Daily review 06/10/2020
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5:30 pm, October 6th, 2020 - 67 comments
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AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...6 days ago - Minimum wage ‘increase’ is an effective cut
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- Thank You
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All those tears on your cheeksJust like deja vu flow nowWhen grandmother speaksSo tell me a story (I'll tell you a story)Spell it out, I can't hear (What do you want to hear?)Why you wear black in the morning?Why there's smoke in the air? Songwriter: Greg Johnson.Mōrena all ☀️Something a ...1 week ago
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Returning to the model that was failing for most polytechnics and Institutes of Technology is not the answer. ...3 days ago
- Release: National buries 1019 planned homes
It’s been revealed that National has cancelled 60 percent of its housing projects planned before mid-2025 amidst housing woes. ...3 days ago
- Release: Rule-Czar bill a right-wing power grab
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...3 days ago
- Release: Why not both? Luxon shuns Waitangi celebrations
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is running away from problems of his own creation, with his decision not to go to Waitangi. ...4 days ago
- Govt’s ‘free speech’ legislation stokes fear, not freedom
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...4 days ago - Release: Nicola Willis spirals country deeper into recession
The economy shrank 1% this quarter and New Zealand has tumbled into the depths of a recession of Nicola Willis’ making. ...4 days ago
- Release: Hikes for company directors but not ordinary Kiwis
Working people are going backwards while company directors are being given huge pay hikes. ...5 days ago
- ECE no place to cut corners
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...5 days ago
- Release: Strengthening Justice Services for New Zealanders
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...5 days ago
- Release: Labour will continue fight against destructive projects
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...5 days ago
- Green Government will revoke dodgy fast-track projects
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...5 days ago
- Government for the wealthy keeps pushing austerity
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...6 days ago
- Release: Visa changes let migrant workers be paid less
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...6 days ago
- Release: Nightmare before Christmas for Nicola Willis
With more debt and a larger deficit, Nicola Willis’ reputation is in tatters after her failure to return the Government’s books to surplus. ...6 days ago
- Warning to Fast-Track Applicants – ‘Exploit the Whenua, Face the Consequences’
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt cuts wages for lowest paid NZers… again
For the second year running, the government has effectively cut wages for the lowest paid workers in New Zealand. ...6 days ago
- Govt’s miserly 1.5% minimum wage will take workers backwards
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt shirking responsibility for rate hikes
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...6 days ago
- Luxon’s ‘localism’ strikes again
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt breaks promise on EV chargers
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...7 days ago
- Greens call for end to subsidies for Methanex
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...7 days ago
- Govt child poverty targets allow for increase in poverty
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...1 week ago
- Release: Four weeks annual leave under threat
The Government’s attack on workers continues with news it is scrapping work on the Holidays Act. ...1 week ago
- Govt’s emissions plan for measly 1% reduction
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...1 week ago
- Greens stand in solidarity with Whakaata Māori on sad day
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...1 week ago
- Sanctions regime to create more hardship for families
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...1 week ago
- Govt gifts renters housing anxiety for Christmas
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...1 week ago
- Release: National Party urged to support modern slavery legislation
Labour is urging the Prime Minister to walk the talk and support legislation combating modern slavery. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour has lost confidence in the Speaker
The Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament made an unprecedented decision on the government amendment to the Fast Track Approvals Bill last night. ...2 weeks ago
- One year on, still no progress on new ferries
Today’s announcement from the Government on its plan for new ferries throws more uncertainty on the future of the country’s rail network. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Nicola Willis’ smaller ferries will cost more
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...2 weeks ago
- Bill to sanction unlawful occupation of Palestine
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour fully supports greyhound racing ban
The Government has done the right thing in moving to ban greyhound racing. ...2 weeks ago
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Three heavyweight academics have conducted a linguistic analysis of the Greens parliamentary utterances: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/123001871/analysis-shows-the-greens-have-changed-the-language-of-economic-debate-in-new-zealand
[Content deleted because it contained too many links that triggered Auto-Moderation]
that was cool.
My God. What are that lot in America on? Beggars belief:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-54427762
They're barking mad!
Indeed.
A top Trump health official met Monday with a group of doctors who are proponents of the controversial “herd immunity” approach to COVID-19, even as other experts warn of its deadly and dangerous consequences.
Martin Kulldorff, a professor at Harvard; Sunetra Gupta, a professor at Oxford; and Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at Stanford, all of whom are epidemiologists studying infectious diseases, were invited to the meeting by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Scott Atlas, an adviser to Trump on whom other experts have cast doubt for his statements about COVID-19, including his endorsement of herd immunity.
In the meeting, the three doctors told Azar that allowing the virus to spread uncontrolled among young, healthy people while protecting older adults and those at higher risk for serious illness would build up enough population immunity to stop it from spreading widely while avoiding lockdowns and other mitigation measures that have had a damaging impact on the economy.
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/519727-trump-health-official-meets-with-doctors-pushing-herd-immunity#.
Judith says she likes blood sports, but only when she's the hunter, not the prey. The Christchurch leaders' debate is not what she had in mind.
Is she not enjoying herself? Pity.
Oh, she's enjoying being Trumpy and getting votes back from Advance and New Cons, maybe ACT.
It's just the country she's losing.
No doubt the tRump cultists will lap up an unproven vaccine.
In his theatrical Monday display of flouting his doctors’ advice and returning to the White House, President Trump’s triumphal videotaped message contained a line that deserves more attention than it received: “The vaccines are coming momentarily.”
Trump has spent weeks hinting that he would like a vaccine to be announced before the election, and also that he distrusts his scientific advisers. Now his administration has overruled the Food and Drug Administration’s proposed vaccine guidelines, according to a report from the New York Times. It is abundantly clear Trump’s political team is overruling its scientists in order to rush through the approval of a vaccine before the election.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/trump-vaccine-overrules-fda-election-coronavirus-science.html
Not being funny, but Ardern is looking a bit weak in this one to me.
She's simply not good at it. And it's hurting the campaign. She's not good at turning crowds – much better simply riding with crowds who already agree with her.
The faster Woods and the campaign team gets Ardern back flashing that grin across the malls of New Zealand the better it will be for us all.
Are you even watching it?
She doesn't need to turn the crowd.
Will be quite interesting to see what the people criticising Collins about interrupting will say about about Ardern's this time.
I hate to quote the devil but this is exactly on point …
https://twitter.com/MatthewHootonNZ/status/1313370460743057408
There's a link to the stuff site below @4.2
This is probably the most interesting debate so far.
They are letting them go a bit free form
She's got the crowd eating out of her hand
She closed well.
If you mean Ardern I just thought I had never seen someone throw so many slogans in with so little substance behind it.
I've never seen someone spout the same porkie in both debates.
https://twitter.com/TheSpinoffTV/status/1313366621629542400
Making up facts on the hoof is the leader’s call.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2020/03/20/tonga-declares-state-of-emergency-shuts-borders-over-coronavirus/
Though not a month
NZ 19 Samoa 21st.
Cheers
There appears to be a bit of confusion.
Quite funny how the spinoff can't google
Or Stuff
Collins' earned an early round of boos when she said Samoa had shut its borders before New Zealand (it didn't), something Ardern immediately pushed back on.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2020/03/20/tonga-declares-state-of-emergency-shuts-borders-over-coronavirus/
March the 20th
Actually. Apologies.
Thought we closed ours on the 23rd.
You are correct
Fact check: Did Sāmoa really lockdown ‘a month before New Zealand’? In the most heated exchange of the debate so far, Collins accused Ardern of “disrespecting” Sāmoa for rejecting Collins’ claim that the nation went into lockdown a month before New Zealand. So who’s right? In this case, Ardern. Sāmoa went into lockdown on March 26, a day after New Zealand entered level four lockdown.
Well if we were the 25th then that makes Samoa first given my link.
Links to official news stories don't lie
They never lie
2:00 pm on 26 March 2020
Samoa is now officially on lock down. The government said people or organisations who don't adhere to new Covid-19 lockdown requirements will face finds. Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi said the last flights from Fiji, New Zealand and American Samoa had arrived and all passengers are now under 14 days quarantine.
Shutting the borders and locking down are not the same thing. NZ was first by a day or two on both measures. Why Collins persist with this pointless and demonstrable lie I have no idea.
I find it quite bizarre that voting is already well underway and Ardern has yet to release a manifesto.
Makes me think we're in for a term of smile-and-wave politics punctuated by crisis management, wrinse and repeat, here comes 2026.
better vote Green then eh.
Like eating dry Weetbix
I like dry weetbix. Good nibbling food while consuming a book.
Hey you're the one who wanted a manifesto.. 🙂
You can moisten them with your tears or keep them dry and crunchy and add a bit of butter and honey or vegemite on them. They are fillers till something better comes along, which we all await but the piece of resistance may have to wait till after the election.
In this important election the atmosphere is so full of pollution that exposing a manifesto to air will have it covered in viruses and other noxious matter from the right/wrong-wing.
After, we expect a great meal with healthy salads prepared by seasoned chefs plus all the other healthy foods, not forgetting the sensitive gluten intolerant.
She has already won the argument.
Apologies.
Would have probably helped putting the stream link in for people.
They are currently having a half time break for a few minutes.
But there is a discussion on the first one going on inbetween
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122837729/election-2020-livestream-jacinda-ardern-and-judith-collins-face-off-in-the-press-leaders-debate
Donald Trump could just stay in the White House behind the oval office desk and do interviews with Hannity (the most powerful tv show by and long way) and keep dominating the news cycles of Fox (the most powerful station ever).
That Trump name will perpetually echo even harder through every news cycle.
On the other hand if after a week he decides to hit the campaign trail with Pence, he will be lauded as the 3rd day resurrection of the next Christ: conquering death itself.
I see plenty of upside plays for Trump right now, and I'm sure he's got the confidence to play them.
https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1313125654897008641
https://www.thewrap.com/matt-gaetz-chuck-norris-donald-trump/
An oldie but still a goodie:
Herman who?
https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1313192280971452418
But Cain's twitter-thumbs still work. Something for the tinyfingers twittertwat to look forward to.
Trump's by no means 'out of the woods'. It's the second week of COVID infection that is the most dangerous.
Still he's looked at the odds and decided they're good enough to roll with. He's a gambler by nature.
He's been in tighter corners than this before, and won.
His brand and media force just make it impossible to talk about Biden.
Which might still be Biden's best strategy. Let it be all about Grampa Rage Nappies.
He's won coming out of tight corners by bringing others to his level. Drive up the Hillary-hate. Make sure the regulators that could bring him down would go down with him. Be too big for his banks to allow to fail. But if Biden stays out of the pig-wrestling pen, the Master of the Looniverse will be exposed out there all by himself.
That seems to be working on the nationwide polls and on the betting spreads.
So bloody true, I like your comment.
confidence, try – cocksure full of oneself arrogant as bold as brassaudacious brazen impudent insolent
The PM smashing the acting leader of the national party in this debate.
Well noted @TheAl1en
After two debates where Judith Collins managed to steer the discussion more often than not, and keep her from performing paragraph-long sentences, Jacinda Ardern commanded the stage at The Press debate. She interrupted Collins whenever she felt like it. She didn't pause or hesitate when Collins interrupted her – steam-rolling all the way through. And she played the room like a fiddle.
lol
Some of the cost of Covid is the unique people we have lost to it. In this case an artist from St. Petersburg.
Meanwhile, Poots lives in his very own bubble.
However, Putin's courage will not be so desperate if you take a closer look at the same program "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin". Even at the height of the epidemic, Zarubin, who had previously announced his stories about Putin directly from the studio of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, standing next to Solovyov, suddenly and without any explanation began to get in touch on TV from a mysterious room resembling a hotel room .
The interlocutors of the "Project" explain that all people who have to be near the head of state, regardless of their regalia and age, have to serve a very strict two-week quarantine. There are at least three places for the supreme quarantine.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proekt.media%2Fnarrative%2Fvaktsina-koronavirus%2F
well saw last half and dont think anyone will be changing their minds after tonight..and for over 10% of voters its too late anyway
Actually enjoyed that one.
Both showed up with a bit of back bone.
Ardern is starting to come across as over practiced too much and fake, but she is going to win anyway so she might as well go with the flow.
I think Arderns debating has slipped markedly since last election, not sure why that should be,,,,but her interview skills are very good as she is currently demonstrating…Collins probably 'won' the debate but wont have won any new votes
Last election all she had to do was concentrate on campaigning. This time she's PM and is running the country as well as campaigning. That, I suspect, is the difference.
Funny how bias colours your comment, where mine saw nothing fake about Jacinda at all, rather I saw a bit of a flake in Judith.
You could point your own point back at you tbf
I did actually, tbf (mine)
Good debate though. Both showed they are no roll over and be hammered.
Not much sign of Judith’s mob on Twitter. And wonder of wonders Henry Cooke at Stuff thinks Ardern won it.
As discussed previously, Collins has spent the entire campaign in safe blue territory. Tonight she had a tough, lively audience, for the very first time. They weren't there to provide sycophantic nods and smiles. They responded to what she said, and mostly they weren't impressed.
Reality hit her hard.
But that's the story of her career. Always believes her own mirror. National will be relieved to get rid of her next month. It will be the most welcome exit from NZ politics since Don Brash.
Judith started with raucous interjections but she looked a little startled by the negative audience reactions for the reasons as you pointed out Observer. It seemed that she was biting her tongue from there on in – most of the time. And afterwards she didn't seem happy with the journalists questions either. Same reason?
Did she not lead the audience in prayer then?
Spend 20 minutes and learn some political economy….and if you think this dosnt apply here remember that the ratings agencies are US based as well.
https://michael-hudson.com/2020/10/%e2%80%a8debt-deflation-and-the-neofeudal-empire/
But there is hope as we have a Parliamentary system and can at least vote for alternatives