Flag failure strategy; blame Labour, Greens, NZ First for politicising it. Officially kicked off on Saturday by Audrey Young of the Herald, followed today by the loser at the root cause of it, John Key!
Why does everything involving this guy have to become a lie?
Audrey Young’s father was a National Party MP from 1966 to 1990.
Jonathan Young, Audrey’s brother, is a sitting National Party MP for New Plymouth (elected 2008).
These factors should not be held against her (as with Katie Bradford, daughter of Sue Bradford) unless you consider that Audrey shows a persistent bias in her writing.
A number of commenters have said that on The Standard, but I don’t think it’s true.
People have confused their Youngs.
Audrey’s father was Bill Young, National MP for Miramar from 1966-1981
She’s the sister of former National MP Annabel Young, current Tory Wellington City Councillor, Nicola Young, and former Tory Wellington City Councillor of the 1980s Rosemary Young-Rouse (married to former Right-wing National party Cabinet Minister, Max Bradford).
Jonathan Young is the son of former Taranaki region (specifically the seats of Egmont and Waitotara) Nat MP Venn Young – a dairy farmer, but one with relatively liberal sensibilities on moral issues.
The confusion’s not entirely surprising, of course. Same surname, both first elected as Nat MPs in 1966, both became Cabinet Ministers in the Muldoon Govt.
You are not often wrong Swordfish but you are this time. Audrey Young is definitely Venn Young’s daughter and Jonathan Young’s sister. I know this because I know people who are long term friends of Audrey from her earlier days.
You are right about Bill Young’s children except for Audrey.
From Jonathan Young’s maiden speech.
I am a son of Taranaki, a returned son. Mount Taranaki is our great landmark. It gives us a sense of location and anchorage. By it, we know where we are and where we are heading. I was born in Hāwera, South Taranaki, to Venn and Margaret Young. Like all good parents they too were landmark people in my life. I would like to acknowledge members of my family—my mother Margaret, who is here today. I would also like to acknowledge Catherine Young, whom many of you will also know. I acknowledge my siblings—Adrienne, Audrey, Simon and his wife Carly, and Geoffrey.
It’s one of those things you think you’re absolutely sure of … and then it comes back to bite you on the bum.
Apologies to all. Forget everything I just said.
Bloody Hell !!! I was absolutely bloody sure that she was one of the Wellington Youngs. Now I’m beginning to doubt everything I thought I knew about everything.
Maybe Night is Day, Up is Down, Mike Hosking is a first-rate journalist, the Nats aren’t so bad after all, Man Utd aren’t the pack of complete tossers I always assumed they were …
More of the National party than Key. It is a trait that appears to have been branded into her bones. From memory her father was a National party MP and a brother is a current National party MP.
Weirdly enough, Audrey has not always been a National sympathiser.
In the late 1980s, early 2000s she was a member of the New Zealand Journalists Union and its successor, the Journalists and Graphic Process Union (Jagpro). She was an activist and a member of the national council of both bodies.
I know the main stream media these days is considered little more than Tory lackies, but those two unions were serious beasts, albeit a bit small.
They lifted above their weight in industrial matters and Audrey was part of that.
I have seen that quite a lot. It is what I call the “do as I say rather than do as I do” syndrome. Where theories about individualism and freedom from the state apply to them – right up to the point that it becomes a burden. Then they become socialists and demand that others prop them up as ‘good’ neighbors.
For instance most NIMBYs are classic at it. They don’t mind the park removals, houses bowled for new roads, intensification, etc provided that it happens to someone else. Look under the hood on the Auckland Unitary Plan and what you will find in the objections to the council’s proposals is that virtually all of the opposition came from the wealthy and affluent areas and people.
It is the same with ‘unions’. The Police Association is a union in everything except name. Same with the Law Society. Same for any number of other professional bodies. They perform the same duties of collective bargaining for conditions, resources and payments. About the only substantive difference is that most of them are allowed to run compulsory membership.
I have no doubt that Audrey Young was an effective unionist. However it isn’t uncommon for people consider what they do is not what others should…
yep keith – I think the polling and reality are different things, thank the gods! – keys says
“It isn’t logical 75 per cent of Labour voters would be wanting to retain the existing flag. There is no question one of the factors slowing the process down is the rally cry from the leadership of Labour and the Greens to vote against it, simply to give the Government a black eye.”
Mr Key said he was surprised by the number of younger voters polled who planned to vote for the current flag.
Key was incredibly defensive on Morning Report this morning and claimed their own polling said NZers did want to change
Morning Report
@NzMorningReport
“the number of people who definitely want to keep it is under half ( according to our polling)”
@johnkeypm
#flagdebate
Now I was one of the people who was polled by Curia (the Nats polling company). It was about 3 weeks ago and there were a range of questions, one of which was something along the lines of ” would you ever want to change the NZ flag” to which I was able to answer yes. I was also asked how I would be voting and I said to keep the current flag, and the main reason was that the alternative is an appallingly bad design.
I suspect Key is being very selective about their polling. He actually sounded really rattled – worth listening to.
Saw the two flags flying together today. I don’t care much but must admit the old one looks like a real flag and the new one does look like a wishy washy tea towel.
If the new one was just the 4 stars I’d vote for it but it aint so status quo until we get a decent alternative in a few years.
I can’t believe i thought it true but when the government said Serco had lost its contract, I fell for it. Because that means you are out, gone, the end in the real world!
It appears SERCO are still firmly in place at Mt Eden Correctional Facility and this from an advertisement 5 days ago for a “Security Administrator”; “Serco New Zealand currently holds two contracts with the Department of Corrections and we now have opportunities available for an Intel/Security Operational Support Grade to join our team at Mount Eden Corrections Facility (MECF) which is located on the edge of Auckland`s CBD. At MECF we work to provide a safe and secure environment for nearly 1000 prisoners on behalf of NZ Department of Corrections”. “Applications close 8th of March 2016”. “Safe and secure environment”? Really?
It appears the whole SERCO are gone story was a lie. Corrections have topped up the dire understaffing (profit motivated) at Mt Eden and they are “officially” in charge (extreme use of imagination required here) but this will be why Key told us late last year SERCO could reapply in the future.
So despite SERCO and or National cooking the books and being the best performing prison in the history of mankind, National appear to either be trapped into leaving them there owing to a badly flawed contract or they’ll remain for National to save face.
So the old National Party circuit breaker trick of doing something to take it off the front pages till the heat died down applies here. Expect the company that never really lost its contract to get it back, just like magic!
The threat of Lawyers and the government caves… or the excuse of it…. Saudi Bribes, Serco – no wonder they signed TPPA in the Casino (without fanfair) they just need more excuses to give corporate bribes to their backers.
Sorry the threat of legal action made us keep Serco…. oh and the whitewash enquiry – apparently the prisoners did not talk, heard nothing etc etc
Maybe cos they were in hospital, dead or transferred to another prison or frightened out of their wits!
Super Tuesday isn’t going to look good for Sanders even if he is still on track. The chart in this piece by Silver shows that his demographics aren’t good for those states (but favoured later in the month and April):
The problem is that anything he loses now he needs to make up later, which isn’t too much of an ask yet with 46 states still to go. After Tuesday (our Wednesday), it’s likely going to be a lot harder, especially with the perceived loss of momentum. At this point it’s looking more like Clinton’s to lose – say; with the email thing, or; if Trump (or some other donor) decides to release footage of her promising to corruptly favour them in future in return for campaign donations.
“or; if Trump (or some other donor) decides to release footage of her promising to corruptly favour them in future in return for campaign donations.”
The way you’ve written that suggests that such footage does definitely exist.
I don’t think even Clinton would be that stupid. She’s not one to make Mitt Romney 47% style blunders.
I think what you should have said is “or if someone else can release damaging information about her, such as corruptly promising favour in return for donations”.
La
Yes, someone could release documents, but that wouldn’t have the visceral impact of video images. I wouldn’t be surprised if such footage did exist (or at least could be selectively edited to give that impression), given how small cameras can be nowadays, but it’d be worth more once she did get the Democratic nomination. My first impulse was to say that Trump might; release footage of her blowing him for campaign dollars, but I thought that was excessively tasteless (and likewise hypothetical, if less probable).
I believe that Clinton would say anything to anybody to get herself elected. The only question is whether any of the billionaires she visited had recording equipment running as insurance against her future reneging. Let’s say footage from this occasion were to surface:
“I gave to many people,” Trump said, defending his political donations to candidates from both parties before explaining what he got in return. “With Hillary Clinton I said be at my wedding, and she came to my wedding,” he said. “She had no choice because I gave.”
Clinton was asked what she got the Republican frontrunner when she attended his 2005 wedding to model Melania Knauss.
“Nothing, nothing,” she said.
“He was basically a Democrat before he was a Republican,” Clinton explained. “He was, you know, somebody we all knew in New York, and he was supportive of Democrats and supportive of a lot of causes I care about and people I knew cared about.”
If one of Clinton’s people were to go public saying that there was a direct link between Clinton’s campaign funding in 2008 and her attendance at Trump’s wedding, then that would be bad enough. It wouldn’t even have to be provable if it was intercut with enough footage of her and her family schmoozing with Billionaires.
“Clinton would never, herself, say that.” It’s NEVER done directly.
Intermediaries make the approach and handle the details. Confirmation, if it comes at all, is at a social function (or golf game in Hawaii): “I am glad we were able to be of help to each other . . . blah, blah, blah.”
Over the weekend I spent quite a bit of time talking to a American democrat who was out visiting.
Apparently there’s a real issue among American Catholics regarding Hillary Clinton and her view on abortion with many saying they just cannot vote for her because of that.
Then there’s Saunders, general feeling is that he’s an extremist nut bar who’s never worked a day in his life, for many democrats the choice is poor and people are struggling to choose some one to vote for, democrat turn out could be very low.
I reckon if Trump gets the nod he’s the next president.
given your reasoning and observation appears to be at complete odds with reality (and all informed thinking I’ve read) I think it fair to assume your conclusion will be equally so
“Apparently there’s a real issue among American Catholics regarding Hillary Clinton and her view on abortion with many saying they just cannot vote for her because of that.”
Women’s rights and sexual/reproductive freedoms are only truly protected by an atheist/communist government. Look at Cuba, the only country in the America’s with abortion on demand.
“Former CIA Director Michael Hayden blasted Donald Trump’s rhetoric in a recent interview, saying that the U.S. military would refuse orders from him, even as commander-in-chief, to kill the families of terrorists, as Trump has pledged to do.”
“I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the way that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign,” Former CIA Director Michael Hayden
Trump: “Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about [former Ku Klux Klan head] David Duke. OK? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don’t know. I don’t know. Did he endorse me or what’s going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you’re asking me a question that I’m supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.”
Tapper: “But I guess the question from the Anti-Defamation League is, even if you don’t know about their endorsement, there are these groups and individuals endorsing you. Would you just say unequivocally you condemn them and you don’t want their support?”
Trump: “Well, I have to look at the group. I mean, I don’t know what group you’re talking about. You wouldn’t want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. I would have to look. If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them. And, certainly, I would disavow them if I thought there was something wrong.”
Tapper: “The Ku Klux Klan?”
Trump: “But you may have groups in there that are totally fine, and it would be very unfair. So give me a list of the groups, and I will let you know.”
Tapper: “Okay. I mean, I’m just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here, but . . . ”
Trump: “I don’t know any – honestly, I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I have ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.”
“Not really credible to say he doesn’t know anything about the KKK”
Unfortunately I fear it is only too credible to believe that about Trump.
The man is a complete nutcase.
Touche.
I must bow to the evidence you, and other people have presented.
I have to agree that at some stage he must have known about the KKK.
However I reserve the right to believe he has probably forgotten what he said, or anything he learned, in the past though. Certainly he is a liar but I am not at all sure he even realises it.
As I said earlier “The man is a complete nutcase”.
How did the party of Eisenhower come to this sorry state?
alwyn
He’d have to be intentionally forgetting his own family history to not know about the Klan:
Trump’s late father, Fred Trump, was arrested following a Ku Klux Klan riot in Queens in 1927… was among seven men arrested following a May 30, 1927 brawl between members of the KKK and the New York Police Department…
The fights that broke out in Queens occurred after 1,000 KKK members dressed in white hooded robes marched through the Jamaica neighborhood. According to The Post, the address of the elder Trump from the arrest report matched the Jamaica address where he lived, according to a 1930 Census…
“He was never arrested. He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense and it never happened,” Trump said about his father in the September 2015 article.
“Not really credible to say he doesn’t know anything about the KKK. ”
I thought it was a very clever politician’s sound bite. He kept constantly repeating the message he wants his listeners to grasp, “I don’t know anything about it.”
When an African American showed up to rent an apartment owned by a young real-estate scion named Donald Trump and his family, the building superintendent did what he claimed he’d been told to do. He allegedly attached a separate sheet of paper to the application, marked with the letter “C.”
“C” for “Colored.”
According to the Department of Justice, that was the crude code that ensured the rental would be denied.
Details of this secret system, as well as other practices that the Trump organization allegedly used to exclude black residents from its buildings in Brooklyn, Queens, and Norfolk, Virginia, in the 1970s, were recorded in a lawsuit brought by the DOJ against Trump and his father, Fred, in 1973 for alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act.
Two weeks ago the leading Republican candidate for US President was widely criticized for retweeting a white supremacist Twitter user with the name “@WhiteGenocideTM,” whose linked website sung Hitler’s praises.
It turns out that’s not an anomaly, it’s a pattern. Inspired by a new Twitter account that tweets out the bios of anyone Donald Trump retweets (because they’re often remarkable), we went and looked up those people he’s introducing to his audience of 5 million+ Twitter followers. In order to learn more about them, we analyzed the networks of people that those people he retweeted are following on Twitter, using Little Bird’s influencer discovery and social network analysis software.
It turns out that Donald Trump mostly retweets white supremacists saying nice things about him. At least so far this week’s that’s how it’s gone. This isn’t one person, of the last 21 accounts retweeted by @RealDonaldTrump so far this week, our automated analysis of their accounts finds that:
28% of them follow at least one of the top 50 White Nationalist accounts on Twitter (6 of 21)
62% of them follow at least 3 people who’ve used hashtag #WhiteGenocide lately (13 of 21)
“Former CIA Director Michael Hayden blasted Donald Trump’s rhetoric in a recent interview, saying that the U.S. military would refuse orders from him, even as commander-in-chief, to kill the families of terrorists, as Trump has pledged to do.”
What a fucking joke from Hayden, who knows full well that the USA has targetted both terrorists and their families on a regular basis. (Blowing up whole villages, hospitals and wedding parties to get their target, on occasion).
I reckon if Trump gets the nod he’s the next president.”
If Trump is the nominee I expect a high turnout election – typical non-voters will vote for Trump, and everyone else who is sane will vote for Clinton.
It’s perceived that the Democrats have an ‘enthusiam gap’, which is difficulty in getting their side to turn out and vote for them.
Clinton will have a harder time against Rubio, because he won’t rile people up as much as Trump does (Trump has more unfavourable ratings than favourable – which will be the first for any 2-party nominee).
I’d definitely prefer a Clinton win, but for the US that would mean a continuation of the status quo and I get the feeling the US has had enough of that and want something different.
I guess there’s room for Trump to sort himself out into a credible candidate, should he win the primary. As the contest has gone on, his policies have become a little firmer (even if his rhetoric is about as unhinged as ever).
You suggesting that Sanders was a Democrat Corbyn? That it was ‘his turn’ to be the token traditional statist who gets to be a bit of window dressing? That could be true. But I don’t know how Democrat candidates get selected or whether they self select.
Either way, Sander’s presence has been a rocket up the arse of the Democratic Party.
There’s a problem with the idea that he’s intended only to pull in new interest. I’ve read a few comments from Democrat voters who back Sanders, claiming they’ll vote Trump in the Presidential election out of spite if Sander’s nomination fails..
In other words, there may be a fracture in US politics marked by perceived establishment and anti-establishment positions that might (a-hem) trump any democrat/republican considerations.
That’s how I read it too Bill. And I don’t think the anti-establishment feeling is going to die down readily, whoever ends up as president for the time being.
“I’ve read a few comments from Democrat voters who back Sanders, claiming they’ll vote Trump in the Presidential election out of spite if Sander’s nomination fails..”
Yeah, well those people are fucking idiots.
Letting Trump pick the replacement for Ginsburg on the SCOTUS instead of Hillary isn’t a way to further their progressive ideals.
Progressive ideals? – don’t you get it – citizens throughout the USA suffering economically are deciding en masse that “progressive ideals” have utterly failed them.
“Democrat voters who back Sanders, claiming they’ll vote Trump in the Presidential election out of spite.”
What I am about to say is heresy for many on The Standard, but here goes.
The choice of leaders is emotional, NOT rational. Support for both Trump and Sanders is often based on anger and rage. Any candidate who expresses their rage will get their vote.
When John Key says, “I’m comfortable with that,” he is expressing the emotion of many New Zealanders. “Don’t rock the boat.”
The piece on Schultz is over a month old, but the easiest to find. The petitions are growing against this former co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign (currently up to 66,638 on MoveOn for one). The problem with gathering the young left to the Democrats to vote for Sanders, is that their antiestablishment urges are unlikely to be sated by Clinton. I recall that in New Hampshire exit polls were saying that many Sanders voters had been undecided whether to support him or Trump (and vice versa) right up to polling day.
Gabbard had been annoying the establishment any way by saying that as a veteran of the US armed forces she supported what Russia was doing to hit ISIS in Syria.
Her MSM interviews on the topic were straight up and refreshing on the topic.
” (Minister) Guy said he still believed the industry had a bright future. In the short term, prices would be lower for longer, but he pinned his hopes on free trade agreements and the world’s growing middle class.”
Under the/their Neo lib agenda the middle class is shrinking and its meant to so the millionaire/billionaires can get even wealthier. Someone should tell Nathan Guy that if he didn’t already know.
And negotiate free trade agreements, not whatever the hell the TPPA is!
Fonterra’s growing debt is truly scary at the current 7.5 billion. Guy is telling the banks to be nice to farmers etc who are going to be on an even bigger losing end of reduced payouts. Being National and being the banks I hate to think what the quid pro quo is for the banks to return the favour to National!
if you read/listen to the links you will see/hear the banks are doing what banks do when debt becomes unserviceable irrespective of what deluded Ministers say
Wtf fonterra have 7.5b debt ! Which being a co-op means its members i.e farmers have this debt unless its another dodgy corporate structural deal which I cant see banks entering into without fallback onto hard assets…..dairy farms.
There is this myth that the middle class are A – OK – nope. The scary thing is that even bright, successful people in the US are on insecure hours and all that entails.
“Welcome to the “1099 economy”: The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind
Companies can hire and fire perma-lancers at will. Is it any wonder the middle class is vanishing before our eyes?”
– The botulism scandal. Massive process audit failure
– The Melamine scandal. Massive source control failure.
Both spectacularly damaging New Zealand’s future trade with China.
– The consistent push for volume over value. A multi-generational loss of opportunity for our economy.
– Almost total failure of leadership in environmental stewardship. Had to be dragged by the consumer kicking and screaming (in absence of government).
– The lack of strategy. Our largest multi-national in recent world history to be explicitly formed by the state, and then rapidly go backwards.
– The lack of substantial partnership with the state. Its minor partnerships with Massey Uni, which focus mostly on pastoral production, are a joke compared to the business and state partnerships we should have expected.
– The willful use of coal as preferred milk drying energy. Flying in the face of its entire global brand strategy.
– Going into completely unsustainable debt to achieve fuck-all. As Gaynor noted in the NZHerald, asset-to-debt ratios are far better in other New Zealand companies.
– Getting totally out-played in your home state by the Chinese.
Enough. I’m just getting tired thinking about these numpties.
Methinks that the pro-TPP ranks are getting somewhat worried at the fact that people are starting to wise up about the implications of the TPP. I don’t usually read Kiwiblog but a TPP search brought up a line that caught my eye. This piece is in relation to the Upper Hutt Council voting to be TPP-free.
“Don’t those Councillors have any actual work to do, rather than puerile idiotic gestures?”
“What do they mean by a TPP-Free Zone? Do they mean they want all imports from the US, Japan, Australia and Canada banned?”
“Do they want Upper Hutt businesses to stop exporting?”
“Someone should remain those Councillors of the rates paid by local businesses.”
“These “TPP Free Zones” are modeled on successful resistance to an earlier trade agreement, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which was defeated in 1998 thanks to a global grassroots campaign.” http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/tppfreezones.shtml
Well obviously their Council is run by communists, I hear they’re shipping in a large amount of grey military uniforms this week, then the week after they start building a wall..
@ CV Under TPPA Pretty much ALL businesses should be worried. Including the farmers who it is supposedly for! They already have a product that mostly is costing more to produce than the sale price due to falling world prices. Soon they will start losing their farms and then lo and behold, corporates will start buying them up cheap, get share rights for voting and take over Fonterra. You will not be able to market them as NZ milk anymore or GM free or whatever the board uses to say it is a quality product from NZ! Anyway it will probably be packaged up into some sort of share that 0.00001 get billions in profits but the farmers do not have Fonterra picking up their milk anymore if supply is down. (This has already been advocated by the herald in one of their articles). Hmm so cows need to be milked twice daily but Fonterra decides to be more business friendly and in times of surplus not buy the milk at all. Well we can all see that would kill any farmer’s livelihood. Hip hip Hooray.
As for NZ companies most of them are so minuscule by world standards they will just be put out of business straight away. It is a bit like the death of the high street, how many local NZ owned businesses are still on the high streets or are they all off shore banks, franchises and so forth?
The public can’t afford to shop at high street because they can’t afford the parking so the council is actually directing public away from those shop owners to overseas owned malls filled with overseas franchises with free parking (the Westgate mall was also subsidised by the council on behalf of the rate payers). Apparently to be a small business in Westfield malls are a nightmare, equivalent of Countdown making everyone else pay due to being a monopoly.
Just more examples of our council and government giving out handouts and wrecking small, medium and hoping to wreck large scale business.
In Auckland we don’t even have a credible left person to vote for for Mayor! I mean Goff supports TPPA – he’ll be writing the corporate welfare checks and selling off the assets (or as good as he can get legally). The right are actually hoping for him to get in to do their work for them, that is why they have put in Palino to split the right vote and keep them going to Goff!
We actually do not have choice anymore. No disrespect for Penny Bright.
Auckland ratepayers, need someone in between Penny and Goff. There is the missing candidate to vote for!
It appears that you have not published my comment on your blog – giving my side of this story Pete George?
(I looked for my comment on your blog and could not find it.
In my view, if you are going to post comments about me – basic fair play and natural justice is that I get a chance to reply and defend myself?)
I have made nothing up and consider your statement stating I have to be both offensive and defamatory.
The issue is whether a published City Vision Press Release supporting Phil Goff for Auckland Mayor constitutes their ‘endorsement’ albeit at this stage an ‘informal’ endorsement.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary definition of ‘endorsement’ – in my view I am correct.
Whether City Vision choose to ‘formally’ endorse Phil Goff for Auckland Mayor when he has come out publicly in support of the TPPA, road tolls, PPPs and the sale of Auckland Council assets (starting with the Remuera Golf Course) remains to be seen.
If City Vision choose to ‘formally’ endorse Phil Goff as Auckland Mayor when he clearly, in my view, supports those pro-corporate, pro-privatisation and pro-user charges positions – begs the question, do City Vision now support those same policies?
So Auckland City Council have just wasted over ONE BILLION DOLLARS of ratepayers money on changing their IT systems – ONE BILLION DOLLARS!!!!! Mind boggling stuff – so why on EARTH should the ratepayers trust them with decisions involving the Unitary Plan? And this new panel talked about who are going to be making major decisions, is no doubt hand-picked by the National Government. How independent will they actually be, how much sway will developers have, and how will all the ratepayers who have properties which have risen in value hugely , feel about the decisions that this panel will make, and their impact on the same ratepayers’ properties?
The National Government set up the Super City so they, and NOT the ratepayers, could have more control over what happens in Auckland. If this panel threatens to do things that will affect people’s properties and their value, it could come back to bite the Nats in the behind! Labour wanted a Super City type arrangement too, but they did not set this one up, so they can just sit back and watch as people grow angry. It might pay for Labour, who also want intensification, to stay silent and let the blame fall on National!! It is National who are importing foreigners by the tens of thousands, if we retrained our own people who are unemployed, we wouldn’t need all this extra housing would we?
i think we could all agree that ‘rates’ are paid generally speaking by the tenants.. Rates are factored in to the rent payments, and rates on businesses are usually paid for by the lease holder.
So the one thing i am not worried about in all of this is that the ‘property owning’ and ‘property renting’ class has to pay rates. They will only have to pay rates on the one property they live in, and if that property is owned by their business, they will write the rates off as an business expense, something a tenant of a residential property can not.
Sadly tho, in Auckland the Council and the Wanna Be councilors of the future have given up all pretense of the idea of common goods and sensible growth promotion. the ones that will pay the bills to come are the people that live, rent and work in Auckland. And sadly, in absence of any policy or idea’s on how to generate ‘growth’ in the regions or the cities that are slowly but surely de-populate (mainly for lack of jobs and opportunities) nothing much is gonna change.
But one thing is for sure, the property owning class in Auckland will not stop voting for the National Party, not in a long time.
We also don’t need to ‘retrain’ people for the jobs that are there, we should just pay them adequately for it. Often times, ‘the lack of skill’ is really just a lack of payment, as they tell us all the time, in order to attract the right talent we have to pay more then peanuts. Its just the poor that need to be incentivised to go to work with cuts to benefits and really crappy paid jobs. 🙂
@Sabine – I’m a homeowner and have never voted National in my life!!!
apparently 65% of Kiwis are still homeowners so beating them up as National supporters all the time means it makes National seem more powerful and it makes the opposition parties think that that segment are not theirs!!
I know many a Labour and Green and Internet Mana voter that votes for those parties and owns property!!
@Sabine the other thing you should think about is that a big reason many people these days can’t get a home, is because their work contract is temporary or is a zero hour contract. Then the banks do not lend.
Property ownership should be looked at in a much wider context, low local wages and conditions, high property prices from increased demand from a massive migration push from the government and scrapping of previous immigration criteria, the massive cost of building materials much is more than OZ and USA (even though we produce much of the raw materials), and banking which means that those Kiwis who are in increasingly non permanent jobs or able to be fired at will without compensation, or on a zero contract will not meet lending criteria. Banks need migrants because as Kiwis start falling behind with low wages etc they can then sell the houses and farms easily due to increasing migrant demand.
Zoning and land in my opinion are issues being touted by the government as red herrings. Government have seized a lot of land, they own a lot of land but they refused to build on it affordable houses. Yep maybe they will bribe the Salvation army and the Maori party to lobby for them on these – but ultimately if those groups can’t see they are working with a government to sell state houses and give to Chinese and Oz developers (even if they get a concession for using their brand and good name). Don’t fall for it! Keep your principals and don’t fall for a PPP approach.
Now we have respected commentators blaming the boomers for the problem!
Nope NO 1 person to blame is National! Dirty politics split the people and the discourses so to confuse the issues and let them get away with it!
I did not speak about a home owner, i speak about the ‘property owning class’ which in my books is not the same.
The home owners own 1 house, maybe two, the other accumulate them like others buy socks or ties. And that ‘property owning class’ is not gonna vote for Mana or labour, maybe Green, and then the rest would be National/Act.
I also don’t make any comments about people outside of Auckland, as my comments makes quite clear.
“The property owning class in Auckland ……… should be a give away that I speak about a very specific group of people.
So please don’t take offense at a statement that never spoke about people like you.
hi sabine, while i kinda agree with the gist of your comment, i do think there are plenty of folk with property portfolios who do vote labour or left of labour.
nope i think those that vote labour in general vote for it as they are National light, same principles as National to a large extend but less lethal for our Society and communities, and I say this as a Labour voter. And then you got those that will vote for Labour to keep them in the market absent a better choice, or simply because they still fill a vacuum that has not been filled by the Greens (and i don’t believe the Greens ever will), and a 3rd option of the left is yet not available – that voter would be me 🙂 and props a 25% of the electorate. 🙂
We need to really get our mind around that what Labour is today, essentially is the National voter from yesteryear, while the current National Party essentially is ACT minus Rodney – Privatise, small government, ownership society – you are on your fucking own, a libertarian philosphy hiding behind a conservative farming past, sell sell sell, drill baby drill.
But for the large Property Owner Class – homegrown and imported, i doubt anyone of these guys would vote for Labour, and frankly to be honest why would they – society be damned, but then they believe like Thatcher once said, there is no Society 🙂 , it would be against their financial interests.
I believe that in fact the poor should follow in the steps of the rich and vote with their purse and their bank accounts in mind. If they would, National would need to change its policies in order to be attractive. Instead of that many poor and dispossed vote against their own interests, lest someone accuses them of being a bludger, or being poor, or not having invested early enough in bootstraps.
have to largely agree with your analysis re labour being nat lite and there being a vacumn to the left of labour.
hopefully the connection with kim dotcom hasn’t been the death knell for mana. hone harawira is one of the few pollys saying the system is broken and needs to be changed.
unfortunately i know a few of the property class and the ones i know do vote labour. a quid each way, maybe.
i kinda don’t blame them as the way the game is played (write off taxes if you can show a loss on your rentals).
the rules will not change when the house is littered with landlords.
to me it is a sign of why we are screwed: the middle class wants it’s cake and eat it too.
maybe these are the champagne socialists i used to hear about.
frankly i never gave a flying fuck about the german. And I don’t think that it was the issue with Mana. full stop there.
I know people that have voted for Mana, the Mana representative for my neighbourhood was a lovely young fellow and i hope he is still with Mana and is not disheartened by the last election.
But I don’t think that Mana will manage to get to a 30 – 40% vote any time soon. And that is what is needed. I hope they will come back to parliament, cause I for one miss Hone.
And yes these are the champagne socialists, they will vote for an increase in minimum wage, why? Because their customers need money to spend or their businesses are dead. that type of thinking, and as I said that was the thinking of the conservatives of yesteryear.
Sadly, I don’t think anything is going to change, all I hope for is that we get to buy time, until such time that we as the left are more united, or that a party will form that can the unite the left. Until then, we the left are our own worst enemy.
I know someone with a property portfolio who voted Internet Mana. Just saying, property owners are a large and complicated group – Maori own land too and a wider group that you might expect and with more money than you think, want political change. To think the rich vote National and the poor vote Labour is very simplistic. Nationals great achievement is to actually colonise the poor and actually mimic Labour’s key messaging. By getting sports people tweeting to the vulnerable on election day – nice one (sarc) – got away with it too!
There is a seachange all around the western world against neoliberalism and people want real alternatives. Nat Lite with taxes from Labour was never going to satisfy. Nat Lite without taxes also I do not think will satisfy. Labour need to go back to their identity pre Rogernomics.
Just the thought of the Greens collaborating with National ran them down quite a few percentage points last poll.
As for Maori it has not worked out being friend of the Natz. And as Maori point out in the Waatea episode 4 they never did get the foreshore. Natz win again. They lose votes for Maori party, get to keep the foreshore and
seem to have Maori party on a very tight leash.
The Labour caucus has a habit of not listening to the wider community.
The Labour caucus was deaf about capital gains. That cost us 2 elections. Blaming Chinese for the housing shortage is a recent example of how to piss off a lot of people. (Labour is inclusive, blah, blah, blah.)
I actually agree that migration has a lot to do with the housing shortage and so do most Auckland’s! I’m not sure one ethnic group should be singled out. (without proper property statistics being kept (thanks National sarc. ). I mean property investment is an immigration category for F-sake!
I think under Labour immigration actually had stronger criteria like passing english tests and so forth!
I also think people are confused between refugees and migrants. I think we should take more refugees and less migrants! Migrants have a choice where to go and refugees don’t.
I also think capital gains is costing Labour and Greens a lot more votes than they think.
The combination of capital gains/longer retirement policy, dirty politics and smearing, divided Labour and divided Labour against potential coalition partners, lack of political cooperation with vote splitting, cost the election for Labour. It was a whole combination of factors that cost them.
If they had done a few tweaks they probably could have won. It was closer than most people realise.
Just a little rumour, the IT of Auckland Council is so incompetent they can not keep any decent staff AND a lot of external IT companies actually refuse to tender or do any significant work for them anymore. They are considered a joke in the industry.
Plus someone high up in a big 5 accountancy firm is having relations with someone else high up in the council so all their consultancy work is pretty much done by the same outfit for decades now and they did much of the recommendations which are crap!!
You will never hear about it, because they all pay golf with the media companies.
Dig deep into your pockets ratepayers – not only will the council IT not work and probably cost more than a billion – you will be paying for it for decades and if you rent, you will be paying more rent to pay for the rates!
Hide had deloittes in tow before the legislation was passed and having another SAP system was predetermined.
Auckland citys SAP would have scaled up and been fine but thats not making deloittes and cronies money like this clusterf$&k is…. Follow the money kids.
Hope Norightturn and similar have some fun looking into this one…
Looking forward to seeing it mentioned on Waatea 5th Estate…
How to bankrupt NZ’s largest city council.
Maybe Auckland council are trying to do a Kaipara council so we can have our rates put up 30% to pay for some dimwits F-ups (in this case unworkable IT cash cow) who are never held to account!
There’s a Herald article somewhere, PM. As I recall it, the total cost of the council’s IT spend since the supercity switch is put at $1.2 billion. The claim that 1 billion was wasted is just one guy’s hyperbolic quote within the article. However, there does seem to be some wastage, duplication and overspend.
How much can truly be said to be waste is unclear.
And never will be as many have been paid off and shuffled away. Its the ongoing cost of the mess hide/ford/folley created thats the real painpoint as egos have to deflated prior to any fixes.
Actually BM it was F-uped before the super city but now under ‘centralised control’ by National and Act – it is even more of a F- up!
Centralised control is what makes these F-ups worse.
Why would Auckland council perform worse with centralization?, having one command structure has to be more efficient than 7 individual ones.
What is it about Auckland council that’s the problem, is it the people?, the culture?
What needs to change within Auckland council to make it work?
Counter to popular thought, central control does not work very well to get things done if the person in charge does not know what they are doing or you get people coming in and tinkering all the time for vanity or political reasons.
Change is hard enough without the above.
Funny enough democracy is a better way.
Not faux democracy in our councils and governments departments.
BM – the problem is getting competent people to run extremely complex things is like finding a needle in a haystack!
An example of how centralised control can work is when Steve Jobs, who was brilliant, co created Apple, created NeXT and revitalised Pixar (when the shareholders got greedy and booted him out of Apple and then ran it into ground until it was 90 days from going out of business). He then took it back over and turned it into the world’s most valuable company. From a computer company to a phone company and wiped out massive corporations in the phone industry that did not see it coming because they themselves had incompetent and complacent managers and made bad decisions.
In general central control does not and can not work. It was a miracle that Steve Jobs got back Apple and turned it around. If it had been up to the greedy shareholders they would be out of business, the iPhone would never have happened.
Markets do NOT work. To put shares in perspective within 100 years only 2 companies have survived in the US stock market. GE and IBM.
Personally I find that astonishing! For all those people who go on about the ‘markets’ being best etc etc – rubbish – history shows most companies on the share market will go out of business within a lifetime.
Most banks would have gone out of business in the US but now the governments are giving them corporate welfare and bailing them out.
So I guess the new way for companies to survive is to force taxpayers to just pay for their mistakes no matter what and to stop progress of ideas. The US government should have at least nationalised the banks they bailed out and put a few people in Jail for fraud for what they did. Instead the US banks got a sweet deal and the only company they forced to nationalise was GM and they made a profit on it. Meanwhile millions of American’s lost their house and jobs and the banks got rich again and never paid back their loans – what a deal!
Why would Auckland council perform worse with centralization?, having one command structure has to be more efficient than 7 individual ones.
It is. Well AFTER you have done the integration. Haven’t you read any of the many studies that have been done about mergers in businesses and IT systems? I have, both during the MBA back in the 1980s, and ever since through the business press.
A simple dual merger between two business organisations will take 5 years to happen, will and will costs a lot more on everything except property and sometimes wages. Property (and payroll) for them often has immediate overlap synergies that aren’t going to happen for geographic authorities.
You’d have to be a business moron (or a business illiterate ACToid) to not expect increased costs during such a major 5-way merger + and additional 2 way merger for the rural areas and for them to be done in less than a decade. Unfortunately small business people are the absolute worst at figuring out issues in large organisations. The issues are exponential not linear during the scaling.
I disagree Iprent as things get more complex it becomes harder to get competent people to manage and the whole system can fail because of it. Often those those managers main competence is self marketing and they run the system into the ground while paying themselves big salaries, hiding bad news and patting themselves on the back.
To get a decision made, going through committee after committee who are not empowered to do anything and then just getting signatures at the end from senior managers who actually don’t have enough time or knowledge to know what is going on anyway.
You can not be innovative or manage decisions in a timely way with central control.
If you have a look at central control under National who are rushing very bad legalisation through and bullying anyone in their wake you see how central control really works.
The bigger the organisation and the more power it has, the worse central control is.
The chance of getting someone truly brilliant in their field who can advance and lead in a central controlled situation is close to zero.
Therefore de centralisation is the way to go. (with governance).
What I was talking about is the problems of merging into large organisations.
How did this wind up in your mind as why I was advocating for centralization?
I do think that a large city integrated by it’s transport, sewerage, water and housing systems need a central organizing body – like the ARC. The problem in Auckland was that effectively each of the smaller cities had a veto over anything that was being done for the region. The result was that nothing got done on some basics like transport and coping with growth.
In practice what I would have liked to do was simply to give the ARC more teeth to override the cities and a direct taxation mechanism that was independent of city vetos. But leave the stuff outside of citywide decentralized.
@ BM – I’ll write it all up and send to te reo putake in a few days.
I’m an Auckland rate payer and don’t want to see more IT F-ups.
One of the issues is Auckland council are now so toxic nobody good will work with them.
No surprises they can’t replace Folley – who wants that F-uped mess on their record!! Instantly that suggests they will get a replacement incompetent CIO who does not even understand the enormous F-up and do more of the same.
P.s a clue is, should not take nearly 6 years post supercity and nearly a billion to NOT roll out integration.
Another clue is you should NOT customise SAP
And third clue is, even if council IT do eventually get it working by customising SAP, they (i.e. ratepayers) will have to keep paying mega bucks in testing and validating their customisation for all subsequent SAP software upgrades to keep the flawed IT system going.
Oh no, SAP that’s got to be the shittest software ever created, no wonder nothing works.
I recommend googling phrases such is “SAP is a piece of fucking shit” and reading the tales of annoyance and misery being inflicted on to people having to use SAP.
Hmmm.
Dunno how fair the comparison with the ANZ/nat merger is. I would have thought councils are a bit more diverse in function, and merging 5 (or however many) would be more complex than merging two, anyway
@McFlock – they are not merged. That’t the point. Nothing to show for the billion. Ring the council yourself with a query in another district they then have to dispatch you through by telephone to the local council.
But that’s just the start of the scale of the problem….
Send something through to me at tereoputake@gmail.com and I’ll turn it in to a guest post. A few links would be good, and your thoughts on why it’s got to this stage, who’s responsible, and what the alternatives are. I’ll do the rest.
Good idea, plenty of folk out there with stories of largesse and incompetance from nacts supershity which they f’d up soo badly they didnt even achieve the prime objective…..flogging akls assets.
Same goes for any other regulars. There are other authors here who will also be happy to help you publish a guest post. That’s how most of us started here, after all. There’s a ‘contribute’ button at the top of the page.
If you have a look back to 2010 when I was writing on the supershitty, you will find me making a lot of comments about the sheer scale of the IT issues.
My guesstimates then were that to get the systems integrated would take at least a decade and something way more 1 billion dollars. More in the order of 2 or even 3 billion dollars spread over a decade. That is simply the cost of integrating a close to a century of data (like the property and building info) into an even moderately seamless system. Especially when the data didn’t have a lot of commonality. It would also massively increase the staffing through that period to achieve the task.
So far my guesstimates appears to be on track – which is more than you could say for the puerile ACToids who advocated the seamless city and that idiot Rodney Hide who pushed that solution. The Royal Commission’s approach would have at least halved the IT (and everything else) transition costs because it would have left the existing bodies and software in place and just set up more integration.
The sheer complexity of building new systems or transferring data from one system to another to get a seamless data system when you have vast amounts of data is not something to be sneezed at. Especially when you have to keep running at least five old systems while you do it.
But in this case I suspect that reported value
The Super City has spent $1.24 billion on IT since it was formed in 2010 – enough money to pay for the council’s half share of the $2.5 billion city rail link.
is a complete and deliberate lie. It includes the normal operating costs
for the council and council owned operations. That in itself is something well more than $100 million per year.
Incidentally the bank comparison is complete bollocks made by someone who REALLY doesn’t understand the scope of the problems. Banks always have pretty symmetric and ordered data compared to the kind of amorphous data held by councils and governments. If you want a true comparison, just think about the composition of the data held by a council property management system including valuation data for rates and building permissions. It makes the data held by a bank on the same property look like a Mt Eden sized molehill next to a Mt Taranaki.
BTW: I don’t do this kind of work. It has nothing to do with exports.
I can’t agree with that. Transferring the data is not a problem, whether 1 record or 10 billion makes not much difference.
And testing the integrity of the data before go live is relatively simple as well.
The problem is SAP is a German tier one ERP designed for engineering companies, in which it works exceptionally well. Air NZ Engineering use it for years and it is wonderful. It is brilliant in process management and inventory control and so on. It is not good on all other features such as CRM and accounting functions.
Furthermore, when you install these systems they have limited ability to be configured differently, you need to change the organisations processes to fit the ERP you cannot change the software.
Look at Vector, a reasonably small organisation at the time, spent 160m on SAP, the CEO then had a heart attack and they ditched the whole thing.
They will spend another 1 billion on it and then ditch it. You cannot make these systems work outside a very narrow scope.
The problem with data is in the edge cases. Where that data has problems making it fall out of spec.
For a simple instance. Your new system requires that you have categories for something and you want to restrict the categories so that they are useful. But the old system allowed free-form at some stage or had a pile of strange categories. Someone has to go through and build a translation table.
No problem if you are shifting a few thousand records. A complete pain in the arse if you have several million (or a billion) because there will be old trash that never got made systematic. You either throw away information or you spend a long time fixing each set of oddball instances or any combination in between.
Now multiply that by 5 or 7.
Archive data is never simple to merge in large quantities.
So much for the (forced) Auckland ‘Supercity will give economies of scale’ argument?
So – how much has the Auckland ‘Supercity’ amalgamation cost, compared with how much was purportedly going to be saved?
In reality – seven democratically elected Councils (warts and all) were replaced with seven undemocratically selected Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs), which, in my view have become the mechanism for the corporate takeover of the Auckland region.
Please be reminded that the recommendation that all Auckland’s major trading and infrastructure activities should be undertaken by CCOs, came from the Labour Government appointed Auckland Royal Commissioners on Auckland Regional Governance.
Lest we forget?
First CCOs – then PPPs?
‘Commercialise, corporatise – PRIVATISE ….?)
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
(Who is the only Auckland Mayoral candidate – to my knowledge – who opposes both CCOs and PPPs).
That’s a good point, I worked on the Anz-Nat Bank merger. It took place about 5 years before the SuperCity so that would have made things cheaper for them too. I’m not sure how much new functionality was involved in that merger, but when you’ve already got computer systems in place and you’re mostly moving customers from one banking system to another its more straightforward than making brand spanking new systems that Auckland have also done.
I’m particularly intrigued about things like rates and property information databases, infrastructure management databases, even the air and water monitoring equipment.
Some of those things mightn’t talk well with others, which would definitely be a vote for “new system, please”…
Arc rates system with some tweaks wouldve done the job as it already held every akl property and i heard the rates managers of each council liked it having dealt with it.
The great minds meet and decided to…….write another one which was a shambles where various teams were whipped all day and night to not miss the dates for rates notices.
Thats the point maui, new systems were not required just choose who had the best fit in each area.
ACC had only just rolled out SAP, one the the most expensive solutions around. Put that aside as it as done and dusted so scaling it up and migrate others overs was a logical efficient path…..surprise deloittes said do another one !
Ah, thank you. So, as Te Reo Putake says, the billion dollars is the total IT spend since the merger, and the proportion of it that could be characterised as “waste” is up for grabs, unless you’re the type that considers IT spend a waste in principle.
You’d have to be a business moron (or a business illiterate ACToid) to not expect increased costs during such a major 5-way merger + and additional 2 way merger for the rural areas and for them to be done in less than a decade.
Indeed. If there’s someone out there who could merge eight councils’ IT systems and NOT take a decade and enormous sums of money to to do it, I’d like to meet this living demigod.
The Editor of the Southland Times isn’t holding back,
The question must now be asked whether Barclay is in serious strife within his party electorate and whether this in turn represents broader community dissatisfaction.
I still wonder why English supported this young nobody as his replacement. There would have been many smarter choices. A late 30 something dairy farmer type well known for his good deeds in the Southland community etc. would have been far better than this young corporate hack.
Well, he’s a local boy too. Daddy helped him in his campaign meetings apparently.
It’s interesting – the labourites I know get “groomed” by running a few campaigns in safe national seats. Do that a few times, prove yourself, keep your nose clean, you get rewarded.
the nats seem to have a very different culture to “grooming”.
HIs family are pretty small beer, owned the Dipton store and mail run. Appears to be Joyce’s protege, he was down here a while ago going around the electorate with him. Hardly heard a thing from wonder boy since, till this.
Got the picture. I left out the question mark at the end of my comment. Doesn’t look like Daddy could afford a big donation so it must be something else. Looks like millsy is right. Imagine the electorate is a bit of a sleepy hollow, and the neo liberalists stormed in and got their ‘boy’ over the line?
Clutha Southland is not a “sleepy hollow”; but English somehow convinced his loyal electorate supporters to push Barclay over the line, using up a whole lot of his own local political capital to do so.
Not sure it was just Bill, story I heard was that it was “Wellington” and locals toed the line.
The electorate re-arrangement that Bill pushed hard for was for Queenstown to become part of Clutha Southland, we used to be part of Waitaki and had David Parker as MP for a while. Queenstown could easily go to a good Labour or Green candidate that understands the local area
Probably just gave Slater a few thousand to get him through. Worked a treat with Mark Mitchell. Wonderful investment, a few thousand invested and soon you are on a few hundred thousand as an MP.
Barclay’s commitment to free market neo liberalism would be total while the more traditionally conservative types are usually more flexible about that sort of thing.
So, under the electoral act on the flag referendum, is it illegal once voting has commenced, to promote the flag preferences of Polititions, Celebrities, Sports greats or anyone, while the vote is still going on for a while, In the Media or Print or anywhere
Just asking, Anyone ? We don’t want any Dirty Tricks do we.
@ rod – well morally (and possibly legally), preferential promotion of the flag(s) shouldn’t occur anywhere during the voting period.
However, we are talking about NatzKey here, a bunch of morally compromised, racketeering swindlers, likely to give the one finger salute to the legalities of the point you raise! They thrive on dirty politics!
Quote: People who voted against changing the flag to damage Key’s popularity would ” wake up in a few months’ time and realise what a terrible mistake they’ve made, because it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference to me”, he said. Quote end.
I am voting against this dishrag simply because if we don’t have money to feed the kids, to house the homeless, to heal the sick, and to provide mental health care to ChCH and Canterbury, then for sure we can wait with a new dishrag until we become a republic you useless arrogant ponytail puller.
People who voted against changing the flag to damage Key’s popularity would ” wake up in a few months’ time and realise what a terrible mistake they’ve made, because it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference to me”,
Maybe their internal polling is not giving them what they want. Who knows, but for him to make it about himself is pretty pathetic. Me ME ME ME ME gimme a Ponytail.!!!!!!!
But maybe just maybe people are actually using this Flag debacle Mess that he himself has created as an opportunity to – very respectfully of course – show him where he can shove is flag.
Surely it can’t be that people a. think the money could be better spend, b. think that maybe we ditch the queen first, or c. the flag is butt ugly.
I mean if it would be Hypnoflag i would of course be voting for it. 🙂
Shades of school prefect not being obeyed. Bullshitting that it doesn’t care. Wah wah wah. Then foretelling a “terrible” mistake in the disobeying. No……not heavily invested at all. Disgusting little creep of a non-man.
Based on your logic Sabine there will never be a right time, 28m is a drop in the ocean re governments budget, likewise most of it is going to nzpost ( a government SOE), hope your futile and infantile protest makes you feel better
we all have our reasons, and feeding the kids, housing the homeless, providing mental health care to those that need it, providing housing for those that needed – and before they kill someone, is at a higher priority for me then even my beloved hypno flag. We all must make amends.
You get to vote according to your conscience. That my dear is called democracy.
“28m is a drop in the ocean re governments budget,”
It’s not for a government that is refusing to feed the dependent elderly properly because of budgetary reasons. If National were not cutting services all over the place, the flag might not seem like a heinous waste of resources. But they are and it does.
” it won’t make a blind bit of difference to me..” Oh I don’t think so sir, while the masses toil away, it was only you who shoved this tea towel down our throats, throwing our hard earned money at it, whilst ignoring the things that do make a difference to us.
It was only ever you it made a difference to, Mr.Key, so don’t even dream that you can pull that one.hmmffffff
Interesting links – one to Tony Benn’s impassioned speech, from an old (now dead March 2014) Labourite. The range of comments shows how hard it is to penetrate whatever barriers people have in their minds.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW41yA1bRUs
Another thought provoking thinker Oliver James author of Affluenza.
Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (2001, revised in 2005, 2014). These works define affluenza as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.
wikipedia –
In 2007, British psychologist Oliver James asserted that there was a correlation between the increasing nature of affluenza and the resulting increase in material inequality: the more unequal a society, the greater the unhappiness of its citizens.[5] Referring to Vance Packard’s thesis The Hidden Persuaders on the manipulative methods used by the advertising industry, James related the stimulation of artificial needs to the rise in affluenza….
In a graph created from multiple data sources, James plotted “Prevalence of any emotional distress” and “Income inequality,” attempting to show that English-speaking nations have nearly twice as much emotional distress as mainland Europe and Japan: 21.6 percent vs 11.5 percent.[
Here is an excellent doco (From 2012 but still very current) about AIG the All Blacks sponsor. It has given me some impetus to research more on the connection between AIG and John Key, the flag and their appetite for the TPPA. So watch this space!
Here is an article I wrote about the kind of power AIG wields in NZ politics and I suspect it’s way worse than that. Because according to this doco in the words of the guy who build AIG they were happily using the US government to do their dirty work for them.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbJQ96KIh_Y
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 15.1
“He becomes the third centre-right candidate, alongside one-time National Party candidate Mark Thomas and businesswoman Victoria Crone, who is backed by Auckland National Party figures.”
Seems that Radio NZ aren’t putting ‘Independent’ Auckland Mayoral candidate Phil Goff (currently Labour MP for Mt Roskill) in the ‘centre-right’ category?
(The National Business Review -NBR – do.)
But Phil Goff supports the TPPA, road tolls, PPPs and the sale of Auckland Council assets, starting with the Remuera Golf Course?
So upon what definition of ‘left’ / ‘right’ are Radio NZ relying?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
(Who does NOT support the TPPA, road tolls, PPPs or the sale of Auckland Council assets starting with the Remuera Golf Course.)
I agree you like avoiding questions, Penny. Phil, on the hand, is open and honest, even when he’s in the minority. And he pays his rates, so he’s not bludging off his neighbours. Are you sure you’re not just a little bit centre-right yourself? You act like you are.
I see minimum wage is going up by 50c… while that’s better than the expected 25c, with rents and house prices heading out of control, and things like the hospital sector being told to save $138~ million, people on minimum wages will probably find that money swallowed up (assuming actually getting 40 hours a week, aka zero hour contracts, that’s $20 a week before tax)
You might well be correct, CV. He just needs a decent reason to call one. If the economy tanks or he loses the support of the maori party or if those two pandas turn up, it’s on.
There’s another elephant coming later this year. Two pandas and an elephant. Sure winner. They can arrange to have a crisis that will miraculously disappear the day after the election. Mind you Muldoon tried it in 1984. Not only didn’t it work but it turned out there was a crisis – of his own making.
The noxious John Palino has been looking in his “forward view mirror”. Maybe he’s spotted the 1,912 Auckland City staff who now “earn” more than $100k p.a.
When Key was asked for a comment on Palino, he opened his mouth, waited a few seconds then said that it might be a mistake to comment other than he would leave it to the Auckland voters. (Very kind of him?)
“UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to form an international alliance with left anti-austerity parties in the European Parliament to curtail some parts of David Cameron’s renegotiations with Brussels after the in-out referendum.
Corbyn told The Independent on Sunday that a socialist alliance in the European Parliament would embrace Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos to push for “far-reaching progressive reform” across the EU after Britain’s in-out referendum scheduled for June 23.
“To make those changes we need to be at the heart of an alliance for change with left-of-center and progressive parties and movements across Europe,” he said.
“Labour is making allies for real reform in Europe with the Party of European Socialists and other European parties across the broad left, while the Tories are isolating themselves.”….
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The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...
Introduction Pickleball, a rapidly growing paddle sport, has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions around the world. Its blend of tennis, badminton, and table tennis elements has made it a favorite among players of all ages and skill levels. As the sport’s popularity continues to surge, the question on ...
Abstract: Soccer, the global phenomenon captivating millions worldwide, has a rich history that spans centuries. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, but the modern version we know and love emerged through a complex interplay of cultural influences and innovations. This article delves into the fascinating journey of soccer’s evolution, ...
Tinting car windows offers numerous benefits, including enhanced privacy, reduced glare, UV protection, and a more stylish look for your vehicle. However, the cost of window tinting can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article provides a comprehensive guide to help you understand how much you can expect to ...
The pungent smell of gasoline in your car can be an alarming and potentially dangerous problem. Not only is the odor unpleasant, but it can also indicate a serious issue with your vehicle’s fuel system. In this article, we will explore the various reasons why your car may smell like ...
Tree sap can be a sticky, unsightly mess on your car’s exterior. It can be difficult to remove, but with the right techniques and products, you can restore your car to its former glory. Understanding Tree Sap Tree sap is a thick, viscous liquid produced by trees to seal wounds ...
The amount of paint needed to paint a car depends on a number of factors, including the size of the car, the number of coats you plan to apply, and the type of paint you are using. In general, you will need between 1 and 2 gallons of paint for ...
Jump-starting a car is a common task that can be performed even in adverse weather conditions like rain. However, safety precautions and proper techniques are crucial to avoid potential hazards. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed instructions on how to safely jump a car in the rain, ensuring both your ...
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
Chris Trotter writes – MELISSA LEE should be deprived of her ministerial warrant. Her handling – or non-handling – of the crisis engulfing the New Zealand news media has been woeful. The fate of New Zealand’s two linear television networks, a question which the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications ...
TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts and , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and on climate change.The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the ...
Policymakers rarely wish to make plain or visible their desire to dismantle environmental policy, least of all to the young. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent ...
I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in places like the UK, the US, and over the ditch with our good mates the Aussies. Let’s call them AUKUS, for want of a better collective term. More on that in a bit.It used to be, not long ago, that ...
TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
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 ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
David Farrar writes – The Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled: Comments by radio host Kate Hawkesby suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity were misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found. It is a fact such patients are prioritised. ...
PRC and its proxies in Solomons have been preparing for these elections for a long time.A lot of money, effort and intelligence have gone into ensuring an outcome that won’t compromise Beijing’s plans. Cleo Paskall writes – On April 17th the Solomon Islands, a country of ...
Is speeding up the trip to and from Wellington airport by 12 minutes worth spending up more than $10 billion? Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me in the last day to 8:26 am today are:The Lead: Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced ...
You're a fraud, and you know itBut it's too good to throw it all awayAnyone would do the sameYou've got 'em goingAnd you're careful not to show itSometimes you even fool yourself a bitIt's like magicBut it's always been a smoke and mirrors gameAnyone would do the sameForty six billion ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Changes to minimum wage and benefit indexation means many New Zealanders will get less this year, as the Government gives a big tax break to landlords instead. ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced further New Zealand cooperation with the United States in the Pacific Islands region through $16.4 million in funding for initiatives in digital connectivity and oceans and fisheries research. “New Zealand can achieve more in the Pacific if we work together more urgently and ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
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4.3 quake rattles Christchurch
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/297681/4-point-3-quake-rattles-christchurch
Sharon Murdoch
‘The people of Christchurch who must be so sick of hearing about resiliency.’
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CcP-F7AUYAAq24K.jpg:large
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/77273730/andrew-gunn-yes-prime-minister
Love the comments from those who think the content is not what the label states – they thought they were getting satire.
Funny that Andrew”s piece was labelled Satire. Must have been a sub-editor’s error.
double bluff perhaps?
Flag failure strategy; blame Labour, Greens, NZ First for politicising it. Officially kicked off on Saturday by Audrey Young of the Herald, followed today by the loser at the root cause of it, John Key!
Why does everything involving this guy have to become a lie?
Why is Audrey Young such a slavish follower of Key?
Audrey Young’s father was a National Party MP from 1966 to 1990.
Jonathan Young, Audrey’s brother, is a sitting National Party MP for New Plymouth (elected 2008).
These factors should not be held against her (as with Katie Bradford, daughter of Sue Bradford) unless you consider that Audrey shows a persistent bias in her writing.
A number of commenters have said that on The Standard, but I don’t think it’s true.
People have confused their Youngs.
Audrey’s father was Bill Young, National MP for Miramar from 1966-1981
She’s the sister of former National MP Annabel Young, current Tory Wellington City Councillor, Nicola Young, and former Tory Wellington City Councillor of the 1980s Rosemary Young-Rouse (married to former Right-wing National party Cabinet Minister, Max Bradford).
Jonathan Young is the son of former Taranaki region (specifically the seats of Egmont and Waitotara) Nat MP Venn Young – a dairy farmer, but one with relatively liberal sensibilities on moral issues.
The confusion’s not entirely surprising, of course. Same surname, both first elected as Nat MPs in 1966, both became Cabinet Ministers in the Muldoon Govt.
You are not often wrong Swordfish but you are this time. Audrey Young is definitely Venn Young’s daughter and Jonathan Young’s sister. I know this because I know people who are long term friends of Audrey from her earlier days.
You are right about Bill Young’s children except for Audrey.
From Jonathan Young’s maiden speech.
I am a son of Taranaki, a returned son. Mount Taranaki is our great landmark. It gives us a sense of location and anchorage. By it, we know where we are and where we are heading. I was born in Hāwera, South Taranaki, to Venn and Margaret Young. Like all good parents they too were landmark people in my life. I would like to acknowledge members of my family—my mother Margaret, who is here today. I would also like to acknowledge Catherine Young, whom many of you will also know. I acknowledge my siblings—Adrienne, Audrey, Simon and his wife Carly, and Geoffrey.
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/debates/debates/speeches/49HansS_20081211_00000854/young-jonathan-maiden-statements
Dang !!!
It’s one of those things you think you’re absolutely sure of … and then it comes back to bite you on the bum.
Apologies to all. Forget everything I just said.
Bloody Hell !!! I was absolutely bloody sure that she was one of the Wellington Youngs. Now I’m beginning to doubt everything I thought I knew about everything.
Maybe Night is Day, Up is Down, Mike Hosking is a first-rate journalist, the Nats aren’t so bad after all, Man Utd aren’t the pack of complete tossers I always assumed they were …
Existential Crisis time.
You were right about The Scum though.
Shit. I read it all. Now I’ve got to go back and unread it.
It’s rare for you to be ‘up the creek without a paddle’ swordfish. An early night for you. 😀
More of the National party than Key. It is a trait that appears to have been branded into her bones. From memory her father was a National party MP and a brother is a current National party MP.
There has been discussion on that several times.
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-22112015/#comment-1099225
Weirdly enough, Audrey has not always been a National sympathiser.
In the late 1980s, early 2000s she was a member of the New Zealand Journalists Union and its successor, the Journalists and Graphic Process Union (Jagpro). She was an activist and a member of the national council of both bodies.
I know the main stream media these days is considered little more than Tory lackies, but those two unions were serious beasts, albeit a bit small.
They lifted above their weight in industrial matters and Audrey was part of that.
I have seen that quite a lot. It is what I call the “do as I say rather than do as I do” syndrome. Where theories about individualism and freedom from the state apply to them – right up to the point that it becomes a burden. Then they become socialists and demand that others prop them up as ‘good’ neighbors.
For instance most NIMBYs are classic at it. They don’t mind the park removals, houses bowled for new roads, intensification, etc provided that it happens to someone else. Look under the hood on the Auckland Unitary Plan and what you will find in the objections to the council’s proposals is that virtually all of the opposition came from the wealthy and affluent areas and people.
It is the same with ‘unions’. The Police Association is a union in everything except name. Same with the Law Society. Same for any number of other professional bodies. They perform the same duties of collective bargaining for conditions, resources and payments. About the only substantive difference is that most of them are allowed to run compulsory membership.
I have no doubt that Audrey Young was an effective unionist. However it isn’t uncommon for people consider what they do is not what others should…
yep keith – I think the polling and reality are different things, thank the gods! – keys says
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11597171
key seems genuinely bewildered by the lack of support – the first (not quite I know) of many setbacks for the slippery one
Key was incredibly defensive on Morning Report this morning and claimed their own polling said NZers did want to change
Morning Report
@NzMorningReport
“the number of people who definitely want to keep it is under half ( according to our polling)”
@johnkeypm
#flagdebate
Now I was one of the people who was polled by Curia (the Nats polling company). It was about 3 weeks ago and there were a range of questions, one of which was something along the lines of ” would you ever want to change the NZ flag” to which I was able to answer yes. I was also asked how I would be voting and I said to keep the current flag, and the main reason was that the alternative is an appallingly bad design.
I suspect Key is being very selective about their polling. He actually sounded really rattled – worth listening to.
Is that what he said ?To be honest I never understood a word he said.It was just a mumbled mishmash of words.Certainly not English.
When he is losing he mumbles and talks nonsense.
Saw the two flags flying together today. I don’t care much but must admit the old one looks like a real flag and the new one does look like a wishy washy tea towel.
If the new one was just the 4 stars I’d vote for it but it aint so status quo until we get a decent alternative in a few years.
because Key is a pathological liar
Why does everything involving this guy have to become a lie?
I don’t think there’s any reason for it these days. Now it’s just policy.
I can’t believe i thought it true but when the government said Serco had lost its contract, I fell for it. Because that means you are out, gone, the end in the real world!
It appears SERCO are still firmly in place at Mt Eden Correctional Facility and this from an advertisement 5 days ago for a “Security Administrator”; “Serco New Zealand currently holds two contracts with the Department of Corrections and we now have opportunities available for an Intel/Security Operational Support Grade to join our team at Mount Eden Corrections Facility (MECF) which is located on the edge of Auckland`s CBD. At MECF we work to provide a safe and secure environment for nearly 1000 prisoners on behalf of NZ Department of Corrections”. “Applications close 8th of March 2016”. “Safe and secure environment”? Really?
It appears the whole SERCO are gone story was a lie. Corrections have topped up the dire understaffing (profit motivated) at Mt Eden and they are “officially” in charge (extreme use of imagination required here) but this will be why Key told us late last year SERCO could reapply in the future.
So despite SERCO and or National cooking the books and being the best performing prison in the history of mankind, National appear to either be trapped into leaving them there owing to a badly flawed contract or they’ll remain for National to save face.
So the old National Party circuit breaker trick of doing something to take it off the front pages till the heat died down applies here. Expect the company that never really lost its contract to get it back, just like magic!
Magic…and lawyers.
The threat of Lawyers and the government caves… or the excuse of it…. Saudi Bribes, Serco – no wonder they signed TPPA in the Casino (without fanfair) they just need more excuses to give corporate bribes to their backers.
Sorry the threat of legal action made us keep Serco…. oh and the whitewash enquiry – apparently the prisoners did not talk, heard nothing etc etc
Maybe cos they were in hospital, dead or transferred to another prison or frightened out of their wits!
Anyone still expecting a Sanders nomination?
No, the Clintons are using their entrenched influence over the US Democratic machine to lock Sanders out.
As someone else noted, the Democrats used Sanders to pull in new interest to the Democratic Party, but they never intended to give him a real chance.
Sanders will be smashed on Super Tuesday.
You could be right .. asked whether he was a socialist, Chomsky described him as “an honest New Dealer”.
“Super-Tuesday Endgame for Sanders”
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/super-tuesday-bernie-sanders-south-carolina-219913
Agora
Super Tuesday isn’t going to look good for Sanders even if he is still on track. The chart in this piece by Silver shows that his demographics aren’t good for those states (but favoured later in the month and April):
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-doesnt-need-momentum-he-needs-to-win-these-states/
The problem is that anything he loses now he needs to make up later, which isn’t too much of an ask yet with 46 states still to go. After Tuesday (our Wednesday), it’s likely going to be a lot harder, especially with the perceived loss of momentum. At this point it’s looking more like Clinton’s to lose – say; with the email thing, or; if Trump (or some other donor) decides to release footage of her promising to corruptly favour them in future in return for campaign donations.
“or; if Trump (or some other donor) decides to release footage of her promising to corruptly favour them in future in return for campaign donations.”
The way you’ve written that suggests that such footage does definitely exist.
I don’t think even Clinton would be that stupid. She’s not one to make Mitt Romney 47% style blunders.
I think what you should have said is “or if someone else can release damaging information about her, such as corruptly promising favour in return for donations”.
La
Yes, someone could release documents, but that wouldn’t have the visceral impact of video images. I wouldn’t be surprised if such footage did exist (or at least could be selectively edited to give that impression), given how small cameras can be nowadays, but it’d be worth more once she did get the Democratic nomination. My first impulse was to say that Trump might; release footage of her blowing him for campaign dollars, but I thought that was excessively tasteless (and likewise hypothetical, if less probable).
My point is more that the footage won’t exist, because Clinton would never, herself, say that.
I believe that Clinton would say anything to anybody to get herself elected. The only question is whether any of the billionaires she visited had recording equipment running as insurance against her future reneging. Let’s say footage from this occasion were to surface:
http://gawker.com/donald-trump-i-paid-hillary-clinton-to-attend-my-weddi-1722622546
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-wedding/story?id=36228477
If one of Clinton’s people were to go public saying that there was a direct link between Clinton’s campaign funding in 2008 and her attendance at Trump’s wedding, then that would be bad enough. It wouldn’t even have to be provable if it was intercut with enough footage of her and her family schmoozing with Billionaires.
“Clinton would never, herself, say that.” It’s NEVER done directly.
Intermediaries make the approach and handle the details. Confirmation, if it comes at all, is at a social function (or golf game in Hawaii): “I am glad we were able to be of help to each other . . . blah, blah, blah.”
That’s right… Hillary’s team know how to scrub hard drives and make evidence disappear.
Over the weekend I spent quite a bit of time talking to a American democrat who was out visiting.
Apparently there’s a real issue among American Catholics regarding Hillary Clinton and her view on abortion with many saying they just cannot vote for her because of that.
Then there’s Saunders, general feeling is that he’s an extremist nut bar who’s never worked a day in his life, for many democrats the choice is poor and people are struggling to choose some one to vote for, democrat turn out could be very low.
I reckon if Trump gets the nod he’s the next president.
“I reckon if Trump gets the nod he’s the next president.”
Thanks…you’ve just taken a load off my mind
In what way.?
Personally I’d prefer Clinton any day than Trump, but I’m not American so I don’t get to vote.
given your reasoning and observation appears to be at complete odds with reality (and all informed thinking I’ve read) I think it fair to assume your conclusion will be equally so
No worries, next time, I won’t bother replying.
Promise?
Oh, yes the ‘least worst solution’.
Instead of the ‘best solution’ spin doctoring.
Too many republicans will vote for Clinton – or even Sanders – if your idol gets the nod.
“Apparently there’s a real issue among American Catholics regarding Hillary Clinton and her view on abortion with many saying they just cannot vote for her because of that.”
Women’s rights and sexual/reproductive freedoms are only truly protected by an atheist/communist government. Look at Cuba, the only country in the America’s with abortion on demand.
Trump questions the 9/11 narrative.
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/02/donald-trump-questioned-about-911-secret-28-pages.html
“Former CIA Director Michael Hayden blasted Donald Trump’s rhetoric in a recent interview, saying that the U.S. military would refuse orders from him, even as commander-in-chief, to kill the families of terrorists, as Trump has pledged to do.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/cia-di219918#ixzz41VFui8Ll
“I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the way that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign,” Former CIA Director Michael Hayden
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/cia-director-armed-forces-ignore-trump-219918
more madness from the don
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/77361539/donald-trump-refuses-to-condemn-kkk-defends-retweet-of-mussolini-quote
Not really credible to say he doesn’t know anything about the KKK.
David Duke personally? Sure.
“Not really credible to say he doesn’t know anything about the KKK”
Unfortunately I fear it is only too credible to believe that about Trump.
The man is a complete nutcase.
🙄
No, Alwyn, that’s really not credible.
Touche.
I must bow to the evidence you, and other people have presented.
I have to agree that at some stage he must have known about the KKK.
However I reserve the right to believe he has probably forgotten what he said, or anything he learned, in the past though. Certainly he is a liar but I am not at all sure he even realises it.
As I said earlier “The man is a complete nutcase”.
How did the party of Eisenhower come to this sorry state?
That’s easy: by following right wing philosophy.
it is up there with key not knowing if he was pro or anti tour – a little fib
alwyn
He’d have to be intentionally forgetting his own family history to not know about the Klan:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/donald-trump-kkk-connection-dad-klan-riot-arrest-article-1.2546656
[snap OAB]
“Not really credible to say he doesn’t know anything about the KKK. ”
I thought it was a very clever politician’s sound bite. He kept constantly repeating the message he wants his listeners to grasp, “I don’t know anything about it.”
Repeat a lie often enough and people believe it.
Trump knows all about David Duke. From 2000:
https://twitter.com/frankthorpNBC
Quacks like a duck….
When an African American showed up to rent an apartment owned by a young real-estate scion named Donald Trump and his family, the building superintendent did what he claimed he’d been told to do. He allegedly attached a separate sheet of paper to the application, marked with the letter “C.”
“C” for “Colored.”
According to the Department of Justice, that was the crude code that ensured the rental would be denied.
Details of this secret system, as well as other practices that the Trump organization allegedly used to exclude black residents from its buildings in Brooklyn, Queens, and Norfolk, Virginia, in the 1970s, were recorded in a lawsuit brought by the DOJ against Trump and his father, Fred, in 1973 for alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/15/doj-trump-s-early-businesses-blocked-blacks.html
Walks like a duck….
Two weeks ago the leading Republican candidate for US President was widely criticized for retweeting a white supremacist Twitter user with the name “@WhiteGenocideTM,” whose linked website sung Hitler’s praises.
It turns out that’s not an anomaly, it’s a pattern. Inspired by a new Twitter account that tweets out the bios of anyone Donald Trump retweets (because they’re often remarkable), we went and looked up those people he’s introducing to his audience of 5 million+ Twitter followers. In order to learn more about them, we analyzed the networks of people that those people he retweeted are following on Twitter, using Little Bird’s influencer discovery and social network analysis software.
It turns out that Donald Trump mostly retweets white supremacists saying nice things about him. At least so far this week’s that’s how it’s gone. This isn’t one person, of the last 21 accounts retweeted by @RealDonaldTrump so far this week, our automated analysis of their accounts finds that:
28% of them follow at least one of the top 50 White Nationalist accounts on Twitter (6 of 21)
62% of them follow at least 3 people who’ve used hashtag #WhiteGenocide lately (13 of 21)
http://www.getlittlebird.com/blog/data-62-of-the-people-donald-trump-rted-this-week-follow-multiple-white-supremacist-accounts
Might be a duck…
http://www.cafe.com/who-said-it-donald-trump-or-the-white-supremacist-from-american-history-x/
What a fucking joke from Hayden, who knows full well that the USA has targetted both terrorists and their families on a regular basis. (Blowing up whole villages, hospitals and wedding parties to get their target, on occasion).
Reuters: Trump has 90% chance of winning the Republican nomination
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS401512400720160224
“democrat turn out could be very low.
I reckon if Trump gets the nod he’s the next president.”
If Trump is the nominee I expect a high turnout election – typical non-voters will vote for Trump, and everyone else who is sane will vote for Clinton.
It’s perceived that the Democrats have an ‘enthusiam gap’, which is difficulty in getting their side to turn out and vote for them.
Clinton will have a harder time against Rubio, because he won’t rile people up as much as Trump does (Trump has more unfavourable ratings than favourable – which will be the first for any 2-party nominee).
I’d definitely prefer a Clinton win, but for the US that would mean a continuation of the status quo and I get the feeling the US has had enough of that and want something different.
Trump is the only guy tapping into that vibe.
I guess there’s room for Trump to sort himself out into a credible candidate, should he win the primary. As the contest has gone on, his policies have become a little firmer (even if his rhetoric is about as unhinged as ever).
But on current form I think he’s just too nutty.
I agree, Saunders is a nut bar.
Sanders on the other hand is the real deal.
You suggesting that Sanders was a Democrat Corbyn? That it was ‘his turn’ to be the token traditional statist who gets to be a bit of window dressing? That could be true. But I don’t know how Democrat candidates get selected or whether they self select.
Either way, Sander’s presence has been a rocket up the arse of the Democratic Party.
There’s a problem with the idea that he’s intended only to pull in new interest. I’ve read a few comments from Democrat voters who back Sanders, claiming they’ll vote Trump in the Presidential election out of spite if Sander’s nomination fails..
In other words, there may be a fracture in US politics marked by perceived establishment and anti-establishment positions that might (a-hem) trump any democrat/republican considerations.
That’s how I read it too Bill. And I don’t think the anti-establishment feeling is going to die down readily, whoever ends up as president for the time being.
“I’ve read a few comments from Democrat voters who back Sanders, claiming they’ll vote Trump in the Presidential election out of spite if Sander’s nomination fails..”
Yeah, well those people are fucking idiots.
Letting Trump pick the replacement for Ginsburg on the SCOTUS instead of Hillary isn’t a way to further their progressive ideals.
Progressive ideals? – don’t you get it – citizens throughout the USA suffering economically are deciding en masse that “progressive ideals” have utterly failed them.
Conservative ones offered by Trump are unlikely to be any better.
Not saying that they are going to be any better at all. (Although I am pretty certain Trump will engage in fewer wars than Clinton).
And the only way they can hack the system is to crash it. Regardless who gets the a White House, their term will be marked by increasing civil unrest.
“Democrat voters who back Sanders, claiming they’ll vote Trump in the Presidential election out of spite.”
What I am about to say is heresy for many on The Standard, but here goes.
The choice of leaders is emotional, NOT rational. Support for both Trump and Sanders is often based on anger and rage. Any candidate who expresses their rage will get their vote.
When John Key says, “I’m comfortable with that,” he is expressing the emotion of many New Zealanders. “Don’t rock the boat.”
CV
That Clinton dominance of the DNC looks like it’s fraying a bit:
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/tulsi-gabbard-resigns-as-dnc-vice-chair-endorses-sanders-633022019772
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/28/debbie-wasserman-schultz-under-fire-from-democrats/?page=all
The piece on Schultz is over a month old, but the easiest to find. The petitions are growing against this former co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign (currently up to 66,638 on MoveOn for one). The problem with gathering the young left to the Democrats to vote for Sanders, is that their antiestablishment urges are unlikely to be sated by Clinton. I recall that in New Hampshire exit polls were saying that many Sanders voters had been undecided whether to support him or Trump (and vice versa) right up to polling day.
Gabbard had been annoying the establishment any way by saying that as a veteran of the US armed forces she supported what Russia was doing to hit ISIS in Syria.
Her MSM interviews on the topic were straight up and refreshing on the topic.
Not expecting, but still wanting and not ruling it out.
The battle for Sanders was always going to be uphill.
Hillary will win the Dem nomination on Wednesday (NZT). The goal for Sanders now should be to get himself onto the ticket as VP nominee.
He probably would have more real influence by keeping his Senate seat rather than going VP. His Senate seat comes up for re-election in 2018.
” (Minister) Guy said he still believed the industry had a bright future. In the short term, prices would be lower for longer, but he pinned his hopes on free trade agreements and the world’s growing middle class.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/rural/297689/dairy-downturn-could-get-worse-lawyer
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ruralnews/audio/201791132/morning-rural-news-for-29-february-2016
Under the/their Neo lib agenda the middle class is shrinking and its meant to so the millionaire/billionaires can get even wealthier. Someone should tell Nathan Guy that if he didn’t already know.
And negotiate free trade agreements, not whatever the hell the TPPA is!
Fonterra’s growing debt is truly scary at the current 7.5 billion. Guy is telling the banks to be nice to farmers etc who are going to be on an even bigger losing end of reduced payouts. Being National and being the banks I hate to think what the quid pro quo is for the banks to return the favour to National!
if you read/listen to the links you will see/hear the banks are doing what banks do when debt becomes unserviceable irrespective of what deluded Ministers say
Wtf fonterra have 7.5b debt ! Which being a co-op means its members i.e farmers have this debt unless its another dodgy corporate structural deal which I cant see banks entering into without fallback onto hard assets…..dairy farms.
There is this myth that the middle class are A – OK – nope. The scary thing is that even bright, successful people in the US are on insecure hours and all that entails.
“Welcome to the “1099 economy”: The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind
Companies can hire and fire perma-lancers at will. Is it any wonder the middle class is vanishing before our eyes?”
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/29/the_sharing_economy_partner/
Fonterra just make me angry these days.
A decade of lost opportunity, huge costly mistakes, and dragging this country down.
how have they dragged the country down?
Well, couple of things.
– The botulism scandal. Massive process audit failure
– The Melamine scandal. Massive source control failure.
Both spectacularly damaging New Zealand’s future trade with China.
– The consistent push for volume over value. A multi-generational loss of opportunity for our economy.
– Almost total failure of leadership in environmental stewardship. Had to be dragged by the consumer kicking and screaming (in absence of government).
– The lack of strategy. Our largest multi-national in recent world history to be explicitly formed by the state, and then rapidly go backwards.
– The lack of substantial partnership with the state. Its minor partnerships with Massey Uni, which focus mostly on pastoral production, are a joke compared to the business and state partnerships we should have expected.
– The willful use of coal as preferred milk drying energy. Flying in the face of its entire global brand strategy.
– Going into completely unsustainable debt to achieve fuck-all. As Gaynor noted in the NZHerald, asset-to-debt ratios are far better in other New Zealand companies.
– Getting totally out-played in your home state by the Chinese.
Enough. I’m just getting tired thinking about these numpties.
Like supershity theyve blown many millions thinking they know best how to use SAP.
They often taken something that works bring in expensive consultants and proceed to screw it up.
Definitely the most inept management Ive seen in action in this land riding on dairy farmers backs.
And this…http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/spierings-pay-rise-corporate-arrogance/
thanks ad
Add the effective backdoor NZX listing which probably disqualifies it from being a co-op.
Methinks that the pro-TPP ranks are getting somewhat worried at the fact that people are starting to wise up about the implications of the TPP. I don’t usually read Kiwiblog but a TPP search brought up a line that caught my eye. This piece is in relation to the Upper Hutt Council voting to be TPP-free.
…did Farrar mean “remind”?
I refuse to provide the link to this poor quality rave, but I think it is time that David Farrar read the peer-reviewed Expert Paper #6
https://tpplegal.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/tpp-local-govt.pdf
“These “TPP Free Zones” are modeled on successful resistance to an earlier trade agreement, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which was defeated in 1998 thanks to a global grassroots campaign.” http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/tppfreezones.shtml
I note that the Upper Hutt City Council has a rates remissions and reduction policy for new businesses plus a fee waiver on construction.
http://biz.upperhuttcity.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Economic-development-stimulus-policy.pdf
I was under the impressions that householders also pay rates in Upper Hutt. I am sure that they don’t get rebates for building new homes either.
Well obviously their Council is run by communists, I hear they’re shipping in a large amount of grey military uniforms this week, then the week after they start building a wall..
The small business/contractor class – now a huge part of NZ society – are getting increasingly concerned about the TPP.
@ CV Under TPPA Pretty much ALL businesses should be worried. Including the farmers who it is supposedly for! They already have a product that mostly is costing more to produce than the sale price due to falling world prices. Soon they will start losing their farms and then lo and behold, corporates will start buying them up cheap, get share rights for voting and take over Fonterra. You will not be able to market them as NZ milk anymore or GM free or whatever the board uses to say it is a quality product from NZ! Anyway it will probably be packaged up into some sort of share that 0.00001 get billions in profits but the farmers do not have Fonterra picking up their milk anymore if supply is down. (This has already been advocated by the herald in one of their articles). Hmm so cows need to be milked twice daily but Fonterra decides to be more business friendly and in times of surplus not buy the milk at all. Well we can all see that would kill any farmer’s livelihood. Hip hip Hooray.
As for NZ companies most of them are so minuscule by world standards they will just be put out of business straight away. It is a bit like the death of the high street, how many local NZ owned businesses are still on the high streets or are they all off shore banks, franchises and so forth?
The public can’t afford to shop at high street because they can’t afford the parking so the council is actually directing public away from those shop owners to overseas owned malls filled with overseas franchises with free parking (the Westgate mall was also subsidised by the council on behalf of the rate payers). Apparently to be a small business in Westfield malls are a nightmare, equivalent of Countdown making everyone else pay due to being a monopoly.
Just more examples of our council and government giving out handouts and wrecking small, medium and hoping to wreck large scale business.
In Auckland we don’t even have a credible left person to vote for for Mayor! I mean Goff supports TPPA – he’ll be writing the corporate welfare checks and selling off the assets (or as good as he can get legally). The right are actually hoping for him to get in to do their work for them, that is why they have put in Palino to split the right vote and keep them going to Goff!
We actually do not have choice anymore. No disrespect for Penny Bright.
Auckland ratepayers, need someone in between Penny and Goff. There is the missing candidate to vote for!
Cunliffe or John Campbell for Mayor!
Save us from PPP and asset sales, kauri slashers and future oil slicks off Muriwai!
ATTENTION Pete George!
It appears that you have not published my comment on your blog – giving my side of this story Pete George?
(I looked for my comment on your blog and could not find it.
In my view, if you are going to post comments about me – basic fair play and natural justice is that I get a chance to reply and defend myself?)
I have made nothing up and consider your statement stating I have to be both offensive and defamatory.
The issue is whether a published City Vision Press Release supporting Phil Goff for Auckland Mayor constitutes their ‘endorsement’ albeit at this stage an ‘informal’ endorsement.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary definition of ‘endorsement’ – in my view I am correct.
Whether City Vision choose to ‘formally’ endorse Phil Goff for Auckland Mayor when he has come out publicly in support of the TPPA, road tolls, PPPs and the sale of Auckland Council assets (starting with the Remuera Golf Course) remains to be seen.
If City Vision choose to ‘formally’ endorse Phil Goff as Auckland Mayor when he clearly, in my view, supports those pro-corporate, pro-privatisation and pro-user charges positions – begs the question, do City Vision now support those same policies?
Yes or no?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Penny,
In my view, if you are going to post comments about me – basic fair play and natural justice is that I get a chance to reply and defend myself?
So are you going to add a comments section on your blog to allow those who you have posted about a right of reply?
So Auckland City Council have just wasted over ONE BILLION DOLLARS of ratepayers money on changing their IT systems – ONE BILLION DOLLARS!!!!! Mind boggling stuff – so why on EARTH should the ratepayers trust them with decisions involving the Unitary Plan? And this new panel talked about who are going to be making major decisions, is no doubt hand-picked by the National Government. How independent will they actually be, how much sway will developers have, and how will all the ratepayers who have properties which have risen in value hugely , feel about the decisions that this panel will make, and their impact on the same ratepayers’ properties?
The National Government set up the Super City so they, and NOT the ratepayers, could have more control over what happens in Auckland. If this panel threatens to do things that will affect people’s properties and their value, it could come back to bite the Nats in the behind! Labour wanted a Super City type arrangement too, but they did not set this one up, so they can just sit back and watch as people grow angry. It might pay for Labour, who also want intensification, to stay silent and let the blame fall on National!! It is National who are importing foreigners by the tens of thousands, if we retrained our own people who are unemployed, we wouldn’t need all this extra housing would we?
i think we could all agree that ‘rates’ are paid generally speaking by the tenants.. Rates are factored in to the rent payments, and rates on businesses are usually paid for by the lease holder.
So the one thing i am not worried about in all of this is that the ‘property owning’ and ‘property renting’ class has to pay rates. They will only have to pay rates on the one property they live in, and if that property is owned by their business, they will write the rates off as an business expense, something a tenant of a residential property can not.
Sadly tho, in Auckland the Council and the Wanna Be councilors of the future have given up all pretense of the idea of common goods and sensible growth promotion. the ones that will pay the bills to come are the people that live, rent and work in Auckland. And sadly, in absence of any policy or idea’s on how to generate ‘growth’ in the regions or the cities that are slowly but surely de-populate (mainly for lack of jobs and opportunities) nothing much is gonna change.
But one thing is for sure, the property owning class in Auckland will not stop voting for the National Party, not in a long time.
We also don’t need to ‘retrain’ people for the jobs that are there, we should just pay them adequately for it. Often times, ‘the lack of skill’ is really just a lack of payment, as they tell us all the time, in order to attract the right talent we have to pay more then peanuts. Its just the poor that need to be incentivised to go to work with cuts to benefits and really crappy paid jobs. 🙂
@Sabine – I’m a homeowner and have never voted National in my life!!!
apparently 65% of Kiwis are still homeowners so beating them up as National supporters all the time means it makes National seem more powerful and it makes the opposition parties think that that segment are not theirs!!
I know many a Labour and Green and Internet Mana voter that votes for those parties and owns property!!
@Sabine the other thing you should think about is that a big reason many people these days can’t get a home, is because their work contract is temporary or is a zero hour contract. Then the banks do not lend.
Property ownership should be looked at in a much wider context, low local wages and conditions, high property prices from increased demand from a massive migration push from the government and scrapping of previous immigration criteria, the massive cost of building materials much is more than OZ and USA (even though we produce much of the raw materials), and banking which means that those Kiwis who are in increasingly non permanent jobs or able to be fired at will without compensation, or on a zero contract will not meet lending criteria. Banks need migrants because as Kiwis start falling behind with low wages etc they can then sell the houses and farms easily due to increasing migrant demand.
Zoning and land in my opinion are issues being touted by the government as red herrings. Government have seized a lot of land, they own a lot of land but they refused to build on it affordable houses. Yep maybe they will bribe the Salvation army and the Maori party to lobby for them on these – but ultimately if those groups can’t see they are working with a government to sell state houses and give to Chinese and Oz developers (even if they get a concession for using their brand and good name). Don’t fall for it! Keep your principals and don’t fall for a PPP approach.
Now we have respected commentators blaming the boomers for the problem!
Nope NO 1 person to blame is National! Dirty politics split the people and the discourses so to confuse the issues and let them get away with it!
I did not speak about a home owner, i speak about the ‘property owning class’ which in my books is not the same.
The home owners own 1 house, maybe two, the other accumulate them like others buy socks or ties. And that ‘property owning class’ is not gonna vote for Mana or labour, maybe Green, and then the rest would be National/Act.
I also don’t make any comments about people outside of Auckland, as my comments makes quite clear.
“The property owning class in Auckland ……… should be a give away that I speak about a very specific group of people.
So please don’t take offense at a statement that never spoke about people like you.
hi sabine, while i kinda agree with the gist of your comment, i do think there are plenty of folk with property portfolios who do vote labour or left of labour.
perhaps it alleviates some of their guilt?
nope i think those that vote labour in general vote for it as they are National light, same principles as National to a large extend but less lethal for our Society and communities, and I say this as a Labour voter. And then you got those that will vote for Labour to keep them in the market absent a better choice, or simply because they still fill a vacuum that has not been filled by the Greens (and i don’t believe the Greens ever will), and a 3rd option of the left is yet not available – that voter would be me 🙂 and props a 25% of the electorate. 🙂
We need to really get our mind around that what Labour is today, essentially is the National voter from yesteryear, while the current National Party essentially is ACT minus Rodney – Privatise, small government, ownership society – you are on your fucking own, a libertarian philosphy hiding behind a conservative farming past, sell sell sell, drill baby drill.
But for the large Property Owner Class – homegrown and imported, i doubt anyone of these guys would vote for Labour, and frankly to be honest why would they – society be damned, but then they believe like Thatcher once said, there is no Society 🙂 , it would be against their financial interests.
I believe that in fact the poor should follow in the steps of the rich and vote with their purse and their bank accounts in mind. If they would, National would need to change its policies in order to be attractive. Instead of that many poor and dispossed vote against their own interests, lest someone accuses them of being a bludger, or being poor, or not having invested early enough in bootstraps.
have to largely agree with your analysis re labour being nat lite and there being a vacumn to the left of labour.
hopefully the connection with kim dotcom hasn’t been the death knell for mana. hone harawira is one of the few pollys saying the system is broken and needs to be changed.
unfortunately i know a few of the property class and the ones i know do vote labour. a quid each way, maybe.
i kinda don’t blame them as the way the game is played (write off taxes if you can show a loss on your rentals).
the rules will not change when the house is littered with landlords.
to me it is a sign of why we are screwed: the middle class wants it’s cake and eat it too.
maybe these are the champagne socialists i used to hear about.
frankly i never gave a flying fuck about the german. And I don’t think that it was the issue with Mana. full stop there.
I know people that have voted for Mana, the Mana representative for my neighbourhood was a lovely young fellow and i hope he is still with Mana and is not disheartened by the last election.
But I don’t think that Mana will manage to get to a 30 – 40% vote any time soon. And that is what is needed. I hope they will come back to parliament, cause I for one miss Hone.
And yes these are the champagne socialists, they will vote for an increase in minimum wage, why? Because their customers need money to spend or their businesses are dead. that type of thinking, and as I said that was the thinking of the conservatives of yesteryear.
Sadly, I don’t think anything is going to change, all I hope for is that we get to buy time, until such time that we as the left are more united, or that a party will form that can the unite the left. Until then, we the left are our own worst enemy.
I know someone with a property portfolio who voted Internet Mana. Just saying, property owners are a large and complicated group – Maori own land too and a wider group that you might expect and with more money than you think, want political change. To think the rich vote National and the poor vote Labour is very simplistic. Nationals great achievement is to actually colonise the poor and actually mimic Labour’s key messaging. By getting sports people tweeting to the vulnerable on election day – nice one (sarc) – got away with it too!
There is a seachange all around the western world against neoliberalism and people want real alternatives. Nat Lite with taxes from Labour was never going to satisfy. Nat Lite without taxes also I do not think will satisfy. Labour need to go back to their identity pre Rogernomics.
Just the thought of the Greens collaborating with National ran them down quite a few percentage points last poll.
As for Maori it has not worked out being friend of the Natz. And as Maori point out in the Waatea episode 4 they never did get the foreshore. Natz win again. They lose votes for Maori party, get to keep the foreshore and
seem to have Maori party on a very tight leash.
saveNZ
The Labour caucus has a habit of not listening to the wider community.
The Labour caucus was deaf about capital gains. That cost us 2 elections. Blaming Chinese for the housing shortage is a recent example of how to piss off a lot of people. (Labour is inclusive, blah, blah, blah.)
Will they ever learn? I don’t know.
Listening is a skill. It takes practice.
I actually agree that migration has a lot to do with the housing shortage and so do most Auckland’s! I’m not sure one ethnic group should be singled out. (without proper property statistics being kept (thanks National sarc. ). I mean property investment is an immigration category for F-sake!
I think under Labour immigration actually had stronger criteria like passing english tests and so forth!
I also think people are confused between refugees and migrants. I think we should take more refugees and less migrants! Migrants have a choice where to go and refugees don’t.
I also think capital gains is costing Labour and Greens a lot more votes than they think.
The combination of capital gains/longer retirement policy, dirty politics and smearing, divided Labour and divided Labour against potential coalition partners, lack of political cooperation with vote splitting, cost the election for Labour. It was a whole combination of factors that cost them.
If they had done a few tweaks they probably could have won. It was closer than most people realise.
Finally the screwup is getting some sunlight.
This is all down to Nact and rortney hides minions mark ford and his IT guy mark folley. You aint seen nothing yet jaffas.
+1 TC
Just a little rumour, the IT of Auckland Council is so incompetent they can not keep any decent staff AND a lot of external IT companies actually refuse to tender or do any significant work for them anymore. They are considered a joke in the industry.
Plus someone high up in a big 5 accountancy firm is having relations with someone else high up in the council so all their consultancy work is pretty much done by the same outfit for decades now and they did much of the recommendations which are crap!!
You will never hear about it, because they all pay golf with the media companies.
Dig deep into your pockets ratepayers – not only will the council IT not work and probably cost more than a billion – you will be paying for it for decades and if you rent, you will be paying more rent to pay for the rates!
Hide had deloittes in tow before the legislation was passed and having another SAP system was predetermined.
Auckland citys SAP would have scaled up and been fine but thats not making deloittes and cronies money like this clusterf$&k is…. Follow the money kids.
Sounds like par for the course.
+1 TC – follow the money folks!!!
Hope Norightturn and similar have some fun looking into this one…
Looking forward to seeing it mentioned on Waatea 5th Estate…
How to bankrupt NZ’s largest city council.
Maybe Auckland council are trying to do a Kaipara council so we can have our rates put up 30% to pay for some dimwits F-ups (in this case unworkable IT cash cow) who are never held to account!
+1 Hami.
ONE BILLION DOLLARS!!!!!
That would indeed be a very surprising amount to spend on an IT project. Where did you get that figure from?
There’s a Herald article somewhere, PM. As I recall it, the total cost of the council’s IT spend since the supercity switch is put at $1.2 billion. The claim that 1 billion was wasted is just one guy’s hyperbolic quote within the article. However, there does seem to be some wastage, duplication and overspend.
How much can truly be said to be waste is unclear.
And never will be as many have been paid off and shuffled away. Its the ongoing cost of the mess hide/ford/folley created thats the real painpoint as egos have to deflated prior to any fixes.
Egos like folley.
Sound like typical council incompetence to me.
No controls, no leadership, no accountability, no one giving a fuck.
Yep, same old National.
Actually BM it was F-uped before the super city but now under ‘centralised control’ by National and Act – it is even more of a F- up!
Centralised control is what makes these F-ups worse.
But the IT is truly F-uped even more.
So F-uped no firm wants to touch it. So F-uped no contractor wants to work there. So F-uped no competent IT staff at the council stay.
So F-up more than 1 billion will be wasted. This is known before the council spends the money.
I would not bother getting intel from the Herald – I think that is a given.
Why would Auckland council perform worse with centralization?, having one command structure has to be more efficient than 7 individual ones.
What is it about Auckland council that’s the problem, is it the people?, the culture?
What needs to change within Auckland council to make it work?
BM – another example Christchurch.
central control.
Counter to popular thought, central control does not work very well to get things done if the person in charge does not know what they are doing or you get people coming in and tinkering all the time for vanity or political reasons.
Change is hard enough without the above.
Funny enough democracy is a better way.
Not faux democracy in our councils and governments departments.
So, the problem is incompetent people not the amalgamation process.
How do you get rid of these incompetent people and replace them with skilled people that can move the council forward .?
BM – the problem is getting competent people to run extremely complex things is like finding a needle in a haystack!
An example of how centralised control can work is when Steve Jobs, who was brilliant, co created Apple, created NeXT and revitalised Pixar (when the shareholders got greedy and booted him out of Apple and then ran it into ground until it was 90 days from going out of business). He then took it back over and turned it into the world’s most valuable company. From a computer company to a phone company and wiped out massive corporations in the phone industry that did not see it coming because they themselves had incompetent and complacent managers and made bad decisions.
In general central control does not and can not work. It was a miracle that Steve Jobs got back Apple and turned it around. If it had been up to the greedy shareholders they would be out of business, the iPhone would never have happened.
Markets do NOT work. To put shares in perspective within 100 years only 2 companies have survived in the US stock market. GE and IBM.
Personally I find that astonishing! For all those people who go on about the ‘markets’ being best etc etc – rubbish – history shows most companies on the share market will go out of business within a lifetime.
Most banks would have gone out of business in the US but now the governments are giving them corporate welfare and bailing them out.
So I guess the new way for companies to survive is to force taxpayers to just pay for their mistakes no matter what and to stop progress of ideas. The US government should have at least nationalised the banks they bailed out and put a few people in Jail for fraud for what they did. Instead the US banks got a sweet deal and the only company they forced to nationalise was GM and they made a profit on it. Meanwhile millions of American’s lost their house and jobs and the banks got rich again and never paid back their loans – what a deal!
Why are the people putting up with this!
It is. Well AFTER you have done the integration. Haven’t you read any of the many studies that have been done about mergers in businesses and IT systems? I have, both during the MBA back in the 1980s, and ever since through the business press.
A simple dual merger between two business organisations will take 5 years to happen, will and will costs a lot more on everything except property and sometimes wages. Property (and payroll) for them often has immediate overlap synergies that aren’t going to happen for geographic authorities.
You’d have to be a business moron (or a business illiterate ACToid) to not expect increased costs during such a major 5-way merger + and additional 2 way merger for the rural areas and for them to be done in less than a decade. Unfortunately small business people are the absolute worst at figuring out issues in large organisations. The issues are exponential not linear during the scaling.
I disagree Iprent as things get more complex it becomes harder to get competent people to manage and the whole system can fail because of it. Often those those managers main competence is self marketing and they run the system into the ground while paying themselves big salaries, hiding bad news and patting themselves on the back.
To get a decision made, going through committee after committee who are not empowered to do anything and then just getting signatures at the end from senior managers who actually don’t have enough time or knowledge to know what is going on anyway.
You can not be innovative or manage decisions in a timely way with central control.
If you have a look at central control under National who are rushing very bad legalisation through and bullying anyone in their wake you see how central control really works.
The bigger the organisation and the more power it has, the worse central control is.
The chance of getting someone truly brilliant in their field who can advance and lead in a central controlled situation is close to zero.
Therefore de centralisation is the way to go. (with governance).
Well said save NZ
Central control is also very vulnerable to fraud and cronyism.
Read my comment.
What I was talking about is the problems of merging into large organisations.
How did this wind up in your mind as why I was advocating for centralization?
I do think that a large city integrated by it’s transport, sewerage, water and housing systems need a central organizing body – like the ARC. The problem in Auckland was that effectively each of the smaller cities had a veto over anything that was being done for the region. The result was that nothing got done on some basics like transport and coping with growth.
In practice what I would have liked to do was simply to give the ARC more teeth to override the cities and a direct taxation mechanism that was independent of city vetos. But leave the stuff outside of citywide decentralized.
@ BM – I’ll write it all up and send to te reo putake in a few days.
I’m an Auckland rate payer and don’t want to see more IT F-ups.
One of the issues is Auckland council are now so toxic nobody good will work with them.
No surprises they can’t replace Folley – who wants that F-uped mess on their record!! Instantly that suggests they will get a replacement incompetent CIO who does not even understand the enormous F-up and do more of the same.
P.s a clue is, should not take nearly 6 years post supercity and nearly a billion to NOT roll out integration.
Another clue is you should NOT customise SAP
And third clue is, even if council IT do eventually get it working by customising SAP, they (i.e. ratepayers) will have to keep paying mega bucks in testing and validating their customisation for all subsequent SAP software upgrades to keep the flawed IT system going.
Excellent, I look forward to reading it.
Oh no, SAP that’s got to be the shittest software ever created, no wonder nothing works.
I recommend googling phrases such is “SAP is a piece of fucking shit” and reading the tales of annoyance and misery being inflicted on to people having to use SAP.
It is not hyperbole.
It is Auckland’s worst kept secret.
Here you go, Psycho
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/super-city/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501110&objectid=11597160
Hmmm.
Dunno how fair the comparison with the ANZ/nat merger is. I would have thought councils are a bit more diverse in function, and merging 5 (or however many) would be more complex than merging two, anyway
@McFlock – they are not merged. That’t the point. Nothing to show for the billion. Ring the council yourself with a query in another district they then have to dispatch you through by telephone to the local council.
But that’s just the start of the scale of the problem….
Write it up, savenz.
Send something through to me at tereoputake@gmail.com and I’ll turn it in to a guest post. A few links would be good, and your thoughts on why it’s got to this stage, who’s responsible, and what the alternatives are. I’ll do the rest.
Good idea, plenty of folk out there with stories of largesse and incompetance from nacts supershity which they f’d up soo badly they didnt even achieve the prime objective…..flogging akls assets.
Hi Te Reo Putake – will do – will take a few days to get all the info from my source and I’ll send it to you.
Excellent! Looking forward to working with you.
Same goes for any other regulars. There are other authors here who will also be happy to help you publish a guest post. That’s how most of us started here, after all. There’s a ‘contribute’ button at the top of the page.
Most of the work would be in the back end.
All we know from the report is that they spent a lot of money, and someone else doing something else spent a bit less money.
There was one small instance of bureaucratic turf-war highlighted, but that was a piddling amount even in an annual cut of the money.
So how much is waste vs legitimate project administration is still up for grabs.
I can’t help thinking they should have just got LPrent in at the start. Problem solved 😉
lol
No thanks…
If you have a look back to 2010 when I was writing on the supershitty, you will find me making a lot of comments about the sheer scale of the IT issues.
My guesstimates then were that to get the systems integrated would take at least a decade and something way more 1 billion dollars. More in the order of 2 or even 3 billion dollars spread over a decade. That is simply the cost of integrating a close to a century of data (like the property and building info) into an even moderately seamless system. Especially when the data didn’t have a lot of commonality. It would also massively increase the staffing through that period to achieve the task.
So far my guesstimates appears to be on track – which is more than you could say for the puerile ACToids who advocated the seamless city and that idiot Rodney Hide who pushed that solution. The Royal Commission’s approach would have at least halved the IT (and everything else) transition costs because it would have left the existing bodies and software in place and just set up more integration.
The sheer complexity of building new systems or transferring data from one system to another to get a seamless data system when you have vast amounts of data is not something to be sneezed at. Especially when you have to keep running at least five old systems while you do it.
But in this case I suspect that reported value
is a complete and deliberate lie. It includes the normal operating costs
for the council and council owned operations. That in itself is something well more than $100 million per year.
Incidentally the bank comparison is complete bollocks made by someone who REALLY doesn’t understand the scope of the problems. Banks always have pretty symmetric and ordered data compared to the kind of amorphous data held by councils and governments. If you want a true comparison, just think about the composition of the data held by a council property management system including valuation data for rates and building permissions. It makes the data held by a bank on the same property look like a Mt Eden sized molehill next to a Mt Taranaki.
BTW: I don’t do this kind of work. It has nothing to do with exports.
I can’t agree with that. Transferring the data is not a problem, whether 1 record or 10 billion makes not much difference.
And testing the integrity of the data before go live is relatively simple as well.
The problem is SAP is a German tier one ERP designed for engineering companies, in which it works exceptionally well. Air NZ Engineering use it for years and it is wonderful. It is brilliant in process management and inventory control and so on. It is not good on all other features such as CRM and accounting functions.
Furthermore, when you install these systems they have limited ability to be configured differently, you need to change the organisations processes to fit the ERP you cannot change the software.
Look at Vector, a reasonably small organisation at the time, spent 160m on SAP, the CEO then had a heart attack and they ditched the whole thing.
They will spend another 1 billion on it and then ditch it. You cannot make these systems work outside a very narrow scope.
The problem with data is in the edge cases. Where that data has problems making it fall out of spec.
For a simple instance. Your new system requires that you have categories for something and you want to restrict the categories so that they are useful. But the old system allowed free-form at some stage or had a pile of strange categories. Someone has to go through and build a translation table.
No problem if you are shifting a few thousand records. A complete pain in the arse if you have several million (or a billion) because there will be old trash that never got made systematic. You either throw away information or you spend a long time fixing each set of oddball instances or any combination in between.
Now multiply that by 5 or 7.
Archive data is never simple to merge in large quantities.
LOL
There’s IT people around the world who’ve spent years just getting one system to work wishing that were so.
The article did not say that Mike Foley had been walked
Newcore will never realise the benefits stated, and is a massive failure to the tune of about $300m on its own
Come June this year, Dean Kimptons explanations and assurances will exposed. Again
Nothing is merged. Too big. Too complex
No reference architecture existed. Pointing to ANZ is a nonsense
So much for the (forced) Auckland ‘Supercity will give economies of scale’ argument?
So – how much has the Auckland ‘Supercity’ amalgamation cost, compared with how much was purportedly going to be saved?
In reality – seven democratically elected Councils (warts and all) were replaced with seven undemocratically selected Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs), which, in my view have become the mechanism for the corporate takeover of the Auckland region.
Please be reminded that the recommendation that all Auckland’s major trading and infrastructure activities should be undertaken by CCOs, came from the Labour Government appointed Auckland Royal Commissioners on Auckland Regional Governance.
Lest we forget?
First CCOs – then PPPs?
‘Commercialise, corporatise – PRIVATISE ….?)
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
(Who is the only Auckland Mayoral candidate – to my knowledge – who opposes both CCOs and PPPs).
That’s a good point, I worked on the Anz-Nat Bank merger. It took place about 5 years before the SuperCity so that would have made things cheaper for them too. I’m not sure how much new functionality was involved in that merger, but when you’ve already got computer systems in place and you’re mostly moving customers from one banking system to another its more straightforward than making brand spanking new systems that Auckland have also done.
I’m particularly intrigued about things like rates and property information databases, infrastructure management databases, even the air and water monitoring equipment.
Some of those things mightn’t talk well with others, which would definitely be a vote for “new system, please”…
Arc rates system with some tweaks wouldve done the job as it already held every akl property and i heard the rates managers of each council liked it having dealt with it.
The great minds meet and decided to…….write another one which was a shambles where various teams were whipped all day and night to not miss the dates for rates notices.
interesting
Thats the point maui, new systems were not required just choose who had the best fit in each area.
ACC had only just rolled out SAP, one the the most expensive solutions around. Put that aside as it as done and dusted so scaling it up and migrate others overs was a logical efficient path…..surprise deloittes said do another one !
Here you go, Psycho
Ah, thank you. So, as Te Reo Putake says, the billion dollars is the total IT spend since the merger, and the proportion of it that could be characterised as “waste” is up for grabs, unless you’re the type that considers IT spend a waste in principle.
You’d have to be a business moron (or a business illiterate ACToid) to not expect increased costs during such a major 5-way merger + and additional 2 way merger for the rural areas and for them to be done in less than a decade.
Indeed. If there’s someone out there who could merge eight councils’ IT systems and NOT take a decade and enormous sums of money to to do it, I’d like to meet this living demigod.
From the NZ Herald this morning!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11597613
Oh dear, the nathives are getting restless, there be stirrings in the grass in Clutha Southland
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/opinion/77321856/unexplained-departure-of-barclay-staffer-troubling
Looks like boy wonder might have blotted his copy-book.
The Editor of the Southland Times isn’t holding back,
The question must now be asked whether Barclay is in serious strife within his party electorate and whether this in turn represents broader community dissatisfaction.
Yeah, that camp’s usually a very tight ship, so any wisp of smoke probably indicates a raging inferno behind the door.
More to come on this by the look
I still wonder why English supported this young nobody as his replacement. There would have been many smarter choices. A late 30 something dairy farmer type well known for his good deeds in the Southland community etc. would have been far better than this young corporate hack.
Didn’t he work for English and a couple of other nat bigwigs before peddling cigarettes?
That would be your answer.
That, and the usual nat contempt for electorates when selecting candidates for “safe” seats.
I’d say they’re grooming him for bigger things than a safe rural seat, but they’re starting him there because that’s the only place he’d get elected.
Well, he’s a local boy too. Daddy helped him in his campaign meetings apparently.
It’s interesting – the labourites I know get “groomed” by running a few campaigns in safe national seats. Do that a few times, prove yourself, keep your nose clean, you get rewarded.
the nats seem to have a very different culture to “grooming”.
And I think Mummy did his interviews if my reading of the local giveaway was correct.
He got it over a long list of very capable candidates, both from within the local party organisation, and outside.
One of the unsuccessfull candidates was Simon Flood, ex Meril Lynch and Lion Global (Singapore) http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=106833747&privcapId=2421113
Simon is a very capable and personable guy who would have been instant cabinet material, he’d run rings around most of the current ministers, but they passed him by.
“Daddy” must have donated a small fortune to the Nat Party campaign machine.
HIs family are pretty small beer, owned the Dipton store and mail run. Appears to be Joyce’s protege, he was down here a while ago going around the electorate with him. Hardly heard a thing from wonder boy since, till this.
Got the picture. I left out the question mark at the end of my comment. Doesn’t look like Daddy could afford a big donation so it must be something else. Looks like millsy is right. Imagine the electorate is a bit of a sleepy hollow, and the neo liberalists stormed in and got their ‘boy’ over the line?
Clutha Southland is not a “sleepy hollow”; but English somehow convinced his loyal electorate supporters to push Barclay over the line, using up a whole lot of his own local political capital to do so.
Not sure it was just Bill, story I heard was that it was “Wellington” and locals toed the line.
The electorate re-arrangement that Bill pushed hard for was for Queenstown to become part of Clutha Southland, we used to be part of Waitaki and had David Parker as MP for a while. Queenstown could easily go to a good Labour or Green candidate that understands the local area
Probably just gave Slater a few thousand to get him through. Worked a treat with Mark Mitchell. Wonderful investment, a few thousand invested and soon you are on a few hundred thousand as an MP.
No wonder Natz thinks free markets work!
Barclay’s commitment to free market neo liberalism would be total while the more traditionally conservative types are usually more flexible about that sort of thing.
So, under the electoral act on the flag referendum, is it illegal once voting has commenced, to promote the flag preferences of Polititions, Celebrities, Sports greats or anyone, while the vote is still going on for a while, In the Media or Print or anywhere
Just asking, Anyone ? We don’t want any Dirty Tricks do we.
@ rod – well morally (and possibly legally), preferential promotion of the flag(s) shouldn’t occur anywhere during the voting period.
However, we are talking about NatzKey here, a bunch of morally compromised, racketeering swindlers, likely to give the one finger salute to the legalities of the point you raise! They thrive on dirty politics!
Thank you Mary for your input but would still like to know what the Electoral Commission thinks about the legalities of this point.
John Key, thy name is hubris.
Quote: People who voted against changing the flag to damage Key’s popularity would ” wake up in a few months’ time and realise what a terrible mistake they’ve made, because it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference to me”, he said. Quote end.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/77360618/john-key-nz-flag-referendum-last-chance-for-change-until-republic-discussion
I am voting against this dishrag simply because if we don’t have money to feed the kids, to house the homeless, to heal the sick, and to provide mental health care to ChCH and Canterbury, then for sure we can wait with a new dishrag until we become a republic you useless arrogant ponytail puller.
People who voted against changing the flag to damage Key’s popularity would ” wake up in a few months’ time and realise what a terrible mistake they’ve made, because it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference to me”,
That’s a fairly pathetic line.
Maybe their internal polling is not giving them what they want. Who knows, but for him to make it about himself is pretty pathetic. Me ME ME ME ME gimme a Ponytail.!!!!!!!
But maybe just maybe people are actually using this Flag debacle Mess that he himself has created as an opportunity to – very respectfully of course – show him where he can shove is flag.
Surely it can’t be that people a. think the money could be better spend, b. think that maybe we ditch the queen first, or c. the flag is butt ugly.
I mean if it would be Hypnoflag i would of course be voting for it. 🙂
All glory to the Hypnoflag!
Shades of school prefect not being obeyed. Bullshitting that it doesn’t care. Wah wah wah. Then foretelling a “terrible” mistake in the disobeying. No……not heavily invested at all. Disgusting little creep of a non-man.
Based on your logic Sabine there will never be a right time, 28m is a drop in the ocean re governments budget, likewise most of it is going to nzpost ( a government SOE), hope your futile and infantile protest makes you feel better
we all have our reasons, and feeding the kids, housing the homeless, providing mental health care to those that need it, providing housing for those that needed – and before they kill someone, is at a higher priority for me then even my beloved hypno flag. We all must make amends.
You get to vote according to your conscience. That my dear is called democracy.
“28m is a drop in the ocean re governments budget,”
It’s not for a government that is refusing to feed the dependent elderly properly because of budgetary reasons. If National were not cutting services all over the place, the flag might not seem like a heinous waste of resources. But they are and it does.
” it won’t make a blind bit of difference to me..” Oh I don’t think so sir, while the masses toil away, it was only you who shoved this tea towel down our throats, throwing our hard earned money at it, whilst ignoring the things that do make a difference to us.
It was only ever you it made a difference to, Mr.Key, so don’t even dream that you can pull that one.hmmffffff
Key “because it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference to me”
Well that sums Key up once and for all
He makes out it is a big deal, hence all of his efforts on it, but then reveals completely his emptiness and shallow mindsoul.
Key really genuinely does not care about being PM – he just admitted it
Shameful man
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11510969#sthash.05f22JAJ.dpuf
This for the benefit of all the paid right wing trolls who lurk among the Standards posters.
Your snapped.
[Moved to “Open Mike” from the ‘Charter Schools’ post because flag stuff has got nothing to do with charter schools] – Bill
And another one to clinch the deal and drive home just who and what the neo liberal wretch is all about.
http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-on-democracy#sthash.05f22JAJ.dpuf
View first the above, then grab your popcorn and sit back and view John Pilger’s excellent documentary.
Enjoy.
And btw…this can also be viewed on you tube if you don’t like a small screen – as can all of Pilgers documentary’s.
It really is…. the end of all argument when it comes to the neo liberal wretch and anything he/she says and their motives behind the things they do.
It is the end game for them. All else becomes crystal clear when viewed through these lens.
hard to enjoy…and John Pilger’s equanimity is beyond measure…should be compulsory viewing.
Interesting links – one to Tony Benn’s impassioned speech, from an old (now dead March 2014) Labourite. The range of comments shows how hard it is to penetrate whatever barriers people have in their minds.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW41yA1bRUs
Also my comment could apply to Tony’s son Hilary Benn who crossed the floor from Labour to vote for airstrikes in Syria. Quite a warmonger in this location.
(http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/03/syria-labour-mps-recriminations-vote-airstrikes-benn-livingstone
Another thought provoking thinker Oliver James author of Affluenza.
Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (2001, revised in 2005, 2014). These works define affluenza as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.
wikipedia –
In 2007, British psychologist Oliver James asserted that there was a correlation between the increasing nature of affluenza and the resulting increase in material inequality: the more unequal a society, the greater the unhappiness of its citizens.[5] Referring to Vance Packard’s thesis The Hidden Persuaders on the manipulative methods used by the advertising industry, James related the stimulation of artificial needs to the rise in affluenza….
In a graph created from multiple data sources, James plotted “Prevalence of any emotional distress” and “Income inequality,” attempting to show that English-speaking nations have nearly twice as much emotional distress as mainland Europe and Japan: 21.6 percent vs 11.5 percent.[
Oliver James very outspoken in 2009 criticising government and financial direction.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzI9wL9aCfE
Oliver James on Welfare Reform.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM7vgWaghb4
BBC2 doco on affluence
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7EOzDugoN0
BBC2 on 1929 Crash
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXNziew6C9A
CNBC on 2008 Crash
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFF59fbf1YM
And an attempt to look behind it all bringing forward some interesting facts and suppositions.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3bn24qdZ7c
Here is an excellent doco (From 2012 but still very current) about AIG the All Blacks sponsor. It has given me some impetus to research more on the connection between AIG and John Key, the flag and their appetite for the TPPA. So watch this space!
Here is an article I wrote about the kind of power AIG wields in NZ politics and I suspect it’s way worse than that. Because according to this doco in the words of the guy who build AIG they were happily using the US government to do their dirty work for them.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbJQ96KIh_Y
It has given me some impetus to research more on the connection between AIG and John Key, the flag and their appetite for the TPPA.
$10 says you find one. Which, of course, is not the same thing as saying there is one.
Ev, did you hear Donald Trump is a 911 sceptic (is that the right term?). And they said he was crazy.
How do Radio NZ define ‘left’ and ‘right’?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/297735/'no-dirty-politics-in-my-campaign‘
“He becomes the third centre-right candidate, alongside one-time National Party candidate Mark Thomas and businesswoman Victoria Crone, who is backed by Auckland National Party figures.”
Seems that Radio NZ aren’t putting ‘Independent’ Auckland Mayoral candidate Phil Goff (currently Labour MP for Mt Roskill) in the ‘centre-right’ category?
(The National Business Review -NBR – do.)
But Phil Goff supports the TPPA, road tolls, PPPs and the sale of Auckland Council assets, starting with the Remuera Golf Course?
So upon what definition of ‘left’ / ‘right’ are Radio NZ relying?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
(Who does NOT support the TPPA, road tolls, PPPs or the sale of Auckland Council assets starting with the Remuera Golf Course.)
I imagine they do it on the basis of whether or not they’re a climate change denier, Penny. Phil’s not. How about you?
But Phil Goff supports the TPPA, road tolls, PPPs and the sale of Auckland Council assets, starting with the Remuera Golf Course?
So – in my view – that clearly puts Phil Goff in the same pro-corporate camp
as Victoria Crone, Mark Thomas and John Palino.
Don’t you agree te reo putake?
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
I agree you like avoiding questions, Penny. Phil, on the hand, is open and honest, even when he’s in the minority. And he pays his rates, so he’s not bludging off his neighbours. Are you sure you’re not just a little bit centre-right yourself? You act like you are.
Why wouldn’t you sell the Remuera golf course.
Why are you advocating subsidising the rich.
So upon what definition of ‘left’ / ‘right’ are Radio NZ relying?
What did they say when you asked them?
I see minimum wage is going up by 50c… while that’s better than the expected 25c, with rents and house prices heading out of control, and things like the hospital sector being told to save $138~ million, people on minimum wages will probably find that money swallowed up (assuming actually getting 40 hours a week, aka zero hour contracts, that’s $20 a week before tax)
National is positioning for an early election.
Hmm. How early?
I keep thinking of the flag vote. If we vote the keep it, Key will go to the country.
You might well be correct, CV. He just needs a decent reason to call one. If the economy tanks or he loses the support of the maori party or if those two pandas turn up, it’s on.
There’s another elephant coming later this year. Two pandas and an elephant. Sure winner. They can arrange to have a crisis that will miraculously disappear the day after the election. Mind you Muldoon tried it in 1984. Not only didn’t it work but it turned out there was a crisis – of his own making.
The reason will be because the banks are about to implode with the dairy farm land value crash followed by the Auckland property market.
The noxious John Palino has been looking in his “forward view mirror”. Maybe he’s spotted the 1,912 Auckland City staff who now “earn” more than $100k p.a.
When Key was asked for a comment on Palino, he opened his mouth, waited a few seconds then said that it might be a mistake to comment other than he would leave it to the Auckland voters. (Very kind of him?)
‘Corbyn forges new European left alliance to oppose Cameron’s EU stance’
https://www.rt.com/uk/333880-corbyn-european-left-alliance/
“UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to form an international alliance with left anti-austerity parties in the European Parliament to curtail some parts of David Cameron’s renegotiations with Brussels after the in-out referendum.
Corbyn told The Independent on Sunday that a socialist alliance in the European Parliament would embrace Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos to push for “far-reaching progressive reform” across the EU after Britain’s in-out referendum scheduled for June 23.
“To make those changes we need to be at the heart of an alliance for change with left-of-center and progressive parties and movements across Europe,” he said.
“Labour is making allies for real reform in Europe with the Party of European Socialists and other European parties across the broad left, while the Tories are isolating themselves.”….