Looks like Europe has managed to pull itself out of the collective funk that Brexit precipitated, and is doing something radically innovative.
The EU is to reveal details of a global investment plan that's widely seen as a rival to China's Belt and Road initiative. Insiders say it'll set out "concrete" ideas on digital, transport, climate and energy schemes.
It's regarded as part of the West's efforts to counter Chinese influence in Africa and elsewhere. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will present the "Global Gateway" initiative on Wednesday.
This is good news. Europe is far too inward and rarely outward looking. In a world where America is a basket case a collective Europe needs to step up on the international stage. Trade and infrastructure programs if done fairly and cooperatively and not getting poor nations in debt should be celebrated. This is a way that Europe can be a major player on the global stage instead of always focusing on itself.
Stood behind an anti-vaxxer in a queue at the bank today. Wore a mask but it wasn't covering her nose. She told me that Dr Fauci is responsible for the pandemic because he paid the Wuhan laboratory millions of dollars to create the virus and release it into the community.
I [kindly] suggested to her that someone was ‘pulling her leg’. She didn't take too kindly to my response.
The fruitcakes who come up with these fantasies have had to discard the conspiracy that Covid is a fake and doesn't exist and are instead spreading crazy and dangerous stories about famous people.
I cannot comprehend why governments everywhere are just letting the crackpots get away with it at the expense of the rest of us.
What do you think governments could/can do about it, & what would the cost of doing that be?
Clog up the Courts all round the world proving every crackpot claim to be false ?
(Some of them may even be difficult to disprove.)
Shunning/shaming these ratbags & dunderheads may be the only way we can really deal with them. Arguing with them seems to be pointless; those few I’ve seen interviewed briefly look absolutely fixated on their weird pet theory.
But would our mainstream media cooperate? Nah. Reporting them publicises them but that’s what our media do. And, to be fair, if they did ignore them there’d be complaints they weren’t doing their job & reporting news & events.
My favourite conspiracy theories are those which can be validated by msm sources. For instance, scientists conspiring to use witchcraft to research Covid:
Using Danish witchcraft folklore as a model, the researchers from UCLA and Berkeley analysed thousands of social media posts with an artificial intelligence tool and extracted the key people, things and relationships.
I think that is all a little too deep for your average non-reading modern audience.
I think we need to return to the fundamentals.
It is simple: random inspections of households are mandated, and if any piece of cracked pottery is found, the inhabitants of that household are bundled off to an Isolation Camp, pending investigation into any of their many nefarious (probably) activities.
Some of them will probably turn out to be witches too. Life does get complicated..
What a brilliant idea! An inspectorate. An entire new arm of the public service! Old leftists will be thrilled at the prospect.
But your scheme is vulnerable to a similar critique to your complaint about the voodoo scientists: cracked pottery as evidence is too subtle. It's clearly analogic to the used of tortoise shells in divination by the Shang dynasty in China three millennia back: they heated them in a fire then read the future from the cracking pattern produced. Punters out there will deem this too weird to think about – they're still struggling to figure omicron out (anagram of moronic).
Wait until they cotton on that businesses required to allow access to all can designate a different entrance/exit for those without a valid vaccination certificate.
33 Business or service in control of premises must allow people access to designated premises
(1)
A business or service in control of premises (premises A) that people must enter for the purpose of accessing designated premises, or goods or services from those designated premises,—
(a)
must allow them to enter premises A for that purpose; and
(b)
may require them to enter premises A through identified access ways for designated premises only; and
(c)
must not request them to produce a CVC or other evidence of being vaccinated against COVID-19, for the purpose of accessing designated premises.
Just received this email from our local vet practice:
"As vets we strongly promote the use of vaccination in animals. We are well informed on vaccinations, how they work, what to expect from them and their limitations. We routinely vaccinate puppies and kittens from 6-8weeks of age reducing parvovirus in dogs and respiratory diseases in cats. All dairy cattle are vaccinated annually for lepto, reducing lepto spread to farm workers. Some of the common diseases we vaccinate our animals for in this area include lepto, salmonella, BVD, tetanus, rotavirus, parvo, canine distemper, kennel cough and cat flu.
Our belief in the use of vaccines as part of an effective control programme extends to COVID and we encourage all clients, their families, and staff to be vaccinated. Like nearly all vaccines it is not 100% effective, and this is to be expected. For this reason, although our staff are fully vaccinated, we will continue to take precautions to reduce the chances of our staff testing positive for Covid. If we have a positive Covid test even if we are not sick, we will not be able to work which could reduce the services available to our clients. For this this reason we will be taking precautions to reduce our contact with Covid.
We appreciate that it is a choice to get vaccinated. We will still service animals owned by unvaccinated clients, but it will be at a Level 4 like system.
Only clients that are vaccination verified will be able to enter the clinic. Clients’ vaccine passes from either their phone or a printed copy will be scanned on entry.
Contactless pick up will be available at a small surcharge for people that cannot enter the clinic.
Pets with Unvaccinated owners
We will still see these pets as necessary for all procedures. Contactless drop off will be required for all services including consults, surgery, and euthanasia. A nurse fee will be added for the extra staff member required.
Housecalls
Will only be a service we offer to vaccination verified clients.
Farm calls Unvaccinated farms
You will be asked before every visit if there are any unwell people in your staff and families. Masks must be worn by any people working within 5m of the vet. If close contact is required, we may choose to be accompanied by one of our own staff members at the farmer’s cost.
Vaccinated Farms
The vets will have the NZ Pass Verifier on their phones. Anyone who will work with the vet will be scanned to confirm vaccination. We will record who has been scanned so we don’t have to do this every visit. At this stage we envisage we will re-verify every 6 months."
Farm calls Unvaccinated farms
You will be asked before every visit if there are any unwell people in your staff and families. Masks must be worn by any people working within 5m of the vet. If close contact is required, we may choose to be accompanied by one of our own staff members at the farmer’s cost.
Oh deary me! Just over a month ago, here in the Far North, I was one of a team of four trying to get two lambs out of a labouring ewe. There was myself, the owner of the ewe grazing my land, the vet nurse and the vet. There were Cases in the neighbourhood. None of us were masked. One of us was in pajamas. Some were wearing long gloves. One of us I know for sure was vaccinated. One I know for sure wasn't. One I suspect wasn't. Now a ewe is not a large animal…and certainly 5 metre distancing was not possible. Maybe the nurse pulling on the ropes might have got two metres from me holding the poor ewe's head. Somehow all of us survived. Apart from one lamb.
Another story in the news about a mental defective. A good story for the followers of the nutcase doctors in New Zealand. Not that it would change their tiny minds.
"One of Austria’s most famous opponents of coronavirus vaccines, Johann Biacsics, has died from COVID-19, local media reports. His condition worsened from October, and he was hospitalized in early November. Despite his breathing difficulties and critical condition, he refused conventional treatment.
At home, Biacsics tried to treat himself with chlorine dioxide. It is considered a miracle cure for COVID-19 among opponents of vaccines. Soon after, the man died."
These stories are of course entirely selective. That same site will say nothing whenever someone fully vaccinated dies of COVID – as many must do because they are not at all 100% effective.
It is the glee with which these stories get repeated that is the real worry. To be so strongly identified as a recipient of Pfizer's product, finding amusement in another's death…
When a similar story was pointed out to me I felt compelled to remind them 1/3 of folk hospitalized with Covid have the vaccine in them.
Rod Dacombe, Director of the Centre for British Politics and Government, King's College London, points to Occam's Razor as the culprit:
conspiracy theories work differently to other forms of misinformation. Rather than simply trading in inaccurate or misleading information, conspiracy theorists believe they have discovered the hidden truth that world events result from the deliberate actions of unseen, malevolent actors… This kind of thinking provides a simple explanation for complex and unpredictable events. In a time of widespread uncertainty and fear it is easy to see the appeal in claims that the pandemic is deliberate and controlled.
So folks default to the simplest causal logic they can get their heads around. Human nature.
Being “awake” is a central theme in conspiracist content… The state of being “awake” is often put across as being virtuous and exceptional, and readers are frequently encouraged to view their knowledge of the pandemic’s “true” nature as a motivating factor to action.
In the virtuous circle, the call to action operates as team-building psychology.
Alongside this are frequent moral appeals to action which play upon readers’ emotions to drive them to act. This includes content written in language that draws on themes of war and conflict and emotive articles warning of the effects of public health measures on children.
It's one of life's ironies that those who hold complex and religiously-held beliefs about conspiracies of all kinds describe themselves as "being awake", while those who attempt to be considerate of the structural discrimination and biases that extend into everyday language and behaviour are denoted via the grammatically-incoherent form as "being woke".
You make it sound as if "woke" was imposed rather than adopted. I've always found it ironic that a bunch of mostly rich white kids were so eager to culturally appropriate the term for themselves.
Maybe ten years ago – these days it seems to be used expressly as a perjorative. But then I'm too old for tictok, so have no idea what the young 'un are up to.
those who attempt to be considerate of the structural discrimination and biases that extend into everyday language and behaviour
Clueless PoMo Dogmatists like you will always create Nightmare scenarios for the innocent … zero understanding of complex reality … and a deep underlying desire to scapegoat those poorer than you unlucky enough to fall into demographics you deem outgroups [I mean the sheer arrogance of you spoilt little brats] … and of course, given your privileged social position, you'll always avoid suffering from the mayhem you cheerfully create.
No surprise that several recent studies in Psychology have shown that core members of the Woke / Critical Theory Cult (ie North American versions of you) disproportionately suffer from the Dark Triad Personality Type … ( 1. Machiavellianism, 2. Narcissism [esp high Entitlement], 3. Psychopathy).
Thought immediately of you (& a couple of 'tiptoe around me on eggshells' ex-boarding school girl former authors here) when I read these analyses … can always count on you to defend the indefensible in a particularly manipulative way, with all the kafka traps, motte-and-bailey fallacies & other rhetorical dishonesty so closely associated with your elitist little Cult.
All very engrossing, I am sure. Did you actually manage to find any links to back up your previous assertion that I am a "particularly ambitious & dogmatic local cheerleader" of CRT?
It's funny. I'm not particularly knowledgable about what CRT actually is, and all I know for sure about postmodernism is that nominative determinism would dictate that it comes after modernism, but here I am apparently standing on the parapets waving their flags, as far as I can tell simply because I don't like bigots.
what is actually going on, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the head of the anti-vaccination organization Children’s Health Defence, is more sinister: philanthropist Bill Gates pays Dr Fauci, who in turn develops drugs and passes them to drug companies in which Gates is invested. Gates then guarantees markets in Africa through his control of the World Health Organization (WHO), which requires those countries to buy the drugs and vaccines.
So you can see why the Get Fauci movement has built up such a head of steam…
She told me that Dr Fauci is responsible for the pandemic because he paid the Wuhan laboratory millions of dollars to create the virus and release it into the community.
Partly true. The evidence is undeniable that Fauci approved funding for the work at Wuhan, via a third party Eco-Health Alliance, to work on bat derived coronavirus'. No doubt on this at all.
And at this point in time I'd rate it as 95% certain that the original CV19 virus escaped that same lab as the result of poor operational procedures that had already been warned of years prior. Again all well documented.
However there is no evidence however Fauci or anyone connected to the Wuhan lab intentionally planned the release of the virus.
But Fauci is not blameless either. It's likely he did not tell his boss, Donald Trump, everything he knew about the probable origin and transmissibility of the virus – which contributed to the misdirection and mishandling of the early global responses to the pandemic. Again email document trails point very strongly to this.
'Conspiracy theories' are what you get when people suspect they are being lied to. In the absence of the truth they have to fill the gap with speculation – some of which they will get right and often times wrong. As does the person you overheard in the bank. But this doesn't change the fact of them being lied to in the first place.
But Fauci is not blameless either. It's likely he did not tell his boss, Donald Trump, everything he knew about the probable origin and transmissibility of the virus…
Jesus! You can't blame him for that. No-one in their right mind would tell Trump everything. He is a narcissistic sociopath.
I dunno, RL. Trump was a special case of an ignorant, egotistical, unpredictable lying & generally Bizarro- type POTUS . I wouldn’t want to fault any of his advisers for not wanting to tell him stuff he could wilfully or stupidly misinterpret or misrepresent.
We went out today!! Why is that remarkable? We are out of the habit.
We do almost everything online, but had to get our vaccination passes printed, as our own printer had died.
Well the first problem was a line of people all wanting the print out at the chemist. It took twenty minutes to get to the front of the queue. A lovely young woman took our name date of birth and found us in the system. She then ushered us to a bench seat with a comment "please rest while this beast of a copier decides if it is going to co-operate" I said "Bad day?" She laughed behind her mask her eyes sparkling "No not really, just it goes slow and seems worse when there is a line of people waiting" She was rushed of her feet getting scripts from the back serving and doing vaccine print outs.
She brought ours across and told us we could go to another counter to get them laminated which we did. It was lovely to see all these people being pleasant and helpful and treating each other kindly, and keeping to the 2m markers. I was uplifted by the lack of any complaints or real problems. I have missed people.
As we got back into the car I said "Well now we have them, we need to go out to use them." So first fine day we plan to have lunch at the Garden Centre. Safe outings all.
It's time to forget again that we have an Opposition, or a leader of it.
This country is within the worst acceleration of class and social disorder since the Mother of All Budgets under Bolger and Richardson nearly three decades ago.
All the attendant social damage is manifest in each city suburb around us.
We are also about to enter a punitive world in which the unvaccinated are effectively shunned from society. This will add the expanding rift of the poorest.
We are also only just beginning to recover from the mental and social damage of lockdowns.
I have a sense of a complete world (spaceship Earth) unable to support our unstable overshoot civilisation. There's no genuine widespread commitment to operate within planetary boundaries – the broad consensus is that the price of fouling our nest is not yet high enough for societies to voluntarily transform BAU – c'est la vie.
Johan: Yes and no…. ‘Yes’, in that I really think it has sunk in with citizens, politicians and business leaders that our current economic paradigm and the development pathways we’re following have risks associated with them and are causing negative impacts: that we have a problem, basically. And we can see this confirmed in opinion polls. That base understanding is much higher than ever before. And that’s why we see political initiatives like [the EU’s] Fit for 55 [targeting a 55% emission reduction by 2030], the Green Deal, and the Biden Administration making courageous decisions around Net Zero. So all that is good.
The ‘No’ is more problematic, in that I literally don’t see any signs of political leadership anywhere in the world understanding that we face a real crisis; that we’re talking of tipping points that could push the planet irreversibly towards leaving all future generations with less and less liveable conditions.
So in some ways [world leaders] have understood [that we have a problem], but at the same time still think that somehow we can muddle through along incremental, linear pathways that don’t in any way rock the boat of our current wealth creation models… That there are some quick fixes such as ‘green growth’ – decoupling [growth from environmental impact] – and if we just try to recycle better and reduce waste and stop eating meat, we’ll save the planet, basically! That I think is the symptom of failing to understand what the science has shown us: that this is a systems problem – that we’re hitting the ceiling of the entire planet’s capacity to be stable enough to support humanity.
…
Even if we are not able to arrive at the dead centre of a safe operating space, we know that every tenth of a degree counts. We know that every species counts. We know that every hectare of land counts. We know that even having an overshoot period, so that we fail before we succeed, means that the impact on our children and their children will be reduced. So it‘s all worth it. I’ve never, never seen any justification for giving up.
The social shortfall and ecological overshoot of nations
[Nature Sustainability, 18 November 2021] Previous research has shown that no country currently meets the basic needs of its residents at a level of resource use that could be sustainably extended to all people globally. Using the doughnut-shaped ‘safe and just space’ framework, we analyse the historical dynamics of 11 social indicators and 6 biophysical indicators across more than 140 countries from 1992 to 2015. We find that countries tend to transgress biophysical boundaries faster than they achieve social thresholds. The number of countries overshooting biophysical boundaries increased over the period from 32–55% to 50–66%, depending on the indicator. At the same time, the number of countries achieving social thresholds increased for five social indicators (in particular life expectancy and educational enrolment), decreased for two indicators (social support and equality) and showed little change for the remaining four indicators. We also calculate ‘business-as-usual’ projections to 2050, which suggest deep transformations are needed to safeguard human and planetary health. Current trends will only deepen the ecological crisis while failing to eliminate social shortfalls.
All the usual alarmist fear-porn hand waving – but zero attempt at a constructive response.
And the usual disdain for 'quick techno-fixes' while typing on a computer (given the immense technological structures necessary to make this possible) is more than a tad dishonest.
Don't know whether to laugh or cry at your latest "fear porn hand waving" 'critique' – maybe the horse-hairshirt is compromising my logic, maybe it's the sack-cloth, but imho we each have our fearporn hobby horses.
Still, laughter is the best medicine
A Final Warning to Planet Earth [PDF; Feb. 2018]
In Ripple et al. [1], 15 364 scientists from 184 countries issue a ‘warning to humanity’ and present a radical agenda to protect planet Earth. We, the billions of people believing in human exceptionalism, categorically reject this agenda and issue in return a stark warning to planet Earth. No amount of facts showing that planet Earth is in a dire state will have us changing our mindset, thank you very much. We do not care about planet Earth. We care about our next devices and their latest cool features. We want more stuff.
Btw, what's your response to the genuine question I posed on Monday?
My answer to your question is simple – the graph you present is the same distribution of outcomes in any productive domain with repeated trades.
If you consider any domain that you may be familiar with – music, art, academia – the same graph would be plotted. A tiny fraction of people contribute to the largest group of outcomes. (In this case CO2 consumption merely being an obvious proxy for energy consumption.)
Next question. What are you trying to achieve and how do you propose to get there?
I believe that this iteration of human civilisation must achieve a rapid and large decrease in it's carbon and resource hoofprints on spaceship Earth.
I (and many others) propose that this can be achieved by first challenging the idea that the current distribution of outcomes is inevitable and/or sustainable, and then proceeding to change that distribution; to develop "a new way of thinking".
But, of course, 'we' have to want to change – the behaviours of the 'golden billion', and the examples we provide others, are problematic. Can humans learn to self-regulate so as to not degrade the planetary life support system? I believe they can (and hopefully in sufficient numbers), but they have to want to learn.
More 'fear porn' coming your way
Differentiating the Concepts of Technosphere, Noosphere, and Global Brain A critical problem with Earth’s current technosphere is that due to its rapid and recent evolution, it does not have the kind of feedback loops (as found in the biosphere) needed for self-regulation. Humans are programmed (biologically) to exploit all available resources, but we haven’t evolved culturally to understand limits. Haff emphasizes that the lack of recycling within the technosphere (with the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion as an iconic example). Life cycle analyses of all manufactured products, and better monitoring of input/recycling/output budgets (e.g., for aluminum) at the global scale is required for a sustainable technosphere.
… The technosphere, noosphere, and global brain concepts share a common concern with understanding the relationship of the burgeoning human enterprise, including its technology, to the entirety of the Earth system. Anthropogenic global environmental change poses an existential threat to humanity and there is a clear need for a Great Transition involving massive changes in values as well as technology. These three concepts serve as beacons pointing towards global sustainability.
The utility of the technosphere concept is that it refers to measurable entities, and formally meshes with the existing Earth system science paradigm. Given that humans are only part of the technosphere, and a part does not control the whole, awareness of the technosphere argues against hubris. However, the technosphere concept doesn’t engage the host of psychological and sociological issues that must be addressed to rapidly alter the Earth system trajectory. It helps reveal the danger humanity faces but doesn’t foster a worldview that will ameliorate the danger.
Why do you think scientists are sounding alarm bells it in such numbers Red? Are they all misguided – is it only you that sees clearly?
Are you part of the solution, or part of the problem?
If I was to continue comsuming at the rate I have been for most of my life then I would certainly be setting a bad example. It's eye-opening to realise just how many ways there are for a relatively affluent person such as myself to shrink my footprint – no more international travel, and more walking (which I enjoy, so it's a win-win) – you can't take it with you. I'm still part of the problem, but aiming to be a smaller part.
Imho, given the state of spaceship Earth, only the one-eyed could view changing to 'shrink and share' lifestyles as contributing to the problem.
“If change across society is to be brought about at the speed and scale required to meet agreed climate targets we need to shrink and share: reduce carbon budgets and share more equally. To radically reduce our emissions, governments must look closely at the lifestyles and behaviours of the most affluent in society – the ‘polluter elite’ – who travel the most, own the largest homes and can often pay for the privilege of polluting. Not only will targeting the polluter elite deliver substantial emissions savings, but it will also show wider society that we really are all in this together and that the transition to a low-carbon society must be fair and just – with all of us pulling our weight.” https://council.science/current/blog/target-high-carbon-emitters-to-accelerate-green-transition-say-leading-experts-on-behavioural-change/
Why do you think scientists are sounding alarm bells it in such numbers Red? Are they all misguided
When the alarm bell keep on being rung year in year out – and the same scientists reject all viable responses to the crisis – then yes they are misguiding us. And I'm certainly not the only one to see this.
and the same scientists reject all viable responses to the crisis
If you say so. I'd hazard a guess that you believe your responses are the only viable ones – we can agree to disagree, although (as I've mentioned before), I don't hold out much hope that either your or other responses will be enacted in a timely fashion.
Doesn't frighten me personally, but I do fear for future generations – is that wrong?
The income line especially is laughable…what could you buy with 10 cents in the 60's?
Immediately under the graph's title is this:
Total output of the world economy; adjusted for inflation and expressed in international-$ in 2011 prices.
The western countries lept ahead through colonisation/empire as they exploited the countries on the other end of the scale.
What rule said that the all world would all develop at exactly the same time and at the same rate? I'm not deaf to the question you pose here. As scifi author William Gibson once said – 'the future has already arrived, it's just not very evenly distributed'.
The challenge to a progressive post-marxist left must be this; how to ensure this future is universally accessible to all. You’re invited to talk constructively to this.
You ‘framed’ my presentation of Rosling's quote as "sentimentality".
You then ‘framed’ my observation of your human exceptionalism as "a choice between killing people and killing polar bears" – whatever next?
Do you really believe that our incredibly gifted species will be faced with the choice of killing people versus the extinction of polar bears? Bizarre.
It's hardly a 'disclaimer' – for such a graph to have any meaning at all it will always be inflation adjusted. The team at Our World in Data are not idiots.
And as Hans Rosling clearly shows – in a broad historic context – all of us 'golden 1b' who live in the developed world are among the luckiest bastards who ever lived. We could all be a lot more grateful for this than we typically are.
You might want to ask yourself – the people who sold you the agenda of misery that is so often conflated with being a good leftie – who is benefitting from this? Not you, not the poor – who?
So are you assuming its figures adjusted for inflation 10 years ago?
I'm not 'assuming' anything – the statement speaks for itself. Nor does it matter what year is used as the reference point – as long as the data is all adjusted to the same year the shape of the graph will remain the same.
I can accept you subscribe to an 'I'm alright …Jack' attitude ,many do not.
I've written extensively here over many years – that you have failed to understand it is not my problem.
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The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Seeing that, in order to discredit the figures and achieve moral superiority while attempting to deflect attention away from the military assault on Rafa, Israel supporters in NZ have seized on reports that casualty numbers in Gaza may be inflated … Continue reading → ...
David Farrar writes – Newstalk ZB report: The man responsible for a horror hit and run in central Wellington last year was on a suspended licence and was so drunk he later asked police, “Did I kill someone?” Jason Tuitama injured two women when he ran a red ...
Muriel Newman writes – Former US President Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” The fight for ...
Why Courts should have said Waitangi Tribunal could not summons Karen Chhour Gary Judd writes – In the High Court, Justice Isacs declined to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to compel Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, to appear before it to be ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The number of voices raising concerns about the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill is rapidly growing. This is especially apparent now that Parliament’s select committee is listening to submissions from the public to evaluate the proposed legislation. Twenty-seven thousand submissions have been made to Parliament ...
An average of 166 New Zealand citizens left the country every day during the March quarter, up 54% from a year ago.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy and housing market is sinking into a longer recession through the winter after a slump in business and consumer confidence in ...
The government has made it abundantly clear they’re addicted to the smell of new asphalt. On Tuesday they introduced a new term to the country’s roading lexicon, the Roads of Regional Significance (RoRS), a little brother for the Roads of National (Party) Significance (RoNS). Driving ahead with Roads of Regional ...
School is outAnd I walk the empty hallwaysI walk aloneAlone as alwaysThere's so many lucky penniesLying on the floorBut where the hell are all the lucky peopleI can't see them any moreYesterday morning, I’d just sent out my newsletter on Tama Potaka, and I was struggling to make the coffee. ...
Hi,I wanted to check in and ask how you’re doing.This is perhaps a selfish act, of attempting to find others feeling a similar way to me — that is to say, a little hopeless at the moment.Misery loves company, that sort of deal.Some context.I wish I could say I got ...
I have hitherto been fairly quiet on the new season of Rings of Power, on the basis that the underwhelming first season did not exactly build excitement – and the rumours were fairly daft. The only real thing of substance to come out has been that they have re-cast Adar ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
“The thing is,” Chris Luxon says, leaning forward to make his point, “this has always been my thing.”“This goes all the way back to the first multinational I worked for. I was saying exactly the same thing back then. The name of our business needs to be more clear; people ...
Buzz from the Beehive It’s been a momentous few days for Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court decision which blocked a summons order from the Waitangi Tribunal for her. And today she has announced the Government is putting children first by introducing to ...
In 2014 former Australian army lawyer David McBride leaked classified military documents about Australian war crimes to the ABC. Dubbed "The Afghan Files", the documents led to an explosive report on Australian war crimes, the disbanding of an entire SAS unit, and multiple ongoing prosecutions. The journalist who wrote the ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – According to the respected Pew Research Centre, “In seven of eight [European] countries surveyed, the most trusted news outlet asked about is the public news organization in each country”. For example, “in Sweden, an overwhelming majority (90%) say they trust the public broadcaster SVT”. ...
David Farrar writes – Kata MacNamara reports: Details of Tony Blakely’s involvement in the New Zealand Government’s response to the pandemic raise serious questions about the work of the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry over which he presides. It has long been clear that Blakely, a ...
Chris Trotter writes – Are you a Brahmin or a Merchant? Or, are you merely one of those whose lives are profoundly influenced by the decisions of Brahmins and Merchants? Those are the questions that are currently shaping the politics of New Zealand and the entire West. ...
RNZ reports – It’s supposed to be a haven of healing and spiritual awakening but residents of the Kawai Purapura community say they’ve been hurt and deceived. It’s the successor to the former Centrepoint commune, and has been on the bush block opposite Albany shopping centre since 2008. It ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. Usually we have a video chat to go with this wrap, but were unable to do one this week. We’ll be back next week.Several reports ...
The Transport Minister has set a hard 'fiscal envelope' of $6.54 billion for transport capital spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy is settling into a state of suspended animation as the Government’s funding freezes and job cuts chill confidence and combine with stubbornly high interest rates to ...
To be precise, the term “anti- Zionism” refers to (a) criticism of the political movement that created a modern Jewish state on the historical land of Israel, and to (b)the subjugation of Palestinians by the Israeli state. By contrast, the term “anti-Semitism” means bigotry and racism directed at Jewish people, ...
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Because hurricanes are one of the big-ticket weather disasters that humanity has to face, climate misinformers spend a lot of effort muddying the waters on whether climate change is making hurricanes more damaging. With the official start to the hurricane ...
Yesterday the Mayor released what he calls his “plan to save public transport” which is part of his final proposal for the Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP). This comes following consultation on the draft version that occurred in March which showed, once again, that people want more done on transport, especially ...
And it's a pleasure that I have knownAnd it's a treasure that I have gainedAotearoa’s coalition government is fragile. It’s held together by the obsequious sycophancy of Christopher Luxon, who willingly contorts his party into the fringe positions of his junior coalition partners and is unwilling to contradict them. The ...
The Select Committee hearing submissions on the fast-track consenting legislation is starting to become a beat-up of regional councils. The inflexibility and slow workings of the Councils were prominent in two submissions yesterday. One, from the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association, simply said that the Waikato Regional Council’s planning decisions were ...
Back in April, the High Court surprised everyone by ruling that Ministers are above the law, at least as far as the Waitangi Tribunal is concerned. The reason for this ruling was "comity" - the idea that the different branches of government shouldn't interfere with each other's functions. Which makes ...
Buzz from the BeehiveTolling was mentioned when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the government was re-introducing the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme, with 15 “crucial” projects to support economic growth and regional development across New Zealand. All RoNS would be four-laned, grade-separated highways, and all funding, financing, and ...
or the past 14 years, ever since the Spanish government cheated on an autonomy deal, Catalonia has reliably given pro-independence parties a majority of seats in their regional parliament. But now that seems to be over. Catalans went to the polls yesterday, and stripped the Catalan parties of their majority. ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ report: Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the Electoral Commission should make sure the system ran smoothly and “taking away the right of thousands of people to vote” was not the answer. “Thousands of people enroled and voted on the day. If ...
Don Brash writes – There was a rather revealing headline in the Herald on Sunday today (12 May). It read “One in 8 Auckland homes on market were bought during boom, may now sell for loss”. The first line of text noted that “New data shows one in ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – At a time when universities are understandably nervous regarding the establishment of the University Advisory Group (UAG) and the Science System Advisory Group (SSAG) it may seem strange – or even fool-hardy – to state that there are long-standing issues in the tertiary sector ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
SPECIAL REPORT:Islands Business in Suva Today is the 24th anniversary of renegade and failed businessman George Speight’s coup in 2000 Fiji. The elected coalition government headed by Mahendra Chaudhry, the first and only Indo-Fijian prime minister of Fiji, was held hostage at gunpoint for 56 days in the country’s ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist and Kelvin Anthony, RNZ Pacific digital journalist Police have used tear gas and stun grenades on rioters at an airport near Nouméa as the chaos in New Caledonia stretched into its sixth day. Five people, including two police officers, have died and hundreds of ...
Asia Pacific ReportThe global human rights watchdog Amnesty International has called on France to not “misuse” a crackdown in the ongoing unrest in the non-self-governing French Pacific territory of Kanaky New Caledonia in the wake of a controversial vote by the French Parliament to adopt a bill changing the territory’s ...
A major provider of school lunches fears the government's new $3 limit for most students will see them eating more pre-packaged and processed food. ...
The star of Dark City: The Cleaner takes us through his life in TV, including the VHS revolution and the John Campbell impression that started it all. Best known for his comedic roles, Cohen Holloway says he struggled at times to maintain the stone cold facade of serial killer on ...
David Hill remembers an old friend, who you’ve probably never heard of. My friend Doug never travelled; he had little interest in the world beyond his own tiny rural town. I’ve rarely known anyone who radiated such contentment. Doug (I’ll call him that) died in March. You won’t know him. ...
Some of the earliest photos of life in Aotearoa are on display at Auckland Museum right now – but the identities of some of the people in them are a mystery.What was it like to be one of the first people in New Zealand to have their photo taken? ...
Since its founding almost a decade ago, Featherston Booktown has grown into one of the country’s most interesting and idiosyncratic literary events. Erin Banks reports from the audience. “Come in, have you had lunch? I’m about to make a cheese toastie.” Mary Biggs, operations manager of Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival, ...
After 33 years abroad, Loveni Enari recently returned to Aotearoa and Samoa in what a friend joked was an “existential crisis”. He learnt and re-learnt so much about his family, friends and both countries. Almost as an afterthought, he got a Samoan tatau. This is his story. (Accompanying it are ...
Nearly 30 years ago, two people told me they’d killed a woman they knew. I thought the truth would come out, that others would tell it. In the end, I had to. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Fact: in 1995, Angela Blackmoore ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman looks back at the week and shines a light on some increasingly rare longform journalism. Mōrena and welcome to The Weekend where there will sadly be no aurora to see. After a busy week last week of short, sharp pieces, this week we swung the other way, ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a revered Kanak visionary, was inspirational to indigenous Pacific political activists across Oceania, just like Tongan anthropologist and writer Epeli Hao’ofa was to cultural advocates. Tragically, he was assassinated in 1989 by an opponent within the independence movement during ...
Forget thin is in, apparently now bigger is better … or is it? After over a decade of body positivity, girls, teens and women are even more confused about what body positivity actually is. The movement began with women confronting unrealistic expectations of how their bodies should look. But sub-strands ...
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Looks like Europe has managed to pull itself out of the collective funk that Brexit precipitated, and is doing something radically innovative.
This is good news. Europe is far too inward and rarely outward looking. In a world where America is a basket case a collective Europe needs to step up on the international stage. Trade and infrastructure programs if done fairly and cooperatively and not getting poor nations in debt should be celebrated. This is a way that Europe can be a major player on the global stage instead of always focusing on itself.
Stood behind an anti-vaxxer in a queue at the bank today. Wore a mask but it wasn't covering her nose. She told me that Dr Fauci is responsible for the pandemic because he paid the Wuhan laboratory millions of dollars to create the virus and release it into the community.
I [kindly] suggested to her that someone was ‘pulling her leg’. She didn't take too kindly to my response.
The fruitcakes who come up with these fantasies have had to discard the conspiracy that Covid is a fake and doesn't exist and are instead spreading crazy and dangerous stories about famous people.
I cannot comprehend why governments everywhere are just letting the crackpots get away with it at the expense of the rest of us.
Must say I'm really over them – how did we manage so many nutters? And its going to get worse come Friday!
What do you think governments could/can do about it, & what would the cost of doing that be?
Clog up the Courts all round the world proving every crackpot claim to be false ?
(Some of them may even be difficult to disprove.)
Shunning/shaming these ratbags & dunderheads may be the only way we can really deal with them. Arguing with them seems to be pointless; those few I’ve seen interviewed briefly look absolutely fixated on their weird pet theory.
But would our mainstream media cooperate? Nah. Reporting them publicises them but that’s what our media do. And, to be fair, if they did ignore them there’d be complaints they weren’t doing their job & reporting news & events.
My favourite conspiracy theories are those which can be validated by msm sources. For instance, scientists conspiring to use witchcraft to research Covid:
Sorry Dennis
I think that is all a little too deep for your average non-reading modern audience.
I think we need to return to the fundamentals.
It is simple: random inspections of households are mandated, and if any piece of cracked pottery is found, the inhabitants of that household are bundled off to an Isolation Camp, pending investigation into any of their many nefarious (probably) activities.
Some of them will probably turn out to be witches too. Life does get complicated..
What a brilliant idea! An inspectorate. An entire new arm of the public service! Old leftists will be thrilled at the prospect.
But your scheme is vulnerable to a similar critique to your complaint about the voodoo scientists: cracked pottery as evidence is too subtle. It's clearly analogic to the used of tortoise shells in divination by the Shang dynasty in China three millennia back: they heated them in a fire then read the future from the cracking pattern produced. Punters out there will deem this too weird to think about – they're still struggling to figure omicron out (anagram of moronic).
Wait until they cotton on that businesses required to allow access to all can designate a different entrance/exit for those without a valid vaccination certificate.
33 Business or service in control of premises must allow people access to designated premises
(1)
A business or service in control of premises (premises A) that people must enter for the purpose of accessing designated premises, or goods or services from those designated premises,—
(a)
must allow them to enter premises A for that purpose; and
(b)
may require them to enter premises A through identified access ways for designated premises only; and
(c)
must not request them to produce a CVC or other evidence of being vaccinated against COVID-19, for the purpose of accessing designated premises.
(2)
This clause is subject to the Trespass Act 1980.
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2021/0386/latest/LMS591898.html
Just received this email from our local vet practice:
Farm calls
Unvaccinated farms
You will be asked before every visit if there are any unwell people in your staff and families. Masks must be worn by any people working within 5m of the vet. If close contact is required, we may choose to be accompanied by one of our own staff members at the farmer’s cost.
Oh deary me! Just over a month ago, here in the Far North, I was one of a team of four trying to get two lambs out of a labouring ewe. There was myself, the owner of the ewe grazing my land, the vet nurse and the vet. There were Cases in the neighbourhood. None of us were masked. One of us was in pajamas. Some were wearing long gloves. One of us I know for sure was vaccinated. One I know for sure wasn't. One I suspect wasn't. Now a ewe is not a large animal…and certainly 5 metre distancing was not possible. Maybe the nurse pulling on the ropes might have got two metres from me holding the poor ewe's head. Somehow all of us survived. Apart from one lamb.
Another story in the news about a mental defective. A good story for the followers of the nutcase doctors in New Zealand. Not that it would change their tiny minds.
"One of Austria’s most famous opponents of coronavirus vaccines, Johann Biacsics, has died from COVID-19, local media reports. His condition worsened from October, and he was hospitalized in early November. Despite his breathing difficulties and critical condition, he refused conventional treatment.
At home, Biacsics tried to treat himself with chlorine dioxide. It is considered a miracle cure for COVID-19 among opponents of vaccines. Soon after, the man died."
https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/post/johann-biacsics-65-kottingbrunn-at-self-employed-anti-vaxxer-dead-from-covid-and-stupidity
These stories are of course entirely selective. That same site will say nothing whenever someone fully vaccinated dies of COVID – as many must do because they are not at all 100% effective.
It is the glee with which these stories get repeated that is the real worry. To be so strongly identified as a recipient of Pfizer's product, finding amusement in another's death…
When a similar story was pointed out to me I felt compelled to remind them 1/3 of folk hospitalized with Covid have the vaccine in them.
You touch on a dark theme – the sheer glee with which this sentiment is pronounced is not normal behaviour.
Indeed the person above would likely not have dreamed of saying something quite so morally objectionable before COVID.
Rod Dacombe, Director of the Centre for British Politics and Government, King's College London, points to Occam's Razor as the culprit:
So folks default to the simplest causal logic they can get their heads around. Human nature.
https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theories-about-the-pandemic-are-spreading-offline-as-well-as-through-social-media-167418
And it helps to be woke:
In the virtuous circle, the call to action operates as team-building psychology.
Sigh.
It's one of life's ironies that those who hold complex and religiously-held beliefs about conspiracies of all kinds describe themselves as "being awake", while those who attempt to be considerate of the structural discrimination and biases that extend into everyday language and behaviour are denoted via the grammatically-incoherent form as "being woke".
You make it sound as if "woke" was imposed rather than adopted. I've always found it ironic that a bunch of mostly rich white kids were so eager to culturally appropriate the term for themselves.
Maybe ten years ago – these days it seems to be used expressly as a perjorative. But then I'm too old for tictok, so have no idea what the young 'un are up to.
.
Clueless PoMo Dogmatists like you will always create Nightmare scenarios for the innocent … zero understanding of complex reality … and a deep underlying desire to scapegoat those poorer than you unlucky enough to fall into demographics you deem outgroups [I mean the sheer arrogance of you spoilt little brats] … and of course, given your privileged social position, you'll always avoid suffering from the mayhem you cheerfully create.
No surprise that several recent studies in Psychology have shown that core members of the Woke / Critical Theory Cult (ie North American versions of you) disproportionately suffer from the Dark Triad Personality Type … ( 1. Machiavellianism, 2. Narcissism [esp high Entitlement], 3. Psychopathy).
Thought immediately of you (& a couple of 'tiptoe around me on eggshells' ex-boarding school girl former authors here) when I read these analyses … can always count on you to defend the indefensible in a particularly manipulative way, with all the kafka traps, motte-and-bailey fallacies & other rhetorical dishonesty so closely associated with your elitist little Cult.
All very engrossing, I am sure. Did you actually manage to find any links to back up your previous assertion that I am a "particularly ambitious & dogmatic local cheerleader" of CRT?
It's funny. I'm not particularly knowledgable about what CRT actually is, and all I know for sure about postmodernism is that nominative determinism would dictate that it comes after modernism, but here I am apparently standing on the parapets waving their flags, as far as I can tell simply because I don't like bigots.
And from a science website appraisal we get this:
So you can see why the Get Fauci movement has built up such a head of steam…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01217-2
She told me that Dr Fauci is responsible for the pandemic because he paid the Wuhan laboratory millions of dollars to create the virus and release it into the community.
Partly true. The evidence is undeniable that Fauci approved funding for the work at Wuhan, via a third party Eco-Health Alliance, to work on bat derived coronavirus'. No doubt on this at all.
And at this point in time I'd rate it as 95% certain that the original CV19 virus escaped that same lab as the result of poor operational procedures that had already been warned of years prior. Again all well documented.
However there is no evidence however Fauci or anyone connected to the Wuhan lab intentionally planned the release of the virus.
But Fauci is not blameless either. It's likely he did not tell his boss, Donald Trump, everything he knew about the probable origin and transmissibility of the virus – which contributed to the misdirection and mishandling of the early global responses to the pandemic. Again email document trails point very strongly to this.
'Conspiracy theories' are what you get when people suspect they are being lied to. In the absence of the truth they have to fill the gap with speculation – some of which they will get right and often times wrong. As does the person you overheard in the bank. But this doesn't change the fact of them being lied to in the first place.
Jesus! You can't blame him for that. No-one in their right mind would tell Trump everything. He is a narcissistic sociopath.
Nonetheless it was his job. If he didn't want to do it Fauci should have resigned.
I dunno, RL. Trump was a special case of an ignorant, egotistical, unpredictable lying & generally Bizarro- type POTUS . I wouldn’t want to fault any of his advisers for not wanting to tell him stuff he could wilfully or stupidly misinterpret or misrepresent.
If Trump was making uninformed decisions because information was deliberately withheld from him – who is the problem here?
I cannot comprehend why governments everywhere are just letting the crackpots get away with it at the expense of the rest of us.
Burn all the witches!
Either (1) Believe everyone or (2) Believe no one
Though both systems do cause confusion!
We went out today!! Why is that remarkable? We are out of the habit.
We do almost everything online, but had to get our vaccination passes printed, as our own printer had died.
Well the first problem was a line of people all wanting the print out at the chemist. It took twenty minutes to get to the front of the queue. A lovely young woman took our name date of birth and found us in the system. She then ushered us to a bench seat with a comment "please rest while this beast of a copier decides if it is going to co-operate" I said "Bad day?" She laughed behind her mask her eyes sparkling "No not really, just it goes slow and seems worse when there is a line of people waiting" She was rushed of her feet getting scripts from the back serving and doing vaccine print outs.
She brought ours across and told us we could go to another counter to get them laminated which we did. It was lovely to see all these people being pleasant and helpful and treating each other kindly, and keeping to the 2m markers. I was uplifted by the lack of any complaints or real problems. I have missed people.
As we got back into the car I said "Well now we have them, we need to go out to use them." So first fine day we plan to have lunch at the Garden Centre. Safe outings all.
It's time to forget again that we have an Opposition, or a leader of it.
This country is within the worst acceleration of class and social disorder since the Mother of All Budgets under Bolger and Richardson nearly three decades ago.
All the attendant social damage is manifest in each city suburb around us.
We are also about to enter a punitive world in which the unvaccinated are effectively shunned from society. This will add the expanding rift of the poorest.
We are also only just beginning to recover from the mental and social damage of lockdowns.
Forget National. This is our country.
I hear you.
The paradox is that the world we live in has never been better – yet we also sense it's desperate incompleteness.
I have a sense of a complete world (spaceship Earth) unable to support our unstable overshoot civilisation. There's no genuine widespread commitment to operate within planetary boundaries – the broad consensus is that the price of fouling our nest is not yet high enough for societies to voluntarily transform BAU – c'est la vie.
Well we either collectively adapt or the planet will dispose of us as excess(ive) baggage, imo.
All the usual alarmist fear-porn hand waving – but zero attempt at a constructive response.
And the usual disdain for 'quick techno-fixes' while typing on a computer (given the immense technological structures necessary to make this possible) is more than a tad dishonest.
Just the first 3 links from a google query "what technical solutions to climate change are being worked on?":
https://news.sky.com/story/climate-change-seven-technology-solutions-that-could-help-solve-crisis-12056397
https://www.dw.com/en/climate-solutions-technologies-to-slow-climate-change/a-51660909
https://www.dw.com/en/climate-solutions-technologies-to-slow-climate-change/a-51660909
Don't know whether to laugh or cry at your latest "fear porn hand waving" 'critique' – maybe the horse-hair shirt is compromising my logic, maybe it's the sack-cloth, but imho we each have our fear porn hobby horses.
Still, laughter is the best medicine
Btw, what's your response to the genuine question I posed on Monday?
"The richest 1% (income >US$109,000) of the population produce 15% of emissions and the 10% richest (>US$38,000) produce 48% of emissions. This shows that our lifestyle has the highest impact on our planet; wealthy people therefore have the highest imperative to change behaviour." But they have to want to change.
My answer to your question is simple – the graph you present is the same distribution of outcomes in any productive domain with repeated trades.
If you consider any domain that you may be familiar with – music, art, academia – the same graph would be plotted. A tiny fraction of people contribute to the largest group of outcomes. (In this case CO2 consumption merely being an obvious proxy for energy consumption.)
Next question. What are you trying to achieve and how do you propose to get there?
I believe that this iteration of human civilisation must achieve a rapid and large decrease in it's carbon and resource hoofprints on spaceship Earth.
I (and many others) propose that this can be achieved by first challenging the idea that the current distribution of outcomes is inevitable and/or sustainable, and then proceeding to change that distribution; to develop "a new way of thinking".
But, of course, 'we' have to want to change – the behaviours of the 'golden billion', and the examples we provide others, are problematic. Can humans learn to self-regulate so as to not degrade the planetary life support system? I believe they can (and hopefully in sufficient numbers), but they have to want to learn.
More 'fear porn' coming your way
Yup – fear mongering.
One of the best managers I ever worked for had a little sign on his desk – it read Are you part of the solution, or part of the problem?
Why do you think scientists are sounding alarm bells it in such numbers Red? Are they all misguided – is it only you that sees clearly?
If I was to continue comsuming at the rate I have been for most of my life then I would certainly be setting a bad example. It's eye-opening to realise just how many ways there are for a relatively affluent person such as myself to shrink my footprint – no more international travel, and more walking (which I enjoy, so it's a win-win) – you can't take it with you. I'm still part of the problem, but aiming to be a smaller part.
Imho, given the state of spaceship Earth, only the one-eyed could view changing to 'shrink and share' lifestyles as contributing to the problem.
Why do you think scientists are sounding alarm bells it in such numbers Red? Are they all misguided
When the alarm bell keep on being rung year in year out – and the same scientists reject all viable responses to the crisis – then yes they are misguiding us. And I'm certainly not the only one to see this.
If you say so. I'd hazard a guess that you believe your responses are the only viable ones – we can agree to disagree, although (as I've mentioned before), I don't hold out much hope that either your or other responses will be enacted in a timely fashion.
Doesn't frighten me personally, but I do fear for future generations – is that wrong?
I think you mean ….'your' world has never been better Red.
You always repeat that there are less people living in poverty than before the Industrial revolution and increasing urbanisation.
Your measurements are narrow and unconvincing.
If you need convincing I suggest you ask those who still have to burn dung to cook their food.
Otherwise this:
Dung or charcoal=doesn't really matter.
The graph is a misleading construct.
The income line especially is laughable…what could you buy with 10 cents in the 60's?
The western countries lept ahead through colonisation/empire as they exploited the countries on the other end of the scale.
Wonder what a graph showing suicide rates ,the inequality gap and number of refugees would look like!
The income line especially is laughable…what could you buy with 10 cents in the 60's?
Immediately under the graph's title is this:
The western countries lept ahead through colonisation/empire as they exploited the countries on the other end of the scale.
What rule said that the all world would all develop at exactly the same time and at the same rate? I'm not deaf to the question you pose here. As scifi author William Gibson once said – 'the future has already arrived, it's just not very evenly distributed'.
The challenge to a progressive post-marxist left must be this; how to ensure this future is universally accessible to all. You’re invited to talk constructively to this.
'Total output of the world economy; adjusted for inflation and expressed in international-$ in 2011 prices.'
This is immediately under another graph in another thread.
Not the one you are referring to.
I miss Hans Rosling did you see his population presentations ?
Yes – Rosling was a remarkable man who inspired many people to rethink the shibboleths they'd been taught.
This guy?
How is that “remarkable“? I can live without polar bears too.
I recall reading that about 99.9% or more of species that ever existed are extinct. Evolution is not going to stop for your sentimentality.
“Sentimentality“? For polar bears? Your human exceptionalism is showing
Just as long as that 99.9% doesn't add Homo sapiens any time soon – highly unlikely, but you never know.
If you are going to frame this as a choice between killing people and killing polar bears – I choose the people.
Every time.
You ‘framed’ my presentation of Rosling's quote as "sentimentality".
You then ‘framed’ my observation of your human exceptionalism as "a choice between killing people and killing polar bears" – whatever next?
Do you really believe that our incredibly gifted species will be faced with the choice of killing people versus the extinction of polar bears? Bizarre.
Didn't notice the disclaimer under the title,even with a second look.
What on earth do you think this means.
'I think you mean ….'your' world has never been better Red.'
Shouldn't your 'challenge' be embraced by all political spectrums!
It's hardly a 'disclaimer' – for such a graph to have any meaning at all it will always be inflation adjusted. The team at Our World in Data are not idiots.
And as Hans Rosling clearly shows – in a broad historic context – all of us 'golden 1b' who live in the developed world are among the luckiest bastards who ever lived. We could all be a lot more grateful for this than we typically are.
You might want to ask yourself – the people who sold you the agenda of misery that is so often conflated with being a good leftie – who is benefitting from this? Not you, not the poor – who?
So are you assuming its figures adjusted for inflation 10 years ago?
We all know about the widening gap in inequality since the Greenspan b/s became de riguere.
I can accept you subscribe to an 'I'm alright …Jack' attitude ,many do not.
As for misery…I'm not unhappy with my own life.
I don't expect either you or me will be around when your 'nirvana' comes to pass in around 80 years!
So are you assuming its figures adjusted for inflation 10 years ago?
I'm not 'assuming' anything – the statement speaks for itself. Nor does it matter what year is used as the reference point – as long as the data is all adjusted to the same year the shape of the graph will remain the same.
I can accept you subscribe to an 'I'm alright …Jack' attitude ,many do not.
I've written extensively here over many years – that you have failed to understand it is not my problem.
Funnily enough I am responding to what you have posted here…today.