Daily Review 07/06/2018
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5:30 pm, June 7th, 2018 - 71 comments
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Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...15 hours ago - Government Forces Universities to Enforce “Free Speech” While Limiting Universities̵...
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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 ...5 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. ...2 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. ...3 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. ...3 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. ...4 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. ...5 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. ...5 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. ...5 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 ...5 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. ...6 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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Not that they’re phoning in that by-election campaign. Not at all, lol
Getting the notoriously imperious Finlayson QC to stand on a corner must mean its all hands to the pumps.
Isn’t that nick smith?
#alltorieslookalike
Yes – we have been graced by Nick this past week or so. On the whole he has looked somewhat less than scintillated. Don’t know why – when the nice young boys and girls from Dominos do this, I reckon they are on about $12/hour, Nick’s doing somewhat better than that.
Or perhaps he has seen what crappy, harried, overcrowded, traffic-congested, financially-pressured lives Aucklanders live, and is pining for Nelson, like a Norwegian blue.
Nearly – all hands to the pumps would be (Tiny Brain Tim) Groser having to swallow down little mini-sicks as he interacts with common folk.
This morning I posted on Razan Najjar’s murder by the apartheid Israeli state.
And James, Stunned Mullet, OAB, Tuppence Strawberry, Gosman and Alwyn all attacked me the messenger or tried to divert. They ignored the message.
When so many right wing trolls get involved, I know I am bearing witness to very inconvenient facts and truths.
Sine March, over 1300 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli snipers.
Over 120 have been killed.
The dead and injured include the physically disabled, children, babies and medics.
The mainstream media is a vital prop for the Israeli war machine.
Right wing trolls are part of the propaganda factory.
They are defending the indefensible.
Israel is a rogue state.
Boycott.
Divest.
Sanctions.
Why do you tell so many lies?
I might play bingo on this.
Wonder if I can get the full house of right wing trolls and Israeli apologists replying this time.
You are implying anyone who disagrees with you is “right wing”.
Prove it.
I can, you have a late model iphone with at least 2 stored contacts that work in the financial sector and an eye for modern European furniture.
Wrong on all 3 counts.
Nice try at doxxing though.
No doxing, hoaxing
Not at all.
There are left wing Israeli apologists as well.
Are you suggesting the list of respondents above are not largely right wing trolls?
You’ve even called me a neo-lib on this site because i pointed out that you were talking crap.
Kia kaha Ed.
BDS well said.
No one wants to touch a ball when it’s passed to you by a rape apologist who received it from a rapist #metoo
One more for a full house…..
You wouldn’t want to have to admit the facts Israel is massacring children, would you?
You and George are making it easier for them to do so.
But I don’t have too as they aren’t?
“Sacrificing Gaza: The Great March of Zionist Hypocrisy
By Jim Kavanagh
“What the Israelis have done over the past few weeks—killing at least 112and wounding over 13,000people (332 with life-threatening injuries and 27 requiring amputation)—is a historical crime that stands alongside the Sharpeville Massacre (69 killed), Bloody Sunday (14 killed), and the Birmingham Fire Hoses and Police Dog Repression as a defining moment in an ongoing struggle for justice and freedom. Like those events, this month’s slaughter may become a turning point for what John Pilger correctly calls “the longest occupation and resistance in modern times”—the continuing, unfinished subjugation of the Palestinian people, which, like apartheid and Jim Crow, requires constant armed repression and at least occasional episodes of extermination.”
http://www.thepolemicist.net/2018/06/sacrificing-gaza-great-march-of-zionist.html
Fake news. Get some real perspective Ed. These people tried to illegally cross an internationally recognised border using force.
Pretty sure the UN would take a hard line if it was Israel invading gaza.
False equivalence comparing it with sharpeville
Yes. The Israelis have murdered far more than the South African Police did that day. Also, Police murders don’t qualify as war crimes, and the IDF targeting civilians does.
The IDF were targeting invaders of their sovereign soil. Armed invaders, In an organised attack by a neighbouring territories government. You shed the civilian clothing and don combatants apparel when you partake in something like that.
The Israeli criminal code punishes stone throwing by up to twenty years in prison.
Even they do not claim it turns people into soldiers under the Geneva Conventions. For one thing, if they did, those arrested doing so would have to be treated as PoWs, not criminals.
Firing rifle rounds into crowds obscured by smoke and tear gas is a war crime. I suggest you acquaint yourself with the Geneva Conventions regarding indiscriminate attacks. If civilians or medics were deliberately targeted that makes it worse.
Except that they are.
They’ve been doing so for decades.
Since before Israeli invasion was immorally forced upon the Palestinians.
Dear Ed – do you enjoy fucking goats ?
How you don’t get banned for that I don’t know.
How you don’t get banned for that beats me.
Perhaps when people ask you about things you have no knowledge about it’s more to do with their ignorance being double – of both you and the subject?
Are you saying that stunned mullet is ignorant about fucking goats? Why is this relevant?
A.
It’s a long-established tradition at The Standard, when dealing with people who employ LBJ’s rhetorical strategy (that’s you, Ed), to call them out for it.
I’m pretty sure this has been explained to you before.
Please explain where I am supposed to have attacked you Ed?
The only person I replied to was Venezia. The only way that reply could be construed as an attack on you would be if you had posted the remark.
You aren’t commenting under multiple pen names are you Ed?
What an opportunity to quiz him on his take on freedom of information.
Goldsmith needs reminding the Far North was entirely neglected by the Rockstar. Its about time they loaded up on resources.
Goldsmith doesn’t realise that many people in Northland have not received any of the benefits of the Rockstar Economy which JK & Bill English developed over the past 9 years.
Nick. His hand signal says, “Get me the f*ck outa here!!”
He doesn’t look a happy camper ?
It’s tough being a Gnat now that not even shonkey JohnKey will smack your high fives.
Is it rude to point out that it looks like the member from Nelson ways, appears to have been swimming in a river that has recently had new standards applied to it?
Looks like he is lost up Shit Creeks Road ?
Why is he standing in the middle of the road?
Because the road is one of National Insignificants.
Nick@stilluntouchable
Because he is a possum frozen in fear at the in coming headlights of the Labour lead CoL
That Northcote by-election is a bit of a no win situation for National.
If they win by a healthy margin it’s “Of course they did, they’ve reigned in that neighbourhood since Hone was chopping down flagpoles.”
Anything less is going to look like a back-slide.
I see the civil emergency bloke in Guatemala is being blamed for not calling for an evacuation before the mountain blew. I have often idly wondered what would happen if the geologists said the magma was rising somewhere under Auckland, which politician or council employee would put their hand up and start an evacuation with the already overloaded roads. I know the Taranaki RC have had a couple of dummy runs in case their mountain wakes up, and they have contingency plans for farm animals. Are there plans somewhere in the bowels of the Super Shitty archives?
https://www.resiliencechallenge.nz/Resilience-Home/Science-Programmes/Infrastructure/Can-we-evacuate-Auckland-before-a-volcano-erupts
its being worked on (prob is an old plan) In short, No, there’s nowhere for them to go and CD doesn’t have enough supplies to that big of a population, in the event of a inimient eruption, my best would be the plan is to not disclose eruption to avoid panic and evac “important” people then deal with the survivors with the store supplies from the rest of the nation. The population is just too concentrated in one place.
The NZCD has no supplies at hand is because the “No Mates Party” and their Mates flog off all MoW equipment and reduced the NZDF War reserve by 90% in the 90’s with Coleman trying to flog off the other 10% with the last Government.
Neo Lib’s and modern day logistics have this saying “Just in time resupply/ support”.
Yep. That’s why the Rena was such a mess. We simply didn’t have the needed capacity available and had to wait weeks for it to become available and then more weeks travel here – from the other side of the bloody world.
A well run society would have emergency capacity available. But that costs and doesn’t allow the neo-liberals to cut taxes for the rich.
Robertson hosting Labour version of Cabinet Club.
For some reason Labour thinks this stuff is
A. OK
B. Wont get out
And even better won’t answer questions on it cos “party matters” apparently.
For all the media and journos in labour, I’m supposed communication is so weak
What a miserable wretched troll you are.
Fake outrage again Tupps. Are you a hypocrite or just a miserable wretched troll as Ed stated.
Key defends $5000-a-head Maori Party dinner.
Stuff: April 14 2014
“Prime Minister John Key says there is nothing unethical or inappropriate about charging guests at a Maori Party dinner $5000 a head to sit with him for part of the evening”
I didn’t agree with it then. I think it’s terrible for democracy in New Zealand
But this just shows how cheap access to labour i guess
But this just shows how expensivw access to National is I guess.
Charging $5000 a head ensured only wealthy elites and corporates could attend.
People will pay what they think something is worth
Yes, People will pay what they think something is worth.
In National’s world $5000 per head would be worth political and policy favours for that individual.
Nudge nudge, wink wink, we understand each other, I’ll see what I can do.
Nationals worth $5000 and Labours worth $600 is something we can all agree sounds about right
“Labours worth $600 “.
You have obviously had no experience of Grant.
He can be quite a pleasant person but you certainly don’t get any pearls of wisdom dripping from his lips.
The only reason to pay that is if you are a lobbyist and want to get access to the Minister of Finance.
Edit. Whoops. The MP for Wellington Central.
And the party president says it’s okay because Robertson was there in his capacity as an MP not Minister of Finance. So people apparently paid $600 to meet and greet Grant Robertson list MP.
Yeah right.
Same weasel words National used. Disappointing.
All weasel words have been learned from National Party MPs.
“Grant Robertson list MP.”
I hate to have to say it but he is an Electorate MP. Wellington Central to be precise.
It makes me a bit embarrassed because when anyone asks me who my MP is I have to tell them Grant. They look surprised that there could be an electorate where a plurality of voters would vote for someone like him.
I point out that at least he isn’t as foolish as the MP for Te Atatu but it isn’t that much of a consolation.
I have the distinct pleasure of having Paula Bennet as my MP. My electorate vote is worth nothing out here. Thankfully MMP means I get a party vote to waste.
You have my most sincere sympathy.
Yep
The President’s Club. Rent a pollie’s eat society.
Anyone fearing this Current Mob were swinging too far can rest easy.
SSDD
SSDD. Had to look it up. My new thing today.
I’d say that I’m surprised – but I’m not.
It’s pleasing to see that Dr Nick Smith is fluent in sign language. After all, it’s an official language of New Zealand and he’s never quite mastered the other two.
Perhaps Nick was drawn north by that picture of Dan with the pellucid waters of Little Shoal Bay behind him?
Rather than sitting in swanky Takapuna restaurants drinking pinot noir of an evening with the Nat campaign crew, perhaps Nick slides off his shoes and socks and enjoys the soft, oily wadeability of the mudflats?
I think he would prefer to be sitting next to the fire with a stiff scotch in his hand.