Another article where the focus is how important Key is. He’s mentioned by Obama and the press quiver like schoolgirls getting to see their latest boy popstar.
“Obama personally invited Key to the first nuclear security summit in Washington in 2010, because of New Zealand’s staunch anti-nuclear position…
ANDREA VANCE IN SEOUL – Is she one of these Journalism graduates on her first assignment? Is she aware that National have just got into bed with an ACT party whose leader wants the policy gone by lunchtime, and that the core of the cabinet believe that our “proud-position-on-nuclear-issues” has been hindering trade talks with Obama’s and earlier administrations?
.
Brash isn’t ACT’s leader any more, I believe Banks is, and I don’t think he wants the nuclear free policy “gone by lunchtime”, or at least, not publicly. Really it’s actually a non-issue: even if we did repeal that policy, the US isn’t going to send warships here anyway. There’s really nothing to gain by repealing it.
“It is a compliment as Obama mentioned only one other leader in the address – Italy’s Mario Monti. ”
LOL – What a shocker, Key being mentioned along with another Goldman Sachs Gang member. Surprised that Papademous, and Draghi do not rate a mention too…
Triples from a low basis when it should never have dropped in the first place.
Ellis plundered millions on failed digital strategies, Tivo and a cultutre of overpaid out of control personalities like Henry/Vietch etc including himself.
How much content that can be resold/rerun do TVNZ produce James ? That’s the real measure as that’s repeat revenue for a once off production cost.
Any monkey can slash costs and get a profit with their advertsising revenue…where’s the sustainable model that Ellis got nearly $1m p.a. for eh.
goes to show that james III has no idea about “costs” or “management” or in fact, what a well run organisation looks like. James only knows about a few financial figures, and even then sweet fuck all.
Noticed this appalling comment in Minister Bennett press release re: benefit reforms:
“We have women consigned to a life of welfare because over thirty years ago society said women couldn’t support themselves without a man.”
Apart from being historically incorrect what an abysmal statement.
Violence, abuse, rape, poverty, concern for children – nope none of these things were factors.
Your choices should be man or work. That’s it.
Paying you a benefit was a punishment because you can’t get by, by yourself.
WTF were you doing leaving your husband. The one who beat and raped you. The one who took all the money and you had to feed the kids on family benefit. The one who you had to go out and work because he sat at home drunk.
And when he walked out on you and left you with the kids, traded you in for a younger model, had only married you to cover up the fact that he was gay cause society didn’t like gay people either, that left cause he couldn’t handle that his sperm had produced a disabled kid (you must have slept with someone else), that just didn’t come home one day, that left you in the bush with your kids (Barry Crump) you should have just got on with it and worked. You lazy, indolent person.
And apparently we society sent you there. Consciously. We consigned you – deliberately.
Made you the non-person you are today. We apologise for doing this to you – I can’t believe we thought it was a good thing.
We are much wiser now and we know that paying a benefit was just another form of abuse. We’re sorry for perpetuating this abuse on you. I know we thought we were helping you but we weren’t.
And also if you managed to get pregnant by yourself (i.e. unmarried) your would have to abandon your child to indifferent and overworked adoption services, due to no ability to afford to raise it unsupported. Prospective adopters were able to “choose” from about five to six assorted babies of either sex and even specify what colouring.
That is the problem with NZ, and when I mean “NZ”, I mean that often implied powerful mass of imbalanced animalistic reactions that do no good, that makes no improvement; is inexplicably unable to recognise itself when faced with its own reflection; the source of which is “somewhere out there”; and of which no one wants to take the credit.
As a commenter posted yesterday, NZ doesn’t have any collective moral or social philosophy, and they’re right. Often a set of beliefs is called a philosophy, but that isn’t a true definition – it’s just another one of the failings of a self-referencing, post-modern, pop-culture, age. To have a philosophy you’d need to actively seek out the truth about life. You’d have to have seen and acknowledged the stuff that proved you were wrong, not just once, but as many times as it took. What we hold dear, it seems, and what is promoted by politicians and businessmen at large, is a collection of beliefs, values and manifesto that place the ego of the person holding the beliefs at the centre of the universe and distorts and limits the interpretation of what they see in relation to their own beliefs. Or as yesterday’s quote named it “the economy”.
I think we get this way by being taught that our identity as people is only on what we want to be – what we “act as”, imitate or aspire to being. When you believe you can be anything you want, you are saying that your mind, the part that thinks thoughts is all there is to you and that this “you” is your god, you are your own creator, that there are no immutable laws to life, that you can hold back nature with your own short-lived human will. Everywhere people try to hold back nature; they get boob-jobs to stop sagging, face lifts and laser treatments to stop wrinkles and actively scorn anything old; anything to maintain the grossest illusion of youth, that man is invincible. Few people know how to age and die.
The problem in parliament is the thinking that what is good for us is good for another, that we are all the same, in every way – or can be made to be. We believe time is linear, that context does not matter, that “the future” and “the past” are concrete places and forget they were really just moments like right now – innumerable present moments, most of them apparently full of nothing. We believe that experience or some variation on experience can predict the future; that “success” – the manifestation of our ego desires – is an emotion and a measure of truth; even after reality continually proves us wrong with its insolent co-incidental “chance” and “accidents”.
The people in parliament got where they are by believing they could influence ancient human natures, with money. Understanding isn’t on the check list for entry. Their attitude is adolescent. Voting is now a game of one ego addressing another. The sooner our parliamentary system comes to its inevitable end the better. While we can’t be rid of the chaos of unchecked childish minds, perhaps soon they won’t be elevated to positions of power over others.
Just heard the interview with the Finnish comedian commenting on Brownlee’s performance. One thing that stood out was that his English was near perfect – not a bad education system then is it Gerry? Now how is your Finnish, or Maori, or French, or German, Latin … nah, you even struggle with your mother tongue don’t you given the “misunderstandings” over this issue?
Technically yes but contextually we all know this is the first stage of legislation to doing this – unless you are confident that changes will be made via the select committee process to remove this.
You will note that the Minister press releases make reference to the other future changes as well e.g. widows benefit.
Perhaps you might like to let her know her press release was incorrect as well.
Complaining about what will never happen is a bit stupid too don’t you think?
(that’s not a “favourite of the right” or the left, it’s a favourite of the stupid and the sky will fallers.)
A householder who insures his house isn’t really complaining about the fire that is going to happen. He is just taking precautions. Though I have to admit I don’t know what this argument is all about.
But the discussion wasn’t about your semantics. It was about deliberately or ignorantly misrepresenting what “we all know” about what is actually in the bill.
No one is forced to work. And no one is forced to remain on a benefit either.
It is a sad day for New Zealand with the passage of a shameful welfare bill which will force sole parents with babies as young as one year out to work.
The Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill passed its first reading today with the support of National, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party.
The MPs supporting this legislation should hang their heads in shame says Auckland Action Against Poverty spokesperson Sue Bradford.
There is nothing in the bill that will force anyone out to work. Bradford is either ignorant of basic facts or is deliberately misrepresenting the stated aims of the act.
No, are you acting ignorant, or do you not know anything about the act?
There are requirements in the act to look for work, not to be in work, because obviously if there aren’t enough jobs then not everyone can take on jobs.
According to that comment, the issue is with the distinction between “working” and “looking for work”, is that correct? Or is there another way to interpret your comment?
Assuming the above, if Sue had said “force sole parents with babies as young as one year out to look for work” you’d be ok with that.
So Pete, are you saying that the intent of the legislation is only to look for work? That if a job is available and offered the ‘job-seeker’ can turn it down and remain of the DPB? It’ll be good if you can clear that up. Ta.
That happens now so I don’t see that it will change. It’s not even necessary to turn down a job, it’s quite easy to apply for a job and ensure that you aren’t offered one. Happens now.
Some do turn down jobs that are offered but there are systems already to try to stop this, some additional benefits can be lost if jobs are turned down.
This trying to get a balance between carrots and sticks is nothing new, different governments have been trying to find a reasonable but effective approach for a long time.
“Some do turn down jobs that are offered but there are systems already to try to stop this, some additional benefits can be lost if jobs are turned down.”
So just what I said, above, which you got all sensitive about.
So women on the DPB are currently required to take up a job if one is offered? Without losing benefit if they turn it down?
Paula Bennett says
the bill would mean they would have to be available for work when their children were at a younger age – five for part time work and 14 for full time work.
Note – not ‘look for work’ as you said, but be ‘available for work’. Is she wrong? and you don’t think this is different from current conditions of the DPB?
And you also think being able to manipulate a CV to avoid being chosen for a job you’ve applied for is good legislation?
Also, Pete, I’d point out that in a tough labour market, looking for a job can itself be very time consuming and can easily amount to the equivalent of a part-time job.
Yes, fair comment. And it can be very demoralising. Difficult when jobs are scarce.
But if you want to be self sufficient and do better for your family you have to find ways of doing that and it can cost – in the past I’ve shifted town/city with a family to get work, the initial cost is significant in the hope that the longer term benefits make it worth it.
There’s more unemployment now, but also more assistance to help people through difficult times.
It’s known that self supporting families generally have better outcomes for their children than families on benefits, so parents wanting the best for their kids (and themselves) should be striving to be as self supporting as possible. Shouldn’t they?
I didn’t insist nothing would change. A new act is obviously going to change things.
All the Government parties think it should change. Labour thinks it should change (albeit different degrees and methods). It has always been tweaked and changed, and it always will keep being changed. We live in a changing world.
It’s about degree of change. The act proposes a bit more encouragement/coercion (pick which word suits your side of the argument). It’s another tweak of the existing system. It isn’t a complete switch to a new draconian regime as some seem to be suggesting.
I don’t know what the new bill will do, it’s only been voted to first reading. But I haven’t seen anything yet that will force mothers to work. Have you?
Do you think mothers should have a free choice as to whether they work or get the DPB? If so to what age of children?
Your morning troll started with accusing Sue of being ignorant of the bill or lying about the bill.
Specifically you were upset that she said people will be forced into work/forced to look for work/forced to accept work depending which of your comments you pick.
You have insisted that she was wrong about this and that nothing in the new bill will change anything with regard to being forced to do these things.
It has since been shown by rosy, DoS, and others that your opinion is based on a misunderstanding of the current act and how it is implemented.
And now you’re trying to change the subject to ‘never mind all that, what should happen?’ because you can’t admit that you were wrong to accuse Sue of not knowing her stuff.
Turns out you don’t know what you’re talking about as usual, and Sue does, as usual.
And as usual Pete will think he’s done nothing wrong and you’re just nit-picking for no purpose.
But really this is modus operandi for Pete: say something imprecise, then defend-to-the-death that that wasn’t what he meant, despite it being what he said, and then when conclusively being shown he is wrong, he simply runs away from the thread and doesn’t post again.
So PiG, where are the jobs for these self supporting types? What has your buddy the cretinous Dunne (seller of state assets) done to create any work by way of voting with the inNACTion party?
I’m happy for we just to mean you and me. Just us two. The royal we. I feel so close to you now.
I’d have to say that as I talking colloquially I didn’t need to worry about pedantry.
Of course it could mean those that have read the ministers and this governments press releases and other comments that there are two stages to this legislation and only the first is going through parliament now. The second will be introduced later in the year.
This includes a fair chunk of the population and of the readership of these forums.
I’m sure you do actually know that.
To simplify:
Technically you are correct there is nothing in the current bill about this – anything about this will be in the next bill to be introduced later in the year.
The legislation is being introduced in two stages.
We know this to be a fact.
Of course you then apply similar language to that you are so disingenuously critical of by saying:
“It’s known that” without any qualifier – known by who Pete?
It’s not known by me, in fact I know many individuals for whom respite from looking for work when a relationship breaks up, the payment of DPB to help them get back on their feet without any pressure to conform to some other (white middle class male?) persons expectations of what and how they should do has been an absolute godsend.
And how come self supporting doesn’t include paying my taxes so that when something goes wrong I can get a benefit without being made to justify my existence, the reason for my breakup or my choices – and by extension paying my taxes so if my children are in that situation nor do they.
The morality arguments all break down when you start to look at individual cases and individual circumstances. But for the grace of god go I.
You lack of compassion for individuals by hiding behind applying the ( real and supposed) excesses of a minority to a majority is breathtaking for someone who purports to want to do things in a better, more caring and thinking way.
Just glanced at yesterdays Lying Liar caught lying again….unclean unclean…really foul. Why the F*** did anybody engage with the Mental Health Act duet?
I was wondering about that post and debate for some of today. On the one hand it was hilarious watching two small-minded and bitter fools disgracing themselves, but it got a bit much. It reminds me of the original serious of The Office. It was a brilliant portrayal of a dysfunctional environment, but I usually found it impossible to watch it until the end – the last five minutes in particular were just too painful, and not in a shocked laughter way. Same with this thread – they laid on so much idiocy, bile and ignorance that I just couldn’t get into it.
Normally I quite like that sort of thing, but too much vicious stupid, it hurted.
I know Nuz-ZINK! about this ‘Judith Collins’ or her sitting next to me with a knife in my ribs.
I know Nuz-ZINK! about this so-called ‘tea-pot tape.’
I know Nuz-ZINK! about Finland either…
That’s funny?
Late last night I spotted Audrey Young’s piece 8pm 27 March, on the “National refuses to answer questions about the Key Questions” in Parliament. This morning the item had disappeared but an Audrey search found it. (Getting better at this Search business.)
Wonder why it seemed to have been buried? http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794958
Of course methyl iodide based products are still being sold here in New Zealand. Politicians and ERMA will do their best to ignore the fact that it’s been removed from U.S. shelves, not because it wasn’t making a profit, but because it’s a highly dangerous carcinogen that was initially misclassified…
And he has moved into a ‘modest’ Remuera Townhouse… is that RWNJ-Former Minister-Snout in the Trough with a tasty Super and Perks modest, or Joe Public modest?
Use of the word progress, has allowed the sheep to be lulled into many false senses of security, which have and will contribute to current and future economic and social disasters, and mostly likely worse!
Progress is what ever the sheep want to believe it is, as long as it maintains an illusion , of which they are not aware exists!
One scam in London was a auction, the marks would be brought into a room and the auction would not start until they’d shut the doors and created a buzz for buying, the marks would spend more and not notice the quality was shite. A classic switch and bait, switch even the rules of the auction from open to closed, and then change the value the mark was expecting.
The teapot switch and bait, invited journalists into a open press room, then switched the rules, that it was illegal to take voice recordings while taking video, that somehow the organizer of the event had a right to suddenly declare a meeting private.
Sorry but my understanding of what is legal (from a non-lawyer) is the reasonableness standard of a jury trial. Would a jury feel it was fair that the rules suddenly changed, the expectation of a full open press conference. That ministers are also aware of the buy beware notion, that if their mouths are moving and they consent to a video camera being on, then inevitably they consent to a lip reading them.
We cannot have a free democracy when the government press organize thinks they can decide how journalists use material they legally obtain. Ambrose had the consent to take video, photos, and voice not because there were two men talking privately in a coffee shop, but because two men invited him there, and did not have a right to switch the rules from FULLY open to PARTIALLY open without informed consent of Ambrose.
Puddleglum’s latest on the Smith/Pullar saga; “The banality of corruption” is well worth reading. I’ll leave a teaser:
…Writing a reference for his friend Bronwyn Pullar was the crucial ‘error of judgment’ committed by Dr Smith. At least that’s what almost all commentators appear to agree upon despite John Key claiming that it was the second unearthed letter (actually written and signed earlier than the ‘first’ (reference) letter) that tripped the switch of Smith’s resignation.
But discussion of Dr Smith’s ‘errors of judgment’ and whether or not they amounted to ‘corruption’ or ‘cronyism’ seems to me to have missed a point so obvious, so banal – and so likely – that I think that omission says something significant about just how ‘corrupt’ our everyday responses have become…
Worth every minute it took to read; the recipe for corruption is an insightful moment; reads like a person about flick over the first in a long line of cultural dominoes.
Years ago, after the Second World War, my family was living in a prefabricated house (‘prefab’) in the north of England (lined with sheets of asbestos as it happens – my sister still remembers rubbing her finger up and down her bedroom wall as all the dust came off it). They were meant to be used for just a few years but they were still there in the mid-60s. Compared to brick houses, they weren’t well-made or as warm in winter.
Dad got politically active, giving speeches off the back of a lorry, hassling the (Tory) council. One by one, he (and those supporting him) fought for individual families and got them rehoused on various grounds.
But there was one fight he wouldn’t fight.
Mum got onto him about the fact that, here he was, getting everyone else into better houses and we were still living in ours.
He gave her a quick run through of Corruption 101: He couldn’t do it for us, otherwise his opponents would say that, all the time, it was just about him trying to help himself and there was no matter of principle involved. More importantly, that could then derail what he was trying to do for others. We would have to be last in the queue.
It would have been easy for him to justify it to himself. After all, we were a family, like all the rest; he had three children (I was pre-school age). He could have used what little political power and influence he had to get us a new home. (And the councillors would have probably seen it as a cheap way of getting him off their backs.) Where’s the harm?
He saw, I think, that the judgment about who should get rehoused next wasn’t his to make. The Council should have held to its promise (and plan) to replace the housing. It was a political issue, not an issue simply for him and his family. That wasn’t the point.
Corruption is pretty easy to see, really. It’s like when we say that a file on a computer is ‘corrupt’. All it means is that it can’t do what it’s meant to do. Same goes for political corruption – it means our political and bureaucratic processes can’t do what they’re meant to do. Dad would have corrupted his activism – and the political process it set in train – if he’d put his energies into getting us rehoused.
I think corruption is not so much about individuals becoming corrupted. It’s really about our society (or culture) becoming corrupted. We all have an interest in stopping that from happening.
The problem is, when we all look at life individualistically – as I think we increasingly do, today – each one of us then has an (self-)interest in just being a little bit corrupt, just this once … others will understand. After all, they do it too, don’t they? And we’re all human, so let’s not be so hard on small ‘errors of judgment’, yadda, yadda, yadda.
It’s like the tragedy of the commons. We less and less have a sense of the importance – the ‘sacrosanct’ nature – of the collective processes we’ve supposedly set up to regulate how we do things, together.
Slippery-slope arguments aren’t always valid, but I think corruption has to be a paradigmatic exemplar of when it is. Once it starts not only do we, individually, start to ‘normalise’ it, but also others start to feel the pressure to join in – or miss out. It gains its own momentum.
Ultimately, everything that happens in the public realm becomes a sham – nothing actually happens how it’s supposedly meant to happen.
In one of my past lives I was involved in training delivery.
It was always interesting to see who would cheat on team exercises. At one level the exercises are often no more than puffery but at another what became clear over years of doing this was that the people who would cheat the exercise were almost without exception the same staff who would cheat the important things at work.
The ones who openly said it’s not OK and maintained a high level of integrity were invariably the ones who did so at work.
While on the surface they were team building exercises they actually became quite valuable in managing risk.
The thing was that for most of those people it was a learned, ingrained habit to cheat – they couldn’t help themselves as they were so accustomed to doing this.
For them it definitely wasn’t a slippery slope – it was how they behaved. Where it was a slippery slope however was in the influence they could have ( and on some occasions did have) on other staff.
Yes, well described mr puddleglum. As rl says, ti explains one hell of a lot, such as why there seems to be far less of the public service element to, well, public service, today. Evidenced by comparisons of public to private enterprise over salaries for just one example.
Is there a way to resurrect things do you think? Or must the current norms run their course? Or perhaps it is probably a combination of the two – small changes here and there to push and guide the “good” way. For crude example, prohibit ex-Ministers from entering conflicted private enterprise roles, such as Simon Power going to his new role at Westpac.
Today, 3 News reported that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright will be undertaking an official investigation into Fracking.
I read this one earlier, and was initially pleased. Will have to see what comes out the other side, and see if it contradicts the findings abroad already carried out!
or do they simply want to produce a report saying their are some potential health issues that need legislative attention and whammo they end up introducing laws like this one??
an amendment to Title 52 (Oil and Gas) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, requires that companies provide to a state-maintained registry the names of chemicals and gases used in fracking. Physicians and others who work with citizen health issues may request specific information, but the company doesn’t have to provide that information if it claims it is a trade secret or proprietary information, nor does it have to reveal how the chemicals and gases used in fracking interact with natural compounds. If a company does release information about what is used, health care professionals are bound by a non-disclosure agreement that not only forbids them from warning the community of water and air pollution that may be caused by fracking, but which also forbids them from telling their own patients what the physician believes may have led to their health problems. A strict interpretation of the law would also forbid general practitioners and family practice physicians who sign the non-disclosure agreement and learn the contents of the “trade secrets” from notifying a specialist about the chemicals or compounds, thus delaying medical treatment.
This is footage of Israeli soldiers raiding a home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on the night of March 20th, 2012. This video captures a raid on the home of imprisoned Palestinian nonviolent leader Bassem Tamimi. His wife, children, and likely his mother, can be seen in the video reacting in horror to the ransacking of their home, albeit it rather common across the West Bank and in Nabi Saleh itself.
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Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
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http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6648578/PM-tells-leaders-to-take-nuclear-threat-seriously
Another article where the focus is how important Key is. He’s mentioned by Obama and the press quiver like schoolgirls getting to see their latest boy popstar.
“Obama personally invited Key to the first nuclear security summit in Washington in 2010, because of New Zealand’s staunch anti-nuclear position…
ANDREA VANCE IN SEOUL – Is she one of these Journalism graduates on her first assignment? Is she aware that National have just got into bed with an ACT party whose leader wants the policy gone by lunchtime, and that the core of the cabinet believe that our “proud-position-on-nuclear-issues” has been hindering trade talks with Obama’s and earlier administrations?
.
Might be my imagination but I felt that Andrea was slightly tongue in cheek. A slightly satirical breathlessness perhaps.
Brash isn’t ACT’s leader any more, I believe Banks is, and I don’t think he wants the nuclear free policy “gone by lunchtime”, or at least, not publicly. Really it’s actually a non-issue: even if we did repeal that policy, the US isn’t going to send warships here anyway. There’s really nothing to gain by repealing it.
“It is a compliment as Obama mentioned only one other leader in the address – Italy’s Mario Monti. ”
LOL – What a shocker, Key being mentioned along with another Goldman Sachs Gang member. Surprised that Papademous, and Draghi do not rate a mention too…
Felt a bit dirty after reading that article!
“It is a compliment as Obama mentioned only one other leader in the address – Italy’s Mario Monti. ”
Oh yes, seconded!
Good to see for TVNZ just goes to show what can do if you keep a focus on costs ,and management.
http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/tvnz-1h-profit-more-triples-
Triples from a low basis when it should never have dropped in the first place.
Ellis plundered millions on failed digital strategies, Tivo and a cultutre of overpaid out of control personalities like Henry/Vietch etc including himself.
How much content that can be resold/rerun do TVNZ produce James ? That’s the real measure as that’s repeat revenue for a once off production cost.
Any monkey can slash costs and get a profit with their advertsising revenue…where’s the sustainable model that Ellis got nearly $1m p.a. for eh.
goes to show that james III has no idea about “costs” or “management” or in fact, what a well run organisation looks like. James only knows about a few financial figures, and even then sweet fuck all.
Noticed this appalling comment in Minister Bennett press release re: benefit reforms:
“We have women consigned to a life of welfare because over thirty years ago society said women couldn’t support themselves without a man.”
Apart from being historically incorrect what an abysmal statement.
Violence, abuse, rape, poverty, concern for children – nope none of these things were factors.
Your choices should be man or work. That’s it.
Paying you a benefit was a punishment because you can’t get by, by yourself.
WTF were you doing leaving your husband. The one who beat and raped you. The one who took all the money and you had to feed the kids on family benefit. The one who you had to go out and work because he sat at home drunk.
And when he walked out on you and left you with the kids, traded you in for a younger model, had only married you to cover up the fact that he was gay cause society didn’t like gay people either, that left cause he couldn’t handle that his sperm had produced a disabled kid (you must have slept with someone else), that just didn’t come home one day, that left you in the bush with your kids (Barry Crump) you should have just got on with it and worked. You lazy, indolent person.
And apparently we society sent you there. Consciously. We consigned you – deliberately.
Made you the non-person you are today. We apologise for doing this to you – I can’t believe we thought it was a good thing.
We are much wiser now and we know that paying a benefit was just another form of abuse. We’re sorry for perpetuating this abuse on you. I know we thought we were helping you but we weren’t.
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/welfare-reform-1
And also if you managed to get pregnant by yourself (i.e. unmarried) your would have to abandon your child to indifferent and overworked adoption services, due to no ability to afford to raise it unsupported. Prospective adopters were able to “choose” from about five to six assorted babies of either sex and even specify what colouring.
Selective amnesia from Paula the Rotund about the “benefit” she has had from her Benefit.
Not amnesia – she’s just never accepted the truth. Ot, to put it another way, she only accepts her fantasies as truth (which is true of all RWNJs).
+1
That is the problem with NZ, and when I mean “NZ”, I mean that often implied powerful mass of imbalanced animalistic reactions that do no good, that makes no improvement; is inexplicably unable to recognise itself when faced with its own reflection; the source of which is “somewhere out there”; and of which no one wants to take the credit.
As a commenter posted yesterday, NZ doesn’t have any collective moral or social philosophy, and they’re right. Often a set of beliefs is called a philosophy, but that isn’t a true definition – it’s just another one of the failings of a self-referencing, post-modern, pop-culture, age. To have a philosophy you’d need to actively seek out the truth about life. You’d have to have seen and acknowledged the stuff that proved you were wrong, not just once, but as many times as it took. What we hold dear, it seems, and what is promoted by politicians and businessmen at large, is a collection of beliefs, values and manifesto that place the ego of the person holding the beliefs at the centre of the universe and distorts and limits the interpretation of what they see in relation to their own beliefs. Or as yesterday’s quote named it “the economy”.
I think we get this way by being taught that our identity as people is only on what we want to be – what we “act as”, imitate or aspire to being. When you believe you can be anything you want, you are saying that your mind, the part that thinks thoughts is all there is to you and that this “you” is your god, you are your own creator, that there are no immutable laws to life, that you can hold back nature with your own short-lived human will. Everywhere people try to hold back nature; they get boob-jobs to stop sagging, face lifts and laser treatments to stop wrinkles and actively scorn anything old; anything to maintain the grossest illusion of youth, that man is invincible. Few people know how to age and die.
The problem in parliament is the thinking that what is good for us is good for another, that we are all the same, in every way – or can be made to be. We believe time is linear, that context does not matter, that “the future” and “the past” are concrete places and forget they were really just moments like right now – innumerable present moments, most of them apparently full of nothing. We believe that experience or some variation on experience can predict the future; that “success” – the manifestation of our ego desires – is an emotion and a measure of truth; even after reality continually proves us wrong with its insolent co-incidental “chance” and “accidents”.
The people in parliament got where they are by believing they could influence ancient human natures, with money. Understanding isn’t on the check list for entry. Their attitude is adolescent. Voting is now a game of one ego addressing another. The sooner our parliamentary system comes to its inevitable end the better. While we can’t be rid of the chaos of unchecked childish minds, perhaps soon they won’t be elevated to positions of power over others.
This most definitely deserves a +1. Well said.
Just heard the interview with the Finnish comedian commenting on Brownlee’s performance. One thing that stood out was that his English was near perfect – not a bad education system then is it Gerry? Now how is your Finnish, or Maori, or French, or German, Latin … nah, you even struggle with your mother tongue don’t you given the “misunderstandings” over this issue?
(can’t delete so editing out duplicate post)
Technically yes but contextually we all know this is the first stage of legislation to doing this – unless you are confident that changes will be made via the select committee process to remove this.
You will note that the Minister press releases make reference to the other future changes as well e.g. widows benefit.
Perhaps you might like to let her know her press release was incorrect as well.
(response to your now removed duplicate post)
‘You can’t complain about things that haven’t happened yet’ is a trusty old favourite of the right.
To be followed at a later date with a ‘You can’t complain about things that have already happened’.
Complaining about what will never happen is a bit stupid too don’t you think?
(that’s not a “favourite of the right” or the left, it’s a favourite of the stupid and the sky will fallers.)
A householder who insures his house isn’t really complaining about the fire that is going to happen. He is just taking precautions. Though I have to admit I don’t know what this argument is all about.
I think it’s a pretty good analogy.
And the reason for insuring is that we’ve seen for ourselves what fires can do.
Petey just wants to pretend we don’t know an arsonist when we see one.
Nah, the stupid insist that things outside of their control “will never happen”.
The solipsistic insist that things that won’t happen to them “will never happen” to anyone else.
And the deceitful pretend that nothing has ever happened before .
But the discussion wasn’t about your semantics. It was about deliberately or ignorantly misrepresenting what “we all know” about what is actually in the bill.
No one is forced to work. And no one is forced to remain on a benefit either.
Nah, it wasn’t about what we all know is in the bill.
DoS was talking about what we all know is coming next.
Whatever you think of the “we all know” bit, (and I see why you do) you’ve still misrepresented him/her quite badly there Petey.
They are if they can’t find a job! (And if they don’t want to starve).
A lack of basic facts don’t help promoting a view.
There is nothing in the bill that will force anyone out to work. Bradford is either ignorant of basic facts or is deliberately misrepresenting the stated aims of the act.
You mean because they always have the option of forfeiting their benefit? Is that where you’re going?
No, are you acting ignorant, or do you not know anything about the act?
There are requirements in the act to look for work, not to be in work, because obviously if there aren’t enough jobs then not everyone can take on jobs.
According to that comment, the issue is with the distinction between “working” and “looking for work”, is that correct? Or is there another way to interpret your comment?
Assuming the above, if Sue had said “force sole parents with babies as young as one year out to look for work” you’d be ok with that.
Right?
So Pete, are you saying that the intent of the legislation is only to look for work? That if a job is available and offered the ‘job-seeker’ can turn it down and remain of the DPB? It’ll be good if you can clear that up. Ta.
That happens now so I don’t see that it will change. It’s not even necessary to turn down a job, it’s quite easy to apply for a job and ensure that you aren’t offered one. Happens now.
Some do turn down jobs that are offered but there are systems already to try to stop this, some additional benefits can be lost if jobs are turned down.
This trying to get a balance between carrots and sticks is nothing new, different governments have been trying to find a reasonable but effective approach for a long time.
“Some do turn down jobs that are offered but there are systems already to try to stop this, some additional benefits can be lost if jobs are turned down.”
So just what I said, above, which you got all sensitive about.
So women on the DPB are currently required to take up a job if one is offered? Without losing benefit if they turn it down?
Paula Bennett says
Note – not ‘look for work’ as you said, but be ‘available for work’. Is she wrong? and you don’t think this is different from current conditions of the DPB?
And you also think being able to manipulate a CV to avoid being chosen for a job you’ve applied for is good legislation?
Also, Pete, I’d point out that in a tough labour market, looking for a job can itself be very time consuming and can easily amount to the equivalent of a part-time job.
Time consuming and very expensive. Printing, posting, travelling, new clothes and haircuts, mobile phone costs, etc.
Yes, fair comment. And it can be very demoralising. Difficult when jobs are scarce.
But if you want to be self sufficient and do better for your family you have to find ways of doing that and it can cost – in the past I’ve shifted town/city with a family to get work, the initial cost is significant in the hope that the longer term benefits make it worth it.
There’s more unemployment now, but also more assistance to help people through difficult times.
Nobody is self-sufficient. That’s why we live in a community.
Lolwut! 😀 No, there’s not.
but contextually we all know this is the first stage of legislation to doing this
“we all know”? I’m sure you can’t substantiate that, so not point in asking.
Who are you speaking on behalf of? The misinformed or the misinformers?
So Petey
Solo mums will be forced to look for work but not take a job if one is offered?
You really need to get out more.
Currently solo mums do not have to take a job that is offered and can even leave their job consciously and deliberately to go on DPB.
Are you saying this won’t change Pete?
I think it should change.
It’s known that self supporting families generally have better outcomes for their children than families on benefits, so parents wanting the best for their kids (and themselves) should be striving to be as self supporting as possible. Shouldn’t they?
Hang on Pete.
This is the very thing that you’ve been insisting wouldn’t be changing.
Is it or not?
I didn’t insist nothing would change. A new act is obviously going to change things.
All the Government parties think it should change. Labour thinks it should change (albeit different degrees and methods). It has always been tweaked and changed, and it always will keep being changed. We live in a changing world.
It’s about degree of change. The act proposes a bit more encouragement/coercion (pick which word suits your side of the argument). It’s another tweak of the existing system. It isn’t a complete switch to a new draconian regime as some seem to be suggesting.
“I didn’t insist nothing would change.”
I didn’t say you did.
But you said the new bill wouldn’t change this specific aspect.
Will it or not?
You’re getting very vague.
I don’t know what the new bill will do, it’s only been voted to first reading. But I haven’t seen anything yet that will force mothers to work. Have you?
Do you think mothers should have a free choice as to whether they work or get the DPB? If so to what age of children?
No, I’m being quite specific.
Your morning troll started with accusing Sue of being ignorant of the bill or lying about the bill.
Specifically you were upset that she said people will be forced into work/forced to look for work/forced to accept work depending which of your comments you pick.
You have insisted that she was wrong about this and that nothing in the new bill will change anything with regard to being forced to do these things.
It has since been shown by rosy, DoS, and others that your opinion is based on a misunderstanding of the current act and how it is implemented.
And now you’re trying to change the subject to ‘never mind all that, what should happen?’ because you can’t admit that you were wrong to accuse Sue of not knowing her stuff.
Turns out you don’t know what you’re talking about as usual, and Sue does, as usual.
And as usual Pete will think he’s done nothing wrong and you’re just nit-picking for no purpose.
But really this is modus operandi for Pete: say something imprecise, then defend-to-the-death that that wasn’t what he meant, despite it being what he said, and then when conclusively being shown he is wrong, he simply runs away from the thread and doesn’t post again.
So PiG, where are the jobs for these self supporting types? What has your buddy the cretinous Dunne (seller of state assets) done to create any work by way of voting with the inNACTion party?
hmmm – Nia Glassie’s mother was striving to be as self supporting as possible.
Maybe Paula should be passing legislation to ensure childcare is freely available for working parents…. there’s a thought. /sarc
I’m happy for we just to mean you and me. Just us two. The royal we. I feel so close to you now.
I’d have to say that as I talking colloquially I didn’t need to worry about pedantry.
Of course it could mean those that have read the ministers and this governments press releases and other comments that there are two stages to this legislation and only the first is going through parliament now. The second will be introduced later in the year.
This includes a fair chunk of the population and of the readership of these forums.
I’m sure you do actually know that.
To simplify:
Technically you are correct there is nothing in the current bill about this – anything about this will be in the next bill to be introduced later in the year.
The legislation is being introduced in two stages.
We know this to be a fact.
Of course you then apply similar language to that you are so disingenuously critical of by saying:
“It’s known that” without any qualifier – known by who Pete?
It’s not known by me, in fact I know many individuals for whom respite from looking for work when a relationship breaks up, the payment of DPB to help them get back on their feet without any pressure to conform to some other (white middle class male?) persons expectations of what and how they should do has been an absolute godsend.
And how come self supporting doesn’t include paying my taxes so that when something goes wrong I can get a benefit without being made to justify my existence, the reason for my breakup or my choices – and by extension paying my taxes so if my children are in that situation nor do they.
The morality arguments all break down when you start to look at individual cases and individual circumstances. But for the grace of god go I.
You lack of compassion for individuals by hiding behind applying the ( real and supposed) excesses of a minority to a majority is breathtaking for someone who purports to want to do things in a better, more caring and thinking way.
pete, your showing that while the act does say what it does, you have no idea of how this works in practice.
how this is applied is where the force and coercion comes in.
Just glanced at yesterdays Lying Liar caught lying again….unclean unclean…really foul. Why the F*** did anybody engage with the Mental Health Act duet?
I was wondering about that post and debate for some of today. On the one hand it was hilarious watching two small-minded and bitter fools disgracing themselves, but it got a bit much. It reminds me of the original serious of The Office. It was a brilliant portrayal of a dysfunctional environment, but I usually found it impossible to watch it until the end – the last five minutes in particular were just too painful, and not in a shocked laughter way. Same with this thread – they laid on so much idiocy, bile and ignorance that I just couldn’t get into it.
Normally I quite like that sort of thing, but too much vicious stupid, it hurted.
Brownlee: I Know Nuz-ZINK!
I know Nuz-ZINK! about this ‘Judith Collins’ or her sitting next to me with a knife in my ribs.
I know Nuz-ZINK! about this so-called ‘tea-pot tape.’
I know Nuz-ZINK! about Finland either…
Yep if they ever do a remake of Hogans Hero’s ol’ Jabba would be perfect for SGT Shultze.
But who would they get to play Col Klink ?
John Key, obvs.
That’s funny?
Late last night I spotted Audrey Young’s piece 8pm 27 March, on the “National refuses to answer questions about the Key Questions” in Parliament. This morning the item had disappeared but an Audrey search found it. (Getting better at this Search business.)
Wonder why it seemed to have been buried?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794958
Jane Clifton’s piece on Stuff on the same subject is good for a laugh – http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/6648574/The-obfuscutory-art-of-knowing-nothing
should be ‘obfuscatory’ – though obfuscutory does sound worse
don’t know if this helps, but here are the full transcripts for questions for oral answer from yesterdays question time.
http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/CE0696D1-9F83-4147-8FCE-F6BE28CFFFE9/212011/50HansQ_20120327_00000005_3.pdf
Dangerous chemical recalled but not in NZ
Of course methyl iodide based products are still being sold here in New Zealand. Politicians and ERMA will do their best to ignore the fact that it’s been removed from U.S. shelves, not because it wasn’t making a profit, but because it’s a highly dangerous carcinogen that was initially misclassified…
Remorse?
One thing struck me
Graham said his only income was
His parlimentary pension of 26k
That seems rather low for a minister, can any one shed light on how much he should be getting.
AND
as he was born in 42, he would be entitled to nat super as well
26k income does not stack up?
No holdings, no rental income, no trusts, no interest bearing accounts etc etc…
26K sounds a little low in its own right!
$26K after tax, in hand? Suggests an income of around $32K p.a. Still light for a Ministerial pension + NZ super.
are you suggesting he might have made an untrue statement?
And he has moved into a ‘modest’ Remuera Townhouse… is that RWNJ-Former Minister-Snout in the Trough with a tasty Super and Perks modest, or Joe Public modest?
On $26k p.a…
In Remuera…
I smell a porkie.
OH! So it might just be a “me so poor, me porsche is owned by a family trust”.
“”We don’t disclose the amount of stores [allowed by] the agreement but it’s all based on population and demand,” Roberts said. “We want to be wherever we can sell burgers.”
Who could have guessed it would turn out like that….
it’s called progress apparently.
although there seems to be absolutely no indication as to how it is such.
does anyone know?
Use of the word progress, has allowed the sheep to be lulled into many false senses of security, which have and will contribute to current and future economic and social disasters, and mostly likely worse!
Progress is what ever the sheep want to believe it is, as long as it maintains an illusion , of which they are not aware exists!
“disclose the number of stores …”
I feel like the grammar police, but I just had to.
After the summit, Mr Key said New Zealand had given about $6 million towards disposal of nuclear material in other countries since 2006.
Wow thats great, because its not like we contibute to the problem, but we should contribute to the clean up of it….righto!
One scam in London was a auction, the marks would be brought into a room and the auction would not start until they’d shut the doors and created a buzz for buying, the marks would spend more and not notice the quality was shite. A classic switch and bait, switch even the rules of the auction from open to closed, and then change the value the mark was expecting.
The teapot switch and bait, invited journalists into a open press room, then switched the rules, that it was illegal to take voice recordings while taking video, that somehow the organizer of the event had a right to suddenly declare a meeting private.
Sorry but my understanding of what is legal (from a non-lawyer) is the reasonableness standard of a jury trial. Would a jury feel it was fair that the rules suddenly changed, the expectation of a full open press conference. That ministers are also aware of the buy beware notion, that if their mouths are moving and they consent to a video camera being on, then inevitably they consent to a lip reading them.
We cannot have a free democracy when the government press organize thinks they can decide how journalists use material they legally obtain. Ambrose had the consent to take video, photos, and voice not because there were two men talking privately in a coffee shop, but because two men invited him there, and did not have a right to switch the rules from FULLY open to PARTIALLY open without informed consent of Ambrose.
Solid Energy’s daft logic exposed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer:
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/solid-energy-and-tobacco-industry.html
http://www.thepoliticalscientist.org/?p=744#more-744
Puddleglum’s latest on the Smith/Pullar saga; “The banality of corruption” is well worth reading. I’ll leave a teaser:
…Writing a reference for his friend Bronwyn Pullar was the crucial ‘error of judgment’ committed by Dr Smith. At least that’s what almost all commentators appear to agree upon despite John Key claiming that it was the second unearthed letter (actually written and signed earlier than the ‘first’ (reference) letter) that tripped the switch of Smith’s resignation.
But discussion of Dr Smith’s ‘errors of judgment’ and whether or not they amounted to ‘corruption’ or ‘cronyism’ seems to me to have missed a point so obvious, so banal – and so likely – that I think that omission says something significant about just how ‘corrupt’ our everyday responses have become…
Worth every minute it took to read; the recipe for corruption is an insightful moment; reads like a person about flick over the first in a long line of cultural dominoes.
Thanks for the comments just saying and Uturn.
When I wrote it I was thinking of my Dad.
Years ago, after the Second World War, my family was living in a prefabricated house (‘prefab’) in the north of England (lined with sheets of asbestos as it happens – my sister still remembers rubbing her finger up and down her bedroom wall as all the dust came off it). They were meant to be used for just a few years but they were still there in the mid-60s. Compared to brick houses, they weren’t well-made or as warm in winter.
Dad got politically active, giving speeches off the back of a lorry, hassling the (Tory) council. One by one, he (and those supporting him) fought for individual families and got them rehoused on various grounds.
But there was one fight he wouldn’t fight.
Mum got onto him about the fact that, here he was, getting everyone else into better houses and we were still living in ours.
He gave her a quick run through of Corruption 101: He couldn’t do it for us, otherwise his opponents would say that, all the time, it was just about him trying to help himself and there was no matter of principle involved. More importantly, that could then derail what he was trying to do for others. We would have to be last in the queue.
It would have been easy for him to justify it to himself. After all, we were a family, like all the rest; he had three children (I was pre-school age). He could have used what little political power and influence he had to get us a new home. (And the councillors would have probably seen it as a cheap way of getting him off their backs.) Where’s the harm?
He saw, I think, that the judgment about who should get rehoused next wasn’t his to make. The Council should have held to its promise (and plan) to replace the housing. It was a political issue, not an issue simply for him and his family. That wasn’t the point.
Corruption is pretty easy to see, really. It’s like when we say that a file on a computer is ‘corrupt’. All it means is that it can’t do what it’s meant to do. Same goes for political corruption – it means our political and bureaucratic processes can’t do what they’re meant to do. Dad would have corrupted his activism – and the political process it set in train – if he’d put his energies into getting us rehoused.
I think corruption is not so much about individuals becoming corrupted. It’s really about our society (or culture) becoming corrupted. We all have an interest in stopping that from happening.
The problem is, when we all look at life individualistically – as I think we increasingly do, today – each one of us then has an (self-)interest in just being a little bit corrupt, just this once … others will understand. After all, they do it too, don’t they? And we’re all human, so let’s not be so hard on small ‘errors of judgment’, yadda, yadda, yadda.
It’s like the tragedy of the commons. We less and less have a sense of the importance – the ‘sacrosanct’ nature – of the collective processes we’ve supposedly set up to regulate how we do things, together.
Slippery-slope arguments aren’t always valid, but I think corruption has to be a paradigmatic exemplar of when it is. Once it starts not only do we, individually, start to ‘normalise’ it, but also others start to feel the pressure to join in – or miss out. It gains its own momentum.
Ultimately, everything that happens in the public realm becomes a sham – nothing actually happens how it’s supposedly meant to happen.
That explains one hell of a lot. Thanks.
Couldn’t agree more.
In one of my past lives I was involved in training delivery.
It was always interesting to see who would cheat on team exercises. At one level the exercises are often no more than puffery but at another what became clear over years of doing this was that the people who would cheat the exercise were almost without exception the same staff who would cheat the important things at work.
The ones who openly said it’s not OK and maintained a high level of integrity were invariably the ones who did so at work.
While on the surface they were team building exercises they actually became quite valuable in managing risk.
The thing was that for most of those people it was a learned, ingrained habit to cheat – they couldn’t help themselves as they were so accustomed to doing this.
For them it definitely wasn’t a slippery slope – it was how they behaved. Where it was a slippery slope however was in the influence they could have ( and on some occasions did have) on other staff.
Ah that explains a few things I have been seeing recently too.
Yes, well described mr puddleglum. As rl says, ti explains one hell of a lot, such as why there seems to be far less of the public service element to, well, public service, today. Evidenced by comparisons of public to private enterprise over salaries for just one example.
Is there a way to resurrect things do you think? Or must the current norms run their course? Or perhaps it is probably a combination of the two – small changes here and there to push and guide the “good” way. For crude example, prohibit ex-Ministers from entering conflicted private enterprise roles, such as Simon Power going to his new role at Westpac.
Today, 3 News reported that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright will be undertaking an official investigation into Fracking.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6652401/Probe-into-fracking-announced
I read this one earlier, and was initially pleased. Will have to see what comes out the other side, and see if it contradicts the findings abroad already carried out!
Most likely it’ll turn out like the Government’s report on peak oil did. Don’t hold your breath.
or do they simply want to produce a report saying their are some potential health issues that need legislative attention and whammo they end up introducing laws like this one??
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/walter-brasch/42038/fracking-pennsylvania-gags-physicians
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/US/HTM/2012/0/0013..HTM
Thanks freedom that’s startling reading.
Found while surfing – Key’s threeway handshakes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7sH0vFg6eU&feature=player_embedded
Under the Iron Heel
This is footage of Israeli soldiers raiding a home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on the night of March 20th, 2012. This video captures a raid on the home of imprisoned Palestinian nonviolent leader Bassem Tamimi. His wife, children, and likely his mother, can be seen in the video reacting in horror to the ransacking of their home, albeit it rather common across the West Bank and in Nabi Saleh itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7sH0vFg6eU&feature=player_embedded