Mostly a fair comment from Abi but here it is true that a comment from Andrew is likely blown up an out to misrepresent his position. For example his wondering about the immigration list including so any cooks. Or his comment regarding the Middle NZ voter. Both fair comments but mangled by the media. A hard row to hoe.
The sad thing is, as soon as ShonKey opens his mouth, he’s lying…. The subject matter is irrelevant….. And his team follow suit, they feel untouchable.
Trump is enthusiastically fact checked. Key not so much. And anyway Key’s words are so ambiguous that he can always deny that that was what he said. Headlines about the previous poll showing 26% but not a whisper about the Morgan poll of 33.5%.
IKR, not a whisper of the Morgan poll. Maybe the televised political debates during next years election should be fact checked too.. now that would prove very interesting for NZ
True.
I heard a rumour of another overheard conversation, this one involving Obama and Key.
Barack told him that the US couldn’t support such a weak candidate as Helen Clark was and why didn’t New Zealand put forward an A-list candidate and Key stand himself?
He thought that Key would easily gain enough support.
Not sure it is true but it sounds much more likely than the idea that HC can get any further than seventh place,
Meantime going by articles on CNBC this morning Duetsche Bank looking/may need bailout (surely that has wide ramifications?).. and US cash 3.4 trillion… debt 34 trillion… and here was i worried about out $1.69bn debt being 70% of our GDP silly me… when do you esteemed standaristas forecast that we will enjoy zero int rates? 🙂
With the exception of a few thousand very powerful people, the entire world’s population, all seven billion of us, are trapped … trapped into a criminal debt creating banking ‘system’ that has taken hundreds of years to perfect and to come to fruition. This ‘system’ results in enslavement and servitude. It creates dreadful unhappiness amongst ordinary decent people and causes wars, debt, starvation, pollution and environmental destruction. It feeds on greed, fear and division. It forces people onto the corporate treadmills of mass mindless production and mass mindless consumption. It uses lies, deception, intimidation and entrapment at all times. It is a system that is so clever and so cunning that most of the world is completely oblivious to its existence. It is a system that allows a few winners at the expense of a huge number of losers. It is a system that considers itself to be unbeatable and indestructible and is now so arrogant that it believes it can control everything and everyone on its terms. It is a system where psychopaths and sociopaths can flourish. And without question the centre of this system, the heart of this global corporate beast is the innocent sounding Square Mile known as the City of London.
Warning ….. many outside Auckland will be shocked at this …..
$720,000 will enable you to buy this in outer Auckland situated on a busy arterial road (But at least a bus stop is directly outside), then you have to build a house that can only have a 45% building coverage or 135m2. http://www.realestate.co.nz/2907125
How much more scope is there for the bubble to inflate before …
Wow!! I’m still shocked about the neighbours, they sold their house in 10 days and whacked an extra $100,000 on the price since they purchased 16 mths ago in Motueka. Relationship breakup reason for selling.
I’ve never seen so many real estate agents and prospective buyers, anyone would have thought there was a huge street party happening with the volume of vehicles in our street.
Huge contrast from when the prior owners sold it last time, huge contrast, property took well over a month to sell last time and there was not much interest in the open homes.
135 m2 is a perfectly good-sized 3-bedroom house, in fact possibly too big. NZ’s need to get out of the habit of thinking that big is better when it comes to houses. We have adopted the same unrealistic and unsustainable attitude as Oz and the US on this.
Agreed, but remember that modern house plans usually include a garage when quoting size, so 130-140m2 is the new 90-100m2. Also, a 2 storey house might be an option.
Maybe, however I think in Oz and US they have minimal occupancy in large houses, compared to NZ where there are large families, extended families and grandparents all in one house.
Also climate dependent, people whom live in areas that have harsh winters or summers are more likely to have a larger house as they spend less time outside than us kiwis.
“in Oz …. they have minimal occupancy in large houses”
That is a significant outcome of the Australian policies of having Capital Gains taxes and means-tested superannuation. Both of these exempt the family home from the calculation. It is very cost-effective, particularly for retired people, to put their money into an excessively large house rather than into investments. Then they can collect the National Super and they don’t have to worry about the Capital Gains tax. You lose ALL the National super if a couple has assets, excluding their house, of about $800,000.
Look at all the “McMansions” in Sydney’s west, and remember this when someone claims that Capital Gains taxes that exclude the family home are good for New Zealand and will bring down house prices. They are talking absolute rubbish.
” large families, extended families and grandparents all in one house. ”
I suspect you are exaggerating the number of these in New Zealand. From the 2013 census results the average household size was only 2.7 people and the highest value, in Mangere, was only 4. That doesn’t really allow very many of the households you describe, does it?
I had a little deeper look at the tables published with the census.
There are about 1.55 million households.
Those with 8 or more usual inhabitants, which would I think be the groups you mention, totalled about 13,800. That is only 0.9%.
Those with 7 usual inhabitants were about 15,500 or another 1%.
Doesn’t seem very many does it?
The biggest family I can remember from my youth had 12 kids still at home so would have been a household of 14. Seemed enormous to a little boy like me from a household of 6. Nowadays 6 would be classed as large I suppose.
“135 m2 is a perfectly good-sized 3-bedroom house”
It was, for a while during the Labour Government of 1972-1975, the maximum sized house you were allowed to build in New Zealand. The then Kirk-led Government decided that no-one should be allowed to build a house that was larger than that and it was all anyone, regardless of family size needed.
The rumour was that Norm had worked out the size of his own house in Kaiapoi, which came to 1500 square feet and used that size as the limit. Nobody deserved a home bigger than his.
I was very unhappy about it at the time. I was having a house built which was about that size but had been consented with a carport. I wanted to change it to a garage but wasn’t allowed to as it would have then exceeded the legal limit.
Ugh, gross. I thought that bit of land was supposed to stay green space.
A bus stop might be directly outside, but it’s an obscenely long ride into town or indeed anywhere really. Not a smart place to be putting in housing developments. Town planning for failure.
future million dollar slums, but then i guess these will be slums paid for by foreign investors that won’t live in these houses so all is good.
and if the rent for these future slums are to high, the taxpayer of nz will be picking up slack and provide the funds for WINZ to dole out the Accomodation Supplement (cause it ain’t a benefit as i was told by a Winz Drone Customer of mine).
hes not that good a writer – often writers articles loaded with straw man arguments poor logic and nonsense. He routinely gets shown up in any comments
he may be right on this one – but i wouldnt trust him as a source
Pretty sure that you saying something is unexplained doesn’t actually mean its unexplained
My first post was a link about Labour calling everything a crisis and my next posts were specific links to crisis that Labour was highlighting followed by links that showed the crisis had been adverted
If the unemployment rate and the GDP growth rate track about where they are or better, it’s going to really narrow the attack line options available to Labour or the Greens.
I won’t be convinced of different until there’s a clear polling preference for Labour and Greens to govern by themselves. Reliance on any others won’t last a term.
Absent a further major economic shock, the best attack line to shift this government is still housing.
I agree, Labour has traction with housing…I mean I wouldn’t be calling it a state of emergency but its still Labours best option for attacking National
Well Maui didn’t seem to get it so I thought I’d be helpful and explain it to him/her
To be fair my point was that Labour have a habit of calling each and everything a crisis and when they do the crisis in question usually sorts itself out which to me suggests there wasn’t a crisis in the first place
No, they don’t call everything a crisis and not all of the problems you blithely linked to with no explanation have been solved (even if they have meandered away from media attention).
Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered clicking on half a dozen links that had no real context, until you later explained your point.
the boy who cried wolf did actually cry wolf when he saw a wolf.
Are you sure that you would recognise a wolf (when any potential wolf is decried by you and your rwnj mates as a sheep) any better than labour because by using this example you are saying that there is a wolf coming, at some point.
They sure are and they are teaching Chinese in African schools flat out. Al Jazeera did a story on it not so long ago. Didn’t realise they were doing the same in South American.
And Japan was buying America and going to own the world in the 80s, the sooner you lot learn the world and its economy is a complex system and stop applying linear abstraction and chicken little analysis the better
This might be old news for some people, but someone was in the right place at the right time with a video camera to record the last moments of Malaysian Airways flight
MH17.
That’s not MH17. Probably a military aircraft. As I recall, the rebels had already shot down a couple of Ukrainian planes prior to killing the civilians. It might one of those incidents or video from somewhere else altogether.
In the video it appears that most of the plane is staying together until it goes out of frame at lowish altitude. Which seems inconsistent with the debris field of MH17 which had major parts of the plane kilometres apart.
On the other hand, the plane appears to have a grey underside and white top and tail, which are consistent with MH17, and unlikely for a military plane…so maybe, maybe not.
Wadhams has visited the Polar Regions more often than any other living scientist – 50 times since he was on the first ship to circumnavigate the Americas in 1970 – and has a uniquely authoritative perspective on the changes they have undergone and where those changes will lead. From his observations and the latest scientific research, he describes how dramatically sea ice has diminished over the past three decades, to the point at which, by the time this book is published, the Arctic may be free of ice for the first time in 10,000 years.
Just found out that Bill Mollison, the father of permaculture has died. What a guy, someone who could change your life, and not many can change so many lives like he did.
I have a couple of his books, and such a clear vision of sustainable living.
What a great legacy to leave behind – the permaculture movement, and all those who are inspired by it and choose the principles in small or large endeavours.
Hands up if you’re appalled by RNZ National’s Susie Ferguson.
She makes Mike Hosking look informed and balanced.
RNZ National, Friday 30 September 2016, 8:40 a.m.
As the U.S.-sponsored Al Qaeda insurrection in Syria continues on its bloody course, the suffering of the Syrian people is immense, and getting worse. At present the people of Aleppo are subjected to massive bombing from not only the U.S.-backed insurrectionists, but also from the Assad regime and its Russian ally. We in the West look on in horror, or feigned horror [1], and are ourselves bombarded, not with barrel bombs or white phosphorus, but with the most appalling, black-hearted, cynical propaganda.
If ever the world needed sound and principled reporting, and intelligent and informed journalists, it is now. Unfortunately for RNZ National listeners, the crisis in Syria seems to be the domain of Susie Ferguson. We have discussed her terrible inadequacies on this forum in the past. [2] Sadly, her performance this morning shows that she has not improved one iota.
She spoke to Kieran Dwyer of UNICEF about the humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo, especially the toll on children there. Although she does not seem to have any detailed knowledge of the situation, Ferguson made it clear who who she holds responsible for all the carnage. The children are “victims of the regime of Bashar al Assad,” she intoned. She then asked Kieran Dwyer if “cutting off of water is being used as a weapon of war here?”
Speaking from Damascus, Kieran Dwyer made it clear that the situation was the responsibility of not only the Syrian government and Russia, but also the U.S.-backed Al Qaeda insurrectionists: “When you attack such densely urban areas this is what happens… All sides of the conflict bear responsibility.”
A few minutes later, toward the end of the programme, Susie Ferguson chose to read out an email by a fellow Kool Aid drinker: “Bob from Gisborned has contacted us about Aleppo. He writes: Why can’t the government of Syria and its murderous ally Russia be indicted for war crimes?
Ferguson is pretty useless. Espiner is the man for the serious interviews (except when he is crawling up Key’s backside).
I can’t believe Trotter (yet again) attacking Little on Bowalley Road today partly on the basis of a Ferguson interview. Trying to define the centre ground in politics is always going to be difficult. And Trotter also has a go at Little for praising Bill Shorten. While I personally love Corbyn and Sanders, Shorten actually showed a lot of backbone and stuck to his policy guns, was honest and believable and nearly pulled off the unwinnable in the Oz election. Not bad qualities for Little to admire.
Trotter should give Little a break-wait for the policies next year.
Just give him another 6 months. And I think the general belief from the polls is that the Labour/GR block is confidently neck and neck with a quickly declining National. Right?
Yes I am told it’s looking pretty sweet for the Left next year: tide going out on National, country in the mood for change, people realising that Little beats that tiresome liar phoney Key, polling showing that the Lab/Gr/NZF block will have 64 plus MPs
So yeah should be good times on The Standard, yeah
Theres a difference and that difference is that National chose to give those parties a say but they didn’t have to, last election National could have governed with only the Maori Party
So if National had wanted to it could have been a coalition of two but they chose to be inclusive
The other factor is that National is overwhelmingly dominant with MP numbers. They could have another couple of 1-2 MP support parties on side and people would still regard it as a National Government. (Not a “National-led Government.”)
It’s not like a Labour comprising government where 40% of the MPs are from other parties.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard Ferguson ask an open question. She invariably presents her opinion and dares the interviewee to disagree. I guess it’s a step up from the Dipshit Henry ‘Why do you hate babies and want them to die?’ approach.
This one’s for you weka as I’m sure you’ve raised this good point before
“The set up is that Rosa Scott is a surgeon in London, 20-years in the future, trying to save lives when most of the antibiotics are no longer working. Everything else plays out of that set-up and so inevitably the obstacles she faces are related to this world.”
1. Most antibiotics will still work in 20 years.
2. There will be an increased number of strains resistant to existing antibiotics but a normally functioning immune system will still deal with them in most instances.
3. There are new antibacterials being developed.
4. There are increasing numbers of vaccines available and being developed for bacterial and viral agents.
etc etc etc
sure, assuming everything goes according to some plan you have thought of and articulate so convincingly. The world has a way of being a little more unpredictable in reality.
Not sure about the whole doom thing though. Technically a simple cut can theoretically kill someone if it gets infected, but it’s unlikely that in the age of understanding hygiene that this will be an issue.
Just waiting now for the medical lot (and the Science is god lot) to catch up on the fact that a huge number of plants are anti-bacterial, have a very long traditional use for preventing and treating bacterial infection, and we already know how to use them for many of things that antibiotics are currently overused for. We should have been saving the antibiotics for the very serious stuff, instead of squandering it on colds and flus and growing factory chickens. Hopefulll we will get there before it’s too late.
If the graphic’s ideas about things like less surgery are right, then it’s also an opportunity for us to shift to holistic preventative medicine.
Are you trying to censor me with your passé 20th century scientism-nazism?
Please tell me
Who you think I was advising
And what did you think that advice was
Not my problem that you cannot recognise that in the long haul (next 40-50 years), conventional western medicine will not out race the evolution of microbes.
Also, not my problem if you can’t tell the difference between advice for living a healthier more natural more sustainable life, and “medical” advice.
Now, I said, “long haul” but its not even two generations away. My family is ready for it, are you.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt and figured that you were being your usual cowardly passive-aggressive self and stopping just short of explicitly stating your bullshit, rather than assuming that you were simply vomiting forth an assortment of irrelevant and unconnected statements with no awareness of context or coherence.
But Shu Lam, a 25-year-old PhD student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has developed a star-shaped polymer that can kill six different superbug strains without antibiotics, simply by ripping apart their cell walls.
“We’ve discovered that [the polymers] actually target the bacteria and kill it in multiple ways,” Lam told Nicola Smith from The Telegraph. “One method is by physically disrupting or breaking apart the cell wall of the bacteria. This creates a lot of stress on the bacteria and causes it to start killing itself.”
As a matter of interest.
How do all the commenters here, who think there is not problem ,expect to house, teachers, nurses, police, cleaners etc with the house prices?
Funnily enough three of the four professions you named all make more then I do (and rightfully so, my job isn’t all that special in the whole scheme of things) yet I still manage to live in a decent house in a decent suburb…
Lovely logic from PR there. It’s the same logic that says that if there are 100 jobs and 150 people, everyone can have a job. What is it with neoliberals’ inability to understand basic physics?
How about people do what people have always done since we were, well, people and that’s move to a better location. Why is it now, specifically, that moving is apparently a bad thing to do?
Pretty sure you have had this explained to you before, so I’m guessing your question is rhetorical and disingenuous, but for others reading there is this.
For most of human history, humans have lived around people they know. We have a whole bunch of social and biological evolutionary traits connected with that that lead to healthy community.
Expecting any or all of the population to be transient creates instability and is not the human norm. How we are experiencing it currently is an invention of neoliberalism, but it pops up periodically (think the Highland Clearances). You are advocating economically forced immigration.
It destroys communities because it removes the people with the long memory of how things work, or the people with specialist non-commercial knowledge. Community groups function better when they are made up of people who know each other over the long term.
It harms families because it forces people to either move away from their loved ones and their essential support or stay where they belong and be poor.
Telling people to move in response to the housing crisis is like telling people move in a famine. Which makes sense if you have such an emergency and are desperate, except this famine is created by the investor/political class and is completely preventable and resolvable, and moving somewhere else just spreads the famine because the underlying causes aren’t being addressed.
It destroys communities because it removes the people with the long memory of how things work, or the people with specialist non-commercial knowledge. Community groups function better when they are made up of people who know each other over the long term.
– What load a semi-romantic bollix, might as well add in the gold old days for good measure
It harms families because it forces people to either move away from their loved ones and their essential support or stay where they belong and be poor.
– how about helps families because they can move somewhere cheaper to live
You make it sound as if Auckland is NZ and vice versa, it isn’t
In other words you’ve got nothing. Try making an actual argument rather than pointing and you’re wrong.
Eg The nuclear family that moves away from its extended support base is better off financially for a while until it needs things you can’t buy. Then what?
No idea what your last sentence means and it’s certainly not what I said or think.
Your argument is based on emotional clap trap and pseudo-science
How do you explain the amount of trade and travel and immigration and yes even conquests between human populations that have happened since man first became man
“Your argument is based on emotional clap trap and pseudo-science”
Still can’t address the actual points 🙄 Go on then, point specficially to the pseudo-science. If you’re going to resort to insults, let’s at least see if they have any meaning.
How do you explain the amount of trade and travel and immigration and yes even conquests between human populations that have happened since man first became man
There are lots of ways to explain those PR, but what does that have to do with my assertion that forcing economic immigration on people harms communities and families?
Here’s a clue, NZ was colonised in part by the downstream effects of the Highland Clearances. If you think that the Clearances didn’t negatively affect families and communities in Western Scotland, I’d really like to hear your argument.
I’m guessing that if you own your own home you’ve done so for a while, and bought when prices were on par with incomes?
Your logic is the same as Bennett or Key saying if they can do it everyone can do it. That’s the trouble with right-wing thinking. There’s an assumption that everyone’s the same.
So you bought during the slump around 2008. Lucky bugger. Now your mates in the parasite rentier and banker class have gobbled up the market, with the Nats standing on the sidelines and drinking champagne, as thousands of kiwis are locked out of ownership, forced out of their communities, and kicked onto the streets.
Congratulations on your financial success & moral failure.
Geez I am glad weka that was not the view a 100 thousand or so years ago or we would never have got out of Africa, human movement is a factor of human history from year dot, what a load of idealogical, Theoretical nonsense that simply does not stack up to the facts, saying that such thinking is case in point for most left wing thought, nonsense
Poxish Rouge, despicable troll – what do you know about the effects of vagrancy? I can tell you that the school-kids who move through 27 different schools by the time they get to the 5th form (Year 11) are pretty well doomed to educational failure. Nor can any of the schools (or rather their teachers whom you trolls like to blame) be fairly accused. You have no idea, do you? And here we are now speculating about the possible price of a house? This is the sort of diversion that Poxish Rouge loves to cause. Go jump into your log-burner.
they all gonna homebirth, and if it goes pearshaped either way, no biggie in the olden gooden days not all women or children survived childbirth, get a second model and try again
they gonna all home teach – abstinence only and creative design – cause to much science is no good for anyone
they gonna have all their own neighborhood watches – guns mate, guns.
they all gonna clean their own offices, public toilets, restaurants, cafes etc etc or else simply not leave home (those that have one)
they all gonna pass buckets should a house catch fire – you know just like in the gooden olden golden days.
cause thus spoke the libertarian god of fuckwittery we don’t need no stink’n state, no stink’n socialism, no stink’n community minded good-doery and all that shit. We are self reliant, full of personal responsibility and if your shit gets stolen, burned or other wise damaged that might be good business for me 🙂
Mind, they – the owner of empty houses and unused land could just import some slaves and call them “skill- migrants” who will be housed for food n water rations twice daily. Clothes are optional, depending if the slave is a 10 on the scale of Trump.
But anyways, you will not get any answer from our believers. Cause you see there is no housing crisis, there are no homeless people, there are just lazy ‘ useless’ kiwis that made bad choices. And Ms. Bennett is only buying a Motel cause she is bored doing nothing cause there is no Housing Crisis and there are no homeless. I think she is trying to re-invent herself as an interior designer or some such thing.
Lynn, a few things broken since the upgrade. The name and email fields no longer remember my details (mac Firefox and iphone Safari). We’ve had that happen before, can’t remember if the fix is your end or ours.
Craig naive I reckon while that Williams fellow seems to do just nasty things in collaboration with Whaleoil. The Taxpayers Union? Nasty arm of the undermine Opposition scheme.
Well I got that wrong. Not that it matters really either way-Williams hardly comes out of the case with his reputation enhanced and Craig was already on the political scrapheap. I wonder if he will appeal?
“It’s the latest revelation in a story survivors say has haunted them for decades: the money behind the Sixties Scoop.
The scoop, as it is called, refers to the era from the 1960s to the 1980s, when child welfare authorities scooped up Indigenous children and adopted them out to non-Indigenous families..”
It serves to confirm for me that the average Kiwi punter is pretty ignorant and biased. While Craig deserved to pay a price for being so foolish but he didn’t deserve to have to pay out $1.4 million to a slimy, dishonest, lying, creepy toad such as Jordan Williams.
So you agree that Teina Pora shouldn’t have got as much money either because he had criminal convictions, was a gang prospect and confessed only to get the reward money?
This “verdict” is more mob rule than anything remotely like justice. It is a “verdict” of comparable calibre to the O.J. Simpson “verdict” in 1995 and the George Zimmerman “verdict” in 2013.
In what possible universe do you dwell that makes it “fair” for a demonstrated liar and scoundrel to have been ruled to have been defamed by one of his victims?
I think you’ll find the amount is so large due to the fact that Craig has been found guilty of defamation and more importantly the defamation was in the form of a document sent to every household in NZ.
I also don’t know what the ‘average kiwi punter’ has to do with it ?
Not really Garibaldi.
Its good to be reminded they are members of the same slimy, dishonest, lying, creepy R.W. gang as the toad, J Williams. If you look at the smiling picture of J Williams on the web sites, it is exactly what you would expect a human version of a toad would look like. Quite uncanny. 🙂
Tony Ryall, just been appointed chair of Transpower by Bill English, slipping under the headlines quietly today.
Well done Tony who recently retired from National as health minister, after many years of living off the taxpayer and has been installed By National to chair a power company. Good stuff, expect power costs to increase in an area near you soon.
Oh Richard have a closer look TP, they have just spit of their renewable side, both high in debt and at a cost of about 75-85 million, Dene McKenize of ODT fame wanked on about it last Saturday I think, cant link, to inept, but goggle be your friend, as Draco says.
I’m surprised nobody has made mention of the Silver Scrolls 2016 held last night. Moana Maniapoto was inducted into the NZ Music Hall of Fame and gave the most fantastic speech imaginable. It is begins at 13:18 mins into this vid on RNZ.
It’s the time on the video where Moana begins her speech, although I recommend watching the whole 34 minutes. In fact the whole event is available to watch here at RNZ . Begins properly 3 hours and 18 minutes into the 6 hour coverage.
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On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
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. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
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An interesting article by an MSM journalist (from the UK, but relevant here too I believe).
https://medium.com/@AbiWilks/speech-momentum-panel-on-media-bias-dd09d9b103b7#.wb1zmrmgn
I guess we don’t yet have the “upsetting the status quo” of a Corbyn (fingers crossed??) but still some relevant things.
Mostly a fair comment from Abi but here it is true that a comment from Andrew is likely blown up an out to misrepresent his position. For example his wondering about the immigration list including so any cooks. Or his comment regarding the Middle NZ voter. Both fair comments but mangled by the media. A hard row to hoe.
+1
The sad thing is, as soon as ShonKey opens his mouth, he’s lying…. The subject matter is irrelevant….. And his team follow suit, they feel untouchable.
Trump is enthusiastically fact checked. Key not so much. And anyway Key’s words are so ambiguous that he can always deny that that was what he said. Headlines about the previous poll showing 26% but not a whisper about the Morgan poll of 33.5%.
IKR, not a whisper of the Morgan poll. Maybe the televised political debates during next years election should be fact checked too.. now that would prove very interesting for NZ
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11714028
Definite lies
More like the kiss of death I would think.
True.
I heard a rumour of another overheard conversation, this one involving Obama and Key.
Barack told him that the US couldn’t support such a weak candidate as Helen Clark was and why didn’t New Zealand put forward an A-list candidate and Key stand himself?
He thought that Key would easily gain enough support.
Not sure it is true but it sounds much more likely than the idea that HC can get any further than seventh place,
Meantime going by articles on CNBC this morning Duetsche Bank looking/may need bailout (surely that has wide ramifications?).. and US cash 3.4 trillion… debt 34 trillion… and here was i worried about out $1.69bn debt being 70% of our GDP silly me… when do you esteemed standaristas forecast that we will enjoy zero int rates? 🙂
When we get serious about money reform and understand two things:
* That saving money saves nothing
* That having the private banks creating our money results in us being debt slaves
+100
New Zealand should consider the Bradbury Pound approach, remove the banks from the process entirely.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/bring-back-the-bradbury
Bankers, Bradburys, Carnage And Slaughter On The Western Front
Thanks for the link.
Warning ….. many outside Auckland will be shocked at this …..
$720,000 will enable you to buy this in outer Auckland situated on a busy arterial road (But at least a bus stop is directly outside), then you have to build a house that can only have a 45% building coverage or 135m2.
http://www.realestate.co.nz/2907125
How much more scope is there for the bubble to inflate before …
Wow!! I’m still shocked about the neighbours, they sold their house in 10 days and whacked an extra $100,000 on the price since they purchased 16 mths ago in Motueka. Relationship breakup reason for selling.
I’ve never seen so many real estate agents and prospective buyers, anyone would have thought there was a huge street party happening with the volume of vehicles in our street.
Huge contrast from when the prior owners sold it last time, huge contrast, property took well over a month to sell last time and there was not much interest in the open homes.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/79386614/High-prices-low-wages-shut-Motuekas-poor-out-of-property-market
yep very similar over The Hill too
135 m2 is a perfectly good-sized 3-bedroom house, in fact possibly too big. NZ’s need to get out of the habit of thinking that big is better when it comes to houses. We have adopted the same unrealistic and unsustainable attitude as Oz and the US on this.
+1
I remember when 90m2 was considered big.
Agreed, but remember that modern house plans usually include a garage when quoting size, so 130-140m2 is the new 90-100m2. Also, a 2 storey house might be an option.
Maybe, however I think in Oz and US they have minimal occupancy in large houses, compared to NZ where there are large families, extended families and grandparents all in one house.
Also climate dependent, people whom live in areas that have harsh winters or summers are more likely to have a larger house as they spend less time outside than us kiwis.
“in Oz …. they have minimal occupancy in large houses”
That is a significant outcome of the Australian policies of having Capital Gains taxes and means-tested superannuation. Both of these exempt the family home from the calculation. It is very cost-effective, particularly for retired people, to put their money into an excessively large house rather than into investments. Then they can collect the National Super and they don’t have to worry about the Capital Gains tax. You lose ALL the National super if a couple has assets, excluding their house, of about $800,000.
Look at all the “McMansions” in Sydney’s west, and remember this when someone claims that Capital Gains taxes that exclude the family home are good for New Zealand and will bring down house prices. They are talking absolute rubbish.
” large families, extended families and grandparents all in one house. ”
I suspect you are exaggerating the number of these in New Zealand. From the 2013 census results the average household size was only 2.7 people and the highest value, in Mangere, was only 4. That doesn’t really allow very many of the households you describe, does it?
good points
I had a little deeper look at the tables published with the census.
There are about 1.55 million households.
Those with 8 or more usual inhabitants, which would I think be the groups you mention, totalled about 13,800. That is only 0.9%.
Those with 7 usual inhabitants were about 15,500 or another 1%.
Doesn’t seem very many does it?
The biggest family I can remember from my youth had 12 kids still at home so would have been a household of 14. Seemed enormous to a little boy like me from a household of 6. Nowadays 6 would be classed as large I suppose.
A 135m2 house would cost to build $270k+ then the cost of land …. $720k = $1m = the average house in Auckland. So land represents 72% of the finished price. If they built a 2 level home 200m2 =$450k+ = 60% land value which is being touted as being the norm.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11353622
– Can some not see the major driver in the cost of a house. If land was not worth as much, then developers would pay less for the undeveloped land, everything else could remain status quo.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/83627681/nick-smith-is-millliondollar-minister-as-average-auckland-house-passes-1m-mark
@Alwyn “A 135m2 house would cost to build $270k+”
Make that closer to $330-340k according to my builder mates.
Yep, $2K per sq m will get you sweet F.A.
“135 m2 is a perfectly good-sized 3-bedroom house”
It was, for a while during the Labour Government of 1972-1975, the maximum sized house you were allowed to build in New Zealand. The then Kirk-led Government decided that no-one should be allowed to build a house that was larger than that and it was all anyone, regardless of family size needed.
The rumour was that Norm had worked out the size of his own house in Kaiapoi, which came to 1500 square feet and used that size as the limit. Nobody deserved a home bigger than his.
I was very unhappy about it at the time. I was having a house built which was about that size but had been consented with a carport. I wanted to change it to a garage but wasn’t allowed to as it would have then exceeded the legal limit.
Damn, that’s harsh
Ugh, gross. I thought that bit of land was supposed to stay green space.
A bus stop might be directly outside, but it’s an obscenely long ride into town or indeed anywhere really. Not a smart place to be putting in housing developments. Town planning for failure.
future million dollar slums, but then i guess these will be slums paid for by foreign investors that won’t live in these houses so all is good.
and if the rent for these future slums are to high, the taxpayer of nz will be picking up slack and provide the funds for WINZ to dole out the Accomodation Supplement (cause it ain’t a benefit as i was told by a Winz Drone Customer of mine).
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/84641982/liam-hehir-no-crisis-here-move-along-please
Good points
So others realise, Hehir’s articles are promoted on KiwiBlog and Whale Oil.
Yawn, if you’re going to troll at least put some effort into it
hes not that good a writer – often writers articles loaded with straw man arguments poor logic and nonsense. He routinely gets shown up in any comments
he may be right on this one – but i wouldnt trust him as a source
I guess you just need to look at how many times Labour and the Greens throw around the term “crisis” to see if it has any validity
i guess you cant resist bringing the straw man to the party
Geezus. Reading that is I imagine similar to supping some JK wine, easing a restless nat voter to sleep at night.
Sure because Labour have never called anything a crisis before:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8805482/Opposition-manufacturing-inquiry-report-released
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1609/S00493/manufacturing-powerhouse-of-nz-growth.htm
I mean:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/298869/low-milk-prices-'wiping-farmers-out‘
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/83230951/global-dairy-prices-massive-rise-at-trade-auction
Sorry got that wrong again but don’t worry heres a real crisis Labour can help with:
https://www.change.org/p/new-zealand-labour-party-labour-to-declare-the-all-blacks-in-crisis-so-they-win-the-rugby-world-cup
Praise the lord, we’re back to celebrating dairy price rises again.
Farrar getting 120 signatures for something, wow, how many I wonder weren’t paid for.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11615925
http://www.labour.org.nz/on_refugees_a_timely_reminder
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/10133645/Obesity-epidemic-at-crisis-point (not a Labour announcement but riding on the coattails)
Ok, pasting unexplained links is a bannable offence I thought, and you do this quite often.
Pretty sure that you saying something is unexplained doesn’t actually mean its unexplained
My first post was a link about Labour calling everything a crisis and my next posts were specific links to crisis that Labour was highlighting followed by links that showed the crisis had been adverted
Basically Labour are the boy who cried wolf
If the unemployment rate and the GDP growth rate track about where they are or better, it’s going to really narrow the attack line options available to Labour or the Greens.
I won’t be convinced of different until there’s a clear polling preference for Labour and Greens to govern by themselves. Reliance on any others won’t last a term.
Absent a further major economic shock, the best attack line to shift this government is still housing.
I agree, Labour has traction with housing…I mean I wouldn’t be calling it a state of emergency but its still Labours best option for attacking National
Actually, providing an explanation afterwards strongly implies that the links pasted by themselves were, in fact, unexplained.
Anyway, glad to know that there are no more refugees, all the farmers are happy, and NZ is once again a manufacturing powerhouse /sarc.
Well Maui didn’t seem to get it so I thought I’d be helpful and explain it to him/her
To be fair my point was that Labour have a habit of calling each and everything a crisis and when they do the crisis in question usually sorts itself out which to me suggests there wasn’t a crisis in the first place
No, they don’t call everything a crisis and not all of the problems you blithely linked to with no explanation have been solved (even if they have meandered away from media attention).
Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered clicking on half a dozen links that had no real context, until you later explained your point.
the boy who cried wolf did actually cry wolf when he saw a wolf.
Are you sure that you would recognise a wolf (when any potential wolf is decried by you and your rwnj mates as a sheep) any better than labour because by using this example you are saying that there is a wolf coming, at some point.
“the boy who cried wolf did actually cry wolf when he saw a wolf.”
Correct and as I’m sure you’re aware he’d cried wolf so many times before that no one believed him
Sort of the problem Labour has now, Labour cried crisis and the voting population go “we’ve heard that one before”
China Is Buying Land in Africa and South America to Ensure Its Food Supply
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/china_is_buying_land_in_south_america_and_20160926
They sure are and they are teaching Chinese in African schools flat out. Al Jazeera did a story on it not so long ago. Didn’t realise they were doing the same in South American.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2014/03/interactive-china-african-spending-spree-2014320121349799136.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/china-sponsors-africa-teach-mandarin-schools-150813073745219.html
And Japan was buying America and going to own the world in the 80s, the sooner you lot learn the world and its economy is a complex system and stop applying linear abstraction and chicken little analysis the better
Yes dear.
Those are big words you are using. Do you now what they mean?
This might be old news for some people, but someone was in the right place at the right time with a video camera to record the last moments of Malaysian Airways flight
MH17.
That’s not MH17. Probably a military aircraft. As I recall, the rebels had already shot down a couple of Ukrainian planes prior to killing the civilians. It might one of those incidents or video from somewhere else altogether.
I personally don’t think it is either, but how did you tell from the video that it’s not MH17?
In the video it appears that most of the plane is staying together until it goes out of frame at lowish altitude. Which seems inconsistent with the debris field of MH17 which had major parts of the plane kilometres apart.
Cheers Andre. I would also be surprised if that plane was higher than 10,000 to 20,000 feet up.
On the other hand, the plane appears to have a grey underside and white top and tail, which are consistent with MH17, and unlikely for a military plane…so maybe, maybe not.
Wadhams has visited the Polar Regions more often than any other living scientist – 50 times since he was on the first ship to circumnavigate the Americas in 1970 – and has a uniquely authoritative perspective on the changes they have undergone and where those changes will lead. From his observations and the latest scientific research, he describes how dramatically sea ice has diminished over the past three decades, to the point at which, by the time this book is published, the Arctic may be free of ice for the first time in 10,000 years.
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/273799/a-farewell-to-ice/
Just found out that Bill Mollison, the father of permaculture has died. What a guy, someone who could change your life, and not many can change so many lives like he did.
Here’s a doco that gives a good impression of what Mollison was all about.
https://youtu.be/k5iHc3oTgao
RIP Mr Mollison.
I have a couple of his books, and such a clear vision of sustainable living.
What a great legacy to leave behind – the permaculture movement, and all those who are inspired by it and choose the principles in small or large endeavours.
Yes a sad loss of a good person. RIP
Aaahh… very sorry to hear it.
thanks for the news maui.
his work has profoundly influenced how i live my life and informed how i engage with people.
Hands up if you’re appalled by RNZ National’s Susie Ferguson.
She makes Mike Hosking look informed and balanced.
RNZ National, Friday 30 September 2016, 8:40 a.m.
As the U.S.-sponsored Al Qaeda insurrection in Syria continues on its bloody course, the suffering of the Syrian people is immense, and getting worse. At present the people of Aleppo are subjected to massive bombing from not only the U.S.-backed insurrectionists, but also from the Assad regime and its Russian ally. We in the West look on in horror, or feigned horror [1], and are ourselves bombarded, not with barrel bombs or white phosphorus, but with the most appalling, black-hearted, cynical propaganda.
If ever the world needed sound and principled reporting, and intelligent and informed journalists, it is now. Unfortunately for RNZ National listeners, the crisis in Syria seems to be the domain of Susie Ferguson. We have discussed her terrible inadequacies on this forum in the past. [2] Sadly, her performance this morning shows that she has not improved one iota.
She spoke to Kieran Dwyer of UNICEF about the humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo, especially the toll on children there. Although she does not seem to have any detailed knowledge of the situation, Ferguson made it clear who who she holds responsible for all the carnage. The children are “victims of the regime of Bashar al Assad,” she intoned. She then asked Kieran Dwyer if “cutting off of water is being used as a weapon of war here?”
Speaking from Damascus, Kieran Dwyer made it clear that the situation was the responsibility of not only the Syrian government and Russia, but also the U.S.-backed Al Qaeda insurrectionists: “When you attack such densely urban areas this is what happens… All sides of the conflict bear responsibility.”
A few minutes later, toward the end of the programme, Susie Ferguson chose to read out an email by a fellow Kool Aid drinker: “Bob from Gisborned has contacted us about Aleppo. He writes: Why can’t the government of Syria and its murderous ally Russia be indicted for war crimes?
All right, you can put your hands down now.
[1] https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/28437746705_d14cdb3255_k.jpg
[2] https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18112015/#comment-1097377
Ably assisted in the propaganda by John Campbell.
Ferguson is pretty useless. Espiner is the man for the serious interviews (except when he is crawling up Key’s backside).
I can’t believe Trotter (yet again) attacking Little on Bowalley Road today partly on the basis of a Ferguson interview. Trying to define the centre ground in politics is always going to be difficult. And Trotter also has a go at Little for praising Bill Shorten. While I personally love Corbyn and Sanders, Shorten actually showed a lot of backbone and stuck to his policy guns, was honest and believable and nearly pulled off the unwinnable in the Oz election. Not bad qualities for Little to admire.
Trotter should give Little a break-wait for the policies next year.
Yeah give Little some more time I mean he’s only been Labour leader since Nov 2014
Just give him another 6 months. And I think the general belief from the polls is that the Labour/GR block is confidently neck and neck with a quickly declining National. Right?
So theres nothing to worry about, the left block can confidently sleep-walk to victory
it is known
Yes I am told it’s looking pretty sweet for the Left next year: tide going out on National, country in the mood for change, people realising that Little beats that tiresome liar phoney Key, polling showing that the Lab/Gr/NZF block will have 64 plus MPs
So yeah should be good times on The Standard, yeah
Far too close to call.
The electorate will cope with a coalition of two.
But any more than that, National will successfully attack like they did last time that the alternative government is simply too unstable.
The instability factor is more and more important, the more highly leveraged couples rely on interest rates staying precisely where they are.
We do have a 4-headed monster at the moment…N/ACT/UF/MP
Theres a difference and that difference is that National chose to give those parties a say but they didn’t have to, last election National could have governed with only the Maori Party
So if National had wanted to it could have been a coalition of two but they chose to be inclusive
The other factor is that National is overwhelmingly dominant with MP numbers. They could have another couple of 1-2 MP support parties on side and people would still regard it as a National Government. (Not a “National-led Government.”)
It’s not like a Labour comprising government where 40% of the MPs are from other parties.
hi bg,
“We do have a 4-headed monster at the moment…N/ACT/UF/MP”
why isn’t this highlighted more?
LAB/GR will never be able to reach 50% by themselves. Not in 2017, not in 2020, not in 2023.
Their politics don’t speak to enough Kiwis to do so.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard Ferguson ask an open question. She invariably presents her opinion and dares the interviewee to disagree. I guess it’s a step up from the Dipshit Henry ‘Why do you hate babies and want them to die?’ approach.
This one’s for you weka as I’m sure you’ve raised this good point before
“The set up is that Rosa Scott is a surgeon in London, 20-years in the future, trying to save lives when most of the antibiotics are no longer working. Everything else plays out of that set-up and so inevitably the obstacles she faces are related to this world.”
http://www.treehugger.com/health/surgeon-x-apocalyptic-graphic-novel-about-how-antibiotic-resistance-will-change-way-we-live.html
1. Most antibiotics will still work in 20 years.
2. There will be an increased number of strains resistant to existing antibiotics but a normally functioning immune system will still deal with them in most instances.
3. There are new antibacterials being developed.
4. There are increasing numbers of vaccines available and being developed for bacterial and viral agents.
etc etc etc
Cool, let’s keep going on this track then
BTW how many nosocomial infection deaths in the western world last year?
How’s that woo you deliver coming along for my diabetes ?
Maybe you can answer me, how many nosocomial infection deaths occurred in the western world last year?
You know, hospital acquired pneumonia, skin infections, sepsis, etc. Come on give me a guess.
What? Please explain?
Only if you give the data for people injured or harmed by alternative therapies.
sure, assuming everything goes according to some plan you have thought of and articulate so convincingly. The world has a way of being a little more unpredictable in reality.
The artwork looks top-notch
Cheers marty.
Not sure about the whole doom thing though. Technically a simple cut can theoretically kill someone if it gets infected, but it’s unlikely that in the age of understanding hygiene that this will be an issue.
Just waiting now for the medical lot (and the Science is god lot) to catch up on the fact that a huge number of plants are anti-bacterial, have a very long traditional use for preventing and treating bacterial infection, and we already know how to use them for many of things that antibiotics are currently overused for. We should have been saving the antibiotics for the very serious stuff, instead of squandering it on colds and flus and growing factory chickens. Hopefulll we will get there before it’s too late.
If the graphic’s ideas about things like less surgery are right, then it’s also an opportunity for us to shift to holistic preventative medicine.
silver
don’t know about that, but probably better to not shift to another extractive, unsustainable technology.
You may not want silver/colloidal silver as a help around the home but I’m definitely going to have it ahead of standard antibiotics/anti-septics.
Why am I not surprised to see you pumping potentially dangerous medical advice. Colloidal silver is pure BS.
Hey fuck head
Are you trying to censor me with your passé 20th century scientism-nazism?
Please tell me
Who you think I was advising
And what did you think that advice was
Not my problem that you cannot recognise that in the long haul (next 40-50 years), conventional western medicine will not out race the evolution of microbes.
Also, not my problem if you can’t tell the difference between advice for living a healthier more natural more sustainable life, and “medical” advice.
Now, I said, “long haul” but its not even two generations away. My family is ready for it, are you.
So it was “advice”, you just reckon that taking silver before antibiotics isn’t a medical decision.
Genius.
Hmmmm, if it was “advice” then it was advice to myself. Try reading next time.
I did read it.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt and figured that you were being your usual cowardly passive-aggressive self and stopping just short of explicitly stating your bullshit, rather than assuming that you were simply vomiting forth an assortment of irrelevant and unconnected statements with no awareness of context or coherence.
Who is censoring you?
Don’t confuse censoring you with ridiculing your dumb ideas.
Wait until you learn how the qi of the organs moves throughout the body nourishing and supporting all of life’s vital functions.
Qi? Seriously?
Doubling down on your woo now?
That CV consumes his own qi responding to you is his decision to make
Ignorance is a terrible position to live life from and your ignorance is as naked as it is possible to be..
There is promising research going on.
But Shu Lam, a 25-year-old PhD student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has developed a star-shaped polymer that can kill six different superbug strains without antibiotics, simply by ripping apart their cell walls.
“We’ve discovered that [the polymers] actually target the bacteria and kill it in multiple ways,” Lam told Nicola Smith from The Telegraph. “One method is by physically disrupting or breaking apart the cell wall of the bacteria. This creates a lot of stress on the bacteria and causes it to start killing itself.”
http://www.sciencealert.com/the-science-world-s-freaking-out-over-this-25-year-old-s-solution-to-antibiotic-resistance
This is seriously nuts. The sad thing is that it’s the new normal.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/314476/motel-tenant-told-to-leave-to-make-way-for-homeless
As a matter of interest.
How do all the commenters here, who think there is not problem ,expect to house, teachers, nurses, police, cleaners etc with the house prices?
Stick ’em in old motels.
Funnily enough three of the four professions you named all make more then I do (and rightfully so, my job isn’t all that special in the whole scheme of things) yet I still manage to live in a decent house in a decent suburb…
Guess there’s no housing problem, then, eh?
Lovely logic from PR there. It’s the same logic that says that if there are 100 jobs and 150 people, everyone can have a job. What is it with neoliberals’ inability to understand basic physics?
How about people do what people have always done since we were, well, people and that’s move to a better location. Why is it now, specifically, that moving is apparently a bad thing to do?
Pretty sure you have had this explained to you before, so I’m guessing your question is rhetorical and disingenuous, but for others reading there is this.
For most of human history, humans have lived around people they know. We have a whole bunch of social and biological evolutionary traits connected with that that lead to healthy community.
Expecting any or all of the population to be transient creates instability and is not the human norm. How we are experiencing it currently is an invention of neoliberalism, but it pops up periodically (think the Highland Clearances). You are advocating economically forced immigration.
It destroys communities because it removes the people with the long memory of how things work, or the people with specialist non-commercial knowledge. Community groups function better when they are made up of people who know each other over the long term.
It harms families because it forces people to either move away from their loved ones and their essential support or stay where they belong and be poor.
Telling people to move in response to the housing crisis is like telling people move in a famine. Which makes sense if you have such an emergency and are desperate, except this famine is created by the investor/political class and is completely preventable and resolvable, and moving somewhere else just spreads the famine because the underlying causes aren’t being addressed.
It destroys communities because it removes the people with the long memory of how things work, or the people with specialist non-commercial knowledge. Community groups function better when they are made up of people who know each other over the long term.
– What load a semi-romantic bollix, might as well add in the gold old days for good measure
It harms families because it forces people to either move away from their loved ones and their essential support or stay where they belong and be poor.
– how about helps families because they can move somewhere cheaper to live
You make it sound as if Auckland is NZ and vice versa, it isn’t
In other words you’ve got nothing. Try making an actual argument rather than pointing and you’re wrong.
Eg The nuclear family that moves away from its extended support base is better off financially for a while until it needs things you can’t buy. Then what?
No idea what your last sentence means and it’s certainly not what I said or think.
There are a shit tonne of people in Auckland whose roots, and home towns, and relatives are outside of Auckland.
Give them decent jobs back in the provinces where they are from and they will be gone in a flash.
I figure you can get 200,000 people out of Auckland in 48 months doing just that.
And, all these people will be back in the neighbourhoods and communities that they grew up in – how good is that 🙂
Your argument is based on emotional clap trap and pseudo-science
How do you explain the amount of trade and travel and immigration and yes even conquests between human populations that have happened since man first became man
“Your argument is based on emotional clap trap and pseudo-science”
Still can’t address the actual points 🙄 Go on then, point specficially to the pseudo-science. If you’re going to resort to insults, let’s at least see if they have any meaning.
How do you explain the amount of trade and travel and immigration and yes even conquests between human populations that have happened since man first became man
There are lots of ways to explain those PR, but what does that have to do with my assertion that forcing economic immigration on people harms communities and families?
Here’s a clue, NZ was colonised in part by the downstream effects of the Highland Clearances. If you think that the Clearances didn’t negatively affect families and communities in Western Scotland, I’d really like to hear your argument.
Oh I’m sorry I forgot, personal experiences are permitted here
I’m guessing that if you own your own home you’ve done so for a while, and bought when prices were on par with incomes?
Your logic is the same as Bennett or Key saying if they can do it everyone can do it. That’s the trouble with right-wing thinking. There’s an assumption that everyone’s the same.
I do own my own home the bank, however, owns a whacking great part of the mortgage
I’ve owned my home for about 7 years just after National came to power and after the massive increase in house prices under National
Stop relying on tired, old cliches
So you bought during the slump around 2008. Lucky bugger. Now your mates in the parasite rentier and banker class have gobbled up the market, with the Nats standing on the sidelines and drinking champagne, as thousands of kiwis are locked out of ownership, forced out of their communities, and kicked onto the streets.
Congratulations on your financial success & moral failure.
Geez I am glad weka that was not the view a 100 thousand or so years ago or we would never have got out of Africa, human movement is a factor of human history from year dot, what a load of idealogical, Theoretical nonsense that simply does not stack up to the facts, saying that such thinking is case in point for most left wing thought, nonsense
Lived there long then?
Less then a year, before that I was in another, decent suburb but I moved because I wanted to live closer to work and have a log burner
so you are renting?
No
So you have owned for a number of years.
Difficult to buy $600k on about 50k salary
Poxish Rouge, despicable troll – what do you know about the effects of vagrancy? I can tell you that the school-kids who move through 27 different schools by the time they get to the 5th form (Year 11) are pretty well doomed to educational failure. Nor can any of the schools (or rather their teachers whom you trolls like to blame) be fairly accused. You have no idea, do you? And here we are now speculating about the possible price of a house? This is the sort of diversion that Poxish Rouge loves to cause. Go jump into your log-burner.
nah, don’t worry mate,
they all gonna homebirth, and if it goes pearshaped either way, no biggie in the olden gooden days not all women or children survived childbirth, get a second model and try again
they gonna all home teach – abstinence only and creative design – cause to much science is no good for anyone
they gonna have all their own neighborhood watches – guns mate, guns.
they all gonna clean their own offices, public toilets, restaurants, cafes etc etc or else simply not leave home (those that have one)
they all gonna pass buckets should a house catch fire – you know just like in the gooden olden golden days.
cause thus spoke the libertarian god of fuckwittery we don’t need no stink’n state, no stink’n socialism, no stink’n community minded good-doery and all that shit. We are self reliant, full of personal responsibility and if your shit gets stolen, burned or other wise damaged that might be good business for me 🙂
Mind, they – the owner of empty houses and unused land could just import some slaves and call them “skill- migrants” who will be housed for food n water rations twice daily. Clothes are optional, depending if the slave is a 10 on the scale of Trump.
But anyways, you will not get any answer from our believers. Cause you see there is no housing crisis, there are no homeless people, there are just lazy ‘ useless’ kiwis that made bad choices. And Ms. Bennett is only buying a Motel cause she is bored doing nothing cause there is no Housing Crisis and there are no homeless. I think she is trying to re-invent herself as an interior designer or some such thing.
John Oliver at his scathing best…
It’s still on going, the whole Panama Papers.
And we still neck deep in it.
https://www.icij.org/offshore/former-eu-official-among-politicians-named-new-leak-offshore-files-bahamas
Is it just me or the fact one of the directors mixed up in this stuff is really hard to find information on.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=Craig+Alan+Hemsworth&oq=Craig+Alan+Hemsworth&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i61&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=Craig+Alan+Hemsworth&start=0
Oh well nothing to see here, move along.
Lynn, a few things broken since the upgrade. The name and email fields no longer remember my details (mac Firefox and iphone Safari). We’ve had that happen before, can’t remember if the fix is your end or ours.
The comments tab is stuck on
“lprent on
Open Mike 27/09/2016”
Yes noticed that about the latest comments tab…but no one else had mentioned it so I thought it was just my set up!!! 😛
Could have been worse, might have been perpetually a comment from PR pointing his finger and saying preposterous! 😉
you’re going to give me nightmares now weka lol
PR is OK really, we can turn him around, might take a while though 😀
Preposterous will henceforth be my go to word
A potentially preposterous peccadillo
Finger pointing and saying preposterous will henceforth be known as the PR defence 😈 😉
Same.
same
had that too, it seems to be fixed now – although my “replies” tab is blank
Looks fixed to me too, plus the fields work, and yes my replies tab is blank too, but that’s how it was before the upgrade…
Well cricket just got that tiny bit less interesting
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11718497
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/84790345/colin-craig-jury-returns-in-defamation-case
Hopefully Colin Craig learns a lesson but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say he’ll appeal
Craig naive I reckon while that Williams fellow seems to do just nasty things in collaboration with Whaleoil. The Taxpayers Union? Nasty arm of the undermine Opposition scheme.
Craig is not naïve when it comes to defamation, the courts and the law, politically sure but he knew exactly what he was doing
Williams won-$1.3m in damages.
Well I got that wrong. Not that it matters really either way-Williams hardly comes out of the case with his reputation enhanced and Craig was already on the political scrapheap. I wonder if he will appeal?
The odds on him appealing would so short it wouldn’t even be worth putting a bet down
Tough but necessary read
“It’s the latest revelation in a story survivors say has haunted them for decades: the money behind the Sixties Scoop.
The scoop, as it is called, refers to the era from the 1960s to the 1980s, when child welfare authorities scooped up Indigenous children and adopted them out to non-Indigenous families..”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/sixties-scoop-americans-paid-thousands-indigenous-children-1.3781622
It serves to confirm for me that the average Kiwi punter is pretty ignorant and biased. While Craig deserved to pay a price for being so foolish but he didn’t deserve to have to pay out $1.4 million to a slimy, dishonest, lying, creepy toad such as Jordan Williams.
Can’t edit :remember this?
http://4.1m.yt/vqrExQE.png
And this:
https://twitter.com/helenkellyUnion/status/775688779923329025/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Sorry can’t edit. TS is a bit broken at the moment.
So you agree that Teina Pora shouldn’t have got as much money either because he had criminal convictions, was a gang prospect and confessed only to get the reward money?
@Puckish
Comparing Teina Pora with Jordan Williams? I didn’t think you could reach a new low, but you’ve succeeded.
+ 1 Kinda good to be reminded of the real puckish rogue – a rwnj scum-sucking turd instead of the bullshit he usually presents.
Try reading the comments, not the comments you imagine
Actually I think Teina Pora, despite his criminal background, deserves the compensation hes getting
Jordan Williams, despite his background and morals also deserves the compensation he’ll, eventually, end up getting
I’m asking Anne why Williams shouldn’t get compensation, apart from the fact that she dislikes Williams
Jordan Williams, despite his background and morals also deserves the compensation he’ll, eventually, end up getting
No he does not. He has no reputation, due to his being exposed irrefutably as a fraud and a liar. You need to read Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics.
That’s why we have a court to decide things like this and not mob rule. However I do get and understand the emotions around this.
This “verdict” is more mob rule than anything remotely like justice. It is a “verdict” of comparable calibre to the O.J. Simpson “verdict” in 1995 and the George Zimmerman “verdict” in 2013.
Sure it is, to you, but to me its fair and just however I’d also say the money paid out to David Bain was mob rule as well
That’s why you and I don’t decide on this
In what possible universe do you dwell that makes it “fair” for a demonstrated liar and scoundrel to have been ruled to have been defamed by one of his victims?
The same universe that has you stinking up the interwebs with your uniformed cant ?
Jordan Williams didn’t spend 20 years in jail, unless I’ve got that wrong.
One “Stunned Mullet” writes, hilariously, about this writer, i.e. moi,
Is this the funniest, most deranged, not to mention illiterate, piece of rhetoric since Jordan Williams’ spew in court? I think it might be.
Stunned Mullet, my illiterate chum, you’re a LEGEND…
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4Du-w1bVNbs/hqdefault.jpg
Did you take that shot before or after felating that fine gent Moz ?
I think you’ll find the amount is so large due to the fact that Craig has been found guilty of defamation and more importantly the defamation was in the form of a document sent to every household in NZ.
I also don’t know what the ‘average kiwi punter’ has to do with it ?
I’m guessing its because the average kiwi punter voted for John Key?
How can someone with no credibility be defamed? I see, by the way, that Chris Trotter has penned a pompous and absurd attack on Craig, one that he can file away with his defence of Florida lynch law a few years ago.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/84593628/chris-trotter-colin-craigs-behaviour-would-embarrass-a-spotty-adolescent
Yet another day ruined by Puckish Rogue and his mates.
I assure I had nothing to do with this 🙂
Not really Garibaldi.
Its good to be reminded they are members of the same slimy, dishonest, lying, creepy R.W. gang as the toad, J Williams. If you look at the smiling picture of J Williams on the web sites, it is exactly what you would expect a human version of a toad would look like. Quite uncanny. 🙂
Gee Anne, you are particularly bitter today.
Thanks for the laughs.
Hollow laughs from another hollow troll. Well said, Anne. I suppose you will now make a dumb comment about bias, James…
I would argue that you are a lot more biased than the average kiwi punter who you consider to be pretty ignorant.
It was interesting case to follow.
Cant wait for the Hagaman’s vs Little – a little election year comedy.
If Little loses – wonder what the compensation and punitive damages would be on a case like that…..
pacific fisheries ambassador?
“If Little loses – wonder what the compensation and punitive damages would be on a case like that…..”
I think little will be shitting himself now.
“Cant wait for the Hagaman’s vs Little – a little election year comedy”
True that, Colin Craig vs Cameron Slater will be interesting too.
Tony Ryall, just been appointed chair of Transpower by Bill English, slipping under the headlines quietly today.
Well done Tony who recently retired from National as health minister, after many years of living off the taxpayer and has been installed By National to chair a power company. Good stuff, expect power costs to increase in an area near you soon.
You have to admire how the Tories look after their own. As long as you keep towing the line and not rocking the boat.
Was he the one who sold Bowen House all those years ago, an asset which now has to be rebought or replaced at taxpayer expense?
Oh Richard have a closer look TP, they have just spit of their renewable side, both high in debt and at a cost of about 75-85 million, Dene McKenize of ODT fame wanked on about it last Saturday I think, cant link, to inept, but goggle be your friend, as Draco says.
I’m surprised nobody has made mention of the Silver Scrolls 2016 held last night. Moana Maniapoto was inducted into the NZ Music Hall of Fame and gave the most fantastic speech imaginable. It is begins at 13:18 mins into this vid on RNZ.
Thanks, have been wanting to see that.
what does 13:18 mins mean?
It’s the time on the video where Moana begins her speech, although I recommend watching the whole 34 minutes. In fact the whole event is available to watch here at RNZ . Begins properly 3 hours and 18 minutes into the 6 hour coverage.
Sorry, here’s the Moana vid
Thank you so much fender – that video made me cry and laugh – so good, Moana shows us how we can be. My gods I needed that video.
I liked it on fbook ☺
A wonderful person well deserved accolade.