Yesterday the government agreed to commit $1.7 billion tax dollars in a 50-50 share of a fully electric urban rail extension in Auckland.
On the same day, government-owned Kiwirail signaled that it’s likely it will retire its 35-year old electric trains and go back to diesel, with only the promise that it will keep the electric wires operational.
Now of course, Kiwirail is a ridiculously subsidized tax money sinkhole, and has made one bad decision after another in its procurement. So it’s pretty hard to have any sympathy for them.
I would simply prefer a government that had a transport policy that made sense.
What’s incoherent is investing in commuter electric rail on the one hand, and preparing to disinvest in electric rail on the other.
Yep, it’s kinda ridiculous. I suspect it has to do with our delusional money system that makes it appear cheaper to destroy resources (burn diesel) than not use them at all (use renewable electricity).
Underfund and run down the rail, and government supports the trucks. 35 yr old trains need upgrade. The majority of the juggernaut trucks look spanking new. It’s a bit like comparing the starving poor and the obese rich.
Easy to electrify the whole main trunk and get new rail stock (could even be built here), then could even have more commuter rail eg Wellington – Palmerston North, Hamilton- Auckland etc. Would be a lot cheaper than all the current monster road building (even without the shonky steel which will have to be replaced soon), and also much more accessible to the whole population including those who don’t drive or can’t afford cars. Could fix up Wellington- Gisborne line as well. Only takes a bit of government commitment and confronting the power of the road lobby and the traditional hatred of rail by the National Party.
Electrifying the entire main trunk line is not easy.
You would have to electrify the whole of the south island tracks. That would be a Think Big scale project.
I’m not suggesting this government walk away from cars entirely and make commuter rail the preferred choice across the entire country. They are committed to the private vehicle – with some promotion of electric cars – and I guess good luck to them.
And I know I am being slightly unfair comparing urban commuter public transport investment with freight investment.
But with a few hundred million and some new electric trains, Auckland’s rail could be electrified to Hamilton and Tauranga. That would take more than half of New Zealand’s freight onto an electric system.
It would make a whole bunch of sense for at least the North Island rail network to be run on one mode.
You would have to electrify the whole of the south island tracks. That would be a Think Big scale project.
And your problem with that would be?
The only problem with Think Big was how it was financed which was by borrowing offshore. Muldoon should have created the money and then we wouldn’t have been in the dire straights that we were in when the 4th Labour government set about totally destroying our economy.
My only problem is political reality. We have a state with far, far fewer of the executive instruments than in Muldoon’s day. I don’t live in the world of ideals any more.
I live in the world of what is able to be done in any one term.
I know you don’t, and you’re perfectly entitled to that.
It’s not usually possible to build anything big in infrastructure in the course of any three year term. Mostly because it takes too long to get the money together.
Housing, however – there I think an alternative government has a good shot at making a visible difference. If I were part of an alternative government, I’d give every member a toolbelt and put them to work. Would do them good.
It would be nice if Labour still put practical minded blue collar workers, tradies and miners in as MPs but those days are long gone. Lawyers and pol sci grads are the order of the day.
Hey CV, you forgot, school teachers that get into PR, cant bear too say the whole word sorry. 🙂
And about Labour having time to deal with shite Nat,s policy, they seemed happy to leave a few of Ruthanasia in place, and no doubt the next chance they get at Gov’t, eg: 90 day,victimising beneficiaries partners etc.
Theirs many more but it does my head in.
Third way Labour can go to…
A while, I think. It’s the National government’s policy to normalise these events as some sort of unavoidable consequence of economic growth. Rightwing people have no moral compass and perversely to them it’s a good problem to have because it shows NZ is successful.
We have been incredibly fortuitous as a country to have the China market growing so fast throughout the GFC that hit Europe and the US, and through the mining collapse in Australia. So yeah, agree.
Would still prefer to see no “unprocessed logs” leaving the country let alone to China. But that’s for a different kind of government, possibly a different kind of country.
I know right, he really should just go tell these countries what they’re doing wrong and how it should be done because it never turns out bad when the leader of first world, predominantly white, English speaking country does that
By that logic you’d be happy for a full and immediate withdrawal by western states from the middle east. You must also be against peoples’ struggle for democratic rights and representation the world over wherever that might be.
Puckish – Keys wants us to join China’s political landscape – more corruption, more censorship, more spying, less human rights, more rights for those that know/donate to the ‘right political parties’, control of the media and public servants… list goes on and on. He just wants to ‘be at the table’ with the US too so a bit of a clusterfuck there with that approach, but logic never a strong suit.
It’s not going to end well for the National supporters too when you a tenant on planet Key.
Key will go eventually but the damage to our country and economy might be irreversible.
Tell that to the homeless, middle class and working poor, Ad.
The only reason Kiwis are doing ok is because of immigration which was great boost to NZ at the time of the GFC, but now becoming a big problem. Bit like taking out a lovely loan and feeling great because you are still getting by, but then you have to pay it back with interest in social services – housing, medical, superannuation, transport… You then borrow more and more to fund it, now it’s a ponzi scheme.
Of course if the government had targeted migrants in the new economy that set up businesses that were non polluting and employed Kiwis at good rates, different story. Nope the government did not target those migrants..
Students, Fruit pickers, Chefs, drivers, property and farm investor migrants…
On September 15th 1916, at 6.20am in the morning, men of the New Zealand Division’s 2nd brigade climbed from their trenches near Caterpillar Valley and advanced up the slope to seize the German switch line. Then at 7.02am, the follow up brigades attacked down the other side of the slope and into the valley to capture the villages of Flers and Courcelette as well.
If like me you’ve been lucky enough to visit the site of this attack, and walk from Caterpillar valley to Flers via the NZ Memorial, you’ll see what an an extraordinary victory it was in the context of the Great War. This is a doubly important date in the history of the 20th century as the New Zealanders used a new weapon that day for the first time ever in history – tanks. There wereFour Mk.I tanks with the NZers that day, and they were from D Tank Company, D8, D10, D11 and D12.
670 New Zealanders were killed and 1200 wounded in the attack.
I’ve been to the NZ Memorial and also saw the newly erected Irish memorial close by- a round tower with beautiful verse-inscripted stones. The tower had been built by youth from both sides of the Protestant/Catholic divide, in cooperation. The Memorial is known as a Peace Park.
The NZ memorial had its power with, of course, its national associations and the simple message “From the uttermost corners of the earth” attesting to the universality of our human race and the need to help others beyond our borders- that, at least, is something that can be taken from four years of insanity.
The ground around the memorials was a slope which I envisaged the divisions attacking uphill, into machine-gun and shell fire. One of the German pill boxes remained down the slope.
At Gallipoli I was extremely moved by the inscription on the Turkish memorial at Anzac Cove- such generosity, and simple forgiveness- repeated on our Wellington coast.
As a long term pacifist, battlefields still hold a strange fascination for me which I cannot explain. History, sacrifice, (in)humanity?
Agriculture is undermining many ecosystem services
Just last week the Committee on Climate Change released a major report on the impact that different categories of land use provide for energy, food, biodiversity, etc. But again, agriculture – here, arable and horticulture – undermines many of the services we rely on the natural environment to provide.
So, farming isn’t just a problem in NZ.
This is really a simple fact that we need to recognise and do something about. NZ is in a good position about farming in that we can easily reduce the amount of land in agriculture significantly and still produce enough to feed ourselves. The people thus freed up from farming could then be utilised in more important areas such as health and/or R&D.
It’s time we started doing economics rather than finance because the finance is killing us.
Kiwi journalist and activist Suzie Dawson has been extensively targeted by Western intelligence agencies and their contractors. In the wake of several overt attempts on her life, she had to leave her home in New Zealand to live in exile in Europe. In her unique new documentary “Diary Of A Person Of Interest” Suzie details in a clear, concise and credible way what it is really like to be a target of the Five Eyes; why she was targeted, who she was targeted by, how they targeted her, what their end game is and how to try to counter it.
Yes well that’s what I thought too, the name ‘The Standard’ being the first clue.
The second clue are the types of stories presented, in The Standard today…
“Right-wing mayor candidates try to kneecap themselves”
“Labour Organizing”
“Beware, creepy men of the right: Rawshark returns (briefly)”
“Optimism, determination and, above all, unity” (about UK Labour)
“India’s general strike”
The third clue being their own description of themselves…
“The Standard newspaper – from where our masthead comes – was founded by labour movement activists in the 1930s. They used it as a vehicle to share their views with a broader audience – a perspective they felt the mainstream media was representing poorly. We think the same is true today.
What’s your political ‘angle’?
We come from a variety of backgrounds and our political views don’t always match up but it’d be fair to say that all of us share a commitment to the values and principles that underpin the broad labour movement and we hope that perspective will come through strongly as you read the blog.” https://thestandard.org.nz/about/
Yet Siobhan, yesterday was insulted verbally and kicked off for two weeks for this comment on the story “India’s general strike”….
“Then again, here we are on a so-called left wing site…and its taken 2 days to get 6 comments. That says something not very good about our attitudes towards the value of different groups struggles don’t you think??” https://thestandard.org.nz/indias-general-strike/#comments
She was called a nutter, a moron, a gormless idiot, lazy and stupid by the moderator, I mean, what the hell is gong on here? doesn’t anyone care that this abuse is coming from the actual moderator? or is everyone scared of being kicked off themselves, so won’t say anything? or are people here fine with this type of abuse? maybe a bit of stockholm syndrome going on here?
I think lprent is totally out of control, co opting the name The Standard from our rich Labour heritage, and then abusing people like this, all under the cover of that proud banner of the Labour movement is absolutely outrageous.
This abuse has got to stop.
[lprent: Agreed. Trying to attack the site has to stop. Only a idiot would attack a site that they were freely commenting on when they provide absolutely now work or effort to maintain it. In short – a freeloader. ]
I read the story about India general strike. But felt did not know enough to comment on it. I was going to say +1 because I thought it was a nice post. So just because a post does not get huge comments does not mean it is not read or important. In fact when people agree with the post I think it gets less comments than when the left disagree.
It’s the left disagreement that gets the most comments!!!
As for the rant against Siobhan, I think that was totally over the top!!! Maybe a bad day????
If it was only one bad day, I wouldn’t have brought it up. this abuse is the modus operandi of lprent, and it has got to stop.
People on this site have got to stand up to this type of abusive behavior.
Firstly it is not the rules I am talking about it it is the unfettered verbal abuse that is being disgustingly spread about by the moderator.
Secondly I am also saying the The Standard by their own words have co opted the name The Standard from our Labour history, so can’t now claim that this site is not tied to the Left ( and by that definition Labour) in the public’s perception.
This being the case, there needs to be better moderation of the moderators behavior, or are you quite happy at being yourself, or seeing other people being abused in this manner?
Are you are also fine with the Lefts most well known New Zealand internet presence be known as a place where this type of abusive behavior is tolerated by it’s members?
Just to return the judgement. I’d point out that there are a lot of people who really don’t bother pulling their head out of their own self-referential arse. You appear to be one of them. Try reading the about and the policy and then thinking how your critic stupidity looks from the side of the workers actually maintaining this site.
Banned for a weeks to give you time to open the dictionary in your attempt to understand it. But frankly I suspect that you are way too rigid to bend your mind far enough to understand someone being productive. ]
I vote right because I have certain views and one of them is whoever owns something gets to decide (within the framework of NZ law of course) what and how they run it
The bosses of TV3 decided they couldn’t sustain the dwindling audience of John Campbell so he was fired because they decide what is shown on their channel and I’m ok with that
The moderators of this blog decided how they moderate and they decide what can and can’t be posted because its their blog and I’m ok with that
If you’re not ok with it go start your own blog, its really that simple
The more dwindling audience of Paul Henry National cheerleader TV3 bosses could stand of course. And of course the corporate welfare…
from wiki
“In 2011, MediaWorks received a $43 million loan guarantee for the Government to renew its licenses until 2030.[2] The deal went against official advice, and then Communications Minister Steven Joyce was accused of having a conflict of interest as the past managing director of the company’s RadioWorks division[3] The loan was described by AUT’s Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy as a form of corporate welfare,[4] and was criticised by blogger Sarah Miles as a case of Government interference in the media.[5] Radio Bay of Plenty secured commercial loans, The Radio Network covered its own costs, and Rhema Broadcasting Group covered the cost with no interest loans.[6]”
MediaWorks’ subsidiary RadioWorks has repaid the $32.28 million outstanding on a ‘loan’ signed off by former Communications Minister Steven Joyce that allowed the media group to defer payments to the Crown for radio spectrum licences.
The balance of $32.28 million of principal plus interest was paid yesterday – almost two years ahead of schedule, current minister Amy Adams said in a statement.
@Puckish Rogue, You see I can understand someone on the right like you defending this abusive behavior, of course you do, that goes with out saying…it’s part of your political ideology. True to form I like it.
It is when people on the Left defend this, that is when I get uptight.
Ive raised this a few times [TRP came back to me on it] – some of the comments have gotten down right disgusting. Including telling people to go hang themselves.
In the end – I came to the conclusion that it reflected on the poster more than the blog, but in time people will come here and read stuff – they will come to their own views – but honestly, it is getting worse – in the end the blog will be the worse for it.
@Puckish Rogue, defending privilege, yes of course you do, like I have said already, you are operating true to form, but you can’t help that, it is a core part your ideology after all.
Therefore he does rather control the whip hand and tends to use it often, so getting the occasional lashing is part and parcel of posting on the standard.
If that bothers you either go else where or learn to avoid raising topics that bring out the whip.
Very sad to see that you all find this outrageous behavior so funny, no wonder that the Left is so dysfunctional in New Zealand when we see no problems with abusive of power in own own ranks.
Adrian as you can probably tell from the response to your observation, there is lack of care factor or a fear factor..possibly both
I’ve taken a look at the response to Siobhan and compared it to some other mod comments, the form is largely the same
Looking through archives the moderating has had a clear impact on the tone of threads which is essentially censorship, and could be handled more thoughtfully in some instances. Certainly the name calling and abuse is unnecessary, especially where moderating in involved
On one hand the Rules state “What we’re not prepared to accept are pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others.”
On the other hand we have lprent calling Siobhan “a liar, a nutter, an authoritarian moron, a gormless idiot, frigging lazy, stupid liar (again)”, and then banning her for two weeks, for having the temerity to suggest that TS is a “left-wing site”, when according to the About “all of us share a commitment to the values and principles that underpin the broad labour movement “.
I think you’re onto something Adrian!
[lprent: Tell me – does it say anywhere in the policy that moderators are subject to those limits? Doesn’t the policy rather explicitly state that moderators are expressing their limits to the types of things that are described. But doesn’t state anything else including that we are have any limits except what is in the policy?
Banned for a week for trying to redefine our rules – something that is explicitly against our policy. I’d ban you for a another week for being a stupid lawyer. However I suspect you can’t help that level of incompetence – it is probably genetic. ]
Thanks, I thought I fighting a solo rear guard action here, thank goodness there are a few sane people left.
I mean how can these people really be defending abusive behavior? and more importantly why would they want want to?
It is all quite sad, disappointing and baffling to me.
Here I was thinking that we were part of a progressive movement, helping with the evolution of humans, unfortunately this type of behavior only drags us backward as far as I can see.
Agree with you Adrian, it’s not right. I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that nothing in life is perfect either no matter how much you want it to be.
Yes of course the World isn’t perfect, but to accept something that is in our sphere that is plainly wrong and do nothing, that is the point, do something, anything, say something, anything, but whatever you do, don’t do nothing.
That all these commenters come on here to defend this abusive behavior is incredible to me.
It’s like that case with the Crusaders and the stripper, you know there where other people in that garden bar who watched that woman get abused by those thugs, but none of them said a mumbling word to defend her…why, because those rugby players have a perceived place and power in our society, the stripper who’s she?
That is where these attitudes ultimately lead to, where else can this type of thinking take you in the end? In my opinion, It is really this simple.
And I also think that anyone who can’t put this simple piece of logic together themselves…. well they probably need to take a long hard look at themselves.
A word that hasn’t been used to describe the behaviour is bullying.
I regard this as a left leaning site and as such some of the left save their vitriol for others on the left because … well I just don’t know.
I am truly grateful for this site, the posts, and comments however I find some of the langauge from some moderators to be excessively abbrassive and antagonistic.
Yes I really do appreciate this site too.
I know that it could reach out to so many more people, especially Woman and young people, if they could only say enough is enough… but no, here they all are defending this behavior….why?
[lprent: The moderating behaviour is to allow the maintenance of robust debate on the site when we have the potential to be overwhelmed with unthinking yobbos acting as trolls. Have a look back in the archive to early 2008 to see what that means. Since strong obnoxious moderation was put in to deal with the unthinking fuckwits of the net, the percentage of female readers has grown from less than 10% to just under 30%. The number of female writers has increased markedly as well.
Similarly the age range has shifted from overwhelmingly being in the 25-35 age group to being wide across the whole age demographic.
You really don’t think things through do you? Why do you think we have moderation? It is to increase the diversity on the site. ]
I could almost understand your reply if this were a radical right wing site. However to think you or anyone would defend this type of abusive behavior on a left site is beyond disappointing.
Look I absolutely respect the amount of work, time and effort that must go into this site, but that does not in any way give anyone one the right to abuse another person, or do you think it does?
Because if you do, then you just start to extrapolate that logic and see what path it takes you down very quickly.
Is this a left wing forum, news site?
I am interested to know peoples view on this question.
It’s a blog, and it serves whatever purpose the people putting the time and money into running it want it to serve. If you find that it doesn’t serve the purpose you, an idle reader and commenter like me, would like to see served, you’re free to go and start your own one and run it as you see fit. No-one running The Standard is accountable to you for anything.
Firstly, as I am sure you are aware, this site is now more than a private blog, it is, rightly or wrongly regarded, and is without doubt the main New Zealand left news site/forum.
I also assume that by using the name The Standard, and stating in their own preamble…
“The Standard newspaper – from where our masthead comes – was founded by labour movement activists in the 1930s. They used it as a vehicle to share their views with a broader audience – a perspective they felt the mainstream media was representing poorly. We think the same is true today.”
…that the resulting public perception of this site was not unintentional.
I believe people are accountable for their actions, and when those actions take the form of abuse, all while under the banner of an organization with it’s roots firmly planted in the New Zealand Labour party’s story and history, even more so.
Finally I find it ironic that you are using the Crass logo on your avatar, and would defend open verbal abuse of people who are respectfully expressing their progressive view’s on a left forum.
Crass, you know that band that was perhaps one of the staunchest and most uncompromising defenders of freedom of expression that cut a side of vinyl, not a band that defended unquestioned power…if I remember rightly.
Irony? If you’d turned up and told Crass how they were doing it wrong and you felt they needed to be accountable to you and make appropriate changes to the way the band worked, you’d have got an earful that would make Lprent look mild-mannered. That was one of the things I liked about them so much – they were excellent at telling people fuck.
Yes well as I am pretty sure that Crass would never have co opted an important piece of UK Labour phraseology and historical reference as a banner in which to organize under, I don’t think that would have ever been an issue, do you?
So that logic doesn’t work in this debate, sorry.
Just take a concrete pill and harden up, you choose to be offended To argue it’s all love and roses on the left is delusional Sibonan obviously hit a sore point with LPrent who is not my cup a tea but he gave her a spray, so what, move on, I’m sure he has and at least she now not in two minds about his view
nah, it’s still a private blog run by volunteers and funded by a trust.
As to how “left” you think the people who contribute are, that description is problematic because some contributors might be staunch proponents of the labour movement but not regard themselves as “left”. Some because they might think that label today involves issues beyond just labour and capital issues, others because “left” and “right” are just extremes on an obsolete continuum.
Some contributors here support free trade agreements with greater or lesser equivocation, while supporting improved powers for workers. Others are more keynesian, while others still recycle Social Credit in various guises and with differing extremes.
As to your comment about a mod’s abrasiveness, well – each to their own. Maybe they argue about it on the backend, maybe the consensus of authos/mods is that it’s just good to have an angry dog in reserve every so often, because kind words don’t always work.
It’s called the standard, there is a red flag displayed as the icon, and the main disagreement with Adrian seems to be along private property lines, man that is sad.
Maybe lprent could trademark that flag might be worth a fortune.
And hey yeah, let’s every one on the left just start our own blog, we can have an audience of 1 and talk to ourselves.
I agree with Adrian, and notice that all arguments against his position never mention the history or symbolism appropriated by this “private” site.
Well how about this perspective then: those who created the trust, worked to develop the website and established the process for its content creation, who maintain the servers, write the content and spend time moderating the worst of the internet out of the comments, how about those workers have control over the means and fruits of production?
How about this perspective, those people who founded our Labour party, that built a Labour Party of Men and Woman, who pushed and battled with their bodies and split blood to gain all the rights and privileges that we are fighting to maintain now, they would be appalled to see their own comrades bullied and verbally abused under the name one of their proud banners, The Standard.
I will say this one more time, The Standards own preamble links it directly to the Labour movement, the name The Standard links it irrevocably to the labour movement, that is just a fact.
Because this site has chosen to be linked so closely with our Labour movement, it has therefore surly obliged itself to operate at a level of normal public decency, is that to much to ask?
To spell it out for you, no, many of the founders and stalwarts of the labour movement would have considered the moderation here to be pretty tame stuff.
I gave you one easily googleable case in point above.
No, not “labour did it too”. A specific refutation that our predecessors in the labour movement were anything other than normal people, with normal behaviours. Some of the Fabians and Quakers were courteous and nice to all, no doubt. But we’ve always had our share of fighters and belligerents, too. There’s always been sectional, political and personal conflict in the labour movement. That’s what gives me hope – that they were regular people who made those achievements, not lionised saints.
The polite ones who used manners and doilies were often the ones who owned the sweatshops.
McFlock, interesting point. The great Michael Joseph Savage understood the rather conservative mindset of New Zealanders, even when he and his party won the 1935 general election in a landslide victory, he still had to assure New Zealanders that having a Labour government was nothing for them to be afraid of. Labour then, like now, has always had to be cautious, and I think that’s what some people, like the vehemently critical John A Lee, and others today, failed to understand.
Yeah, rereading about the ructions within Lab1 (just to make sure I had the gist of it right) it reminded me that the more things change, the more they stay the same…
How about this perspective, those people who founded our Labour party, that built a Labour Party of Men and Woman, who pushed and battled with their bodies and split blood to gain all the rights and privileges that we are fighting to maintain now, they would be appalled to see their own comrades bullied and verbally abused under the name one of their proud banners, The Standard.
It’s a matter of opinion. Personally, I think they’d be appalled to see members of a worker’s cooperative berated by someone who’d contributed no time or effort to it but wants to tell the cooperative how they should run things, effectively on the basis of a claim to superior left-wingedness. Because it is appalling.
@McFlock & Psycho, all I can say is, well done boys, in passionately defending your right to bully and abuse people, nice work.
I have learned a couple of things in this sad exchange, the main one being, this has helped in taking the guess work out of wondering who the guards would be.
You have some answers to the questions you posed. Unsettling isn’t it?
In some ways the comments section on the Standard has always reminded me of Fight Club. On the mezzanine floor above the ring are the moderators who keep redefining the rules of engagement, which keeps things interesting.
The first rule of fight club is, you don’t talk about fight club:
We are strongly independent of any organisation because it allows us to argue how we want to. These days we don’t even run advertising because we neither need to (peoples occasional donations pay our minimal operating costs), nor do we have the time to organize it.
We strongly favour moderators and authors – because they are the people who keep the site running with starter content and effort.
What do you think? That we should favour people who freeload on the comments section? Some of them we will and do listen to. But they tend to be the people who invest effort and intelligence in their comments. Not something that I have noticed with Siobhan or Adrian.
@ Adrian
Careful. It’s a well known tactic of bullies to cry foul and accuse others of doing the bullying. Good example: Cameron Slater. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to acquire a similar reputation to him.
lprent has a tactic too – born out of experience. Come down hard on trolls and derailers in the hope they will cease their bad habits. It usually works and for those who choose to ignore… it’s the sin bin for a while or a permanent ban. Take it or leave it Adrian. If you don’t like the way TS is run I suggest you run away and start your own blog.
Edit: I see others have already suggested it so off you go and do let us know what it is called…
PM, no-ones telling anyone how to run things, they’re asking for a reasonable “standard” of discourse free of personal abuse, a la the “Policy”. Question, Psycho Milt, do you think calling a commenter “a liar, a nutter, an authoritarian moron, a gormless idiot, frigging lazy” for an innocuous (imo) comment meets that test?
[lprent: It wasn’t an innocuous comment.
In the last 9 years, it is exactly the type of comment that has prefaced about half of the attacks on this site from the right, the left, and the nutters.
I always ban fools who use it because it is completely stupid and idiotic to abuse people on their own site.
If you want to set the rules for a site – then start your own. If you want to continue in this vein, then I will give you ample time to do it without the distractions of commenting here. ]
I think it’s not up to me or any other outsiders to tell moderators how to moderate their own blog, unless they ask me. Especially not when there’s a comments policy specifically warning against doing that.
In my personal opinion, it must be extremely annoying for the people who do the work involved in running this blog to have commenters implying some moral failing on their part, based on what hasn’t been written about, or insufficiently written about in the commenter’s opinion. If I were to imply moral failing on the part of participants here, it may be that it seemed innocuous to me, but it also may be that the moderator’s seen a great many of these sanctimonious, passive-aggressive attacks over the years and has no interest in dealing with them politely. I find that not implying moral failings on the part of moderators helps avoid such incidents.
To Psycho Milt @ 10.49 a.m. (no reply button) – what you say is correct, and would be relevant if we were talking about moderation, but we’re talking about abuse. Moderation good (great!), abuse bad.
Have you actually read Siobhan’s OP? There’s no way you can find an “implication of moral failing” or a “sanctimonious passive aggressive attack” in that.
Then again, here we are on a so-called left wing site…and its taken 2 days to get 6 comments. That says something not very good about our attitudes towards the value of different groups struggles don’t you think??
Seems pretty sanctimonious to me. Shades of the old “you don’t care as much or as broadly as I care, so you’re not really ‘left wing'” bs.
That’s fine, in your opinion it wasn’t an innocuous comment, I accept that. Whether you were “abused”, arguable.
That you descended to personal abuse in contravention of the Policy (“pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others), that’s indisputable.
My opinion when I am moderating is the only one that counts.
I have already pointed out further up how you should read the policy. It limits moderation techniques, but does not constrain them. In my case I tend to find that people remember moderation against themselves when they are accompanied with some personal observations. This reduces my future work load.
My opinion when I am moderating is the only one that counts. I’d listen to authors, but seldom with commentators. After all it is our site
I have already pointed out further up how you should read the policy. It limits moderation techniques, but does not constrain them. In my case I tend to find that people remember moderation against themselves when they are accompanied with some personal observations. This reduces my future work load.
…”Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was not satisfied with the two redacted documents, demanding full access to the investigation from Herring.
“We decide what’s relevant – not the Department of Justice, not the FBI,” Chaffetz said during Monday’s hearing. “It’s unclear to me how the FBI can prevent a member of Congress from seeing what we’re already allowed to see by law, yet here they have done so.”
“That’s the way a banana republic acts, not the way the United States of America acts,” Chaffetz added.
“I don’t expect to have to issue a subpoena to see unclassified information.”…
Although the US has historically been instrumental in the setting up and maintenance of Banana Republics…which sometimes literally grew bananas for US based corporations
…and now this …money talks you into becoming an Ambassador for USA (irony)…where are the career highly trained ambassadors?…they are obviously being sidelined in this ‘democracy’….which IS looking more and more like a banana republic
‘How much for ambassador? Hacked DNC files reveal plum posts for big donors’
“Hacker ‘Guccifer 2.0’ has offered support for allegations that Democrats rewarded big donors and fund-raisers with plum diplomatic posts, by releasing a donor list from November 2008, when current VP candidate Tim Kaine chaired the DNC.
Among the 500 megabytes of data released Tuesday was the document titled “11-26-08 NFC Members Raised,” listing the names and addresses of some 100,000 Democratic National Committee donors. Cross-referencing the top donors’ names revealed that they were later appointed to ambassador posts and other government jobs…
…The documents cover a period between 2009 and 2011, when the DNC was chaired by Tim Kaine, currently Hillary Clinton’s running mate on the presidential ticket….
No wonder people can’t get work. You just pay now to get a role. Qualifications are irrelevant just the size of your donation and knowing the right people.
New Zealand is joining the United States and 11 other countries in negotiating with the World Trade Organisation to ban harmful fishery subsidies, particularly those that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity in the sector or are linked to illegal fishing, they said today.
Although I agree with the action is the government doing anything to end the unsustainable practices that occur here in NZ?
Good God! They really are a pack of wet willies these Nats. NZ is rapidly becoming a police state and the soon they are gone and the oppression removed the better.
“Key emerges from this whole episode with very little honour. Such craven compromising is a very long way from the extraordinarily bold behaviour of the John Key who took up the Opposition leader’s role in 2007. That John Key would have weighed the Greens’ 13 percent of the Party Vote against the Maori Party’s 2 percent and adjusted his strategy accordingly.”
People are making less real wages than 18 years ago, Trump says in Ohio. "Me, I’m working harder also so I don’t feel sorry for any of you."— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) September 14, 2016
A new poll showing Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 4 points in Ohio set the media buzzing, but a look at the polling data reveals that CNN under polled younger voters.
[…]
Update: It turns out that CNN did poll voters under 50, but the reason why their crosstabs showed no data was because they polled too few younger voters. Younger voters have made up 44%-51% of those who voted in the last three election cycles. CNN’s sample was made of 18% younger voters. In essence, CNN cut the number of younger voters in Ohio in half.
Donald Trump will definitely win Ohio if no one under the age of 50 comes out to vote, but that is not going to happen. It may just be an error, but if CNN shaped their numbers to get a newsworthy headline, it would serve as a perfect example how news networks use their polling to make the news instead of reporting on it.
Its like the last election where it got to the point where you almost started to feel sorry for Labour, like watching the All Blacks play Scotland, you know Scotland are going to lose and you know they’re trying their best but you know theirs a hiding coming up soon…
I’ve said it before but in the same way that plucky Scotland will never beat the All Blacks it now seems obvious that Labour will never be the government again. Despite MMP making it hard to obtain a majority it seems obvious that as long as John Key is the leader then National are unbeatable. 2017,2020 and 2023 are all probable National wins. The wealth of talent that entered Parliament in 2014 will be promoted soon. My pick for Premier at 2026 is Chris Bishop who has scared Trevor Mallard from even standing next time.
Your wish for collapse is not shared by the 67,000 people who have flocked to live in New Zealand in the last 12 months unlike the many thousands who were leaving during the dark ages of the last ever Labour government.
Does anyone else think the Spinoff has become a type of Sky magazine with sponsored articles? I first thought is was going to be Herald for younger audience, but it’s kinda of worse than that in terms of shallowness.
While I would normally congratulate anyone trying to push a new media platform in NZ away from MSM, but the Spinoff is all that is bad about the media under a new and less improved and even less informed news (is that even possible, yes with Spinoff) click bait tactic.
Had just started looking at it for the Dotcom coverage. But really… I mean meaningless, content free, awful and trivialising is an understatement. If this is an example of journalism covering a man’s freedom here and a test case for extradition – it’s written like The bachelor but from someone who sends the 10 year olds out to court to cover the case for a school project.
If Spinoff is an example of the future of journalism in NZ, I really hope not!!
extract Dotcom case…
Friday September 9: Day 10 of the hearing, Day 8 of the livestream
Hm.
Thursday September 8: Day 9 of the hearing, Day 7 of the livestream
Yeah.
Mockery , injustice and shallowness made into entertainment – seems more like The Hunger Games.
The numerical value published of 66bn may be of interest to certain folk
Mergers are an undersized life raft at best for the companies involed
Chemical poisons/toxins and the companies/industry that peddle them are on the way out, its over for these entities now and this merger signals as much
This is the final through of the dice for both companies
Too many are aware of what is going on and the momentum can’t be stopped on the march towards good health through natural nutrition and healing
Chiropractors don’t treat diabetes lol. Also, remind me what the scientific intellectual west’s track record with diabetes has been over the last 50 years? Incidence going sky high right? More cases and more early deaths than ever, right?
You rational materialists are no where as clever as you are narrow minded.
In the 1950s, about one in five people died within 20 years after a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. One in three people died within 25 years of diagnosis.
About one in four people developed kidney failure within 25 years of a type 1 diabetes diagnosis. Doctors could not detect early kidney disease and had no tools for slowing its progression to kidney failure. Survival after kidney failure was poor, with one of 10 patients dying each year.
About 90 percent of people with type 1 diabetes developed diabetic retinopathy within 25 years of diagnosis. Blindness from diabetic retinopathy was responsible for about 12 percent of new cases of blindness between the ages of 45 and 74.
Studies had not proven the value of laser surgery in reducing blindness.
Major birth defects in the offspring of mothers with type 1 diabetes were three times higher than in the general population.
Patients relied on injections of animal-derived insulin. The insulin pump would soon be introduced but would not become widely used for years.
Studies had not yet shown the need for intensive glucose control to delay or prevent the debilitating eye, nerve, kidney, heart, and blood vessel complications of diabetes. Also, the importance of blood pressure control in preventing complications had not been established yet.
Patients monitored their glucose levels with urine tests, which recognized high but not dangerously low glucose levels and reflected past, not current, glucose levels. More reliable methods for testing glucose levels in the blood had not been developed yet.
Researchers had just discovered autoimmunity as the underlying cause of type 1 diabetes. However, they couldn’t assess an individual’s level of risk for developing type 1 diabetes, and they didn’t know enough to even consider ways to prevent type 1 diabetes.
TODAY
The long-term survival of those with type 1 diabetes has dramatically improved in the last 30 years. For people born between 1975 and 1980, about 3.5 percent die within 20 years of diagnosis, and 7 percent die within 25 years of diagnosis. These death rates are much lower than those of patients born in the 1950s, but are still significantly increased compared to the general population.
After 20 years of annual increases from 5 to 10 percent, rates for new kidney failure cases have leveled off. The most encouraging trend is in diabetes, where rates for new cases in whites under age 40 are the lowest in 20 years. Improved control of glucose and blood pressure and the use of specific antihypertensive drugs prevent or delay the progression of kidney disease to kidney failure.
Annual eye exams are recommended because, with timely laser surgery and appropriate follow-up care, people with advanced diabetic retinopathy can reduce their risk of blindness by 90 percent. A new study shows that vision loss that is often associated with laser therapy can be reduced when the drug ranibizumab is used in combination with laser.
For expectant mothers with type 1 diabetes, tight control of glucose that begins before conception lowers the risk of birth defects, miscarriage, and newborn death to a range that is close to that of the general population.
Patients use genetically engineered human insulin in a variety of formulations, e.g., rapid-acting, intermediate acting, and long-acting insulin, to control their blood glucose. Insulin pumps are widely used.
A major clinical trial, the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT; http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/control), showed that intensive glucose control dramatically delays or prevents the eye, nerve, and kidney complications of type 1 diabetes. A paradigm shift in the way type 1 diabetes is controlled was based on this finding. As researchers continued to follow study participants, they found that tight glucose control also reduces cardiovascular complications, such as heart attack and stroke. This research has contributed to greatly improved health outcomes for patients.
Patients can regularly monitor their blood glucose with precise, less painful methods, including a continuous glucose monitor (CGM). Technology pairing a CGM with an insulin pump is also available and was found to help patients achieve better blood glucose control with fewer episodes of dangerously low blood glucose compared to standard insulin injection therapy.
The widely used HbA1c test shows average blood glucose over the past 3 months. The HbA1c Standardization Program enabled the translation of tight blood glucose control into common practice.
Scientists have identified a key gene region that contributes nearly half the increased risk of developing type 1 diabetes, and have also learned a great deal about the underlying biology of autoimmune diabetes. They have used this knowledge to develop accurate genetic and antibody tests to predict who is at high, moderate, and low risk for developing type 1 diabetes. This knowledge and recent advances in immunology have enabled researchers to design and conduct studies that seek to prevent type 1 diabetes and to preserve insulin production in newly diagnosed patients. This new understanding has prevented life-threatening complications in clinical trial participants at risk for developing diabetes.
Scientists have identified nearly 50 genes or gene regions associated with type 1 diabetes.
Many people who received islet transplants for poorly controlled type 1 diabetes are free of the need for insulin administration a year later, and episodes of dangerously low blood glucose are greatly reduced for as long as 5 years after transplant. But, the function of transplanted islets is lost over time, and patients have side effects from immunosuppressive drugs.
The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study (www.searchfordiabetes.org/) provided the first national data on prevalence of diabetes in youth: 1 of every 523 youth had physician diagnosed diabetes in 2001 (this number included both type 1 and type 2 diabetes). SEARCH also found that about 15,000 youth are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each year.
lol…well more on the medical theme…did you know Big Pharma killed Prince! ? ( its all here and why Big Pharma doesnt like marijuana…its free competition…which kills their profits as well as people)
‘New McCarthyism & the Marijuana Manifesto w/ Jesse Ventura (E316)’
“On this episode of “Watching the Hawks,” Tyrel Ventura & Tabetha Wallace sit down with Jesse Ventura to talk about the latest spate of red-baiting politics in America, as well as his new book, the Marijuana Manifesto.
Also, Nick Schou joins Tyrel for a discussion about the CIA’s nefarious links to Hollywood and journalists, and Tabetha and Tyrel are joined by John F. O’Donnell of Redacted Tonight to preview this week’s newest episode!”
well if Prince had been taking medicinal cannabis for pain he wouldnt have been overdosing on Big Pharma’s fentanyl
…this is former Governor of Minnesota and congressman Jesse Ventura’s argument…that BIG PHARMA killed Prince…because Big Pharma does not want to see a medicinal cannabis legalised for pain relief because it is in competition with Big Pharma profits
There’s a subliminal preference for those we identify with. This results in Maori/Polynesian/down-and-out-whites being given XXX and the rich white boys being given X for no other reason obviously than they’re rich white boys. In front a rich white boy/girl.
I gotta chuckle when I hear QCs saying no problem, quite normal. One lawyer from Dunedin shrieking that it was “outrageous” that anyone should comment. Normal my arse. We all know it’s not FFS. This unlucky female officer’s prior attacker got 30 months so I’m told today by a sergeant of police. Brown boy up there in court for this ? Forget about checking the Home D address bro’……
It’s not normal that at least four aggravating factors, in a nasty combination, with significant physical and medical consequence, will result in a sentence three pegs below a generous starting point of imprisonment for 18 months. What factors mitigated the offending so as to wipe out prison, and Home D, and Community Detention, and wipe out 100 hours of the maximum of 400 hours Community Work available to the court – only 300 hours were ordered. How do we get to the 4th point down the heirarchy of sentencing ?
I hope the Police appeal. And the High Court registers a severe slap to this classist, subliminally racist, nonsense of a sentencing.
…not to mention “sexist”…he whacked a female probably smaller than himself….bet the gutless bully wonder would not have whacked a BIG POLYNESIAN COP! ( or he would have been flattened)
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Where some saw the worst press conference given by the government to date, Anna Rawhiti-Connell recognised girl maths game.Nicola Willis, recently exasperated by comparisons to Ruth Richardson, said she was “a bit sick of being compared with every female finance minister that’s ever been out there.”Some think that’s ...
The March results are reported against forecasts based on the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2023 (HYEFU 2023), published on 20 December 2023 and the results for the same period for the previous year. ...
Jamie Arbuckle, the district councillor who became an MP but decided to keep getting paid for both roles, will instead donate one salary to charity. ...
Adding gender to the Human Rights Act would simply make the implicit explicit. So why is it so controversial? Paul Thistoll explain. At present, Aotearoa’s 1993 Human Rights Act (HRA) includes sex, marital status, religious belief, ethical belief (meaning a lack of religious belief), colour, race, ethnicity or national origin, ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, an 18-year-old who’s studying and working in hospo shares their approach to spending and saving. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Transmasc Age: 18 Ethnicity: Pākehā/Māori Role: Student, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Kelsey, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Resources Minister Shane Jones has reportedly asked officials for advice on whether oil and gas companies could be offered “bonds” as compensation if drilling rights offered by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Gleeson, Associate Professor of Law, Macquarie University Shutterstock The Albanese government is weighing up the costs of delivering an election promise to protect religious people from discrimination in Commonwealth law. Such protections were relatively uncontroversial when included in state anti-discrimination ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yen Ying Lim, Associate Professor, Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University Pexels/Andrea Piacquadio Dementia is often described as “the long goodbye”. Although the person is still alive, dementia slowly and irreversibly chips away at their memories and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Judy Bush, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne Adam Calaitzis/Shutterstock I met with a friend for a walk beside Merri Creek, in inner Melbourne. She had lived in the area for a few years, and as we walked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Throsby, Distinguished Professor of Economics, Macquarie University Arts companies and individual artists in Australia are supported by government arts agencies, philanthropists, industry bodies, private donors and patrons. However, it is frequently overlooked that a major source of support for the arts ...
Harm Reduction Coalition Aotearoa, a new incorporated society dedicated to ending harmful drug policies, officially launched today, seeks a new fit-for-purpose drug law for Aotearoa New Zealand, rooted in science, experience and evidence. ...
The Corrections Minister admits he "muddied the water" after he and the Prime Minister repeatedly provided incorrect information about a $1.9 billion prison spend-up. ...
It took a post-post-cabinet statement to confirm that 810 new beds will be built at Waikeria, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Lili Tokaduadua was only 15 when she left her family in Fiji to pursue her netball dream in New Zealand. She’d been playing the sport for 10 years and was offered a netball scholarship at Auckland’s Howick College. Now, in her first year out of high school, the 19-year-old defender ...
The beloved local grocers lost a legal challenge to stop a new cycleway outside their store. Joel MacManus reports. In the annals of New Zealand legal history, there are a few brave people who have dared to stand up to the powers that be, no matter how bleak the odds ...
How what we produce and what we eat connects us to the world beyond our shores, visualised. Walking around a supermarket or vege shop, it might be obvious that everything on the shelves came from somewhere. But you might ...
Professor Jemma Geoghegan, of the University of Otago, Otakou Whakaihu Waka, co-leads a Te Niwha project aimed at understanding how and where avian influenza could affect Aotearoa New Zealand, as the highly infectious H5N1 virus spreads globally. The virus has now spread to all continents except Oceania and was recently ...
Thirty years on from Rwanda’s genocide, is guilt over the atrocities is blinding the world to the true nature of its current leadership? The post The repressive underside of Rwanda’s regime appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: Last week, important recommendations for our criminal justice system were made by the international community. Every five years, each member of the United Nations has its human rights practices reviewed. This rolling event – the Universal Periodic Review – is the culmination of a government reporting on its human ...
Highly pathogenic avian influenza – H5N1, or bird flu – has been flying around the world since the late 1990s. New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands are so far free of it, but now it’s been discovered in mainland Antarctica and scientists say it’s only a matter of time ...
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The following interview with auto electrician and former caver Stu Berendt, 68, of Charleston on the West Coast, came about because he was part of the caving team that found the rare and amazing fossil remains of the giant Haast eagle, the subject of one of the year’s best books, ...
A $1.8b funding boost for Pharmac still won’t enable it to buy more drugs, raising questions about the Government’s approach to the agency The post Can Pharmac do more with the same pot of money? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eric Stokan, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore County If you live in one of the most economically deprived neighborhoods in your city, you might think the government is directing a smaller share of public funds to your community. ...
Wansolwara The news media’s crucial role in climate change and environment journalism was the focus of The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme 2024 World Press Freedom Day celebrations. The European Union Ambassador to the Pacific, Barbara Plinkert, and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna were the chief ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Adams, Professor of Corporate Law & Academic Director of UNE Sydney campus, University of New England Last August, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched legal proceedings against Qantas. The consumer watchdog accused the airline of selling thousands of tickets ...
This episode of A View From Afar was recorded LIVE on May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, May 5, 2024 at 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Taylor, Assistant Professor, Bond University Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures At the crux of the critical response to Luca Guadagnino’s new movie Challengers is one word: “sexy”. The film charts a love triangle between three up-and-coming tennis players: Tashi (Zendaya), ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Stewart, Professor of Public Policy, ADFA Canberra, UNSW Sydney For years, First Nations people have been telling governments they want to be listened to. In particular, they want more ownership of the programs and services that are supposed to help them. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Why do trees have bark? Julien, age 6, Melbourne. This is a great question, Julien. We are so familiar with bark on trees, that most of us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Nasser, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of Technology Sydney PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is an important ligament in the knee. It runs from the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia) and helps stabilise ...
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 I covered the May 2 United Kingdom local government elections for The Poll Bludger. The Blackpool South parliamentary byelection was also held, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanna Grant-Smith, Professor of Management, University of the Sunshine Coast The federal government has announced a “Commonwealth Prac Payment” to support selected groups of students doing mandatory work placements. Those who are studying to be a teacher, nurse, midwife or social ...
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+. If you love a dark comedy: Bodkin (Netflix, May 9)An English podcaster, an Irish podcaster and American podcaster walk into a pub and…make a TV show? ...
By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist A Pacific regionalism academic has called out New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS and says the security deal “raises serious questions for the Pacific region”. Auckland University of Technology academic Dr Marco de Jong ...
How worried should we be about the cloud? This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. I currently have a few thousand unread emails languishing in my inbox, mostly old marketing newsletters and piles of unread science journal press releases. I have a similar number ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nuurrianti Jalli, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies College of Arts and Sciences Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication Studies, Northern State University Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Southeast Asian governments not only have to deal with the virus but also with the false ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Murakami Wood, Professor of Critical Surveillance and Securities Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa The skyline of Riyadh, the capital and largest city of the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia.(Shutterstock) There is a long history of planned city building by both governments ...
The LIVE Recording of A View from Afar podcast will begin today at 12:45pm May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment of ...
The Boil Up’s Lucinda Bennett considers the oyster – from freshness to pearls to the joy of shucking your own. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. In Carmen Maria Machado’s short story ‘Eight Bites’, a woman begins her last supper before bariatric surgery with “a cavalcade ...
Asia Pacific Report A group of 65 Auckland University academics have written an open letter to vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater criticising the institution’s stance over students protesting in solidarity with Palestine. They have called on her administration to “support” the students who were denied permission to establish an “overnight encampment” by ...
The Student Volunteer Army is on the march, generating approximately 1.6 million hours of volunteering from roughly 35,000 secondary school students in just five years. For Rebekah Brown, the pathway to volunteering started with her singing coach. With a passion for the arts, the suggestion to volunteer at Acting Antics, ...
Keeping up with online communication can be exhausting, so Fran Barclay enlisted the help of Meta’s new ‘intelligent assistant’ to respond to all her messages. Could her mates tell the difference? For centuries, technology has ruled the ways in which we communicate. From the dawn of written language, to the ...
Jamie Arbuckle, a councillor who has become an member of parliament, says he has settled into having two roles so comfortably he's going to keep both pay cheques. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong Fifty years ago, Australian feminist Anne Summers denounced “the ideology of sexism” governing over so many women’s lives. Unfortunately, sexism is as lethal today as it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jose Antonio Lara-Hernandez, Senior Researcher in Architecture, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images The COVID-19 pandemic and the hybrid work patterns it fostered have changed the way we think about office space, and central business districts in general. While fears ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Boccabella, Associate Professor of Taxation Law, UNSW Sydney There’s a good reason your local volunteer-run netball club doesn’t pay tax. In Australia, various nonprofit organisations are exempt from paying income tax, including those that do charitable work, such as churches. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Deller, Casual Academic, Creative Writing and English Literature, Flinders University NetflixComedy is opening up spaces for silences to be broken and trauma stories to be told. In 2018, Hannah Gadsby started a revolution with Nanette, asking audiences to rethink ...
The workplace can be a minefield of bad comms and passive aggression. Kinksters can help you navigate it. A friend and colleague recently gave me a compliment I loved. They told me I’d always been good at emotional communication and making people feel comfortable. “But I feel like it’s really ...
Even if some students are now just texting on their laptops. Stewart Sowman-Lund writes in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Councils from Horowhenua, Kāpiti, Wairarapa, the Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington City will meet this Friday to work together on a plan for a Greater Wellington region water deal. ...
Renowned musician, advocate, and proud born and raised daughter of Tauranga, Ria Hall, is announcing her candidacy for Mayor of Tauranga and Pāpāmoa Ward for the upcoming election on July 20th. ...
Let me know when this sounds ironic.
Yesterday the government agreed to commit $1.7 billion tax dollars in a 50-50 share of a fully electric urban rail extension in Auckland.
On the same day, government-owned Kiwirail signaled that it’s likely it will retire its 35-year old electric trains and go back to diesel, with only the promise that it will keep the electric wires operational.
Now of course, Kiwirail is a ridiculously subsidized tax money sinkhole, and has made one bad decision after another in its procurement. So it’s pretty hard to have any sympathy for them.
I would simply prefer a government that had a transport policy that made sense.
Makes sense if you’re beholden to the road lobby.
Strangely this one isn’t about government spending on motorways instead of roads. They are certainly doing both.
What’s incoherent is investing in commuter electric rail on the one hand, and preparing to disinvest in electric rail on the other.
Yep, it’s kinda ridiculous. I suspect it has to do with our delusional money system that makes it appear cheaper to destroy resources (burn diesel) than not use them at all (use renewable electricity).
If we had a proper climate change policy, this type of nonsense would cease.
If we had a proper economic system then this type of nonsense would stop. A proper climate change policy would be part of that of course.
Link?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/313372/kiwirail-may-shunt-electric-for-diesel-on-ni-main-trunk-line
Underfund and run down the rail, and government supports the trucks. 35 yr old trains need upgrade. The majority of the juggernaut trucks look spanking new. It’s a bit like comparing the starving poor and the obese rich.
+10
Garrett talking for sensible sentencing trust in tv – I feel sick and need a wash after seeing and hearing the shit spilling from that bullshitter.
Easy to electrify the whole main trunk and get new rail stock (could even be built here), then could even have more commuter rail eg Wellington – Palmerston North, Hamilton- Auckland etc. Would be a lot cheaper than all the current monster road building (even without the shonky steel which will have to be replaced soon), and also much more accessible to the whole population including those who don’t drive or can’t afford cars. Could fix up Wellington- Gisborne line as well. Only takes a bit of government commitment and confronting the power of the road lobby and the traditional hatred of rail by the National Party.
Electrifying the entire main trunk line is not easy.
You would have to electrify the whole of the south island tracks. That would be a Think Big scale project.
I’m not suggesting this government walk away from cars entirely and make commuter rail the preferred choice across the entire country. They are committed to the private vehicle – with some promotion of electric cars – and I guess good luck to them.
And I know I am being slightly unfair comparing urban commuter public transport investment with freight investment.
But with a few hundred million and some new electric trains, Auckland’s rail could be electrified to Hamilton and Tauranga. That would take more than half of New Zealand’s freight onto an electric system.
It would make a whole bunch of sense for at least the North Island rail network to be run on one mode.
And your problem with that would be?
The only problem with Think Big was how it was financed which was by borrowing offshore. Muldoon should have created the money and then we wouldn’t have been in the dire straights that we were in when the 4th Labour government set about totally destroying our economy.
My only problem is political reality. We have a state with far, far fewer of the executive instruments than in Muldoon’s day. I don’t live in the world of ideals any more.
I live in the world of what is able to be done in any one term.
I know you don’t, and you’re perfectly entitled to that.
I want to change the system from one where we whinge that it can’t be done to one where we get stuck in and do it.
You can’t do anything in a single Labour term. You can try, but it can always be killed within the first 3 months of the next Tory term.
It’s not usually possible to build anything big in infrastructure in the course of any three year term. Mostly because it takes too long to get the money together.
Housing, however – there I think an alternative government has a good shot at making a visible difference. If I were part of an alternative government, I’d give every member a toolbelt and put them to work. Would do them good.
It would be nice if Labour still put practical minded blue collar workers, tradies and miners in as MPs but those days are long gone. Lawyers and pol sci grads are the order of the day.
Hey CV, you forgot, school teachers that get into PR, cant bear too say the whole word sorry. 🙂
And about Labour having time to deal with shite Nat,s policy, they seemed happy to leave a few of Ruthanasia in place, and no doubt the next chance they get at Gov’t, eg: 90 day,victimising beneficiaries partners etc.
Theirs many more but it does my head in.
Third way Labour can go to…
CV 12.01 pm, one term?, have you have lost your faith?, if so join the club. No membership fee, supply your own hankies.
Well, I think zero terms are more likely, myself
Yet another example of government sanctioned corruption…they are truly fucking this country
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201816217/migrant-workers-found-to-have-been-scammed-thousands
John Key’s brighter future is generating some headlines. A lot around previously denied but now documented increases in crime and homelessness.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11710082
Perhaps this poor guy was on the cusp of something special?
So this year we’ve had homeless people die in parks, recycling depots and now this. I wonder how long middle nz will keep ignoring it for.
A while, I think. It’s the National government’s policy to normalise these events as some sort of unavoidable consequence of economic growth. Rightwing people have no moral compass and perversely to them it’s a good problem to have because it shows NZ is successful.
As long as their property values keep rising, ignorance will be bliss.
Well done to Labour for starting this and well done National for continuing it
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/imports_and_exports/trade-china-tripled-decade.aspx
We have been incredibly fortuitous as a country to have the China market growing so fast throughout the GFC that hit Europe and the US, and through the mining collapse in Australia. So yeah, agree.
Would still prefer to see no “unprocessed logs” leaving the country let alone to China. But that’s for a different kind of government, possibly a different kind of country.
Political and labour reform in China would also be good. This would level the playing field for NZ industry unable to compete with cheap labour.
As big a fan of John Key as I am I don’t think even he could overhaul Chinas political landscape
China would be a stretch – he’s too scared even to stand up to Frank Bainimarama.
I know right, he really should just go tell these countries what they’re doing wrong and how it should be done because it never turns out bad when the leader of first world, predominantly white, English speaking country does that
By that logic you’d be happy for a full and immediate withdrawal by western states from the middle east. You must also be against peoples’ struggle for democratic rights and representation the world over wherever that might be.
🙂 Nice one but no you can’t compare the two
How convenient for you.
Puckish – Keys wants us to join China’s political landscape – more corruption, more censorship, more spying, less human rights, more rights for those that know/donate to the ‘right political parties’, control of the media and public servants… list goes on and on. He just wants to ‘be at the table’ with the US too so a bit of a clusterfuck there with that approach, but logic never a strong suit.
It’s not going to end well for the National supporters too when you a tenant on planet Key.
Key will go eventually but the damage to our country and economy might be irreversible.
That’s nice dear
gawd not you too
Yeah sorry about that, at least I didn’t use lol or +1 or something
+100 save nz…jonkey will go where the money is…just follow the money…and corruption..it leaves a comet tail
+10
I just think that when you look at the choices the USA are facing and you look at the options NZ have then it puts it all into perspective
I mean in NZ we have better options then Trump v Clinton, in case anyone was wondering 🙂
Tell that to the homeless, middle class and working poor, Ad.
The only reason Kiwis are doing ok is because of immigration which was great boost to NZ at the time of the GFC, but now becoming a big problem. Bit like taking out a lovely loan and feeling great because you are still getting by, but then you have to pay it back with interest in social services – housing, medical, superannuation, transport… You then borrow more and more to fund it, now it’s a ponzi scheme.
Of course if the government had targeted migrants in the new economy that set up businesses that were non polluting and employed Kiwis at good rates, different story. Nope the government did not target those migrants..
Students, Fruit pickers, Chefs, drivers, property and farm investor migrants…
…and brothel owners…come restaurateurs
Yes both Labour and National would cheer at our free trade results with China. Now about those Auckland house purchases…
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/312/563/05d.jpg
New Zealand values are not all about money…surprising as it may seem to some
Labour’s been presenting itself as a gift to National for over 30 years now. And still going strong.
https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/sep/14/lessons-from-finland-helping-homeless-housing-model-homes?CMP=fb_gu
An article from The Guardian about how Finland cares for its homeless. First, house them. Then deal with any underlying causes.
“That just makes good sense” says Mrs Mac1.
+1
So true Mac. Should be the same here.
@ mac1 (8) .. yes that’s what a caring, civilized nation does, takes care of its less fortunate and vulnerable. Meanwhile in NZ …
On September 15th 1916, at 6.20am in the morning, men of the New Zealand Division’s 2nd brigade climbed from their trenches near Caterpillar Valley and advanced up the slope to seize the German switch line. Then at 7.02am, the follow up brigades attacked down the other side of the slope and into the valley to capture the villages of Flers and Courcelette as well.
If like me you’ve been lucky enough to visit the site of this attack, and walk from Caterpillar valley to Flers via the NZ Memorial, you’ll see what an an extraordinary victory it was in the context of the Great War. This is a doubly important date in the history of the 20th century as the New Zealanders used a new weapon that day for the first time ever in history – tanks. There wereFour Mk.I tanks with the NZers that day, and they were from D Tank Company, D8, D10, D11 and D12.
670 New Zealanders were killed and 1200 wounded in the attack.
I’ve been to the NZ Memorial and also saw the newly erected Irish memorial close by- a round tower with beautiful verse-inscripted stones. The tower had been built by youth from both sides of the Protestant/Catholic divide, in cooperation. The Memorial is known as a Peace Park.
The NZ memorial had its power with, of course, its national associations and the simple message “From the uttermost corners of the earth” attesting to the universality of our human race and the need to help others beyond our borders- that, at least, is something that can be taken from four years of insanity.
The ground around the memorials was a slope which I envisaged the divisions attacking uphill, into machine-gun and shell fire. One of the German pill boxes remained down the slope.
At Gallipoli I was extremely moved by the inscription on the Turkish memorial at Anzac Cove- such generosity, and simple forgiveness- repeated on our Wellington coast.
As a long term pacifist, battlefields still hold a strange fascination for me which I cannot explain. History, sacrifice, (in)humanity?
The common culprit behind so many environmental problems
So, farming isn’t just a problem in NZ.
This is really a simple fact that we need to recognise and do something about. NZ is in a good position about farming in that we can easily reduce the amount of land in agriculture significantly and still produce enough to feed ourselves. The people thus freed up from farming could then be utilised in more important areas such as health and/or R&D.
It’s time we started doing economics rather than finance because the finance is killing us.
Diary of a Person of Interest – by Kiwi journalist Suzie Dawson
DTB +100 … that is explosive …Wow what a brave young journalist…!!!
Every Labour Party supporter and voter should watch this!
… as well as every Maori Party supporter!
…and all activists and ALL New Zealanders who value their democracy and human rights should watch this!
….reasons NOT to collude with jonkey Nactional on the Spy Bill
….LEGITIMISING foreigners and foreign countries to SPY on New Zealanders
….hence violating OUR democracy , OUR democratic rights , OUR sovereignty and OUR HUMAN RIGHTS !
..i see there a a lot irrelevant diversions below from this very important Suzie Dawson article on spying on activists
Is this a left wing forum, news site?
I am interested to know peoples view on this question.
@Adrian – in my view it is, because the ‘left’ voice is pretty diverse.
Yes well that’s what I thought too, the name ‘The Standard’ being the first clue.
The second clue are the types of stories presented, in The Standard today…
“Right-wing mayor candidates try to kneecap themselves”
“Labour Organizing”
“Beware, creepy men of the right: Rawshark returns (briefly)”
“Optimism, determination and, above all, unity” (about UK Labour)
“India’s general strike”
The third clue being their own description of themselves…
“The Standard newspaper – from where our masthead comes – was founded by labour movement activists in the 1930s. They used it as a vehicle to share their views with a broader audience – a perspective they felt the mainstream media was representing poorly. We think the same is true today.
What’s your political ‘angle’?
We come from a variety of backgrounds and our political views don’t always match up but it’d be fair to say that all of us share a commitment to the values and principles that underpin the broad labour movement and we hope that perspective will come through strongly as you read the blog.”
https://thestandard.org.nz/about/
Yet Siobhan, yesterday was insulted verbally and kicked off for two weeks for this comment on the story “India’s general strike”….
“Then again, here we are on a so-called left wing site…and its taken 2 days to get 6 comments. That says something not very good about our attitudes towards the value of different groups struggles don’t you think??”
https://thestandard.org.nz/indias-general-strike/#comments
She was called a nutter, a moron, a gormless idiot, lazy and stupid by the moderator, I mean, what the hell is gong on here? doesn’t anyone care that this abuse is coming from the actual moderator? or is everyone scared of being kicked off themselves, so won’t say anything? or are people here fine with this type of abuse? maybe a bit of stockholm syndrome going on here?
I think lprent is totally out of control, co opting the name The Standard from our rich Labour heritage, and then abusing people like this, all under the cover of that proud banner of the Labour movement is absolutely outrageous.
This abuse has got to stop.
[lprent: Agreed. Trying to attack the site has to stop. Only a idiot would attack a site that they were freely commenting on when they provide absolutely now work or effort to maintain it. In short – a freeloader. ]
I read the story about India general strike. But felt did not know enough to comment on it. I was going to say +1 because I thought it was a nice post. So just because a post does not get huge comments does not mean it is not read or important. In fact when people agree with the post I think it gets less comments than when the left disagree.
It’s the left disagreement that gets the most comments!!!
As for the rant against Siobhan, I think that was totally over the top!!! Maybe a bad day????
If it was only one bad day, I wouldn’t have brought it up. this abuse is the modus operandi of lprent, and it has got to stop.
People on this site have got to stand up to this type of abusive behavior.
A someone that gets banned periodically I have to say that if you don’t like the rules then start your own blog with your own rules
Firstly it is not the rules I am talking about it it is the unfettered verbal abuse that is being disgustingly spread about by the moderator.
Secondly I am also saying the The Standard by their own words have co opted the name The Standard from our Labour history, so can’t now claim that this site is not tied to the Left ( and by that definition Labour) in the public’s perception.
This being the case, there needs to be better moderation of the moderators behavior, or are you quite happy at being yourself, or seeing other people being abused in this manner?
Are you are also fine with the Lefts most well known New Zealand internet presence be known as a place where this type of abusive behavior is tolerated by it’s members?
[lprent: Read the last section of the about.
Just to return the judgement. I’d point out that there are a lot of people who really don’t bother pulling their head out of their own self-referential arse. You appear to be one of them. Try reading the about and the policy and then thinking how your critic stupidity looks from the side of the workers actually maintaining this site.
Banned for a weeks to give you time to open the dictionary in your attempt to understand it. But frankly I suspect that you are way too rigid to bend your mind far enough to understand someone being productive. ]
Bold font coming in 5,4, 3…………………………….
I’m surprised the hammer hasn’t come down already, the moderators must be getting soft 😉
I vote right because I have certain views and one of them is whoever owns something gets to decide (within the framework of NZ law of course) what and how they run it
The bosses of TV3 decided they couldn’t sustain the dwindling audience of John Campbell so he was fired because they decide what is shown on their channel and I’m ok with that
The moderators of this blog decided how they moderate and they decide what can and can’t be posted because its their blog and I’m ok with that
If you’re not ok with it go start your own blog, its really that simple
The more dwindling audience of Paul Henry National cheerleader TV3 bosses could stand of course. And of course the corporate welfare…
from wiki
“In 2011, MediaWorks received a $43 million loan guarantee for the Government to renew its licenses until 2030.[2] The deal went against official advice, and then Communications Minister Steven Joyce was accused of having a conflict of interest as the past managing director of the company’s RadioWorks division[3] The loan was described by AUT’s Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy as a form of corporate welfare,[4] and was criticised by blogger Sarah Miles as a case of Government interference in the media.[5] Radio Bay of Plenty secured commercial loans, The Radio Network covered its own costs, and Rhema Broadcasting Group covered the cost with no interest loans.[6]”
MediaWorks’ subsidiary RadioWorks has repaid the $32.28 million outstanding on a ‘loan’ signed off by former Communications Minister Steven Joyce that allowed the media group to defer payments to the Crown for radio spectrum licences.
The balance of $32.28 million of principal plus interest was paid yesterday – almost two years ahead of schedule, current minister Amy Adams said in a statement.
@Puckish Rogue, You see I can understand someone on the right like you defending this abusive behavior, of course you do, that goes with out saying…it’s part of your political ideology. True to form I like it.
It is when people on the Left defend this, that is when I get uptight.
I think you might have something mixed up, its a privilege to post on here not a right
I have to say i thought the goat comments of yesterday were lowering ‘the standard ‘ by a long way.
Ive raised this a few times [TRP came back to me on it] – some of the comments have gotten down right disgusting. Including telling people to go hang themselves.
In the end – I came to the conclusion that it reflected on the poster more than the blog, but in time people will come here and read stuff – they will come to their own views – but honestly, it is getting worse – in the end the blog will be the worse for it.
@Puckish Rogue, defending privilege, yes of course you do, like I have said already, you are operating true to form, but you can’t help that, it is a core part your ideology after all.
Without lprent there is no The Standard.
Therefore he does rather control the whip hand and tends to use it often, so getting the occasional lashing is part and parcel of posting on the standard.
If that bothers you either go else where or learn to avoid raising topics that bring out the whip.
Some people pay extra for that:
JEEZ
I agree with both BM and PR!!!
Don’t worry, its always hardest the first time but after that it becomes easier 🙂
lol
Lol, that was a good show.
Very sad to see that you all find this outrageous behavior so funny, no wonder that the Left is so dysfunctional in New Zealand when we see no problems with abusive of power in own own ranks.
Adrian as you can probably tell from the response to your observation, there is lack of care factor or a fear factor..possibly both
I’ve taken a look at the response to Siobhan and compared it to some other mod comments, the form is largely the same
Looking through archives the moderating has had a clear impact on the tone of threads which is essentially censorship, and could be handled more thoughtfully in some instances. Certainly the name calling and abuse is unnecessary, especially where moderating in involved
I think your observation is sound
Adrian as you can probably tell from the response to your observation, there is lack of care factor or a fear factor..possibly both
No, it’s about adapting to the current environment.
Something lefties tend to struggle with enormously.
On one hand the Rules state “What we’re not prepared to accept are pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others.”
On the other hand we have lprent calling Siobhan “a liar, a nutter, an authoritarian moron, a gormless idiot, frigging lazy, stupid liar (again)”, and then banning her for two weeks, for having the temerity to suggest that TS is a “left-wing site”, when according to the About “all of us share a commitment to the values and principles that underpin the broad labour movement “.
I think you’re onto something Adrian!
[lprent: Tell me – does it say anywhere in the policy that moderators are subject to those limits? Doesn’t the policy rather explicitly state that moderators are expressing their limits to the types of things that are described. But doesn’t state anything else including that we are have any limits except what is in the policy?
Banned for a week for trying to redefine our rules – something that is explicitly against our policy. I’d ban you for a another week for being a stupid lawyer. However I suspect you can’t help that level of incompetence – it is probably genetic. ]
Thanks, I thought I fighting a solo rear guard action here, thank goodness there are a few sane people left.
I mean how can these people really be defending abusive behavior? and more importantly why would they want want to?
It is all quite sad, disappointing and baffling to me.
Here I was thinking that we were part of a progressive movement, helping with the evolution of humans, unfortunately this type of behavior only drags us backward as far as I can see.
In order to remove any uncertainty perhaps it should be renamed the Double Standard?
Agree with you Adrian, it’s not right. I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that nothing in life is perfect either no matter how much you want it to be.
Yes of course the World isn’t perfect, but to accept something that is in our sphere that is plainly wrong and do nothing, that is the point, do something, anything, say something, anything, but whatever you do, don’t do nothing.
That all these commenters come on here to defend this abusive behavior is incredible to me.
It’s like that case with the Crusaders and the stripper, you know there where other people in that garden bar who watched that woman get abused by those thugs, but none of them said a mumbling word to defend her…why, because those rugby players have a perceived place and power in our society, the stripper who’s she?
That is where these attitudes ultimately lead to, where else can this type of thinking take you in the end? In my opinion, It is really this simple.
And I also think that anyone who can’t put this simple piece of logic together themselves…. well they probably need to take a long hard look at themselves.
Hi adrian, gotten say I agree with yr stance.
A word that hasn’t been used to describe the behaviour is bullying.
I regard this as a left leaning site and as such some of the left save their vitriol for others on the left because … well I just don’t know.
I am truly grateful for this site, the posts, and comments however I find some of the langauge from some moderators to be excessively abbrassive and antagonistic.
Well done in starting this conversation.
I’ll stick my head up” doing a full 360%” All clear, largely agree gsays.
Yes I really do appreciate this site too.
I know that it could reach out to so many more people, especially Woman and young people, if they could only say enough is enough… but no, here they all are defending this behavior….why?
[lprent: The moderating behaviour is to allow the maintenance of robust debate on the site when we have the potential to be overwhelmed with unthinking yobbos acting as trolls. Have a look back in the archive to early 2008 to see what that means. Since strong obnoxious moderation was put in to deal with the unthinking fuckwits of the net, the percentage of female readers has grown from less than 10% to just under 30%. The number of female writers has increased markedly as well.
Similarly the age range has shifted from overwhelmingly being in the 25-35 age group to being wide across the whole age demographic.
You really don’t think things through do you? Why do you think we have moderation? It is to increase the diversity on the site. ]
+1 gsays
I could almost understand your reply if this were a radical right wing site. However to think you or anyone would defend this type of abusive behavior on a left site is beyond disappointing.
Look I absolutely respect the amount of work, time and effort that must go into this site, but that does not in any way give anyone one the right to abuse another person, or do you think it does?
Because if you do, then you just start to extrapolate that logic and see what path it takes you down very quickly.
Is this a left wing forum, news site?
I am interested to know peoples view on this question.
It’s a blog, and it serves whatever purpose the people putting the time and money into running it want it to serve. If you find that it doesn’t serve the purpose you, an idle reader and commenter like me, would like to see served, you’re free to go and start your own one and run it as you see fit. No-one running The Standard is accountable to you for anything.
Firstly, as I am sure you are aware, this site is now more than a private blog, it is, rightly or wrongly regarded, and is without doubt the main New Zealand left news site/forum.
I also assume that by using the name The Standard, and stating in their own preamble…
“The Standard newspaper – from where our masthead comes – was founded by labour movement activists in the 1930s. They used it as a vehicle to share their views with a broader audience – a perspective they felt the mainstream media was representing poorly. We think the same is true today.”
…that the resulting public perception of this site was not unintentional.
I believe people are accountable for their actions, and when those actions take the form of abuse, all while under the banner of an organization with it’s roots firmly planted in the New Zealand Labour party’s story and history, even more so.
Finally I find it ironic that you are using the Crass logo on your avatar, and would defend open verbal abuse of people who are respectfully expressing their progressive view’s on a left forum.
Crass, you know that band that was perhaps one of the staunchest and most uncompromising defenders of freedom of expression that cut a side of vinyl, not a band that defended unquestioned power…if I remember rightly.
Irony? If you’d turned up and told Crass how they were doing it wrong and you felt they needed to be accountable to you and make appropriate changes to the way the band worked, you’d have got an earful that would make Lprent look mild-mannered. That was one of the things I liked about them so much – they were excellent at telling people fuck.
Yes well as I am pretty sure that Crass would never have co opted an important piece of UK Labour phraseology and historical reference as a banner in which to organize under, I don’t think that would have ever been an issue, do you?
So that logic doesn’t work in this debate, sorry.
Just take a concrete pill and harden up, you choose to be offended To argue it’s all love and roses on the left is delusional Sibonan obviously hit a sore point with LPrent who is not my cup a tea but he gave her a spray, so what, move on, I’m sure he has and at least she now not in two minds about his view
Don’t you worry pal I am hard enough, of that you can be sure.
nah, it’s still a private blog run by volunteers and funded by a trust.
As to how “left” you think the people who contribute are, that description is problematic because some contributors might be staunch proponents of the labour movement but not regard themselves as “left”. Some because they might think that label today involves issues beyond just labour and capital issues, others because “left” and “right” are just extremes on an obsolete continuum.
Some contributors here support free trade agreements with greater or lesser equivocation, while supporting improved powers for workers. Others are more keynesian, while others still recycle Social Credit in various guises and with differing extremes.
As to your comment about a mod’s abrasiveness, well – each to their own. Maybe they argue about it on the backend, maybe the consensus of authos/mods is that it’s just good to have an angry dog in reserve every so often, because kind words don’t always work.
It’s called the standard, there is a red flag displayed as the icon, and the main disagreement with Adrian seems to be along private property lines, man that is sad.
Maybe lprent could trademark that flag might be worth a fortune.
And hey yeah, let’s every one on the left just start our own blog, we can have an audience of 1 and talk to ourselves.
I agree with Adrian, and notice that all arguments against his position never mention the history or symbolism appropriated by this “private” site.
Well how about this perspective then: those who created the trust, worked to develop the website and established the process for its content creation, who maintain the servers, write the content and spend time moderating the worst of the internet out of the comments, how about those workers have control over the means and fruits of production?
Seems fair to me.
How about this perspective, those people who founded our Labour party, that built a Labour Party of Men and Woman, who pushed and battled with their bodies and split blood to gain all the rights and privileges that we are fighting to maintain now, they would be appalled to see their own comrades bullied and verbally abused under the name one of their proud banners, The Standard.
I will say this one more time, The Standards own preamble links it directly to the Labour movement, the name The Standard links it irrevocably to the labour movement, that is just a fact.
Because this site has chosen to be linked so closely with our Labour movement, it has therefore surly obliged itself to operate at a level of normal public decency, is that to much to ask?
Seems very fair to me.
Lol
john a lee. When mjs was on his deathbed. How’s that for decent behaviour.
*Mic drop*
How about you pick up that mic and answer the question properly.
No no you must be correct. The stalwarts of the labour movement were all moonbeams and unicorn farts. /sarc
Like I said, how about you answer the question properly?
To spell it out for you, no, many of the founders and stalwarts of the labour movement would have considered the moderation here to be pretty tame stuff.
I gave you one easily googleable case in point above.
Hi mcflock, so…labour did it too?
I am not interested in a race to the bottom be it economically or behaviourly.
Too often it seems people get all worked up at their keyboards and type themselves into a corner. Usually over a pedantic point of order.
No, not “labour did it too”. A specific refutation that our predecessors in the labour movement were anything other than normal people, with normal behaviours. Some of the Fabians and Quakers were courteous and nice to all, no doubt. But we’ve always had our share of fighters and belligerents, too. There’s always been sectional, political and personal conflict in the labour movement. That’s what gives me hope – that they were regular people who made those achievements, not lionised saints.
The polite ones who used manners and doilies were often the ones who owned the sweatshops.
McFlock, interesting point. The great Michael Joseph Savage understood the rather conservative mindset of New Zealanders, even when he and his party won the 1935 general election in a landslide victory, he still had to assure New Zealanders that having a Labour government was nothing for them to be afraid of. Labour then, like now, has always had to be cautious, and I think that’s what some people, like the vehemently critical John A Lee, and others today, failed to understand.
Yeah, rereading about the ructions within Lab1 (just to make sure I had the gist of it right) it reminded me that the more things change, the more they stay the same…
+1 McFlock.
How about this perspective, those people who founded our Labour party, that built a Labour Party of Men and Woman, who pushed and battled with their bodies and split blood to gain all the rights and privileges that we are fighting to maintain now, they would be appalled to see their own comrades bullied and verbally abused under the name one of their proud banners, The Standard.
It’s a matter of opinion. Personally, I think they’d be appalled to see members of a worker’s cooperative berated by someone who’d contributed no time or effort to it but wants to tell the cooperative how they should run things, effectively on the basis of a claim to superior left-wingedness. Because it is appalling.
@McFlock & Psycho, all I can say is, well done boys, in passionately defending your right to bully and abuse people, nice work.
I have learned a couple of things in this sad exchange, the main one being, this has helped in taking the guess work out of wondering who the guards would be.
Well done Adrian for going where few dare to go.
You have some answers to the questions you posed. Unsettling isn’t it?
In some ways the comments section on the Standard has always reminded me of Fight Club. On the mezzanine floor above the ring are the moderators who keep redefining the rules of engagement, which keeps things interesting.
The first rule of fight club is, you don’t talk about fight club:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Yw9Yc1YmY
Bottom line, the playing field is deliberately designed to be uneven and this is an argument you can’t win.
Bottom line, the playing field is deliberately designed to be uneven and this is an argument you can’t win.
The about and policy makes that perfectly clear.
We are strongly independent of any organisation because it allows us to argue how we want to. These days we don’t even run advertising because we neither need to (peoples occasional donations pay our minimal operating costs), nor do we have the time to organize it.
We strongly favour moderators and authors – because they are the people who keep the site running with starter content and effort.
What do you think? That we should favour people who freeload on the comments section? Some of them we will and do listen to. But they tend to be the people who invest effort and intelligence in their comments. Not something that I have noticed with Siobhan or Adrian.
You and I don’t get to dictate how the site is run. The people who run it do.
I have no more power to comment than you do, which hardly makes me an effective “guard”.
@ Adrian
Careful. It’s a well known tactic of bullies to cry foul and accuse others of doing the bullying. Good example: Cameron Slater. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to acquire a similar reputation to him.
lprent has a tactic too – born out of experience. Come down hard on trolls and derailers in the hope they will cease their bad habits. It usually works and for those who choose to ignore… it’s the sin bin for a while or a permanent ban. Take it or leave it Adrian. If you don’t like the way TS is run I suggest you run away and start your own blog.
Edit: I see others have already suggested it so off you go and do let us know what it is called…
PM, no-ones telling anyone how to run things, they’re asking for a reasonable “standard” of discourse free of personal abuse, a la the “Policy”. Question, Psycho Milt, do you think calling a commenter “a liar, a nutter, an authoritarian moron, a gormless idiot, frigging lazy” for an innocuous (imo) comment meets that test?
[lprent: It wasn’t an innocuous comment.
In the last 9 years, it is exactly the type of comment that has prefaced about half of the attacks on this site from the right, the left, and the nutters.
I always ban fools who use it because it is completely stupid and idiotic to abuse people on their own site.
If you want to set the rules for a site – then start your own. If you want to continue in this vein, then I will give you ample time to do it without the distractions of commenting here. ]
I think it’s not up to me or any other outsiders to tell moderators how to moderate their own blog, unless they ask me. Especially not when there’s a comments policy specifically warning against doing that.
In my personal opinion, it must be extremely annoying for the people who do the work involved in running this blog to have commenters implying some moral failing on their part, based on what hasn’t been written about, or insufficiently written about in the commenter’s opinion. If I were to imply moral failing on the part of participants here, it may be that it seemed innocuous to me, but it also may be that the moderator’s seen a great many of these sanctimonious, passive-aggressive attacks over the years and has no interest in dealing with them politely. I find that not implying moral failings on the part of moderators helps avoid such incidents.
To Psycho Milt @ 10.49 a.m. (no reply button) – what you say is correct, and would be relevant if we were talking about moderation, but we’re talking about abuse. Moderation good (great!), abuse bad.
Have you actually read Siobhan’s OP? There’s no way you can find an “implication of moral failing” or a “sanctimonious passive aggressive attack” in that.
Seems pretty sanctimonious to me. Shades of the old “you don’t care as much or as broadly as I care, so you’re not really ‘left wing'” bs.
That’s fine, in your opinion it wasn’t an innocuous comment, I accept that. Whether you were “abused”, arguable.
That you descended to personal abuse in contravention of the Policy (“pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others), that’s indisputable.
My opinion when I am moderating is the only one that counts.
I have already pointed out further up how you should read the policy. It limits moderation techniques, but does not constrain them. In my case I tend to find that people remember moderation against themselves when they are accompanied with some personal observations. This reduces my future work load.
My opinion when I am moderating is the only one that counts. I’d listen to authors, but seldom with commentators. After all it is our site
I have already pointed out further up how you should read the policy. It limits moderation techniques, but does not constrain them. In my case I tend to find that people remember moderation against themselves when they are accompanied with some personal observations. This reduces my future work load.
Other problems for Hillary Clinton:
‘FBI calls Clinton email probe ‘different’ as key witness ditches House hearing’
https://www.rt.com/usa/359229-congress-fbi-clinton-emails/
…”Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was not satisfied with the two redacted documents, demanding full access to the investigation from Herring.
“We decide what’s relevant – not the Department of Justice, not the FBI,” Chaffetz said during Monday’s hearing. “It’s unclear to me how the FBI can prevent a member of Congress from seeing what we’re already allowed to see by law, yet here they have done so.”
“That’s the way a banana republic acts, not the way the United States of America acts,” Chaffetz added.
“I don’t expect to have to issue a subpoena to see unclassified information.”…
Although the US has historically been instrumental in the setting up and maintenance of Banana Republics…which sometimes literally grew bananas for US based corporations
…and now this …money talks you into becoming an Ambassador for USA (irony)…where are the career highly trained ambassadors?…they are obviously being sidelined in this ‘democracy’….which IS looking more and more like a banana republic
‘How much for ambassador? Hacked DNC files reveal plum posts for big donors’
https://www.rt.com/usa/359338-hacked-dnc-docs-ambassadors/
“Hacker ‘Guccifer 2.0’ has offered support for allegations that Democrats rewarded big donors and fund-raisers with plum diplomatic posts, by releasing a donor list from November 2008, when current VP candidate Tim Kaine chaired the DNC.
Among the 500 megabytes of data released Tuesday was the document titled “11-26-08 NFC Members Raised,” listing the names and addresses of some 100,000 Democratic National Committee donors. Cross-referencing the top donors’ names revealed that they were later appointed to ambassador posts and other government jobs…
…The documents cover a period between 2009 and 2011, when the DNC was chaired by Tim Kaine, currently Hillary Clinton’s running mate on the presidential ticket….
+1 Chooky.
No wonder people can’t get work. You just pay now to get a role. Qualifications are irrelevant just the size of your donation and knowing the right people.
…yet more problems with Hillary Clinton
Why Hillary Clinton must not become president
‘EXCLUSIVE: SECRET SERVICE UNLEASHES 80 MINUTES OF SCATHING TRUTH THAT WILL SHRED HILLARY CLINTON’
Y’all Queda’s Gary “fema camps” Franchi, really?.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2010/meet-patriots
New Zealand begins WTO bid to ban harmful fishery subsidies
Although I agree with the action is the government doing anything to end the unsustainable practices that occur here in NZ?
Or are they, as per usual, still in denial?
Couldn’t decide on “respect mah authoritah!” or “protest is terrorism” as a comment but anyway…
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/312885/protesters-at-sea-will-be-treated-as-terrorists,-mps-told
Good God! They really are a pack of wet willies these Nats. NZ is rapidly becoming a police state and the soon they are gone and the oppression removed the better.
Chris Trotter is superb today.
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-fish.html
Agree.
Check it out.
superb; ? he must be fucking delusional if he thinks Hone would ever go with national.
@ b wag Your considered opinion is gratefully received (sarc)
Of course Hone will never go with National, he has far too much sense. But that is a tiny side issue to the main theme of the article.
just helping you get some clicks my bearded friend
@ Bearded Git…yes liked this
“Key emerges from this whole episode with very little honour. Such craven compromising is a very long way from the extraordinarily bold behaviour of the John Key who took up the Opposition leader’s role in 2007. That John Key would have weighed the Greens’ 13 percent of the Party Vote against the Maori Party’s 2 percent and adjusted his strategy accordingly.”
The Obama legacy: teens in impoverished inner cities selling their bodies in exchange for food.
This is happening in inner city areas with high proportions of Black and Latino households.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-14/desperately-poor-teens-americas-impoverished-inner-cities-are-trading-sex-food
There’s that empathy, again…..
/
He’s now up 5 points in Ohio, so they get what he is saying in that state even if you don’t.
Polls, huh.
A new poll showing Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 4 points in Ohio set the media buzzing, but a look at the polling data reveals that CNN under polled younger voters.
[…]
Update: It turns out that CNN did poll voters under 50, but the reason why their crosstabs showed no data was because they polled too few younger voters. Younger voters have made up 44%-51% of those who voted in the last three election cycles. CNN’s sample was made of 18% younger voters. In essence, CNN cut the number of younger voters in Ohio in half.
Donald Trump will definitely win Ohio if no one under the age of 50 comes out to vote, but that is not going to happen. It may just be an error, but if CNN shaped their numbers to get a newsworthy headline, it would serve as a perfect example how news networks use their polling to make the news instead of reporting on it.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/09/14/cnn-trump-lead-ohio-polling-50-years.html
heh
Gotta love sample bias…
http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/2165492/83582279.jpg
Nice
Question time 1 Growth 3.6% 3rd highest in oecd
population increase 3.7%
🙂
Probably bogus growth 🙂
167,000 more National voters
have you polled them?…or did you just ask who they vote for?
Question 2 Turei quotes wrong document
Question 3 Robertson trying and failing to understand that increasing the denominator is a good thing.
Question 4 $209M for multiplicity of science research projects
Question 5 Hipkins flailing and failing -this is embarrassing.
Its like the last election where it got to the point where you almost started to feel sorry for Labour, like watching the All Blacks play Scotland, you know Scotland are going to lose and you know they’re trying their best but you know theirs a hiding coming up soon…
Almost
I’ve said it before but in the same way that plucky Scotland will never beat the All Blacks it now seems obvious that Labour will never be the government again. Despite MMP making it hard to obtain a majority it seems obvious that as long as John Key is the leader then National are unbeatable. 2017,2020 and 2023 are all probable National wins. The wealth of talent that entered Parliament in 2014 will be promoted soon. My pick for Premier at 2026 is Chris Bishop who has scared Trevor Mallard from even standing next time.
It’s not great comfort, but at least nazianal will get to own the collapse.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/tools_and_services/population_clock.aspx
Your wish for collapse is not shared by the 67,000 people who have flocked to live in New Zealand in the last 12 months unlike the many thousands who were leaving during the dark ages of the last ever Labour government.
Does anyone else think the Spinoff has become a type of Sky magazine with sponsored articles? I first thought is was going to be Herald for younger audience, but it’s kinda of worse than that in terms of shallowness.
While I would normally congratulate anyone trying to push a new media platform in NZ away from MSM, but the Spinoff is all that is bad about the media under a new and less improved and even less informed news (is that even possible, yes with Spinoff) click bait tactic.
Had just started looking at it for the Dotcom coverage. But really… I mean meaningless, content free, awful and trivialising is an understatement. If this is an example of journalism covering a man’s freedom here and a test case for extradition – it’s written like The bachelor but from someone who sends the 10 year olds out to court to cover the case for a school project.
If Spinoff is an example of the future of journalism in NZ, I really hope not!!
extract Dotcom case…
Friday September 9: Day 10 of the hearing, Day 8 of the livestream
Hm.
Thursday September 8: Day 9 of the hearing, Day 7 of the livestream
Yeah.
Mockery , injustice and shallowness made into entertainment – seems more like The Hunger Games.
Thanks Spinoff (sarc).
Tightening the noose.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/84296780/bayer-monsanto-in-us66b-deal-that-could-reshape-the-worlds-food-supply
Monsanto and its gmo crops are a sunset industry.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-monsanto-deal-doubts-about-the-gmo-revolution-1473880429
The numerical value published of 66bn may be of interest to certain folk
Mergers are an undersized life raft at best for the companies involed
Chemical poisons/toxins and the companies/industry that peddle them are on the way out, its over for these entities now and this merger signals as much
This is the final through of the dice for both companies
Too many are aware of what is going on and the momentum can’t be stopped on the march towards good health through natural nutrition and healing
Another brick from the wall
“Too many are aware of what is going on and the momentum can’t be stopped on the march towards good health through natural nutrition and healing”
Damn those medicines and vaccines, can I have a double serving of woo.
Nah, you can go wreck your kidneys and your liver with your toxic pharma drugs, the gift of WOO is not for rational materialists like you.
I need some chiropractic for my diabetes.
Chiropractors don’t treat diabetes lol. Also, remind me what the scientific intellectual west’s track record with diabetes has been over the last 50 years? Incidence going sky high right? More cases and more early deaths than ever, right?
You rational materialists are no where as clever as you are narrow minded.
Diabetes, Type 1
YESTERDAY
In the 1950s, about one in five people died within 20 years after a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. One in three people died within 25 years of diagnosis.
About one in four people developed kidney failure within 25 years of a type 1 diabetes diagnosis. Doctors could not detect early kidney disease and had no tools for slowing its progression to kidney failure. Survival after kidney failure was poor, with one of 10 patients dying each year.
About 90 percent of people with type 1 diabetes developed diabetic retinopathy within 25 years of diagnosis. Blindness from diabetic retinopathy was responsible for about 12 percent of new cases of blindness between the ages of 45 and 74.
Studies had not proven the value of laser surgery in reducing blindness.
Major birth defects in the offspring of mothers with type 1 diabetes were three times higher than in the general population.
Patients relied on injections of animal-derived insulin. The insulin pump would soon be introduced but would not become widely used for years.
Studies had not yet shown the need for intensive glucose control to delay or prevent the debilitating eye, nerve, kidney, heart, and blood vessel complications of diabetes. Also, the importance of blood pressure control in preventing complications had not been established yet.
Patients monitored their glucose levels with urine tests, which recognized high but not dangerously low glucose levels and reflected past, not current, glucose levels. More reliable methods for testing glucose levels in the blood had not been developed yet.
Researchers had just discovered autoimmunity as the underlying cause of type 1 diabetes. However, they couldn’t assess an individual’s level of risk for developing type 1 diabetes, and they didn’t know enough to even consider ways to prevent type 1 diabetes.
TODAY
The long-term survival of those with type 1 diabetes has dramatically improved in the last 30 years. For people born between 1975 and 1980, about 3.5 percent die within 20 years of diagnosis, and 7 percent die within 25 years of diagnosis. These death rates are much lower than those of patients born in the 1950s, but are still significantly increased compared to the general population.
After 20 years of annual increases from 5 to 10 percent, rates for new kidney failure cases have leveled off. The most encouraging trend is in diabetes, where rates for new cases in whites under age 40 are the lowest in 20 years. Improved control of glucose and blood pressure and the use of specific antihypertensive drugs prevent or delay the progression of kidney disease to kidney failure.
Annual eye exams are recommended because, with timely laser surgery and appropriate follow-up care, people with advanced diabetic retinopathy can reduce their risk of blindness by 90 percent. A new study shows that vision loss that is often associated with laser therapy can be reduced when the drug ranibizumab is used in combination with laser.
For expectant mothers with type 1 diabetes, tight control of glucose that begins before conception lowers the risk of birth defects, miscarriage, and newborn death to a range that is close to that of the general population.
Patients use genetically engineered human insulin in a variety of formulations, e.g., rapid-acting, intermediate acting, and long-acting insulin, to control their blood glucose. Insulin pumps are widely used.
A major clinical trial, the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT; http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/control), showed that intensive glucose control dramatically delays or prevents the eye, nerve, and kidney complications of type 1 diabetes. A paradigm shift in the way type 1 diabetes is controlled was based on this finding. As researchers continued to follow study participants, they found that tight glucose control also reduces cardiovascular complications, such as heart attack and stroke. This research has contributed to greatly improved health outcomes for patients.
Patients can regularly monitor their blood glucose with precise, less painful methods, including a continuous glucose monitor (CGM). Technology pairing a CGM with an insulin pump is also available and was found to help patients achieve better blood glucose control with fewer episodes of dangerously low blood glucose compared to standard insulin injection therapy.
The widely used HbA1c test shows average blood glucose over the past 3 months. The HbA1c Standardization Program enabled the translation of tight blood glucose control into common practice.
Scientists have identified a key gene region that contributes nearly half the increased risk of developing type 1 diabetes, and have also learned a great deal about the underlying biology of autoimmune diabetes. They have used this knowledge to develop accurate genetic and antibody tests to predict who is at high, moderate, and low risk for developing type 1 diabetes. This knowledge and recent advances in immunology have enabled researchers to design and conduct studies that seek to prevent type 1 diabetes and to preserve insulin production in newly diagnosed patients. This new understanding has prevented life-threatening complications in clinical trial participants at risk for developing diabetes.
Scientists have identified nearly 50 genes or gene regions associated with type 1 diabetes.
Many people who received islet transplants for poorly controlled type 1 diabetes are free of the need for insulin administration a year later, and episodes of dangerously low blood glucose are greatly reduced for as long as 5 years after transplant. But, the function of transplanted islets is lost over time, and patients have side effects from immunosuppressive drugs.
The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study (www.searchfordiabetes.org/) provided the first national data on prevalence of diabetes in youth: 1 of every 523 youth had physician diagnosed diabetes in 2001 (this number included both type 1 and type 2 diabetes). SEARCH also found that about 15,000 youth are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each year.
https://report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/viewfactsheet.aspx?csid=120
And the stats for Type II Diabetes, brain box?
lol…well more on the medical theme…did you know Big Pharma killed Prince! ? ( its all here and why Big Pharma doesnt like marijuana…its free competition…which kills their profits as well as people)
‘New McCarthyism & the Marijuana Manifesto w/ Jesse Ventura (E316)’
https://www.rt.com/shows/watching-the-hawks/358884-politics-america-marijuana-manifesto/
“On this episode of “Watching the Hawks,” Tyrel Ventura & Tabetha Wallace sit down with Jesse Ventura to talk about the latest spate of red-baiting politics in America, as well as his new book, the Marijuana Manifesto.
Also, Nick Schou joins Tyrel for a discussion about the CIA’s nefarious links to Hollywood and journalists, and Tabetha and Tyrel are joined by John F. O’Donnell of Redacted Tonight to preview this week’s newest episode!”
🙄
Really, and there was me thinking he was a garden junkie who gobbed too much fentanyl, as garden variety junkies often do.
//
well if Prince had been taking medicinal cannabis for pain he wouldnt have been overdosing on Big Pharma’s fentanyl
…this is former Governor of Minnesota and congressman Jesse Ventura’s argument…that BIG PHARMA killed Prince…because Big Pharma does not want to see a medicinal cannabis legalised for pain relief because it is in competition with Big Pharma profits
https://www.rt.com/shows/watching-the-hawks/358884-politics-america-marijuana-manifesto/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/09/if-pot-is-legal-we-dont-need-these-absurd-restrictions-commentary.html
Here you go Mr Lazy…
…
https://report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/ViewFactSheet.aspx?csid=121&key=D#D
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11710644
There’s a subliminal preference for those we identify with. This results in Maori/Polynesian/down-and-out-whites being given XXX and the rich white boys being given X for no other reason obviously than they’re rich white boys. In front a rich white boy/girl.
I gotta chuckle when I hear QCs saying no problem, quite normal. One lawyer from Dunedin shrieking that it was “outrageous” that anyone should comment. Normal my arse. We all know it’s not FFS. This unlucky female officer’s prior attacker got 30 months so I’m told today by a sergeant of police. Brown boy up there in court for this ? Forget about checking the Home D address bro’……
It’s not normal that at least four aggravating factors, in a nasty combination, with significant physical and medical consequence, will result in a sentence three pegs below a generous starting point of imprisonment for 18 months. What factors mitigated the offending so as to wipe out prison, and Home D, and Community Detention, and wipe out 100 hours of the maximum of 400 hours Community Work available to the court – only 300 hours were ordered. How do we get to the 4th point down the heirarchy of sentencing ?
I hope the Police appeal. And the High Court registers a severe slap to this classist, subliminally racist, nonsense of a sentencing.
…not to mention “sexist”…he whacked a female probably smaller than himself….bet the gutless bully wonder would not have whacked a BIG POLYNESIAN COP! ( or he would have been flattened)