Written By: - Date published: 4:13 pm, September 14th, 2017 - 37 comments
National again intends to sell off publicly owned assets for its own ideological reasons. This time it’s Landcorp farms, thus depriving the government of another avenue for leading the way on environmental protection for farmers and climate change action.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, September 13th, 2017 - 162 comments
Ad reports on a recent meeting in Wanaka where David Parker addressed farmers face to face on Labour’s water policy.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, July 9th, 2017 - 21 comments
The Government has responded to the Supreme Court decision which puts a halt on the Ruataniwha Dam by claiming wrongly that the protected land was of low quality and by stating that a law change, possibly retrospective, will occur.
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, May 22nd, 2017 - 27 comments
The Herald has reported that ordinary New Zealanders are paying 500 times as much for water as corporations who export it.
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, May 2nd, 2017 - 51 comments
Tourism Export Council: “The National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) in its current form is nothing more than a PR-stunt from Government who continue to ignore scientists and expert opinion re the state of our freshwater. The NPS-FM does not address the serious problems facing our waterways and, in fact, will make them worse.”
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, March 28th, 2017 - 19 comments
The Government will be embarassed by another example of a corporation planning to extract ten billion litres of fresh water a year essentially at no cost which has arisen.
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, March 20th, 2017 - 54 comments
No Right Turn: “The real barrier to National … acting on this is because that “no-one owns water, first come, first served” policy disproportionately benefits one group and allows them to profiteer from a public resource while destroying its value to others. That group is farmers – and they donate to the National Party.”
Written By: - Date published: 3:08 pm, February 28th, 2017 - 15 comments
Under the new standards we have up to a 1 in 6 risk of serious infection at the times that we actually swim in rivers, and Smith is trying to hide this fact by fudging around with year-long averages. David Parker’s analysis yesterday was bang on.
Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, December 18th, 2016 - 85 comments
Stuff this morning: “Lord of the Rings actor says NZ tourists shocked by polluted ‘sewer’ Middle-earth”
Written By: - Date published: 1:23 am, November 23rd, 2016 - 39 comments
The misogynist buffoon, under-skilled charlatan and ignorant bigot that the Americans have elected to be their constitutional monarch for the next four years appears to have effectively killed the constraint of trade agreement known as the TPP. From a freer trade advocate, avid exporter, and labour movement supporter with a touch of green :- Good riddance.
Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, October 21st, 2016 - 45 comments
The top 200 tech “exporters” are now turning over NZD 9.4 billion. This year revenue increased by more that NZD 1 billion. Which is pretty phenomenal bearing in mind the sluggish world economy. It meant that they grew an additional 3000 odd highly paid jobs in just those top companies. Even this intellectually bereft government isn’t proving to be too much of a hindrance to tech business.
Written By: - Date published: 2:33 pm, October 6th, 2016 - 25 comments
For seven months the next movement of social and environmental justice and resistance has been growing. We should be paying attention.
Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, September 21st, 2016 - 23 comments
You have to wonder about the quality of some of the economic process control that goes on for National’s politically important subsidies to the farming industry. A economic review of a Wairarapa Water application for second stage feasibility funding from the Irrigation Acceleration Fund for the “Black Creek” and “Tividale” irrigation schemes makes it look like government funded boondoggle.
Written By: - Date published: 1:23 pm, August 26th, 2016 - 76 comments
We are now at 485 ppm CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas concentrations, up from 250 ppm in the 1700s. And climbing fast.
Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, August 24th, 2016 - 14 comments
A new phrase is about to enter NZ’s clean green image lexicon.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, August 19th, 2016 - 78 comments
Water is life not merely wadeable.
Written By: - Date published: 6:17 pm, August 18th, 2016 - 28 comments
Today, electronic numbers in electronic bank accounts are the most important things to the people who lead NZ. That’s going to have to seriously change. The country’s capacity and resources in terms of food, energy, water and cultural/social resiliency is what actually counts.
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, July 29th, 2016 - 26 comments
Australia’s national interest test applied to attempts by foreign interests to buy Australian agriland and agribusinesses is deliberately vague. New Zealand could take lessons.
Written By: - Date published: 6:39 pm, July 4th, 2016 - 39 comments
Imagine taking shelter on a cold night and ending up crushed or asphyxiated to death in a compressed cardboard recycling bale.
Written By: - Date published: 6:38 pm, June 22nd, 2016 - 44 comments
Climate change is now causing extreme dry weather events and is increasingly blamed for water shortages. But what we are doing on the ground has just as much influence on our experience of drought. As New Zealand farmers call for drought relief this winter, it’s time we looked at how we manage land and water, and the critical role this plays in whether humans can live with variable rainfall in the age of climate change. Here’s a stellar example from India.
Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, June 7th, 2016 - 213 comments
Winston Peters has called for a slashing of migrant worker numbers and for screening of would be workers based on things like their attitude to women. Is it time for a taihoa on immigration or is Winston just doing a Trump?
Written By: - Date published: 12:11 am, May 20th, 2016 - 173 comments
What does it really mean to reduce NZ’s total fossil fuel use by 50% by 2030: a warm up discussion for an upcoming thought experiment.
Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, March 29th, 2016 - 35 comments
So, Key has now come out and revealed to us how afraid the global oligarch class (and their well paid professional enablers) are. They appear to have no plans to reverse their activites to make things better for us.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, March 25th, 2016 - 49 comments
Fonterra was formed to give New Zealand an economic advantage. Instead it is looking like the country’s biggest achilles heel. Time to reform?
Written By: - Date published: 3:28 pm, March 15th, 2016 - 107 comments
Or not.
Written By: - Date published: 1:44 pm, March 14th, 2016 - 110 comments
Labour is calling for an urgent summit of the dairy industry players to avoid the looming bankruptcy of one in ten farmers. National’s response? Crisis, what crisis?
Written By: - Date published: 1:11 pm, March 12th, 2016 - 82 comments
People talk of excessive borrowing in the dairy sector. Of course, the real problem is that of excessive lending.
Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, March 12th, 2016 - 58 comments
Russel Norman was right in 2014 when he said that the Nats were daft to gamble on oil and bulk milk production, and he’s right again now to draw attention to the failures. We need a green economy!
Written By: - Date published: 5:47 pm, March 8th, 2016 - 141 comments
Pundits, most residing in the National Party, just three years ago predicted the economy would surf high on “rivers of white oil” flowing from the dairy industry, but they now have cow pats splattered on their faces as Fonterra today announced another payout downgrade and signalled liquidity pressures.
Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, January 30th, 2016 - 24 comments
Written By: - Date published: 6:52 am, January 29th, 2016 - 71 comments
Is Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler so concerned about the bogey of Auckland’s housing bubble that he is underestimating an equally nasty bogey – deflation? Deflation will certainly cure the problem of the property bubble, but that cure will be at a terrible cost.
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