‘Prime Minister John Key is poised to outline the possible sale of thousands of state houses to community groups today, as the Government advances its reform of social housing.’
The privatisation of housing.
Is really the way to solve NZ’s housing crisis, Mr Key?
It’s about transferring public assets to private hands and another issue buried at the GE that all opposition parties should have been demanding a please explain.
Wonder if it will be at the types of discounts the power generators were flogged for especially genesis.
At least will someone in opposition demand the detail on how rents will be controlled and get the attack of this abdication of repsonsibilities going on a few fronts please.
This can only be true if he meant there was no housing crisis for rich people and the Government’s policies are aimed at increasing the supply of rental properties to landlords.
The damage that he does to the plain meaning of words is horrendous.
There was a doozy on Morning Report. When quizzed on whether Mike Sabin was being investigated by the police, he said he couldn’t comment. When quizzed further he said he was advised not to comment. When asked who advised him not to comment he said he was not at liberty to say. When asked why he was not at liberty to say, he said, “Well that’s a circular argument.” It’s about halfway through a 6 minute interview.
yesterday he said he comments on what he wants to comment and not on what he doesnt. I guess overnight they rethought the effectiveness of that childish response and decided to pretend someone was stopping him from commenting. I mean, this is the guy who gets documents declassified to help his election campaign.
I agree on both counts. Yes, Labour and the Greens need to take a strong stand on state house sales, and yes, Key is an arch dissembler. He seems to have three basic moves – (1) Toy out loud with the idea doing something extreme and scary. (get the government out of housing) (2) Step back a little to something more ‘moderate’ (we’ll sell a few but still remain the main provider) (3) Do what he wants to do anyway.
@ Olwyn
That is what the political commentator on Radionz said today. The gummint goes OTT and get people’s backs up, then there is the announcement putting that to rest with a smaller change that appears to be more considered and puts the critics on the back foot as being dogmatic and unreasonable. It’s not too bad, what are you going on about sort of thing.
It also means the government can say homelessness isn’t their responsibility. Families living in cars, caravans and sheds? That will be the fault of the charities that take this on according to the Nats.
Done correctly I think this may help the situation, as well as private charity I imagine there’ll be groups that concentrate on housing and as such should do a better job of handling housing
I’m sure you agree that as peoples circumstances change their housing needs change as well?
You assume that these housing associations have the capacity and the ability to deliver (without prejudice) healthy, affordable housing for communities. In our small country, they don’t. And the private developers included in the mix, don’t have the intent.
And if you want social cohesion, and enhanced community, then transitional housing is not the answer. People are more likely to be connected, and resilient when they have strong stable communities. View the difference in established communities with little turnover, with transient communities such as student areas or holiday home towns.
As people’s circumstances change, if their housing is secure, their energies can be directed towards other benefits for themselves, their families and their communities.
By proposing that when they are on their (choose arbitrary financial point) feet, they are then expected to move house and community, keeps them on a perpetual treadmill, supposedly doing everything right to move forward, but being given other obstacles to achieve to stay in place.
Just how many 3-4 bedroom state houses do you believe are being occupied by single people living alone? Really would be interested Undecided, in whatever information you have on this topic. You do have some right? You are surely not just repeating tired spin from the 1990’s. That time before a concerted effort was made by successive Governments, to relocate people living in such circumstances, not to mention the ensuing shifts in policy direction where such circumstances rarely, if ever, occur today.
The Government will be selling thousands and thousands of homes our grandparents paid to have built so their children and their children’s children could live in a country where need was less.
Was a nice theory, if only the kids had had the guts to follow through with the sentiment, instead of turning the most awesome little country in the world (still full of potential) into a vapid whore working one of the smaller South Pacific outposts of Greed Inc.
Meaning that people in state houses should be moved around depending on their circumstances
However as reported
Prime Minister John Key has confirmed the Government plans to sell 1000 to 2000 state houses in the next year to be run by community housing providers with more sales possible over the next few years.
In his state of the nation speech today Key said Housing New Zealand would still remain the biggest provider of social housing with at last 60,000 properties by 2017 against 65,000 now.
2000 to be sold to community providers with possibly more to come certainly isn’t as bad as some feared
Posters on here were assuming the worst, that Key would sell off most of the housing stock and probably to private investers whereas hes selling off less then 5% to private providers so no loss off housing
Well in regards to asset sales Key said he wouldn’t seel any assets in first term and he didn’t, he said he’d partially sell some power companies in his second term and did so on asset sales hes done what hes said he’d do
and in case you didnt grasp what was happening there, thats the nats trying to not frighten you in order to advance their actual agenda – an agenda they are pretty open about and one that hasnt changed for years now
and yet again your avoiding engaging with the actual questions and points being put to you. What are you afraid of?
your contradicting yourself – in one comment you say they did what they said they would then when i point out that theres more going no and its nbo big secret you resort to “well their popular”
Appeals to populism doesnt explain anything other than popularity
I will take it you are incapable of backing up you opening play.
really weak – so weak that i can only assume your a troll.
Have to confess I’m undecided as to whether Undecided is Dissembling or merely Obfuscating…….while noting that they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive and may indeed be cousins.
Undecided, why are you so scared of answering one simple question?
Let me take a stab at the answer you really wanted to give but were just too timid to front up with:
‘I do not know, but I have faith in John Key to do what is right for New Zealand.’
Is that a fair approximation of your thoughtful “undecided” point of view.
p.s. In today’s speech, was there any mention of a mechanism where Social Providers will get first dibs on State Assets that are being sold?
case in point – used to live in wesley (sandringham) in AK – there was one street where about 10 old style 1/4 acre state houses were moved off site and sold as relocateables. Then a mixture of town and terrace houses with differing numbers of bedrooms was built. Thereby increasing total houses and reformatting to suit a wider variety of circumstances
notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?
considering thats not the question being asked, you are avoiding
or your not very good at this language thingy
this is what you said
“I’m thinking that a single person taking up a 3-4 bedroom house when theres a family needing a house seems to be a waste of that house”
i responded that the policy being proposed doesnt have anything to do with that
this whole thread between the two of us is based off that one comment – why you think that instead of answers that follow and stick to this argument, im more interested in what you want the nats to do is beyond me
oh for fucks sake!
————————————–
“then the answer isnt sell off current stock is it
the answer is change the stock
case in point – used to live in wesley (sandringham) in AK – there was one street where about 10 old style 1/4 acre state houses were moved off site and sold as relocateables. Then a mixture of town and terrace houses with differing numbers of bedrooms was built. Thereby increasing total houses and reformatting to suit a wider variety of circumstances
notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
———————————–
what bit of that isnt clear?
then i repeated the main question AGAIN to you
—————————
“notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
—————————
what bit of that isnt clear?
Let’s call them “desirable areas” rather than expensive ones. The reason why they are expensive are many and varied, but the primary reason is the failure of government (especially this one), to address rising housing costs. That is a series of posts in itself.
These areas are desirable because they are within easy access of schools, public transport, central city, services and community facilities.
Your suggestion to send those living there to “less expensive” areas results in a transfer of housing providing responsibility costs from government to increased transport and living costs to already vulnerable tenants. Add to that social isolation and reduction of access to sporting and community engagement, and the true costs of this type of policy become apparent.
If we take Glen Innes as an example. This was the creation of a desirable area for social housing, by the government at the time.
Access to services, school, work and health as well as to some of Auckland’s natural environment was excellent.
The encroachment of higher-priced property means that this purpose built social housed community is no longer welcome. Without any regard for the social equity that exists.
We have a government that is not providing enough social housing. It is also not providing access to affordable housing for an increasing number of NZers… It is however, going to provide discounted assets to private property developers. And that seems to be the sum total of it’s efforts on this issue.
I said decent but less expensive areas, I’ll use Christchurch as an example as i’m not from Auckland so I’m thinking if there are any state houses in Merivale, Fendalton etc then sell them off and buy in Hornby (which is a pretty decent suburb) so I’m not suggesting they buy houses in Aranui and stick families there
Your view is that “what you think” is what actually occurs despite evidence to the contrary.
By putting the provision of healthy, affordable homes for all NZ’ers to third parties, a government (such as National) removes itself adroitly from the chain of responsibility and will continue to do so as long as it can get away with it.
By bringing in for-profit providers, not only are they dismantling their responsibility, they are effectively saying “we do not have the capability or otherwise to look after this fundamental requirement for healthy and engaged NZers’. And yet they are responsible for the health and wellbeing of our whole economy.
So we must “never forget” Auschwitz. As a kid raised on WWII stories, books and gruesome pictures courtesy of parents directly involved via the air force and nursing during London blitz I of course concur.
Unfortunately large sections of the Israeli leadership and population do appear to have forgotten. Persecution of the Palestinians remains perilously close to the ideology that sanctioned the death camps.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR) conducted a fact-finding mission, utilising 8 independent international forensic and medical experts. They’re the only human rights group to have been granted access to Gaza by both Israel and Egypt (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Council were repeatedly denied entry).
“The report’s authors adopt a cautious and professional tone but describe the stuff of nightmares.”
mouthing off to perpetuate the market they make their living from. Am sick of Bank employees being asked for comment on stuff that hurts or harms banks… real estate agency owners being used as experts on affordable housing when they have no interest in it.
While workers’ rights, living standards and general conditions of life have been made worse over the past 30 years, workers’ resistance has declined to negligible levels. Moreover, the rare tussle that does take place is a defensive one. Workers in this country, with the possible exception of the early days of Unite union when it was organising new workplaces and fighting to get contracts for new union members, haven’t been going on the offensive for several decades now.
Sometimes it seems that two generations of workers got defeated – through the 1980s and 1990s – and the next generation therefore hasn’t had a fighting spirit and class consciousness passed on to it nor developed these through its own experiences.
But if workers here have forgotten or, in the case of the new generation, not yet learned what resistance is let alone what going on the offensive is, there is no shortage of examples of powerful workers’ upsurges and of workers’ resistance pointing to, or at least offering a glimpse of the potential for, alternative ways of organising economic, social and political life.
So we’ve stuck up on Redline links to pieces about workers’ occupations, about the biggest general strike in history (a couple of years ago in India), the May-June 68 events in France, the formation of bodies of workers’ power in Portugal and Chile in the early 1970s – forms of organising that point the way out of capitalism.
One of the reasons there’s little resistance is small- and medium-sized employers in areas of moderate- to high-unemployment.
I live in one of those areas, and I’ve been in and out of employment since the early 1990s. In that time, one employer has met their obligations and told me who my union was.
One.
My current employer refuses to talk about it, stating they have no official position but if I joined a union we’d all lose our jobs because it’d mean higher wages and better conditions.
This is why their wage theft is on-going. It’s been made quite clear that if any of us cause trouble by attempting to enforce our basic legal rights, our reference will be simply an acknowledgement of employment – the implication being that we were a bad employee because they had nothing good to say about us.
My previous employer didn’t mention a union, but the owner did tell me I was salaried so they didn’t need to pay overtime, and I was waged so they didn’t need to pay me if I was off sick for more days than I had accrued.
During the last years of National’s run in the 1990s, when the ECA required negotiation of pay and conditions, one employer stated wages and conditions, and said “There’s no negotiation of that, that’s the job. If you don’t accept that pay, you don’t get the job.” WINZ, of course, required me to accept the job.
As I understand it, the bulk of the jobs in the area are the same. The employers know there aren’t many jobs out there, so they have low wages and bad conditions, and if you don’t like it you can sod off.
Eventually, the employees do so, moving to towns with better jobs, wages, and conditions, and it seems to me that these factors are such an improvement that they don’t see the need to join a union.
I hear what you are saying. There is the implied threat, that if you do this, then your co-workers will turn against you as to blame for ANY job loss… no matter how unrelated to your decision to join a union
That said, I now have a list of rather important questions to ask employers at my next job interviews. I’ll figure out better phrasings for them, but if they turn me down because I want to know an employer’s position on worker rights, I’m fairly sure I don’t want to work there.
There is no obligation for employers to tell you who your union might be unless there is a Collective Agreement that covers your work and your employer is a party to that agreement, i.e for the first 30 days of your employment you will be covered by the terms & conditions of the Collective ( from 6 March this provision will no longer apply to new employees), after which you can join the union or negotiate individual terms & conditions of employment.
I thought an employer must know what Union/s their staff can join and if asked is required to impart that knowledge to the employee or person being interviewed. If I am incorrect on this please let me know.
Unfortunately you are incorrect unless there is an applicable Collective Agreement for that workplace and the employees work is covered by the agreement.
hi phil and bass guy, couldnt agree more.
i had the misfortune to have desired to be a chef as a youngster. (30 odd years later i still love cooking!)
i have been mainly in hospitality since 1985, and on both sides of this discussion (worker, here and overseas, and employer here).
in my experience in mainly small businesses (less than 10 employees), and have never been involved with a union, let alone acted collectively.
incidentally i am in the throws of renegotiating my wages currently.
the nature of these small businesses tends to create “relationships” between employer and worker, which can make negotiating potentially fraught, tense or non-existant, especially for the younger workers.
none of this is a defence of greedy employers, just my 2 cents worth.
The National government in 1991 legislated against working people and their unions and for their business mates by introducing the Employment Contracts Act (ECA). The award structure was completely gutted and replaced with enterprise bargaining & individual employment contracts, which for many workers meant an offer of inferior terms & conditions of employment on a take it or leave basis. Compulsory unionism was abolished and in many industries and workplaces a collective approach to wage bargaining never took place again. Unions and unionism was decimated. Workers, especially the low & semi skilled, became increasingly reliant upon the benevolence of employers and government who set minimum requirements such as the minimum wage, annual leave and grievance procedures. The workplace power imbalance between employer and worker increased – and remains – heavily weighted in favour of the former. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living because working people no longer enjoy a collective voice in both the workplace and society.
Employers and their supportive governments love high unemployment numbers especially youth. The idea and ability to pick and choose is very appealing. They strongly advocate for and support 90 day trial periods for new employees. They don’t want assertive union officials supporting & promoting alternatives. That weakens their power & control.
Do you think this government would want their business buddies to be made to tell the workers the contact details of Andrew Littles mates?
Noam Chomsky had some choice words about the popularity of “American Sniper,” its glowing New York Times review, and what the worship of a movie about a cold-blooded killer says about the American people.
It’s not good.
During a Cambridge, Massachusetts event hosted by The Baffler, Chomsky first read the glowing recent review the New York Times gave the movie. That review begins inauspiciously by insulting “America’s coastal intelligentsia, which has busied itself with chatter over little-seen art dramas while everyday Americans showed up en masse for a patriotic, pro-family picture which broke all attendance records in its opening days.”
So, Chomsky wonders aloud: “What was the patriotic, pro-family film that so entranced everyday Americans? It’s about the most deadly sniper in American history, a guy named Chris Kyle, who claims to have used his skills to have killed several hundred people in Iraq.”
Kyle’s first kill was a woman who apparently walked into the street with a grenade in her hand as the Marines attacked her village.
“‘I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting,’” Chomsky said, quoting Kyle. “‘Savage, despicable, evil — that’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy savages. There was really no other way to describe what we encountered there.’”
Chomsky also pointed out that The New Yorker loved the film, saying, “it was great, kept to the cinematic values, said it was well done.” On the other hand, Newsweek‘s Jeff Stein, a former US intelligence officer, called it appalling. In that review, Chomsky says, Stein remembered a visit he had made to a “clubhouse for snipers, where to quote him, ‘the barroom walls featured white-on-black Nazi SS insignia, and other Wehrmacht regalia. The Marine shooters clearly identified with the marksmen of the world’s most infamous killing machine, rather than regular troops.”
“Getting back to Chris Kyle,” Chomsky said, arriving at his larger point. “He regarded his first kill as a terrorist — this woman who walked in the street — but we can’t really attribute that to the mentality of a psychopathic killer, because we’re all tarred by the same brush insofar as we tolerate or keep silent about official policy. Now, that mentality helps explain why it’s so easy to ignore what is most clearly the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history, if not ever — Obama’s global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us.”
Chomsky recommends reading some of the transcripts with drone operators, calling them “harrowing” in their dehumanizing treatment of people who are targeted.
The implication is clear and chilling. Are we all, at least tacitly, American snipers?
Rich people around the world buying boltholes in NZ to escape to when the shit they have been taking advantage of to enrich themselves backfires in their faces. Been suggesting such since the Rothschilds bought a large coastal farm on banks Peninsula about 10 or so years ago….. boat access, airstrips, etc…..
Why don’t these people go to the private market for support rather than ask the taxpayer? It is not as if the projects are any larger than countless other private projects in the country….
Aren’t they free market supporters? Why would they push through a project that the free market doesn’t support?
Why do they ask for the taxpayer to start it? Then later ask the taxpayer to support them when the waters run dry? Then ask the taxpayers to pay to clean up the shit afterwards?
I think the angle they are running is that it is for the greater good, if the farmers make money the community benifits which will be hard to argue with in dollars and cents terms
Yeah nah – those ‘for the greater good’ arguments have little credibility these days. Unfortunately no time to go into it… though ….
We would get short shrift if we went to government for loans for our business (which is similar scale to some of these irrigation projects) – and the exact same ‘greater good’ arguments apply. Why should farming business be treated differently to any other business mr waghorn ?
“I think the angle they are running is that it is for the greater good, if the farmers make money the community benifits which will be hard to argue with in dollars and cents terms”
Pretty sure if you did a cost/benefit analysis that took all costs and benefits and downsides into account, it wouldn’t look so good. The theory is based on the idea that it brings jobs and supports businesses and that those can’t happen in any other way so it’s ok to ruin the environment. That theory is wrong.
It needs to be looked at on a case by case basis. I’d say the irrigation of the Canterbury Plains for Fonterra is bad. Trickle irrigation of a kumara garden in Te Tai Tokerau, probably quite reasonable.
I can’t see that the huge scale automated irrigation of large areas of flat grassland is good at all. It’s extremely wasteful of water, which is not well absorbed by pasture where shelter belts have been removed. I think there are less harmful uses of the Canterbury Plains, but I’m no expert. I grew up in Te Tai Tokerau, where the land is hilly and there was usually plenty of water. It was good country for dairy on the smaller scale that it was done in those days.
I think there are crops that could be grown that would need far less irrigation than dairy. I think irrigation of the Canterbury Plains to fatten Tory voters is extremely bad.
herald online is putting the soon to be heard Key speech into ten points.
Interestingly they use this stat, presumably because Key does?
“There are almost 5000 people on a social housing waiting list (as at the end of December). That’s down from just over 11,000 in 2002, but the true level of unmet housing need is estimated to be in the region of 43,000-55,000.”
The use of 2002 as a point of reference piques my interest… Isn’t the number on the waiting list from the end of 2008 to december most relevant?
In 2008 the then Labour Minister stated there were
“as at 29 February 2008 the number of applicants on the waiting list was 9,875. This figure includes 2,435 applicants already living in Housing New Zealand houses who are seeking a transfer.”
In a 2013 Briefing for the Minister HNZ noted the following
“As New Zealand’s largest landlord, Housing New Zealand owns or leases nearly 70,000 rental properties, housing over 200,000 people. This portfolio is worth $15.1 billion and is the Government’s second largest asset. There are also 2,100 families – about 6,000 people – on the waiting list with a serious need for a state house.”
It appears that when National entered parliament in late 2008 there were about 7440 people in serious need of a state house. At the end of 2013 this had dropped to 6000. Why not use the real figures, they seem to still show a decline?
Ordinarily I take conspiracy theories with a grain of salt, but the timing plus the fact that these guys were responsible for many of the “disappeared” in Argentina during the junta…
Hmmm, I don’t understand your approach to humans acting in a conspiracy…. you seem to suggest that only those supporting facts which make it into the public arena are determinative of whether or not people have conspired….
Have you conspired today McFlock? Over the last week? I know I have, I know my family members have, I know John Key and Andrew Little have, I know virtually anyone in business has ……. it is what humans do. They conspire together to achieve ends.
this prevailing idea that humans don’t conspire ……. just makes absolutely no sense, flies in the face of reality and is as silly as some person thinking that a lone gunman killed JFK
Even if we were to ignore the negative connotations of the word “conspiracy”, just because humans conspire does not mean that every conspiracy theory is true.
So yeah, I demand evidence before I determine the probability of any particular conspiracy theory being true.
So unless the evidence in the public arena is in your view supportive then you dismiss the notion that some event may be the result of a conspiracy….
kinda misses the notion of how conspiracies are attended to i.e. in secret
You know, another way to make an assessment about an event is to use the well tried and proved method of following the money… or looking at who has benefitted …..
There are ways to assess things other than your own narrow method. Proven ones.
For years, the US Government used this approach to discredit people in court who were claiming that they were being subject to illegal surveillance.
The US Government would say – well you have no evidence of this surveillance, the kind of spying you are talking about is illegal, and we would never do it any way – so you have no standing and no merits in this court.
The moon landings were faked.
Aircraft release chemtrails for geoengineering.
Nasa covered up its photos of martians.
The Earth is hollow and run by Tibetans from Atlantis.
Stealth bombers were made with alien tech from the Roswell crash.
There is a teacup orbiting the sun somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.
All without evidence, so all must be credible /sarc
I demand evidence before I determine the probability of any particular conspiracy theory being true.
to mean this:
So unless the evidence in the public arena is in your view supportive then you dismiss the notion that some event may be the result of a conspiracy….
BTW, CR’s “perfectly good discussion point” seemed to be that one particular conspiracy theory was largely true. That stunning observation’s relevance to the discussion about how we discern a true conspiracy theory from a false one is somewhat thin – although in that case it did rely on evidence being made public. But then we don’t know whether the specific individuals “in open court” were indeed subjected to illegal surveillance.
Not “dismiss”. Not take a position until I have evidence. This can be evidence for the popular theory, evidence of a conspiracy, or evidence of the doubtful reliability of conspiracy theorists.
Oh, we can look at who benefitted, but that merely means that if there actually had been a conspiracy, all the conspirators have to do is benefit slightly less than someone else.
The flipside is that I arbitrarily accept as true conflicting conspiracy theories in the absence of any evidence whatsoever.
E.g. that LHO shot JFK alone, or that the Cubans assassinated JFK,
and that the CIA/military assassinated JFK and used Oswald as a patsy,
and that the mafia assassinated JFK because of Bobby Kennedy going after them as AG,
and all convoluted combinations of any and/or all of the above
Please remember, a conspiracy theory is simply where people have shared their considered views and ideas when attempting to understand an event or situation. When used as a derogatory label or as an attempt to demean and diminish the validity of another’s viewpoint, it is nothing but taking a short cut away from critical thought. Critical thinking is not a threat to knowledge, it is how humanity uses knowledge to survive. At least it used to be.
Language mutates and adapts, freedom. Conspiracy theory still has a literal meaning, but it also now has a pejorative meaning, due mostly to the rise of sites on the interwebs who propagate mindless nonsense but insist we all take it very seriously indeed.
My favourite form of madness is the ‘right of reply’ or ‘balance’ argument, where the deluded demand that their theory should be given equal weight to actual, proven knowledge. The master of this approach is the self aggrandising climate change denier, and fake Lord, Christopher Monckton.
I am eternally grateful that language mutates and adapts. If you accept what you wrote, you also must accept the absurdity of our present condition. By simply speaking two little words in conjunction, many rational brains are triggered to the ‘ignore’ position, predominately without any rationality applied. Behaviour like that does not happen by accident. It is learned and it is learned largely through the use of language. That is where personal responsibility comes into play.
We are the language we let ourselves use. We are the questions that we ask.
The situation today is so absurd that if a person is over-heard to have read a book about JFK, they are immediately assumed to be converts to the writings of David Icke. The short cut away from critical thinking I mentioned earlier? That is well and truly sprinted every time “conspiracy theories” from different fields of research are compared. Do you discuss mainsail maintenance of a racing yacht when talking Bathurst tyre wear?
We both would agree that this world is in a ridiculous position. There is too much fear, not enough love, a boogyman behind every doorway. The true horror though, is the apparent disdain for facts. This of course is where 9/11 is the mother lode of nonsensical discussion. As you know I do not enter into 9/11 discussion here although I might throw a few breadcrumbs on occasion. But disdain for facts is at the core of the 9/11 issue. People go to extraordinary lengths to defend the Official Story, mostly with little to no knowledge of its immense failings, yet decide that all 9/11 Truth is a falsehood because… albatross.
Take The New Pearl Harbour. An amazing achievement by any standard of research, if somewhat lacking in production values. I will repeat what I have said since it first arrived on the scene.
“I am not aware of any person who having claimed to believe the Official Story, after seeing this documentary, still claims that position.” Not one!
To be honest I still have my doubts that you yourself have actually viewed it at all, let alone its entire five hours. Only you can know the truth of your answer. Facts matter. Science matters. Lies just hurt people and the bigger the lies, the more hurt they create. Is that what you want? A simpering humanity, cowering under the baton of ignorance and fear as the totality of knowledge is decided for you by people who most certainly do not have your best interests at heart?
Too afraid to open a window for air, because you are told the window is locked.
Is that not the locking mechanism, laying broken at your feet? Language will mutate, language will adapt, but only you can know the truth of your answer.
He’s not a fake lord – he’s a hereditary peer inheriting the title from his father in 2006 (he’s the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley).
What he did do is falsely (or at least misleadingly) claim in a letter to US Senators to be a member of the House of Lords which he has never been (since the hereditary peers lost the right to automatically be in the Lords in 1999 and he is not one of the 92 elected hereditaries). The lords even issued a cease and desist to refute his claims in 2011.
As an aside he’s stood 4 times for when a seat for the hereditary peers has fallen vacant in the Lords since 2006 and at least 3 times received no votes.
Definitely a crank though. (Now plowing his furrow with UKIP when not climate denying).
Cheers for the correction, GJ. And I didn’t know he was standing for UKIP! Not sure what that does for the nutter quotient there, but from what I’ve seen of the rest, Monckton might be a civilising influence.
I’d say that’s par for the course in Latin America. The mistake Dilma and Kirchner make is to leave the same state apparatus that served the dictatorships in place. Labour does it here as well. They should realise by now that the SIS is a branch of the Tories, but will they change anything if they ever get voted back in? They could all do with reading ‘State and Revolution” again.
By the way, I don’t see this as a conspiracy theory at all. It’s a reasonable explanation of the facts.
he says, “Islam’s direct threat to our rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and our culture”. But I don’t hear him saying anything about Christianity which imo has done and will continue to be more of a direct threat than Islam ever could. Ban crosses? yeah right.
It is clearly the very notion of religion that is the problem… and has been for a very long time.
The sooner it disappears as an idea the better – pretty much like some religions which used to think the sun was a higher being have evaporated in the heat of reality, so too should all religions which think there is a higher being. Dolly the cloned sheep put paid to these ideas some years ago.
there will come a time when this will happen anyway so lets do it now ….
The sun is a higher being* for all intensive purposes. Whether some entreaty from this planet cuts through the solar flares and stuff and impacts upon the sun causing ‘it’ to ‘hear’ and ‘react’ to those calls is debatable for sure based upon whichever belief system we believe in.
*
Noun
higher being (plural higher beings)
Any of various theoretical, or otherwise unknown, non-human life forms believed to have power over human life.
People have a need for faith and a need to believe in something. Get rid of religion if you like, ban it if you like, it will merely be replaced with faith in the free markets, faith in nationalism, faith in exceptionalism, faith in scientism and infinite technological progress.
I’ve had a bit of odd behaviour with the Replies tab in the last few days. Normally, the tab only appears when I’ve posted that day (it disappears some time after midnight each night), so I usually don’t see replies if I haven’t posted for several days.
Today, I had replies listed only for Raided of the Last Shark, and that was after reloading because I had replies listed for Micky Savage.
I’m going to have to put the aircond on to figure out what it is doing wrong. Mind is fuzzy after I get home through the beautiful warm mind-numbing weather (after being in a fridge all day).
Sean Plunket is a vile, whining piece of shit who sounds like a ten year old reading lines written by Whalespew. His calling Eleanor Catton an ungrateful hua on the basis that she works at a public university makes me sick. FJK is paid by the state, yet he spends whatever time is left after working on his golf handicap on attacking the working class. Why doesn’t Plunket call him a traitor?
Nah, bugger it. Why doesn’t Plunket just go for a long walk off a short pier? I’d never listened to him before, but he obviously bases himself on Alan Jones, speaking slowly and in short sentences so as to not get too far ahead of his audience.
[lprent: Do not go down to far on that avocation of self-harm path yourself, unless you want to discover the limits to moderator tolerance. ]
Just far enough for him to have a nice swim. Do you really think “take a long walk off a short pier” is a hobby involving violent self harm? How about “go jump in the lake?” I see both as dismissive, rather than being any sort of hobby at all. I think I’ve missed what you meant by avocation.
I once inherited a cellfone from someone whose occupation was that of a ‘publicist’ (you know – someone whose job it is to promote). Sean Plonker (among others) contact numbers remained in its contact list. I refrained from making bothersome calls, and from calling them out on their bullshit. There were some very intersting numbers in that little gem that I retain to this day.
Thankfully, the publicist saw sense and left the country, but not before using me (and others as her confidant) – including one of her boyfriends (an electrical engineer). He/they’d actually taken the long walk along the Pike River Mine entrance – according to he: “an accident waiting to happen”. As for Plunket …. I can only relate her comment – he’d be a thoroughly useless fuck.
Funny ole wurl aye.
I imagine tho’ that in future times, that publicist will be ready and anxious to testify.
I fear that might be a little longer than my lifetime will allow.
Oh…. btw – Chris Finalyson fiigured heavily in her daily commentary – it kind of reinforced my impressions of just what a bitter old queen he’s become. And I say that ONLY because had he not been subjugated by the Jonky phenomenon, there’d have been a different outcome.
Common fucking sense anyone? (Not for the foreseeable future it seems) – EVEN in here judging by some comments above
Reply to LPrent’s comments on Little’s State of the nation address thread
”
Martyn Bradbury seemed to be quite close to David Cunliffe and Hone Harawira. However that is beside the point. You are making a guilt by association argument. That is usually bad form.
[lprent: Why? Have you looked at the side of this site at John Key’s face recently – that accurately expresses my opinion of his ethics of getting involved with Slater’s garbage diving. As far as I can see John Key has been politically profiting from having his head stuffed firmly in Slater’s faecal bacteria for the last 7 years. I can’t see any justification for having a dirty politician to not be called for what he is.
For the record, I have a number of politician’s numbers. I don’t use them unless I have to. They are mainly there for caller id when they (rarely) call me so that I pick up the phone. The only phone numbers that I ever call cold were those of Helen Clark. That was because I was part of the Mt Albert campaign team and I sometimes needed direct information about targeting.
As much as I think that Martyn is a bit of a dork, I don’t think that he is trying to blackmail journalists with prostitutes or any of the other crap that Slater did. I suspect Martyn mainly contacts them when he was organising events or pitching for work.
Answer in OpenMike, but I suspect that I am going to be completely unsympathetic to your theory of disassociation of a dirty politician and his dirty operatives. ]”
I’m not discussing how you you can be associated with the behaviour of an individual. I would agree you can argue that being in contact with someone who is overtly behaving in a particular manner does suggest a degree of tacit support.
What I am meaning is that if someone I know and associate with holds a particular view (say on the benefits or otherwise of collectivisation) that it does not hold that the view is held by myself as well. For example just because you are majorly involved in this blog does not mean you agree with the views expressed by the authors who post articles here. I am sure you would come down hard on anyone trying to state that you did.
And what if you gave them your cellphone number, and contacted them frequently, which was the original comparison?
That at least suggests that the beliefs they espouse are not contrary to one’s ethical standards. For example, I don’t socialise with any white supremacists AFAIK.
John Key is a good example of a “mainstream” (your relocated goalpost, I remind you) tory, no?
Cameron Slater has a number of views that I suspect the PM does not hold. Key’s reasons for contacting him has been well publicised. You may disagree with it but even if it was some insidious plot to subvert democracy in NZ it doesn’t mean that they share the same views.
Anyway I suspect Slater is not anti-collective as you suggest. He may well be anti-Union but that is a different matter.
Birds of a feather flock together aye goosey.
Always defending the indefensable!
Your like a cheap little wind up doll repeating the same old lies!
you make mathew hootton look good.
always having to have the last word never admitting when your wrong!
Men who are into selfies are more likely to be Narcissistic Nutjobs .
Key Slater.and you are both narcissistic Nutjobs Goosy birds of a feather
Key’s willing association with slater certainly means that slater’s attitudes and practises are not incompatible with his own. Otherwise key would not willingly associate with him.
Trade me and Harmoney. Money lenders operating through Trade me – not sure what I think about this. It is being promoted as peer to peer lending. So what’s peer-to-peer lending?
It’s a new way of lending and borrowing that has proved very successful in Australia, the USA and the UK and is just getting started here in New Zealand. Investors loan money directly to borrowers anonymously via an online platform, without having to go through a financial institution like a bank.
It’s simple. By missing out the middleman, Harmoney can provide lower interest rates for borrowers and higher returns for lenders – a win-win for everyone.
A new way of getting into financial strife? I don’t know what to make of it.
I know it in the context of an alternative source of business funding and I was about to spout on about that, and how useful it can be as a more flexible way to raise venture capital or early stage funding for a good business idea. And I’ve seen that work really well overseas. The crowd funding idea in the US is great because it disintermediates the whole formal financing business and people with relatively small amounts of money can get into deals they’d otherwise never see, and spread their risk (which is essential for venture capital type deals).
However, looking at the Harmoney website, first thing I see is:
Borrow
Debt Consolidation
Car Loans
Home Improvements
Holiday Loans
What the farque? This is not really peer to peer lending or crowd funding. This is your neighbourhood predatory lender dressed up in fancy internet clothes. The good thing is that it is very transparent and simple, but does NZ really need this? I guess we will see.
On old maps from ancient times, areas outside the known were labelled “There be Dragons” as a warning of possible perils and pitfalls. In NZ citizens should be aware that this situation applies in their own fair land if, while travelling at the other end of an island or the country, they fall ill.
The story I heard was that a couple were on holiday and one got really ill and was said to need an operation. But the DHB was reluctant to carry it out and stated they should go back to their own hospital board and have it done there. Insistence and threats of negative publicity resulted in agreement to attend to the op at the holiday location.
This is the result of the lack of adequate funding to DHBs. They have had financial sinking lids for some time. Also their budgets are population-based for the locals only and even that may be scant, not providing much for those at the fringes of the areas, and isolated farming settlements. The technology costs for a modern hospital are high also, not only capital costs, but maintenance, and security measures.
The surgeons may have been on holiday, there may have been pressures from car crashes and drunken mayhem incidents in the case I was given. But it is an example of the difficulties the gummint is causing to the public service provision we thought we had provided as a permanent public good.
So beware of the dragons that might pop up when you are away from home. You may need to buy health insurance to get you home within the country’s borders if health provisioning isn’t funded appropriately. If the governnment is running NZ without oil, sooner or later the mechanism will seize up and stop.
Yesterday, Greece canceled the privatisation of the biggest port yesterday, which was a key component of the their existing bailout.
Merkel quoted along the lines of astonished Greece is looking for a debt cut, the new ggovenmnet has to show they are committed to the EU aid program, and the ball is in Greece’s court.
Greek bank equities -11% yesterday.
But the real test comes today. The EU is voting on whether to add to sanctions on Russia. This has to be unanimous and given Greece was reported to say yesterday “we don’t consent”, this vote will be interesting. If Greece does veto the sanctions I guess that signals a really hardball approach to negotiations.
I spoke earlier to a few people in London – a European political analyst at a bank, an economist and a debt trader- were all of the view that the Germans will be happy to say no to any Greek haircut demands, perhaps ease the repayment schedule, but ultimately play hardball. And if the Greeks threaten to leave the Euro, ask them not to let the door hit their bum on the way out.
Personally I don’t know, though I do believe the best thing for Greece would be to negotiate a departure form the Euro, stay in the EU and get transitional support as they go back to controlling their own policy settings. As long as their productivity lags so far behind northern Europe they will never make a go of being in the Euro. They need a weaker currency in order to compete.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
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, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
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 is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
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 ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
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 ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
‘Prime Minister John Key is poised to outline the possible sale of thousands of state houses to community groups today, as the Government advances its reform of social housing.’
The privatisation of housing.
Is really the way to solve NZ’s housing crisis, Mr Key?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/65481888/Key-set-to-air-plan-on-state-houses
It’s about transferring public assets to private hands and another issue buried at the GE that all opposition parties should have been demanding a please explain.
Wonder if it will be at the types of discounts the power generators were flogged for especially genesis.
At least will someone in opposition demand the detail on how rents will be controlled and get the attack of this abdication of repsonsibilities going on a few fronts please.
Probably. This government just loves ripping us off for the benefit of the cronies.
“small government is good”
“the state has no business being in business”
“can we sell the people to?”
“there is no housing crisis”
“sell more assets Bill needs a surplus”
“that Catton women is just a greenie”
“sell it all there will be a profit in there somewhere”
“Angry Andy is living in the past”
“I grew up in a state house….sell them all”
“look there’s a squirrel”
John Key slot machine circa 2015
“Mr Key said there was no housing “crisis” and the Government’s policies were aimed at increasing supply.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11392703
This can only be true if he meant there was no housing crisis for rich people and the Government’s policies are aimed at increasing the supply of rental properties to landlords.
The damage that he does to the plain meaning of words is horrendous.
There was a doozy on Morning Report. When quizzed on whether Mike Sabin was being investigated by the police, he said he couldn’t comment. When quizzed further he said he was advised not to comment. When asked who advised him not to comment he said he was not at liberty to say. When asked why he was not at liberty to say, he said, “Well that’s a circular argument.” It’s about halfway through a 6 minute interview.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20165124
+1 Olwyn.
Key sounded like a blithering idiot in this interview. Full marks to Espiner. All 6 minutes well worth a listen.
Classic, dear leader has “zipped it” on Sabin, like Richard Worth Sabin is not MP material at all which the Nats now have to deal with.
Is Key’s farcical dodging just about buying time for HQ to manage the details of Sabin’s exit or is there more to it?
yesterday he said he comments on what he wants to comment and not on what he doesnt. I guess overnight they rethought the effectiveness of that childish response and decided to pretend someone was stopping him from commenting. I mean, this is the guy who gets documents declassified to help his election campaign.
His calling Espiner’s persistent questioning a “circular argument” came across like a line from that Monty Python parrot sketch.
well, funny you should say that, cos his response yesterday to not commenting reminded me of the Python “argument clinic”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
😀
The Greens position was very weak on this. Both Labour and Greens need to take a strong stand against sales.
Key is an arch dissembler aka known as a lying asswipe. He doesn’t give straight answers to anything.
I agree on both counts. Yes, Labour and the Greens need to take a strong stand on state house sales, and yes, Key is an arch dissembler. He seems to have three basic moves – (1) Toy out loud with the idea doing something extreme and scary. (get the government out of housing) (2) Step back a little to something more ‘moderate’ (we’ll sell a few but still remain the main provider) (3) Do what he wants to do anyway.
@ Olwyn
That is what the political commentator on Radionz said today. The gummint goes OTT and get people’s backs up, then there is the announcement putting that to rest with a smaller change that appears to be more considered and puts the critics on the back foot as being dogmatic and unreasonable. It’s not too bad, what are you going on about sort of thing.
“Mr Key said there was no housing “crisis””
yet were gutting the rma to fix said housing crisis
Oh I see:
There is a housing crisis, so need to gut the RMA.
Now that attention is on the RMA, there’s no housing crisis.
🙄
I’m more concerned with the projected increase in housing subsidies. Ultimately they feed the landlords which just makes the situation worse.
This is all going to lead to higher rents, and a bigger struggle for people to find accomodation in the private sector.
And do we really want to hand over public services to private charity? Who pick and choose who they help? And put rules and regulations around it?
It also means the government can say homelessness isn’t their responsibility. Families living in cars, caravans and sheds? That will be the fault of the charities that take this on according to the Nats.
Done correctly I think this may help the situation, as well as private charity I imagine there’ll be groups that concentrate on housing and as such should do a better job of handling housing
I’m sure you agree that as peoples circumstances change their housing needs change as well?
what did these groups say the last time this policy was discussed?
~ We arent able to handle such a scheme – not by a long shot ~
using the “~” for paraphrasing
You assume that these housing associations have the capacity and the ability to deliver (without prejudice) healthy, affordable housing for communities. In our small country, they don’t. And the private developers included in the mix, don’t have the intent.
And if you want social cohesion, and enhanced community, then transitional housing is not the answer. People are more likely to be connected, and resilient when they have strong stable communities. View the difference in established communities with little turnover, with transient communities such as student areas or holiday home towns.
As people’s circumstances change, if their housing is secure, their energies can be directed towards other benefits for themselves, their families and their communities.
By proposing that when they are on their (choose arbitrary financial point) feet, they are then expected to move house and community, keeps them on a perpetual treadmill, supposedly doing everything right to move forward, but being given other obstacles to achieve to stay in place.
I’m thinking that a single person taking up a 3-4 bedroom house when theres a family needing a house seems to be a waste of that house
Just how many 3-4 bedroom state houses do you believe are being occupied by single people living alone? Really would be interested Undecided, in whatever information you have on this topic. You do have some right? You are surely not just repeating tired spin from the 1990’s. That time before a concerted effort was made by successive Governments, to relocate people living in such circumstances, not to mention the ensuing shifts in policy direction where such circumstances rarely, if ever, occur today.
The Government will be selling thousands and thousands of homes our grandparents paid to have built so their children and their children’s children could live in a country where need was less.
Was a nice theory, if only the kids had had the guts to follow through with the sentiment, instead of turning the most awesome little country in the world (still full of potential) into a vapid whore working one of the smaller South Pacific outposts of Greed Inc.
Meaning that people in state houses should be moved around depending on their circumstances
However as reported
Prime Minister John Key has confirmed the Government plans to sell 1000 to 2000 state houses in the next year to be run by community housing providers with more sales possible over the next few years.
In his state of the nation speech today Key said Housing New Zealand would still remain the biggest provider of social housing with at last 60,000 properties by 2017 against 65,000 now.
2000 to be sold to community providers with possibly more to come certainly isn’t as bad as some feared
i fail to see what your trying to prove with the cut and paste of what key claims the nats are doing
its not proof of anything other than “this is what key said” and im struggling to see its relevance to the comment directly preceding yours
Posters on here were assuming the worst, that Key would sell off most of the housing stock and probably to private investers whereas hes selling off less then 5% to private providers so no loss off housing
which is still irrelevant to the question you were replying to.
“Just how many 3-4 bedroom state houses do you believe are being occupied by single people living alone?”
And if you think the nats will stop there your deluding yourself
stop taking things at face value (and especially at “what JK says” value) and apply some historical and ideological context
Well in regards to asset sales Key said he wouldn’t seel any assets in first term and he didn’t, he said he’d partially sell some power companies in his second term and did so on asset sales hes done what hes said he’d do
im sorry – did history stop waaay back in 2008?
and in case you didnt grasp what was happening there, thats the nats trying to not frighten you in order to advance their actual agenda – an agenda they are pretty open about and one that hasnt changed for years now
and yet again your avoiding engaging with the actual questions and points being put to you. What are you afraid of?
sheesh
an agenda they are pretty open about and one that hasnt changed for years now
Its an agenda that enough people think is a good one then as its got National back into power
Key is selling off the wealth of the nation, to the wealthy of the nation.
What a bastard.
your contradicting yourself – in one comment you say they did what they said they would then when i point out that theres more going no and its nbo big secret you resort to “well their popular”
Appeals to populism doesnt explain anything other than popularity
I will take it you are incapable of backing up you opening play.
really weak – so weak that i can only assume your a troll.
end of subject
Have to confess I’m undecided as to whether Undecided is Dissembling or merely Obfuscating…….while noting that they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive and may indeed be cousins.
Undecided, why are you so scared of answering one simple question?
Let me take a stab at the answer you really wanted to give but were just too timid to front up with:
‘I do not know, but I have faith in John Key to do what is right for New Zealand.’
Is that a fair approximation of your thoughtful “undecided” point of view.
p.s. In today’s speech, was there any mention of a mechanism where Social Providers will get first dibs on State Assets that are being sold?
then the answer isnt sell off current stock is it
the answer is change the stock
case in point – used to live in wesley (sandringham) in AK – there was one street where about 10 old style 1/4 acre state houses were moved off site and sold as relocateables. Then a mixture of town and terrace houses with differing numbers of bedrooms was built. Thereby increasing total houses and reformatting to suit a wider variety of circumstances
notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?
I agree mostly with this though I’d also look at selling state houses in the very expensive suburbs and buying more in decent but less expensive areas
“notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
your avoiding again
Not avoiding, theres quite a lot I’d like National to do but they won’t however just because I want them to do something doesn’t make me right
considering thats not the question being asked, you are avoiding
or your not very good at this language thingy
this is what you said
“I’m thinking that a single person taking up a 3-4 bedroom house when theres a family needing a house seems to be a waste of that house”
i responded that the policy being proposed doesnt have anything to do with that
this whole thread between the two of us is based off that one comment – why you think that instead of answers that follow and stick to this argument, im more interested in what you want the nats to do is beyond me
You’re not very good at asking questions, make the question clear and unambiguous and I’ll answer
oh for fucks sake!
————————————–
“then the answer isnt sell off current stock is it
the answer is change the stock
case in point – used to live in wesley (sandringham) in AK – there was one street where about 10 old style 1/4 acre state houses were moved off site and sold as relocateables. Then a mixture of town and terrace houses with differing numbers of bedrooms was built. Thereby increasing total houses and reformatting to suit a wider variety of circumstances
notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
———————————–
what bit of that isnt clear?
then i repeated the main question AGAIN to you
—————————
“notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
—————————
what bit of that isnt clear?
The last thing NZ needs is for the enclaves of the rich to shut themselves off from the rest of society.
Let’s call them “desirable areas” rather than expensive ones. The reason why they are expensive are many and varied, but the primary reason is the failure of government (especially this one), to address rising housing costs. That is a series of posts in itself.
These areas are desirable because they are within easy access of schools, public transport, central city, services and community facilities.
Your suggestion to send those living there to “less expensive” areas results in a transfer of housing providing responsibility costs from government to increased transport and living costs to already vulnerable tenants. Add to that social isolation and reduction of access to sporting and community engagement, and the true costs of this type of policy become apparent.
The role of government includes creating many “desirable” areas in many places, as well as ensuring their affordability.
If we take Glen Innes as an example. This was the creation of a desirable area for social housing, by the government at the time.
Access to services, school, work and health as well as to some of Auckland’s natural environment was excellent.
The encroachment of higher-priced property means that this purpose built social housed community is no longer welcome. Without any regard for the social equity that exists.
We have a government that is not providing enough social housing. It is also not providing access to affordable housing for an increasing number of NZers… It is however, going to provide discounted assets to private property developers. And that seems to be the sum total of it’s efforts on this issue.
I said decent but less expensive areas, I’ll use Christchurch as an example as i’m not from Auckland so I’m thinking if there are any state houses in Merivale, Fendalton etc then sell them off and buy in Hornby (which is a pretty decent suburb) so I’m not suggesting they buy houses in Aranui and stick families there
Your view is that “what you think” is what actually occurs despite evidence to the contrary.
By putting the provision of healthy, affordable homes for all NZ’ers to third parties, a government (such as National) removes itself adroitly from the chain of responsibility and will continue to do so as long as it can get away with it.
By bringing in for-profit providers, not only are they dismantling their responsibility, they are effectively saying “we do not have the capability or otherwise to look after this fundamental requirement for healthy and engaged NZers’. And yet they are responsible for the health and wellbeing of our whole economy.
Can you give us their address? I’ll go and ask them why they live there. You’re right, we need to get to the bottom of this.
So we must “never forget” Auschwitz. As a kid raised on WWII stories, books and gruesome pictures courtesy of parents directly involved via the air force and nursing during London blitz I of course concur.
Unfortunately large sections of the Israeli leadership and population do appear to have forgotten. Persecution of the Palestinians remains perilously close to the ideology that sanctioned the death camps.
Here’s a report that’s just been published on Israel’s July-August 2014 massacre of 1500 civilians and 500 children in Gaza…http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/double_tapping_in_gaza
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR) conducted a fact-finding mission, utilising 8 independent international forensic and medical experts. They’re the only human rights group to have been granted access to Gaza by both Israel and Egypt (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Council were repeatedly denied entry).
“The report’s authors adopt a cautious and professional tone but describe the stuff of nightmares.”
Thanks swordfish. A harrowing but necessary read.
Radio NZ is covering Andrew Little’s speech at http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/264639/live-andrew-little-taking-the-nation's-pulse
We will have the text up shortly.
i already have it up..
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/tex-of-littles-state-of-the-nation-2015/
This advertorial tells us that there are Thousands of ‘affordable’ Auckland homes in outer suburbs
Obviously these idiots don’t know the meaning of the word affordable.
can they identify the transport times required to get to their jobs and home, as well as the cost.
Of course not, that would require them actually making informed comment rather than just mouthing off to sound good.
mouthing off to perpetuate the market they make their living from. Am sick of Bank employees being asked for comment on stuff that hurts or harms banks… real estate agency owners being used as experts on affordable housing when they have no interest in it.
or conversely they have a truly vested interest in it…
While workers’ rights, living standards and general conditions of life have been made worse over the past 30 years, workers’ resistance has declined to negligible levels. Moreover, the rare tussle that does take place is a defensive one. Workers in this country, with the possible exception of the early days of Unite union when it was organising new workplaces and fighting to get contracts for new union members, haven’t been going on the offensive for several decades now.
Sometimes it seems that two generations of workers got defeated – through the 1980s and 1990s – and the next generation therefore hasn’t had a fighting spirit and class consciousness passed on to it nor developed these through its own experiences.
But if workers here have forgotten or, in the case of the new generation, not yet learned what resistance is let alone what going on the offensive is, there is no shortage of examples of powerful workers’ upsurges and of workers’ resistance pointing to, or at least offering a glimpse of the potential for, alternative ways of organising economic, social and political life.
So we’ve stuck up on Redline links to pieces about workers’ occupations, about the biggest general strike in history (a couple of years ago in India), the May-June 68 events in France, the formation of bodies of workers’ power in Portugal and Chile in the early 1970s – forms of organising that point the way out of capitalism.
See: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/this-is-what-resistance-looks-like/
Phil
One of the reasons there’s little resistance is small- and medium-sized employers in areas of moderate- to high-unemployment.
I live in one of those areas, and I’ve been in and out of employment since the early 1990s. In that time, one employer has met their obligations and told me who my union was.
One.
My current employer refuses to talk about it, stating they have no official position but if I joined a union we’d all lose our jobs because it’d mean higher wages and better conditions.
This is why their wage theft is on-going. It’s been made quite clear that if any of us cause trouble by attempting to enforce our basic legal rights, our reference will be simply an acknowledgement of employment – the implication being that we were a bad employee because they had nothing good to say about us.
My previous employer didn’t mention a union, but the owner did tell me I was salaried so they didn’t need to pay overtime, and I was waged so they didn’t need to pay me if I was off sick for more days than I had accrued.
During the last years of National’s run in the 1990s, when the ECA required negotiation of pay and conditions, one employer stated wages and conditions, and said “There’s no negotiation of that, that’s the job. If you don’t accept that pay, you don’t get the job.” WINZ, of course, required me to accept the job.
As I understand it, the bulk of the jobs in the area are the same. The employers know there aren’t many jobs out there, so they have low wages and bad conditions, and if you don’t like it you can sod off.
Eventually, the employees do so, moving to towns with better jobs, wages, and conditions, and it seems to me that these factors are such an improvement that they don’t see the need to join a union.
I hear what you are saying. There is the implied threat, that if you do this, then your co-workers will turn against you as to blame for ANY job loss… no matter how unrelated to your decision to join a union
Yep.
That said, I now have a list of rather important questions to ask employers at my next job interviews. I’ll figure out better phrasings for them, but if they turn me down because I want to know an employer’s position on worker rights, I’m fairly sure I don’t want to work there.
There is no obligation for employers to tell you who your union might be unless there is a Collective Agreement that covers your work and your employer is a party to that agreement, i.e for the first 30 days of your employment you will be covered by the terms & conditions of the Collective ( from 6 March this provision will no longer apply to new employees), after which you can join the union or negotiate individual terms & conditions of employment.
I thought an employer must know what Union/s their staff can join and if asked is required to impart that knowledge to the employee or person being interviewed. If I am incorrect on this please let me know.
Unfortunately you are incorrect unless there is an applicable Collective Agreement for that workplace and the employees work is covered by the agreement.
thanks Atiawa
Ah – I was under the impression that they had to. I’ve had a few people tell me that, actually.
hi phil and bass guy, couldnt agree more.
i had the misfortune to have desired to be a chef as a youngster. (30 odd years later i still love cooking!)
i have been mainly in hospitality since 1985, and on both sides of this discussion (worker, here and overseas, and employer here).
in my experience in mainly small businesses (less than 10 employees), and have never been involved with a union, let alone acted collectively.
incidentally i am in the throws of renegotiating my wages currently.
the nature of these small businesses tends to create “relationships” between employer and worker, which can make negotiating potentially fraught, tense or non-existant, especially for the younger workers.
none of this is a defence of greedy employers, just my 2 cents worth.
The National government in 1991 legislated against working people and their unions and for their business mates by introducing the Employment Contracts Act (ECA). The award structure was completely gutted and replaced with enterprise bargaining & individual employment contracts, which for many workers meant an offer of inferior terms & conditions of employment on a take it or leave basis. Compulsory unionism was abolished and in many industries and workplaces a collective approach to wage bargaining never took place again. Unions and unionism was decimated. Workers, especially the low & semi skilled, became increasingly reliant upon the benevolence of employers and government who set minimum requirements such as the minimum wage, annual leave and grievance procedures. The workplace power imbalance between employer and worker increased – and remains – heavily weighted in favour of the former. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living because working people no longer enjoy a collective voice in both the workplace and society.
Employers and their supportive governments love high unemployment numbers especially youth. The idea and ability to pick and choose is very appealing. They strongly advocate for and support 90 day trial periods for new employees. They don’t want assertive union officials supporting & promoting alternatives. That weakens their power & control.
Do you think this government would want their business buddies to be made to tell the workers the contact details of Andrew Littles mates?
gday atiawa,
i concur with every thing you have said.
in my experience there are few of mr littles’ mates in the workplace.
unfortunately i also have absolutely no faith in a little led labour regime making any difference to the status quo.
Chomsky Blasts ‘American Sniper’ and the Media that Glorifies It
by JANET ALLON, AlterNet, Jan. 26, 2015
http://www.alternet.org/watch-chomsky-blasts-american-sniper-and-media-glorifies-it
Noam Chomsky had some choice words about the popularity of “American Sniper,” its glowing New York Times review, and what the worship of a movie about a cold-blooded killer says about the American people.
It’s not good.
During a Cambridge, Massachusetts event hosted by The Baffler, Chomsky first read the glowing recent review the New York Times gave the movie. That review begins inauspiciously by insulting “America’s coastal intelligentsia, which has busied itself with chatter over little-seen art dramas while everyday Americans showed up en masse for a patriotic, pro-family picture which broke all attendance records in its opening days.”
So, Chomsky wonders aloud: “What was the patriotic, pro-family film that so entranced everyday Americans? It’s about the most deadly sniper in American history, a guy named Chris Kyle, who claims to have used his skills to have killed several hundred people in Iraq.”
Kyle’s first kill was a woman who apparently walked into the street with a grenade in her hand as the Marines attacked her village.
“‘I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting,’” Chomsky said, quoting Kyle. “‘Savage, despicable, evil — that’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy savages. There was really no other way to describe what we encountered there.’”
Chomsky also pointed out that The New Yorker loved the film, saying, “it was great, kept to the cinematic values, said it was well done.” On the other hand, Newsweek‘s Jeff Stein, a former US intelligence officer, called it appalling. In that review, Chomsky says, Stein remembered a visit he had made to a “clubhouse for snipers, where to quote him, ‘the barroom walls featured white-on-black Nazi SS insignia, and other Wehrmacht regalia. The Marine shooters clearly identified with the marksmen of the world’s most infamous killing machine, rather than regular troops.”
“Getting back to Chris Kyle,” Chomsky said, arriving at his larger point. “He regarded his first kill as a terrorist — this woman who walked in the street — but we can’t really attribute that to the mentality of a psychopathic killer, because we’re all tarred by the same brush insofar as we tolerate or keep silent about official policy. Now, that mentality helps explain why it’s so easy to ignore what is most clearly the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history, if not ever — Obama’s global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us.”
Chomsky recommends reading some of the transcripts with drone operators, calling them “harrowing” in their dehumanizing treatment of people who are targeted.
The implication is clear and chilling. Are we all, at least tacitly, American snipers?
Here’s Chomsky via WGBH below….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X30Gkp9FVs
Rich people around the world buying boltholes in NZ to escape to when the shit they have been taking advantage of to enrich themselves backfires in their faces. Been suggesting such since the Rothschilds bought a large coastal farm on banks Peninsula about 10 or so years ago….. boat access, airstrips, etc…..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/65486615/nz-farms-eyed-as-boltholes-for-worlds-super-rich
Dirty bastards
With Mr small beer in charge the doors wide open for them to
And the handout mentality never stops from the hypocritical right wing National-voting farmers ……..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/65482711/irrigation-lobbyists-seek-easier-cash
Why don’t these people go to the private market for support rather than ask the taxpayer? It is not as if the projects are any larger than countless other private projects in the country….
Aren’t they free market supporters? Why would they push through a project that the free market doesn’t support?
Why do they ask for the taxpayer to start it? Then later ask the taxpayer to support them when the waters run dry? Then ask the taxpayers to pay to clean up the shit afterwards?
Unbelievable.
Bludgers.
No credibility.
I think the angle they are running is that it is for the greater good, if the farmers make money the community benifits which will be hard to argue with in dollars and cents terms
Yeah nah – those ‘for the greater good’ arguments have little credibility these days. Unfortunately no time to go into it… though ….
We would get short shrift if we went to government for loans for our business (which is similar scale to some of these irrigation projects) – and the exact same ‘greater good’ arguments apply. Why should farming business be treated differently to any other business mr waghorn ?
Trickle down has been laughed out of town.
Huge amounts of money is spent on Auckland s roads because businesses say it costs them to have workers stuck in traffic.
“I think the angle they are running is that it is for the greater good, if the farmers make money the community benifits which will be hard to argue with in dollars and cents terms”
Pretty sure if you did a cost/benefit analysis that took all costs and benefits and downsides into account, it wouldn’t look so good. The theory is based on the idea that it brings jobs and supports businesses and that those can’t happen in any other way so it’s ok to ruin the environment. That theory is wrong.
From a green perspective is irrigation always bad?
define irrigation (not being smart, it means different things to different people).
Irrigation for commercial gain be it crops , wine or milk and meat.
It needs to be looked at on a case by case basis. I’d say the irrigation of the Canterbury Plains for Fonterra is bad. Trickle irrigation of a kumara garden in Te Tai Tokerau, probably quite reasonable.
+1
Is irrigation on the Canterbury plains to grow crops or fatten sheep and beef bad
I can’t see that the huge scale automated irrigation of large areas of flat grassland is good at all. It’s extremely wasteful of water, which is not well absorbed by pasture where shelter belts have been removed. I think there are less harmful uses of the Canterbury Plains, but I’m no expert. I grew up in Te Tai Tokerau, where the land is hilly and there was usually plenty of water. It was good country for dairy on the smaller scale that it was done in those days.
I think there are crops that could be grown that would need far less irrigation than dairy. I think irrigation of the Canterbury Plains to fatten Tory voters is extremely bad.
Is Key’s speech text also available ahead of schedule?
herald online is putting the soon to be heard Key speech into ten points.
Interestingly they use this stat, presumably because Key does?
“There are almost 5000 people on a social housing waiting list (as at the end of December). That’s down from just over 11,000 in 2002, but the true level of unmet housing need is estimated to be in the region of 43,000-55,000.”
The use of 2002 as a point of reference piques my interest… Isn’t the number on the waiting list from the end of 2008 to december most relevant?
In 2008 the then Labour Minister stated there were
“as at 29 February 2008 the number of applicants on the waiting list was 9,875. This figure includes 2,435 applicants already living in Housing New Zealand houses who are seeking a transfer.”
In a 2013 Briefing for the Minister HNZ noted the following
“As New Zealand’s largest landlord, Housing New Zealand owns or leases nearly 70,000 rental properties, housing over 200,000 people. This portfolio is worth $15.1 billion and is the Government’s second largest asset. There are also 2,100 families – about 6,000 people – on the waiting list with a serious need for a state house.”
It appears that when National entered parliament in late 2008 there were about 7440 people in serious need of a state house. At the end of 2013 this had dropped to 6000. Why not use the real figures, they seem to still show a decline?
Phil Twyford said this in April 2014
“The figures show that in March 5,204 priority applicants were on the waiting list. In January this year the number was 4,197.”
By December 2014 they were
4964
Ordinarily I take conspiracy theories with a grain of salt, but the timing plus the fact that these guys were responsible for many of the “disappeared” in Argentina during the junta…
Lawyer about to testify against government officials turns up dead, so Kirchner finally disbands Argentina’s intelligence service and will work on a decent replacement.
Hmmm, I don’t understand your approach to humans acting in a conspiracy…. you seem to suggest that only those supporting facts which make it into the public arena are determinative of whether or not people have conspired….
Have you conspired today McFlock? Over the last week? I know I have, I know my family members have, I know John Key and Andrew Little have, I know virtually anyone in business has ……. it is what humans do. They conspire together to achieve ends.
this prevailing idea that humans don’t conspire ……. just makes absolutely no sense, flies in the face of reality and is as silly as some person thinking that a lone gunman killed JFK
🙄
Even if we were to ignore the negative connotations of the word “conspiracy”, just because humans conspire does not mean that every conspiracy theory is true.
So yeah, I demand evidence before I determine the probability of any particular conspiracy theory being true.
edit: comma inserted
So unless the evidence in the public arena is in your view supportive then you dismiss the notion that some event may be the result of a conspiracy….
kinda misses the notion of how conspiracies are attended to i.e. in secret
You know, another way to make an assessment about an event is to use the well tried and proved method of following the money… or looking at who has benefitted …..
There are ways to assess things other than your own narrow method. Proven ones.
never mind, on you go
For years, the US Government used this approach to discredit people in court who were claiming that they were being subject to illegal surveillance.
The US Government would say – well you have no evidence of this surveillance, the kind of spying you are talking about is illegal, and we would never do it any way – so you have no standing and no merits in this court.
And then, Snowden…
The moon landings were faked.
Aircraft release chemtrails for geoengineering.
Nasa covered up its photos of martians.
The Earth is hollow and run by Tibetans from Atlantis.
Stealth bombers were made with alien tech from the Roswell crash.
There is a teacup orbiting the sun somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.
All without evidence, so all must be credible /sarc
sure, go and ruin a perfectly good discussion point with sarcasm and derogatory comment.
you were doing fine until that point silly
You’re the one who took this:
to mean this:
BTW, CR’s “perfectly good discussion point” seemed to be that one particular conspiracy theory was largely true. That stunning observation’s relevance to the discussion about how we discern a true conspiracy theory from a false one is somewhat thin – although in that case it did rely on evidence being made public. But then we don’t know whether the specific individuals “in open court” were indeed subjected to illegal surveillance.
Not “dismiss”. Not take a position until I have evidence. This can be evidence for the popular theory, evidence of a conspiracy, or evidence of the doubtful reliability of conspiracy theorists.
Oh, we can look at who benefitted, but that merely means that if there actually had been a conspiracy, all the conspirators have to do is benefit slightly less than someone else.
The flipside is that I arbitrarily accept as true conflicting conspiracy theories in the absence of any evidence whatsoever.
E.g. that LHO shot JFK alone, or that the Cubans assassinated JFK,
and that the CIA/military assassinated JFK and used Oswald as a patsy,
and that the mafia assassinated JFK because of Bobby Kennedy going after them as AG,
and all convoluted combinations of any and/or all of the above
Oh, and that Oswald acted alone.
Please remember, a conspiracy theory is simply where people have shared their considered views and ideas when attempting to understand an event or situation. When used as a derogatory label or as an attempt to demean and diminish the validity of another’s viewpoint, it is nothing but taking a short cut away from critical thought. Critical thinking is not a threat to knowledge, it is how humanity uses knowledge to survive. At least it used to be.
Language mutates and adapts, freedom. Conspiracy theory still has a literal meaning, but it also now has a pejorative meaning, due mostly to the rise of sites on the interwebs who propagate mindless nonsense but insist we all take it very seriously indeed.
My favourite form of madness is the ‘right of reply’ or ‘balance’ argument, where the deluded demand that their theory should be given equal weight to actual, proven knowledge. The master of this approach is the self aggrandising climate change denier, and fake Lord, Christopher Monckton.
I am eternally grateful that language mutates and adapts. If you accept what you wrote, you also must accept the absurdity of our present condition. By simply speaking two little words in conjunction, many rational brains are triggered to the ‘ignore’ position, predominately without any rationality applied. Behaviour like that does not happen by accident. It is learned and it is learned largely through the use of language. That is where personal responsibility comes into play.
We are the language we let ourselves use. We are the questions that we ask.
The situation today is so absurd that if a person is over-heard to have read a book about JFK, they are immediately assumed to be converts to the writings of David Icke. The short cut away from critical thinking I mentioned earlier? That is well and truly sprinted every time “conspiracy theories” from different fields of research are compared. Do you discuss mainsail maintenance of a racing yacht when talking Bathurst tyre wear?
We both would agree that this world is in a ridiculous position. There is too much fear, not enough love, a boogyman behind every doorway. The true horror though, is the apparent disdain for facts. This of course is where 9/11 is the mother lode of nonsensical discussion. As you know I do not enter into 9/11 discussion here although I might throw a few breadcrumbs on occasion. But disdain for facts is at the core of the 9/11 issue. People go to extraordinary lengths to defend the Official Story, mostly with little to no knowledge of its immense failings, yet decide that all 9/11 Truth is a falsehood because… albatross.
Take The New Pearl Harbour. An amazing achievement by any standard of research, if somewhat lacking in production values. I will repeat what I have said since it first arrived on the scene.
“I am not aware of any person who having claimed to believe the Official Story, after seeing this documentary, still claims that position.” Not one!
To be honest I still have my doubts that you yourself have actually viewed it at all, let alone its entire five hours. Only you can know the truth of your answer. Facts matter. Science matters. Lies just hurt people and the bigger the lies, the more hurt they create. Is that what you want? A simpering humanity, cowering under the baton of ignorance and fear as the totality of knowledge is decided for you by people who most certainly do not have your best interests at heart?
Too afraid to open a window for air, because you are told the window is locked.
Is that not the locking mechanism, laying broken at your feet? Language will mutate, language will adapt, but only you can know the truth of your answer.
He’s not a fake lord – he’s a hereditary peer inheriting the title from his father in 2006 (he’s the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley).
What he did do is falsely (or at least misleadingly) claim in a letter to US Senators to be a member of the House of Lords which he has never been (since the hereditary peers lost the right to automatically be in the Lords in 1999 and he is not one of the 92 elected hereditaries). The lords even issued a cease and desist to refute his claims in 2011.
As an aside he’s stood 4 times for when a seat for the hereditary peers has fallen vacant in the Lords since 2006 and at least 3 times received no votes.
Definitely a crank though. (Now plowing his furrow with UKIP when not climate denying).
Cheers for the correction, GJ. And I didn’t know he was standing for UKIP! Not sure what that does for the nutter quotient there, but from what I’ve seen of the rest, Monckton might be a civilising influence.
I’d say that’s par for the course in Latin America. The mistake Dilma and Kirchner make is to leave the same state apparatus that served the dictatorships in place. Labour does it here as well. They should realise by now that the SIS is a branch of the Tories, but will they change anything if they ever get voted back in? They could all do with reading ‘State and Revolution” again.
By the way, I don’t see this as a conspiracy theory at all. It’s a reasonable explanation of the facts.
rankin is someone I don’t like or respect
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/religion-and-beliefs/news/article.cfm?c_id=301&objectid=11392913
he says, “Islam’s direct threat to our rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and our culture”. But I don’t hear him saying anything about Christianity which imo has done and will continue to be more of a direct threat than Islam ever could. Ban crosses? yeah right.
It is clearly the very notion of religion that is the problem… and has been for a very long time.
The sooner it disappears as an idea the better – pretty much like some religions which used to think the sun was a higher being have evaporated in the heat of reality, so too should all religions which think there is a higher being. Dolly the cloned sheep put paid to these ideas some years ago.
there will come a time when this will happen anyway so lets do it now ….
do you think people would run with this ?
Well no I don’t agree with you.
The sun is a higher being* for all intensive purposes. Whether some entreaty from this planet cuts through the solar flares and stuff and impacts upon the sun causing ‘it’ to ‘hear’ and ‘react’ to those calls is debatable for sure based upon whichever belief system we believe in.
*
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/higher_being
But back to your point – I don’t think people will run with it.
Belief systems aren’t the problem – rather trying to fit square pegs into round holes is.
Nice point about the sun.
People have a need for faith and a need to believe in something. Get rid of religion if you like, ban it if you like, it will merely be replaced with faith in the free markets, faith in nationalism, faith in exceptionalism, faith in scientism and infinite technological progress.
Tautoko. He’s not worthy of your respect. He doesn’t have mine either.
I’ve had a bit of odd behaviour with the Replies tab in the last few days. Normally, the tab only appears when I’ve posted that day (it disappears some time after midnight each night), so I usually don’t see replies if I haven’t posted for several days.
Today, I had replies listed only for Raided of the Last Shark, and that was after reloading because I had replies listed for Micky Savage.
The Replies Tab has been misbehaving for several days now.
I’m going to have to put the aircond on to figure out what it is doing wrong. Mind is fuzzy after I get home through the beautiful warm mind-numbing weather (after being in a fridge all day).
Sean Plunket is a vile, whining piece of shit who sounds like a ten year old reading lines written by Whalespew. His calling Eleanor Catton an ungrateful hua on the basis that she works at a public university makes me sick. FJK is paid by the state, yet he spends whatever time is left after working on his golf handicap on attacking the working class. Why doesn’t Plunket call him a traitor?
Nah, bugger it. Why doesn’t Plunket just go for a long walk off a short pier? I’d never listened to him before, but he obviously bases himself on Alan Jones, speaking slowly and in short sentences so as to not get too far ahead of his audience.
[lprent: Do not go down to far on that avocation of self-harm path yourself, unless you want to discover the limits to moderator tolerance. ]
Just far enough for him to have a nice swim. Do you really think “take a long walk off a short pier” is a hobby involving violent self harm? How about “go jump in the lake?” I see both as dismissive, rather than being any sort of hobby at all. I think I’ve missed what you meant by avocation.
I once inherited a cellfone from someone whose occupation was that of a ‘publicist’ (you know – someone whose job it is to promote). Sean Plonker (among others) contact numbers remained in its contact list. I refrained from making bothersome calls, and from calling them out on their bullshit. There were some very intersting numbers in that little gem that I retain to this day.
Thankfully, the publicist saw sense and left the country, but not before using me (and others as her confidant) – including one of her boyfriends (an electrical engineer). He/they’d actually taken the long walk along the Pike River Mine entrance – according to he: “an accident waiting to happen”. As for Plunket …. I can only relate her comment – he’d be a thoroughly useless fuck.
Funny ole wurl aye.
I imagine tho’ that in future times, that publicist will be ready and anxious to testify.
I fear that might be a little longer than my lifetime will allow.
Oh…. btw – Chris Finalyson fiigured heavily in her daily commentary – it kind of reinforced my impressions of just what a bitter old queen he’s become. And I say that ONLY because had he not been subjugated by the Jonky phenomenon, there’d have been a different outcome.
Common fucking sense anyone? (Not for the foreseeable future it seems) – EVEN in here judging by some comments above
ThugMouthPlunket’s contribution ? Having NZ’ers look like hectoring, spittling, backwoodsmen.
Catton’s contribution ? Having NZ’ers stand proud. And having ThugMouth exemplify her point.
The dog here is…….?
Idiot ! So got himself owned.
Reply to LPrent’s comments on Little’s State of the nation address thread
”
Martyn Bradbury seemed to be quite close to David Cunliffe and Hone Harawira. However that is beside the point. You are making a guilt by association argument. That is usually bad form.
[lprent: Why? Have you looked at the side of this site at John Key’s face recently – that accurately expresses my opinion of his ethics of getting involved with Slater’s garbage diving. As far as I can see John Key has been politically profiting from having his head stuffed firmly in Slater’s faecal bacteria for the last 7 years. I can’t see any justification for having a dirty politician to not be called for what he is.
For the record, I have a number of politician’s numbers. I don’t use them unless I have to. They are mainly there for caller id when they (rarely) call me so that I pick up the phone. The only phone numbers that I ever call cold were those of Helen Clark. That was because I was part of the Mt Albert campaign team and I sometimes needed direct information about targeting.
As much as I think that Martyn is a bit of a dork, I don’t think that he is trying to blackmail journalists with prostitutes or any of the other crap that Slater did. I suspect Martyn mainly contacts them when he was organising events or pitching for work.
Answer in OpenMike, but I suspect that I am going to be completely unsympathetic to your theory of disassociation of a dirty politician and his dirty operatives. ]”
I’m not discussing how you you can be associated with the behaviour of an individual. I would agree you can argue that being in contact with someone who is overtly behaving in a particular manner does suggest a degree of tacit support.
What I am meaning is that if someone I know and associate with holds a particular view (say on the benefits or otherwise of collectivisation) that it does not hold that the view is held by myself as well. For example just because you are majorly involved in this blog does not mean you agree with the views expressed by the authors who post articles here. I am sure you would come down hard on anyone trying to state that you did.
And what if you gave them your cellphone number, and contacted them frequently, which was the original comparison?
That at least suggests that the beliefs they espouse are not contrary to one’s ethical standards. For example, I don’t socialise with any white supremacists AFAIK.
John Key is a good example of a “mainstream” (your relocated goalpost, I remind you) tory, no?
Cameron Slater has a number of views that I suspect the PM does not hold. Key’s reasons for contacting him has been well publicised. You may disagree with it but even if it was some insidious plot to subvert democracy in NZ it doesn’t mean that they share the same views.
Anyway I suspect Slater is not anti-collective as you suggest. He may well be anti-Union but that is a different matter.
Birds of a feather flock together aye goosey.
Always defending the indefensable!
Your like a cheap little wind up doll repeating the same old lies!
you make mathew hootton look good.
always having to have the last word never admitting when your wrong!
Men who are into selfies are more likely to be Narcissistic Nutjobs .
Key Slater.and you are both narcissistic Nutjobs Goosy birds of a feather
Key’s willing association with slater certainly means that slater’s attitudes and practises are not incompatible with his own. Otherwise key would not willingly associate with him.
Trade me and Harmoney. Money lenders operating through Trade me – not sure what I think about this. It is being promoted as peer to peer lending.
So what’s peer-to-peer lending?
It’s a new way of lending and borrowing that has proved very successful in Australia, the USA and the UK and is just getting started here in New Zealand. Investors loan money directly to borrowers anonymously via an online platform, without having to go through a financial institution like a bank.
It’s simple. By missing out the middleman, Harmoney can provide lower interest rates for borrowers and higher returns for lenders – a win-win for everyone.
A new way of getting into financial strife? I don’t know what to make of it.
I know it in the context of an alternative source of business funding and I was about to spout on about that, and how useful it can be as a more flexible way to raise venture capital or early stage funding for a good business idea. And I’ve seen that work really well overseas. The crowd funding idea in the US is great because it disintermediates the whole formal financing business and people with relatively small amounts of money can get into deals they’d otherwise never see, and spread their risk (which is essential for venture capital type deals).
However, looking at the Harmoney website, first thing I see is:
Borrow
Debt Consolidation
Car Loans
Home Improvements
Holiday Loans
What the farque? This is not really peer to peer lending or crowd funding. This is your neighbourhood predatory lender dressed up in fancy internet clothes. The good thing is that it is very transparent and simple, but does NZ really need this? I guess we will see.
On old maps from ancient times, areas outside the known were labelled “There be Dragons” as a warning of possible perils and pitfalls. In NZ citizens should be aware that this situation applies in their own fair land if, while travelling at the other end of an island or the country, they fall ill.
The story I heard was that a couple were on holiday and one got really ill and was said to need an operation. But the DHB was reluctant to carry it out and stated they should go back to their own hospital board and have it done there. Insistence and threats of negative publicity resulted in agreement to attend to the op at the holiday location.
This is the result of the lack of adequate funding to DHBs. They have had financial sinking lids for some time. Also their budgets are population-based for the locals only and even that may be scant, not providing much for those at the fringes of the areas, and isolated farming settlements. The technology costs for a modern hospital are high also, not only capital costs, but maintenance, and security measures.
The surgeons may have been on holiday, there may have been pressures from car crashes and drunken mayhem incidents in the case I was given. But it is an example of the difficulties the gummint is causing to the public service provision we thought we had provided as a permanent public good.
So beware of the dragons that might pop up when you are away from home. You may need to buy health insurance to get you home within the country’s borders if health provisioning isn’t funded appropriately. If the governnment is running NZ without oil, sooner or later the mechanism will seize up and stop.
News out of Greece is interesting……
Yesterday, Greece canceled the privatisation of the biggest port yesterday, which was a key component of the their existing bailout.
Merkel quoted along the lines of astonished Greece is looking for a debt cut, the new ggovenmnet has to show they are committed to the EU aid program, and the ball is in Greece’s court.
Greek bank equities -11% yesterday.
But the real test comes today. The EU is voting on whether to add to sanctions on Russia. This has to be unanimous and given Greece was reported to say yesterday “we don’t consent”, this vote will be interesting. If Greece does veto the sanctions I guess that signals a really hardball approach to negotiations.
I spoke earlier to a few people in London – a European political analyst at a bank, an economist and a debt trader- were all of the view that the Germans will be happy to say no to any Greek haircut demands, perhaps ease the repayment schedule, but ultimately play hardball. And if the Greeks threaten to leave the Euro, ask them not to let the door hit their bum on the way out.
Personally I don’t know, though I do believe the best thing for Greece would be to negotiate a departure form the Euro, stay in the EU and get transitional support as they go back to controlling their own policy settings. As long as their productivity lags so far behind northern Europe they will never make a go of being in the Euro. They need a weaker currency in order to compete.
@ nadis
That sounds doable. I wonder how long the Greeks will take to come to that approach.