Trump keeps setting himself up to be the fall dude, this time for Amazon.
According to Dave Kranzler and others Amazon is using an accounting trick to hide losses and despite it’s mammoth size and low cost business model may turn into another Enron. Hard to believe.
In any case the P/E ratio is so freakin high it has to fall precipitously when Mr Market snaps out of the mania phase and back to depression.
I think we are seeing the dying gasps of the US now which is actually kind of scary.
As an empire begins to fall it will no doubt become more aggressive to save itself. Also the vacuum will be filled by either Russia or China both of which have more draconian laws than the US. Say what you will about the US but at least the have some rudimentary laws regarding freedom of speech and association.
I think we are seeing the dying gasps of the US now which is actually kind of scary.
According to this bloke, the world’s first rich state failure is certainly on the cards.
. Why? When we take a hard look at US collapse, we see a number of social pathologies on the rise. Not just any kind. Not even troubling, worrying, and dangerous ones. But strange and bizarre ones. Unique ones. Singular and gruesomely weird ones I’ve never really seen before, and outside of a dystopia written by Dickens and Orwell, nor have you, and neither has history. They suggest that whatever “numbers” we use to represent decline — shrinking real incomes, inequality, and so on —we are in fact grossly underestimating what pundits call the “human toll”, but which sensible human beings like you and I should simply think of as the overwhelming despair, rage, and anxiety of living in a collapsing society.
This bloke predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Johan Galtung, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated sociologist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, warned that US global power will collapse under the Donald Trump administration.
The Norwegian professor at the University of Hawaii and Transcend Peace University is recognized as the ‘founding father’ of peace and conflict studies as a scientific discipline. He has made numerous accurate predictions of major world events, most notably the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
Back in 2000, Galtung first set out his prediction that the “US empire” would collapse within 25 years.
Galtung has also accurately predicted the 1978 Iranian revolution; the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 in China; the economic crises of 1987, 2008 and 2011; and even the 9/11 attacks—among other events, according to the late Dietrich Fischer, academic director of the European University Center for Peace Studies.
Back in 2000, Galtung first set out his prediction that the “US empire” would collapse within 25 years. After the election of President Bush, though, he revised that forecast five years forward because, he argued, Bush’s policies of extreme militarism would be an accelerant.
As an empire begins to fall it will no doubt become more aggressive to save itself. Also the vacuum will be filled by either Russia or China both of which have more draconian laws than the US.
Yep which is why we need to be building up our defence systems and declaring ourselves neutral rather than picking sides. When empires collapse the small nations that chose against the replacement find themselves on the out.
Russia certainly won’t supplant the US. Basic factors against Russia are less than 50% of the population of the US, an economy only 20% the size of the US, too many “enemies”.
If any nation is to supplant the US it will be China. With 1.3 billion people and an economy that will be the size of the US by 2020 – 2025.
However outside of all out war, nations do not suddenly collapse. So the US influence will be profound for decades to come, especially on the defence and security fronts.
What then is the chance of war at scale that would fundamentally disrupt the power balance among the great powers?
I would say pretty low. They are all nuclear states, and thus will go to great lengths to avoid direct an actual shooting military confrontation. Of course issues like the recent poisoning will occur, but something like that will not precipitate war.
A sudden collapse, say any time before 2030, could only occur through war. Only war (and a global war at that) is disruptive enough to cause a collapse. Otherwise nations just go through slow decline.
Use the example of Russia on how difficult it is for great powers to actually collapse. Even with the dramatic breakup of the Soviet Union, with only half the population of the United States, and an economy only 20% the size, Russia remains a hugely important nation able to do a lot of things at the global level.
It is hugely unlikely that Trump can do anything to the United States as dramatic as the breakup of the Soviet Union. How could he?
In fact at the moment the US is the fastest growing large western nation, and has been for the last 3 years. Even if Trump is not the beneficiary of that, or does not know how to use it, it will have an impact over time.
So the United States is going to be hugely influential for many decades to come. In the Asia Pacific, it will either be the No1 or No 2 ranking power.
A sudden collapse, say any time before 2030, could only occur through war.
Bollocks.
Don’t recall a war being involved when the USSR collapsed. Just failed internal dynamics – same as what’s happening in the US.
It is hugely unlikely that Trump can do anything to the United States as dramatic as the breakup of the Soviet Union. How could he?
The Trump Administration is maintaining or possibly accelerating the collapse by internal dynamics by increasing the stressors on the people.
In fact at the moment the US is the fastest growing large western nation, and has been for the last 3 years.
Is it really growing or does it just have an overly-inflated share-market?
But most buyers of shares are hoping to make money not so much from dividends but from buying and selling shares at the right time as their prices go up and down so that they make a profit. Nearly two-thirds of share income comes from price increases, less than one third from dividends.
The reduced share prices may merely mean that the company has less collateral for raising loans – but then large companies generally finance real investment by ploughing back their profits, not by borrowing. The idea that shareholders are enabling productive investment, and in so doing have some claim to a share of the returns, is now largely myth.
but shareholding is now largely decoupled from real investment and amounts to a game in which shareholders compete for gains without having contributed to real investment
Instead of taking the legitimacy of absentee shareholding for granted, we should recognise it for what it is: a means by which uncommitted owners can benefit from the contributions of committed, dependent employees.
The idea of a ‘popular capitalism’, touted at the time of Margaret Thatcher’s wave of privatisations in the 1980s, in which everyone would own shares, predictably did not materialise. Most of the shares from the privatisation of nationalised industries that the public were allowed to buy were quickly sold on to large institutional ‘investors’ in order to make quick gains. So the privatisations of the 1980s did not produce popular capitalism, though it has to be said that this one-off source of unearned income was popular at the time.
That’s all from Why we can’t afford the rich.
The author uses these points to show that a lot of ‘growth’ in developed countries is more about asset price growth than actual development. Get rid of that inflation and there’s no growth more often than not.
Official figures suggest a lot less:
” The U.S. Treasury expects to borrow $955 billion this fiscal year, according to documents released Wednesday. It’s the highest amount of borrowing in six years, and a big jump from the $519 billion the federal government borrowed last year.”
If you compare Debt to GDP the picture does change significantly
Here are the numbers https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287
In Kennedys first year it was 52%. It dropped fairly steadily to bottom out at 31% in 1974 and 1979. Neither was a great year economically. Then it rose relatively slowly to reach 67% in George W’s last year, 2008. The really spectacular growth was in the Obama years when it rose to 105% in his last year of 2016.
Under Trump it has been fairly steady
You quote the number of $300 billion for a week. That figure may be the debt issues but I do not believe it accounts for redemptions. It is the net figure that is relevant and it shouldn’t be calculated over a period as short as a week.
I quite agree. I am merely pointing out that a comparison of a week under Trump to the total under Kennedy is a bit misleading, particularly when it is in nominal terms and doesn’t look like a net figure for the change in debt.
Have you ever considered writing this same statement with Key instead of Obama? If you considered doing so did you actually carry it out? Or did you perhaps blame Key and the National Government as being personally responsible for increased New Zealand National Debt?
Well Key is known for saying before the GFC, that we had ‘too little debt’.
The country he was thinking off was the celtic Tiger – Ireland.
We know how that turned out
Cullen knew that in a boom, a surplus was likely to be a mirage, so that was a good time to reduce debt- which he did.
Tell us how much the debt has been payed down recently -last 4 years -by Key and English ?
Interesting PoV and it depends on what you mean by “respect”.
People’s beliefs, views, opinions, etc., are based on and underpinned by their values and value systems and, as such, are expressions of who these people are. As the saying goes, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”, which, to me, means that people can agree to disagree and accept, tolerate, and respect others for what and who they are, and say, and that includes religious beliefs. Why do some people feel they must criticise and reject the beliefs of others and even heap scorn and ridicule them in the process?
People feel this way because of all the gross harm religion causes, organises, hides, and excuses.
The relentless lies, the targeting of children, the targeting of grief. The moralising.
From a pragmatic perspective, “Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily let go;
So religion enthralls generation after generation.”
It’s good to live in a country where the religious are not allowed to pull our fingernails out or burn us to death any more. Notice how cloying and unctuous they’ve become?
Genesis 22: God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to prove his loyalty. A messenger from God stops Abraham at the last minute, saying “now I know you fear God.”
The whole monotheistic thing seems pretty status conscious to me.
Still, Jesus did disappear on Friday and turn up looking a lot worse for wear on Monday, maybe he just went Glasto or something cos I sure looked like death warmed up on the Monday after that as well.
The compilation of the bible by committee, with lots of snark and silliness.
Back to the Bible: lots of Christian fic out there. By the time you got to a copy of a copy of a retelling of a conflation it was getting hard to figure out what had been an episode of the show and what was someone’s AU RPF.
The centuries passed. Much in this manner:
First century: Christ and the apostles are alive. People who knew Christ and the apostles are alive.
Second century: People who knew people who knew Christ and the apostles are alive.
Third century: People who knew people who knew people who knew Christ and the apostles are alive.
Basically after Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire the whole outfit sold out to accommodate paganism. Christ was based on the most attractive of the ancient Gods, a sensual and perky young Apollo, with the dual sexuality of the pagan Gods taken care of by elevating Isis to the status of number one mother Goddess and re-branding her as Mary.
Catholicism is basically the Pagan state religion of the Roman Empire re-worked for monotheism and all was well and good in the Empire.
Actually, that is not entirely true. The central revolutionary idea of Christ survived. The idea that all people are equal and we shall be judged by God not on how many bulls we can afford to sacrifice but on how good a life we have lived is so central to the way we see the world that it beggars belief that no one thought of it before Christ, but that was his big idea. People thronged to Christianity because it offered hope. The hope of salvation no matter what your station in life by simply living a good and holy life. No longer were the rich specially favoured by the Gods in the afterlife. In fact, if anything the opposite was true. The centrality of this idea still underpins our society and culture, which is why even though a majority say we do not believe in God, we are still a “Christian” culture because we all still believe in the big idea of Jesus – even if we don’t realise it.
And as for the Protestants… Well, what would they know? Marin Luther was 1500 years removed from the time of Christ and his scatological obsessions were very… Teutonic.
What beggars belief is that there are still intelligent and educated people today who believe in the god and myths of ancient simpletons.
As for the dropping materialism and valuing everybody thing, that is obviously thousands of years older with it central to what the Buddha taught and also in the traditions that he drew from. Going much further than Jesus, the Buddha held that ALL life had dignity and was worthy of compassion. If it hadn’t been for anthropocentrism of Christianity we would most probably be far less up the environment shit creek that we are.
I think it proves they aren’t particularly intelligent. They just don’t have the intellectual capacity to challenge their belief in god or whatever.
But to be fair though, to stand apart from the whole community that one depends on for their whole existence, which has some god type belief system, would take some courage and strength.
It has to be anthropocentric because as a human being everything you know happens in your brain. What is outside you is known to you only through your own human brain. “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Rom%2012.1-2
Bollocks. The Buddha was able to have and teach compassion for all things while the Christ it would seem only people.
In traditional Australian Aboriginal society each person has an animal totem and a responsibility to be a guardian of that species. Rituals need to be performed at the correct time and place to ensure the healthy continuance of their totem. They see ancestors and their Dreamtime actions in environmental objects.
Christianity however holds that God gave humans Dominion over all things and that ‘he’ created the environment for people. Worse still, this environment is not even the real thing but rather just a testing ground of worthiness for the eternal life to come. .
No longer were the rich specially favoured by the Gods in the afterlife. In fact, if anything the opposite was true. The centrality of this idea still underpins our society and culture
Really?
Have you noticed how our socio-economic system is set up to have us worship the rich?
“…Catholicism is basically the Pagan state religion of the Roman Empire re-worked for monotheism and all was well and good in the Empire….”
In case anyone is wondering how this may be, the esteem that Catholics have for their saints (and the many festivals they celebrate for them) is a big clue.
That’s pretty uncivil of her. She should have died, otherwise how can Mrs May be expected to succeed in selling the idea that it was novichok that was used against her and her dad.
true dat mikesh
Lets say she will no doubt wonder what the hell has happened to her and will be apprised of her circumstances
Great news for her family in Russia
The cousin did a long interview with Russia BBC
expressing her hope for a miracle
And a miracle it will be indeed
Mirzayanov and other chemists says no one can survive novichok
Chemists are not medical professionals and have no idea what dose was delivered, though, so their reckons can be discounted. Not that that will stop you.
I note that the Kremlin’s lies have changed from “it doesn’t exist” to “it’s far too deadly to be the nerve agent used in this case.”
The important question is what dose was absorbed and we will never know the answer to that; at best we’ll have a guess. Has the structure/identity of the poison been independently confirmed and verified yet?
Not all chemists are the same; medicinal chemists, for example, generally have a very good idea (as in: knowledge & understanding) of the biological activity, mechanism of action, and dose-potency of the biologically-active compounds they design & synthesise and often test as well.
Mirzayanov was the chemist who worked on novichok and later emigrated to America, taking his knowledge of the nerve agent with him, thus giving the lie to Jacinda’s claim that novichok could only have been produced in Russia.
It’s not a “Kremlin line”. That Mirzayanov worked on novichok, and later emigrated to the States, are statements of fact.
Jacinda, rather than accuse Russia directly, took the more cautious line and said that only Russia makes the stuff, a statement which has as many holes as (if you will excuse the cliche) Swiss cheese.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has said that Russia has never had a nerve agent called “Novichok,” saying that those who say otherwise do not have full information on the issue.
Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok, which the UK has said was used to poison ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, is not part of an international ban on chemical weapons, the head of a Russian government agency has said.
All I have said is that Mirzayanov worked on novichok and later emigrated to the States. I have no idea whether or not the Russians actually succeeded in their endeavours to produce the stuff.
The Russians don’t need an “official line” as you call it. The onus is on Mrs May to prove them guilty, which she has so far failed to do. The Russians are not required to prove their innocence. A simple denial from them that they were involved in the Salisbury incident is all that is required.
I chuckled at the former trade ministef and now shadow foreign minister getting uppity at Ardern over Russia cos I have a vague recollection when others invoked sanctions on Russia Key still wanted to send our milk?
The thing which goes unrecognized is the degree to which the environment has changed.
Pre-1991, Russian activity was mostly linked to embassies in some fashion. There were not migrant oligarchs or investors in any quantity, much less the troll or hacker groups.
Oligarchs – or businessmen or investors as they describe themselves, are worthy of some scrutiny. Most were active prior to 1991, and if they acquired significant wealth subsequent to the demise of the soviet state, they rarely did so by productive conventional enterprise.
Like the profiteers of Rogergnomics they generally benefitted in some fashion from the acquisition of public property at significantly less than its real value. They have more in common with organized crime than conventional businesses do, and some may be used to manage any of the intelligence activities once centred around the embassies.
The expulsion exclusively of embassy staff suggests a lack of attention to other kinds of operatives.
In 1994, Mirzayanov says, Russia sent Syria up to 700 kilograms of sarin precursors. In fact, Russia helped Syria create the heart of its chemical weapons program, the euphemistically titled Syrian Center of Environmental Protection Problems.
Better be careful Francesca: you might undermine some of the other lines you’ve been running.
“During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein’s ambition and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by [Ahmad] Chalabi and his allies—almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.”
A lot of equipment, including laboratory hoods capable of working with chemical warfare agents (CA) and vacuum pumps, were sent from GosNIIOKhT via the Air Force base in Chkalovskaya, in the suburbs of Moscow. Canisters with DCAMPA were among the equipment sent to Syria.
That was before Putin’s time as leader. I’m pretty sure Putin, since taking office, would have dissuaded Assad from using chemical weapons, if only on tactical grounds.
The Intercept has a good article on Bolton and his interactions with the OPCW
The US certainly has persuasive methods
.Lets hope the current OPCW is as ballsy as Bustani was
Nauert , US State Department spokesperson gives a clue into how EU states were made rapidly compliant after original intransigence
“Our Deputy Secretary Sullivan, Assistant Secretary Wess Mitchell, and many others in the building across the interagency process have worked tirelessly over the past three weeks to achieve this unprecedented level of cooperation and also coordination. The end result – 151 Russian intelligence personnel sent home to Moscow ”
It seems strange that, before the OPCW have investigated and filed a report, and before other investigations have been completed, that Mrs May should go off half cocked making unsupported accusations. No wonder Lavlov treated her with richly deserved contempt.
I’d have thought Mrs May would have had more sense, but I guess she had to act before the propaganda value of it all went stale.
No, it doesn’t seem strange at all, since she has seen a lot more of the evidence, whereas you will never see any of the evidence, because there will never be a trial, because the Kremlin will see to it that anyone charged is not extradited, just like Andrey Lugovoy.
In the vanishingly unlikely event that the Kremlin thug who perpetrated this crime is ever arrested and charged, you won’t see any of the evidence then either, because you won’t be on the jury. Happily for you, that means you will never have to confront the facts at all.
Since she has not revealed any evidence we can be pretty sure your claim has originated from an “interview of your typewriter”. But she should in any case have waited till all the evidence was in. However as I said earlier she probably felt she needed to obtain maximum propaganda from the event.
Presumably you think that making unsupported accusations is OK providing they are made outside a courtroom.
That’s a lovely impression of a young Earth creationist you’re doing. Teach the controversy. The science isn’t settled.
In fact there’s plenty of evidence. Motive, means and opportunity have all been established, the nature of the poison used, and the Kremlin’s ever-shifting campaign of doubt.
Also, releasing evidence is the role of the British Police, should they choose to do so. You may want to brush up on the separation of powers if you want your doubt stories to have some fleeting relationship with reality.
It doesn’t matter whose job it is to release evidence, Mrs May has provided no evidence to support her claims so those claims should not have been made. All she has said to the house is that is “very likely” to have been the Russians. This of course is euphemism for “we don’t really know who did it but we think it may have been those naughty Russians”. I don’t think she has even claimed to actually have any undisclosed evidence. All she has said in support is that it must have been the Russians because they are the only source – a statement which has more holes than Swiss cheese.
This is one writer’s comment, which may be of interest. It expresses no opinion as whether or not Russia is guilty, but looks at the House of Commons’ reaction to Jeremy Corbyn’s questioning of Theresa May’s opinion on the matter. You will recall that he was shouted down by the government members and by some members of his own party.
“And that makes it a blood chilling experience for anyone hoping for some form of rational, measured discussion, to put matters in their proper perspective.
No such human qualities were on display in this witches cauldron of vitriolic accusation and barely hidden call for blood. The British Houses of Parliament.
It sends a shiver down the spine of all sentient human beings when they realize that what is on show is nothing more or nothing less – than the denial of the right to an opinion. That any mortal who dares to ask a logical question is shouted down and accused of working for the devil.
For that was the sentiment of this occasion. And it amply illustrates the pervasive, creeping rise of the fascistic state; everyday more strident, more dictatorial, more authoritarian. An ever more threatening sword held over citizens who have not fallen. Who have refused to be slaves. An ever more sinister clamoring and broadcasting of the vitriol of war.
Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are they key components of a democratic constitution.”
The hypocrisy is in your focus on the British government’s statements without once running the same “sceptical” (lol) ruler over the constantly changing lies of the Kremlin.
The British are making the accusations so the onus is on them to prove guilt, not on the Russians to prove their innocence. It is notoriously difficult to prove a negative in any case.
Actually she is unlikely to reveal the evidence she has. She has intelligence as well as forensic sources, and may know perfectly well who is responsible. That doesn’t mean that she is free to release that information for the titillation of Putin dupes.
Al Jazeera’s Listening Post has done a good piece on the media coverage of the Skripal case in the UK and Russia.
Both countries have been ramping up the hyperbole and cold war style rhetoric: a “monotone” coverage in the UK, and propaganda in Russia. Both sides taking the opportunity to demonise the other:
For the past two weeks, the story of the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a retired Russian double agent, and his daughter in the UK has led news bulletins in Britain and around the world.
Much of the coverage has been low on facts, high on conjecture and speculation.
British headline writers have had a field day. Moscow meanwhile has denied any involvement and has claimed the British press is churning out “hysterical propaganda” to whip up anti-Russian sentiment.
The Listening Post’s Marcela Pizarro reports on the diplomatic standoff being played out across the airwaves.
Sorry about that Carolyn
The translate button probably doesn’t come through with cut and paste
English is not too bad for an online translation
I feel for her trying to cut through the bureaucracy on all sides
Thanks for the link Francesca, rather amusing it is, their forth form ‘presentation’.
“long pattern of malign activity” by Russia.
Couldn’t a long pattern of malign activity by the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia make them equally culpable?
Do they really think we are such fools to be impressed by these spurious claims?
Still, politicians aren’t renowned for their great intelligence.
It doesn’t have to be a particularly remarkable case – only truthful. European nations have both long institutional memories and numerous current examples of Russian misbehavior on their own soil.
That of course assumes that the Russian post is not a complete fabrication – they have made such fabrications before.
Pretty dire all right
Like Netenyahu with his childish drawing of a bomb
How those diplomats kept a straight face I don’t know. I bet they pissed themselves laughing afterwards.
And poor Laurie Bristow having to present the thing.
It’ll be the US state dept that did all the heavy lifting
Then you’re not keeping up :
Nauert, from the US state Dept:
“Our Deputy Secretary Sullivan, Assistant Secretary Wess Mitchell, and many others in the building across the interagency process have worked tirelessly over the past three weeks to achieve this unprecedented level of cooperation and also coordination. The end result – 151 Russian intelligence personnel sent home to Moscow”
Its the US behind the scenes , not the slideshow thats been so persuasive
European nations have long experience of Russian espionage, they’re not naïve about it like you. They can’t afford to be.
This is just a briefing for expat diplomats who won’t be making any decisions about it, that your source is trying to beat up into the crime of the century.
The fact remains that nothwithstanding these histrionics, Russian is still the only plausible assailant. Evidence may eventually change that, but other countries will be treating that possibility with the same skepticism police have for lifelong criminals. Russia has thoroughly earned its murderous reputation and their incessant whining about it is neither here nor there. They won’t stop whining if it is incontrovertibly forensically proved.
That is very good news. Some commentators gave both the daughter and father about 1% chance of recovery.
Smearing a nerve agent on Skripal’s front door is a very reckless thing to do. It could have been the postie, a neighbour, a friend, or many other people who came into significant contact with it.
Yes, delayed neuropathy (neurotoxicity) caused by (axonal) nerve degeneration. If the victims make full recovery and will be able to walk normally again and have full use of arms & hands it is extremely unlikely that were poisoned with the alleged nerve agent. But then again, I am just another misguided commenter here so my ‘views’ can be easily discounted …
Ok this is hard to admit but I do read the online magazine Stuff quite regularly and recently I’ve noticed the comments and “Thumbs Up” related to political stories and opinions are massively skewed to right wingers. What is causing this?
1. Right wingers becoming more politically active in opposition?
2. Left wingers have become complacent now a left leaning government is in power?
3. Cambridge Analytica (and their like) doing their online bit to brainwash readers?
4. The Labour led coalition is REALLY that unpopular (polls don’t reflect this of course)
When John key physically abused that waitress, National’s poll ratings didn’t go down. In fact all the scandals that rocked National, their ratings remained high. Why do you think that was? When was the last Roy Morgan? isn’t that long overdue?
IMo the comments and thumbs up under articles on Stuff have always been massively skewed to right wingers, nzsage. And I recall others on here also expressing that opinion/perception over recent years. So I don’t think it is anything new. I only occasionally venture there (into the comments) and mainly to get a feel for what the other side thinks. Personally it is not somewhere I can be bothered commenting.
Stuff are now one of the few media outlets that still allow comments and this may have had some effect on the numbers going there. Eg many of the comments on The Herald website were right biased, and they no longer have this outlet.
Right wingers may also find the RW blogs, Kiwiblog and Whaleoil for example are too toxic, although some of the Stuff comments can also be pretty over the top.
Stuff retaining the comments section is now their point of difference as far as “readers” go. Remove that and watch the clicks drop. There’s no reason of course why they can’t get rid of that pathetic thumbs up/down thing, that’s where the RW army at work is glaringly obvious, if you look at some of the perfectly reasonable, often bipartisan comments being down voted. maybe some attempt to manipulate those who are still open to manipulation?
I’m actually more concerned about which topics predominantly are open for comments- have a look sometime. Unless there’s legal issues, nearly everything to do with poor/homeless/beneficiaries/every other group RWs just love to judge and criticise; all the stories about the rental crisis (to pit landlords vs tenants), any possible hint that an extra tax somewhere MIGHT happen, or any policy hated by the right in general, and indiscretions by this current Govt and it’s MPs.
Comments rarely opened for indiscretions by Opposition MPs, damage done by previous govt (weren’t open at the time either much), etc. etc.
Some of the supposedly moderated comments I’ve seen in there border on hate speech as far as I”m concerned, especially opinions about NZers having a really rough time of it. Much as I despise the Herald, it’s the one thing they did right.
Look at the utter fiasco that Clare Curran created. Now, if it had been under John Key a few journalists in ‘highbrow” publications would have fretted over a potentially dangerous precedent but the pro-right corporate media would having largely moved on after a single news cycle.
Under a Labour government and you get a dozen opinion pieces and editorials thundering for resignations and talking up cover-ups and using the harshest possible language.
What gets me is Labour don’t appear to understand how structurally hostile the corporate MSM is to even mild centrist reform, and how dominated it is by the apologists for wealth and privilege. The rampant neo-colonial conservatism of our MSM was there for anyone with eyes to see with the way it has practically demanded the government tow the British line in the Russian poisoning affair.
The only thing I can think of is far too many Labour politicians don’t want to upset the structural apple cart lest they miss out on fat sinecures in their post-political career.
It is disturbing, and I’m not sure how its constructed
News media has become corporately owned, so I guess there’s an editorial focus on pleasing the shareholders and doing the bidding of the owners
The journalists, having whacked up a fair loan need a job and a roof over their heads before the luxury of integrity.It must be a bitter pill to swallow.Or not for some more cynical
Someone once said, I forget who, that Murdoch?” never told us what to write, we understood perfectly what was expected”
Jonathan Cook’s written about the process for Medialens “Intellectual Cleansing” after he got kicked off the Guardian
But I feel there’s something more sinister and orchestrated, powerful PR being employed here , and clearly not just NZ, in favour of RW interests
Corbyn being stretched on the rack for instance on the charge of anti semitism.
One hardly dares to say anything against Israel these days
Under Key, the minister in question would have been stood down and properly stripped of their portfolio.
But hey Curran is amongst other things the Minister for Open Government!
“The rampant neo-colonial conservatism of our MSM was there for anyone with eyes to see with the way it has practically demanded the government tow the British line in the Russian poisoning affair.”
Not just the British line, pretty much all of our allies and friends line as well. Having the NZ deputy PM defending Russia the week before (re- shooting down airliner etc) did not help. Then Ardern saying we would have expelled Russian spies, but could not find any…well it makes it so easy for the MSM.
Seems odd that more people are upset by this govt and curran than were upset by
Collins didnt resign over her causing death threatCollins helping husbands company
Bennett didnt resign over abuse of power
Smith didnt resign over abuse of power
Finlayson hasnt resigned over abuse of poweKey abusing a woman in her workplace
Key lying about payout to Saudi Businessman etc
Under Bennett multiple privacy breaches out of WINZ…
I suspect it comes down to the belief that most people National can play a bit fast and loose with the rules, in a manner of speaking but Jacinda spent a great deal of the campaign talking about transparency, honesty and not telling lies so she and Labour are being held to that standard
Some of them probably are – but the more enthusiastic users of dirty politics – Farrar, Slater, Key etc., are not known for their restraint. Having the capacity to queer a pitch, they do tend to use it.
It’s like whether one can trust an Aussie with strategically located abrasives.
I see that the Guardian (the neo liberal Trojan Horse) is again doing it’s best to undermine the first real Left Wing Labour party the UK has seen in many decades with it’s anti sematic witch hunt…
Of course this is unsurprising as The Guardian plainly displayed all their neo liberal colours during the last UK election cycle…and is willfully pushing this whole bullshit Russia hysteria…
So, folks….how are you all finding our new progressive government?
Living up to your hopes and dreams?
So far I am singularly unimpressed.
Listening to the discussion about Counties Manukau DHB’s unhealthy buildings and who was told what by whom and the politicians from all sides pleading ignorance it’s is fairly clear that the current mob inhabiting the Government benches have two options.
Step up and wrest control of the Ministry of Health from the bureaucrats, listen to the people, the workers at the coalface and those of us deeply impacted by Ministry generated and government enforced laws and policies…
Or just continue the way your going…SSDD.
I was wondering if Julie Ann Center git even the slightest whiff of toxic fungus when she was over at Middlemore hospital a few weeks ago handing out the bouquets for their conservation efforts?
MPs need to open their eyes and their ears and commit to finding out the truth.
Or… continue ignoring those of us who have attempted to communicate directly, because we know the bureaucrats are feeding them crap.
Some of us are quite desperate for positive change…and we are fast losing faith…
This may or may not get through as I am using my newish and cheap phone…and sending this from the Far Far North.
What a crock, BG, with respect.
We’re not all beguiled by the Media…some of us are personally affected by significant issues that this current mob actually used as part of their campaign and are now choosing to ignore us. Instead they will do what their predecessors did and “take advice from the Ministry” and the same misleading data will be used to perpetuate discrimination and breach human rights.
Or…they can decide they no longer enjoy being mushrooms and bloody well listen to those of us with real facts and lived experience.
Jacinda Ardern never looked to be really on top of the social security area when Labour spokesperson for it. She makes all the right noises about supporting beneficiaries. However, she doesn’t really want to take on board the much needed perspectives of beneficiaries.
And she has talking her her ear, the likes of Robertson who is all about appeasing the mainstream media.
The government REALLY needs to take more time to listen to beneficiaries, and to be guided by their insights.
Robertson doesnt get that no matter how like National he acts most Nat voters will still vote National.
Time to grow a pair and start standing for something. Passion has gone. Dep Lab Leadder has to say nothing cos he tends to put his foot in his mouth. Peters quiet.
I suspect they are tip toeing around not wanting to upset some folks while forgetting those folks will never vote for them, even if they were exactly like National.
I am staggered our Minister of Health has only just discovered the depth of trouble at Middlemore. If this was kept from the Minister some sackings are required and Statutory managers appointed while new Board and Employees are recruited.
This government (unlike the last) is confronting and making plans to actually deal with things like the unhealthy hospital buildings. What do you expect them to have done by now, though? Down here in Dunedin, the site for our new hospital has been agreed and plans for the rebuild are being advanced (after years of the Nats making empty promises, sitting on their arses and then deciding to let the private sector build and own the facility – glad we dodged that bullet!). Any plans for other major rebuilds or upgrades will take time, and huge amounts of funding that wasn’t provided for because the Nats had hushed the whole situation up.
You can promote the Greens, weka, but the” National-lite” label is unfair. Plenty of us on the left support Labour and acknowledge that a strong Labour Party is crucial to any left or left-leaning government in NZ. And undermining Labour is also counter-productive for Greens supporters – it cuts away at any chance for the Greens to achieve anything meaningful in parliament.
I try hard not to undermine the Greens in comments here and elsewhere.
I wasn’t promoting the Greens though, I was pointing to what the govt would look like if there were more left wing policies being enacted.
If you have critique of GP policy, I wish you would say it. They’re not perfect either.
“And undermining Labour is also counter-productive for Greens supporters – it cuts away at any chance for the Greens to achieve anything meaningful in parliament.”
How so?
Saying that Labour are better than National but we shouldn’t critique Labour for being less LW than the Greens is pretty much the definition of Nat-lite. As I’ve said elsewhere in the thread, I think that Labour will do good things and will fail on some fundamentals. It doesn’t help to be in denial of those things. With welfare it’s very obvious.
We knew this before the election, so it’s more been a matter of waiting to see just where the balance would lie. You ask what Labour could have done in five months. With WINZ that is ample time to start chaining the messages and the culture. Sepuloni is saying suitable stuff, I want to see it demonstrated and I’m not seeing that yet. 6 months is ample time to get that stuff right if one is intending to head down that path. I don’t Sepuloni is.
A private sector top boss and former Health Ministry head will take over the reins at the embattled ministry once more, when outgoing director-general of health Chai Chuah steps down.
State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes has announced the appointment of Stephen McKernan as the acting director-general of health and chief executive of the Ministry of Health.
McKernan was a former director-general of health under minister Tony Ryall and former public service chief executive. He would be taking a leave of absence from his role as a senior partner at EY to lead the Ministry of Health.
Red blooded, since you’re clearly a fan…how does one get the attention of a politician when one has strong evidence that the previous incumbents were deliberately misled by a ministry and the evidence is that the current Minister is going to go down the same path?
We have written, and emailed and occasionally phoned and have been consistently ignored at all levels.
Some of us have sound knowledge and lived experience of disability and are sick of being forced into the margins and obliged to watch while yet another government gets it wrong.
Labour is no different from National on this..
And, let’s all sit back and watch while yet again the entire House laughs and applauds as an other National Mp scuttles off to wherever they go to avoid bring held accountable for the cock ups.
Because when it comes down to it…they have more fellow feeling for other politicians from left or right than they do for us.
The other two hats she wears are Minister of Women and Associate Minister for Transport; and she does not have any formal climate change/environment responsibilities.
Things would be very different five months down the track if the Greens had more power, according to some here.
I am not convinced having closely watched the Greens’ performance to date, including Genter’s answering questions in the House on behalf of the Minister of Health – the latest was yesterday.
I am not getting at you Rosemary, as I know myself the complete shambles that the Ministry of Health has become, and particularly the Disability Services from my own personal experience. Forms and doctors’ letters lost repeatedly, no responses and a s a result no help etc.
But no-one has a wand that can just be waved and all of these problems miraculously resolved overnight. And the problems the incoming govt has found are overwhelming.
No-one, absolutely no-one, has said Labour should solve these problems overnight. What is being pointed to is the way that Labour are behaving that doesn’t bode well given history. I’m happy to be proven wrong (really), but I’m not ok with waiting until the first term is up and then trying to address these issues then. We can’t afford to let things slide for that long.
I agree Labour have got their work cut out for them. I don’t think that is the problem and I don’t think many here would expect perfection from them. But I’m not convinced that on some areas they are even moving in the right direction.
Plenty of us on the left support Labour and acknowledge that a strong Labour Party is crucial to any left or left-leaning government in NZ.
Which is a false position. Supporting any party on the Left strengthens the Left. Our political system demands that you only support parties with more than 5% support of course and that needs to be changed.
The other major problem is that Labour is actually right-wing and not of the left. Has been since the 1980s.
And undermining Labour is also counter-productive for Greens supporters – it cuts away at any chance for the Greens to achieve anything meaningful in parliament.
Who’s undermining them? Holding them to account for their actions (signing the TPPA) or their inactions (continuing oil extraction) is what we need to do to get the required changes. If we don’t do that then we won’t get the changes as they’ll just assume that we’re happy that they’re supporting the rich stealing from us.
No. As I said, political compass gives a reasonably consistent relative positioning of parties based upon their policies.
Thing is, when I read Labour’s policies and see their actions I label as right-wing because they are. Signing the TPPA was not something that a Left-wing party would do.
Using your political positions as a relative measure of what constitutes left wing is worse than the political compass you keep linking to.
The political compass can’t be used as evidence for anything. It is completely anonymous, gives no indication of who filled it in and what they based the answers on except in the most general manner. 10 people could compete it and get 10 different results. It is hopeless and extremely poor as a reference.
Saying Labour isn’t left wing because they signed the TPPA is like saying National isnt right wing because they raised the minimum wage and kept WFF
Specious, JohnSelway. National raised the minimum wage so little as to ensure it remained utterly demeaning, and insufficient. They kept WWF because it isn’t very left-wing anyway – it is more a subsidy to employers who pay too little.
I know it’s specious – it’s a reflection of Draco’s reasoning behind calling Labour right-wing because of the TPPA.
I have a BA in Politics and have done a lot of study and work around NZ Politics and not one of the political theorists I researched ever called Labour anything but centre-left.
So what and who to believe? Draco anonymous website results or people who have made a career out of political theory, put their name to their work and write books on the subject.
JohnSelway, I don’t know how old you are, or what depth of vision you have regarding right wing/left wing; socialism/capitalism; or communism/fascism. I hope you understand the lot. In the 1980s the Rogernomes and their compliant commercialised media managed to skew most people’s understanding of all this, and make them think right wing is centre, and left wing barely exists, except that ‘hard left’ means dangerous, hostile radicals.
Draco fights against this skew, and maybe you should not be so quick to condemn.
It is completely anonymous, gives no indication of who filled it in and what they based the answers on except in the most general manner.
And that is your RWNJ logical fallacy coming to the fore again.
And, of course, they have stated how they get their answers for the party.
10 people could compete it and get 10 different results.
I would expect that a group read the policies and debated if they were right-wing or left-wing. It’s how we did it in PolSci at uni.
I know it’s specious – it’s a reflection of Draco’s reasoning behind calling Labour right-wing because of the TPPA.
No it’s not. It’s your desire to defend the Labour Party from their actions.
I have a BA in Politics and have done a lot of study and work around NZ Politics and not one of the political theorists I researched ever called Labour anything but centre-left.
The Political Compass chart represents the whole spectrum of political opinion, not simply the range within a particular nation or region. The timeless universal centre should not be confused with merely the present national average. The former is far more meaningful and informative. Where, for example, would the centre be within the political confines of Hitler’s Germany, apartheid South Africa or the Soviet Union? By showing the whole spectrum of political thought, we can indicate the width or narrowness of prevailing mainstream politics within any particular country. It also enables us to chart the drifts one way or another of various parties, governments and individuals.
Twenty-five years ago, social democracy was riding high in western Europe. A chart at that time would have shown a number of EU governments to the left of the centre. In our globalised age, however, the shift has been rightward, which accounts for the altogether different cluster that the contemporary chart depicts. In other words most democracies, either reluctantly or enthusiastically, have embraced neoliberalism (ie a right leaning economy) to a greater or lesser extent.
Curbs on civil liberties, rationalised by issues such as illegal immigration and terrorist threats, accounts for the concurrent drift upwards on the social scale.
And you can believe whomever you want. I hold that Labour is centre-right as it’s maintaining capitalism and the inequalities and injustices that come with it.
Draco, you know as well as I do that although the appeal to authority is a logical fallacy it can’t be used to dismiss vast expert opinion out of hand in order to support your single conclusion based on 1 source and your opinion.
The Politcal Compass would have validity if it showed how it came it to the result it did. It doesn’t and is therefor only evidence for your desire to cling to whatever fits your narrative. But if you are so sure of it why don’t you go edit the Wikipedia page for the NZ Labour Party given it, in your opinion, is wrong
I’m not right wing either, no matter how often throw it around.
Safer ground to call them economically right wing Draco T Bastard. I agree with you assessment, because at the end of the day it’s all about economics.
Well no, the Greens have chosen to be beholden to Labour which is why the Greens don’t have as much influence as NZFirst
I’m not saying the Greens should go with National I’m saying the Greens should say that they’ll base their decision on the policies of each party, that they won’t automatically go with Labour (even though in all likelihood they will)
“…the Greens have chosen to be beholden to Labour which is why the Greens don’t have as much influence as NZFirst.”
Well is that really true?
Yes, the Greens are in a less formal/restrictive C/S agreement with Labour than their full Coalition partner, NZF.
Despite this, the Greens have three MPS with Ministerial positions and one MP a Parliamentary Under-Secretary. That is half (50%) of their 8 MPs are in positions of considerable influence.
This compares with NZF with four of their 9 MPs holding Ministerial posts and one MP being an Under-Secretary – 55% of their MPs. So NZF’s position is only marginally better than the Green Party.
For their part, only 22 (47.8%) of the 46 Labour MPs hold Ministerial positions (21 MPs) and one holds an Under-Secretary position.
People are allowed to be let down and unimpressed now.
Example the TPPA (or whatever it is called now) – Many are unhappy that Labour signed it after all the singing and dancing about how bad it would be. Not many would have thought that they would have signed it within 6 months.
Do they have to wait three years to slam them for that?
It seems that there are a number of people who are disappointed that this government hasn’t met their expectations as yet. Things might change, they might not.
But if people dont mention anything, dont raise their voices then things will carry on as they are – and if you dont like it, it wont get better.
Right, so you can see how you might come across as concern trolling. You can telling people they can protest the govt now over and issue that you support the govt on, but it’s a govt you don’t support.
Oh I suspect that most people here would find suspicious a RWer telling lefties to go ahead and criticise Labour over the TPPA when the RWer supports the TPPA.
I see that as a issue here, some on here just look at the name of the person commentating and go into personal attack mode.
People can have different points of view, opinions and disagree then agree on others that is awesome and what I enjoy.
This labelling and then dismissing the person out of hand due to a label and they have a different point of view I find disappointing.
I have reading the standard for at least 5 years. I only started commentating as I feel the mods have done a good job chilling out abuse.
Intend to put in my opinion a lot as a disclaimer so to speak to not get into tit for tat.
I agree with James those who voted for Labour as an anti TPPA vote should be annoyed and challenge the govt, as the labour MPs in opposition were vocal against it and went to protests and appealed to protesters that they would oppose it. So they have every right to want to hold the govt to account. You can be for something and still hold the view that others have been let down.
Cheers monty, always good to get feedback on how people are experiencing the site.
I agree there is too much people attacking each other because of their history. I did read James’ comments though and checked something out and then critiqued his position. It’s true that some of that is because of his history but I would have asked the same thing of any known RW here. If it had been Puckish Rogue or chris I would have assumed outright trolling 😉 James has a history of trolling but appears to be making an effort now, so all good.
“I agree with James those who voted for Labour as an anti TPPA vote should be annoyed and challenge the govt, as the labour MPs in opposition were vocal against it and went to protests and appealed to protesters that they would oppose it. So they have every right to want to hold the govt to account. You can be for something and still hold the view that others have been let down.”
I agree, but it’s very hard now to find Labour voters who voted Labour because they thought they would stop the TPPA 😉 There are a few, and they are rightfully pissed off. The people not pissed off want Labour to be given a chance. Stand off.
At Tracey, the same can be said for any of the tribal/blinkers on people on both sides. So to try and say that about Nat supporters is very biased when labour and green supporters follow the same lines.
In this case I believe James is being straight up in his comments. TPPA is an obvious and public example.
I’d say Rosemary is addressing more-hidden systemic issues about pollies being captured by senior staff views from agencies who have long been part of the problem, just as with the previous govt.
I’m waiting to see the Budget myself. I have been heartened by the comparative openness of the Health Minister so far about the scale of the damage to be redressed, though investment seems likely to be channelled into bricks and mortar rather than people and services.
None of that helps disabled people specifically and our advocacy was almost non-existent during the election campaign.
Thanks for saying something good about Clark. I think that a balance of critique and praise is really useful, and a better approach than complaining about people criticising Labour too early in the first term. Adam said something good about Clark recently too after Clark had fronted at a disability meeting, and I suspect it takes something decent to impress adam politically.
I also worry about the bricks and mortar thing. People are rightfully angry about the mould but I wish they were tweeting as much about this guy’s campaign, or what Rosemary is writing about.
Just been reading some stuff about the numbers of complaints against WINZ made in Auckland in the past few years. Sepuloni and the deputy CE trotted out some nicely framed things, but to these tired old beneficiary ears it sounds like the same old shit dressed up. Yes, we get it. Labour will do welfare more nicely than National. Not seeing any fundamental shifts in the culture though that National can’t just roll back when it’s their term. We’ve been through this before Labour
The PR speak is only going to get them so far for so long. I’m guessing the budget will be the point where it becomes patently obvious which way Labour are going to go.
I don’t find this Government cohesive, they don’t gel well together, and they don’t put up a united front. It gives the impression of being more like three separate teams running their own shows without talking enough to each other or even amongst themselves.
They let themselves down, over and over again, by silly mistakes and poor communication. They get easily rattled and distracted by the Opposition and MSM and they don’t stay on script & course, i.e. they don’t hammer down their own messages for their own vision – nail your colours the mast. Yes, there are some good speeches, here & there, every now & then, but it is all too sporadic and fragmented.
This is just the delivery side of this Government, the how; so far, they have not actually delivered much tangible stuff, the what. But it takes time to undo 9 years of National Government.
Obviously, the powerful Opposition and almighty MSM love playing this game of hiss & roar; it is the grist to their mills.
We – New Zealand and the world are facing huge problems which are already manifesting themselves. Carrying on as we have, in a sort of perpetual present, is, frankly, nowhere near good enough.
We need a government prepared to be radical, really radical, and the courage to back themselves.
I was willing to give them half a year to see just where the balance will lie. Like Clark’s govt I think they will do some good things, but there will be little serious change where it really matters. I suspect they will even do it nicer than the Clark govt, but it’s increasingly clear that they will hold the neoliberal ground and that we need to start agitating on that now, not waiting much longer.
If we are wrong, then that holding them to account will still be useful.
Listening to Newshub last night saying the Auckland city council is putting $92 million into the America’s cup. Can’t find anything really in the media today. Is this correct? If so then I’m glad I’m not an Auckland ratepayer!
It was all announced a few days ago,RBCV. I am way out of my area of expertise – or interest not being an Aucklander – but here is a Stuff article I came on by change after reading your comment. Hope this helps but there was a lot in the media over the last week.
The Government is also putting in S113.9 M so us non-Aucklanders also get to ‘contribute’.
Ah yes stuff was yesterday too. Funny how there isn’t much in the media about the contribution of us taxpayers- slipped out under the cover of easter??
$200 million would buy heaps of other stuff – and no doubt there is a lot of hype about the “benefits” but it needs to bring in offshore income of about $1 billion all of which is taxed before we get this back and even then we have to stump for the extra social costs of roading, housing and all the other social costs. Can’t see how this is justified as anything but the rich boys playing .
And we could no doubt get better returns in otehr areas of govt investment.
But, but, but – remember the intangibles – publicity, boost to tourism etc, etc
Personally I’d rather we have these for free – eg fluffy interviews with our PM in the Guardian, Vogue etc.
And it is great fun to see how these stir up some people here and on other blogs. See the comments here today under 1 on OM 31 March. PG at HisNZ is going great guns on this with two Indignant Posts up today alone.
The All-Russian survey of the Levada Center, conducted in late December 2017, showed that the majority of Russians (68%) condemn the extramarital sexual relations of family people (the sum of the positions “is always reprehensible” and “this is almost always objectionable”). In 1998, 50% of respondents answered this way. From 68% to 83%, the proportion of those who do not approve of same-sex relationships has increased. And respondents, for whom abortions are unacceptable, even if they are caused by low family incomes, became 35% compared to 12% in 1998.
[…]
According to the Levada Center survey, at the end of 2017, 54% of Russians agreed with the statement that the husband’s business is to earn money, and the wife’s business is to lead the household and engage in family activities.
Supposedly impartial and self-appointed arbiter of political discussion, Mr Bryce ‘cut-n-paste’ Edwards cuts and pastes several links here in one of RNZ’s many competitors. Nine links to be exact, and just the one even remotely supportive of Curran’s wider agenda – better public broadcasting – which surely is more important than the beltway fluff on coffee meetings and the minister’s diary venomously promoted by government opponents.
The only support of course comes from Chris Trotter who gets, at the very end, a lame paragraph with no quotes. Contrast that with the ‘must read’ descriptions of Farrar and Rutherford’s manufactured outrage.
There is zero evidence Curran was trying to influence content or the political direction of RNZ the way the Nats did with the appointment of Griffin. She was however trying to implement a well advertised position of the new government pre-election (they campaigned on it, ifs!), and that is to expand the state broadcaster to match the expansion of other media and according to current consumption trends.
Of course the Nats and other rightees will do everything to resist a re-development of public service media. And they will pounce on any opportunity to scupper the current government’s plans in this area.
A strong public service media is absolutely necessary to making NZ’s political and public culture more democratic. The corporate mainstream media are shitting all over democracy these days, and are ferocious about maintaining the neoliberal framework.
But, if the Labour cabinet were truly motivated to move towards a truly public service media, they’d have put someone more competent in charge of handling it.
I think Curran also leans towards public service media as it was pre-digital. Other people who have more competence in this area, or part thereof are Kris Faafoi in Labour. And also the following who I have seen talking on public service media in the role as spokesperson for their party:
Tracey Martin (is up to dealing with tough kickback) – very much on board with the public service component needed.
Juile Anne Genter a few years back – understands it’s importance (is up to the focus, background research, and tough talking to opposition that is required).
Gareth Hughes – is very much focused on the role of digital technologies in current media and communications.
I will probably be called a conspiracy theorist again, but if there is a conspiracy we need to recognise it.
Yesterday I pointed out how orchestrated the attacks from National and supporters were, and how the same memes appeared….. well this is an example of magnification and confirmation of National views with a “Jacinda is inept? doesn’t have control of her team” etc.
There is total avoidance of any discussion on Burnham or Findlaysen. No calls for resignations there…. No… No… “Look over here”. Smoke screen. IMO.
The nasty drip of DP.
Bryce Edwards must be the most deeply cynical news aggregator of the lot. The guy is parasite who aggregates the writings of others and re-packages it as received wisdom for whatever personal agenda he has.
He used to be a full on Marxist when he lived in Dunedin but I see he is trying his hand in the bright lights of the 09 these days.
My guess he is either still a secret Marxist who loathes Labour for being centrist sell outs or having moved to Auckland he has done one of those (out of fashion since the 1980s but he is from Dunedin which is a few decades behind the rest of the country so, yeah…) Marxist to Randian conversions like the Labour traitors. Either way, he is out to get labour with the all sly zealotry of someone with a hidden agenda.
The change appears to be since he is well paid for his cut and paste. He will be telling himself he must be impartial if he is being criticised … forgetting he is only criticised by the Left.
I note he hasnt called for Finlayson’s resignation.
Mttonbird 10 My question is, why the fuck shouldn’t she?
Because she is only supposed to deal with the top deadheads / seat-warmers rather than practical workers lower down …. That is the system.
Since Labour do not have the wealth of experience and talent that National did have until recently it is obvious that they are going to make stuff up after stuff up as they learn . and we the general public are going to pay for it.
The fact that National made a number of serious fuck-ups is why they are now in opposition but the new crowd have even less experience and for sure are worse as they are faced with impossible problems to solve. It is a ‘devil or the deep blue sea’ situation unfortunately.
Having given all their money away to groups [ first year students , Americas’ Cup ] they now have no money to deal with the real problems coming to light such as Auckland’s hospitals etc.
The much derided 11 billion hole is going to prove to be rather bigger than Joyce could admit to.
It is obvious that capitalism doesn’t work like socialism doesn’t either but a meld of both is the answer.
Newsflash: a meld of Capitalism and Socialism is usually referred to as a “mixed economy”, such as the one you are now living in. However, despite that, the National Party still manages to make a corrupt stinking health-hazard of it whenever they’re given the opportunity.
“The fact that National made a number of serious fuck-ups is why they are now in opposition”
National maintained their share of the vote compared to the previous election. So if they made a number of serious fuck ups…you better hope they don’t learn from them come 2020.
The simple fact is…They are now in opposition due to the soon to be Prime Minister of NZ.
“they now have no money to deal with the real problems coming to light such as Auckland’s hospitals etc.”
It was easy to work that out during the election campaign and predictable to blame the previous Government for not telling them to keep some spare money aside to fix boring stuff like buildings.
I am Labour. So that tinges my view. There is an agreement to be in government together. So on that basis the Greens are allowed to agree to disagree with Labour and record that. Labour has the same right, as does NZ First.
What I don’t see is Labour people coming on here critical of the Greens or NZFirst.
I know there is a belief in ” free speech” here, but it appears partisan at times.
As a coalition there will be large and small areas of compromise.
When people say “Do something different” (FFS) I take it they mean “Look at my issue”
When what has been done doesn’t suit someone and they say “If the ….. had more of the vote”… But it is what it is, and I get the frustration. Our area is short two surgeons so my operation may be next year?…. never?
Do I agree with all that is happening… NO! However I know these people care and are working hard to try to improve people’s lives.. Yes, it hasn’t happened for all of us yet, and if it hadn’t been for Jacinda we may have been still being fed bullsh.. and jellibeans by Coleman etc.
Would I vote the same way ? YES. They are good people.
“What I don’t see is Labour people coming on here critical of the Greens”
Why is that? Genuinely curious. It is because you don’t think there are issues with GP policy? I vote for them and I don’t think their policy is perfect, so why not critique it?
That’s not being partisan btw. I think it would help if people learned the difference.
How about when what has been done gas found to be illegal by the Courts and the subject of yet another Court case and had attracted criticism from the UN and was used as an election campaign issue by Labour???
Be Labour, Patricia Brenner…support them and flag wave…but please don’t presume that all people expressing frustration and disappointment with them have been sucked in by right wing media or are merely focussing on an issue that affects only them.
t
The Ministry of Health are restructuring disability supports at the moment…a big ‘system transformation’ if you please.
Fact…despite nearly twenty years of this being a significant issue family care is not being discussed by the working group.
f
Fact…the issue of advanced personal cares and the fact that the moh system had failed this group requiring very high supports is not being discussed.
So…ffs…is it any wonder some are not exactly orgasmic at the current incumbents’s commitment to effecting change on order to do better?
I think disability is the edge where it is bleeding obvious (apologies for that image but I think it’s appropriate). Still so many NZers don’t understand how the issues for disabled people have been not just badly managed but have been either actively monkey wrenched or actively ignored and now many many people are in dire straights (disabled people and their families).
What gob smacks me is that this isn’t news. It’s been on blogs, social media and MSM. And still people are defending Labour and refusing to consider that Labour are part of the problem.
Labour chose to make children the poster child for welfare reform and in doing so they created another division of the deserving poor and the undeserving poor (the Greens did this too up until last year and it’s one of the things I have criticised them for). Better to place vulnerable people in the centre, and work your way out because then you have a system that is grounded in compassion not one that that doles out compassion to the ones who have been deemed suitably deserving and says fuck off to the rest.
There are *very good reasons why many of us don’t trust Labour, and it irks to be called partisan as a way of continuing to ignore the elephants in the living room.
A community report to the media and all environmental advocates. 30/3/2018.
“Community concern’s expressed truck noise, vibration’s, and air pollution exceedances at pre-hearing”.
GDC- RMA pre-hearing held on 29/3/2018 at the 9am at the Waikanae Surf Life Saving Club
This week we attended the secret “Chatham rules” special GDC “pre-hearing” meeting involving ECT on their Eastland Port berth log expansion activities chaired by Consents Manager Reginald Proffit, as Winston Morton’s continuing submissions as one of the submitters to the GDC pre-hearing (that we are attached to as Winston’s “Deputy’s).
Winston Morton’s concerns were valid, addressed before the “secret Chatham rules’ pre-hearing meeting, that the chair had ignored the submitter during his earlier submissions made to GDC for the ECT planned expansion to be made under the usual “regional plan Change” rather than a RMA application”.
Mr Morton was seeking to allow the process to be made into a ‘transparent process and to allow the whole community to have their right to make changes to the way the Port operate in future in a more environmentally responsible manner.
Issues of the transportation of logs to the Port 24 hrs was concern here as the bulk of the submitters were voicing their opposition to the industrial noise generated to the Port that were awaking many it was revelled at this meeting.
Past ‘submissions’ on logging truck noise to GDC, may have overlooked it appears?
We made a strong case to GDC after receiving a 280 signed petition in 2011-12 from the Esplanade community group who were requesting GDC make changes to Eastland Port bound logging trucks, to mitigate against their excessive noise, vibration and air pollution being generated.
Chair Mr Proffit may wish to consider Mr Morton’s submission to change to “A Regional scheme change” rather than the restrictive secretive process the Eastland port appear to prefer to use.
If Eastland Port really does care about the wider community impacts of negative noise, vibration, and air pollution from their ‘industrial activities” can GDC encourage ECT to be “environmentally and socially responsible” they are governed under, of “industrial activities” in a built environment”?
Quote; PM Jacinda Ardern said on her first speech;
“The government I lead will be a government that listens, then acts. A government that leads, not follows.
I will never stop believing that politics is a place where we can do good.
That we can build a confident and caring nation if we include each and every person, in each and every town and region. That is New Zealand at its best.”
As former residents/property owners of Napier before settling in Gisborne in 2005, our Napier community suffered similar problems as ECT Eastland Port are causing, when 14 suburban communities surrounding Port of Napier have truck noise, vibrations, and air pollution from carrying export freight to the Port of Napier, berths for future activities as Eastland port are.
Our groups there have had meetings directly involving Napier Port executives at their own boardroom, receiving strong level of support from Port of Napier about their truck traffic noise, vibration, air pollution issues, so we are surprised the Eastland port are not reciprocating with all suburban communities surrounding the Eastland Port, are they worried about criticism from the wider community of Gisborne?
We stated clearly to Chair Reginald Proffit we are part of Mr Morton’s submission to GDC on Eastland Port RMA application and operate an Environmental Monitoring company CER Ltd since 2002 has involved partnerships with Government agencies as well as Watercare and NIWA.
Our company has reviewed the Eastland Port “independent environmental assessment” report for the ECT and we have several issues of concerns about the report.
Many communities are now suffering from “industrial activities” involving truck traffic to Ports around NZ now and a new method of measuring “industrial noise” is warranted using changes in sound noise monitoring, as WHO and the EU are doing.
This monitoring of truck freight residential urban noise, vibration, air pollution is a long debate now that will generate some issues, as we prepare to take up with GDC/ECT going forward.
We do support the request made by Winston Morton to change the ECT application to a more “inclusive” far less ‘secretive’ procedure.
ECT with their narrow focus “only inside the port noise zone” are restricting all residents from seeking mitigation from three negative truck effects of noise, vibration and air pollution, and should make a fresh submission to GDC for a simple scheme change to allow all members of the Gisborne community to become involved with the future planning of our Port facilities of which we all actually own as it was leased to the Trust called ECT which was to have provided equal benefits for all.
Lastly at the GDC ‘pre-hearing’ on ECT RMA application our other submitter “Rail Action Group” the Chairwoman Gillian Ward expressed the wish that Eastland Port consider rail to move the logs to Eastland port. http://transporttalk.co.nz/news/rail-cards-gisborne
While in Napier last week we witnessed 55 wagon trains stacked full of logs going to Port of Napier and while at the ‘rail head marshalling yard’ were wagons alongside the port for export (as used to happen at the Gisborne Port.}
We support rail freight to our ports around NZ which is the plan in the Labour Government policy from 2004 by Pete Hodgson called NZ National Rail Strategy” TO 2015.
Ministry of Transport. http://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Import/Documents/nationalrailstrategy.pdf –
We reviewed Hon’ Megan Wood’s speech to the Petroleum Conference which bodes well for rail since the minister has clearly defined the long term goals of her Labour lead coalition/NZF Government “transition to a low-carbon or a net-zero carbon economy will be as transformational as the industrial revolution was to the societies and economies in the nineteenth century.”
so Labour need to get that rail re-opened and to plan to electrify the rail service from Napier to Gisborne to achieve that goal. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1803/S00293/hon-megan-woods-speech-to-the-petroleum-conference.htm
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
PB …
For some time now i has been obvious to me that most current greens are Labour in drag so the news that an ‘ex-green’ hopes to become a National MP replacing Coleman is great news that it could be the start of a sensible Blue-Green grouping.
Leading to National becoming a right wing group with a heart rather than the hopeless idealists we find in the current left.
If only the Greens were more like National, they could trash the environment and the social fabric of the country too.
Your wishful thinking isn’t going to change the definition of “Green”, no matter how hard you try. Read the charter. Nice attempt to smear the wider Left though.
As for environmentalism in the National Party, it looks like Nick Smith defecating in a glass of water. Scientists are just like lawyers, eh.
I am glad that you see, jcuknz, that National is firstly, a right-wing group, and secondly is lacking heart.
I am not sure that a Blue and Green grouping is sensible, even in a fashion sense.
I do not believe that the National Party would be so converted by a 2-3% group. That group exists already in National, and ex-Green MPs like Ian Ewen-Street did not achieve much when we examine the evidence of the misery, pollution and neglect left as a legacy by National this decade.
As for hopeless idealists in the left…….. as the houses are built, as they were after 1935, as the hospitals are rebuilt and extended, as the schools are strengthened in materiel and in mana, motivation, mien and metaphysics, as rivers and beaches are cleaned up, as the homeless are housed, the mentally ill helped, and violence reduced in our community by better justice practice and education, as inequality is addressed,
I just hope you are right as neither the current left or the gone right inspire any confidence that they have any wish to markedly improve matters.
I see a lot of the problem as the stranglehold the public service has on the politicians who simply do not know what is reasonable as was alluded to earlier in this thread.
We need a good PS but not an overpowering one with ‘all the answers’ to suit themselves.
It is the quality of the people in the Public Service, given most were chosen with right wing views to implement, and to prepare sections to be sold off.They have no time for the coalition so are still in the previous settings, and possibly keeping the right informed. Changes will happen.
BUSINESS
$30 million freight-distribution centre to be built in Tauranga
Public COMMUNITY letter;
Protecting our environment & health.
In association with other Community Groups, NHTCF and all Government Agencies since 2001.
Dear rail stakeholders,
RE; $30 million freight-distribution centre to be built in Tauranga
We at CEAC placed a submission for a inland freight terminal before the HBRC Land transport Committee in 2005 for a freight terminal and the 10 acre land was purchased at Whakatu by HBRC in collusion with other councils for providing a “Inland Port freight terminal, so we need to begin construct as Bay of Plenty has done, so we need this now put this land into use in Whakatu.
We in HB must get ahead of the curve of the changes in transport logistics.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
How about when what has been done gas found to be illegal by the Courts and the subject of yet another Court case and had attracted criticism from the UN and was used as an election campaign issue by Labour???
Be Labour, Patricia Brenner…support them and flag wave…but please don’t presume that all people expressing frustration and disappointment with them have been sucked in by right wing media or are merely focussing on an issue that affects only them.
t
The Ministry of Health are restructuring disability supports at the moment…a big ‘system transformation’ if you please.
Fact…despite nearly twenty years of this being a significant issue family care is not being discussed by the working group.
f
Fact…the issue of advanced personal cares and the fact that the moh system had failed this group requiring very high supports is not being discussed.
So…ffs…is it any wonder some are not exactly orgasmic at the current incumbents’s commitment to effecting change on order to do better?
The fossil fuel industry has a choke hold on government and the sooner they and their golden eggs, taxes paid and royalties, get the arse, the sooner renewables take over.
Prices for solar, wind, and battery storage are dropping so rapidly that renewables are increasingly squeezing out all forms of fossil fuel power, including natural gas.
The cost of new solar plants dropped 20 percent over the past 12 months, while onshore wind prices dropped 12 percent, according to the latest Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) report. Since 2010, the prices for lithium-ion batteries — crucial to energy storage — have plummeted a stunning 79 percent (see chart).
According to Naomi Klein, Climate Change (like wars) will just create an opportunity for corporates (many of which have caused the problem) to move in to make further profits. They will profit from the private security firms that will manage the millions of climate refugees and the private prisons and refugee centres that will contain them. They will also profit from the scarcity of food and ramp up the profits here too.
Look at any major disaster (Katrina, Yemen, Iraq…) and you will see big business swooping in and profiting from misery. If Trump is replaced by Pence, he has a background in ensuring profit from crisis.
Labour has released emails between Te Ururoa Flavell’s press secretary and Maori television that show the Minister’s press secretary tried to alter the format of a proposed Native Affairs debate on Whanau Ora and attempted to dissuade Māori Television from inviting NZ First to appear on the show.
Telling the Producer NOT to invite a political party representative.??
Maori TV didnt follow that advice and parts for the segment were filmed but then Flavell had a meeting with the head of MTV. Later that afternoon the show was cancelled
The appropriate legislation says the Minister or their representative must not direct producers etc on the production of any current affairs show.
Duncan Greive recently wrote about the end of an overlong era- Key, English and Joyce are gone. While Hosking burbles on on ZB he’s off the 7pm slot.
But please they take Matthew Screech-owl with them too? I’ve become simply exhausted with him on every form of public and ‘public’ media we’ve had and the conversation has simply moved past what he has to offer.
He’s a tired unnecessary figure of yesteryear. Enough.
Kia ora Morena show on Maori TV good story on Elon Mus Teslar and showing the fact that the Maui Dolphins tragedy of near extinction I challenge the IWI with the biggest fishing enterprise to put up some of there mana and save these beautiful creatures .
At the minute I’m studying My tipuna Mokena Kohere he is a great Chief of
Ngati Porou see you at 10 am apopo ka kite ano
Here we have two CEO retiring one because his hand was forced because he did not keep up with the times and another who retired because he could see it was good for the company .I new Rod Drury was Maori he is doing what is right for his people his shareholders my accountant uses his Xero software its excellent it makes accounting so easy .I have used other accounting software and they were not as unfriendly as
Xero it halves the time to do the books Ka pai Rod Drury enough said. heres the link.
Here we go again someone who is making brash claims about a third industrial revolution John Mc Crone is making predictions about the Protein our good Farmers produce could be replaced by factories growing meat milk in a commercial scale what a load of Bull—– 30 years ago people predicted a lot of things that have not become reality . For some thing to displace meat milk first you have to be-able to scale production up and produce it profitably then one has to get the public to trust and use that product. The manufactures will tell all these lies to try and con us into using the crap products they will lie about all the bad side affects there products cause to humans . But now we have this 21s century device the Internet and social media this device will soon let all the people know when these greedy bigots are selling us a bad product quick smart . So good farmers ignore this idiot and keep up the good work. I’m not impressed with John Mc Crone I won’t say exactly what I think of him Kia Kaha ka kite ano here’s the link .
Newshub the Tauranga sandflys were jumping through hoops going around and around the mulberry bush the block like the little kids they are . All they get out of the vast amount of resources they pour into intermediating me is it takes me 10 minutes longer to get to work and get home.
That’s a excerlint story on Liberia it shows if the charity’s innovative and provide the people ways to make money and grow there own food is a much better way than just giving them the food ECO MAORI still shakes his head as to why these poor people are in the situation they are in poor and starving in the 21s century
I know who is responsible for this situation going on around Papatuanuku World
at the minute look in the mirror .
Kia kaha poor people Ka kite ano
I can see after today’s mahi that they have turned some people against me .They have used my words to turn you against me what I have said is fact but that does not mean I have not got your back and I need uses to have my back always. So I can make life better for all yes my mokos and children come first but I fight for all the suppressed people. One can see from my mahi that things are improving for you . When you are no longer of use they will throw uses under the bus ECO MAORI will never throw anyone under the bus Kia kaha people ka kite ano
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Yesterday the Mayor released what he calls his “plan to save public transport” which is part of his final proposal for the Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP). This comes following consultation on the draft version that occurred in March which showed, once again, that people want more done on transport, especially ...
And it's a pleasure that I have knownAnd it's a treasure that I have gainedAotearoa’s coalition government is fragile. It’s held together by the obsequious sycophancy of Christopher Luxon, who willingly contorts his party into the fringe positions of his junior coalition partners and is unwilling to contradict them. The ...
The Select Committee hearing submissions on the fast-track consenting legislation is starting to become a beat-up of regional councils. The inflexibility and slow workings of the Councils were prominent in two submissions yesterday. One, from the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association, simply said that the Waikato Regional Council’s planning decisions were ...
Back in April, the High Court surprised everyone by ruling that Ministers are above the law, at least as far as the Waitangi Tribunal is concerned. The reason for this ruling was "comity" - the idea that the different branches of government shouldn't interfere with each other's functions. Which makes ...
Buzz from the BeehiveTolling was mentioned when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the government was re-introducing the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme, with 15 “crucial” projects to support economic growth and regional development across New Zealand. All RoNS would be four-laned, grade-separated highways, and all funding, financing, and ...
or the past 14 years, ever since the Spanish government cheated on an autonomy deal, Catalonia has reliably given pro-independence parties a majority of seats in their regional parliament. But now that seems to be over. Catalans went to the polls yesterday, and stripped the Catalan parties of their majority. ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ report: Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the Electoral Commission should make sure the system ran smoothly and “taking away the right of thousands of people to vote” was not the answer. “Thousands of people enroled and voted on the day. If ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
Arawata Shane Arawata Shane had wandered long In the wild tangled hills of the West Coast. He came to a stop on the mighty range And looked down at the wide river flats. He breathed in the clean air, And he took in the shadows playing across The face of ...
SPECIAL REPORT:Islands Business in Suva Today is the 24th anniversary of renegade and failed businessman George Speight’s coup in 2000 Fiji. The elected coalition government headed by Mahendra Chaudhry, the first and only Indo-Fijian prime minister of Fiji, was held hostage at gunpoint for 56 days in the country’s ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist and Kelvin Anthony, RNZ Pacific digital journalist Police have used tear gas and stun grenades on rioters at an airport near Nouméa as the chaos in New Caledonia stretched into its sixth day. Five people, including two police officers, have died and hundreds of ...
Asia Pacific ReportThe global human rights watchdog Amnesty International has called on France to not “misuse” a crackdown in the ongoing unrest in the non-self-governing French Pacific territory of Kanaky New Caledonia in the wake of a controversial vote by the French Parliament to adopt a bill changing the territory’s ...
A major provider of school lunches fears the government's new $3 limit for most students will see them eating more pre-packaged and processed food. ...
The star of Dark City: The Cleaner takes us through his life in TV, including the VHS revolution and the John Campbell impression that started it all. Best known for his comedic roles, Cohen Holloway says he struggled at times to maintain the stone cold facade of serial killer on ...
David Hill remembers an old friend, who you’ve probably never heard of. My friend Doug never travelled; he had little interest in the world beyond his own tiny rural town. I’ve rarely known anyone who radiated such contentment. Doug (I’ll call him that) died in March. You won’t know him. ...
Some of the earliest photos of life in Aotearoa are on display at Auckland Museum right now – but the identities of some of the people in them are a mystery.What was it like to be one of the first people in New Zealand to have their photo taken? ...
Since its founding almost a decade ago, Featherston Booktown has grown into one of the country’s most interesting and idiosyncratic literary events. Erin Banks reports from the audience. “Come in, have you had lunch? I’m about to make a cheese toastie.” Mary Biggs, operations manager of Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival, ...
After 33 years abroad, Loveni Enari recently returned to Aotearoa and Samoa in what a friend joked was an “existential crisis”. He learnt and re-learnt so much about his family, friends and both countries. Almost as an afterthought, he got a Samoan tatau. This is his story. (Accompanying it are ...
Nearly 30 years ago, two people told me they’d killed a woman they knew. I thought the truth would come out, that others would tell it. In the end, I had to. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Fact: in 1995, Angela Blackmoore ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman looks back at the week and shines a light on some increasingly rare longform journalism. Mōrena and welcome to The Weekend where there will sadly be no aurora to see. After a busy week last week of short, sharp pieces, this week we swung the other way, ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a revered Kanak visionary, was inspirational to indigenous Pacific political activists across Oceania, just like Tongan anthropologist and writer Epeli Hao’ofa was to cultural advocates. Tragically, he was assassinated in 1989 by an opponent within the independence movement during ...
Forget thin is in, apparently now bigger is better … or is it? After over a decade of body positivity, girls, teens and women are even more confused about what body positivity actually is. The movement began with women confronting unrealistic expectations of how their bodies should look. But sub-strands ...
Grace always sat at the bar at the back of The Cambridge, where she could watch who came in. A huge mirror ran the length of the pub, so you could sometimes watch people without them knowing. The mirror made the place seem a lot bigger than it really was. ...
MONDAY Sheriff Mark Mitchell rose at dawn. He had a long day’s ride ahead of him. He was headed for Waikeria. Waikeria! Even the name itself stirred his blood, and set root in his imagination. There was nothing and no one in Waikeria. But he would bend it to his ...
The first phase of the inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones finished this week, turning up plenty of revelations and few answers. But through all the confusion, heartbreak and antipathy on display, the simple fact at the heart of this case remains: if little Lachie’s body had ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Benjamin, Professor in Art History, University of Sydney “She’s no oil painting”. Those were the unkind words of a colleague commenting on the subject of Vincent Namatjira’s acrylic painting, Gina. Every one of the prominent Australians and cultural heroes in Namatjira’s ...
Government plans to require local councils hold a referendum on whether to have Māori wards breaches the Treaty of Waitangi, a Waitangi Tribunal report has found. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney This year the National Rugby League (NRL) opened its season in Las Vegas. It was an audacious move by the league’s ambitious head honcho Peter V’Landys to showcase the game in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Strong, Associate Professor, Music Industry, RMIT University Leading music organisations have praised the federal budget for its investment in the live music sector. The budget includes A$8.6 million for a program called Revive Live: to provide essential support to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marnee Shay, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, The University of Queensland The 2024 federal budget contains A$110 million for Indigenous education. This includes funding for various different organisations to represent and help Indigenous people as well as scholarships in a bid to ...
Air New Zealand has confirmed Nouméa’s Tontouta International airport in New Caledonia is closed until Tuesday. The airline earlier told RNZ it would update customers as soon as it could. Earlier today, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Morning Report government officials had been working on an “hourly basis” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Linley, PhD Candidate in Ecology, Charles Sturt University Grant Linley Australia’s unprecedented Black Summer bushfires in 2019–20 created ideal conditions for misinformation to spread, from the insidious to the absurd. It was within this context that a bizarre story ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcel Scharth, Lecturer in Business Analytics, University of Sydney OpenAI executive Mira Murati launching GPT-4o.OpenAI Earlier this week OpenAI launched GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treasure McGuire, Assistant Director of Pharmacy, Mater Health SEQ in conjoint appointment as Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Bond University and as Associate Professor (Clinical), The University of Queensland Speedkingz/Shutterstock Menopause is a natural biological process that marks the end of a ...
A new poem by Hannah Patterson. Xiāng There’s a pear tree in our backyard And Xiāng tells me She can’t eat them anymore Not after some things that have happened in her life. She tells me, in Mandarin The word for pear sounds the same as the word for disassociation ...
‘Cycling Works’ aims to show business support for citywide cycle infrastructure. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, supermarket giant Foodstuffs lost its attempt to block the construction of a cycle lane outside Thorndon New World in Wellington. The Spinoff’s Wellington editor ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Slow Productivity by Cal Newport (Penguin, $40)Taking out the top spot in Auckland this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University For decades, Australia has exported uranium – but not used it, other than in the Lucas Heights research reactor. But change is coming. We now face a rapidly deepening commitment to ...
"In future I should walk away," Green MP Julie Anne Genter says after complaints over an exchange in Parliament and from two members of the public. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Graffam, PhD Candidate in Theatre, Monash University Gianna Rizzo/Malthouse Music pumps; lights pulsate; two sweaty bodies sway together, touching, breathing in each other’s scent. A male body framed by downlight restlessly shifts between stances and gestures. He undresses. The intensity ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandra van der Laan, Professor of Accounting, University of Sydney Mtaya/Shutterstock At some point, you or someone else will need to make a decision about your “send-off”. Most Australians die in an institution, such as a hospital or aged care facility. ...
Asia Pacific Report Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai — who is also Chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group — has reaffirmed MSG’s support of the pro-independence umbrella group Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) stance opposing the French government’s constitutional bill “unfreezing” the New Caledonia Electoral Roll. It is ...
Producer Susan Leonard remembers her father Ernie, a pioneer of Māori television, and how his legacy lives on in Pathfinders.My father was a fabulous man. His name was Ernie Leonard and he started in TV in the 1970s when it was still glamorous – when TVNZ made behind the ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk, and Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist The suspected ringleaders of the unrest in New Caledonia have been placed in home detention and the social network TikTok has been banned as French security forces struggle to restore law and order. The French ...
Multi-year appropriations - which give the government authority to spend money without reapplying annually - are loosening Parliament's control of the public purse, auditor-general says. ...
Dr. Eric Chuah who stood for a centrist NZ political party in the October 2023 NZ Elections for Maungakiekie Auckland will stand as a candidate for Tauranga City Council Ward of Matua-=Otumoetai and Mayor of Tauranga. ...
If you can’t get to the comedy fest, let us bring the comedy fest to you. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is in full swing at the moment, with a veritable smorgasboard of comedy treats ...
A new poll commissioned by Unions Wellington shows an overwhelming majority of Wellingtonians oppose the Council’s plan to sell the 34% public stake in Wellington Airport. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aruna Sathanapally, Chief Executive, Grattan Institute, Grattan Institute A central focus of this week’s budget is the treasury’s forecast for inflation. By this time next year, inflation is projected to be back within the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target range. Inflation has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yolanda van Heezik, Professor of Ecology, University of Otago Getty Images Cities across Aotearoa New Zealand are trying to solve a housing crisis, with increasing residential density a key solution. But not everyone is happy about the resulting loss of natural ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Reeve, Deputy Program Director, Energy and Climate Change, Grattan Institute WDG Photo/Shutterstock For years, the electricity sector has been the poster child for emissions cuts in Australia. The sector achieved a stunning 26% drop in emissions over the past 15 ...
It’s often the last thing people want to do, but asking someone if they’re having suicidal thoughts is a critical first step to helping them. Content warning: this story discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. For a list of resources that can help if you or someone you know is feeling ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy J. Ralph, Associate Professor, Macquarie University The pyramids at Giza, like dozens of others, are located several kilometres west of the current path of the Nile.Alex Cimbal / Shutterstock The largest field of pyramids in Egypt – consisting of 31 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute ABO PHOTOGRAPHY/Shutterstock Receiving a cancer diagnosis is life-changing and can cause a range of concerns about ongoing health. Fear of cancer returning is one ...
Winston Peters has been on tour around the Pacific while two unrelated crises unfolded, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Two separate ...
This is the Mount Everest of artificial meatcraft.Ah, bacon. Pig’s gold. Toast’s consolation. Dawn’s savoury embrace. If meat was a currency, bacon would be the Benjamin Franklin. Or if you’re feeling patriotic, the Lord Rutherford. When it comes to fake bacon, the obvious question is: why bother? In the ...
From illegal milk to sprinkler bans and airplane ticket scams, Tyrone Barugh is on a one-man mission through New Zealand’s most obscure legal loopholes. I’m deep undercover, investigating Wellington’s criminal underworld. Inside this store, I’ve been told there is a million-dollar trade in illicit substances. A man dressed in black ...
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New Zealand’s drug legislation hasn’t been overhauled in nearly 50 years, in spite of a recommendation from the Law Commission in 2011 to do so. Our Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1975 and is based on a United Nations framework set in 1961. Now a new organisation, Harm ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) A free copy of this amazing story of a woman who operated behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France was up for grabs this past fortnight. Readers were asked to share a story of wartime bravery, ...
Trump keeps setting himself up to be the fall dude, this time for Amazon.
According to Dave Kranzler and others Amazon is using an accounting trick to hide losses and despite it’s mammoth size and low cost business model may turn into another Enron. Hard to believe.
In any case the P/E ratio is so freakin high it has to fall precipitously when Mr Market snaps out of the mania phase and back to depression.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/102723707/us-president-donald-trump-goes-after-a-favorite-target-amazon
When John F. Kennedy was President the total debt of the US was around $300 billion.
That’s about the same amount debt the US issued in just the last week.
At this point you either continue to believe Trump is playing some kind of 4d chess game or you accept that the US is in irrecoverable decline.
Picturing trump playing single dimensional chess is a stretch let alone 4d.
Chess also has clear rules that you can’t change so not really the Donald’s scene.
Declines inevitable if you aren’t allowed to change the system and POTUS are all about status quo.
A “single dimension” version of chess is hard to envisage. The two dimensional version is all that I, for one, have ever played.
Lifting pieces requires 3. Time unfolding is the 4th.
And delusional delirium is my 5th.
I think we are seeing the dying gasps of the US now which is actually kind of scary.
As an empire begins to fall it will no doubt become more aggressive to save itself. Also the vacuum will be filled by either Russia or China both of which have more draconian laws than the US. Say what you will about the US but at least the have some rudimentary laws regarding freedom of speech and association.
According to this bloke, the world’s first rich state failure is certainly on the cards.
.
Why? When we take a hard look at US collapse, we see a number of social pathologies on the rise. Not just any kind. Not even troubling, worrying, and dangerous ones. But strange and bizarre ones. Unique ones. Singular and gruesomely weird ones I’ve never really seen before, and outside of a dystopia written by Dickens and Orwell, nor have you, and neither has history. They suggest that whatever “numbers” we use to represent decline — shrinking real incomes, inequality, and so on —we are in fact grossly underestimating what pundits call the “human toll”, but which sensible human beings like you and I should simply think of as the overwhelming despair, rage, and anxiety of living in a collapsing society.
https://eand.co/why-were-underestimating-american-collapse-be04d9e55235
This bloke predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Johan Galtung, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated sociologist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, warned that US global power will collapse under the Donald Trump administration.
The Norwegian professor at the University of Hawaii and Transcend Peace University is recognized as the ‘founding father’ of peace and conflict studies as a scientific discipline. He has made numerous accurate predictions of major world events, most notably the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
Galtung has also accurately predicted the 1978 Iranian revolution; the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 in China; the economic crises of 1987, 2008 and 2011; and even the 9/11 attacks—among other events, according to the late Dietrich Fischer, academic director of the European University Center for Peace Studies.
Back in 2000, Galtung first set out his prediction that the “US empire” would collapse within 25 years. After the election of President Bush, though, he revised that forecast five years forward because, he argued, Bush’s policies of extreme militarism would be an accelerant.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d7ykxx/us-power-will-decline-under-trump-says-futurist-who-predicted-soviet-collapse
Interesting. Thanks.
Yep which is why we need to be building up our defence systems and declaring ourselves neutral rather than picking sides. When empires collapse the small nations that chose against the replacement find themselves on the out.
+1 for building our defensive capability
Russia certainly won’t supplant the US. Basic factors against Russia are less than 50% of the population of the US, an economy only 20% the size of the US, too many “enemies”.
If any nation is to supplant the US it will be China. With 1.3 billion people and an economy that will be the size of the US by 2020 – 2025.
However outside of all out war, nations do not suddenly collapse. So the US influence will be profound for decades to come, especially on the defence and security fronts.
What then is the chance of war at scale that would fundamentally disrupt the power balance among the great powers?
I would say pretty low. They are all nuclear states, and thus will go to great lengths to avoid direct an actual shooting military confrontation. Of course issues like the recent poisoning will occur, but something like that will not precipitate war.
Who said anything about a war?
Don’t need a war for the US empire to collapse. Just the collapse of the US from failed internal dynamics.
And because we’re copying those same failed dynamics we’ll go the same way – unless we learn from their collapse.
A sudden collapse, say any time before 2030, could only occur through war. Only war (and a global war at that) is disruptive enough to cause a collapse. Otherwise nations just go through slow decline.
Use the example of Russia on how difficult it is for great powers to actually collapse. Even with the dramatic breakup of the Soviet Union, with only half the population of the United States, and an economy only 20% the size, Russia remains a hugely important nation able to do a lot of things at the global level.
It is hugely unlikely that Trump can do anything to the United States as dramatic as the breakup of the Soviet Union. How could he?
In fact at the moment the US is the fastest growing large western nation, and has been for the last 3 years. Even if Trump is not the beneficiary of that, or does not know how to use it, it will have an impact over time.
So the United States is going to be hugely influential for many decades to come. In the Asia Pacific, it will either be the No1 or No 2 ranking power.
Bollocks.
Don’t recall a war being involved when the USSR collapsed. Just failed internal dynamics – same as what’s happening in the US.
The Trump Administration is maintaining or possibly accelerating the collapse by internal dynamics by increasing the stressors on the people.
Is it really growing or does it just have an overly-inflated share-market?
That’s all from Why we can’t afford the rich.
The author uses these points to show that a lot of ‘growth’ in developed countries is more about asset price growth than actual development. Get rid of that inflation and there’s no growth more often than not.
“So the US influence will be profound for decades to come, especially on
the defence and security frontswarmongering.”FIFY
“$300 billion this week ” ?
Official figures suggest a lot less:
” The U.S. Treasury expects to borrow $955 billion this fiscal year, according to documents released Wednesday. It’s the highest amount of borrowing in six years, and a big jump from the $519 billion the federal government borrowed last year.”
$955 bill in one year is more like $18.3 bill per week
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/03/the-u-s-government-is-set-to-borrow-nearly-1-trillion-this-year/
If you compare Debt to GDP the picture does change significantly
Here are the numbers
https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287
In Kennedys first year it was 52%. It dropped fairly steadily to bottom out at 31% in 1974 and 1979. Neither was a great year economically. Then it rose relatively slowly to reach 67% in George W’s last year, 2008. The really spectacular growth was in the Obama years when it rose to 105% in his last year of 2016.
Under Trump it has been fairly steady
You quote the number of $300 billion for a week. That figure may be the debt issues but I do not believe it accounts for redemptions. It is the net figure that is relevant and it shouldn’t be calculated over a period as short as a week.
Obama had to address the Global Financial Crisis. It is not surprising that debt increased.
I quite agree. I am merely pointing out that a comparison of a week under Trump to the total under Kennedy is a bit misleading, particularly when it is in nominal terms and doesn’t look like a net figure for the change in debt.
Have you ever considered writing this same statement with Key instead of Obama? If you considered doing so did you actually carry it out? Or did you perhaps blame Key and the National Government as being personally responsible for increased New Zealand National Debt?
Well Key is known for saying before the GFC, that we had ‘too little debt’.
The country he was thinking off was the celtic Tiger – Ireland.
We know how that turned out
Cullen knew that in a boom, a surplus was likely to be a mirage, so that was a good time to reduce debt- which he did.
Tell us how much the debt has been payed down recently -last 4 years -by Key and English ?
“Key is known for saying before the GFC, that we had ‘too little debt’.”.
I assume you can produce a citation for that statement?
What is it?
Easter, when you realise it must be awful to be Jesus. I mean, sitting one down from God, like being Prince Charles but for eternity.
I think you will find that Jesus and God are one and the same.
I think you will find that they don’t exist, and you can spare me your thoughts and prayers while you’re at it.
Kind of an unnecessarily dickish response. I’m an atheist but was also going to point out that Jesus and God were the same.
+1.
Religion is the cyanide of the masses.
Great. Doesn’t make someone who knows about Christianity a religious person though and the target of your scorn
And what about someone who responds to Sanctuary’s poking fun at sky-fairies, with theological mumbo-pocus?
Again, knowing God and Jesus are the same and correcting that doesn’t make someone religious and thus the victim of scorn.
bah humbug.
https://twitter.com/leunigcartoons/status/979526896177352710
So we should not respect peoples views that do believe in God? Or Buddha, Or Allah?
There are plenty of people that absolutely believe that they do exist – and as far as I have seen there is no proof either way.
Personally Im not sure what I believe when it comes to this.
Actually there is plenty of proof for the non-existence of God (the Christian version at least)
Technically the only honest position is agnosticism because you can never know for sure. But I’m an atheist when it comes to all the gods of men
I respect their right to hold any view at all, but I don’t respect religious mumbo-pocus any more than I respect neo-liberal mumbo-pocus.
I always felt if you didn’t want your beliefs ridiculed you shouldn’t have such silly beliefs
I was going to say that’s a very disrespectful thing to say – but then I remembered Scientologist.
Beliefs aren’t meant to be respected. Your beliefs, as anyone’s, are open to criticism and rejection.
I agree. Religion gets a free pass on the automatic respect and no criticism allowed scale.
No bloody tax either!!
Interesting PoV and it depends on what you mean by “respect”.
People’s beliefs, views, opinions, etc., are based on and underpinned by their values and value systems and, as such, are expressions of who these people are. As the saying goes, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”, which, to me, means that people can agree to disagree and accept, tolerate, and respect others for what and who they are, and say, and that includes religious beliefs. Why do some people feel they must criticise and reject the beliefs of others and even heap scorn and ridicule them in the process?
They are defending their sacred right to do so!
No beliefs are sacrosanct and immune to criticism. Sure – you have the freedom to say what you want but that doesn’t mean you can’t be criticized.
People feel this way because of all the gross harm religion causes, organises, hides, and excuses.
The relentless lies, the targeting of children, the targeting of grief. The moralising.
From a pragmatic perspective, “Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily let go;
So religion enthralls generation after generation.”
It’s good to live in a country where the religious are not allowed to pull our fingernails out or burn us to death any more. Notice how cloying and unctuous they’ve become?
Why do some people feel they must criticise and reject the beliefs of others and even heap scorn and ridicule them in the process?
So we should all give those poor neo-liberals a break then?
Anybody who believes that Buddha is a god is not doing a very good job at understanding his teachings.
God loves even you OAB. Jesus died for your sins, and rose again, the greatest prophet of all time!
You are in His prayers and thoughts.
If Jesus is God, who does he pray to?
A ghost?
Wondering if people would make the same jokes (or similar) about Allah?
Io Pan.
Such fun
Jesus might be less into the status thing than you sanky.
Genesis 22: God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to prove his loyalty. A messenger from God stops Abraham at the last minute, saying “now I know you fear God.”
The whole monotheistic thing seems pretty status conscious to me.
Still, Jesus did disappear on Friday and turn up looking a lot worse for wear on Monday, maybe he just went Glasto or something cos I sure looked like death warmed up on the Monday after that as well.
you do realise that the Bible was written by men right? And men of a particular time, place and agenda.
The compilation of the bible by committee, with lots of snark and silliness.
Back to the Bible: lots of Christian fic out there. By the time you got to a copy of a copy of a retelling of a conflation it was getting hard to figure out what had been an episode of the show and what was someone’s AU RPF.
The centuries passed. Much in this manner:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/014838.html#014838
This source, at least, seems to think that most of the books were written in the first 40 or so years after Jesus’ death in about 30 AD
https://www.biblestudytools.com/resources/guide-to-bible-study/order-books-new-testament.html
Can’t say I am terribly interested though. I only look at a bible when I am trying to do a crossword puzzle or a quiz in the newspaper.
Basically after Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire the whole outfit sold out to accommodate paganism. Christ was based on the most attractive of the ancient Gods, a sensual and perky young Apollo, with the dual sexuality of the pagan Gods taken care of by elevating Isis to the status of number one mother Goddess and re-branding her as Mary.
Catholicism is basically the Pagan state religion of the Roman Empire re-worked for monotheism and all was well and good in the Empire.
Actually, that is not entirely true. The central revolutionary idea of Christ survived. The idea that all people are equal and we shall be judged by God not on how many bulls we can afford to sacrifice but on how good a life we have lived is so central to the way we see the world that it beggars belief that no one thought of it before Christ, but that was his big idea. People thronged to Christianity because it offered hope. The hope of salvation no matter what your station in life by simply living a good and holy life. No longer were the rich specially favoured by the Gods in the afterlife. In fact, if anything the opposite was true. The centrality of this idea still underpins our society and culture, which is why even though a majority say we do not believe in God, we are still a “Christian” culture because we all still believe in the big idea of Jesus – even if we don’t realise it.
And as for the Protestants… Well, what would they know? Marin Luther was 1500 years removed from the time of Christ and his scatological obsessions were very… Teutonic.
What beggars belief is that there are still intelligent and educated people today who believe in the god and myths of ancient simpletons.
As for the dropping materialism and valuing everybody thing, that is obviously thousands of years older with it central to what the Buddha taught and also in the traditions that he drew from. Going much further than Jesus, the Buddha held that ALL life had dignity and was worthy of compassion. If it hadn’t been for anthropocentrism of Christianity we would most probably be far less up the environment shit creek that we are.
Stephen Fry on God.
I think it proves they aren’t particularly intelligent. They just don’t have the intellectual capacity to challenge their belief in god or whatever.
But to be fair though, to stand apart from the whole community that one depends on for their whole existence, which has some god type belief system, would take some courage and strength.
You do realise that this is a very one-sided and presumptuous comment, don’t you?
Who cares?
I do, if you don’t mind?
It has to be anthropocentric because as a human being everything you know happens in your brain. What is outside you is known to you only through your own human brain. “be transformed by the renewal of your mind”
https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Rom%2012.1-2
Bollocks. The Buddha was able to have and teach compassion for all things while the Christ it would seem only people.
In traditional Australian Aboriginal society each person has an animal totem and a responsibility to be a guardian of that species. Rituals need to be performed at the correct time and place to ensure the healthy continuance of their totem. They see ancestors and their Dreamtime actions in environmental objects.
Christianity however holds that God gave humans Dominion over all things and that ‘he’ created the environment for people. Worse still, this environment is not even the real thing but rather just a testing ground of worthiness for the eternal life to come. .
Really?
Have you noticed how our socio-economic system is set up to have us worship the rich?
the central revolutionary idea
As authored by Guan Zhong (720–645 BCE).
“…Catholicism is basically the Pagan state religion of the Roman Empire re-worked for monotheism and all was well and good in the Empire….”
In case anyone is wondering how this may be, the esteem that Catholics have for their saints (and the many festivals they celebrate for them) is a big clue.
Which accounts also for the demise of God the Mother as opposed to God the Father.
indeed.
Great Pan is also dead.
or people like to pretend he is.
🙂
just resting
The God for our times seems to be Bacchus (or Dionysos as the Greeks called him).
Nah! T’is “money” – or the way the concept is utilsed within capitalism:
Great musical, Cabaret. I always liked My Fair Lady for it’s good storyline and excellent songs; but for sheer power Cabaret is hard to beat.
I recently saw Roger Waters in Auckland.
Best show I have ever been to, hands down. The LSD helped too 😉
I wish.
It should be noted that, according to Greek mythology, Dionysos was the son of Zeus by an earthly mother, Semele.
Worse for wear sanky? You might bounce back fresh as a daisy from your weekend session with Madame Lash the Roman Nail Lady, but you’re an exception.
Can you explain that please and
doesn’t “but you’re an exception” contradict “might bounce back fresh as a daisy”?
Nice to see Yulia Skripal’s condition has improved.
That’s pretty uncivil of her. She should have died, otherwise how can Mrs May be expected to succeed in selling the idea that it was novichok that was used against her and her dad.
You sound disappointed. The OPCW will say what it was, but frankly, even Teresa May’s word is worth more than yours.
If she recovers she’ll be a witness of some credibility. Hope her hospital security is on the ball.
So do I.
No doubt she will be debriefed thoroughly by the British authorities
But yes, I’m really happy for her and hope Sergey makes a good recovery.
debriefed
Nice weasel smear. Agents get “debriefed”. Witnesses get interviewed.
“Debriefed” would suggest she was briefed prior to the incident. That seems unlikely.
Coming soon to a Kremlin smear campaign near you.
true dat mikesh
Lets say she will no doubt wonder what the hell has happened to her and will be apprised of her circumstances
Great news for her family in Russia
The cousin did a long interview with Russia BBC
expressing her hope for a miracle
And a miracle it will be indeed
Mirzayanov and other chemists says no one can survive novichok
Chemists are not medical professionals and have no idea what dose was delivered, though, so their reckons can be discounted. Not that that will stop you.
I note that the Kremlin’s lies have changed from “it doesn’t exist” to “it’s far too deadly to be the nerve agent used in this case.”
The important question is what dose was absorbed and we will never know the answer to that; at best we’ll have a guess. Has the structure/identity of the poison been independently confirmed and verified yet?
Not all chemists are the same; medicinal chemists, for example, generally have a very good idea (as in: knowledge & understanding) of the biological activity, mechanism of action, and dose-potency of the biologically-active compounds they design & synthesise and often test as well.
Mirzayanov was the chemist who worked on novichok and later emigrated to America, taking his knowledge of the nerve agent with him, thus giving the lie to Jacinda’s claim that novichok could only have been produced in Russia.
Keep telling yourself that, but do check from time to time to make sure you’re still running the official lines. The Kremlin changes them daily.
It’s not a “Kremlin line”. That Mirzayanov worked on novichok, and later emigrated to the States, are statements of fact.
Jacinda, rather than accuse Russia directly, took the more cautious line and said that only Russia makes the stuff, a statement which has as many holes as (if you will excuse the cliche) Swiss cheese.
Careful, you just contradicted the official story.
No, wait…
I don’t blame you though. It must be hard keeping up with a bunch of lying trash.
All I have said is that Mirzayanov worked on novichok and later emigrated to the States. I have no idea whether or not the Russians actually succeeded in their endeavours to produce the stuff.
The Russians don’t need an “official line” as you call it. The onus is on Mrs May to prove them guilty, which she has so far failed to do. The Russians are not required to prove their innocence. A simple denial from them that they were involved in the Salisbury incident is all that is required.
Ardern is rabbitting the claims of others.
I chuckled at the former trade ministef and now shadow foreign minister getting uppity at Ardern over Russia cos I have a vague recollection when others invoked sanctions on Russia Key still wanted to send our milk?
The thing which goes unrecognized is the degree to which the environment has changed.
Pre-1991, Russian activity was mostly linked to embassies in some fashion. There were not migrant oligarchs or investors in any quantity, much less the troll or hacker groups.
Oligarchs – or businessmen or investors as they describe themselves, are worthy of some scrutiny. Most were active prior to 1991, and if they acquired significant wealth subsequent to the demise of the soviet state, they rarely did so by productive conventional enterprise.
Like the profiteers of Rogergnomics they generally benefitted in some fashion from the acquisition of public property at significantly less than its real value. They have more in common with organized crime than conventional businesses do, and some may be used to manage any of the intelligence activities once centred around the embassies.
The expulsion exclusively of embassy staff suggests a lack of attention to other kinds of operatives.
The Russians don’t need an “official line”
So why are their officials releasing a series of contradictory pathetic excuses that make them look as guilty as they possibly can?
Mirzayanov? What, this Mirzayanov?
Better be careful Francesca: you might undermine some of the other lines you’ve been running.
“During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein’s ambition and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by [Ahmad] Chalabi and his allies—almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.”
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/
You really need to do more research oab.
Shoot the messenger, fool.
Vil Mirzayanov.
That was before Putin’s time as leader. I’m pretty sure Putin, since taking office, would have dissuaded Assad from using chemical weapons, if only on tactical grounds.
😆
The Intercept has a good article on Bolton and his interactions with the OPCW
The US certainly has persuasive methods
.Lets hope the current OPCW is as ballsy as Bustani was
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/john-bolton-trump-bush-bustani-kids-opcw/
As to the UK/EU solidarity
it seems in Germany that is already crumbling
https://www.ft.com/content/8836cff0-31a6-11e8-ac48-10c6fdc22f03
Nauert , US State Department spokesperson gives a clue into how EU states were made rapidly compliant after original intransigence
“Our Deputy Secretary Sullivan, Assistant Secretary Wess Mitchell, and many others in the building across the interagency process have worked tirelessly over the past three weeks to achieve this unprecedented level of cooperation and also coordination. The end result – 151 Russian intelligence personnel sent home to Moscow ”
https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2018/03/279585.htm
I see you’re already setting up your denials of whatever the OPCW finds.
It seems strange that, before the OPCW have investigated and filed a report, and before other investigations have been completed, that Mrs May should go off half cocked making unsupported accusations. No wonder Lavlov treated her with richly deserved contempt.
I’d have thought Mrs May would have had more sense, but I guess she had to act before the propaganda value of it all went stale.
No, it doesn’t seem strange at all, since she has seen a lot more of the evidence, whereas you will never see any of the evidence, because there will never be a trial, because the Kremlin will see to it that anyone charged is not extradited, just like Andrey Lugovoy.
In the vanishingly unlikely event that the Kremlin thug who perpetrated this crime is ever arrested and charged, you won’t see any of the evidence then either, because you won’t be on the jury. Happily for you, that means you will never have to confront the facts at all.
Also, diplomacy is not a court case.
Since she has not revealed any evidence we can be pretty sure your claim has originated from an “interview of your typewriter”. But she should in any case have waited till all the evidence was in. However as I said earlier she probably felt she needed to obtain maximum propaganda from the event.
Presumably you think that making unsupported accusations is OK providing they are made outside a courtroom.
That’s a lovely impression of a young Earth creationist you’re doing. Teach the controversy. The science isn’t settled.
In fact there’s plenty of evidence. Motive, means and opportunity have all been established, the nature of the poison used, and the Kremlin’s ever-shifting campaign of doubt.
Also, releasing evidence is the role of the British Police, should they choose to do so. You may want to brush up on the separation of powers if you want your doubt stories to have some fleeting relationship with reality.
It doesn’t matter whose job it is to release evidence, Mrs May has provided no evidence to support her claims so those claims should not have been made. All she has said to the house is that is “very likely” to have been the Russians. This of course is euphemism for “we don’t really know who did it but we think it may have been those naughty Russians”. I don’t think she has even claimed to actually have any undisclosed evidence. All she has said in support is that it must have been the Russians because they are the only source – a statement which has more holes than Swiss cheese.
The jigsaw has some holes in it. Not as many holes as the constantly changing lies of the Kremlin, though.
The Kremlin have not changed their story. They have consistently denied involvement.
Consistently denying involvement by telling an ever-changing series of lies. M’kay.
This is one writer’s comment, which may be of interest. It expresses no opinion as whether or not Russia is guilty, but looks at the House of Commons’ reaction to Jeremy Corbyn’s questioning of Theresa May’s opinion on the matter. You will recall that he was shouted down by the government members and by some members of his own party.
“And that makes it a blood chilling experience for anyone hoping for some form of rational, measured discussion, to put matters in their proper perspective.
No such human qualities were on display in this witches cauldron of vitriolic accusation and barely hidden call for blood. The British Houses of Parliament.
It sends a shiver down the spine of all sentient human beings when they realize that what is on show is nothing more or nothing less – than the denial of the right to an opinion. That any mortal who dares to ask a logical question is shouted down and accused of working for the devil.
For that was the sentiment of this occasion. And it amply illustrates the pervasive, creeping rise of the fascistic state; everyday more strident, more dictatorial, more authoritarian. An ever more threatening sword held over citizens who have not fallen. Who have refused to be slaves. An ever more sinister clamoring and broadcasting of the vitriol of war.
Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are they key components of a democratic constitution.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/freedom-of-expression-the-denial-of-the-right-to-an-opinion-britains-inexorable-slide-into-fascism/5632662?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
I’m inclined to agree. And it encapsulates perfectly the mood in
which this “demonisation of Russia” is occurring.
“Motive, means and opportunity” are merely circumstantial evidence and prove nothing.
The greenhouse effect hasn’t been proved either. What are you a tobacco company lawyer?
As for “unsupported accusations”, “it was the Czechs, it was the CIA, they’re all crisis actors! I seen it on RT!”
What a hypocrite.
I never said any of that. You are starting to sound like that raving lunatic (you know who).
The hypocrisy is in your focus on the British government’s statements without once running the same “sceptical” (lol) ruler over the constantly changing lies of the Kremlin.
The British are making the accusations so the onus is on them to prove guilt, not on the Russians to prove their innocence. It is notoriously difficult to prove a negative in any case.
Big on name calling but fact free as ever.
Still waiting for your link on the imaginary women who you claimed gets Assad off the hook at Khan Sheikhoun.
We don’t come to The Standard to read vacuous tripe like this – lift your game.
“Since she has not revealed any evidence…”
Actually she is unlikely to reveal the evidence she has. She has intelligence as well as forensic sources, and may know perfectly well who is responsible. That doesn’t mean that she is free to release that information for the titillation of Putin dupes.
You’ve been targeted, francesca…
Thats ok One Two
I think I’ll sleep easy.
Here’s the evidence by the way
http://www.euronews.com/2018/03/28/these-are-the-presentation-slides-that-convinced-european-countries-to-expel-its-diplomats
https://en.crimerussia.com/upload/iblock/75d/UK_Briefing.pdf
Assumption was that you had noticed, and in any case, are well prepared…
Have a good day…
Thanks One Two
appreciate it
And here’s the interview with Victoria Skripal, Yulia’s cousin
https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-43559446
That’s all Russian to me, Francesca.
Al Jazeera’s Listening Post has done a good piece on the media coverage of the Skripal case in the UK and Russia.
Both countries have been ramping up the hyperbole and cold war style rhetoric: a “monotone” coverage in the UK, and propaganda in Russia. Both sides taking the opportunity to demonise the other:
Sorry about that Carolyn
The translate button probably doesn’t come through with cut and paste
English is not too bad for an online translation
I feel for her trying to cut through the bureaucracy on all sides
Thanks for the link, interesting stuff
Thanks for the link Francesca, rather amusing it is, their forth form ‘presentation’.
“long pattern of malign activity” by Russia.
Couldn’t a long pattern of malign activity by the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia make them equally culpable?
Do they really think we are such fools to be impressed by these spurious claims?
Still, politicians aren’t renowned for their great intelligence.
The presentation of substandard and amateurish material, is a sneer playing out publicly…
Recall the ‘acme bomb’ drawing to The UN by Netanyahu…
The mobile weapons labs in Iraq….etc
It is debateable that those preparing such documents are not particulary clever/well prepared…
Or if it is, a complete piss take…
Even stakes with other influences mixed in…
Out of control, a runaway train…
It doesn’t have to be a particularly remarkable case – only truthful. European nations have both long institutional memories and numerous current examples of Russian misbehavior on their own soil.
That of course assumes that the Russian post is not a complete fabrication – they have made such fabrications before.
https://en.crimerussia.com/gromkie-dela/media-made-british-embassy-s-presentation-on-skripal-s-case-public/
There you go Stuart, a photo of Laurie in action
But those wiley Ruskies could have photoshopped?
Thanks Francesca.
They’re not particularly wily, just despotism survivors – Beria’s ire was not to be displaced by a little thing like truth.
Pretty dire all right
Like Netenyahu with his childish drawing of a bomb
How those diplomats kept a straight face I don’t know. I bet they pissed themselves laughing afterwards.
And poor Laurie Bristow having to present the thing.
It’ll be the US state dept that did all the heavy lifting
I’m not sure that this has any relevance.
Then you’re not keeping up :
Nauert, from the US state Dept:
“Our Deputy Secretary Sullivan, Assistant Secretary Wess Mitchell, and many others in the building across the interagency process have worked tirelessly over the past three weeks to achieve this unprecedented level of cooperation and also coordination. The end result – 151 Russian intelligence personnel sent home to Moscow”
Its the US behind the scenes , not the slideshow thats been so persuasive
🙄
Or the slideshow was persuasive, and the US helped coordinate the response. You have no evidence either way.
Oh nonsense.
European nations have long experience of Russian espionage, they’re not naïve about it like you. They can’t afford to be.
This is just a briefing for expat diplomats who won’t be making any decisions about it, that your source is trying to beat up into the crime of the century.
The fact remains that nothwithstanding these histrionics, Russian is still the only plausible assailant. Evidence may eventually change that, but other countries will be treating that possibility with the same skepticism police have for lifelong criminals. Russia has thoroughly earned its murderous reputation and their incessant whining about it is neither here nor there. They won’t stop whining if it is incontrovertibly forensically proved.
That is very good news. Some commentators gave both the daughter and father about 1% chance of recovery.
Smearing a nerve agent on Skripal’s front door is a very reckless thing to do. It could have been the postie, a neighbour, a friend, or many other people who came into significant contact with it.
Whoever did it is scum!
got to agree with that 100%
I have read elsewhere that it might have serious long term effects. But glad to hear there’s improvement.
Yes, delayed neuropathy (neurotoxicity) caused by (axonal) nerve degeneration. If the victims make full recovery and will be able to walk normally again and have full use of arms & hands it is extremely unlikely that were poisoned with the alleged nerve agent. But then again, I am just another misguided commenter here so my ‘views’ can be easily discounted …
Ok this is hard to admit but I do read the online magazine Stuff quite regularly and recently I’ve noticed the comments and “Thumbs Up” related to political stories and opinions are massively skewed to right wingers. What is causing this?
1. Right wingers becoming more politically active in opposition?
2. Left wingers have become complacent now a left leaning government is in power?
3. Cambridge Analytica (and their like) doing their online bit to brainwash readers?
4. The Labour led coalition is REALLY that unpopular (polls don’t reflect this of course)
Any other ideas why and how to counter it?
I dont think there have been any polls recently – not since the labour camp etc etc etc.
When John key physically abused that waitress, National’s poll ratings didn’t go down. In fact all the scandals that rocked National, their ratings remained high. Why do you think that was? When was the last Roy Morgan? isn’t that long overdue?
5. Left wingers are all busy at work. National’s support tends towards people with more time on their hands.
A massive shift in what you consider to be right wing?
IMo the comments and thumbs up under articles on Stuff have always been massively skewed to right wingers, nzsage. And I recall others on here also expressing that opinion/perception over recent years. So I don’t think it is anything new. I only occasionally venture there (into the comments) and mainly to get a feel for what the other side thinks. Personally it is not somewhere I can be bothered commenting.
Stuff are now one of the few media outlets that still allow comments and this may have had some effect on the numbers going there. Eg many of the comments on The Herald website were right biased, and they no longer have this outlet.
Right wingers may also find the RW blogs, Kiwiblog and Whaleoil for example are too toxic, although some of the Stuff comments can also be pretty over the top.
Stuff retaining the comments section is now their point of difference as far as “readers” go. Remove that and watch the clicks drop. There’s no reason of course why they can’t get rid of that pathetic thumbs up/down thing, that’s where the RW army at work is glaringly obvious, if you look at some of the perfectly reasonable, often bipartisan comments being down voted. maybe some attempt to manipulate those who are still open to manipulation?
I’m actually more concerned about which topics predominantly are open for comments- have a look sometime. Unless there’s legal issues, nearly everything to do with poor/homeless/beneficiaries/every other group RWs just love to judge and criticise; all the stories about the rental crisis (to pit landlords vs tenants), any possible hint that an extra tax somewhere MIGHT happen, or any policy hated by the right in general, and indiscretions by this current Govt and it’s MPs.
Comments rarely opened for indiscretions by Opposition MPs, damage done by previous govt (weren’t open at the time either much), etc. etc.
Some of the supposedly moderated comments I’ve seen in there border on hate speech as far as I”m concerned, especially opinions about NZers having a really rough time of it. Much as I despise the Herald, it’s the one thing they did right.
Thought about this a great deal. Stuff is an echo chamber, picking up and repeating memes. full of hate.
The Herald now has Farrar doing the dirty work, attacking Jacinda for all he’s worth. A nasty member of the right.
Look at the utter fiasco that Clare Curran created. Now, if it had been under John Key a few journalists in ‘highbrow” publications would have fretted over a potentially dangerous precedent but the pro-right corporate media would having largely moved on after a single news cycle.
Under a Labour government and you get a dozen opinion pieces and editorials thundering for resignations and talking up cover-ups and using the harshest possible language.
What gets me is Labour don’t appear to understand how structurally hostile the corporate MSM is to even mild centrist reform, and how dominated it is by the apologists for wealth and privilege. The rampant neo-colonial conservatism of our MSM was there for anyone with eyes to see with the way it has practically demanded the government tow the British line in the Russian poisoning affair.
The only thing I can think of is far too many Labour politicians don’t want to upset the structural apple cart lest they miss out on fat sinecures in their post-political career.
It is disturbing, and I’m not sure how its constructed
News media has become corporately owned, so I guess there’s an editorial focus on pleasing the shareholders and doing the bidding of the owners
The journalists, having whacked up a fair loan need a job and a roof over their heads before the luxury of integrity.It must be a bitter pill to swallow.Or not for some more cynical
Someone once said, I forget who, that Murdoch?” never told us what to write, we understood perfectly what was expected”
Jonathan Cook’s written about the process for Medialens “Intellectual Cleansing” after he got kicked off the Guardian
But I feel there’s something more sinister and orchestrated, powerful PR being employed here , and clearly not just NZ, in favour of RW interests
Corbyn being stretched on the rack for instance on the charge of anti semitism.
One hardly dares to say anything against Israel these days
It is the BIG MONEY talking.
“Now, if it had been under John Key”
Under Key, the minister in question would have been stood down and properly stripped of their portfolio.
But hey Curran is amongst other things the Minister for Open Government!
“The rampant neo-colonial conservatism of our MSM was there for anyone with eyes to see with the way it has practically demanded the government tow the British line in the Russian poisoning affair.”
Not just the British line, pretty much all of our allies and friends line as well. Having the NZ deputy PM defending Russia the week before (re- shooting down airliner etc) did not help. Then Ardern saying we would have expelled Russian spies, but could not find any…well it makes it so easy for the MSM.
No – how many did he do that to? Only Judith really – and that was to cover his back.
Others have noticed that too nzsage. Young Nats the cause?
Clickfarms maybe – they’re not expensive, and the whale has form.
Or perhaps – just perhaps it represents the views of the people reading the comments?
James, I’m sure you’re right. But what is being commented on is the frequency, the amount of expression by the forces of reaction.
Seems odd that more people are upset by this govt and curran than were upset by
Collins didnt resign over her causing death threatCollins helping husbands company
Bennett didnt resign over abuse of power
Smith didnt resign over abuse of power
Finlayson hasnt resigned over abuse of poweKey abusing a woman in her workplace
Key lying about payout to Saudi Businessman etc
Under Bennett multiple privacy breaches out of WINZ…
Outrage has been outsourced to the media
Those who do feel outraged are marginalised and left wondering if there’s something wrong with them
Indeed.
I suspect it comes down to the belief that most people National can play a bit fast and loose with the rules, in a manner of speaking but Jacinda spent a great deal of the campaign talking about transparency, honesty and not telling lies so she and Labour are being held to that standard
Key spent 2008 campaign talking about transparency, honesty and holding his cabinet to a higher standard than Clark
Keep reading til the last sentences
http://i.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/decision-08/688937/John-Key-The-bottom-line
Some of them probably are – but the more enthusiastic users of dirty politics – Farrar, Slater, Key etc., are not known for their restraint. Having the capacity to queer a pitch, they do tend to use it.
It’s like whether one can trust an Aussie with strategically located abrasives.
Have noticed this too.
And what seems like a negative framing of stories about Labour
I see that the Guardian (the neo liberal Trojan Horse) is again doing it’s best to undermine the first real Left Wing Labour party the UK has seen in many decades with it’s anti sematic witch hunt…
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/29/labour-is-waiting-for-corbyn-to-sign-off-key-antisemitism-measure
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/29/labour-focus-beating-tories-feuding-2022-election
Of course this is unsurprising as The Guardian plainly displayed all their neo liberal colours during the last UK election cycle…and is willfully pushing this whole bullshit Russia hysteria…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/27/the-guardian-view-on-expelling-russian-diplomats-spies-and-collective-strength
The Guardian probably do more damage to a unified Left that any other single new source IMO.
So, folks….how are you all finding our new progressive government?
Living up to your hopes and dreams?
So far I am singularly unimpressed.
Listening to the discussion about Counties Manukau DHB’s unhealthy buildings and who was told what by whom and the politicians from all sides pleading ignorance it’s is fairly clear that the current mob inhabiting the Government benches have two options.
Step up and wrest control of the Ministry of Health from the bureaucrats, listen to the people, the workers at the coalface and those of us deeply impacted by Ministry generated and government enforced laws and policies…
Or just continue the way your going…SSDD.
I was wondering if Julie Ann Center git even the slightest whiff of toxic fungus when she was over at Middlemore hospital a few weeks ago handing out the bouquets for their conservation efforts?
MPs need to open their eyes and their ears and commit to finding out the truth.
Or… continue ignoring those of us who have attempted to communicate directly, because we know the bureaucrats are feeding them crap.
Some of us are quite desperate for positive change…and we are fast losing faith…
This may or may not get through as I am using my newish and cheap phone…and sending this from the Far Far North.
So would you like the Nats back in power?
Don’t buy into the Right’s tactics of slamming this government from day 1-judge it after 3 years.
We don’t have three years. If they’re going to fuck this up, they need to be held accountable now.
Given the first 5 months of this government can you list the issues that makes you think it would be better that the Nats were in power instead?
Standardistas are buying in to the Right’s tactics of slamming this government from day one using its mates in the MSM.
What a crock, BG, with respect.
We’re not all beguiled by the Media…some of us are personally affected by significant issues that this current mob actually used as part of their campaign and are now choosing to ignore us. Instead they will do what their predecessors did and “take advice from the Ministry” and the same misleading data will be used to perpetuate discrimination and breach human rights.
Or…they can decide they no longer enjoy being mushrooms and bloody well listen to those of us with real facts and lived experience.
I am not holding my breath.
Jacinda Ardern never looked to be really on top of the social security area when Labour spokesperson for it. She makes all the right noises about supporting beneficiaries. However, she doesn’t really want to take on board the much needed perspectives of beneficiaries.
And she has talking her her ear, the likes of Robertson who is all about appeasing the mainstream media.
The government REALLY needs to take more time to listen to beneficiaries, and to be guided by their insights.
Must check in with the We Are Beneficiaries people about how their meeting went with Sepuloni.
Robertson doesnt get that no matter how like National he acts most Nat voters will still vote National.
Time to grow a pair and start standing for something. Passion has gone. Dep Lab Leadder has to say nothing cos he tends to put his foot in his mouth. Peters quiet.
I tend to agree with you.
I suspect they are tip toeing around not wanting to upset some folks while forgetting those folks will never vote for them, even if they were exactly like National.
I am staggered our Minister of Health has only just discovered the depth of trouble at Middlemore. If this was kept from the Minister some sackings are required and Statutory managers appointed while new Board and Employees are recruited.
“Given the first 5 months of this government can you list the issues that makes you think it would be better that the Nats were in power instead?”
Wrong question. What would the last 5 months look like if the Greens had more power? That’s what the left should be aiming for, not Nat-lite.
Some of us where talking about this before the election so it has nothing to do with MSM narratives about Labour.
This government (unlike the last) is confronting and making plans to actually deal with things like the unhealthy hospital buildings. What do you expect them to have done by now, though? Down here in Dunedin, the site for our new hospital has been agreed and plans for the rebuild are being advanced (after years of the Nats making empty promises, sitting on their arses and then deciding to let the private sector build and own the facility – glad we dodged that bullet!). Any plans for other major rebuilds or upgrades will take time, and huge amounts of funding that wasn’t provided for because the Nats had hushed the whole situation up.
You can promote the Greens, weka, but the” National-lite” label is unfair. Plenty of us on the left support Labour and acknowledge that a strong Labour Party is crucial to any left or left-leaning government in NZ. And undermining Labour is also counter-productive for Greens supporters – it cuts away at any chance for the Greens to achieve anything meaningful in parliament.
I try hard not to undermine the Greens in comments here and elsewhere.
I wasn’t promoting the Greens though, I was pointing to what the govt would look like if there were more left wing policies being enacted.
If you have critique of GP policy, I wish you would say it. They’re not perfect either.
“And undermining Labour is also counter-productive for Greens supporters – it cuts away at any chance for the Greens to achieve anything meaningful in parliament.”
How so?
Saying that Labour are better than National but we shouldn’t critique Labour for being less LW than the Greens is pretty much the definition of Nat-lite. As I’ve said elsewhere in the thread, I think that Labour will do good things and will fail on some fundamentals. It doesn’t help to be in denial of those things. With welfare it’s very obvious.
We knew this before the election, so it’s more been a matter of waiting to see just where the balance would lie. You ask what Labour could have done in five months. With WINZ that is ample time to start chaining the messages and the culture. Sepuloni is saying suitable stuff, I want to see it demonstrated and I’m not seeing that yet. 6 months is ample time to get that stuff right if one is intending to head down that path. I don’t Sepuloni is.
Sepoloni going down the same path….like Clark happily going the way of Ryall and Colman.
Clark even has the same possum in the headlights look that Ryall and Colman perfected.
Neither of them had the balls to stand up to the Misery of Health bureaucrats…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/100092386/former-health-boss-now-top-private-sector-consultant-made-acting-directorgeneral-of-health
Have they appointed a new boss yet?
Red blooded, since you’re clearly a fan…how does one get the attention of a politician when one has strong evidence that the previous incumbents were deliberately misled by a ministry and the evidence is that the current Minister is going to go down the same path?
We have written, and emailed and occasionally phoned and have been consistently ignored at all levels.
Some of us have sound knowledge and lived experience of disability and are sick of being forced into the margins and obliged to watch while yet another government gets it wrong.
Labour is no different from National on this..
And, let’s all sit back and watch while yet again the entire House laughs and applauds as an other National Mp scuttles off to wherever they go to avoid bring held accountable for the cock ups.
Because when it comes down to it…they have more fellow feeling for other politicians from left or right than they do for us.
We have written, and emailed and occasionally phoned and have been consistently ignored at all levels.
So have you written, emailed and phoned the Associate Minister of Health – who happens to be Julie Anne Genter?
According to this press release she was actually wearing her Associate Minister of Health hat when she visited Middlemore Hospital -.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/healthcare-sector-committed-reducing-carbon-footprint
The other two hats she wears are Minister of Women and Associate Minister for Transport; and she does not have any formal climate change/environment responsibilities.
Things would be very different five months down the track if the Greens had more power, according to some here.
I am not convinced having closely watched the Greens’ performance to date, including Genter’s answering questions in the House on behalf of the Minister of Health – the latest was yesterday.
I am not getting at you Rosemary, as I know myself the complete shambles that the Ministry of Health has become, and particularly the Disability Services from my own personal experience. Forms and doctors’ letters lost repeatedly, no responses and a s a result no help etc.
But no-one has a wand that can just be waved and all of these problems miraculously resolved overnight. And the problems the incoming govt has found are overwhelming.
No-one, absolutely no-one, has said Labour should solve these problems overnight. What is being pointed to is the way that Labour are behaving that doesn’t bode well given history. I’m happy to be proven wrong (really), but I’m not ok with waiting until the first term is up and then trying to address these issues then. We can’t afford to let things slide for that long.
I agree Labour have got their work cut out for them. I don’t think that is the problem and I don’t think many here would expect perfection from them. But I’m not convinced that on some areas they are even moving in the right direction.
Which is a false position. Supporting any party on the Left strengthens the Left. Our political system demands that you only support parties with more than 5% support of course and that needs to be changed.
The other major problem is that Labour is actually right-wing and not of the left. Has been since the 1980s.
Who’s undermining them? Holding them to account for their actions (signing the TPPA) or their inactions (continuing oil extraction) is what we need to do to get the required changes. If we don’t do that then we won’t get the changes as they’ll just assume that we’re happy that they’re supporting the rich stealing from us.
Draco, if you think Labour has been right wing since the 80s, then you haven’t been paying attention since the 80s.
Draco thinks Labour are right wing because some anonymous website said so and it conforms to his biases
No. As I said, political compass gives a reasonably consistent relative positioning of parties based upon their policies.
Thing is, when I read Labour’s policies and see their actions I label as right-wing because they are. Signing the TPPA was not something that a Left-wing party would do.
Using your political positions as a relative measure of what constitutes left wing is worse than the political compass you keep linking to.
The political compass can’t be used as evidence for anything. It is completely anonymous, gives no indication of who filled it in and what they based the answers on except in the most general manner. 10 people could compete it and get 10 different results. It is hopeless and extremely poor as a reference.
Saying Labour isn’t left wing because they signed the TPPA is like saying National isnt right wing because they raised the minimum wage and kept WFF
Specious, JohnSelway. National raised the minimum wage so little as to ensure it remained utterly demeaning, and insufficient. They kept WWF because it isn’t very left-wing anyway – it is more a subsidy to employers who pay too little.
That was supposed to be WFF, for obvious reasons…
I know it’s specious – it’s a reflection of Draco’s reasoning behind calling Labour right-wing because of the TPPA.
I have a BA in Politics and have done a lot of study and work around NZ Politics and not one of the political theorists I researched ever called Labour anything but centre-left.
So what and who to believe? Draco anonymous website results or people who have made a career out of political theory, put their name to their work and write books on the subject.
Hoping this comes out at right point…
JohnSelway, I don’t know how old you are, or what depth of vision you have regarding right wing/left wing; socialism/capitalism; or communism/fascism. I hope you understand the lot. In the 1980s the Rogernomes and their compliant commercialised media managed to skew most people’s understanding of all this, and make them think right wing is centre, and left wing barely exists, except that ‘hard left’ means dangerous, hostile radicals.
Draco fights against this skew, and maybe you should not be so quick to condemn.
And that is your RWNJ logical fallacy coming to the fore again.
And, of course, they have stated how they get their answers for the party.
I would expect that a group read the policies and debated if they were right-wing or left-wing. It’s how we did it in PolSci at uni.
No it’s not. It’s your desire to defend the Labour Party from their actions.
I like this response:
And you can believe whomever you want. I hold that Labour is centre-right as it’s maintaining capitalism and the inequalities and injustices that come with it.
Draco, you know as well as I do that although the appeal to authority is a logical fallacy it can’t be used to dismiss vast expert opinion out of hand in order to support your single conclusion based on 1 source and your opinion.
The Politcal Compass would have validity if it showed how it came it to the result it did. It doesn’t and is therefor only evidence for your desire to cling to whatever fits your narrative. But if you are so sure of it why don’t you go edit the Wikipedia page for the NZ Labour Party given it, in your opinion, is wrong
I’m not right wing either, no matter how often throw it around.
Safer ground to call them economically right wing Draco T Bastard. I agree with you assessment, because at the end of the day it’s all about economics.
Economically the labour party are right wing.
QFT
We would have seen a lot more happening if we had.
The Greens would have more power and policy concessions if they cut Labours umbilical cord and became a truly independent party
National would have more power and policy attainment if they split into two competing parties.
See how that works?
Well no, the Greens have chosen to be beholden to Labour which is why the Greens don’t have as much influence as NZFirst
I’m not saying the Greens should go with National I’m saying the Greens should say that they’ll base their decision on the policies of each party, that they won’t automatically go with Labour (even though in all likelihood they will)
If they didn’t give Labour Confidence and Supply, how would Labour have formed government?
“…the Greens have chosen to be beholden to Labour which is why the Greens don’t have as much influence as NZFirst.”
Well is that really true?
Yes, the Greens are in a less formal/restrictive C/S agreement with Labour than their full Coalition partner, NZF.
Despite this, the Greens have three MPS with Ministerial positions and one MP a Parliamentary Under-Secretary. That is half (50%) of their 8 MPs are in positions of considerable influence.
This compares with NZF with four of their 9 MPs holding Ministerial posts and one MP being an Under-Secretary – 55% of their MPs. So NZF’s position is only marginally better than the Green Party.
For their part, only 22 (47.8%) of the 46 Labour MPs hold Ministerial positions (21 MPs) and one holds an Under-Secretary position.
Do you consider NZF is also beholden to Labour?
Of course not, NZ1st is the tail that wags the dog – according to the National aligned RWNJs.
Why wait 3 years?
People are allowed to be let down and unimpressed now.
Example the TPPA (or whatever it is called now) – Many are unhappy that Labour signed it after all the singing and dancing about how bad it would be. Not many would have thought that they would have signed it within 6 months.
Do they have to wait three years to slam them for that?
It seems that there are a number of people who are disappointed that this government hasn’t met their expectations as yet. Things might change, they might not.
But if people dont mention anything, dont raise their voices then things will carry on as they are – and if you dont like it, it wont get better.
James, do you want the government to ratify the TPPA?
Yes – have always said that.
I said many are unhappy – Personally I am for it.
But I was using that as an easy example of why some people could be disappointed or let down now and dont need to wait three years.
Right, so you can see how you might come across as concern trolling. You can telling people they can protest the govt now over and issue that you support the govt on, but it’s a govt you don’t support.
Depends on how you read it – It was just an example that I was using to support Rosemary’s post.
Oh I suspect that most people here would find suspicious a RWer telling lefties to go ahead and criticise Labour over the TPPA when the RWer supports the TPPA.
Hey Weka
I see that as a issue here, some on here just look at the name of the person commentating and go into personal attack mode.
People can have different points of view, opinions and disagree then agree on others that is awesome and what I enjoy.
This labelling and then dismissing the person out of hand due to a label and they have a different point of view I find disappointing.
I have reading the standard for at least 5 years. I only started commentating as I feel the mods have done a good job chilling out abuse.
Intend to put in my opinion a lot as a disclaimer so to speak to not get into tit for tat.
I agree with James those who voted for Labour as an anti TPPA vote should be annoyed and challenge the govt, as the labour MPs in opposition were vocal against it and went to protests and appealed to protesters that they would oppose it. So they have every right to want to hold the govt to account. You can be for something and still hold the view that others have been let down.
Cheers monty, always good to get feedback on how people are experiencing the site.
I agree there is too much people attacking each other because of their history. I did read James’ comments though and checked something out and then critiqued his position. It’s true that some of that is because of his history but I would have asked the same thing of any known RW here. If it had been Puckish Rogue or chris I would have assumed outright trolling 😉 James has a history of trolling but appears to be making an effort now, so all good.
“I agree with James those who voted for Labour as an anti TPPA vote should be annoyed and challenge the govt, as the labour MPs in opposition were vocal against it and went to protests and appealed to protesters that they would oppose it. So they have every right to want to hold the govt to account. You can be for something and still hold the view that others have been let down.”
I agree, but it’s very hard now to find Labour voters who voted Labour because they thought they would stop the TPPA 😉 There are a few, and they are rightfully pissed off. The people not pissed off want Labour to be given a chance. Stand off.
Yet our national supporters almost never , if not never, criticised Nats in their last 9 years. Apparently anything was better than Labour
At Tracey, the same can be said for any of the tribal/blinkers on people on both sides. So to try and say that about Nat supporters is very biased when labour and green supporters follow the same lines.
Monty
Not in my experience here. Labour andzGreen supporters are often more critical of this govt than alwyn, james, BM PR etc were of Nats.
In this case I believe James is being straight up in his comments. TPPA is an obvious and public example.
I’d say Rosemary is addressing more-hidden systemic issues about pollies being captured by senior staff views from agencies who have long been part of the problem, just as with the previous govt.
I’m waiting to see the Budget myself. I have been heartened by the comparative openness of the Health Minister so far about the scale of the damage to be redressed, though investment seems likely to be channelled into bricks and mortar rather than people and services.
None of that helps disabled people specifically and our advocacy was almost non-existent during the election campaign.
Fair call on James.
Thanks for saying something good about Clark. I think that a balance of critique and praise is really useful, and a better approach than complaining about people criticising Labour too early in the first term. Adam said something good about Clark recently too after Clark had fronted at a disability meeting, and I suspect it takes something decent to impress adam politically.
I also worry about the bricks and mortar thing. People are rightfully angry about the mould but I wish they were tweeting as much about this guy’s campaign, or what Rosemary is writing about.
https://twitter.com/ArbyHyde/status/979521681122209793
(America’s Cup is an easy target but he’s pointing daily to how much disabled people are ignored by Labour).
Just been reading some stuff about the numbers of complaints against WINZ made in Auckland in the past few years. Sepuloni and the deputy CE trotted out some nicely framed things, but to these tired old beneficiary ears it sounds like the same old shit dressed up. Yes, we get it. Labour will do welfare more nicely than National. Not seeing any fundamental shifts in the culture though that National can’t just roll back when it’s their term. We’ve been through this before Labour
The PR speak is only going to get them so far for so long. I’m guessing the budget will be the point where it becomes patently obvious which way Labour are going to go.
Not long to wait – May 17th.
Will be interesting whats in it. Or more importantly what is not in it.
Budget-snap. 🙂
I don’t find this Government cohesive, they don’t gel well together, and they don’t put up a united front. It gives the impression of being more like three separate teams running their own shows without talking enough to each other or even amongst themselves.
They let themselves down, over and over again, by silly mistakes and poor communication. They get easily rattled and distracted by the Opposition and MSM and they don’t stay on script & course, i.e. they don’t hammer down their own messages for their own vision – nail your colours the mast. Yes, there are some good speeches, here & there, every now & then, but it is all too sporadic and fragmented.
This is just the delivery side of this Government, the how; so far, they have not actually delivered much tangible stuff, the what. But it takes time to undo 9 years of National Government.
Obviously, the powerful Opposition and almighty MSM love playing this game of hiss & roar; it is the grist to their mills.
Pretty much what I expected. It’s still keeping the same failed system and chasing after the ‘growth’ that’s destroying the world.
They’ve just added promises of being nice to people.
Spot on Draco.
We – New Zealand and the world are facing huge problems which are already manifesting themselves. Carrying on as we have, in a sort of perpetual present, is, frankly, nowhere near good enough.
We need a government prepared to be radical, really radical, and the courage to back themselves.
Anything else is selling out our grandchildren!
Thank you weka.
Hard for me to hold a conversation right now…but methinks you are on my wavelength.
Time is short and delays and errors will only increases fiscal risk and reduce trust from the electorate.
Be different…ffs
I was willing to give them half a year to see just where the balance will lie. Like Clark’s govt I think they will do some good things, but there will be little serious change where it really matters. I suspect they will even do it nicer than the Clark govt, but it’s increasingly clear that they will hold the neoliberal ground and that we need to start agitating on that now, not waiting much longer.
If we are wrong, then that holding them to account will still be useful.
Listening to Newshub last night saying the Auckland city council is putting $92 million into the America’s cup. Can’t find anything really in the media today. Is this correct? If so then I’m glad I’m not an Auckland ratepayer!
It was all announced a few days ago,RBCV. I am way out of my area of expertise – or interest not being an Aucklander – but here is a Stuff article I came on by change after reading your comment. Hope this helps but there was a lot in the media over the last week.
The Government is also putting in S113.9 M so us non-Aucklanders also get to ‘contribute’.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/102688144/auckland-council-votes-yes-on-2021-americas-cup-village
Ah yes stuff was yesterday too. Funny how there isn’t much in the media about the contribution of us taxpayers- slipped out under the cover of easter??
$200 million would buy heaps of other stuff – and no doubt there is a lot of hype about the “benefits” but it needs to bring in offshore income of about $1 billion all of which is taxed before we get this back and even then we have to stump for the extra social costs of roading, housing and all the other social costs. Can’t see how this is justified as anything but the rich boys playing .
And we could no doubt get better returns in otehr areas of govt investment.
Agreed. i am over the America’s Cup. The rest of us outside Auckland don’t see much in the way of benefits for our tax contribution.
I’m over it as well. Living in Auckland I will have to pay twice, once in rates and once in taxes. Fix Middlemore first.
Finally found some analysis on newsroom.co.nz – looks like our legacy from the vast spend is going to be close to 0.00.
This one presumably.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@sportsroom/2018/03/28/100616/the-212m-question-where-is-the-cup-legacy
But, but, but – remember the intangibles – publicity, boost to tourism etc, etc
Personally I’d rather we have these for free – eg fluffy interviews with our PM in the Guardian, Vogue etc.
And it is great fun to see how these stir up some people here and on other blogs. See the comments here today under 1 on OM 31 March. PG at HisNZ is going great guns on this with two Indignant Posts up today alone.
LOL
The Putin effect – Kinder, Kuche, Kirche.
/
The All-Russian survey of the Levada Center, conducted in late December 2017, showed that the majority of Russians (68%) condemn the extramarital sexual relations of family people (the sum of the positions “is always reprehensible” and “this is almost always objectionable”). In 1998, 50% of respondents answered this way. From 68% to 83%, the proportion of those who do not approve of same-sex relationships has increased. And respondents, for whom abortions are unacceptable, even if they are caused by low family incomes, became 35% compared to 12% in 1998.
[…]
According to the Levada Center survey, at the end of 2017, 54% of Russians agreed with the statement that the husband’s business is to earn money, and the wife’s business is to lead the household and engage in family activities.
google translate
http://pravoslavie.ru/109827.html
I wonder if that’s higher than the yankers or lower.
Supposedly impartial and self-appointed arbiter of political discussion, Mr Bryce ‘cut-n-paste’ Edwards cuts and pastes several links here in one of RNZ’s many competitors. Nine links to be exact, and just the one even remotely supportive of Curran’s wider agenda – better public broadcasting – which surely is more important than the beltway fluff on coffee meetings and the minister’s diary venomously promoted by government opponents.
The only support of course comes from Chris Trotter who gets, at the very end, a lame paragraph with no quotes. Contrast that with the ‘must read’ descriptions of Farrar and Rutherford’s manufactured outrage.
There is zero evidence Curran was trying to influence content or the political direction of RNZ the way the Nats did with the appointment of Griffin. She was however trying to implement a well advertised position of the new government pre-election (they campaigned on it, ifs!), and that is to expand the state broadcaster to match the expansion of other media and according to current consumption trends.
My question is, why the fuck shouldn’t she?
+1 Muttonbird
Of course the Nats and other rightees will do everything to resist a re-development of public service media. And they will pounce on any opportunity to scupper the current government’s plans in this area.
A strong public service media is absolutely necessary to making NZ’s political and public culture more democratic. The corporate mainstream media are shitting all over democracy these days, and are ferocious about maintaining the neoliberal framework.
But, if the Labour cabinet were truly motivated to move towards a truly public service media, they’d have put someone more competent in charge of handling it.
I think Curran also leans towards public service media as it was pre-digital. Other people who have more competence in this area, or part thereof are Kris Faafoi in Labour. And also the following who I have seen talking on public service media in the role as spokesperson for their party:
Tracey Martin (is up to dealing with tough kickback) – very much on board with the public service component needed.
Juile Anne Genter a few years back – understands it’s importance (is up to the focus, background research, and tough talking to opposition that is required).
Gareth Hughes – is very much focused on the role of digital technologies in current media and communications.
I will probably be called a conspiracy theorist again, but if there is a conspiracy we need to recognise it.
Yesterday I pointed out how orchestrated the attacks from National and supporters were, and how the same memes appeared….. well this is an example of magnification and confirmation of National views with a “Jacinda is inept? doesn’t have control of her team” etc.
There is total avoidance of any discussion on Burnham or Findlaysen. No calls for resignations there…. No… No… “Look over here”. Smoke screen. IMO.
The nasty drip of DP.
Bryce Edwards must be the most deeply cynical news aggregator of the lot. The guy is parasite who aggregates the writings of others and re-packages it as received wisdom for whatever personal agenda he has.
He used to be a full on Marxist when he lived in Dunedin but I see he is trying his hand in the bright lights of the 09 these days.
My guess he is either still a secret Marxist who loathes Labour for being centrist sell outs or having moved to Auckland he has done one of those (out of fashion since the 1980s but he is from Dunedin which is a few decades behind the rest of the country so, yeah…) Marxist to Randian conversions like the Labour traitors. Either way, he is out to get labour with the all sly zealotry of someone with a hidden agenda.
The change appears to be since he is well paid for his cut and paste. He will be telling himself he must be impartial if he is being criticised … forgetting he is only criticised by the Left.
I note he hasnt called for Finlayson’s resignation.
What’s the 09?
Hi Muttonbird. Mr. Bryce is too kind, how about Mr. Bias?
Mttonbird 10 My question is, why the fuck shouldn’t she?
Because she is only supposed to deal with the top deadheads / seat-warmers rather than practical workers lower down …. That is the system.
Since Labour do not have the wealth of experience and talent that National did have until recently it is obvious that they are going to make stuff up after stuff up as they learn . and we the general public are going to pay for it.
The fact that National made a number of serious fuck-ups is why they are now in opposition but the new crowd have even less experience and for sure are worse as they are faced with impossible problems to solve. It is a ‘devil or the deep blue sea’ situation unfortunately.
Having given all their money away to groups [ first year students , Americas’ Cup ] they now have no money to deal with the real problems coming to light such as Auckland’s hospitals etc.
The much derided 11 billion hole is going to prove to be rather bigger than Joyce could admit to.
It is obvious that capitalism doesn’t work like socialism doesn’t either but a meld of both is the answer.
Newsflash: a meld of Capitalism and Socialism is usually referred to as a “mixed economy”, such as the one you are now living in. However, despite that, the National Party still manages to make a corrupt stinking health-hazard of it whenever they’re given the opportunity.
“The fact that National made a number of serious fuck-ups is why they are now in opposition”
National maintained their share of the vote compared to the previous election. So if they made a number of serious fuck ups…you better hope they don’t learn from them come 2020.
The simple fact is…They are now in opposition due to the soon to be Prime Minister of NZ.
“they now have no money to deal with the real problems coming to light such as Auckland’s hospitals etc.”
It was easy to work that out during the election campaign and predictable to blame the previous Government for not telling them to keep some spare money aside to fix boring stuff like buildings.
I am Labour. So that tinges my view. There is an agreement to be in government together. So on that basis the Greens are allowed to agree to disagree with Labour and record that. Labour has the same right, as does NZ First.
What I don’t see is Labour people coming on here critical of the Greens or NZFirst.
I know there is a belief in ” free speech” here, but it appears partisan at times.
As a coalition there will be large and small areas of compromise.
When people say “Do something different” (FFS) I take it they mean “Look at my issue”
When what has been done doesn’t suit someone and they say “If the ….. had more of the vote”… But it is what it is, and I get the frustration. Our area is short two surgeons so my operation may be next year?…. never?
Do I agree with all that is happening… NO! However I know these people care and are working hard to try to improve people’s lives.. Yes, it hasn’t happened for all of us yet, and if it hadn’t been for Jacinda we may have been still being fed bullsh.. and jellibeans by Coleman etc.
Would I vote the same way ? YES. They are good people.
There are quite a few Labour cheerleaders here, for whom Labour can do no wrong.
There are quite a few Labour cheerleaders here, for whom Labour can do no wrong.
Equally, there are quite a few Green Party cheerleaders here, for whom the Green Party can do no wrong.
“What I don’t see is Labour people coming on here critical of the Greens”
Why is that? Genuinely curious. It is because you don’t think there are issues with GP policy? I vote for them and I don’t think their policy is perfect, so why not critique it?
That’s not being partisan btw. I think it would help if people learned the difference.
Sepoloni going down the same path….like Clark happily going the way of Ryall and Colman.
Clark even has the same possum in the headlights look that Ryall and Colman perfected.
Neither of them had the balls to stand up to the Misery of Health bureaucrats…
When what has been done doesn’t suit someone?????
How about when what has been done gas found to be illegal by the Courts and the subject of yet another Court case and had attracted criticism from the UN and was used as an election campaign issue by Labour???
Be Labour, Patricia Brenner…support them and flag wave…but please don’t presume that all people expressing frustration and disappointment with them have been sucked in by right wing media or are merely focussing on an issue that affects only them.
t
The Ministry of Health are restructuring disability supports at the moment…a big ‘system transformation’ if you please.
Fact…despite nearly twenty years of this being a significant issue family care is not being discussed by the working group.
f
Fact…the issue of advanced personal cares and the fact that the moh system had failed this group requiring very high supports is not being discussed.
So…ffs…is it any wonder some are not exactly orgasmic at the current incumbents’s commitment to effecting change on order to do better?
+1000.
I think disability is the edge where it is bleeding obvious (apologies for that image but I think it’s appropriate). Still so many NZers don’t understand how the issues for disabled people have been not just badly managed but have been either actively monkey wrenched or actively ignored and now many many people are in dire straights (disabled people and their families).
What gob smacks me is that this isn’t news. It’s been on blogs, social media and MSM. And still people are defending Labour and refusing to consider that Labour are part of the problem.
Labour chose to make children the poster child for welfare reform and in doing so they created another division of the deserving poor and the undeserving poor (the Greens did this too up until last year and it’s one of the things I have criticised them for). Better to place vulnerable people in the centre, and work your way out because then you have a system that is grounded in compassion not one that that doles out compassion to the ones who have been deemed suitably deserving and says fuck off to the rest.
There are *very good reasons why many of us don’t trust Labour, and it irks to be called partisan as a way of continuing to ignore the elephants in the living room.
A community report to the media and all environmental advocates. 30/3/2018.
“Community concern’s expressed truck noise, vibration’s, and air pollution exceedances at pre-hearing”.
GDC- RMA pre-hearing held on 29/3/2018 at the 9am at the Waikanae Surf Life Saving Club
This week we attended the secret “Chatham rules” special GDC “pre-hearing” meeting involving ECT on their Eastland Port berth log expansion activities chaired by Consents Manager Reginald Proffit, as Winston Morton’s continuing submissions as one of the submitters to the GDC pre-hearing (that we are attached to as Winston’s “Deputy’s).
Winston Morton’s concerns were valid, addressed before the “secret Chatham rules’ pre-hearing meeting, that the chair had ignored the submitter during his earlier submissions made to GDC for the ECT planned expansion to be made under the usual “regional plan Change” rather than a RMA application”.
Mr Morton was seeking to allow the process to be made into a ‘transparent process and to allow the whole community to have their right to make changes to the way the Port operate in future in a more environmentally responsible manner.
Issues of the transportation of logs to the Port 24 hrs was concern here as the bulk of the submitters were voicing their opposition to the industrial noise generated to the Port that were awaking many it was revelled at this meeting.
Past ‘submissions’ on logging truck noise to GDC, may have overlooked it appears?
http://gisborneherald.co.nz/environment/2662642-135/log-truck-complaints-come-thick-and
We made a strong case to GDC after receiving a 280 signed petition in 2011-12 from the Esplanade community group who were requesting GDC make changes to Eastland Port bound logging trucks, to mitigate against their excessive noise, vibration and air pollution being generated.
Chair Mr Proffit may wish to consider Mr Morton’s submission to change to “A Regional scheme change” rather than the restrictive secretive process the Eastland port appear to prefer to use.
If Eastland Port really does care about the wider community impacts of negative noise, vibration, and air pollution from their ‘industrial activities” can GDC encourage ECT to be “environmentally and socially responsible” they are governed under, of “industrial activities” in a built environment”?
https://thestandard.org.nz/jacindas-campaign-launch-speech/
Quote; PM Jacinda Ardern said on her first speech;
“The government I lead will be a government that listens, then acts. A government that leads, not follows.
I will never stop believing that politics is a place where we can do good.
That we can build a confident and caring nation if we include each and every person, in each and every town and region. That is New Zealand at its best.”
As former residents/property owners of Napier before settling in Gisborne in 2005, our Napier community suffered similar problems as ECT Eastland Port are causing, when 14 suburban communities surrounding Port of Napier have truck noise, vibrations, and air pollution from carrying export freight to the Port of Napier, berths for future activities as Eastland port are.
Our groups there have had meetings directly involving Napier Port executives at their own boardroom, receiving strong level of support from Port of Napier about their truck traffic noise, vibration, air pollution issues, so we are surprised the Eastland port are not reciprocating with all suburban communities surrounding the Eastland Port, are they worried about criticism from the wider community of Gisborne?
We stated clearly to Chair Reginald Proffit we are part of Mr Morton’s submission to GDC on Eastland Port RMA application and operate an Environmental Monitoring company CER Ltd since 2002 has involved partnerships with Government agencies as well as Watercare and NIWA.
Our company has reviewed the Eastland Port “independent environmental assessment” report for the ECT and we have several issues of concerns about the report.
Many communities are now suffering from “industrial activities” involving truck traffic to Ports around NZ now and a new method of measuring “industrial noise” is warranted using changes in sound noise monitoring, as WHO and the EU are doing.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/101613963/No-respite-for-sleepless-residents-on-main-port-thoroughfare
This monitoring of truck freight residential urban noise, vibration, air pollution is a long debate now that will generate some issues, as we prepare to take up with GDC/ECT going forward.
We do support the request made by Winston Morton to change the ECT application to a more “inclusive” far less ‘secretive’ procedure.
ECT with their narrow focus “only inside the port noise zone” are restricting all residents from seeking mitigation from three negative truck effects of noise, vibration and air pollution, and should make a fresh submission to GDC for a simple scheme change to allow all members of the Gisborne community to become involved with the future planning of our Port facilities of which we all actually own as it was leased to the Trust called ECT which was to have provided equal benefits for all.
Lastly at the GDC ‘pre-hearing’ on ECT RMA application our other submitter “Rail Action Group” the Chairwoman Gillian Ward expressed the wish that Eastland Port consider rail to move the logs to Eastland port. http://transporttalk.co.nz/news/rail-cards-gisborne
While in Napier last week we witnessed 55 wagon trains stacked full of logs going to Port of Napier and while at the ‘rail head marshalling yard’ were wagons alongside the port for export (as used to happen at the Gisborne Port.}
We support rail freight to our ports around NZ which is the plan in the Labour Government policy from 2004 by Pete Hodgson called NZ National Rail Strategy” TO 2015.
Ministry of Transport.
http://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Import/Documents/nationalrailstrategy.pdf –
We reviewed Hon’ Megan Wood’s speech to the Petroleum Conference which bodes well for rail since the minister has clearly defined the long term goals of her Labour lead coalition/NZF Government “transition to a low-carbon or a net-zero carbon economy will be as transformational as the industrial revolution was to the societies and economies in the nineteenth century.”
so Labour need to get that rail re-opened and to plan to electrify the rail service from Napier to Gisborne to achieve that goal.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1803/S00293/hon-megan-woods-speech-to-the-petroleum-conference.htm
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
PB …
For some time now i has been obvious to me that most current greens are Labour in drag so the news that an ‘ex-green’ hopes to become a National MP replacing Coleman is great news that it could be the start of a sensible Blue-Green grouping.
Leading to National becoming a right wing group with a heart rather than the hopeless idealists we find in the current left.
If only the Greens were more like National, they could trash the environment and the social fabric of the country too.
Your wishful thinking isn’t going to change the definition of “Green”, no matter how hard you try. Read the charter. Nice attempt to smear the wider Left though.
As for environmentalism in the National Party, it looks like Nick Smith defecating in a glass of water. Scientists are just like lawyers, eh.
I am glad that you see, jcuknz, that National is firstly, a right-wing group, and secondly is lacking heart.
I am not sure that a Blue and Green grouping is sensible, even in a fashion sense.
I do not believe that the National Party would be so converted by a 2-3% group. That group exists already in National, and ex-Green MPs like Ian Ewen-Street did not achieve much when we examine the evidence of the misery, pollution and neglect left as a legacy by National this decade.
As for hopeless idealists in the left…….. as the houses are built, as they were after 1935, as the hospitals are rebuilt and extended, as the schools are strengthened in materiel and in mana, motivation, mien and metaphysics, as rivers and beaches are cleaned up, as the homeless are housed, the mentally ill helped, and violence reduced in our community by better justice practice and education, as inequality is addressed,
then may you be proven wrong.
I just hope you are right as neither the current left or the gone right inspire any confidence that they have any wish to markedly improve matters.
I see a lot of the problem as the stranglehold the public service has on the politicians who simply do not know what is reasonable as was alluded to earlier in this thread.
We need a good PS but not an overpowering one with ‘all the answers’ to suit themselves.
It is the quality of the people in the Public Service, given most were chosen with right wing views to implement, and to prepare sections to be sold off.They have no time for the coalition so are still in the previous settings, and possibly keeping the right informed. Changes will happen.
A core green value is having laws that stop people from dumping toxic crap into our rivers, or pumping it into the air.
From the looks of it, National are committed to rolling them back. So I fail to see National being blue-green anything.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12020527
BUSINESS
$30 million freight-distribution centre to be built in Tauranga
Public COMMUNITY letter;
Protecting our environment & health.
In association with other Community Groups, NHTCF and all Government Agencies since 2001.
Dear rail stakeholders,
RE; $30 million freight-distribution centre to be built in Tauranga
We at CEAC placed a submission for a inland freight terminal before the HBRC Land transport Committee in 2005 for a freight terminal and the 10 acre land was purchased at Whakatu by HBRC in collusion with other councils for providing a “Inland Port freight terminal, so we need to begin construct as Bay of Plenty has done, so we need this now put this land into use in Whakatu.
We in HB must get ahead of the curve of the changes in transport logistics.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
When what has been done doesn’t suit someone?????
How about when what has been done gas found to be illegal by the Courts and the subject of yet another Court case and had attracted criticism from the UN and was used as an election campaign issue by Labour???
Be Labour, Patricia Brenner…support them and flag wave…but please don’t presume that all people expressing frustration and disappointment with them have been sucked in by right wing media or are merely focussing on an issue that affects only them.
t
The Ministry of Health are restructuring disability supports at the moment…a big ‘system transformation’ if you please.
Fact…despite nearly twenty years of this being a significant issue family care is not being discussed by the working group.
f
Fact…the issue of advanced personal cares and the fact that the moh system had failed this group requiring very high supports is not being discussed.
So…ffs…is it any wonder some are not exactly orgasmic at the current incumbents’s commitment to effecting change on order to do better?
The fossil fuel industry has a choke hold on government and the sooner they and their golden eggs, taxes paid and royalties, get the arse, the sooner renewables take over.
Prices for solar, wind, and battery storage are dropping so rapidly that renewables are increasingly squeezing out all forms of fossil fuel power, including natural gas.
The cost of new solar plants dropped 20 percent over the past 12 months, while onshore wind prices dropped 12 percent, according to the latest Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) report. Since 2010, the prices for lithium-ion batteries — crucial to energy storage — have plummeted a stunning 79 percent (see chart).
https://thinkprogress.org/solar-wind-power-prices-are-beating-natural-gas-c9912054400c/
I recommend reading this. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/06/naomi-klein-how-power-profits-from-disaster
According to Naomi Klein, Climate Change (like wars) will just create an opportunity for corporates (many of which have caused the problem) to move in to make further profits. They will profit from the private security firms that will manage the millions of climate refugees and the private prisons and refugee centres that will contain them. They will also profit from the scarcity of food and ramp up the profits here too.
Look at any major disaster (Katrina, Yemen, Iraq…) and you will see big business swooping in and profiting from misery. If Trump is replaced by Pence, he has a background in ensuring profit from crisis.
Do you see parallels with here, or a NZ version of that?
Some people have reminded us when a previous Minister or their advisor interfered in a national broadcaster.
It involved Maori TV, Flavell and his press secretary and wasnt a chat with the head of content but an actual email with the producer of a current affairs show
http://www.labour.org.nz/m_ori_tv_editorial_interference_scandal_deepens
Labour has released emails between Te Ururoa Flavell’s press secretary and Maori television that show the Minister’s press secretary tried to alter the format of a proposed Native Affairs debate on Whanau Ora and attempted to dissuade Māori Television from inviting NZ First to appear on the show.
Telling the Producer NOT to invite a political party representative.??
Maori TV didnt follow that advice and parts for the segment were filmed but then Flavell had a meeting with the head of MTV.
Later that afternoon the show was cancelled
The appropriate legislation says the Minister or their representative must not direct producers etc on the production of any current affairs show.
And Maori Channel viewers voted. I feel that was the first of many things which lost Flavell his seat. “Santa Baby” being another.
Duncan Greive recently wrote about the end of an overlong era- Key, English and Joyce are gone. While Hosking burbles on on ZB he’s off the 7pm slot.
But please they take Matthew Screech-owl with them too? I’ve become simply exhausted with him on every form of public and ‘public’ media we’ve had and the conversation has simply moved past what he has to offer.
He’s a tired unnecessary figure of yesteryear. Enough.
Keith Murdoch has died.
I guess we will never know now, the circumstances behind him being sent home.
Kia ora Morena show on Maori TV good story on Elon Mus Teslar and showing the fact that the Maui Dolphins tragedy of near extinction I challenge the IWI with the biggest fishing enterprise to put up some of there mana and save these beautiful creatures .
At the minute I’m studying My tipuna Mokena Kohere he is a great Chief of
Ngati Porou see you at 10 am apopo ka kite ano
Here we have two CEO retiring one because his hand was forced because he did not keep up with the times and another who retired because he could see it was good for the company .I new Rod Drury was Maori he is doing what is right for his people his shareholders my accountant uses his Xero software its excellent it makes accounting so easy .I have used other accounting software and they were not as unfriendly as
Xero it halves the time to do the books Ka pai Rod Drury enough said. heres the link.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/102711128/rust-never-sleeps–a-tale-of-two-retiring-ceos Kia kaha Ka kite ano
Here we go again someone who is making brash claims about a third industrial revolution John Mc Crone is making predictions about the Protein our good Farmers produce could be replaced by factories growing meat milk in a commercial scale what a load of Bull—– 30 years ago people predicted a lot of things that have not become reality . For some thing to displace meat milk first you have to be-able to scale production up and produce it profitably then one has to get the public to trust and use that product. The manufactures will tell all these lies to try and con us into using the crap products they will lie about all the bad side affects there products cause to humans . But now we have this 21s century device the Internet and social media this device will soon let all the people know when these greedy bigots are selling us a bad product quick smart . So good farmers ignore this idiot and keep up the good work. I’m not impressed with John Mc Crone I won’t say exactly what I think of him Kia Kaha ka kite ano here’s the link .
https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/102640438/the-future-of-everything-why-the-third-industrial-revolution-is-a-risk-to-nz
Newshub the Tauranga sandflys were jumping through hoops going around and around the mulberry bush the block like the little kids they are . All they get out of the vast amount of resources they pour into intermediating me is it takes me 10 minutes longer to get to work and get home.
That’s a excerlint story on Liberia it shows if the charity’s innovative and provide the people ways to make money and grow there own food is a much better way than just giving them the food ECO MAORI still shakes his head as to why these poor people are in the situation they are in poor and starving in the 21s century
I know who is responsible for this situation going on around Papatuanuku World
at the minute look in the mirror .
Kia kaha poor people Ka kite ano
I can see after today’s mahi that they have turned some people against me .They have used my words to turn you against me what I have said is fact but that does not mean I have not got your back and I need uses to have my back always. So I can make life better for all yes my mokos and children come first but I fight for all the suppressed people. One can see from my mahi that things are improving for you . When you are no longer of use they will throw uses under the bus ECO MAORI will never throw anyone under the bus Kia kaha people ka kite ano
Te Kumara never tells how sweet it is Kia Kaha Ka kite ano