have domain over
and automatic right to gather the creatures of the sea?
What a bizarre thing to suggest.
Just looking at ministerial expenses. Thanks No right turn. Why on earth doesn’t the NZ government have a blanket no alcohol policy. If you want to drink, you pay for it yourself. I’m sure other governments would be delighted to get their people back alcohol free.
For example Tim Grosser went to the Atlantic on the 9th Oct 13 for a “working dinner” food was $678 and drinks $433 the bulk of which was alcohol.How much much work was likely to be done when drinking.
And in New York he appears to be spending about $300 for three bottles of wine. And in July his P/S ( private secretary ) had lunch at the Circa Foggy Bottom. Near headquarters perhaps?
+1. MPs should lead then spread it right through government. They’re always looking to save money. Here’s an idea.
Apologies if it’s has already been noted (I haven’t been around for the last two days since the news of Jone’s departure has hit) but aren’t the right getting all frothy about it?
The RWNJ’s have come out from under their damp logs en masse to comment here, the media are spinning so hard that they could collectively, if connected to a generator power a large city (Just one example among many, from yesterday: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9968055/Jones-job-offer-not-shot-at-Labour-PM ) and the real life righties are agog.
The real life examples:
Discussion with visitor, a former ACT Party member and National voter on the topic of Shane Jone’s decision to leave, their view: ” I’m really disappointed, Shane Jones was the only decent down to earth one among the lot of them”…………Fine if you like misogynist corporate lobbyists, oh, right, you do………
And this little gem seen one an outdoor cafe blackboard in the Ohariu electorate: “Shane Jones: A loss to us all”. This guys’ not taking the piss. Its the same business owner that had “The jury is always right” written on his blackboard the day after Clint Rickards was not found guilty of rape in 2006 and once had a sign saying “if you don’t want to pay the surcharge on public holidays turn around and leave now”. (Touching that Jone’s inspired such sorrow in such a RWNJ’s heart)
What’s got them so ruffled? The prospect of a Labour Green led government advancing forward after 20th September, unencumbered by Jones, no longer there to “keep the Greenies in check”? I guess they are scared………….
“I guess they are scared………….”
I am very scared at the thought of the Greens anywhere near finance books. Labour near the books is not so bad but the Greens will wreck this country quicker then you can say green economy
Lol you PR. If you’re scared (of your imagination telling you “the Greens will wreck this country…) does that mean you have reason to expect that there will be a win for the Left and the Natz will be out?
“does that mean you have reason to expect that there will be a win for the Left and the Natz will be out?”
I expect National regain power (in fact I’d bet on it but most of the people on here are gutless so no one would take it) however a Labour/greens win is of course always a possibility
“..I am very scared..”
i hope you make sure to check under yr bed before retiring of an evening..
..just to be sure..!
I’d be more worried by these jokers remaining in power.
Gradually indebting the country to foreign interests.
And yet you slavishly support them pr.
Pathetic, really.
“Government debt has reached $60 billion, having climbed $27 million a day since John Key became prime minister – and forecasts show it will rise for years to come.
Despite tax revenue being higher than expected and expenses lower in recent months, Treasury figures show net Crown debt reached the highest yet at $60,015,000,000 at the end of September.
It already equates to 28 per cent of New Zealand’s economic output, is more than $13,000 for every person in New Zealand and is forecast to climb by another $10b by 2017.
When National took control of the Beehive in 2008, debt was just over $10b.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9380846/Public-debt-climbs-by-27m-a-day
I think it’s because they know that Labour is more electable without Jones in it.
Its not ruffled, its the right trying to spread dissent so that less people will vote for Labour with the end effect being National regaining power.
…because an approach of winning on merit just wouldn’t work for crap-policies-and-no-friends-National
….and spreading dissent is the only way they can get votes -that is by creating disharmony amongst us is it not?
‘Vote for National and have an increasingly divided country.’
Sounds about Right.
Great stuff National.
National in power is whats best for NZ so National will do what it needs to do to win, Labour will attempt to do what it needs to do to win (it will fail though)
Thats politics
‘Vote National – for a divided society’
“its the right trying to spread dissent so that less people will vote for Labour”
Aha! Which comes back to being scared. Or at least a bit anxious and uncomfortable about the possibility of a Left win, which you do admit above, could happen.
I expect it could happen too, especially if UF, ACT and Maori fail to prop up the Natz.
Yep Drax, they know and we know it. The brakes are off.
+100 DTB
Why does the side banner record the amount of sunshine? Seems banal.
Monkey clicky linky?
Is “joules per second” too hard for you, Fisiani? That why they make picture books and widgets. Now remember to use your manners and say thank you.
Odd – comment disappeared: wordpress says “looks like you’ve already said that” but still no sign of it.
In any case, click through the link in the banner for the explanation Fisi.
Or, the short explanation: that “joules/second” is too hard for some monkeys to grasp so we made this widget to help them.
sorry, couldnt reply to BM above. not all of us want to be rich, some of us like working for a wage, i enjoy my job. but that doesn’t mean i should get shit wages &/or job insecurity. there’s got to be a better way of structuring wealth & work, so people can earn decent wages & the bosses still get to buy their convertables for their latest barbie girl etc…
Yeah and it’s a curious one that the establishment applies to the teaching profession, particularly primary level. Apparently the meme is that individuals enter teaching for the love of it and not for the money. This has been twisted to, “We don’t have to pay them much because they do it for love.”
same with the aged care workers, & nurses i imagine, where a lot of work gets done not because they get paid for it but because they care, they will go the extra mile & help each other out. must run into the millions this unpaid work ppl do.
It’s pretty much across every sector. If you love you’re work you’ll get paid less and no employer will hire anybody who doesn’t love the work and they won’t hire you if you show no enthusiasm for working for the company either.
The ways and means of control are numerous.
I sent an email to David Cunliffe and am interested in his reply. I wanted to know what his motives are for repairing the Gisborne/Napier rail if elected. There are concerns among the locals in Gisborne that Labour are using this to get Napier votes. Many locals here feel he wants to take a piece of Gisborne’s booming forestry to create opportunities for Napier. Unfortunately for us, this means making Napier Port busy, creating large volumes of logs for them. It seems a cynical move by Labour, compounded by the fact Mr Cunliffe and Ms Mackey are silent on the issue, declaring they want to open up the Gisborne to Napier rail line without properly explaining how it will benefit Gisborne. I am a Labour voter but personally I agree with National (which I have never done before) that it is not viable enough and will cost millions to repair the damaged line. It also hits home as we are employees in the forestry industry here, the good wages help us enjoy a reasonable quality of life and we can give our kids opportunities. I hope Mr Cunliffe can assure us that our jobs and our Eastland Port are not at threat and will not be impacted by diverting logs directly to Napier, affecting employees whom service those logs here.
Napier port has far superior log handling and storage facilities than Gisborne. Major shipping lines actually stop in Napier. The rail line is no threat to the jobs from the forests.
The alternative of no rail line is all those logging trucks going onto the highway on High Volume trailer trucks – which is dangerous and expensive. That highway maintenance and safety cost falls on us taxpayers. By rail that cost falls where it should onto the logging companies.
Remember when there was a rail station and jobs in Gisborne? Time to bring those jobs back.