This surrender is completely the wrong message to give to the electorate.
This is a betrayal of Maori of Women of every person and group this Right Wing bigot has insulted and mocked.
Labour has dignified this Right Wing extremist and has handed him an undeserved media platform and have created a media rod for their own backs way beyond this debate.
With this victory over Labour by TVNZ, voters will be asking is there anything that Labour won’t back down on?
Through Labour’s subservience Mike Hosking will take the moderator’s chair, and his smug gloating at this personal vindication of his extreme misogynist and Right Wing views on our television screens will make the debate unbearable to watch for many.
This supercilious wretch is not fit to mediate a kindergarten finger painting contest.
As he arrogantly treats the debaters (of both sides), as wayward children, the serious issues will become lost, and the debate will be cheapened and trivialised.
By caving in and agreeing to be part of this farcical circus, Labour has been smacked and smacked down hard and the country knows it.
No doubt Labour have got an assurance from TVNZ that Mike Hosking will act as the benevolent media arbiter, and in so doing, will condescendingly patronise and glaringly favour Cunliffe over Key, to the point of farce, (and beyond).
As Mike Hosking bathes in his personal magnificence as he smugly tells the Prime Minister to, “Shut up and give Mr Cunliffe a fair go”. the whole country will cringe at the spectacle.
It doesn’t really matter now what Cunliffe says in the debate, or promises the voters, he has already lost. He will be entering the leaders debate as a crippled loser who needs to be favoured out of charity.
In giving in to this outrageous imposition by TVNZ, the public can now know for certain, that David Cunliffe and the Labour Party are hostages to the establishment, any assurances that David Cunliffe gives voters in the debate are worth nothing because Labour cannot be relied on not to fold at the slightest pressure from big business, foreign powers, vested interest, oil drillers and yes the media, all those that make up the current establishment.
No matter how reckless, unjust, or cruel. Any humiliation is bearable, any outrage is excusable.
From deep sea oil, to massacre in Gaza.
Labour as the Loyal Opposition Party guaranteed to support the establishment.
The only question left is what will be their next back down?
Labour has had plenty of chances to reform the media environment when it has been in government.
It chose to continue with the corporate profit making model for publicly owned television and radio so can hardly complain when its drive to extract dividends rather than deliver quality broadcasting results in the likes of Hoskings reigning supreme.
Rather than making fools of themselves by empty threats to boycott they should have promised reforms of publicly owned media that would lead to them focusing on providing the public with the best possible information on local and international events combined with a range of points of view and expert analysis from people who know what they are talking about.
The trouble is if they did that even more people would realise how fucked their precious capitalism is.
Jenny the views of everyone who is interested in the left are being put forward and going into the petition as well. Now it is time to stop the consciousness-raising and get positives-raising behind the strong David Cunliffe that we have. And facilitate and enable him as much as possible.
Much of the media’s approach is unfair and unbalanced and we know that they will go off in the lifeboats and leave the rest of the country dealing with the aftermath if anything goes awry. So we must deal with that thought and make sure that we make our firm stand on firm ground and just keep on with positive action that advances Labour.
3rd attempt!
+100 @ Lefty.
I submitted a comprehensive response but it disappeared up its own arse (went into a black hole). Somehow I doubt moderation but I’ll wait and see.
Still … it’s what an interloper probably deserves – it’s just that I hope this site isn’t becoming part of the Xero phenomenon.
Time is tight and opinions are cheap it seems these days (especially when one is competing with a well financed brigade of trolls).
I disagree with your points. It would have hurt Cunliffe and Labour more as weak if Hosking was removed at this stage as the issue was in the open rather than behind the scenes.
He did rather snooker himself with this previous comment.
Labour leader David Cunliffe told NewstalkZB in April that he would be happy to debate Prime Minister John Key “anytime, any place, anywhere, I’ll even do it on Mike Hosking’s show.”
Well he didn’t. This issue shows is another media beat up. Labour complains about a clearly inappropriate choice for moderator of the debates and the media then converts into a “Cunliffe won’t show” discussion. How about we debate the appropriateness of Hosking being the moderator.
Cunliffe has come across as cowardly from all of this. Here was his golden opportunity to go in there against (perceived) adversity and nail everyone with his oratory. Instead he threatened Hosking with a dossier of naughty words & phrases… What was he thinking!!!
He was probably thinking about the desperate poverty so many kiwis find themselves mired in. He was probably thinking about how he can turn around NZ’s steady descent into an American model of education, health, and insurance.
He was probably distracted by human concerns. Something which Mike Hosking has not bothered with for a long time.
You and McGrath are obviously following the Slater approach to blogging. Invent some shit, and keep repeating said shit ad nauseum in the hope that other people will also believe in said shit.
As New Zealanders become poorer due to the divisive Marxist practice of Free Trade, Elitists like Mr Hoskings will find themselves subject to more and more raw hatred.
Mr Hoskings is yet another Marxist who believes men and women are somehow equal. To anyone with brains, this is absurd. Any culture who does not value women more highly than men is doomed.
Free trade destroys local industry. Lets see what Karl Marx had to say about free trade.
“But, generally speaking, the Protective system in these days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade.”
While that is nice for utopians, in practice, in reality, it causes a lot of anguish and destruction for the working class and their children.
What do elitists care if our working class and industrial base are destroyed? They are rootless cosmopolitans; much like the cockroach and the rat, they would be happy to live anywhere. “Free trade” they cry, but how many of them even know a trade?
As for women being more valuable than men, that should be obvious.
Indolent, arrogant men could be replaced by a small pool of breeding males, with very little loss to society, and a massive drop in violence and domestic abuse. Women can now do everything men can. While lazy New Zealand men sit around playing shooting games, women defend our country and serve in our armed forces.
We New Zealand males are becoming redundant. Lets show that we are worth keeping around.
Not at all. I am in no way against a strong government, or for a treasonous insurrection to “retake the New Zealand Constitution”.
There is no way we can return to limited government. Our people have been debased by decades of “liberty”. To attempt to remove a lot of state support, and guidance, like several idiot parties are advocating would be nothing less than a return to anarchy and slaughter. It is a survivalists fantasy.
Perhaps these libertarian anarchists see themselves holed up in their mansions, firing their rifles at the Walking Dead that come pleading for food and water. “You should have worked harder!” they scream as they shovel shells into the breech.
No, comrades, the way of the future is a mixed economy, in a morally conservative society. Already Premiere Putin, leader of the Free World has banned swearing in movies, and the promotion of perverse lifestyles to children. The bourgeois agendas of the left and right do not fool him. He knows what is good for the working class.
Have to agree with BM on this one. That’s an odd comment and reinforces why Labour has only 1 male vote in 5.
[lprent: Read the about. This site isn’t just for the Labour party. After all we let unthinking morans from the right like yourself write here. Read the policy about attributing motives to this site that don’t exist.
I get irritated by pinheaded fools being dumbarses about the site. Banned for a week to give you time to read the pages. Let me know if you need more time. ]
This election may seem stupid to you, but it is neither; pointless, nor pre-determined. The party representation proportions will be significantly changed once the votes are counted. Even if you believe that the next parliament will be; Nat-led, rather than Labour-led, the coalition agreement and private member bills submitted to the ballot over the next parliamentary term will differ.
Just because it looks like you may not win is not a reason to stop trying.
@Tom Jackson 9.33
It’s an ironic position when you care a lot about what you think is going wrong, and turning out badly, and then you help to bring this about. So why don’t you step back now you have made the comment about being pointless etc. That won’t change anything for the better except it provides a warning of possible outcomes we should keep in mind.
We now are in the situation where if one can’t say anything good, it’s better to say nothing at all. Don’t be a Cassandra any more! Just drop a bit of positive in if you see something that sparks an approving thought. I think it is good advice I am giving and I must follow this myself. And I advise all other lefties and Standardistas to adopt the same thing.
Don’t diss anyone except people like that sneaky cur that was supposed to have supplied goss to a journalist. But we don’t know if that was true anyway. What a good idea for one of these corkscrew jonos to make it up. He/she can’t reveal their sources, and seeing they don’t have any personal code of integrity and their employers are leaders in the art of sly obfuscation, the goss leak may not even have happened, probably just a song at twilight from a twilight lurker-writer’s head.
My comment won’t let me edit even though there is lots of time. I just checked on Cassandra to refresh myself.
Wikipedia on Cassandra. In their image she looks as if she is tearing her hair out!
[Apollo] he gave her the curse of never being believed. In an alternative version, she fell asleep in a temple, and snakes licked (or whispered in) her ears so that she was able to hear the future..(Ha ha snakes whispering into jonos’ ears – how apt, the apse slides in and out of our myths and beliefs.)
I was doing some replication work on the databases this morning getting the backup server at home on fibre running. Could have been causing issues.
I try to do this type of work on saturday morning as it is the quietest period on the site during the days and I’m not really that keen on doing it in the middle of the night anymore.
With respect disagree Jenny. TVNZ would never have backed down and Labour have made the point splashed over all of the MSM that Hoskin is a biased idiot.
It was time to get on with policies and not keep fighting this distraction.
He can ask tough questions as long as e does to both. He should try and remain neutral and fair. In the end what really decides are the policies and how well the leaders respond during the debate. Cunliffe will need persuasion, conviction, affability as well as aggression and fire at times. He is more than capable of all that. Though in his perceived favour, Key has smile, spin and hyperbole.
Perhaps he should have backed out of the debate and secretly asked Winston to take his place. That would have put John Key and TVNZ in a rather embarassing position.
..yes..everything you say about hosking..(and more..)..is true..
Yet I can predict that Labour Party apologists will be arguing here that “Mike Hosking is not so bad”. And the dossier Labour have collected on Hosking’s past outrages will be quietly shelved, never to see the light of day, as David Cunliffe makes his Party’s peace with Mike Hosking and the far Right embedded in the media.
It seemed to me to be quite a clever piece of positioning on Labour’s part. Hoskings is going to have to be very careful he’s fair and balanced after this publicity. One foot wrong….
I don’t care what Labour had/has to say about Hosking, he is the wrong man person for the job. Why does TVNZ always choose a guy, and a white guy at that? Guyon… etc
I have been trying to find examples of Hosking’s hate speech. links?
For the first time in quite awhile (4years+) I think the left with Labour as the largest party are going to win this election
Positive policies and no more infighting is going to carry the day
The Nats arrogance will be the deal breaker
They are certainly in a better position than they have been for a while. Not that you’d know it from the media. The Greens are focused as hell. Labour has good policies and most of the the people on board. The sense that I got from the NZF conference is that their supporters would prefer to go anywhere else to avoid touching National.
The only real hassle I see is the IMP supporters spending their time slagging everyone else on the left off. But that is to be expected. It now has the complete concentration of fragile egos who spend less time working on building a party and more on talking about the new miracle to happen.
bad12…agreed…i dont see much criticism of David Cunliffe…quite the contrary…there is some suspicion of some in caucus occasionally ( but who isnt a wee bit suspicious ?)
….generally IMP is very positive towards a Left coalition govt….their constituency is very young, techy, quite radical …not Labours constituency at all…judging from my Labour voting relatives who are all 50+
That’s right; both Bad12 & phillip ure are IMP aligned, but I don’t see them throttling back on the robustness of their discourse (or feud, if you will). So it’s not that we focus on; “slagging everyone else on the left off”, as we also go after ourselves, but mostly the Tories!
This is from a comment about IMPs I made to Chooky [at 5.1] on yesterday’s MS election stats post:
We are a strangely disparate group from my experience with NZ Politics. I come from a Green (once Labour) background, others from; National, Labour, Maori (through MANA) & NZF Parties. However we seem to building a team where, while we certainly don’t agree about everything; we are committed to working together to change the present corrupt Government.
Lolz Paupial, someone half inched your S, you should be more ‘onto it’, have a look at ‘Open Mike’ over the past week?, the ongoing debate between myself and Phillip has definitely ben ‘throttled back’,
‘Throttled’ actually as Phillip after our last exchange ”is never,ever, engaging with me again”…
Ps: insert mad laughter, i would have but the printed version looks a bit ugly…
Alien, Mmmm Bacon, ssshhh, i have four pieces in the fridge and they will make my life all that much more worth living on ‘diet days’ Sunday/Monday when i radically reduce the intake in the weight loss effort,(gloat: 88KG this week from 118KG December 2013)…
Alien, Laugh, i have recently been tempted to really stoop for Bad Taste as a stratagem with a discussion of the benefits of rat traps, which i have this week deployed, over rat poison, 3 packets of which i have bought and used in the past six months,
Wishing tho to re-invent myself as an admittedly dated adherent to an equally dated philosophy, SNAG, i have decided against discussing all aspects of my current barbarity here…
I chase house flies out of doors and windows so I don’t have to spray or whack, so well done on the non discussion of rat traps.
Having said that, it does pose problems for vegan environmentalists. Do they kill the destructive rats or possums? If they kill them, what method, a shot to the head or a belly full of poison?
If they agree to eradicate, why are they less worthy than beef and lamb? Why can’t I eat bacon if they agree to torture invasive species?
It’s a heck of a question for those vegan environmentalists out there.
Ta for the heads up – I don’t need to be more of a pauper than I already am!
I’ve been a bit busy of late, so missed quite a few Open Mikes, and other posts on TS in the last week or so. Though I seem to remember PU saying that he’d; never engage with certain people again, before, but not managing to follow through. We’ll have to see whether he manages; “never,ever, engaging”, any better.
Lolz Pasupial, i dare not comment any further on never ever, altho i have to admit that the cessation of hostilities has made ‘Open Mike’ a little bit of a cleaner read this week,
(And i might add taken a bit of the laughter out of the conversation for me, but, we have to realize that it aint our own private sandpit we are tossing the toys round in)…
building a team where, while we certainly don’t agree about everything; we are committed to working together to change the present corrupt Government
And that was the sense I got from hanging around the Internet Party’s “Party Party” tonight/this morning in Dunedin and chatting with many people. A wide range of people came along. There was a good mix in terms of demographics, ethnicities and even ages! Kim Dotcom even caught up with lovely 98yo Aunty Joyce (thanks for the photo, Tat):
There is a significant groundswell of feeling to see a change in Government. The mainstream media’s fault-finding and anti-Cunliffe slant is recognised. Support is strong for Cunliffe to lead the new government. To the broader Left and progressive voters, I say: take heart, galvanise your like-minded friends, family and wider network to vote on 20 Sep.
Good summary, especially the bit about fragile egos and the methodology of some mip supporters.
Like I’ve said before, odd that a 1% party has all the right ideas, but none of the votes.
An old quote that’s apt – Winners don’t wait for chances, they take them.
Alien, i see you have added a word to LPrent’s quote, the word? Some, as in Some IMP supporters,
Read as written by LPrent, His comment addressing ”the IMP supporters”, in the plural takes a swipe at all InternetMana Party supporters and is thus the exact same behavior that the comment protests against in relation to ”spending their time slagging off everyone else on the left”…
I did add the word ‘some’, from my own perspective, thinking it less definitive.
I know of a couple of mip good sorts who are okay and don’t aggressively attack the rest of the left in order to make political capital in a grandiose manner, so for me, one brush doesn’t tarr all.
Alien, ”is that ok”???, hell everything is ok to me,(until you see the Black note appear at the bottom of your comment that is),
”Aggressively attack” my plea is of course guilty as hell with respect to this aspect of commenting, tho personally my defence is that i happily engage on any level, not necessarily ”to make political capital in a grandiose manner” but if the conversation is going to be ‘gutter’ its either my first or second language,
(As you can see from our polite discussion the other day Alien, we both can stick to a ‘straight debate’ surrounding the facts, just as we both are fully adept at poking our little sharpened sticks metaphorically in each others eyes,
Probably a big part in our racing for the bottom when the conversation hits the gutter is the ‘shits and giggles’ it generates for us personally as dredging up something wickedly nasty as a retort i would suggest has you laughing like a loon as much as it does me)…
All good here (apart from the bold black text of doom).
If one can’t take a pointed stick to the eyes every so often, then stop playing and take up knitting, I say.
His comment addressing ”the IMP supporters”, in the plural takes a swipe at all InternetMana Party supporters and is thus the exact same behavior that the comment protests against in relation to ”spending their time slagging off everyone else on the left”…
Point taken. But the contrast between the Labour and Green party activists quietly labouring away at the pre-campaign work and the IMP tactic of slagging off other activists has been particularly striking to me over the last few months.
“IMP supporters spending their time slagging everyone else on the left off… the complete concentration of fragile egos who spend less time working on building a party and more on talking about the new miracle”
Am I included in this group you so casually denigrate? I’ve been commenting on the site less than usual precisely because; I’ve been out working on building a party, and facilitating students’ enrollment on the voting register. Sure, our; phillip & Jenny do have their quirks, but I’m sure there are other regular commenters who haven’t yet declared themselves as IMP supporters, who are also offended by your profiling of us.
Anyway, I agree with Ray that; “the left with Labour as the largest party are going to win this election”, or at least; that we’re still in with a real chance. “Positive policies and no more infighting” seems less likely however – I like Cunliffe and his faction, but am not so keen on others in the Labour Party (the ones who; while in the party, are not of the party).
The only real hassle I see is the IMP supporters spending their time slagging everyone else on the left off.
If Harawira’s performance on The Nation this morning is any guide then the answer is the opposite. He was ‘the statesman’ from start to finish. If he keeps that up then its looking good for him and the broader Left.
Is this a shameful backdown? Good strategy closer to truth. Cunliffe has raised the issue and is pragmatic now. He looks reasonable and realistic and Hosking is now aware through the petition, that not everybody loves and admires him. Cunliffe has been relentlessly picked on by all and sundry for months. Give the guy a break, without him the Left are going to sit on the Opposition benches. The only major error he has made was the Trusts earlier this year. The rest is just gossip and trivia, no doubt orchestrated by right wing media gonks. I’m with you Ray, the sea change for our entitled, arrogant and ignorant rulers is on the way.
1 jrobin
We need to stop fighting battles that take the focus off Labour Party policies and keep up the criticism of National Party policies rather than spending all our energy talking about the right wing bias in the media (even though it is the worst it has ever been). Labour were right to complain to TVNZ as Mike Hoskings will have to be a bit more careful than he would have been otherwise, but Cunliffe refusing to take part would be ridiculous. If you think the bullying of Cunliffe by the MSM is bad now it would only get worse if he didn’t turn up for the Leader’s debate.
I just hope he starts replying to every question about his leadership or disunity or supposed faults with a “I’m here to talk about the policies that are important to NZers, not to talk about trivia.”
The bias of the media, and the way its dominated by corporate-led infotainment IS an election issue.
I think left MPs are best keeping to their election policies. It’s up to the rest of us ordinary folks to keep the pressure up on the MSM to play fair during the election period – and to keep campaigning for better media after the elections.
Agree Jrobin. Nztv and Hosking have been put on notice. Hosking will be careful. He must realise that he will have a very short career when Labour wins if he is not mindful of this fact. His bff key is not going to be around much longer. Cunliffe has had the best of all the interviewers I have seen/heard him interviewed by. I don’t see this being any different.Even with ‘the popinjay’ (thank you Paul) moderating, Cunliffe will make key look like the uneducated playground bully that he is. All squealing and abuse but no substance. Bring it on.
I do not see Cunliffe’s acceptance as a back down but an inevitability. He has made his point and now it is up to tvnz and Hosking to honour their word of complete impartiality. They will be hung out to dry if they don’t. The whole country will be watching
In Politics -Stuff, a headline reads “John Minto Burns Israeli Flag.” He didn’t of course and didn’t know at the time that a flag had been burnt as the text of the column says.
IF what i seen aired on my TeeVee news last night surrounding the attack by the Israeli army on the UN school is in fact the truth,
IE: that UN officials had hours befor the shells rained down on that school, a place of refuge for women and children, begged, cajoled, and pleaded with the Israeli’s through direct contact, going so far as to provide them with the GPS coordinates for the location,
It saddens me to say that the small amount of sympathy i have thus far held onto for the Jewish State has evaporated,
Perhaps those within the US who openly support such Murder, with industrial efficiency, of children on a daily basis might care to cast around within their own borders for a ‘new promised land’ as such atrocities will in time provoke the need either for the use of weapons of mass destruction by the perpetrators of this ongoing child murder, probably within their own borders, and/or, a new ‘exodus’ of the Jewish people on a Biblical scale…
Yeah TV, seen that, perhaps Tracey Watkins inordinately extended ability to gush glowingly over Slippery the Prime Minister has dried up and desperate needs have in turn lead to desperate deeds,
Pretty low life bottom of the barrel Stuff do you not think Stuff.co.nz,???
i doubt this particular act of electoral bias by Stuff.co will have much effect as its not a hard print news organ that this gauche display appears within,
Most of us, computer literate to the extent of being able to access that particular site,(and in my case not much more), will probably have already, a long time ago,made our decisions as to which side of the political spectrum we will be voting,
Still, not a good look, and, another nail in the coffin for the mainstream media of New Zealand, and, Stuff.co can be assured that like the NZHerald, when the pay-walls go up i for one WILL NOT be paying them any of my coin to be subjected to such shit…
There was an advertisement the other day on Armstrong’s column of a blue bus in supposed motion with key’s face on the bus and blurb (go #team key or some such thing) which I can’t remember. I commented on it but when I went back it had disappeared.
Opposed to Iraeli STATE TERRORISM and the murdering of Palestinian little kids and civilians? Want to STAND UP and be counted? Today, Saturday 26 July 2014 – assemble 2pm Aotea Square Auckland. Hope to see a BIG turnout of decent people who are equally outraged at the violation of the most basic rights of Palestinians – the right to life! I’ll be there and encourage as many as possible to please attend and help spread the word. How would YOU like to be a Palestinian in Gaza right now? Penny Bright
‘When Firstline are focusing on flag burning rather than dead Palestinian children – that’s why you must march this Saturday at 2pm against Israeli aggression’
By Martyn Bradbury / July 25, 2014
This Saturday, Aotea Square, 2pm is that time to stand not only against Israeli aggression, but it’s tome to stand up against the pro-Israeli bias in our media….
Win,lose,draw, at some point after the September Votes have been counted we are going to have to get into casting our critical gaze upon all the parties of the left with a view to picking out and pointing to just what went right and what went wrong,
i definitely DO NOT propose to start such a process today, engaging in such behavior at this stage in the cycle being ‘not very helpful’ in terms of unity as the real contest is about to begin,
However,
In the case of poor old much maligned Labour who just can’t catch an even break any time anywhere it would seem i would suggest that to see what has been inherently amiss so far in the ‘campaign lead-up’ can be found encapsulated in a TV3 news item aired when David Cunliffe announced the parties election policy on education,
If you can find this particular video clip, aired the night of the education policies announcement on TV3 news at 6,(sorry my computer literacy leads me not to be able to provide a www), i would suggest that on a number of levels which do not involve the actual policy a number of ‘things’ best described as ‘wrong’ are encapsulated, epitomized, and, exposed within that one short news clip…
I was thinking about regional development and house prices ans the Reserve Bank. Largely because I was up in a so called “successful province” the other day (Taranaki) and things looked pretty dead there and the local businesses were saying things were either very tough or totally unreliable – good one day and quiet for the next week.
RE agents said houses were not selling etc etc etc.
So why cant the deposit for houses outside of Auckland and Canterbury be at 5% and have it at the 20% in those two provinces? Is it just because “who wins Auckland wins the election?” and to tell them they need a 20% deposit would mean they would vote for the other guys? (If the RB was able to do this, Im sure the Government would still get the blame)
If that deposit differential could be introduced then maybe we would have more folk looking at the provinces which would help them and with people can come business opportunities.
Auckland prices are a result of migration – from in NZ and from other countries, and Christchurch’s prices are a result of the earthquakes and the migration in for the rebuild.
I see Fran O Sullivan has joined the chorus of calls to raise the pension age.
Its easy wait 2 more years when you spend your working life either sitting on your ass at your PC (eating chocolate), or flittering from one social function to another on the Auckland cocktail circuit.
Just took part in “The Reactor” at Scoop. One of the videos to comment on was Johnathon Coleman saying if any minister knew about the FBI investigation of Dotcom, that would have been a massive red flag and he would have never got into New Zealand. Oops, Mr Coleman is in deep poo.
@ Papa TTuanuku 11.16
Okay – another word learned. Apopo – tomorrow. Tuwhera be open
And an extra – as an acronym it refers to –
APOPO is a registered Belgian non-governmental organisation which trains African giant pouched rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis. APOPO’s mission is to develop detection rats technology to provide solutions for global problems and inspire positive social change.
Perhaps we should discard the week, as in Te wiki o te reo Maori, Maori language week, dialing the one week out of the year down to one day a month and then at a future point one day a week every week of the year where te reo Maori is promoted…
Here is a technical problem for me re the Standard posts. Any suggestions please?
I am able to post. I do get notices of new TOPICS in my email, but I do not get notices of new posts. Nor do I get ‘please confirm’ notices as I used to get before. This problem has been going on for over a week now.
While posting a comment, I do tick the two little boxes as usual.
I have cleared the cookies and restarted the computer a couple of times, but still no luck.
I tried to login and asked for a now password from ‘word press’, but says, that email does not exist!
What is the problem and how do I rectify this? Any one know? Thanks.
[lprent: Should in theory be fixed now for the emails. It was caused by my new fibre installation at home.
The emails were running out through my smtp server at home, and it took me a while to notice that my outward emails weren’t going outwards. I’d changed ISPs with the UFB install and therefore the onforwarding mail server wasn’t set up. I didn’t notice, I’d also started a new job on Monday so wasn’t at home to send emails.
Problem was that I only got the UFB installed on the friday before going to the new job after screaming at chorus about being at home for 8 weeks holiday and they hadn’t managed to do the installation while I was available. I got most of the other bits fixed last weekend, but missed the smtp and also my offsite database backups ]
There is an interesting post from another blog – on why the rich actually need governments – put up by the Irascible Curmudgeon. http://theirasciblecurmudgeon.blogspot.co.nz/ He quotes –
The very rich, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, “are different from you and me.” Their wealth makes them “cynical where we are trustful,” and makes them think “they are better than we are.” If these words ring true today, perhaps it is because when they were written, in 1926, inequality in the United States had reached heights comparable to today.
As the University of Michigan’s Mark Mizruchi points out in a recent book, the American corporate elite in the postwar era had “an ethic of civic responsibility and enlightened self-interest.” They cooperated with trade unions and favored a strong government role in regulating and stabilizing markets. They understood the need for taxes to pay for important public goods such as the interstate highway and safety nets for the poor and elderly. Business elites were not any less politically powerful back then. But they used their influence to advance an agenda that was broadly in the national interest….
Surowiecki thinks that the change in attitudes has much to do with globalization. Large American corporations and banks now roam the globe freely, and are no longer so dependent on the US consumer. The health of the American middle class is of little interest to them these days. Moreover, Surowiecki argues, socialism has gone by the wayside, and there is no need to coopt the working class anymore.
Yet if corporate moguls think that they no longer need to rely on their national governments, they are making a huge mistake. The reality is that the stability and openness of the markets that produce their wealth have never depended more on government action….
But when economic storm clouds gather on the horizon, everyone seeks shelter under their home government’s cover. It is then that the ties that bind large corporations to their native soil are fully revealed. As former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King aptly put it in the context of finance, “global banks are global in life, but national in death.”
These must be condensing though as it was drawn up around 1980s and the changes talked about in Irascible’s post have hit hard and will continue to compress downwards.
I loved this bit from the Republicans manifesto of which I only read 1/52, (o that by the end of a year I’ll have read the whole thing.) So many grand phrases. It’s so rich that it makes my stomach heave. And so tempting to believe in then, and wish for now. Even though it had important lies and obfuscations in it then.
But doesn;t this sound nice. I wonder if it has been tried anywhere?
<i>On its Centennial, the Republican Party again calls to the minds of all Americans the great truth first spoken by Abraham Lincoln: “The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. But in all that people can individually do as well for themselves, Government ought not to interfere.”
Our great President Dwight D. Eisenhower has counseled us further: “In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people’s money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative.”
@joe90 1.34
Tom Lehrer talented and with a presence, and a very fast delivery on The Elements. His elocution teacher must have been good.
The Michael Moore piece mentioned Wisconsin people protesting.
I remember Wisconsin Works from Ruthless Richardson’s time also Jenny Shipley (doesn’t Jenny sound a sweet name). WW was a mean-minded set-up that of the type that you would feel they would push people off cliffs if there was a way to collect pay for the trip down.
Anyway this was interesting from wikipedia about how pragmatic pollies act when a job (that they want to see done) gets pushed through their political forum.
In January 2011, the state legislature passed a series of bills providing additional tax cuts and deductions for businesses at “a two-year cost of $67 million”.[31]
In early February, the Walker administration projected a budget shortfall in 2013 (Wisconsin functions on two-year budgets) of $3.6 billion[32] and found that a budget repair bill to resolve a $137 million shortfall for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011,… The Walker-backed bill proposed taking away the ability of public sector unions to bargain collectively over pensions and health care and limiting pay raises of public employees to the rate of inflation, as well as ending automatic union dues collection by the state….
Protests : At 1:00 am on February 25, following sixty hours of debate,[60] the final amendments had been defeated and the Republican leadership of the Wisconsin State Assembly cut off debate as well as the public hearing and moved quickly to pass the budget repair bill in a sudden vote.
The vote was 51 in favor and 17 opposed, with 28 representatives not voting.[60] The final vote took place without warning, and the time allowed for voting was so short (lasting only 5–15 s)[61] that fewer than half of the Democratic representatives were able to vote; many reportedly pushed the voting button as hard as possible but it did not register.[62] Four Republican representatives voted against the bill.[63]
In recent days, many journalists, including Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and Ronan Farrow on MSNBC, have asked when is Israel justified in attacking crowded civilian settings in order to kill militants. Robinson: “So if you’re an Israeli commander and you know that there’s a Hamas military facility next to a medical clinic, but you’re not completely sure the militants are still there, while the clinic is likely packed with injured civilians, do you still pull the trigger?”
Over a decade ago, Yonatan Shapira, then an Israeli air force pilot, bravely confronted his top commander, Lt. General Dan Halutz, over what were euphemistically called “targeted assassinations.” Israeli warplanes regularly fired missiles at Hamas leaders in Gaza, also killing innocent civilians, some of them children.
Shapira asked General Halutz, What if a Hamas leader were located in Tel Aviv? Would you order our pilots to fire there, risking Israeli bystanders? Halutz said no.
So you value Israelis over Palestinians, Yonatan responded. Get someone else to fly your aircraft.
Labour leader David Cunliffe has launched his party’s West Auckland campaign and the message is a multicultural team for a multicultural community.
In front of a roomful of cheering, red-scarf wearing Labour Party members, Cunliffe introduced the candidates for Kelston, Helensville, Upper Harbour, Te Atatu and his own electorate New Lynn.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Labour leader David Cunliffe has dropped his objection to appearing in a live televised leaders’ debate with Prime Minister John Key.
You naughty little boy for daring question us. Now do as you are told
This surrender is completely the wrong message to give to the electorate.
This is a betrayal of Maori of Women of every person and group this Right Wing bigot has insulted and mocked.
Labour has dignified this Right Wing extremist and has handed him an undeserved media platform and have created a media rod for their own backs way beyond this debate.
With this victory over Labour by TVNZ, voters will be asking is there anything that Labour won’t back down on?
Through Labour’s subservience Mike Hosking will take the moderator’s chair, and his smug gloating at this personal vindication of his extreme misogynist and Right Wing views on our television screens will make the debate unbearable to watch for many.
This supercilious wretch is not fit to mediate a kindergarten finger painting contest.
As he arrogantly treats the debaters (of both sides), as wayward children, the serious issues will become lost, and the debate will be cheapened and trivialised.
By caving in and agreeing to be part of this farcical circus, Labour has been smacked and smacked down hard and the country knows it.
No doubt Labour have got an assurance from TVNZ that Mike Hosking will act as the benevolent media arbiter, and in so doing, will condescendingly patronise and glaringly favour Cunliffe over Key, to the point of farce, (and beyond).
As Mike Hosking bathes in his personal magnificence as he smugly tells the Prime Minister to, “Shut up and give Mr Cunliffe a fair go”. the whole country will cringe at the spectacle.
It doesn’t really matter now what Cunliffe says in the debate, or promises the voters, he has already lost. He will be entering the leaders debate as a crippled loser who needs to be favoured out of charity.
In giving in to this outrageous imposition by TVNZ, the public can now know for certain, that David Cunliffe and the Labour Party are hostages to the establishment, any assurances that David Cunliffe gives voters in the debate are worth nothing because Labour cannot be relied on not to fold at the slightest pressure from big business, foreign powers, vested interest, oil drillers and yes the media, all those that make up the current establishment.
No matter how reckless, unjust, or cruel. Any humiliation is bearable, any outrage is excusable.
From deep sea oil, to massacre in Gaza.
Labour as the Loyal Opposition Party guaranteed to support the establishment.
The only question left is what will be their next back down?
This is all so terribly disappointing Labour had a chance to put these media Czars in their place and fluffed it.
Now I fear by empowering the Right, Labour have permanently damaged the media discourse in this country.
They should have stuck to their guns.
Now we will be forced to accept this unbalanced Right wing harpy as a serious media commentator on our nations TVs for the foreseeable future.
Labour has had plenty of chances to reform the media environment when it has been in government.
It chose to continue with the corporate profit making model for publicly owned television and radio so can hardly complain when its drive to extract dividends rather than deliver quality broadcasting results in the likes of Hoskings reigning supreme.
Rather than making fools of themselves by empty threats to boycott they should have promised reforms of publicly owned media that would lead to them focusing on providing the public with the best possible information on local and international events combined with a range of points of view and expert analysis from people who know what they are talking about.
The trouble is if they did that even more people would realise how fucked their precious capitalism is.
Jenny the views of everyone who is interested in the left are being put forward and going into the petition as well. Now it is time to stop the consciousness-raising and get positives-raising behind the strong David Cunliffe that we have. And facilitate and enable him as much as possible.
Much of the media’s approach is unfair and unbalanced and we know that they will go off in the lifeboats and leave the rest of the country dealing with the aftermath if anything goes awry. So we must deal with that thought and make sure that we make our firm stand on firm ground and just keep on with positive action that advances Labour.
3rd attempt!
+100 @ Lefty.
I submitted a comprehensive response but it disappeared up its own arse (went into a black hole). Somehow I doubt moderation but I’ll wait and see.
Still … it’s what an interloper probably deserves – it’s just that I hope this site isn’t becoming part of the Xero phenomenon.
Time is tight and opinions are cheap it seems these days (especially when one is competing with a well financed brigade of trolls).
Time for a nanna knap
@OncewasTim
See Lprent at 5.09 pm may be reason for that.
I disagree with your points. It would have hurt Cunliffe and Labour more as weak if Hosking was removed at this stage as the issue was in the open rather than behind the scenes.
He did rather snooker himself with this previous comment.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11299118
What a pity John Key was too chicken to turn up.
Well he didn’t. This issue shows is another media beat up. Labour complains about a clearly inappropriate choice for moderator of the debates and the media then converts into a “Cunliffe won’t show” discussion. How about we debate the appropriateness of Hosking being the moderator.
I have no problem with Hosking.
I have no problem with Campbell.
Christ, Key has had to put up with that asshat Campbell and his sycophantic greenie/dotcom bullshit, you don’t see him moaning about it.
Best thing for Cunliffe is just to suck it up, get on with it and show that he’s got the goods.
Cunliffe has come across as cowardly from all of this. Here was his golden opportunity to go in there against (perceived) adversity and nail everyone with his oratory. Instead he threatened Hosking with a dossier of naughty words & phrases… What was he thinking!!!
He was probably thinking about the desperate poverty so many kiwis find themselves mired in. He was probably thinking about how he can turn around NZ’s steady descent into an American model of education, health, and insurance.
He was probably distracted by human concerns. Something which Mike Hosking has not bothered with for a long time.
Here’s a thought. Maybe he can think about all that AFTER he gets elected when he’s in a position to do something about it. Just a thought.
are you seriously stating that someone can only be elected if they don’t obviously think and care about poverty and turning the country around?
You and McGrath are obviously following the Slater approach to blogging. Invent some shit, and keep repeating said shit ad nauseum in the hope that other people will also believe in said shit.
They, like Slater and Crosby/Textor, have leaned that from the techniques of Paul Joseph Goebbels.
It must pain you to acknowledge and talk about the real problem.
Give Hoskings all the rope he needs.
As New Zealanders become poorer due to the divisive Marxist practice of Free Trade, Elitists like Mr Hoskings will find themselves subject to more and more raw hatred.
Mr Hoskings is yet another Marxist who believes men and women are somehow equal. To anyone with brains, this is absurd. Any culture who does not value women more highly than men is doomed.
Why should Women be more valued then Men?
What a bizarre comment.
Why don’t you ask your pretend wife? When she’s finished the pretend housework, of course.
whoar..!..hosking a ‘marxist’..?
..he hides it well…
Hosking certainly does hide it well.
And as for Hosking valuing women over men… I guess it depends what for.
Free trade destroys local industry. Lets see what Karl Marx had to say about free trade.
“But, generally speaking, the Protective system in these days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade.”
http://mailstar.net/classwar.html
While that is nice for utopians, in practice, in reality, it causes a lot of anguish and destruction for the working class and their children.
What do elitists care if our working class and industrial base are destroyed? They are rootless cosmopolitans; much like the cockroach and the rat, they would be happy to live anywhere. “Free trade” they cry, but how many of them even know a trade?
As for women being more valuable than men, that should be obvious.
Indolent, arrogant men could be replaced by a small pool of breeding males, with very little loss to society, and a massive drop in violence and domestic abuse. Women can now do everything men can. While lazy New Zealand men sit around playing shooting games, women defend our country and serve in our armed forces.
We New Zealand males are becoming redundant. Lets show that we are worth keeping around.
yes yes..i know that marx predicted pretty much everything that is happening now..
..(and that is fascinating in its’ own right..)
..aside from the obvious civil liberties issues..yr ‘pool of breeding males’ idea does have much to recommend it..
..the only problem is perfecting a fool-proof/fail-safe boofhead/should-not-breed detector..
..and of course..such a detector should also be able to grade women..
Liberties must be curtailed for the greater good, comrade. A strong Dictatorship of the Proletariat may well be required.
have you thought about branching out into stand-up comedy..?
I find a lot of “comedians” like to reference their genitals, and are proud of their licentiousness.
Poor examples for the future Working Class youth.
yeah..!..yeah..!….doing that routine..
..it’s a bit of a young ones steal..
..but you wear it well…
Best word to describe Hoskins.
A popinjay
pop·in·jay [pop-in-jey]
noun
1. a person given to vain, pretentious displays and empty chatter; coxcomb; fop.
@Paul. Perfect word! perfect description! LOL. Dandy also springs to mind.
..’louche’ wd also have to be woven in somewhere..
Classic case scenario of the “Bourgeoisie”
I prefer the slightly more earthy “twat”, or perhaps “bell end”
This folks, is a rare example of a ‘paleo-conservative’.
Not at all. I am in no way against a strong government, or for a treasonous insurrection to “retake the New Zealand Constitution”.
There is no way we can return to limited government. Our people have been debased by decades of “liberty”. To attempt to remove a lot of state support, and guidance, like several idiot parties are advocating would be nothing less than a return to anarchy and slaughter. It is a survivalists fantasy.
Perhaps these libertarian anarchists see themselves holed up in their mansions, firing their rifles at the Walking Dead that come pleading for food and water. “You should have worked harder!” they scream as they shovel shells into the breech.
No, comrades, the way of the future is a mixed economy, in a morally conservative society. Already Premiere Putin, leader of the Free World has banned swearing in movies, and the promotion of perverse lifestyles to children. The bourgeois agendas of the left and right do not fool him. He knows what is good for the working class.
I say we follow his lead.
Have to agree with BM on this one. That’s an odd comment and reinforces why Labour has only 1 male vote in 5.
[lprent: Read the about. This site isn’t just for the Labour party. After all we let unthinking morans from the right like yourself write here. Read the policy about attributing motives to this site that don’t exist.
I get irritated by pinheaded fools being dumbarses about the site. Banned for a week to give you time to read the pages. Let me know if you need more time. ]
Oh, he’ll never have enough time. He does his thinking in a vacuum.
Aw Mike, to anyone with brains, your comment is absurd. I have no idea where you get your idea of Marxism from, but it’s not the commonly held one.
I guess it was pointless to complain in the first place, since Cunliffe can’t really avoid having to debate, but Key can.
Lord, I wish this stupid, pointless, pre-determined election was over and done with.
TJ
This election may seem stupid to you, but it is neither; pointless, nor pre-determined. The party representation proportions will be significantly changed once the votes are counted. Even if you believe that the next parliament will be; Nat-led, rather than Labour-led, the coalition agreement and private member bills submitted to the ballot over the next parliamentary term will differ.
Just because it looks like you may not win is not a reason to stop trying.
@Tom Jackson 9.33
It’s an ironic position when you care a lot about what you think is going wrong, and turning out badly, and then you help to bring this about. So why don’t you step back now you have made the comment about being pointless etc. That won’t change anything for the better except it provides a warning of possible outcomes we should keep in mind.
We now are in the situation where if one can’t say anything good, it’s better to say nothing at all. Don’t be a Cassandra any more! Just drop a bit of positive in if you see something that sparks an approving thought. I think it is good advice I am giving and I must follow this myself. And I advise all other lefties and Standardistas to adopt the same thing.
Don’t diss anyone except people like that sneaky cur that was supposed to have supplied goss to a journalist. But we don’t know if that was true anyway. What a good idea for one of these corkscrew jonos to make it up. He/she can’t reveal their sources, and seeing they don’t have any personal code of integrity and their employers are leaders in the art of sly obfuscation, the goss leak may not even have happened, probably just a song at twilight from a twilight lurker-writer’s head.
My comment won’t let me edit even though there is lots of time. I just checked on Cassandra to refresh myself.
Wikipedia on Cassandra. In their image she looks as if she is tearing her hair out!
[Apollo] he gave her the curse of never being believed. In an alternative version, she fell asleep in a temple, and snakes licked (or whispered in) her ears so that she was able to hear the future..(Ha ha snakes whispering into jonos’ ears – how apt, the apse slides in and out of our myths and beliefs.)
I was doing some replication work on the databases this morning getting the backup server at home on fibre running. Could have been causing issues.
I try to do this type of work on saturday morning as it is the quietest period on the site during the days and I’m not really that keen on doing it in the middle of the night anymore.
@lprent 5.09
Thanks. What you have set up seems to be handling the increased traffic well.
It made Labour and Cunliffe look petty and weak – and all the talk about the folder of Hosking quotes… that sounded like Mitt Romeny’s binder.
No doubt Key will bring it up during the debate.
With respect disagree Jenny. TVNZ would never have backed down and Labour have made the point splashed over all of the MSM that Hoskin is a biased idiot.
It was time to get on with policies and not keep fighting this distraction.
agreed. And Hosking has to be on good behaviour, because if he is too obviously biased then he can be called on it during the debate or after it.
He can ask tough questions as long as e does to both. He should try and remain neutral and fair. In the end what really decides are the policies and how well the leaders respond during the debate. Cunliffe will need persuasion, conviction, affability as well as aggression and fire at times. He is more than capable of all that. Though in his perceived favour, Key has smile, spin and hyperbole.
Perhaps he should have backed out of the debate and secretly asked Winston to take his place. That would have put John Key and TVNZ in a rather embarassing position.
you’ve missed yr calling..
..thought of offering yr services as a consultant..?..a tactician..?
whew jenny..!..have a (vegan) kit-kat..eh..?
.i disagree with you..
..yes..everything you say about hosking..(and more..)..is true..
..but labour blew it by bleating..
..cunnliffe should have laughed..pointed out how rightwing hosking is..
..and expressed hope that hosking wd be able to keep his far-right beliefs in check..for the course of the debates..
..and of course cunnliffe/labour have looked as tho’ their policies/arguments are so weak..
..that a trout like hosking can just blow them away/strike them silent..(!)
..how is that a good look..?
..cunnliffe has to go into these debates with fire in both his belly and his voice…
..he has the intellectual/debating-nous to do that..and he has to sell (that much/over-maligned concept)..his/labours’ vision…
..if cunnliffe goes into these debates continuing his quest to be everyman for everyone..smiling/nodding his way thru…he will tank/get tanked…
..we have seen more than enough of that ‘i’m just a nice/average guy!’ schtick..
..we get that..enough already..!
..now we need to see that intellectual/political-ideas ‘fire’ …
..cunnliffe must demand for his ideas to be heard…
..and show he is able to brush the presence of hosking away..
..as an irrelevancy..
..and that cunnliffe succeeds in this mission..
..is becoming more and more important for him/labour..
Yet I can predict that Labour Party apologists will be arguing here that “Mike Hosking is not so bad”. And the dossier Labour have collected on Hosking’s past outrages will be quietly shelved, never to see the light of day, as David Cunliffe makes his Party’s peace with Mike Hosking and the far Right embedded in the media.
Peace in our time?
Yeah right.
I think you’re wrong Jenny.
It seemed to me to be quite a clever piece of positioning on Labour’s part. Hoskings is going to have to be very careful he’s fair and balanced after this publicity. One foot wrong….
I don’t care what Labour had/has to say about Hosking, he is the wrong
manperson for the job. Why does TVNZ always choose a guy, and a white guy at that? Guyon… etcI have been trying to find examples of Hosking’s hate speech. links?
reason for labour people to be cheerful..(sort of..)
..they have this to look forward to..(from todays’ guardian..)
“..Kim Dotcom: ‘The Internet party will abolish mass surveillance’..
..Tech tycoon believes politicians need to work harder to engage the youth vote –
Dotcom also reiterated his promise that five days before the election – the world will ‘witness a moment of truth’ –
“We’re about to make history” – he said..”
(cont..)
(those ok with giving me the click-thru can go here:..
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/kim-dotcom-the-internet-party-will-abolish-mass-surveillance/
(or straight to the source..)
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/25/kim-dotcom-interview-the-internet-party-will-abolish-mass-surveillance-snowden
For the first time in quite awhile (4years+) I think the left with Labour as the largest party are going to win this election
Positive policies and no more infighting is going to carry the day
The Nats arrogance will be the deal breaker
Let us hope you are right. No more shameful back downs.
They are certainly in a better position than they have been for a while. Not that you’d know it from the media. The Greens are focused as hell. Labour has good policies and most of the the people on board. The sense that I got from the NZF conference is that their supporters would prefer to go anywhere else to avoid touching National.
The only real hassle I see is the IMP supporters spending their time slagging everyone else on the left off. But that is to be expected. It now has the complete concentration of fragile egos who spend less time working on building a party and more on talking about the new miracle to happen.
LPrent, some facts would be nice, ”The only real hassle I see is the IMP supporters slagging everyone else on the left off”,
Are you here referring to the general discussions that occur daily at the Standard,???…
bad12…agreed…i dont see much criticism of David Cunliffe…quite the contrary…there is some suspicion of some in caucus occasionally ( but who isnt a wee bit suspicious ?)
….generally IMP is very positive towards a Left coalition govt….their constituency is very young, techy, quite radical …not Labours constituency at all…judging from my Labour voting relatives who are all 50+
That’s right; both Bad12 & phillip ure are IMP aligned, but I don’t see them throttling back on the robustness of their discourse (or feud, if you will). So it’s not that we focus on; “slagging everyone else on the left off”, as we also go after ourselves, but mostly the Tories!
This is from a comment about IMPs I made to Chooky [at 5.1] on yesterday’s MS election stats post:
Lolz Paupial, someone half inched your S, you should be more ‘onto it’, have a look at ‘Open Mike’ over the past week?, the ongoing debate between myself and Phillip has definitely ben ‘throttled back’,
‘Throttled’ actually as Phillip after our last exchange ”is never,ever, engaging with me again”…
Ps: insert mad laughter, i would have but the printed version looks a bit ugly…
“‘Throttled’ actually as Phillip after our last exchange ”is never,ever, engaging with me again”…”
Pick six numbers between 1 and 48 and get down to the lotto shop 😉 :smirk:
And buy a packet of bacon flavoured kittens for the journey home 😀
Alien, Mmmm Bacon, ssshhh, i have four pieces in the fridge and they will make my life all that much more worth living on ‘diet days’ Sunday/Monday when i radically reduce the intake in the weight loss effort,(gloat: 88KG this week from 118KG December 2013)…
Great result that Bad, 88 from 118. keep it up bruv.
Maybe just get bacon flavour diet kittens with that lotto ticket.
Alien, Laugh, i have recently been tempted to really stoop for Bad Taste as a stratagem with a discussion of the benefits of rat traps, which i have this week deployed, over rat poison, 3 packets of which i have bought and used in the past six months,
Wishing tho to re-invent myself as an admittedly dated adherent to an equally dated philosophy, SNAG, i have decided against discussing all aspects of my current barbarity here…
I chase house flies out of doors and windows so I don’t have to spray or whack, so well done on the non discussion of rat traps.
Having said that, it does pose problems for vegan environmentalists. Do they kill the destructive rats or possums? If they kill them, what method, a shot to the head or a belly full of poison?
If they agree to eradicate, why are they less worthy than beef and lamb? Why can’t I eat bacon if they agree to torture invasive species?
It’s a heck of a question for those vegan environmentalists out there.
Bad12
Ta for the heads up – I don’t need to be more of a pauper than I already am!
I’ve been a bit busy of late, so missed quite a few Open Mikes, and other posts on TS in the last week or so. Though I seem to remember PU saying that he’d; never engage with certain people again, before, but not managing to follow through. We’ll have to see whether he manages; “never,ever, engaging”, any better.
Lolz Pasupial, i dare not comment any further on never ever, altho i have to admit that the cessation of hostilities has made ‘Open Mike’ a little bit of a cleaner read this week,
(And i might add taken a bit of the laughter out of the conversation for me, but, we have to realize that it aint our own private sandpit we are tossing the toys round in)…
[lprent: indeed ]
“..[lprent: indeed ]..”
my only comment is that i miss the constant argy-bargy not a jot..
..so see no reason to alter the current status quo..
building a team where, while we certainly don’t agree about everything; we are committed to working together to change the present corrupt Government
And that was the sense I got from hanging around the Internet Party’s “Party Party” tonight/this morning in Dunedin and chatting with many people. A wide range of people came along. There was a good mix in terms of demographics, ethnicities and even ages! Kim Dotcom even caught up with lovely 98yo Aunty Joyce (thanks for the photo, Tat):
https://twitter.com/Tat_Loo/status/492991223485829120/photo/1
There is a significant groundswell of feeling to see a change in Government. The mainstream media’s fault-finding and anti-Cunliffe slant is recognised. Support is strong for Cunliffe to lead the new government. To the broader Left and progressive voters, I say: take heart, galvanise your like-minded friends, family and wider network to vote on 20 Sep.
My pleasure!
Good summary, especially the bit about fragile egos and the methodology of some mip supporters.
Like I’ve said before, odd that a 1% party has all the right ideas, but none of the votes.
An old quote that’s apt – Winners don’t wait for chances, they take them.
Alien, i see you have added a word to LPrent’s quote, the word? Some, as in Some IMP supporters,
Read as written by LPrent, His comment addressing ”the IMP supporters”, in the plural takes a swipe at all InternetMana Party supporters and is thus the exact same behavior that the comment protests against in relation to ”spending their time slagging off everyone else on the left”…
I did add the word ‘some’, from my own perspective, thinking it less definitive.
I know of a couple of mip good sorts who are okay and don’t aggressively attack the rest of the left in order to make political capital in a grandiose manner, so for me, one brush doesn’t tarr all.
Is that okay?
Alien, ”is that ok”???, hell everything is ok to me,(until you see the Black note appear at the bottom of your comment that is),
”Aggressively attack” my plea is of course guilty as hell with respect to this aspect of commenting, tho personally my defence is that i happily engage on any level, not necessarily ”to make political capital in a grandiose manner” but if the conversation is going to be ‘gutter’ its either my first or second language,
(As you can see from our polite discussion the other day Alien, we both can stick to a ‘straight debate’ surrounding the facts, just as we both are fully adept at poking our little sharpened sticks metaphorically in each others eyes,
Probably a big part in our racing for the bottom when the conversation hits the gutter is the ‘shits and giggles’ it generates for us personally as dredging up something wickedly nasty as a retort i would suggest has you laughing like a loon as much as it does me)…
All good here (apart from the bold black text of doom).
If one can’t take a pointed stick to the eyes every so often, then stop playing and take up knitting, I say.
Laughs, my knitting needle is poised…
With telescopic sight, or sawn off for maximum effect at short distances. 😆
“…His comment addressing ”the IMP supporters”, in the plural takes a swipe at all InternetMana Party supporters …”
Hmmm, it could also be read as taking issue specifically with those IMP supporters who slag off the rest of the left.
“The only real hassle I see is the IMP supporters spending their time slagging everyone else on the left off.”
Ie, the hassle is those that do slag, those that don’t are no hassle.
Yours in pedantry,
TRP.
Point taken. But the contrast between the Labour and Green party activists quietly labouring away at the pre-campaign work and the IMP tactic of slagging off other activists has been particularly striking to me over the last few months.
lprent
“IMP supporters spending their time slagging everyone else on the left off… the complete concentration of fragile egos who spend less time working on building a party and more on talking about the new miracle”
Am I included in this group you so casually denigrate? I’ve been commenting on the site less than usual precisely because; I’ve been out working on building a party, and facilitating students’ enrollment on the voting register. Sure, our; phillip & Jenny do have their quirks, but I’m sure there are other regular commenters who haven’t yet declared themselves as IMP supporters, who are also offended by your profiling of us.
Anyway, I agree with Ray that; “the left with Labour as the largest party are going to win this election”, or at least; that we’re still in with a real chance. “Positive policies and no more infighting” seems less likely however – I like Cunliffe and his faction, but am not so keen on others in the Labour Party (the ones who; while in the party, are not of the party).
If Harawira’s performance on The Nation this morning is any guide then the answer is the opposite. He was ‘the statesman’ from start to finish. If he keeps that up then its looking good for him and the broader Left.
+100 Anne….Harawira is truly impressive
Is this a shameful backdown? Good strategy closer to truth. Cunliffe has raised the issue and is pragmatic now. He looks reasonable and realistic and Hosking is now aware through the petition, that not everybody loves and admires him. Cunliffe has been relentlessly picked on by all and sundry for months. Give the guy a break, without him the Left are going to sit on the Opposition benches. The only major error he has made was the Trusts earlier this year. The rest is just gossip and trivia, no doubt orchestrated by right wing media gonks. I’m with you Ray, the sea change for our entitled, arrogant and ignorant rulers is on the way.
Agreed. Stop the hand wringing. The public are desperate for light. Plus now it’s Cunliffe vs Key and Hosking. Everyone loves an underdog.
” Everyone loves an underdog”.
Winston has done very well out of being the underdog!
+1 to Ray and Jrobin
We need to stop fighting battles that take the focus off Labour Party policies and keep up the criticism of National Party policies rather than spending all our energy talking about the right wing bias in the media (even though it is the worst it has ever been). Labour were right to complain to TVNZ as Mike Hoskings will have to be a bit more careful than he would have been otherwise, but Cunliffe refusing to take part would be ridiculous. If you think the bullying of Cunliffe by the MSM is bad now it would only get worse if he didn’t turn up for the Leader’s debate.
I just hope he starts replying to every question about his leadership or disunity or supposed faults with a “I’m here to talk about the policies that are important to NZers, not to talk about trivia.”
http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/television-new-zealand-calling-to-have-mike-hosking-dropped-from-moderatingthe-political-debates#share
Just thought I would share this petition again that was first put up on the Standard by Karen.
Whatever Cunliffe and Labour do about Hoskings, I think it is very reasonable to get as many signatures for this as possible.
3,719 now! A lot in such a short time. Food for thought about other issues like Coleman?
3,751 now. They’re on their way to getting to 5000 easily by the end of the weekend.
The bias of the media, and the way its dominated by corporate-led infotainment IS an election issue.
I think left MPs are best keeping to their election policies. It’s up to the rest of us ordinary folks to keep the pressure up on the MSM to play fair during the election period – and to keep campaigning for better media after the elections.
+100
Agree Jrobin. Nztv and Hosking have been put on notice. Hosking will be careful. He must realise that he will have a very short career when Labour wins if he is not mindful of this fact. His bff key is not going to be around much longer. Cunliffe has had the best of all the interviewers I have seen/heard him interviewed by. I don’t see this being any different.Even with ‘the popinjay’ (thank you Paul) moderating, Cunliffe will make key look like the uneducated playground bully that he is. All squealing and abuse but no substance. Bring it on.
I do not see Cunliffe’s acceptance as a back down but an inevitability. He has made his point and now it is up to tvnz and Hosking to honour their word of complete impartiality. They will be hung out to dry if they don’t. The whole country will be watching
“Hosking will be careful. He must realise that he will have a very short career when Labour wins if he is not mindful of this fact.”
Why? Is it Labour policy to fire and hire broadcasters?
There is a large National party logo on online Stuff political section- not authorised by National Party but it looks like an ad.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/
Is this allowable???
they also advertising on facebook for past couple days and i mean a lot .. so alot of us have complained is misleading and spam 🙂
I see two of them. The official logo, plus the new “silver fern on black shirt” one that Key launched this week.
Three if you count the word “national” in bold type and in the official party colours.
In Politics -Stuff, a headline reads “John Minto Burns Israeli Flag.” He didn’t of course and didn’t know at the time that a flag had been burnt as the text of the column says.
IF what i seen aired on my TeeVee news last night surrounding the attack by the Israeli army on the UN school is in fact the truth,
IE: that UN officials had hours befor the shells rained down on that school, a place of refuge for women and children, begged, cajoled, and pleaded with the Israeli’s through direct contact, going so far as to provide them with the GPS coordinates for the location,
It saddens me to say that the small amount of sympathy i have thus far held onto for the Jewish State has evaporated,
Perhaps those within the US who openly support such Murder, with industrial efficiency, of children on a daily basis might care to cast around within their own borders for a ‘new promised land’ as such atrocities will in time provoke the need either for the use of weapons of mass destruction by the perpetrators of this ongoing child murder, probably within their own borders, and/or, a new ‘exodus’ of the Jewish people on a Biblical scale…
Yeah TV, seen that, perhaps Tracey Watkins inordinately extended ability to gush glowingly over Slippery the Prime Minister has dried up and desperate needs have in turn lead to desperate deeds,
Pretty low life bottom of the barrel Stuff do you not think Stuff.co.nz,???
i doubt this particular act of electoral bias by Stuff.co will have much effect as its not a hard print news organ that this gauche display appears within,
Most of us, computer literate to the extent of being able to access that particular site,(and in my case not much more), will probably have already, a long time ago,made our decisions as to which side of the political spectrum we will be voting,
Still, not a good look, and, another nail in the coffin for the mainstream media of New Zealand, and, Stuff.co can be assured that like the NZHerald, when the pay-walls go up i for one WILL NOT be paying them any of my coin to be subjected to such shit…
There was an advertisement the other day on Armstrong’s column of a blue bus in supposed motion with key’s face on the bus and blurb (go #team key or some such thing) which I can’t remember. I commented on it but when I went back it had disappeared.
Opposed to Iraeli STATE TERRORISM and the murdering of Palestinian little kids and civilians? Want to STAND UP and be counted? Today, Saturday 26 July 2014 – assemble 2pm Aotea Square Auckland. Hope to see a BIG turnout of decent people who are equally outraged at the violation of the most basic rights of Palestinians – the right to life! I’ll be there and encourage as many as possible to please attend and help spread the word. How would YOU like to be a Palestinian in Gaza right now? Penny Bright
+100 Penny…and from Bomber
‘When Firstline are focusing on flag burning rather than dead Palestinian children – that’s why you must march this Saturday at 2pm against Israeli aggression’
By Martyn Bradbury / July 25, 2014
This Saturday, Aotea Square, 2pm is that time to stand not only against Israeli aggression, but it’s tome to stand up against the pro-Israeli bias in our media….
Any idea how many children the Israeli terrorist murderers have killed in the last 24 hours?
Two days ago I predicted 7 children killed by the Israelis…
They beat that by attacking an entire school for fucks sake…
http://thestandard.org.nz/tuwhera-mike/#comment-854976
So how many today?
Israelis are committing genocide. Despicable and as low as any human behaviour anywhere… let them dwell in shit
Win,lose,draw, at some point after the September Votes have been counted we are going to have to get into casting our critical gaze upon all the parties of the left with a view to picking out and pointing to just what went right and what went wrong,
i definitely DO NOT propose to start such a process today, engaging in such behavior at this stage in the cycle being ‘not very helpful’ in terms of unity as the real contest is about to begin,
However,
In the case of poor old much maligned Labour who just can’t catch an even break any time anywhere it would seem i would suggest that to see what has been inherently amiss so far in the ‘campaign lead-up’ can be found encapsulated in a TV3 news item aired when David Cunliffe announced the parties election policy on education,
If you can find this particular video clip, aired the night of the education policies announcement on TV3 news at 6,(sorry my computer literacy leads me not to be able to provide a www), i would suggest that on a number of levels which do not involve the actual policy a number of ‘things’ best described as ‘wrong’ are encapsulated, epitomized, and, exposed within that one short news clip…
this is a must-watch from todays’ trawl..
..stephen colbert interviews elon musk..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/elon-musk-colbert_n_5621116.html?ref=topbar
I was thinking about regional development and house prices ans the Reserve Bank. Largely because I was up in a so called “successful province” the other day (Taranaki) and things looked pretty dead there and the local businesses were saying things were either very tough or totally unreliable – good one day and quiet for the next week.
RE agents said houses were not selling etc etc etc.
So why cant the deposit for houses outside of Auckland and Canterbury be at 5% and have it at the 20% in those two provinces? Is it just because “who wins Auckland wins the election?” and to tell them they need a 20% deposit would mean they would vote for the other guys? (If the RB was able to do this, Im sure the Government would still get the blame)
If that deposit differential could be introduced then maybe we would have more folk looking at the provinces which would help them and with people can come business opportunities.
Auckland prices are a result of migration – from in NZ and from other countries, and Christchurch’s prices are a result of the earthquakes and the migration in for the rebuild.
s something like this do-able?
The only people in Taranaki doing well are those in the oil and gas industry, and those in farming.
I see Fran O Sullivan has joined the chorus of calls to raise the pension age.
Its easy wait 2 more years when you spend your working life either sitting on your ass at your PC (eating chocolate), or flittering from one social function to another on the Auckland cocktail circuit.
Just took part in “The Reactor” at Scoop. One of the videos to comment on was Johnathon Coleman saying if any minister knew about the FBI investigation of Dotcom, that would have been a massive red flag and he would have never got into New Zealand. Oops, Mr Coleman is in deep poo.
There’s a poll at the NZ herald on whether apopo should be used in the weather from now on.
@ Papa TTuanuku 11.16
Okay – another word learned. Apopo – tomorrow. Tuwhera be open
And an extra – as an acronym it refers to –
APOPO is a registered Belgian non-governmental organisation which trains African giant pouched rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis. APOPO’s mission is to develop detection rats technology to provide solutions for global problems and inspire positive social change.
Perhaps we should discard the week, as in Te wiki o te reo Maori, Maori language week, dialing the one week out of the year down to one day a month and then at a future point one day a week every week of the year where te reo Maori is promoted…
Here is a technical problem for me re the Standard posts. Any suggestions please?
I am able to post. I do get notices of new TOPICS in my email, but I do not get notices of new posts. Nor do I get ‘please confirm’ notices as I used to get before. This problem has been going on for over a week now.
While posting a comment, I do tick the two little boxes as usual.
I have cleared the cookies and restarted the computer a couple of times, but still no luck.
I tried to login and asked for a now password from ‘word press’, but says, that email does not exist!
What is the problem and how do I rectify this? Any one know? Thanks.
[lprent: Should in theory be fixed now for the emails. It was caused by my new fibre installation at home.
The emails were running out through my smtp server at home, and it took me a while to notice that my outward emails weren’t going outwards. I’d changed ISPs with the UFB install and therefore the onforwarding mail server wasn’t set up. I didn’t notice, I’d also started a new job on Monday so wasn’t at home to send emails.
Problem was that I only got the UFB installed on the friday before going to the new job after screaming at chorus about being at home for 8 weeks holiday and they hadn’t managed to do the installation while I was available. I got most of the other bits fixed last weekend, but missed the smtp and also my offsite database backups ]
This is excellent and funny on the Living Wage.
http://lockerdome.com/tre/6170042811288129/6823146309435156
@Bearded Git 12.10
Thanks for Mary Poppins et al – great.
There is an interesting post from another blog – on why the rich actually need governments – put up by the Irascible Curmudgeon.
http://theirasciblecurmudgeon.blogspot.co.nz/ He quotes –
The very rich, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, “are different from you and me.” Their wealth makes them “cynical where we are trustful,” and makes them think “they are better than we are.” If these words ring true today, perhaps it is because when they were written, in 1926, inequality in the United States had reached heights comparable to today.
As the University of Michigan’s Mark Mizruchi points out in a recent book, the American corporate elite in the postwar era had “an ethic of civic responsibility and enlightened self-interest.” They cooperated with trade unions and favored a strong government role in regulating and stabilizing markets. They understood the need for taxes to pay for important public goods such as the interstate highway and safety nets for the poor and elderly. Business elites were not any less politically powerful back then. But they used their influence to advance an agenda that was broadly in the national interest….
Surowiecki thinks that the change in attitudes has much to do with globalization. Large American corporations and banks now roam the globe freely, and are no longer so dependent on the US consumer. The health of the American middle class is of little interest to them these days. Moreover, Surowiecki argues, socialism has gone by the wayside, and there is no need to coopt the working class anymore.
Yet if corporate moguls think that they no longer need to rely on their national governments, they are making a huge mistake. The reality is that the stability and openness of the markets that produce their wealth have never depended more on government action….
But when economic storm clouds gather on the horizon, everyone seeks shelter under their home government’s cover. It is then that the ties that bind large corporations to their native soil are fully revealed. As former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King aptly put it in the context of finance, “global banks are global in life, but national in death.”
I put class comment on Tuwhera last night.
http://thestandard.org.nz/what-will-david-cunliffe-be-accused-of-next/#comment-855457
A description of how classes can be listed in our society is:
Classes:
. Top out-of-sight
Upper
Upper middle
Middle
High proletarian
Mid-proletarian
Low proletarian
Destitute
Bottom-out-of-sight
These must be condensing though as it was drawn up around 1980s and the changes talked about in Irascible’s post have hit hard and will continue to compress downwards.
A party platform from 1956.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25838
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BTDKdN2CUAE2OiW.jpg
@ joe90 1.01
Great. You produce magically the billboards, promises and satisfying and promising progressive situation in usa 1956.
Now wave your magic wand and get it to trans-substantiate. Tom Lehrer gives some advice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f72CTDe4-0
I loved this bit from the Republicans manifesto of which I only read 1/52, (o that by the end of a year I’ll have read the whole thing.) So many grand phrases. It’s so rich that it makes my stomach heave. And so tempting to believe in then, and wish for now. Even though it had important lies and obfuscations in it then.
But doesn;t this sound nice. I wonder if it has been tried anywhere?
<i>On its Centennial, the Republican Party again calls to the minds of all Americans the great truth first spoken by Abraham Lincoln: “The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. But in all that people can individually do as well for themselves, Government ought not to interfere.”
Our great President Dwight D. Eisenhower has counseled us further: “In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people’s money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative.”
I think The Elements would be useful in any trans-substantiating.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/AcS3NOQnsQM
Anyhoo, Michael Moore on when the rot really set in.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131117133000/http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/30-years-ago-today
@joe90 1.34
Tom Lehrer talented and with a presence, and a very fast delivery on The Elements. His elocution teacher must have been good.
The Michael Moore piece mentioned Wisconsin people protesting.
I remember Wisconsin Works from Ruthless Richardson’s time also Jenny Shipley (doesn’t Jenny sound a sweet name). WW was a mean-minded set-up that of the type that you would feel they would push people off cliffs if there was a way to collect pay for the trip down.
Anyway this was interesting from wikipedia about how pragmatic pollies act when a job (that they want to see done) gets pushed through their political forum.
In January 2011, the state legislature passed a series of bills providing additional tax cuts and deductions for businesses at “a two-year cost of $67 million”.[31]
In early February, the Walker administration projected a budget shortfall in 2013 (Wisconsin functions on two-year budgets) of $3.6 billion[32] and found that a budget repair bill to resolve a $137 million shortfall for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011,…
The Walker-backed bill proposed taking away the ability of public sector unions to bargain collectively over pensions and health care and limiting pay raises of public employees to the rate of inflation, as well as ending automatic union dues collection by the state….
Protests :
At 1:00 am on February 25, following sixty hours of debate,[60] the final amendments had been defeated and the Republican leadership of the Wisconsin State Assembly cut off debate as well as the public hearing and moved quickly to pass the budget repair bill in a sudden vote.
The vote was 51 in favor and 17 opposed, with 28 representatives not voting.[60] The final vote took place without warning, and the time allowed for voting was so short (lasting only 5–15 s)[61] that fewer than half of the Democratic representatives were able to vote; many reportedly pushed the voting button as hard as possible but it did not register.[62] Four Republican representatives voted against the bill.[63]
All part of a concerted effort to gain dominance at every level of government.
http://www.progressive.org/alec-nation
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
Which crowded cities can you fire into?
by JAMES NORTH, Mondoweiss, July 25, 2014
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/which-crowded-cities.html
In recent days, many journalists, including Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and Ronan Farrow on MSNBC, have asked when is Israel justified in attacking crowded civilian settings in order to kill militants. Robinson: “So if you’re an Israeli commander and you know that there’s a Hamas military facility next to a medical clinic, but you’re not completely sure the militants are still there, while the clinic is likely packed with injured civilians, do you still pull the trigger?”
Over a decade ago, Yonatan Shapira, then an Israeli air force pilot, bravely confronted his top commander, Lt. General Dan Halutz, over what were euphemistically called “targeted assassinations.” Israeli warplanes regularly fired missiles at Hamas leaders in Gaza, also killing innocent civilians, some of them children.
Shapira asked General Halutz, What if a Hamas leader were located in Tel Aviv? Would you order our pilots to fire there, risking Israeli bystanders? Halutz said no.
So you value Israelis over Palestinians, Yonatan responded. Get someone else to fly your aircraft.
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/which-crowded-cities.html
For an entire economy not to have enough money is absurd
DTB that link leads to adware
Shouldn’t do. Should go to Photobucket.
there is an excellent doco on maori tv @ nine o’ clock..
..it’s called ‘dogtown and the z boys’..
..and is about the birth of the skateboard culture in california..
..has some great footage from way back when..
Test if the database is now accepting.
Ok – it is. Kill the old db.
Labour leader David Cunliffe has launched his party’s West Auckland campaign and the message is a multicultural team for a multicultural community.
In front of a roomful of cheering, red-scarf wearing Labour Party members, Cunliffe introduced the candidates for Kelston, Helensville, Upper Harbour, Te Atatu and his own electorate New Lynn.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10314780/Labour-comeback-will-be-a-surprise-Cunliffe