Interesting to hear that some ACTors have discovered ethics and social responsibility despite their propestity to wear tin foil helmets when anywhere near a Left wing blog site or Party member. It’s a pity their elders, like Banks, haven’t yet formed a socially responsible ethical basis for their existence apart from selfish self interest… like the characters in the cartoon on the Curmudegeon’s blog.
TODAY, Saturday 17 August 2013, from 11.20am – 11.45am Jax Taylor will be talking about the GCSB Bill, and upcoming
Public Meeting against the GCSB Bill (Monday night, 19 August 2013, 7pm Auckland Town Hall, Queen St Auckland City). Tune in!
Most importantly – DON’T FORGET TO COME TO THIS ANTI-GCSB PUBLIC MEETING!
Tell your friends! Family! Neighbours!
If YOU support our lawful rights to privacy, and are opposed to ‘BIG BROTHER STATE’ spying on New Zealanders – stand up to be counted!
(Actually, at the Auckland Town Hall – you’ll be able to sit down – if you get there early! đ
For more information about the GCSB, and how to give MPs supporting the GCSB Bill a message they CAN’T ignore?
Alastair Thompson (Scoop) is still on the case in trying to persuade Dunne to oppose the GCSB Bill, but without success – latest Twitter exchanges https://mobile.twitter.com/PeterDunneMP
however, there is a link there to a NBR article by Rob Hosking yesterday which is well worth reading as it focuses on why small government conservatives should be worried by the GCSB Bill.
Alastair Thompson (Scoop) is still on the case in trying to persuade Dunne to oppose the GCSB Bill….
…… small government conservatives should be worried by the GCSB Bill.
Veutoviper
In the campaign to overturn the one vote majority this bill requires to be passed. Likely National MPs need to lobbied as well.
In the campaign against Nuclear ship Mike Minogue and Marilyn Waring were persuaded to vote against the government. But in that case, the whole opposition was in support of the private members bill put up by Richard Prebble to ban nuclear ship visits.
However, how can we expect National MPs who are worried about this legislation to vote with their conscience. When the leader of the opposition seems to be conflicted about whether he should leave this legislation in place if he gets to be PM.
To convince any Nats to vote against this bill. The first thing we must do is to endeavor to get the leader of the opposition up on to the stage, to stand in solidarity with all the other opposition speakers.
One of the most unfortunate aspects of the whole business is the way in which political parties such as the Greens and Labour, not to mention a few self-dramatising left wing journalists, have captured the whole issue.
This has clouded rather than illuminated the issues . . .
. . . think on this: what will those politicians from the left wing parties like the Greens or Labour do with these powers when and if they attain office?
ff you think they will do anything rather than use these powers to further bolster the size of the state in our lives, then I have an emissions trading scheme to sell you.
Fear is the Key and why this tale needs simple stories
The only way to get people engaged- people that matter that is- Auckland property owning snapper loving people. Is to tell them stories about people like them.
People like them who have innocently climbed the property ladder over the past 5-8 years , people who text each other and email. People who file tax returns that fail to mention the capital gains on the last couple of houses.
Trouble is coming for these people. Tax Avoidance is a crime, conspiracy to avoid tax and to to create schemes to avoid tax sounds like a big crime.
Trolling all data over the past 5-8 years of such people looking for key words such as flipping, capital gain, ‘lets find ourselves another house to flip’- or pretty much any combination of those words may well show intent, then charges are laid, assets seized, the couple are in jail as they are a flight risk- all those trips to Fiji and the Gold Coast will need explaining. And they are now of no fixed abode and they don’t have jobs so prison is probably best, trouble is that the kids are now in care.
This story only needs a willing government that needs to get tax revenue and people who have own a few properties. Anything they have ever said can and will be used against them by the full power of the state.
Now my story is not well written but it is stories that we need simple tales that explain why everyone has something to hide. Fear is the key.
You mean like the couple who are going to lose their house in a civil asset seizure initiated by US Homeland Security but executed by a local legal services contractor because their grandson carelessly used their internet connection to download a bootleg file of episode 1 of Game of Thrones VIII from an encrypted site in Iceland, one afternoon when he was over for family lunch?
On August 17, 1975, U.S. Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC televisionâs Meet the Press to discuss the results of his full-scale investigation into Americaâs burgeoning intelligence capabilities. Senator Church revealed startling information and closed with a dire warning to every citizen of the United States:
âAmerican intelligence gathering capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left. Such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesnât matter. (Prior to internet.) There would be no place to hide.”
âIf this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how precisely it was done, is within reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.â
âI donât want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that (the NSA) and all the agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.â
One of the reasons they are rushing this bill through. With the massive ‘Rethink 911 Worldwide Campaign underway’ people around the world are beginning to Wake Up to the Truth
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
We’ve been meaning t write something on Cuba and the coronavirus but have just discovered a very good article on the subject in the US left publication Jacobin. The article looks at how Cuba, a poor country but one where capitalism has been done away with, is leading the way ...
In 2018, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - two British citizens who had purportedly been stripped of their citizenship by the British government - were captured while fighting for Isis in Syria. The British government then conspired to hand them over to the US, and agreed to provide evidence ...
Transformers: The disaster of the Great Depression was transformed into a new and fairer society by the democratic socialism of the First Labour Government. The disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic offers a similar transformative possibility to the Labour-NZ First-Green Government. Seize the time, Jacinda! You will never have a better ...
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...
Associate Prof George Thomson, Louise Delany, Prof Nick WilsonWhile it is possible that New Zealand can use intense public health controls to eradicate COVID-19 from the country – we must also plan for other scenarios where thousands of New Zealanders are sick – including many urgently hospitalised.1 Better resilience ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...
I was surprised when the prime minister described the Economic Response to Covid-19 package as the ‘largest peacetime government spend in New Zealand's history’. Reflecting – checking through history – I realised that the term ‘spend’ was crucial and the package had no income tax cuts. Even so, it has ...
Years ago the Argentine sociologist Carlos Weisman wrote a book titled “Living within our Means.” It was a critique of Argentine society that focused on the paradoxical question of why, in a land of plenty, there was so much economic instability, inequality, corruption and political turmoil. His conclusion was basically ...
Parliament will be leading by example and adjourning tomorrow after a special sitting to consider an epidemic notice and state of emergency. Day-to-day oversight of the government will be delegated to a select committee. But that's not the only overight mechanism. The OIA will still be law, and (so far) ...
Michael Baker, University of OtagoOverjoyed. That’s not a word epidemiologists normally use, but that’s how I felt after hearing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement about New Zealand’s COVID-19 shutdown of everything except essential services for at least four weeks from midnight on Wednesday. More than anything, I just ...
How much homelessness is caused by house hoarding? We're about to find out. The pandemic has destroyed tourism, which means that house hoarders who put their hoarded properties up as short-term tourist rentals are now offering them on the ordinary rental market:Property investors are pulling properties from Airbnb to offer ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman It seems like such a simple, straightforward, empowering idea: plant trees – a lot of trees – all over the world, and watch the planet’s temperature fall. Who doesn’t love a tree or two, even far more – the right ...
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...
We need to be lifting our game against COVID-19. You and I need to help those working to prevent the spread of COVID-19 while they’re trying to lift the testing and treatment efforts. We don’t want to be playing this game running backwards. Best to play it solidly forward, from ...
Prof Tony Blakely, Prof Michael Baker, and Prof Nick WilsonThe NZ Government must do more to clearly articulate its COVID-19 strategy: eradication or ‘flattening the curve’ mitigation. But to do so means understanding the maths and ethics of both these strategies. In this blog, we adapt our work for ...
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of DisastersThe likelihood of extreme events ...
Last week, the government announced a $12 billion initial package to support people during the pandemic. Today, the Reserve Bank is buying government bonds - effectively printing money - to keep up the money supply during the crisis. Normally such moves would have the right apoplectic. Instead, the National Party ...
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...
I recently encountered the following prescription from a Faculty of Education at a leading New Zealand University. At first I wondered if it was another product of the postmodern generator (http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/), designed to create gibberish in the postmodern form, but I’m told it is real: The “schooled” society: Towards the ...
The coronavirus pandemic has of course had a major impact on individual lives and on societies as a whole. But, long after the crisis has passed (assuming it does), we will begin to realise that its real and lasting significance lies in the lessons it has taught us, if only ...
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...
For the last few weeks, I’ve been urging you to prepare yourself, your family, business, and community for Covid-19. Now it’s time for real action. Yesterday the director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced another 13 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, bringing our total to date to 52. ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 15, 2020 through Sat, Mar 21, 2020 Editor's Pick Now Isn’t the Time to Forget About Our Climate Change EffortsTasha Tilberg, Lindsey Wixson, and Liu Wen photographed ...
by Jan Rivers The article has been corrected to show that it was Ewen MacAskill, former Guardian journalist and not Luke Harding who travelled to meet Edward Snowden with journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras. Some of the Guardian’s well-known journalists who did not sign the protest letter are ...
by Cultural Worker Late March 2020 amidst the virus. With gigs crashing and burning all around it was without much hope that I called a long standing rest home booking: “ Hi, I’m supposed to be entertaining at your place this afternoon – is it still on?” “”If you don’t ...
Whenever people demand real change from their politicians, we're told that "politics is the art of the possible". The implication is that change isn't possible, so we'd better just get used to the sucky status quo. But now that there's a pandemic, a lot of things we were previously told ...
Together: In leading New Zealand through the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Prime Minister could do a lot worse than allow herself to be guided by the spirit of collective sacrifice and co-operation that animated the New Zealanders of 80 years ago. Most Kiwis alive today have had no opportunity to prove their ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
We know some people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Minister of Transport Phil Twyford has today announced details of the Government’s support package to keep key air freight moving and ensure New Zealanders retain access to essential goods during the four-week level 4 lockdown. “The Government is working with airlines and air freight operators to ensure New Zealand’s key ...
New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 3 – Restrict New Zealand to move up to COVID-19 Alert Level 4 – Eliminate, in 48 hours Two-staged approach to give people and businesses time to prepare Level 3, from tomorrow Non-essential businesses must close All events and gatherings must be ...
Good afternoon The Cabinet met this morning to discuss our next actions in the fight against COVID-19. Like the rest of the world, we are facing the potential for devastating impacts from this virus. But, through decisive action, and through working together, do we have a small window to get ...
The Government is announcing significant further support for the economy, workers and businesses as the country unites to prepare for Alert Level 4 in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet today agreed to remove the cap on the Government’s wage subsidy scheme, which will inject a further $4 billion into the ...
The Government is backing the Reserve Bank’s latest action to support the economy by reducing longer-term interest rates, meaning lower costs for businesses and mortgage holders, and a lower currency to help our exporters. The Minister of Finance has signed a memorandum of understanding and a letter of indemnity with ...
The Government has asked the Commerce Commission to take account of the exceptional circumstances created by COVID-19 when monitoring business behaviour in coming weeks. “The purpose of my request to the Commerce Commission is to make sure businesses can work together in ways that will allow them to provide ...
The New Zealand Government has temporarily closed its High Commission in Bridgetown, Barbados and its Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Due to the increasing scarcity of air links in and out of Bridgetown and Yangon, and the pressure COVID-19 is placing ...
Associate Health and Whānau Ora Minister Peeni Henare has today announced the Government’s plan to support Māori communities and businesses in the face of COVID-19. “Our Government’s $12.1 billion economic package will help many Māori whānau, workers and businesses, whether it’s through wage subsidies, income support and worker redeployment, or ...
The Government and the hospitality industry have worked together to produce guidelines to assist with managing and reducing transmission of COVID-19, Health Minister David Clark announced today. The guidelines developed between the Government, Hospitality New Zealand and SkyCity Entertainment Group, set out how the new restrictions on physical distancing and ...
Four stage Alert System for COVID-19 announced New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 2 – Reduce Contact New Zealanders over 70 and those with certain medical conditions told to stay at home as much as they can to reduce risk of contact with the virus Workplaces to implement ...
The third in our new series of charts, graphics and data-visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in ...
The Government must stamp out Covid-19 but also answer questions, writes David Williams OPINION: It’s a national emergency, almost all Kiwis are locked down, and all arms of government must work as hard as they can to find, stamp out and eradicate Covid-19. But that doesn’t absolve those taxpayer-paid bureaucrats and ...
Paengawhāwhā (April) also known as Kaipō or Whetūkaupō (Deneb star) is the eleventh month of the Māori year and is a productive time. Get planting!Kia ora e te whānau, ngā mihi mahana o te marama a Paengawhāwhā.March and August are often our most challenging lunar cycles from my observation, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martina Doblin, Senior Research Fellow, Plant Functional Biology & Climate Change, University of Technology Sydney As the climate warms, the land we use for growing energy-intensive crops such as wheat and corn is becoming less productive. We need to find ways to ...
Helping Low Income Families cope in this time of crisis is critical to their survival says Peter Malcolm Spokesperson for Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc—“Closing the Gap” Families on low incomes need and deserve all the financial help they can ...
With neither a bang nor barely a whimper, barely one week ago New Zealand put being a long established and respected Parliamentary democracy on hold to become a virtual Police state in the ongoing fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Dunne We have settled into a life regime more restrictive ...
Almost a week into the level four lockdown and people are probably starting to feel a little cooped up. To help with this, some subscription services and brands have begun to make their products temporarily free. Here are just some of the things currently on offer.For those with the privilege ...
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...
The housing market continued to perform well through the pre-lockdown period, with properties in all 16 major centres growing in value for the fourth consecutive month. The QV House Price Index data rose 6.1 percent in the year to March, with the average house price rising to $728,276. However, last ...
The District Court continues to operate during the AlertLevel 4 period to deal with priority proceedings as the need arises. For this purpose, there will be District Court Judges and Ministry of Justice staff available. The Chief District Court Judge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University How would you feel if you were having a Zoom meeting with your accountant and they asked “how would you like to ...
Kathmandu has moved to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The outdoors clothing retailer will raise $207 million through a sale of new shares, some of which will go to large investment funds, with the balance offered to existing shareholders. Group chief executive Xavier Simonet ...
The country's banks are likely to take a significant hit to their profits from the Covid-19 virus, according to a new report. Business advisory firm KPMG's latest quarterly Financial Institutions Performance Survey for the final three months of last year showed bank profits had already fallen nearly 7 percent, $1.1 ...
Child Poverty Action Group applauds the Prime Minister's move to go hard and early to curb the spread of Covid-19. And we believe the Government needs to take the same approach when it comes to supporting those doing it tough during this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a paper written in late March to outline the rationale for a short, sharp lockdown. The full ...
Anna Rawhiti-Connell's ode to Director-General Ashley Bloomfield - the balm for our furrowed brows When children ask me what I did during the great pandemic of the 2020s, I will tell them I participated in idolatry so egregious that the Golden Calf would’ve blushed a dusky shade of metallic rose. Every ...
The Single Object is a series exploring our material culture, examining the meaning and influence of objects that surround us in everyday life. Artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith shares her obsession with the 30,000km long Southern Cross Cable that connects New Zealand to the internet and the rest of the world, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Collins, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University To the young and healthy, our new “social distancing” rules may look unnecessarily draconian. If you’re in a demographic that’s low risk for coronavirus, it may be difficult to see the benefit of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Mette Hotker, Lecturer in Social Planning, RMIT University Most Australians know you never end up winning on the pokies. What Australians might not know is that the odds of winning a case against a poker-machine proposal in their local neighbourhood are ...
Sports journalist Jim Kayes was a weekend host for the canned Radio Sport channel - and reckons its demise and cuts to sports reporting nationally can in part be put down to snobbery and neglect. It was never my plan to cover sport but a busted knee saw it happen. ...
The number of Māori academic staff remains disproportionately low at New Zealand universities. Simon Day spoke to three newly appointed Māori professors at the University of Otago about why putting te ao Māori at the centre of their work is so important. Māori participation in tertiary education is steadily increasing. According ...
Wellington, 1 April - Rushing to deal with new vaping legislation during an unprecedented economic lockdown is not just folly, it is anti-democratic, according to a public submission by the New Zealand Initiative. While most businesses and public services ...
As the Covid-19 pandemic takes its toll on the New Zealand economy, Greenpeace is pushing back on industry lobbyists and politicians arguing for weakening and delaying environmental protections. The environment group says that now more than ever, we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, University of Melbourne Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown for India’s 1.3 billion people. With just four hours’ notice, the government instructed everyone to ...
In the new series Final Mix, music journalist Yadana Saw chats with local musicians and listens to their latest tracks in the ultimate testing ground: the car. The first episode is with cross-Atlantic country maven Tami Neilson.“There’s before, and then there’s after.”It’s a prophetic lyric on Tami Neilson’s new album ...
With broader testing criteria coming into place, the Government is expecting to discover more Covid-19 cases within the community, Marc Daalder reports The Ministry of Health admitted on Wednesday afternoon that it was likely missing cases of Covid-19 spreading within the community because testing criteria were too narrow. "We still ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming today’s announcement of $25 million — $10 million for local iwi groups and $15 million for Whānau Ora providers — and says that funding based on skin colour at a time when the nation needs to come ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. There were 61 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, up from the previous day's 58 new cases. Details of how many tests have been completed are now being ...
A non-profit group is signing up qualified health professionals - retired, out of the workforce or part-time - to join a kind-of Home Guard to fill areas of need in the health system during the pandemic. As we enter week two of the Level 4 Covid-19 alert, we need to preserve ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāapa/WednesdayToday we’re practising our pronunciation of the letter ‘r’ and in order to do that, we’re going to practise Māori place names. These are probably the words we’ve been taught to pronounce incorrectly the most, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Kearnes, Professor, Environment & Society, School of Humanities and Languages, UNSW Public health messages about COVID-19 have been inconsistent and changed rapidly. Many have called for a unified source of expertise to guide responses to the crisis. However, with the federal, ...
Tim Pankhurst, chief executive of Seafood NZ and former leading newspaper editor, retires this week after 48 years in the workforce. He looks back on a final week like no other. A week ago before the world changed we were fishing at dawn on the shore of the Rangaunu Harbour ...
MPs and economists are calling for greater transparency on the use of welfare and business subsidies, as the Finance Minister outlines the economic challenge ahead for New Zealand.The financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is set to be markedly worse for New Zealand than that from the global financial ...
OPINION:By Laurens Ikinia A sad story has taken place again in the PT Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mine area near Timika in West Papua on Monday with one New Zealander shot dead and seven other workers being severely wounded as reported by Asia Pacific Report yesterday. As ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the comments from Finance Minister Grant Robertson, and National Party MP Gerry Brownlee, calling on councils across New Zealand to look at their books and see what is possible to reduce the rates burden on New Zealanders. ...
What are you going to be watching in April? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand.Click here to read our listings from March.The BiggiesRun (Season 1 on Neon weekly from April 13)I’m calling it: ...
As millions of Kiwis stay home, power companies say Covid-19 hasn't factored into their annual power price changes, the majority of which kick in on April 1. ...
In these testing times, we’re all spending a fair amount of time on our phones and computers. Here are some simple ways to make that time safer for yourself.As if we weren’t all indoors on our phones enough already, Covid-19 is ensuring that our screen time is going to be ...
As the new season of Kirstie and Phil’s Love It or List It drops, Tara Ward investigates how the gurus can help us with our own interpersonal property dilemmas.We’re approaching the second week of national lockdown, and it’s about now that many of us will begin to have the “love ...
The outside is telling us, ‘I could do that again whenever I wanted. You think about that.’ Read more Lockdown letters here.‘When I’m being a badger I live in a hole and eat earthworms,” the nature writer Charles Foster wrote. “When I’m being an otter I try to catch fish ...
The government is doubling the amount it plans to borrow for the current financial year to pay for its various Covid-19 rescue and support packages. ...
Across the United States the concert halls and theatres are silent. Broadway has shut down. The mighty 3800-seat Metropolitan Opera House is in lock-down. Actors, opera stars and choruses, musicians are on furlough if they are lucky. But the best shows in town remain: the midday news conference by News ...
The Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST) are in absolute shock at the early release of multi-millionaire child sex offender Martin Lawes, after only a mere 18 months into his 4 year and 6 month jail term. SST National spokesperson Jess McVicar said the ...
Our Covid-19 gifs are now available in te reo Māori. Spread the word (while staying at home).The suite of excellent illustrations and gifs created by microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles and illustrator Toby Morris have had an undeniable impact during the Covid-19 crisis. They offer clear communication of sometimes complex concepts, and ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on the Wellington City and Wellington Regional Councils to freeze the funding of their economic and tourism promotion agency after its ill-judged “We Wellington” campaign - wasting tens of thousands in ratepayer ...
Lotta Dann reflects on staying sober in the midst of a global crisis, and shares some advice for those who are looking to cut back. If you’ve seen the endless news reports and social media posts about alcohol, you’d be forgiven for thinking all New Zealanders are drinking away their days ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentPublic health strategy Derek Cheng (Herald): Lockdown ‘not enough’, top professor tells Govt video conference Derek Cheng (Herald): Just when you ...
Spending through Paymark dropped more than 70 per cent on the first day of lockdown, and remained at record low levels through the week to Sunday, March 29. ...
Trump sees 100k US deaths as "very good job" as better than initial forecast of 2.2m; US deaths overtake 9/11; Eight percent of over 50s need hospitalisation. Peter Bale wraps the Covid-19 news overnight.The "deathalyser" keeps climbing: The evil mathematical simplicity of the exponential nature of the novel coronavirus plays out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Gearing, Journalist, author, broadcaster, Queensland University of Technology I’m trying to work out what to do before I end up in a body bag but that seems unavoidable right now. This was one of the first replies this month ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marissa Parrott, Reproductive Biologist, Wildlife Conservation & Science, Zoos Victoria, and Honorary Research Associate, BioSciences, University of Melbourne Tree kangaroos are so unusual that when Europeans first encountered them in Australia in 1872, they were sceptical. Who would believe a kangaroo could ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a great deal of anxiety, we might come to think people are irrational, selfish or downright crazy. We see people showing up ...
Since late 2019, the world has been fighting the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In response to the pandemic, governments around the world have been using data and technology in their efforts to contain the spread of the virus. Access Now puts forward ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warwick Smith, Research economist, University of Melbourne Understandably, given we are in a crisis, the government has baulked at including superannuation contributions in the A$140 billion worth of $1,500 per fortnight wage top-ups it will be directing to six million Australians. As ...
Business confidence and retail sales collapse as lockdown begins; Infrastructure NZ sees 30 percent of jobs lost in 6 months; Kathmandu shares haltedSurvival mode:ANZ’s latest business confidence survey made for grim reading. The bank said there was very little that was positive in the survey as businesses switch ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Government approach to testing faces serious scrutiny, second Queenstown nurse tests positive, and PM rejects curfew call.The government’s approach to fighting the Covid-19 outbreak has faced a robust bout of scrutiny, both from MPs and experts. It only took one sitting ...
Government could enter the construction market in a way not seen in several generations, Dileepa Fonseka reports Ministers are rushing to prevent the country's construction sector hollowing out under lockdown. However, they've also admitted the state's role in construction will massively expand in a way unheard of in several generations. That could include turning Crown Infrastructure ...
Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand is willing to help thousands of people from overseas get back to their own countries, but doing it under lockdown may take a bit longer. ...
Auckland GP Himali McInnes makes a plea for anyone needing medical care to call their doctor.Last week, I wrote of the Covid-induced frenzy in our general practise waiting roomin Three Kings, Auckland. Anxiety flurried in and out, bringing on its coat-tails the marginally unwell. Patients avoided eye contact ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
To prevent hospital overload from the Covid-19 crisis and beyond, alcohol sales hours should be cut and prices raised, argue Louise Delany and George Thomson of the University of Otago. This is a time to immediately reduce the stresses for the health system. We must plan for scenarios where thousands ...
Only a small minority of tourists to Milford Sound and its stunning surrounds are from New Zealand, but that will have to change if the region is to recover when the lockdown ends, reports Jim Kayes.Nonu’s had plenty of walks.The retriever-collie cross is just back from ...
The University of Auckland's Nicholas Rowe draws some parallels between the restrictions in West Bank and Gaza Strip during the second intifada and the current lockdown in New Zealand Covid-19 and New Zealand’s national lockdown means online teaching has become the new ‘normal’ at the University of Auckland. The process ...
As the ripple effects of Covid-19 continue to put livelihoods on the line and a recession seems inevitable, the fate of organisations that largely survive on donations and volunteers is precarious. Current severe restrictions on movement mean the tasks normally done by volunteers face-to-face just won’t be possible, and while ...
The Cook Islands has quarantined itself from the world, and collapsed its vital tourism industry in the process. With no Covid-19 cases so far, it’s now a nervous wait to see if the lockdown will work, reports Emmanuel Samoglou. It’s quiet in Rarotonga. Much quieter than usual for this tiny ...
We’re only just beginning to understand the vast political ramifications of the coronavirus, both here and around the world, writes Colin James.What comes after Covid-19? Not business as usual. The global virus is a disjunctive shock and such a shock sets up a chain reaction that changes the order of ...
Striking scenes from the first week of alert level four restrictions in our biggest city. As New Zealand adjusted to alert level four Covid-19 restrictions, the usually bustling streets of Tāmaki Makaurau were all but deserted. We captured this surreal, strangely beautiful footage during the first week of ...
The tool is targeted at people who want to expose those who are exploiting the options for reporting misbehaviour amid Covid-19 alert level four. It is said to be the ‘new normal’.A new online tool for reporting people who take advantage of mechanisms designed to keep the peace in lockdown ...
Be there 
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...2 hours ago
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...6 hours ago
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...6 hours ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 7 hours ago
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...9 hours ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...10 hours ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...21 hours ago
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...1 day ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...2 days ago
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denial Grist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...2 days ago
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...3 days ago
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...3 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...4 days ago
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...4 days ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...5 days ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...5 days ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...1 week ago
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...1 week ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...1 week ago
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...1 week ago
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...1 week ago
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...1 week ago
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...1 day ago
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...4 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...1 week ago
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...1 hour ago
The third in our new series of charts, graphics and data-visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in ...16 mins ago
The Government must stamp out Covid-19 but also answer questions, writes David Williams OPINION: It’s a national emergency, almost all Kiwis are locked down, and all arms of government must work as hard as they can to find, stamp out and eradicate Covid-19. But that doesn’t absolve those taxpayer-paid bureaucrats and ...21 mins ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ryan Ko, Chair Professor and Director of Cyber Security, The University of Queensland Recently Facebook, Reddit, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube committed to removing coronavirus-related misinformation from their platforms. COVID-19 is being described as the first major pandemic of the social ...49 mins ago
Helping Low Income Families cope in this time of crisis is critical to their survival says Peter Malcolm Spokesperson for Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc—“Closing the Gap” Families on low incomes need and deserve all the financial help they can ...57 mins ago
With neither a bang nor barely a whimper, barely one week ago New Zealand put being a long established and respected Parliamentary democracy on hold to become a virtual Police state in the ongoing fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Dunne We have settled into a life regime more restrictive ...1 hour ago
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...2 hours ago
The housing market continued to perform well through the pre-lockdown period, with properties in all 16 major centres growing in value for the fourth consecutive month. The QV House Price Index data rose 6.1 percent in the year to March, with the average house price rising to $728,276. However, last ...2 hours ago
Kathmandu has moved to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The outdoors clothing retailer will raise $207 million through a sale of new shares, some of which will go to large investment funds, with the balance offered to existing shareholders. Group chief executive Xavier Simonet ...2 hours ago
The country's banks are likely to take a significant hit to their profits from the Covid-19 virus, according to a new report. Business advisory firm KPMG's latest quarterly Financial Institutions Performance Survey for the final three months of last year showed bank profits had already fallen nearly 7 percent, $1.1 ...2 hours ago
Anna Rawhiti-Connell's ode to Director-General Ashley Bloomfield - the balm for our furrowed brows When children ask me what I did during the great pandemic of the 2020s, I will tell them I participated in idolatry so egregious that the Golden Calf would’ve blushed a dusky shade of metallic rose. Every ...3 hours ago
Sports journalist Jim Kayes was a weekend host for the canned Radio Sport channel - and reckons its demise and cuts to sports reporting nationally can in part be put down to snobbery and neglect. It was never my plan to cover sport but a busted knee saw it happen. ...3 hours ago
With broader testing criteria coming into place, the Government is expecting to discover more Covid-19 cases within the community, Marc Daalder reports The Ministry of Health admitted on Wednesday afternoon that it was likely missing cases of Covid-19 spreading within the community because testing criteria were too narrow. "We still ...4 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. There were 61 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, up from the previous day's 58 new cases. Details of how many tests have been completed are now being ...5 hours ago
The Minister for Infrastructure Shane Jones, says building new roads could help address the looming unemployment crisis. ...5 hours ago
More questions were fired at top government officials in the second Epidemic Response Committee meeting. ...5 hours ago
A non-profit group is signing up qualified health professionals - retired, out of the workforce or part-time - to join a kind-of Home Guard to fill areas of need in the health system during the pandemic. As we enter week two of the Level 4 Covid-19 alert, we need to preserve ...6 hours ago
Tim Pankhurst, chief executive of Seafood NZ and former leading newspaper editor, retires this week after 48 years in the workforce. He looks back on a final week like no other. A week ago before the world changed we were fishing at dawn on the shore of the Rangaunu Harbour ...6 hours ago
MPs and economists are calling for greater transparency on the use of welfare and business subsidies, as the Finance Minister outlines the economic challenge ahead for New Zealand. The financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is set to be markedly worse for New Zealand than that from the global financial ...6 hours ago
As millions of Kiwis stay home, power companies say Covid-19 hasn't factored into their annual power price changes, the majority of which kick in on April 1. ...6 hours ago
Across the United States the concert halls and theatres are silent. Broadway has shut down. The mighty 3800-seat Metropolitan Opera House is in lock-down. Actors, opera stars and choruses, musicians are on furlough if they are lucky. But the best shows in town remain: the midday news conference by News ...8 hours ago
The National Party leader Simon Bridges, says quarantine and more testing are needed to eliminate Covid-19. ...10 hours ago
Spending through Paymark dropped more than 70 per cent on the first day of lockdown, and remained at record low levels through the week to Sunday, March 29. ...10 hours ago
Trump sees 100k US deaths as "very good job" as better than initial forecast of 2.2m; US deaths overtake 9/11; Eight percent of over 50s need hospitalisation. Peter Bale wraps the Covid-19 news overnight. The "deathalyser" keeps climbing: The evil mathematical simplicity of the exponential nature of the novel coronavirus plays out ...10 hours ago
Business confidence and retail sales collapse as lockdown begins; Infrastructure NZ sees 30 percent of jobs lost in 6 months; Kathmandu shares halted Survival mode: ANZ’s latest business confidence survey made for grim reading. The bank said there was very little that was positive in the survey as businesses switch ...10 hours ago
Government could enter the construction market in a way not seen in several generations, Dileepa Fonseka reports Ministers are rushing to prevent the country's construction sector hollowing out under lockdown. However, they've also admitted the state's role in construction will massively expand in a way unheard of in several generations. That could include turning Crown Infrastructure ...11 hours ago
Auckland GP Himali McInnes makes a plea for anyone needing medical care to call their doctor. Last week, I wrote of the Covid-induced frenzy in our general practise waiting room in Three Kings, Auckland. Anxiety flurried in and out, bringing on its coat-tails the marginally unwell. Patients avoided eye contact ...12 hours ago
To prevent hospital overload from the Covid-19 crisis and beyond, alcohol sales hours should be cut and prices raised, argue Louise Delany and George Thomson of the University of Otago. This is a time to immediately reduce the stresses for the health system. We must plan for scenarios where thousands ...13 hours ago
Only a small minority of tourists to Milford Sound and its stunning surrounds are from New Zealand, but that will have to change if the region is to recover when the lockdown ends, reports Jim Kayes. Nonu’s had plenty of walks. The retriever-collie cross is just back from ...13 hours ago
The University of Auckland's Nicholas Rowe draws some parallels between the restrictions in West Bank and Gaza Strip during the second intifada and the current lockdown in New Zealand Covid-19 and New Zealand’s national lockdown means online teaching has become the new ‘normal’ at the University of Auckland. The process ...13 hours ago
As the ripple effects of Covid-19 continue to put livelihoods on the line and a recession seems inevitable, the fate of organisations that largely survive on donations and volunteers is precarious. Current severe restrictions on movement mean the tasks normally done by volunteers face-to-face just won’t be possible, and while ...13 hours ago
The Cook Islands has quarantined itself from the world, and collapsed its vital tourism industry in the process. With no Covid-19 cases so far, it’s now a nervous wait to see if the lockdown will work, reports Emmanuel Samoglou. It’s quiet in Rarotonga. Much quieter than usual for this tiny ...13 hours ago
Youth branch of National-ACT to protest at bullying of PinoKeyo at meeting???
http://theirasciblecurmudgeon.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/the-young-national-act-party-members-to.html
Except that ACT on Campus have made their opposition to the GCSB clear.
Interesting to hear that some ACTors have discovered ethics and social responsibility despite their propestity to wear tin foil helmets when anywhere near a Left wing blog site or Party member. It’s a pity their elders, like Banks, haven’t yet formed a socially responsible ethical basis for their existence apart from selfish self interest… like the characters in the cartoon on the Curmudegeon’s blog.
They are worried for the same reasons as everyone else.
Can someone staple this notice to David Shearer’s forehead in case he forgets to turn up?
He’ll probably be late and stand at the back, waving and looking angry!
Will you be on the podium, being a better speaker and all?
WAIHEKE RADIO GCSB ALERT!! ! (107.4FM / 88.3FM)
TODAY, Saturday 17 August 2013, from 11.20am – 11.45am Jax Taylor will be talking about the GCSB Bill, and upcoming
Public Meeting against the GCSB Bill (Monday night, 19 August 2013, 7pm Auckland Town Hall, Queen St Auckland City). Tune in!
Most importantly – DON’T FORGET TO COME TO THIS ANTI-GCSB PUBLIC MEETING!
Tell your friends! Family! Neighbours!
If YOU support our lawful rights to privacy, and are opposed to ‘BIG BROTHER STATE’ spying on New Zealanders – stand up to be counted!
(Actually, at the Auckland Town Hall – you’ll be able to sit down – if you get there early! đ
For more information about the GCSB, and how to give MPs supporting the GCSB Bill a message they CAN’T ignore?
http://www.occupyaucklandvsaucklandcouncilapeal.org.nz
Penny Bright
Alastair Thompson (Scoop) is still on the case in trying to persuade Dunne to oppose the GCSB Bill, but without success – latest Twitter exchanges https://mobile.twitter.com/PeterDunneMP
however, there is a link there to a NBR article by Rob Hosking yesterday which is well worth reading as it focuses on why small government conservatives should be worried by the GCSB Bill.
http://t.co/eNVibE16Qs
It appears this was behind the paywall yesterday, but is now freely available for the moment at least.
In the campaign to overturn the one vote majority this bill requires to be passed. Likely National MPs need to lobbied as well.
In the campaign against Nuclear ship Mike Minogue and Marilyn Waring were persuaded to vote against the government. But in that case, the whole opposition was in support of the private members bill put up by Richard Prebble to ban nuclear ship visits.
However, how can we expect National MPs who are worried about this legislation to vote with their conscience. When the leader of the opposition seems to be conflicted about whether he should leave this legislation in place if he gets to be PM.
To convince any Nats to vote against this bill. The first thing we must do is to endeavor to get the leader of the opposition up on to the stage, to stand in solidarity with all the other opposition speakers.
Until that happens you haven’t got a campaign.
Thanks Veutoviper. Really good article there.
The NBR article is a scorcher:
One of the most unfortunate aspects of the whole business is the way in which political parties such as the Greens and Labour, not to mention a few self-dramatising left wing journalists, have captured the whole issue.
This has clouded rather than illuminated the issues . . .
. . . think on this: what will those politicians from the left wing parties like the Greens or Labour do with these powers when and if they attain office?
ff you think they will do anything rather than use these powers to further bolster the size of the state in our lives, then I have an emissions trading scheme to sell you.
Fear is the Key and why this tale needs simple stories
The only way to get people engaged- people that matter that is- Auckland property owning snapper loving people. Is to tell them stories about people like them.
People like them who have innocently climbed the property ladder over the past 5-8 years , people who text each other and email. People who file tax returns that fail to mention the capital gains on the last couple of houses.
Trouble is coming for these people. Tax Avoidance is a crime, conspiracy to avoid tax and to to create schemes to avoid tax sounds like a big crime.
Trolling all data over the past 5-8 years of such people looking for key words such as flipping, capital gain, ‘lets find ourselves another house to flip’- or pretty much any combination of those words may well show intent, then charges are laid, assets seized, the couple are in jail as they are a flight risk- all those trips to Fiji and the Gold Coast will need explaining. And they are now of no fixed abode and they don’t have jobs so prison is probably best, trouble is that the kids are now in care.
This story only needs a willing government that needs to get tax revenue and people who have own a few properties. Anything they have ever said can and will be used against them by the full power of the state.
Now my story is not well written but it is stories that we need simple tales that explain why everyone has something to hide. Fear is the key.
You mean like the couple who are going to lose their house in a civil asset seizure initiated by US Homeland Security but executed by a local legal services contractor because their grandson carelessly used their internet connection to download a bootleg file of episode 1 of Game of Thrones VIII from an encrypted site in Iceland, one afternoon when he was over for family lunch?
“The spies are reading my blog”.
On August 17, 1975, U.S. Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC televisionâs Meet the Press to discuss the results of his full-scale investigation into Americaâs burgeoning intelligence capabilities. Senator Church revealed startling information and closed with a dire warning to every citizen of the United States:
âAmerican intelligence gathering capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left. Such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesnât matter. (Prior to internet.) There would be no place to hide.”
âIf this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how precisely it was done, is within reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.â
âI donât want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that (the NSA) and all the agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.â
It would be great if someone put together similar to this showingthe Litany of Lies of the National Party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po1zoDvriOU
One of the reasons they are rushing this bill through. With the massive ‘Rethink 911 Worldwide Campaign underway’ people around the world are beginning to Wake Up to the Truth
http://rethink911.org/