well i guess they were lucky in 1991 that they could put the blame square on their inept government and did not have to deal with a serious and deadly viral disease.
there are now 200.000 people on less then 300$ per week base rate, if they don't have a partner who is now solely responsible for feeding everyone.
I'd rather the government creates some jobs for these newly and old unemployed people. If this number increases by another few tens of thousands suddenly you have issues.
also yei, abatment rate at $90 is 10 bucks more then now. Party time!
The amount one could earn before the abatement was $80 back in 2001, it had remained the same for nearly 20 years.
As for the low income, under the JSB regime its $250 (single) + $90 then any more and abatement at 70 cents in the dollar off that (as well as tax). This effectively caps income for 10-15 hours work at under $400 (and the time and effort of reporting extra income to W and I each week)
With UI for those under 25 without FT employment, there is no abatement – 100% of extra income is kept. Get 10-15 hours work at $18.90 MW/$20 next year and this is near the $500 a week rate some laid off are getting for a few months.
Under 25 I'd go for that maybe even a bit older – maybe tail it off. heck that should give a tax free fire zone for anyone under that age to keep equity. I'm attracted to the idea. Beats youth wages which only benefit employers.
And sign them up to a union so they have somebody to represent them and stop anyone taking too much advantage of them
Re youth wages – for mine the best thing about UI for those under 25 is that it also allows people to intern for free (you cannot do this and get JSB as you have to be available for paid FT work). This does not mean exploitation as it is voluntary and people would only do it in return for training – and they could leave any time and use the training to get a paid job.
Or intern part-time and top up it up with a part-time/gig/casual job income.
Actually I wonder if the Right is really getting very worried.
Yes we have to reallocate our labour force and that will take a little time but if we manage that, keep our exports up, run surpluses on our balance of payments, put the fewer people we have into the housing that exists ,increase wage bargaining ability, increase GDP per head then the whole country will be able to see that the Right wing policies are a load of rubbish that does not make them better off.
Covid challenge: How do we reinforce concepts like cooperation, caring and protection in our public discourse?
The right will be pushing 'freedom' and business-as-usual; 'Opening up' to the world as a good plan rather than a reckless stunt; Getting back to a way of life that is right and ordained.
Latest reports from the US indicate its getting more infectious than it was (higher viral loads). This would explain why it is spreading so well in the American summer.
The study, titled Tracking changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: Evidence that D614G increases infectivity of the COVID-19 virus, was recently published in the journal Cell after a lengthy review process.
The study found the dominant global strain of Covid-19 is now the a variant coined G614, which spread to the US from Europe. Previously, D614 was the dominant strain, according to the study. A mutation to the virus’ spike protein – its mechanism for attaching to cells – is what sets it apart from the previous variant. "It is now the dominant form infecting people," professor Erica Ollmann Saphire of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and the Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium, who worked on the study, told CNN. "This is now the virus."
People with the G614 strain were found to have higher viral loads, with the virus situated more in the upper respiratory tract, making it easier to spread.
The list, to be published on Thursday or Friday, will lift the Foreign Office ban on non-essential travel to nearly all EU destinations, the British territories including Bermuda and Gibraltar, and Turkey, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand….
It means that from Monday travellers to the 75 countries will no longer have to quarantine for 14 days on their return to the UK although some like Australia and New Zealand are expected to retain border controls and quarantine for as long as the rest of 2020….
All part of Boris' Very Good Plans that he thinks up at breakfast meetings. Wishful that UK can skip a quarantine on return. If you didn't laugh you would cry.
google keywords – Sweden covid19 figures
Sweden is interesting they have a regular sharp peak and drop of new cases, which on 24 June was 1697 then 477 on 28 June, then on 30 June 1445, yet 250 on 2 July.
Coronavirus: Why has Melbourne's outbreak worsened? So how did the virus spread? Allegations of blame have been levelled at private security firms contracted to operate the state's quarantine. Neighbouring New South Wales took a different approach – using the police force.
Victoria has faced accusations of systemic failures such as guards being improperly trained or not given enough PPE.
Mr Andrews [Premier Daniel Andrews] has also described cases of illegal socialising between staff, listing examples of workers sharing a cigarette lighter or car-pooling. Local media also reported claims of sex between guards and quarantined travellers.
The government has ordered a judicial inquiry into their quarantine operation and fired the contractors…
In early May – during Australia's lockdown – authorities expressed concern about a virus cluster among workers at an abbatoir in Melbourne's west. About 111 cases were eventually linked to the site, which had been the subject of a rapid trace-and-track response from authorities… But experts believe that secondary cases from that cluster – and possibly others – were still festering undetected in the community. "It seeded the population… and there were enough cases out there when the precautions relaxed," Prof John Matthews from the University of Melbourne tells the BBC…
.
Officials were still exhorting social distancing, but group limits were expanded. Large family groups reconnected and some cases stemmed from people with mild symptoms attending those gatherings, authorities said. "Once the feeling got around that it was over – when it really wasn't – Victoria copped it," says Prof Matthews…
.
…communication of public health orders was insufficient for non-English speakers, .. Given Melbourne's significantly multicultural make-up – a language other than English is spoken in almost 35% of households – this was a notable oversight, critics said…
"If you can't stop the spread – you lose control – you get to the stage where you can't keep up with contract tracing… essentially what happened in Europe and North America."
.
For now, Australia remains in a far better position than most nations. Only 23 people with the virus are in hospital in Victoria, and testing is widespread and rigorous – over 2.5 million tests have been conducted in a national population of 25 million.
"It's hard to say where we'll be in a month's time", says Prof Mathews. "We used to say Australia's response was one of the best in the world. And we can still say that, but with the qualification that we got caught."
Not so sure on that – feels like we've relaxed levels for several weeks now, no random cases appearing from undetected clusters.Whereas Victoria seems to have had errors in their eradication effor
So the risk is a quarantine breach, and that would involve localised level increases and intense testing and tracing. t.
That's an even more absurd than the flipside, that we'll be all good in a year or two.
For the next 5-10 years, there will be a basic schism in the world: those countries that have managed to control or eradicate it, and those that basically surrendered to it and watched thousands or millions of people die.
Best case for the latter group is that exposure gives long term immunity to survivors. Worst case is that it gives limited immunity and lots of long term health problems.
Best case for the former group, the ones that effectively limited the disease within their borders, is that a vaccine is developed in a year or two and the WHO coordinates a global eradication program. Worst case is that no effective vaccine is developed and only moderately effective treatments are developed, and NZ and other countries basically have to treat the surrendermonkeys like they have super-rabies for the next century, always worried that some "plan B" arsehole will try to smuggle it in like a farmer with RCD.
…communication of public health orders was insufficient for non-English speakers, .. Given Melbourne's significantly multicultural make-up – a language other than English is spoken in almost 35% of households – this was a notable oversight, critics said…
"Fired the contractors" This should go down as a prime example of a case study for "how contracting out to acquire private sector efficiencies" is a complete load of rubbish. How much is this new lock down costing the local economy and the people in it.
We have been warned – don't be cheap and outsource such a vital service. Failure costs are huge.
All day long radio repetition aka rnz has been telling us of the arrest of epsteins former girlfriend and the witchhunt continues .Hes constently refered to as a pedophile because he had a thing about underage girls apparently and because it sounds much more salacious to the media and underpins the negative framing necesary for the legions of parasites getting ready to feast on his estate .However odious you might think epstein was he paid the ultimate price for his deeds by being murdered in his jail cell .So now the vultures are after the girlfriend the suposedly evil whatever her name is maxwell ?perhaps and today we here some damn yank prosecutor extolling how evil she is living in luxury etc etc hand on heart as if her morality was non existant and the great american people absolute .Makes me sick thinking of all the war criminals living happy filthy rich lives in the good old US of A .That country doesnt have a morality it can spout about if it had one it disappeared a long time ago .Its not about morality imo its about money filthy lucre for the hundreds of lawyers for the prosecutors for the prison for profit corporations for the media and for the so called victims waiting for their multi million payouts .There got that off my chest think i,ll stoke up the fire an have a nice cup of tea !
After decades of "empowering" young girls what the hell has gone wrong.
I think we went the wrong way by presenting prostitution as a perfectly ok profession, that young women could be "empowered" by this career choice.
Weren't these Epstein victims teenage prostitutes, at any rate lured into becoming prostitutes .I argue that most prostitutes arrive at that career choice by a combination of poverty, lack of education, drug addiction and dysfunction.
That plus a total inundation of the culture with porn, showing women supposedly enjoying bondage and other painful practices
We can excoriate Epstein and Maxwell but we need to look at our exploitative culture as well
Queensland has imposed user-charges on interstate quarantine so of course an underground railway has sprung up to smuggle Victorians across the NSW-QLD state line.
This one goes out to all who are cold and alone in the deep of winter.
So Now? by Charles Bukowski
the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die.
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the wind
in the late afternoon sun.
there's nothing to declare here,
just a waiting.
each faces it alone.
Oh, I was once young,
Oh, I was once unbelievably
young!
"Bukowski was shy and socially withdrawn, a condition exacerbated during his teen years by an extreme case of acne. Neighborhood children ridiculed his German accent and the clothing his parents made him wear. In Bukowski: Born Into This, a 2003 film, Bukowski states that his father beat him with a razor strop three times a week from the ages of six to 11 years."
Compared to mine, his father was relatively kind. But the regime of inexorable continual excessive thrashing likewise made me "shy and socially withdrawn". I actually stopped talking to anyone else unless it was necessary when I noticed they were all incapable of intelligent responses when I was a young child.
Bukowski published "over 60 books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City." I read a biography of him around 30 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski
Bukowski on style:
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.
When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca.
I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.”
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, Newsroom-$, Politik-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 9, 2025 thru Sat, March 15, 2025. This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. We are still interested ...
Max Harris and Max Rashbrooke discuss how we turn around the right wing slogans like nanny state, woke identity politics, and the inefficiency of the public sector – and how we build a progressive agenda. From Donald Trump to David Seymour, from Peter Dutton to Christopher Luxon, we are subject to a ...
The Government dominated the political agenda this week with its two-day conference pitching all manner of public infrastructure projects for Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories shortest in our political economy this week: The Government ploughed ahead with offers of PPPs to pension fund managers ...
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So here we are at the wedding of Alexandra Vincent Martelli and David Seymour.Look at all the happy prosperous guests! How proud Nick Mowbray looks of the gift he has made of a mountain of crap plastic toys stuffed into a Cybertruck.How they drink, how they laugh, how they mug ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is waste heat from industrial activity the reason the planet is warming? Waste heat’s contribution to global warming is a small fraction of ...
Some continue to defend David Seymour on school lunches, sidestepping his errors to say:“Well the parents should pack their lunch” and/or “Kids should be grateful for free food.”One of these people is the sitting Prime Minister.So I put together a quick list of why complaint is not only appropriate - ...
“Bugger the pollsters!”WHEN EVERYBODY LIVED in villages, and every village had a graveyard, the expression “whistling past the graveyard” made more sense. Even so, it’s hard to describe the Coalition Government’s response to the latest Taxpayers’ Union/Curia Research poll any better. Regardless of whether they wanted to go there, or ...
Prof Jane Kelsey examines what the ACT party and the NZ Initiative are up to as they seek to impose on the country their hardline, right wing, neoliberal ideology. A progressive government elected in 2026 would have a huge job putting Humpty Dumpty together again and rebuilding a state that ...
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Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, The Economist-$ ...
By international standards the New Zealand healthcare system appears satisfactory – certainly no worse generally than average. Yet it is undergoing another redisorganisation.While doing some unrelated work, I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my – and the conventional wisdom’s – view of ...
When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he knew that he was upending Europe’s security order. But this was more of a tactical gambit than a calculated strategy ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Over the last year, I’ve been warning about Luxon’s pitch to privatise our public assets.He had told reporters in October that nothing was off the cards:Schools, hospitals, prisons, and ...
When ASPI’s Cyclone Tracy: 50 Years On was published last year, it wasn’t just a historical reflection; it was a warning. Just months later, we are already watching history repeat itself. We need to bake ...
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South Korea has suspended new downloads of DeepSeek, and it was were right to do so. Chinese tech firms operate under the shadow of state influence, misusing data for surveillance and geopolitical advantage. Any country ...
Previous big infrastructure PPPs such as Transmission Gully were fiendishly complicated to negotiate, generated massive litigation and were eventually rewritten anyway. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesLong stories shortest: The Government’s international investment conference ignores the facts that PPPs cost twice as much as vanilla debt-funded public infrastructure, often take ...
Woolworths has proposed a major restructure of its New Zealand store operating model, leaving workers worried their hours and pay could be cut. Public servants are being asked how productive their office is, how much they use AI, and whether they’re overloaded with meetings as part of a “census”. An ...
Robert Kaplan’s book Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis paints a portrait of civilisation in flux. Drawing insights from history, literature and art, he examines the effect of modern technology, globalisation and urbanisation on ...
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Hi,I just got back from a week in Japan thanks to the power of cheap flights and years of accumulated credit card points.The last time I was in Japan the government held a press conference saying they might take legal action against me and Netflix, so there was a little ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including Donald Trump’s wrecking of the post-WW II political landscape; andHealth Coalition Aotearoa co-chair Lisa ...
Hi,I just got back from a short trip to Japan, mostly spending time in Tokyo.I haven’t been there since we shot Dark Tourist back in 2017 — and that landed us in a bit of hot water with the Japanese government.I am glad to report I was not thrown into ...
I’ve been on Substack for almost 8 months now.It’s been good in terms of the many great individuals that populate its space. So much variety and intelligence and humour and depth.I joined because someone suggested I should ‘start a Substack,’ whatever that meant.So I did.Turning on payments seemed like the ...
Open access notables Would Adding the Anthropocene to the Geologic Time Scale Matter?, McCarthy et al., AGU Advances:The extraordinary fossil fuel-driven outburst of consumption and production since the mid-twentieth century has fundamentally altered the way the Earth System works. Although humans have impacted their environment for millennia, justification for ...
Australia should buy equipment to cheaply and temporarily convert military transport aircraft into waterbombers. On current planning, the Australian Defence Force will have a total of 34 Chinook helicopters and Hercules airlifters. They should be ...
Indonesia’s government has slashed its counterterrorism (CT) budgets, despite the persistent and evolving threat of violent extremism. Australia can support regional CT efforts by filling this funding void. Reducing funding to the National Counterterrorism Agency ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Resource Management (Prohibition on Extraction of Freshwater for On-selling) Amendment Bill (Debbie Ngarewa-Packer) The bill does exactly what it says on the label, and would effectively end the rapacious water-bottling industry ...
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Foreign aid is being slashed across the Global North, nowhere more so than in the United States. Within his first month back in the White House, President Donald Trump dismantled the US Agency for International ...
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Most KP readers will not know that I was a jazz DJ in Chicago and Washington DC while in grad school in the early and mid 1980s. In DC I joined WPFW as a grave shift host, then a morning drive show host (a show called Sui Generis, both for ...
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Last year in October I wrote “Where’s The Opposition?”. I was exasperated at the relative quiet of the Green Party, Labour and Te Pati Māori (TPM), as the National led Coalition ticked off a full bingo card of the Atlas Network playbook.1To be fair, TPM helped to energise one of ...
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Information operations Australia has banned cybersecurity software Kaspersky from government use because of risks of espionage, foreign interference and sabotage. The Department of Home Affairs said use of Kaspersky products posed an unacceptable security ...
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After decades of gradual decline, Australia’s manufacturing capability is no longer mission-fit to meet national security needs. Any whole-of-nation effort to arrest this trend needs to start by making the industrial operating environment more conducive ...
Back in October 2022, Restore Passenger Rail hung banners across roads in Wellington to protest against the then-Labour government's weak climate change policy. The police responded by charging them not with the usual public order offences, but with "endangering transport", a crime with a maximum sentence of 14 years in ...
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Australia’s cyber capabilities have evolved rapidly, but they are still largely reactive, not preventative. Rather than responding to cyber incidents, Australian law enforcement agencies should focus on dismantling underlying criminal networks. On 11 December, Europol ...
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Economists have earned their reputation for jargon and tunnel vision, but sometimes, it takes an someone as perceptive as Simplicity economist Shamubeel Eaqub to identify something simple and devastating. As he pointed out recently, the coalition government is trying to attract foreign investment here to generate economic growth, while – ...
Opinion & AnalysisSimeon Brown, left, and Deloitte partner David LovattIn September 2024, Deloitte Partner David Lovatt, was contracted by the National Government to help National ostensibly understand “the drivers behind HNZ’s worsening financial performance”.1 i.e. deficit.The report shows the last version was dated December 2024.It was formally released this week ...
This cobbled-together government was altogether more the beneficiary of Labour getting turfed out than anything it managed to do itself. Even the worthless cheques they were writing didn't buy all that much favour.How’s it all looking now?Shall we take a look at a Horizon poll?The Government’s performance is making only ...
Shane Jones’ display on Q&A showed how out of touch he and this Government are with our communities and how in sync they are with companies with little concern for people and planet. ...
Labour does not support the private ownership of core infrastructure like schools, hospitals and prisons, which will only see worse outcomes for Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is disappointed the Government voted down Hūhana Lyndon’s member’s Bill, which would have prevented further alienation of Māori land through the Public Works Act. ...
The Labour Party will support Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill which would allow sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. ...
The Government’s new procurement rules are a blatant attack on workers and the environment, showing once again that National’s priorities are completely out of touch with everyday Kiwis. ...
With Labour and Te Pāti Māori’s official support, Opposition parties are officially aligned to progress Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in Palestine. ...
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Labour welcomes Simeon Brown’s move to reinstate a board at Health New Zealand, bringing the destructive and secretive tenure of commissioner Lester Levy to an end. ...
This morning’s announcement by the Health Minister regarding a major overhaul of the public health sector levels yet another blow to the country’s essential services. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that will ensure employment decisions in the public service are based on merit and not on forced woke ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ targets. “This Bill would put an end to the woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. ...
Police have referred 20 offenders to Destiny Church-affiliated programmes Man Up and Legacy as ‘wellness providers’ in the last year, raising concerns that those seeking help are being recruited into a harmful organisation. ...
Te Pāti Māori welcomes the resignation of Richard Prebble from the Waitangi Tribunal. His appointment in October 2024 was a disgrace- another example of this government undermining Te Tiriti o Waitangi by appointing a former ACT leader who has spent his career attacking Māori rights. “Regardless of the reason for ...
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is avoiding accountability by refusing to answer key questions in the House as his Government faces criticism over their dangerous citizen’s arrest policy, firearm reform, and broken promises to recruit more police. ...
The number of building consents issued under this Government continues to spiral, taking a toll on the infrastructure sector, tradies, and future generations of Kiwi homeowners. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to rule out joining the AUKUS military pact in any capacity following the scenes in the White House over the weekend. ...
The Green Party is appalled by the Government’s plan to disestablish Resource Teachers of Māori (RTM) roles, a move that takes another swing at kaupapa Māori education. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
After months of mana whenua protecting their wāhi tapu, the Green Party welcomes the pause of works at Lake Rotokākahi and calls for the Rotorua Lakes Council to work constructively with Tūhourangi and Ngāti Tumatawera on the pathway forward. ...
New Zealand First continues to bring balance, experience, and commonsense to Government. This week we've made progress on many of our promises to New Zealand.Winston representing New ZealandWinston Peters is overseas this week, with stops across the Middle East and North Asia. Winston's stops include Saudi Arabia, the ...
Green Party Co-Leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics. ...
At this year's State of the Planet address, Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics. ...
The Government has spent $3.6 million dollars on a retail crime advisory group, including paying its chair $920 a day, to come up with ideas already dismissed as dangerous by police. ...
The Green Party supports the peaceful occupation at Lake Rotokākahi and are calling for the controversial sewerage project on the lake to be stopped until the Environment Court has made a decision. ...
ActionStation’s Oral Healthcare report, released today, paints a dire picture of unmet need and inequality across the country, highlighting the urgency of free dental care for all New Zealanders. ...
Employers, unions and health and safety advocates are calling for engineered stone to be banned, a day before consultation on regulations for the material closes. ...
Christopher Luxon’s big ol’ trip to India has started with a bang.The Prime Minister hadn’t even started walking down the stairs of the Airforce Boeing 757 when the traditional Rajasthani folk dancers began their spirited dance in front of an enormous billboard bearing the beaming faces of Luxon and his ...
New Zealand has been firm in its stance against Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, yet has been silent on the United States’ enabling of it, argues Robert Patman. The National-led coalition government’s policy on Gaza seems caught between a desire for a two-state diplomatic ...
Jobs, courses and a campus are on the chopping block as the first tranche of cuts reaches Aotearoa’s polytechs and training institutes.At least 154 roles, one campus and multiple courses across 10 institutes of technology and polytechnics (ITPs) have been cut as the government prepares to disestablish the nation’s ...
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A senior public servant has been criticised for de-emphasising statements about the essential need to clean-up freshwater in court evidence.Martin Workman, chief of staff at the Ministry for the Environment, was the first Crown witness in the Ngāi Tahu case being heard in the Christchurch High Court. Te Rūnanga o ...
When an athlete goes through a spell of feeling like they’re wearing an invincibility cloak, they believe they can fly.Pole vaulter Imogen Ayris has literally been flying – relishing a superwoman sensation throughout the European indoor season, setting two new personal bests in three days in France.“I felt invincible leading ...
Next Monday in Wellington, some 150 people will attend the Roxy Cinema for a niche documentary film festival. But they won’t be the usual film festival crowd of movie buffs – they’ll be lawyers, police officers, bankers, and anyone else whose work deals with scams or fraud.The Fraud Film Festival, ...
The story so far: Tony Fomison was made artist in residence at the Rita Angus Cottage in Wellington in 1985. In his new biography of the great painter, Mark Forman traces his journey from Christchurch as fame, genius and alcoholism follow him north…In preparation for the shift from his Christchurch ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Cyclone Alfred will cost the March 25 budget at least A$1.2 billion, hit growth and put pressure on inflation, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says. In a Tuesday speech previewing the budget, Chalmers will also say that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his travelling delegation has touched down in New Delhi, greeted by the heat and a colourful cultural display. ...
Asia Pacific Report A former US diplomat, Nabeel Khoury, says President Donald Trump’s decision to launch attacks against the Houthis is misguided, and this will not subdue them. “For our president who came in wanting to avoid war and wanting to be a man of peace, he’s going about it ...
Pacific Media Watch Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has recalled that 20 journalists were killed during the six-year Philippines presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, a regime marked by fierce repression of the press. Former president Duterte was arrested earlier this week as part of an International Criminal ...
Unilateral moves by the UN will not solve this conflict; only sincere negotiations between the affected parties will. We must call for dialogue and negotiation, not sanction. ...
By Mar-Vic Cagurangan in Hagatna, Guam Debate on Guam’s future as a US territory has intensified with its legislature due to vote on a non-binding resolution to become a US state amid mounting Pacific geostrategic tensions and expansionist declarations by the Trump administration. Located closer to Beijing than Hawai’i, Guam ...
Analysis: Not many saw it.But when applause built at a Unity Week hui on the anniversary of the Christchurch terror attack, and Prime Minister Chistopher Luxon joined in, it seemed photo-worthy.Abdur Razzaq, of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ), introduced Luxon to the hui by noting the ...
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COMMENTARY:By Greg Barns When it comes to antisemitism, politicians in Australia are often quick to jump on the claim without waiting for evidence. With notable and laudable exceptions like the Greens and independents such as Tasmanian federal MP Andrew Wilkie, it seems any allegation will do when it comes ...
By Emma Andrews, RNZ Henare te Ua Māori journalism intern Māori contributions to the Aotearoa New Zealand economy have far surpassed the projected goal of “$100 billion by 2030”, a new report has revealed. The report conducted by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) and Te Puni Kōkiri, ...
A global renewable energy developer backing one of New Zealand’s last standing offshore wind farm proposals says it would be “difficult” to cohabit with seabed mining.Danish developer Michael Hannibal, a partner in Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, is visiting New Zealand for the Government’s infrastructure investment summit. His firm and the NZ ...
A wide-ranging conversation with the opposition spokesperson on foreign affairs. Even before the second Trump term began, the world was a volatile place. But since January 20, across eight whiplash weeks, the pace of change has been astonishing. Donald Trump’s America First geopolitics, melding expansionist and isolationist instincts, has created ...
Surviving terror can be isolating, trauma expert Jo Dover says.Dover – a Brit who is in New Zealand to hold resilience workshops with the Muslim community, speak publicly, and meet government officials – has supported people affected by terrorism, conflict and war for almost three decades. She arrived in Christchurch ...
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Gabi Lardies for now, Mad Chapman next week. Despite allegations they’re filled with shit books, I cannot pass by a little library without having a peek inside. Two weeks ago, stretching my legs from a hard morning sitting on my non-ergonomic wheely chair, I spied two curious spines in the ...
Poet Kate Camp learned to swim late in life. Now it’s a defining component of her identity. But why won’t she write about it? I learned to swim in a 15 metre pool in the backyard of Mandi’s place in Paraparaumu. That’s not true. I learned to swim in a ...
The highs, lows and silver linings of single-parenting a toddler. He lay there prone, unmoving, his dark eyes glassy and fixed on the ceiling above. My daughter looked at him, then at me. “Is that… Daddy?” I sighed. “No, darling, that’s not Daddy.” I grabbed the man to whom her ...
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200.000 unemployed people? Maybe the government could hire a few of those to be working at Winz processing benefits claims.
11.2 percent unemployed in 91. The result of daft Government policies, not Covid. But it shows we have had worse than now.
well i guess they were lucky in 1991 that they could put the blame square on their inept government and did not have to deal with a serious and deadly viral disease.
I'd rather they paid those under 25 UI payments and left them to find work as they can – gig/part-time/casual.
Having to report other income and pay 90% abatement over $90 a week will suck the life out of them.
This says $80 and 70%. Still sucks. Greens want to change that to $165 and 60%.
https://communitylaw.org.nz/community-law-manual/chapter-22-dealing-with-work-and-income/benefit-rates-how-much-youll-get-and-how-much-you-can-earn/how-earning-money-will-affect-your-benefit-abatement/
Well it's good they have taken the abatement rate down to 70%, I am fairly sure they intend/the exemption is to go to $90.
i am quite s serious.
there are now 200.000 people on less then 300$ per week base rate, if they don't have a partner who is now solely responsible for feeding everyone.
I'd rather the government creates some jobs for these newly and old unemployed people. If this number increases by another few tens of thousands suddenly you have issues.
also yei, abatment rate at $90 is 10 bucks more then now. Party time!
The amount one could earn before the abatement was $80 back in 2001, it had remained the same for nearly 20 years.
As for the low income, under the JSB regime its $250 (single) + $90 then any more and abatement at 70 cents in the dollar off that (as well as tax). This effectively caps income for 10-15 hours work at under $400 (and the time and effort of reporting extra income to W and I each week)
With UI for those under 25 without FT employment, there is no abatement – 100% of extra income is kept. Get 10-15 hours work at $18.90 MW/$20 next year and this is near the $500 a week rate some laid off are getting for a few months.
I hadn't realised there were different abatement rates for different benefits.
Those with partners and or children can earn a higher rate before abatement applies.
Under 25 I'd go for that maybe even a bit older – maybe tail it off. heck that should give a tax free fire zone for anyone under that age to keep equity. I'm attracted to the idea. Beats youth wages which only benefit employers.
And sign them up to a union so they have somebody to represent them and stop anyone taking too much advantage of them
Re youth wages – for mine the best thing about UI for those under 25 is that it also allows people to intern for free (you cannot do this and get JSB as you have to be available for paid FT work). This does not mean exploitation as it is voluntary and people would only do it in return for training – and they could leave any time and use the training to get a paid job.
Or intern part-time and top up it up with a part-time/gig/casual job income.
In regards the 'gig economy job's, perhaps the laws get rejigged so that these foreign fast food chains have to employ their delivery drivers.
I know of a couple of teens doing deliveries, and they are headed to a world of trouble.
Not bothered with taxes, insurance etc. Just spending the money as they get it.
Surely we can pay a little more for our pizza and have these people entering the job market a little better protected.
Actually I wonder if the Right is really getting very worried.
Yes we have to reallocate our labour force and that will take a little time but if we manage that, keep our exports up, run surpluses on our balance of payments, put the fewer people we have into the housing that exists ,increase wage bargaining ability, increase GDP per head then the whole country will be able to see that the Right wing policies are a load of rubbish that does not make them better off.
Covid challenge: How do we reinforce concepts like cooperation, caring and protection in our public discourse?
The right will be pushing 'freedom' and business-as-usual; 'Opening up' to the world as a good plan rather than a reckless stunt; Getting back to a way of life that is right and ordained.
Meanwhile, the plague is just getting started.. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12345158
Latest reports from the US indicate its getting more infectious than it was (higher viral loads). This would explain why it is spreading so well in the American summer.
They are sooo screwed.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/new-study-suggests-covid-19-mutation-makes-three-nine-times-more-infectious
UK and travel.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/01/75-countries-exempted-quarantine-individual-air-bridge-plan/
The list, to be published on Thursday or Friday, will lift the Foreign Office ban on non-essential travel to nearly all EU destinations, the British territories including Bermuda and Gibraltar, and Turkey, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand….
It means that from Monday travellers to the 75 countries will no longer have to quarantine for 14 days on their return to the UK although some like Australia and New Zealand are expected to retain border controls and quarantine for as long as the rest of 2020….
All part of Boris' Very Good Plans that he thinks up at breakfast meetings. Wishful that UK can skip a quarantine on return. If you didn't laugh you would cry.
google keywords – Sweden covid19 figures
Sweden is interesting they have a regular sharp peak and drop of new cases, which on 24 June was 1697 then 477 on 28 June, then on 30 June 1445, yet 250 on 2 July.
.
Victoria why the rise?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-53259356 Jul.3/20
Coronavirus: Why has Melbourne's outbreak worsened?
So how did the virus spread? Allegations of blame have been levelled at private security firms contracted to operate the state's quarantine. Neighbouring New South Wales took a different approach – using the police force.
Victoria has faced accusations of systemic failures such as guards being improperly trained or not given enough PPE.
Mr Andrews [Premier Daniel Andrews] has also described cases of illegal socialising between staff, listing examples of workers sharing a cigarette lighter or car-pooling. Local media also reported claims of sex between guards and quarantined travellers.
The government has ordered a judicial inquiry into their quarantine operation and fired the contractors…
In early May – during Australia's lockdown – authorities expressed concern about a virus cluster among workers at an abbatoir in Melbourne's west.
About 111 cases were eventually linked to the site, which had been the subject of a rapid trace-and-track response from authorities…
But experts believe that secondary cases from that cluster – and possibly others – were still festering undetected in the community.
"It seeded the population… and there were enough cases out there when the precautions relaxed," Prof John Matthews from the University of Melbourne tells the BBC…
.
Officials were still exhorting social distancing, but group limits were expanded. Large family groups reconnected and some cases stemmed from people with mild symptoms attending those gatherings, authorities said.
"Once the feeling got around that it was over – when it really wasn't – Victoria copped it," says Prof Matthews…
.
…communication of public health orders was insufficient for non-English speakers, ..
Given Melbourne's significantly multicultural make-up – a language other than English is spoken in almost 35% of households – this was a notable oversight, critics said…
"If you can't stop the spread – you lose control – you get to the stage where you can't keep up with contract tracing… essentially what happened in Europe and North America."
.
For now, Australia remains in a far better position than most nations. Only 23 people with the virus are in hospital in Victoria, and testing is widespread and rigorous – over 2.5 million tests have been conducted in a national population of 25 million.
"It's hard to say where we'll be in a month's time", says Prof Mathews. "We used to say Australia's response was one of the best in the world. And we can still say that, but with the qualification that we got caught."
This could very well happen to us.
It will.
Its the New Normal, even for the 100% Purists.
Back to TINA.
There being no alternative to zombie neo-liberalism.
nothing now can be normal
Not so sure on that – feels like we've relaxed levels for several weeks now, no random cases appearing from undetected clusters.Whereas Victoria seems to have had errors in their eradication effor
So the risk is a quarantine breach, and that would involve localised level increases and intense testing and tracing. t.
Check the rest of the world.
Neither the world, nor ourselves within the world, are ever going back to "normal".
That's an even more absurd than the flipside, that we'll be all good in a year or two.
For the next 5-10 years, there will be a basic schism in the world: those countries that have managed to control or eradicate it, and those that basically surrendered to it and watched thousands or millions of people die.
Best case for the latter group is that exposure gives long term immunity to survivors. Worst case is that it gives limited immunity and lots of long term health problems.
Best case for the former group, the ones that effectively limited the disease within their borders, is that a vaccine is developed in a year or two and the WHO coordinates a global eradication program. Worst case is that no effective vaccine is developed and only moderately effective treatments are developed, and NZ and other countries basically have to treat the surrendermonkeys like they have super-rabies for the next century, always worried that some "plan B" arsehole will try to smuggle it in like a farmer with RCD.
The coronavirus is not forever.
Which means chaos and the inability to plan for anything with all the economic downside that produces
Sorry , I'd rather find solutions for survival within NZ than open up and surrender to a chaotic maelstrom
Racism costs.
"Fired the contractors" This should go down as a prime example of a case study for "how contracting out to acquire private sector efficiencies" is a complete load of rubbish. How much is this new lock down costing the local economy and the people in it.
We have been warned – don't be cheap and outsource such a vital service. Failure costs are huge.
I guess that's David Clark's fault too.
lols Gabby. The Brit Govt have privatised testing and tracing etc, should be interesting to see how that goes, with BJ in charge, sheesh.
About as well as everything else over there has gone I imagine.
All day long radio repetition aka rnz has been telling us of the arrest of epsteins former girlfriend and the witchhunt continues .Hes constently refered to as a pedophile because he had a thing about underage girls apparently and because it sounds much more salacious to the media and underpins the negative framing necesary for the legions of parasites getting ready to feast on his estate .However odious you might think epstein was he paid the ultimate price for his deeds by being murdered in his jail cell .So now the vultures are after the girlfriend the suposedly evil whatever her name is maxwell ?perhaps and today we here some damn yank prosecutor extolling how evil she is living in luxury etc etc hand on heart as if her morality was non existant and the great american people absolute .Makes me sick thinking of all the war criminals living happy filthy rich lives in the good old US of A .That country doesnt have a morality it can spout about if it had one it disappeared a long time ago .Its not about morality imo its about money filthy lucre for the hundreds of lawyers for the prosecutors for the prison for profit corporations for the media and for the so called victims waiting for their multi million payouts .There got that off my chest think i,ll stoke up the fire an have a nice cup of tea !
"So called victims", a seedy old man taking advantage of girls under 16, makes them victims, so fuck off mate.
Hopefully not before we get to hear about how the lizard people's 5g towers give everyone cat aids.
After decades of "empowering" young girls what the hell has gone wrong.
I think we went the wrong way by presenting prostitution as a perfectly ok profession, that young women could be "empowered" by this career choice.
Weren't these Epstein victims teenage prostitutes, at any rate lured into becoming prostitutes .I argue that most prostitutes arrive at that career choice by a combination of poverty, lack of education, drug addiction and dysfunction.
That plus a total inundation of the culture with porn, showing women supposedly enjoying bondage and other painful practices
We can excoriate Epstein and Maxwell but we need to look at our exploitative culture as well
Your comments aren't welcome here Weston
Queensland has imposed user-charges on interstate quarantine so of course an underground railway has sprung up to smuggle Victorians across the NSW-QLD state line.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/border-inspections-for-smuggled-travellers-amid-difficult-days-ahead-20200703-p558rb.html
This one goes out to all who are cold and alone in the deep of winter.
So Now? by Charles Bukowski
the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die.
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the wind
in the late afternoon sun.
there's nothing to declare here,
just a waiting.
each faces it alone.
Oh, I was once young,
Oh, I was once unbelievably
young!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S9HNM31XUQ
"Bukowski was shy and socially withdrawn, a condition exacerbated during his teen years by an extreme case of acne. Neighborhood children ridiculed his German accent and the clothing his parents made him wear. In Bukowski: Born Into This, a 2003 film, Bukowski states that his father beat him with a razor strop three times a week from the ages of six to 11 years."
Compared to mine, his father was relatively kind. But the regime of inexorable continual excessive thrashing likewise made me "shy and socially withdrawn". I actually stopped talking to anyone else unless it was necessary when I noticed they were all incapable of intelligent responses when I was a young child.
Bukowski published "over 60 books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City." I read a biography of him around 30 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski
Bukowski on style:
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.
When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca.
I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.”