So the govt's credibility is being tested by the Waitangi Tribunal:
The government has long insisted it has not failed Māori in the Covid-19 response, and that Māori leaders, iwi and other organisations have been regularly consulted. But one of those iwi leaders, Mike Smith, described the level of engagement as insulting, calling it patsy consultation with pre-made decisions. The application for the hearing was brought by the Māori Council, arguing that the Crown had breached its obligations of partnership and protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/457343/covid-19-response-waitangi-tribunal-hearing-into-whether-te-tiriti-breached-begins
Today, Bloomfield's testimony seriously threatened the viability of the Maori cabal controlling Ardern thesis that got some traction the other day.
So cabinet over-ruled the Maori cabal?? Or did they fail to support Bloomfield? Will any political journalist in Aotearoa prove themselves on the ball by asking the right people these questions? Watch this space.
Not so much pandering to racists but scared of them.
When the issue was being explored in the media several months ago, I recall thinking… they (the Govt.) are scared to prioritise Maori because the middle classes (who in 2020 came over to Labour in droves) won't like it. And they were right. My middle class relatives have been banging on about Maori taking precedence over the restof us ever since. I argue the toss but get drowned out.
Sometimes being cautious does not pay off. They should have prioritised Maoriand to hell with what the the middle classes think.
I notice since the great new reset that TV news has become even more ‘ Labour Phobic’ almost on a par with the Western Russia phobic retric. Lots of arm twisting going on in our ‘free Press.
Maybe. Something unusual happened. 1ewes at 6 did a hit piece on Ardern tonite.
In an item about claims by, among others, The Greens – that Menendez March character – that benefit sanctions are harming children (something 1ewes covered previously a week or two ago, that made Sepuloni look impotent & captured by her Department which has done nothing to address the problem) they showed a senior MSD staffer at a Select Committee having absolutely no idea whether checks were made whether beneficiaries had children before sanctions were applied.
Then they showed clips of Ardern answering a tv reporter’s questions saying that she believed people with children were not sanctioned, & (IIRC) that she believed that this was checked. After her answers, 1ewes contradicted her with the actual facts, including that, in some cases, sanctions are in fact automatically imposed.
There will be serious grumpiness with TVNZ on the Beehive 9th floor tonite, methinks.
Have you caught up with the petition by Jan Logie on how ACC treats sexual abuse claims?
I would like an inquiry to be held into the process of psychologist and psychiatric assessments which are used to establish if a mental injury has occurred. Historical cases are hard to settle due to many being minimised when high level offending occurred.
would be nice if we got ahead of the curve on this one and explained to the people who don't yet know what mātauranga Māori actually is. The hard core racists will racist, it's the ones who currently don't get it that are going to be swayed by Peterson or Dawkin.
you seem to think that mātauranga Māori is science. It's not. It's the body of knowledge that arises out of Te Ao Māori, and that includes but is not limited to empirical processes of developing and testing knowledge of the physical world.
you seem to think that mātauranga Māori is science.
Nope. I'm vociferously arguing that it is not. It would seem we agree on that.
But then the persecution by the Royal Society of outstanding science experts like Prof Garth Cooper or the marginalising of world class figures such as Dr Michael Corballis tells us a quite different story.
Another 'no debate' smash down by the woke racists who have determined that because the scientific revolution first originates within a European setting – therefore it's irredeemable 'whiteness' must be eradicated. And because the STEM disciplines are now the last powerful bastion of reason standing against their insanities (such as 'sex doesn't exist) – it must be subverted to their cause.
Nope. I'm vociferously arguing that it is not. It would seem we agree on that.
Nope. Whether you argue for or against, if your starting point is that mātauranga Māori is/isn't science, you've missed the point. Which you patently have. Which leaves a bunch of strawmen blowing in the wind.
1.(noun) knowledge, wisdom, understanding, skill – sometimes used in the plural.
Ko ngā kaumātua e kaiponu ana i ngā kōrero e tika ana kia hāmenetia e mātou, e ngā tamariki, nō te mea he kōhuru tēnei i a mātou. Homai ngā kōrero me ngā mātauranga o mua hei taiaha mā mātou ki te patu i ngā Pākehā e kī nei he iwi kūare te Māori. Kaua e waiho mā ngā Pākehā e kōrero ngā tikanga Māori i roto i ngā nūpepa Pākehā, engari mā tātou, mā ngā Māori, e kōrero i roto i tā tātou nūpepa Māori, i 'Te Pipiwharauroa' (TP 10/1907:9). / It is right that the elders who are withholding information be censured by us, the children, because this is a treacherous abuse of custom against us. Provide us with the stories and the knowledge of the past as a weapon for us to combat the Pākehā who say that the Māori are an ignorant people. Don't leave it for the Pākehā to talk about Māori customs in English newspapers, but it's for us, the Māori, to talk about them in our Māori newspaper, 'Te Pipiwharauroa'. (From an article in Māori by Te Rangi Hīroa.)
2.(noun) education – an extension of the original meaning and commonly used in modern Māori with this meaning.
I te wā e tamariki ana koinā te mahurutanga o te tangata. Ko tēnā te wā hei whāwhātanga ki te mātauranga (TTT 1/2/1925:179). / During the time of childhood a person is untroubled. That's the time to tackle education.
But at the dawn of the scientific era we suddenly get this:
The Portuguese campaign of Atlantic navigation is one of the earliest examples of a systematic scientific large project, sustained over many decades. This program of study recruited several men of exceptional ability, had a well-defined set of objectives, and was open to experimental confirmation through the success or otherwise of subsequent navigations.
Yes they were solving the same problem, but the method was qualitatively different – producing over time technologies such as sextants, celestial tables, accurate maps, precision clocks and ultimately the modern GPS. This was not a foreseeable outcome of the Polynesian navigation model.
By the mid-1500's the Portuguese were reliably finding tiny remote and isolated islands like Reunion in the vast emptiness of the Indian ocean, by the late1700's European navigators could pretty much sail anywhere in the world. They had taken an ancient heritage of context specific navigational skills, and transformed them into a generalised formal method that solved the problem in a universal manner. One accessible to and repeatable by anyone.
You are still not getting it. The science that Māori were doing pre contact is a subset of Mātauranga Māori (in my limited Pākehā understanding).
You are still comparing science with mātauranga Māori, but it doesn't make sense to do that.
You are also arguing Western science, rather than science. As Felix explained, all peoples use the basic methods of empiricism to observe and understand the physical world.
Western science took that in a certain direction, you are right about that. You can argue that you want this body of knowledge and practice siloed off from other ways of doing and understanding science. But this is where the problems of racism come in. WS is so dominant, that to keep it segregated in this way while specifically excluding other ways of knowing from for instance the education system, will impact badly on Māori (and the rest of us also lose out imo).
You can also argue that you want it siloed off from culture, but that would be odd given that Western science is steeped in its own culture. Again, hugely problematic in terms of how not to be racist while doing that.
The other aspect here is that WS has made these incredible gains but hasn't been tempered by wisdom or a sane culture. Hence climate change, environmental destruction, harms via medical science and so on. Putting science within a larger body of knowledge (ways of knowing) would change that.
You can also argue that you want it siloed off from culture, but that would be odd given that Western science is steeped in its own culture. Again, hugely problematic in terms of how not to be racist while doing that.
The Chinese who train more STEM people on actual merit than anyone else in world would laugh themselves silly to read that. The scientific method is a universal – it transcends culture more thoroughly than almost anything else we've created as a species.
Quit telling me “I don’t get it”. You of all people should understand how important it is that the meaning of words is not hijacked for rotten purposes. And if you want to play the 'racist' card on this – I suggest you take it up with Prof Garth Cooper – who is Maori.
The Chinese who train more STEM people on actual merit than anyone else in world would laugh themselves silly to read that. The scientific method is a universal – it transcends culture more thoroughly than almost anything else we've created as a species.
Western science has a specific lineage that isn't universal (WS didn't arise spontaneously all over the world, it arrived in a specific time and place). That the Chinese knew how to integrate it and retain their traditional knowledge, and development them together, puts them far ahead of the West.
Scientists who cannot, or will not, acknowledge their cultural bias are part of the problem.
Quit telling me “I don’t get it”. You of all people should understand how important it is that the meaning of words is not hijacked for rotten purposes. And if you want to play the 'racist' card on this – I suggest you take it up with Prof Garth Cooper – who is Maori.
You are literally misinterpreting what mātauranga Māori is despite it having been explained to you. If the argument is over semantics, I have no problem with coining different language, hence my usage of Western science instead of science.
Did you make an argument re what the societies outside of the West were doing, pre the arrival of Western science, and why it wasn't science? Or did it just come down to it wasn't as good a science as what the West was doing?
That the Chinese knew how to integrate it and retain their traditional knowledge, and development them together, puts them far ahead of the West.
Such a generalisation is not justified. All the Chinese engineers I worked with this past year are thoroughly modern and paradoxically enough quite dismissive of cultural knowledge such as TCM.
And going the other way – it's not true that the West abandoned all of it's traditional bodies of knowledge either. There are plenty of people who sustain it in many domains.
Scientists who cannot, or will not, acknowledge their cultural bias are part of the problem.
Everyone has a cultural bias. It would be impossible for them not to have. This however reads as 'woke hatred for whiteness'.
You are literally misinterpreting what mātauranga Māori is despite it having been explained to you.
Your definition completely aligns with my description of humanity’s common heritage of observational knowledge as I described above at 9:33am below. I am not misinterpreting anything.
Knowledge is a very broad term, and it certainly forms a part of the scientific method you’re calling WS. Humans relied on this kind of knowledge for millennia just to survive – but it completely fails to explain the qualitative leap we call the scientific revolution and has led to you and I typing on the internet.
Western science has a specific lineage that isn't universal (WS didn't arise spontaneously all over the world, it arrived in a specific time and place)
The lineage is Greek,for example Newton took Pythagorus and extended space to three dimensions,and Einstein extended it to four dimensions.The equations being universal as the mathematics are an absolute truth.
Or did it just come down to it wasn't as good a science as what the West was doing?
Put bluntly yes.
If you persist in stretching the definition of 'science' to include 'all knowledge' the discussion is derailed because we're simply not talking about the same thing.
I have explicitly and repeatedly acknowledged that vast heritage of cultural and observational knowledge that millennia of human struggle has bequeathed us. It should be respected for two reasons, one is that it was what enabled any of us to be alive today, the other is that in many places it retains signposts to information that in our rush to a scientific modernity we have overlooked or forgotten.
But modern science as it evolved and first came to a recognisable form in the 1500's has taken humanity to a qualitatively different level. A better level that delivered better outcomes on the whole – and will continue to do so.
But those who would seek to demolish this astonishing legacy will first seek to define away the meaning of words. Also what Poission said.
Or did it just come down to it wasn't as good a science as what the West was doing?
Put bluntly yes.
Good, something concrete. So in your mind, Western science is better at observing and understanding the physical world than other forms of empiricism developed in other places/times.
If you persist in stretching the definition of 'science' to include 'all knowledge' the discussion is derailed because we're simply not talking about the same thing.
Red, I've just spent half a day saying 'science' doesn't include all knowledge. How are you missing that?
I have explicitly and repeatedly acknowledged that vast heritage of cultural and observational knowledge that millennia of human struggle has bequeathed us.
Here it is you that is conflating cultural and empiricism. If I understand you, you want it to look like this:
Western science is discrete and separate from other forms of knowing, including other forms of empiricism that use basic scientific method.
vs
All other knowledge, including non-WS empiricism, but also including religion, mythology, and social and cultural knowledge bases, tech and processes.
And that those two sets of things are both useful.
But modern science as it evolved and first came to a recognisable form in the 1500's has taken humanity to a qualitatively different level.
Yes, Western Science.
But those who would seek to demolish this astonishing legacy will first seek to define away the meaning of words.
What would be some examples of 'seek to demolish' so I can understand what you are referring to.
So in your mind, Western science is better at observing and understanding the physical world than other forms of empiricism developed in other places/times.
This is not a utopian claim, or that everything it has delivered is perfect. Quite the opposite, if anything the perpetual and necessary skepticism of the scientific method guarantees we will always be seeking better and improved pathways.
I'm aware that I'm struggling to convey properly what I mean by Modern Science; and I offer this really neat Veritassium video that starts in an arcane corner of mathematics – and arrives at the miracle machines you and I are typing on. You don't have to get all the details to appreciate the story – and it moves me beyond all reason:
That Modern Science has it's origins within Europe, and it's heroes are almost all 'dead white men' seems to be the real problem here. Well frankly I reject that as blatant woke racism.
I think your explanation is fine. Let's call it Modern Science (I'll still refer to it as Western as well). MS developed in a particular way and brings specific benefit. I don't think there is anything controversial in that.
We would differ in that I see ways of knowing in a circle and you probably see them in a hierarchy. And I would still use the word science to describe non-MS methodologies (and would reference the dictionary definitions at this point). But I think we are clear now.
Afaik, Māori are saying we can add to this body of knowledge (MS) from our own experience. They may also be saying that it should change to some degree.
If you have specific examples of how this damages MS, I'd be interested to hear them.
At this point I usually see the motte and bailey fallacy get trotted out. The motte – the easily defended position is:
Māori are saying we can add to this body of knowledge (MS) from our own experience. They may also be saying that it should change to some degree.
Well almost no reasonable person is going to disagree with this, and especially not put their career and reputation at risk over. Indeed:
The authors of the letter, ‘In Defence of Science’, were careful to say that indigenous knowledge was ‘critical for the preservation and perpetuation of culture and local practices, and plays key roles in management and policy’ and should be taught in New Zealand’s schools.
But then the bailey which triggered the Royal Society witch hunt is this:
But they drew the line at treating it as on a par with physics, chemistry and biology: ‘In the discovery of empirical, universal truths, it falls far short of what we can define as science itself.’
Or how about we get ahead of the curve and explain to those opposed to science what science actually is.
FFS the idea that Polynesian explorers were using something other than scientific techniques to navigate the pacific is not only scientifically and linguistically ignorant it's also blatantly racist and culturally ignorant too.
Humans everywhere were doing smart tough things to survive and thrive. Virtually all agriculture, animal husbandry, the building of things like pyramids, astronomy, mining and metal working, number systems, writing, political and military systems, medical models and so on – were notable features of societies everywhere. Consider the complexity and sophistication of traditional Chinese medicine as an example.
Or astonishing artifacts like the Antikythera Mechanism that pushed calendar and astronomical methods right up to the verge of fully modern ideas. The Ancient Greeks got to within a few conceptual steps of a full blown industrial revolution as did a number of civilisations. Maori were no different, nor especially unique. Their development of deep water navigation being a both obvious and necessary adaptation to their environment.
All of these pre-industrial observational knowledge systems were essential, valuable and can still inform us. But calling them science is yet another example of the deplorable woke trick of taking powerful words and stretching them into uselessness.
Perhaps I was too ambiguous. What I was trying to say is that there isn't another reliable repeatable way to discover what's true except by the scientific method. To the extent that ancient people discovered things that worked, they were practicing science. There isn't another repeatable way to do it. No doubt they also practiced lots of other non-scientific methods that didn't reliably or repeatably find out anything.
What I'm seeing people say is that they were actually practicing some other equally efficacious – or perhaps even superior sort of truth-finding that isn't scientific and that strikes me as a complete non-sequitur.
To the extent that ancient people discovered things that worked, they were practicing science.
That hijacks the word and blurs over a crucial historic distinction. In my view the word science is the explanation for this graph.
Economic growth is a very recent phenomenon – we already saw this in the data that we discussed earlier in this entry. It is true that in the pre-growth era some people were very well off – but this was the tiny elite of the tribal leaders, pharaohs, kings and religious leaders. Whilst global inequalities were lower in a world where sustained economic growth had yet to occur anywhere, economic inequality within pre-modern societies was extremely high and the average person was living in conditions that we would call extreme poverty today.
The destitution of the common man only changed with the onset of economic growth. The time when this change happened in various countries can be seen in these two charts. Economic prosperity was only achieved over the last couple of hundred years. In fact, it was mostly achieved over the second half of the last hundred years. The rise of global average incomes – global GDP per capita – shows that the world economy has moved from a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game.
This universal transformation happened for a reason – science. Airbrushing that away to appease woke racists intent on eradicating 'whiteness' is bullshit.
'Economic growth is a very recent phenomenon'-really -Portugal,Spain,England,France all had huge economic growth…with Empire.
'– but this was the tiny elite of the tribal leaders, pharaohs, kings and religious leaders.'-like the 1% today you mean.
-'and the average person was living in conditions that we would call extreme poverty today.-nothing much has changed except maybe locations,25,000 a day dying of starvation.
' global GDP per capita – shows that the world economy has moved from a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game.'-delusional,meaningless drivel'(imo)
The reality is that by 2021 around 85% of humanity had escaped absolute poverty – something utterly unimaginable in 1821. In most respects you live a much better life than even the 1% elites of that era.
nothing much has changed except maybe locations,25,000 a day dying of starvation.
Due almost entirely to political incompetence and ethnic conflicts.
As you know re data…lies,damn lies and statistics'.
If there are 100,000 billionaires in the world and 100,000 people with .50c …if we add the totals and ascertain the average of 200,000 people it comes out as quite…meaningless.
' it is a time in which the income of the average person grew immensely – from an average of £1051 incomes per person per year increased to over £30,000 a 29-fold increase in prosperity. This means an average person in the UK today has a higher income in two weeks than an average person in the past had in an entire year. Since the total sum of incomes is the total sum of production this also means that the production of the average person in two weeks today is equivalent to the production of the average person in an entire year in the past'
As I've mentioned before…what does this 29 fold increase buy ,adjusted for inflation!-line it up with house prices as an example.
This guy seems to be your go to…his analysis is so selective,to be ..useless-imo.
We've had this discussion before on correcting for inflation in monetary time series data. If you will not understand that then really you have no place in this discussion.
And how often have I seen this phrase “I stopped watching/reading at …”. It’s the hallmark signal of the cognitive dissonance that happens when data conflicts with fixed thinking.
This guy seems to be your go to…his analysis is so selective,to be ..useless-imo.
That's a genuine objection. I agree that incomes in the developed West started to fall behind productivity sometime in the 70's.
My response is that this coincides with the final major expansion of the post WW2 global trade order to fully embrace Asia, India and Latin America – which inevitably brought workers in Europe and the Anglosphere into direct competition with the developing world.
It also coincided with the early 80's overshadowing of Keynsian policy settings with the idiotic neo-liberal idea that because capitalist markets were good at solving some economic problems – they must therefore be good at solving all problems.
And finally the absence of a global governance system that might moderate and regulate these affairs has meant we lacked the tools to address the concerns you raise.
"to appease woke racists intent on eradicating 'whiteness' is bullshit."
Well that's interesting. We both disagree with the woke racists but from different angles. You think they're wrong for saying ancients did science, and I think they're wrong for saying the ancients' magic was just as good as science.
"That hijacks the word "
People are either using the scientific method or they're not. If they're reliably and repeatably discovering anything about reality then they must be using it, because there was never any other way that worked. The hijack is in reserving the word just for science that leads to your specific set of outcomes. That is starting from the conclusion and working backwards, and is not very scientific.
I also think that context matters here. If I were stuck in the Australian outback with no help coming, would I want to be with a group of local Aboriginal people who knew how to live on the land, or would I want to be with a hydrologist, botanist and zoologist?
I would actually want a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon).
But to answer your question in good faith – if I was in the outback yes the local people would have better knowledge of the outback. And if I was in the Arctic tundra I would definitely pick the local Inuit.
But if I did not know in advance where I might land up – in other words I had to deal with the general case – I would pick the group of scientists as far more likely to be able to discover what we needed to know to survive regardless of the setting. (I accept a few cans of baked beans to get us through while they worked it out would be a bonus.)
I'm not trying to be smart here – this is an important qualitative difference.
You think they're wrong for saying ancients did science, and I think they're wrong for saying the ancients' magic was just as good as science.
That works for me both ways. Happy to accept this point.
People are either using the scientific method or they're not. If they're reliably and repeatably discovering anything about reality then they must be using it, because there was never any other way that worked.
The crux of this is 'reliably and repeatedly'. Look back at the comparison I made above between Polynesian and Portuguese deep water navigation. One led to the GPS chart plotter, the other did not. One method was amenable to deeper levels of abstraction and generalisation, the other was not. One has become a universal tool, the other a cultural curiosity that's of niche appeal only.
So, parliament recognised the right to self-determination.
Green Party MP Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, a longtime advocate in the rainbow community, was in tears and had to pause to gather her emotions as she spoke in support of the Bill in the House.
I do empathise with victims of traditional social categorising, having experienced such victimhood myself in the distant past (longhaired male, cannabis etc). We all ought to have the legal right to express our identity in our own terms.
However, inasmuch as the new law may permit infringement of the civil rights of others, we could be exchanging one evil for another, eh?
If guys pretending to be women are empowered to invade women's spaces by this law, there could be harm done. Enabling any serious mysogynist to target women easily!
You can stop recycling the strawperson arguments now. Men already harm women without needing to change anything. This has been talked to death all year.
Clearly the parliamentarians are taking an evidence-based approach to the thing. We just need to wait for the opportunists to spot the opportunity, get in there & do their usual thing. Human nature always produces predators as offenders. Shouldn't take long for the reports to come in…
It's my take from the (unanimous?) decision. Evidence of harm. Potential abuse & consequent harm. In other words, the precautionary principle never entered into their thinking…
hard to assess evidence when you refuse to look at it and you are part of the movement to silence dissent.
And yes, why be cautious when you know there are no problems.
It doesn't make sense of course. International experts gave evidence via submissions, and that's all backed up by copious amounts of information and discussion online going back years now. So either one believes that NZ is somehow immune to the problems we should be cautious about compared to other countries, or one believes that women and kids are ok as collateral damage, or one is so immersed in the ideology that it's not possible to see outside of it anymore.
And let's not forget that there is immense pressure on people, women especially, to not speak out. I actually can't imagine any women in the Greens or Labour being able to speak out as a gender critical feminist and not put their career at risk. Ad and co can assert that all women MPs wanted this but this speaks to what I assume is his large ignorance or denialism about the impact that No Debate has and is still having.
But hey, we're supposed to just shut the fuck up now. Women, talking about women's business, are supposed to not talk or go away somewhere else. As if men get to tell women what to do. Lol, how do progressive men even rationalise that in their own heads?
Seems to me that the situation calls for a new phase of feminist politics. However I'm too remote from the experiential side of the issue & will have to await reaction from female activists in their twenties & thirties to get a sense of the potential for that.
one of the things that gives me the greatest hope at the moment is the rise of the gender critical feminist movement in the UK (aka Terf Island). This is largely older left wing or centre left feminists with long histories of political, social justice, activist and academic work. They are organising at the grassroots level and have been successful in changing government policy. Lots of battles being fought on many fronts, and not all wins, but the solidarity and sisterhood is something to behold. They also hold a lot of power in various ways.
And yes, there are plenty of young GCFs. From what I can tell Gen Z are more sceptical of the ideology than Millenials have been.
The detrans women's community is also growing in strength and producing its own body of knowledge that is important to the debate.
Sure, we should wait until women are harmed, then there will be a long string of excuses by left wing men about collateral damage.
As Sacha points out, it's all been discussed, so we know that some left wing men take the position that women already get sexually assaulted and harassed, so what's a few more women being raped, eh?
We know from international experience that housing trans women and other males via self-ID into women's prisons results in sexual assault of women prisoners, but who cares about them, trans women get raped too so women will just have to suck it up.
We know that the rate of men recording women in changing rooms and toilets is on the rise.
We know that the dignity and privacy and safety of women who are rape and sexual assault survivors, or who have religious restrictions on how they interact with men, is being surrendered for not just trans women, but other males for whom self-IDing as women gives them psychological and sexual satisfaction.
But sure, let's wait until self-ID in NZ is causing widespread harm and then I expect the left wing men currently supporting to do exactly nothing. Because NZ is special and can't possibly be like those other terrible places, or maybe it's just that we don't actually care that much about women's right to their own politics unless it aligns with what the men want.
Oh right, so you think that parliament gets to be the sole arbiter of society and women's politics. Just women's politics presumably, we are still allowed to challenge parliament on other things they get wrong.
Parliament gets to evaluate bills that become Acts, and that is their prerogative entirely. Not only was any evidence proposed against it unpersuasive, it was unpersuasive right across the entire political spectrum, every party, every woman, every man, and across every Member of Parliament.
Parliament gets to evaluate bills that become Acts, and that is their prerogative entirely.
Thanks Patronising Man. But we have a long, very important history of protest against government when it gets it wrong.
Not only was any evidence proposed against it unpersuasive, it was unpersuasive right across the entire political spectrum, every party, every woman, every man, and across every Member of Parliament.
It doesn't get more comprehensive than that.
Except for two things,
No Debate means that women are afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs, friends, social networks
The issues have yet to go to women generally in NZ for discussion and debate.
There's a term on social media called Peak Trans. It's problematic because it unfairly places emphasis on trans people rather than gender identity ideologists/activists, but it's essentially the process liberal and progressives go through when they realise that their young teen age girls will have to share changing rooms with intact males, or they learn what AGP is, or they read about the feminist academics in the UK losing their jobs for saying that biological sex is important, or that women prisoners are being raped by males who self-ID into women's prisons, or that lesbians are being sexually assaulted by trans identified males because lesbians are supposed to now like girl dick and are transphobes if they don't. Not a comprehensive list by any means.
Comprehensive was however also when men in parliament were refusing women the right to vote, or not be raped in marriage, or to own property. Like I said, none of what you are doing is new. It's old and tedious. We get it. Women’s rights and politics gets supported by men when it suits the men, not because women deserve their own political sovereignty.
Submissions to parliament were 73% against the proposed bill in its current form. That's not listening, Ad.
That does not mean that submitters were against the proposal for transgender recognition. In fact, many submissions supported that concept, just not in this particular form that has resulted in many issues in countries that have passed it.
With all due respect Ad I really think we are the ones who need to decide whether our cause is lost, not you.
If the women on this blogsite are anything to go by, we are only just beginning.
Once women start putting it together that the male in their change room is allowed to be there, because of this law, and the De-transitioners start to get more of a voice (yes that's right the 22,000 and counting young people whose bodies and fertitlity and ability to have an organism are compromised, then some of these politicians may regret their votes.
Personally I don't know how people can be taken in by this ideology.
what's your point SPC? If you are trying to tell me that there is no issue with left wing men's support for gender identity ideology against women's rights when I'm pointing right at it, I'd have to ask what you are on about.
Since when have left wing men (in democracy at least) been at the centre of opposition to womens rights?
In the 1960s and 70s left wing men told women to shut the fuck up about women's issues, so women went off and organised themselves into second wave feminism.
A more recent example would be two left wing male authors on TS blocked and basically did a hatchet job on the women's project that was trying to get more women authors and commenters on TS.
I still don't know what your point is. Maybe instead of asking questions and speaking obliquely you could just spell it out? Are you objecting to me talking about left wing men as being opposed to women's politics?
And one historic movement for (equal) gender rights ideology was the NOW. Which sort of neutralised them on the birth sex identity front.
Sorry, what? National Organisation of Women? What's their role in gender identity ideology and how does this relate to the discussion today?
Yep … looks very much like women from the Trans-Gender ID Feminist faction … eg Stephanie Rodgers / Jan Logie & so on … are the core supporters & promoters … & certainly the major propagndists on social media … sadly their adversaries (who I generally have some sympathy for) – the Gender Critical Feminists – are still stuck in the obsessive It's all down to Men dogma. An underlying misandry prevents them seeing the Wood for the Trees.
sadly the Gender Critical Feminists are still stuck in the It's all down to Men dogma
That's stupid. I was talking about men on TS, because it's an obvious pattern and a specific dynamic that causes issues for women. Nothing I have said implies that only lw men are responsible.
Many of the GCF women on TS have been criticising NZ women, just read the comments about the self-ID select committee process. I haven't seen NZ women offsite saying it's all on lw men either. But perhaps you haven't been reading what GCFs actually say.
I was/am not aware of TS's left wing author background issues (and do not need to …).
PS Above while editing a post in reply to one of yours I decided to delete it and start again (not knowing you had made a reply). I'll reboot that on today's DR.
Yes, it's not necessary to know the details of what's happened back end on TS (and there are limits on what I can say), but I wanted to give two examples from quite different times but including a contemporary example, that demonstrate that left wing male antipathy towards women's politics has form and outside of the gender identity fight.
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For me this one was more difficult to make a determination on than the civil unions, PR and same sex marriages.
The claims made then by opponents that there would be harm resulting was not something to take seriously – and democracy is not about conformity to a world view imposed on society by some inter-generational order of God (whatever the faith of some/many of its citizens).
Both the transgender and women have a right to be safe and then there is the next level confusion when issues of identity, puberty and social and physical development inter-act with the role of the parent in the life of the child.
Both the transgender and women have a right to be safe and then there is the next level confusion when issues of identity, puberty and social and physical development inter-act with the role of the parent in the life of the child.
I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
Safeguarding of women and children is "not something to take seriously"
OK then.
"Next level confusion"
You got that right. Lies about fundamental aspects of human nature are at the centre of this ideology. Confusion is useful camouflage when you're trying to demolish biological reality in service of an abhorrent political project.
Firestone made a stunning prediction. She jubilantly declared that when biology was subdued and “transsexuality” became the legal and cultural norm, “the blood tie of the mother to the child would eventually be severed” and the triumphal “disappearance of motherhood” would follow.
Well given that over the past 3 – 4 generations fatherhood has been marginalised into virtual irrelevancy then we should not be surprised at this next level extension. And given this was always one of the open goals of marxism the dots start connecting in bold neon highlighter.
For those who think the man as head of the family is a cornerstone of society order and that atheistic socialism wants the state (of equal vote to male and female) to have power instead of the traditional patriarchy
(see the Frankfort School and The Rocky Horror Picture Show send up of it)
allowing women careers and ownership of property
equal pay for equal work
allowing contraception to women
allowing divorce
providing support to the solo mother
were just the beginning, next the Goddess will be an equal to God and priests will wear frilly undergarments.
For me this one was more difficult to make a determination on than the civil unions, PR and same sex marriages.
The claims made then by opponents that there would be harm resulting was not something to take seriously
To help your comprehension emphasis added. But it should have been obvious what the meaning was – it spoke to then – those past issues.
Your claim that this means not taking safety of women and children seriously is worse than the average strawman but a deliberate and calculated insult.
I can presume that because you were able to determine the meaning of the last paragraph – it is going to be even more difficult to parent children through those years than before. A child centred approach is fine but interaction between the state and parent is going to get complicated.
Was pleased to read that. Glad she's come through, and scans show NED.
(Might be of interest to note that breast cancer patients do not have scans after treatment. They are advised that they will become aware if the cancer returns, usually by the bone-deep pain they will experience. Although 1 in 9 women in NZ will get breast cancer, and I have friends and family that had gone through it, I wasn't aware this was the case.)
The Green Party shut down debate, within the party, about gender identity ideology and how it and self-ID impact on women. That's the Green Party with some of most democratic processes of any political party in NZ, and they refused to let it be discussed. Just so we are clear that the Greens have been part of No Debate, and that this is reflected in their position on the Bill.
I think it may impact on them in the long run, I'm not convinced it is happening yet. Most people don't know about debate being shut down in the party, and most people don't know what the gender critical/feminist arguments about self-ID are. We will see in time. It's possible people won't care. And there is the problem of who else would one vote for? It's not like Labour are any better.
Yeah but the shout is only audible to anyone listening. I've said it here many times before but repetition is often necessary in the comms process: the Green Party remains on the same level of popular support it had the year it was formed (7%). Any upward fluctuations are reciprocal to ebbing support for Labour.
The interesting question is why the Greens aren't ever trying to recruit centrists. Given that centrists always create election outcomes, you'd think the logic would be persuasive. My explanation has always been leftist political positioning – but I'm open to other views.
because the Greens want change not power, and being left of Labour is a better way to get change than trying to compete with Labour in the centre. They pulled Labour left on climate for instance.
the irony of course is that lots of lefties criticise them for not being left enough, but won't actually vote for them and pull them left 🤡
Mostly I just think the Greens know better than most about what works for them. I am disappointed in them not going hard on climate especially in terms of making waves about Labour's slow action, but we can't have it both ways. We either want them in government (kind of) and making change in the system, or we want them out and able to rabble rouse. If I saw NZers actually willing to make changes for climate I'd be more believing that the latter would work. I just don't see the evidence.
There were plenty of people in the Labour Party who understood the seriousness of CC back in the late 1970s and 80s weka. But I do agree with you that the parliamentary wing were well behind the ball game – not all of them but most of them.
I sometimes wonder if Norman Kirk had lived to complete two full terms at the helm whether Labour would have been higher on the CC awareness scale sooner.
It seems to me that they remain incapable of making themselves relevant to the majority….they appear obsessed with fringe issues to their own detriment.
If it continues it will ultimately cost them some of the support they currently enjoy.
I see them doing solid work in a number of areas, and making gains that fit with GP principles and values. I would guess that at this point in the election cycle, making those gains is a high priority. This will including stuff we don't see much about like how government departments are run.
Imo it's still impossible to tell how much of the GP's stuck vote is due to Ardern, and Labour's handling of the pandemic.
Recent polls have shown the GP trending upwards.
But I agree that they appear to be focused on issues that won't give them the heft to become a big player. We know that they got badly burned with the backlash against Turei's speech, so I'm not sure that the perpetual call from some on the left to do something radical is that useful.
Green Party MP for central Auckland Chlöe Swarbrick said it was clear the government did not have any intention of meaningfully fixing this.
"With the effective political guarantee of what the prime minister and minister of finance call 'sustained moderation' – that is continual growth in the price of these assets – we are not going to deal with this problem."
While there was no silver bullet, Swarbrick said New Zealand needed a "seismic shift" in how we see housing, including actually taxing wealth and capital gains.
"It's looking at things that are completely uncontroversial in other democracies and jurisdictions: the likes of rental warrant of fitness, landlord registers, property manager regulations and rent controls. That is a suite of tools that could really do something here."
ok Pat, you either won't say or you're just hand waving in a general direction of something vague. Yes, the Greens should do better. No-one is prepared to say how exactly.
Swarbrick and Menendez are doing awesome work, including putting out actual left wing ideas. But remember what happened when Turei did this as co-leader? It ended her parliamentary career.
So anyone saying the Greens should be bolder and do more needs to say how. We know what we want to happen, but the Greens still exist within NZ's conservative political culture.
I wonder how it would have played out had she been supported?
Supported by who? She was unequivocally supported by Shaw and the caucus apart from the two MPs who monkey wrenched GP process. But the MSM went viciously hard, including lefties like John Campbell. Nothing tells me more than this that the political classes in NZ are classist af. If someone like Campbell doesn't get it then there's no hope of the wider electorate either. NZ doesn't want a left wing govt, it's doesn't want to solve poverty or end the housing crisis. And that includes the larger proportion of the left. But sure, blame the Greens, who are actually left of Labour and have solid left wing policies.
"@Pat, so you want the GP to be Labour, good to know."
Meh….I want someone to be what Labour should be (and are obviously incapable of being, since Douglas)…if its the Greens then all good, and if they are as 'solid left wing' as you claim then it shouldnt be so difficult for them.
If we want more action on inequality, housing or the environment the evidence is in that the Labour party will not do it without a pull from the left. The Greens remain committed to actually trying to solve these issues and it’s clear Labour is only happy to work with them on their own terms. That the Greens are the ones to blame for this has always baffled me.
I want more action on inequality, housing and the environment and so to make sure this happens I support the Greens. That isn’t to say I agree with everything they do but this is MMP and I am hopeful that new and first-time voters understand this too.
On my cynical days I conclude that most NZ liberals in fact don't want action on those things. Hard core Labourites I can understand, but the people that want action but won't vote for the party that has the actual policies, this is beyond me.
then there's the fact that so many Labour voters own property /cynicism
Someone should do some research on that to see if it’s actually a thing. People won’t vote for the Greens because when it comes down to their personal wealth they’re protectionist, damn the poor.
The Greens don't talk about poverty much though, all we ever hear from them is gender identity, sexuality, hate speech, how everything and everyone is racist and occasionally they'll talk about weed or climate change.
The Greens have become a stand in for a left wing party like an alliance or a European socialist minor party because despite the poverty and wealth and housing inequality we don't seem to have the talent to create party focused soley on class. Mana was a decent attempt but it was a Maori nationalist party not specifically a class based party, the internet party was… A disaster. Since the alliance fell the greens have kind of been a stand in for that kind of party.
But The Greens are absolutely not the party or vehicle to achieve action on poverty or class issues because they are mostly an upper middle class outfit. The amount of Green voting NIMBYs is insane. The weird upper middle class identity politics and micro aggressions obsessions.
The greens are a party of the left but they can never be a party of the class left nor should they have to be, there is plenty of space for a die linke or an alliance style party and instead of demanding a party of mostly upper middle class to wealthy but nice and compassionate people represent poor people activists should work to create a party over many election cycles that can be a class party.
However failing that of the greens want to be an actual player they can learn how to do politics. If labour ever needs their votes and won't give them what they have the power to put labour in a minority govt and say they'll vote with them on a case by case basis. Give us what we want or we walk.
And in hindsight the greens shouldn't have done a deal with labour, it only benefits labour not having anyone to the left of them attacking them in the house. It makes the greens invisible they could potentially be polling on par with act right now as rabble rousers then again they might be polling the same but they could run in the next election as a change party where as now they are a party of the status quo with nothing to really show for the agreement other than some ministerial limos
As WMBAD pointed out, we need to organize, loose ourselves to a group, a cause. Then the Arderns, the Davidsons, Shaws, Robertsons will follow.
The first, obvious group is a union relating to work. I have been scratching my head as to the next type of group.
I have just recently joined a Biochar group. Already, I can see I am being a bit of a pain in the arse.
If, by making Biochar, you allow the smoke to escape the process, you are releasing CO, methane and other CC nasties. However, catching and condensing the smoke, you are left with awesome resources and a 'carbon negative' process.
Associate Professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment is from Politics and International Relations at the University of Auckland and is an expert in political marketing:
Most people think advertising, big data or spin determines election results. But as Phillip Gould, a key advisor to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, told me back in 2007, political marketing strategy is the most important factor in winning elections.
Not disagreeing with her, but how do they validate political marketing claims?? Marketing pros in the economy can validate with purchasing stats, due to buying & selling going on record. Does the analogy with voting patterns suffice?
Our recently published book Political marketing and management in the New Zealand 2020 election highlights how turbulent those political waters have been since the arrival of the Covid-19 crisis. Featuring perspectives of political practitioners including pollsters for both Labour and National, it makes clear how a crisis changes the political market and makes it more volatile. As Labour pollster David Talbot remarks: “Covid-19… represented a tectonic shift in the political landscape.” It made defunct any political product or policies created in response to market research before 2020, a major challenge to effective strategy in an election year.
The book also analyses survey data from the TVNZ 2020 Vote Compass which had 182,399 unique respondents during the campaign and a post-election survey with more than 24,000 respondents.
Interesting that she sees a downside for both major parties:
research on the 2020 election suggested hidden lessons behind the otherwise simple result. Despite Labour’s clear victory, and Ardern’s stellar likeability, it was built on shifting sands. The party’s brand communication was boosted by government communication over Covid management which is now backfiring with instructions to the public about levels, steps and lights no longer clear and the crisis growing in terms of time and impact. Ardern’s brand was tied to Covid-management by her own branding of the election as the “Covid election” and is therefore subject to damage as Covid is no longer banished from our shores.
Failures in delivery were masked by crisis management and polite populism, but this mask is slipping while members of the public have to wear theirs to go to work, school and the mall. We’ve seen the impact of this in recent polls showing a downward trend for Labour.
More obvious was that National trashed its own brand, but less well-known is how post-election Vote Compass data showing a complete reversal of previous strengths on perceived ability to govern, and the dissatisfaction came from their own supporters. Only 24 percent of National’s own supporters thought the party was capable of governing, with 55 percent saying it was not.
Check out her graph showing the switch from 2017 to 2020 – spectacular! Then her advice to National…
National can only win through reform and responsiveness. It needs to offer entrepreneurial policies to suit the new post-Covid environment and completely redesign its leadership and party brand.
I have been a cigarette smoker many years ago and tried to give up many times until I gave up giving up and strangely shortly after I gave up.
what I always thought would be best advice regarding cigarettes is for people who do smoke be registered through a GP who would distribute a weekly amount along with quitting advice to these registered smokers.
Cigarettes could then be banned from sale, that would put an end to future victims and eventually the registered would either successfully be helped to give it up or will die from it.
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
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This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
The PSA have released a survey of 4000 public service workers showing that budget cuts are taking a toll on the wellbeing of public servants and risking the delivery of essential services to New Zealanders. Economists predict that figures released this week will show continued increases in unemployment, potentially reaching ...
The Prime Minister’s speech 10 days or so ago kicked off a flurry of commentary. No one much anywhere near the mainstream (ie excluding Greens supporters) questioned the rhetoric. New Zealand has done woefully poorly on productivity for a long time and we really need better outcomes, and the sorts ...
President Trump on the day he announced tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China, unleashing a shock to supply chains globally that is expected to slow economic growth and increase inflation for most large economies. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 9 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 3Politics: New Zealand Government cabinet meeting usually held early afternoon with post-cabinet news conference possible at 4 pm, although they have not been ...
Trump being Trump, it won’t come as a shock to find that he regards a strong US currency (bolstered by high tariffs on everything made by foreigners) as a sign of America’s virility, and its ability to kick sand in the face of the world. Reality is a tad more ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kirsten Banks, Lecturer, School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology Debris on the surface of Mars from the Perseverance mission, captured on April 19 2022. NASA/JPL-Caltech In his inauguration speech in January, United States President Donald Trump ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alix Woolard, Senior Research Fellow, The Kids Research Institute Australia Stock Unit/Shutterstock Have you ever asked someone how their day was, or been chatting casually with a friend, only to have them tell you a horrific story that has left you ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Quentin Grafton, Australian Laureate Professor of Economics, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The Roper RiverChris Ison/Shutterstock Water is now a contested resource around the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fight playing out over the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Turner, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies, The University of Queensland Matej Kastellic/ Shutterstock As we head towards the federal election, both sides of politics are making a point of criticising universities and questioning their role in the community. ...
Alex Casey examines the perils of having your period at a music festival. It was right after Clairo’s swooning set that Sarah* knew it was time. She was on the second day of her period at Auckland’s Laneway festival, and braved the portaloos to empty her menstrual cup and change ...
A battle between health officials and local councils is heating up, as one government party seeks to change the rules. The Bulletin’s Stewart Sowman-Lund explains. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
A global consultancy will lead the government's review of electricity markets, with a local firm offering advice and two groups of experts providing quality assurance. ...
New Public Service Minister Judith Collins is calling for a culture of saying 'yes', but being honest enough with ministers to "reconcile the vision with reality". ...
The future of nearly a third of all huts and tracks managed by the Department of Conservation is in limbo, as the agency faces a 30 percent shortfall in funding to maintain them. ...
Today I’ve had a bit on. I’m living in a 23.4 metre tug off the coast of Samoa and have been for a few weeks now. I’m on a top-secret mission to help save the planet from another potential environmental disaster.I’m currently tasked with looking out the window and making ...
The ‘loneliness epidemic’ is apparently spreading around the world, but what does it look like here in New Zealand? Rachel Judkins reports. It’s a beautiful summer evening in Cornwall Park, with families scattered on the grass and a live band playing a backing track to their laughter. Sprawled on a ...
The Act leader gets a telling-off from the principal and prime minister Christopher Luxon loses his cool in a heated question time. Echo Chamber is The Spinoff’s dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Wellington editor Joel MacManus. ...
A Government proposal to axe the only two jobs in New Zealand’s health sector of people who were working on a national strategy for palliative care has angered those in the sector, which is already under immense strain.It’s put another wedge between those who want terminally ill patients to live ...
The High Court isn’t the appropriate place to solve a South Island iwi’s claims over freshwater, the Crown says.Ngāi Tahu leaders, and the collective Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, are taking legal action against the Attorney-General, demanding to be involved in decision-making over freshwater. Iwi want the Crown to recognise ...
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Opinion: It was the 10th anniversary of UNESCO’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science this week, the theme being ‘Unpacking STEM Careers: Her Voice in Science’. It is 2025, but we still need a lot more of her voices in science.In New Zealand, a 2021 survey found that ...
NewsroomBy Dr Jennifer Kruger and Dr Kelly Burrowes
COMMENTARY:By Sawsan Madina I watched US President Donald Trump’s joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week in utter disbelief. Not that the idea, or indeed the practice, of ethnic cleansing of Palestine is new. But at that press conference the mask has fallen. Recently, fascism ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will on Wednesday announce it is willing, as a last resort, to purchase the collapsed Rex Airlines, in its latest bid to prop up aviation services to regional and remote areas. As ...
Jotham Napat has been elected as the new prime minister of Vanuatu. Napat was elected unopposed in Port Vila today, receiving 50 votes with two void votes. He is the country’s fifth prime minister in four years and will lead a coalition government made up of five political parties — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By A J Brown, Professor of Public Policy & Law, Centre for Governance & Public Policy, Griffith University Australia has turned the corner on its decade-long slide on Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), once again ranking in the top ten least ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Bridges, Senior Lecturer in Public Relations and Director of Academic Program – Communication, Creative Industries, Screen Media, Western Sydney University Stock Rocket/Shutterstock For new parents struggling with challenges such as breastfeeding and sleep deprivation, social media can be a great ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott French, Senior Lecturer in Economics, UNSW Sydney US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have stated an exemption for Australia from Trump’s executive order placing 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imported into the US is “under consideration”. ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon's attempts to turn the tables back on the Opposition at Question Time today went down like a lead balloon, Jo Moir writes. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brenton Griffin, Casual Lecturer and Tutor in History, Indigenous Studies, and Politics, Flinders University American Primeval/Netflix On January 24, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon Church, penned a statement condemning the ...
It comes as Whangārei District Council is under fire from the Director General of Health Dr Diana Sarfati after it voted in December against adding fluoridation to the water. ...
So the govt's credibility is being tested by the Waitangi Tribunal:
Today, Bloomfield's testimony seriously threatened the viability of the Maori cabal controlling Ardern thesis that got some traction the other day.
So cabinet over-ruled the Maori cabal?? Or did they fail to support Bloomfield? Will any political journalist in Aotearoa prove themselves on the ball by asking the right people these questions? Watch this space.
Cabinet over-ruled every piece of expert advice they were given in the last year or two about Covid equity for Māori. Pandering to racists.
"Pandering to racists."
Not so much pandering to racists but scared of them.
When the issue was being explored in the media several months ago, I recall thinking… they (the Govt.) are scared to prioritise Maori because the middle classes (who in 2020 came over to Labour in droves) won't like it. And they were right. My middle class relatives have been banging on about Maori taking precedence over the rest of us ever since. I argue the toss but get drowned out.
Sometimes being cautious does not pay off. They should have prioritised Maoriand to hell with what the the middle classes think.
Scared is a feeling. Pandering is an action.
Cabinet have actively put Māori citizens in harm's way.
Only the true beltway troughers give a damn.
So?
I notice since the great new reset that TV news has become even more ‘ Labour Phobic’ almost on a par with the Western Russia phobic retric. Lots of arm twisting going on in our ‘free Press.
Maybe. Something unusual happened. 1ewes at 6 did a hit piece on Ardern tonite.
In an item about claims by, among others, The Greens – that Menendez March character – that benefit sanctions are harming children (something 1ewes covered previously a week or two ago, that made Sepuloni look impotent & captured by her Department which has done nothing to address the problem) they showed a senior MSD staffer at a Select Committee having absolutely no idea whether checks were made whether beneficiaries had children before sanctions were applied.
Then they showed clips of Ardern answering a tv reporter’s questions saying that she believed people with children were not sanctioned, & (IIRC) that she believed that this was checked. After her answers, 1ewes contradicted her with the actual facts, including that, in some cases, sanctions are in fact automatically imposed.
There will be serious grumpiness with TVNZ on the Beehive 9th floor tonite, methinks.
It is a bad week for Sepuloni.
Have you caught up with the petition by Jan Logie on how ACC treats sexual abuse claims?
I would like an inquiry to be held into the process of psychologist and psychiatric assessments which are used to establish if a mental injury has occurred. Historical cases are hard to settle due to many being minimised when high level offending occurred.
Interesting thread on matauranga Maori, after Peterson stuck his oar in
https://twitter.com/reasther/status/1468695933974040578?s=21
A line being pushed by foreign righties like Peterson should be enough warning.
https://twitter.com/KyleDChurch/status/1468821420482330624
would be nice if we got ahead of the curve on this one and explained to the people who don't yet know what mātauranga Māori actually is. The hard core racists will racist, it's the ones who currently don't get it that are going to be swayed by Peterson or Dawkin.
would be nice if we got ahead of the curve on this one and explained to the people who don't yet know what mātauranga Māori actually is.
I tell you what – I might pay attention when you can show me the Maori version of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The exact direct equivalent.
After that we can move say the biological differences between male and female.
you seem to think that mātauranga Māori is science. It's not. It's the body of knowledge that arises out of Te Ao Māori, and that includes but is not limited to empirical processes of developing and testing knowledge of the physical world.
you seem to think that mātauranga Māori is science.
Nope. I'm vociferously arguing that it is not. It would seem we agree on that.
But then the persecution by the Royal Society of outstanding science experts like Prof Garth Cooper or the marginalising of world class figures such as Dr Michael Corballis tells us a quite different story.
Another 'no debate' smash down by the woke racists who have determined that because the scientific revolution first originates within a European setting – therefore it's irredeemable 'whiteness' must be eradicated. And because the STEM disciplines are now the last powerful bastion of reason standing against their insanities (such as 'sex doesn't exist) – it must be subverted to their cause.
Nope. Whether you argue for or against, if your starting point is that mātauranga Māori is/isn't science, you've missed the point. Which you patently have. Which leaves a bunch of strawmen blowing in the wind.
you seem to think that mātauranga Māori is science. It's not.
Whether you argue for or against, if your starting point is that mātauranga Māori is/isn't science, you've missed the point.
Now I'm just confused.
I know, lots of people are. The mainstream debate is really confused. I've put the definitions of words below.
Pūtaiao is the Māori kupu for science.
https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=science
Mātauranga Māori means something else.
https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=matauranga
That definition completely aligns with my description of humanity's common heritage of observational knowledge as I described above at 9:33am below.
But it's not science.
Felix brought up the example of Polynesian navigation. One can absolutely admire and respect the techniques they evolved, as did numerous peoples throughout history.
But at the dawn of the scientific era we suddenly get this:
Yes they were solving the same problem, but the method was qualitatively different – producing over time technologies such as sextants, celestial tables, accurate maps, precision clocks and ultimately the modern GPS. This was not a foreseeable outcome of the Polynesian navigation model.
By the mid-1500's the Portuguese were reliably finding tiny remote and isolated islands like Reunion in the vast emptiness of the Indian ocean, by the late1700's European navigators could pretty much sail anywhere in the world. They had taken an ancient heritage of context specific navigational skills, and transformed them into a generalised formal method that solved the problem in a universal manner. One accessible to and repeatable by anyone.
That is science.
You are still not getting it. The science that Māori were doing pre contact is a subset of Mātauranga Māori (in my limited Pākehā understanding).
You are still comparing science with mātauranga Māori, but it doesn't make sense to do that.
You are also arguing Western science, rather than science. As Felix explained, all peoples use the basic methods of empiricism to observe and understand the physical world.
Western science took that in a certain direction, you are right about that. You can argue that you want this body of knowledge and practice siloed off from other ways of doing and understanding science. But this is where the problems of racism come in. WS is so dominant, that to keep it segregated in this way while specifically excluding other ways of knowing from for instance the education system, will impact badly on Māori (and the rest of us also lose out imo).
You can also argue that you want it siloed off from culture, but that would be odd given that Western science is steeped in its own culture. Again, hugely problematic in terms of how not to be racist while doing that.
The other aspect here is that WS has made these incredible gains but hasn't been tempered by wisdom or a sane culture. Hence climate change, environmental destruction, harms via medical science and so on. Putting science within a larger body of knowledge (ways of knowing) would change that.
You can also argue that you want it siloed off from culture, but that would be odd given that Western science is steeped in its own culture. Again, hugely problematic in terms of how not to be racist while doing that.
The Chinese who train more STEM people on actual merit than anyone else in world would laugh themselves silly to read that. The scientific method is a universal – it transcends culture more thoroughly than almost anything else we've created as a species.
Quit telling me “I don’t get it”. You of all people should understand how important it is that the meaning of words is not hijacked for rotten purposes. And if you want to play the 'racist' card on this – I suggest you take it up with Prof Garth Cooper – who is Maori.
Western science has a specific lineage that isn't universal (WS didn't arise spontaneously all over the world, it arrived in a specific time and place). That the Chinese knew how to integrate it and retain their traditional knowledge, and development them together, puts them far ahead of the West.
Scientists who cannot, or will not, acknowledge their cultural bias are part of the problem.
You are literally misinterpreting what mātauranga Māori is despite it having been explained to you. If the argument is over semantics, I have no problem with coining different language, hence my usage of Western science instead of science.
Did you make an argument re what the societies outside of the West were doing, pre the arrival of Western science, and why it wasn't science? Or did it just come down to it wasn't as good a science as what the West was doing?
That the Chinese knew how to integrate it and retain their traditional knowledge, and development them together, puts them far ahead of the West.
Such a generalisation is not justified. All the Chinese engineers I worked with this past year are thoroughly modern and paradoxically enough quite dismissive of cultural knowledge such as TCM.
And going the other way – it's not true that the West abandoned all of it's traditional bodies of knowledge either. There are plenty of people who sustain it in many domains.
Scientists who cannot, or will not, acknowledge their cultural bias are part of the problem.
Everyone has a cultural bias. It would be impossible for them not to have. This however reads as 'woke hatred for whiteness'.
You are literally misinterpreting what mātauranga Māori is despite it having been explained to you.
Your definition completely aligns with my description of humanity’s common heritage of observational knowledge as I described above at 9:33am below. I am not misinterpreting anything.
Knowledge is a very broad term, and it certainly forms a part of the scientific method you’re calling WS. Humans relied on this kind of knowledge for millennia just to survive – but it completely fails to explain the qualitative leap we call the scientific revolution and has led to you and I typing on the internet.
The lineage is Greek,for example Newton took Pythagorus and extended space to three dimensions,and Einstein extended it to four dimensions.The equations being universal as the mathematics are an absolute truth.
Or did it just come down to it wasn't as good a science as what the West was doing?
Put bluntly yes.
If you persist in stretching the definition of 'science' to include 'all knowledge' the discussion is derailed because we're simply not talking about the same thing.
I have explicitly and repeatedly acknowledged that vast heritage of cultural and observational knowledge that millennia of human struggle has bequeathed us. It should be respected for two reasons, one is that it was what enabled any of us to be alive today, the other is that in many places it retains signposts to information that in our rush to a scientific modernity we have overlooked or forgotten.
But modern science as it evolved and first came to a recognisable form in the 1500's has taken humanity to a qualitatively different level. A better level that delivered better outcomes on the whole – and will continue to do so.
But those who would seek to demolish this astonishing legacy will first seek to define away the meaning of words. Also what Poission said.
Good, something concrete. So in your mind, Western science is better at observing and understanding the physical world than other forms of empiricism developed in other places/times.
Red, I've just spent half a day saying 'science' doesn't include all knowledge. How are you missing that?
Here it is you that is conflating cultural and empiricism. If I understand you, you want it to look like this:
Western science is discrete and separate from other forms of knowing, including other forms of empiricism that use basic scientific method.
vs
All other knowledge, including non-WS empiricism, but also including religion, mythology, and social and cultural knowledge bases, tech and processes.
And that those two sets of things are both useful.
Yes, Western Science.
What would be some examples of 'seek to demolish' so I can understand what you are referring to.
Yes, the lineage of Western Science (part of it).
So in your mind, Western science is better at observing and understanding the physical world than other forms of empiricism developed in other places/times.
Yes. The proof I offer is this graph. The reason for this is Modern Science is founded in empiricism but evolved into a new and formal set of methods that have proven remarkably powerful and successful.
This is not a utopian claim, or that everything it has delivered is perfect. Quite the opposite, if anything the perpetual and necessary skepticism of the scientific method guarantees we will always be seeking better and improved pathways.
I'm aware that I'm struggling to convey properly what I mean by Modern Science; and I offer this really neat Veritassium video that starts in an arcane corner of mathematics – and arrives at the miracle machines you and I are typing on. You don't have to get all the details to appreciate the story – and it moves me beyond all reason:
That Modern Science has it's origins within Europe, and it's heroes are almost all 'dead white men' seems to be the real problem here. Well frankly I reject that as blatant woke racism.
I think your explanation is fine. Let's call it Modern Science (I'll still refer to it as Western as well). MS developed in a particular way and brings specific benefit. I don't think there is anything controversial in that.
We would differ in that I see ways of knowing in a circle and you probably see them in a hierarchy. And I would still use the word science to describe non-MS methodologies (and would reference the dictionary definitions at this point). But I think we are clear now.
Afaik, Māori are saying we can add to this body of knowledge (MS) from our own experience. They may also be saying that it should change to some degree.
If you have specific examples of how this damages MS, I'd be interested to hear them.
At this point I usually see the motte and bailey fallacy get trotted out. The motte – the easily defended position is:
Well almost no reasonable person is going to disagree with this, and especially not put their career and reputation at risk over. Indeed:
But then the bailey which triggered the Royal Society witch hunt is this:
It's evident there is an increasing disquiet among experienced and in some cases prominent people in seeing mātauranga Māori being placed in the driving seat, setting policy and funding priorities.
Or how about we get ahead of the curve and explain to those opposed to science what science actually is.
FFS the idea that Polynesian explorers were using something other than scientific techniques to navigate the pacific is not only scientifically and linguistically ignorant it's also blatantly racist and culturally ignorant too.
Humans everywhere were doing smart tough things to survive and thrive. Virtually all agriculture, animal husbandry, the building of things like pyramids, astronomy, mining and metal working, number systems, writing, political and military systems, medical models and so on – were notable features of societies everywhere. Consider the complexity and sophistication of traditional Chinese medicine as an example.
Or astonishing artifacts like the Antikythera Mechanism that pushed calendar and astronomical methods right up to the verge of fully modern ideas. The Ancient Greeks got to within a few conceptual steps of a full blown industrial revolution as did a number of civilisations. Maori were no different, nor especially unique. Their development of deep water navigation being a both obvious and necessary adaptation to their environment.
All of these pre-industrial observational knowledge systems were essential, valuable and can still inform us. But calling them science is yet another example of the deplorable woke trick of taking powerful words and stretching them into uselessness.
Perhaps I was too ambiguous. What I was trying to say is that there isn't another reliable repeatable way to discover what's true except by the scientific method. To the extent that ancient people discovered things that worked, they were practicing science. There isn't another repeatable way to do it. No doubt they also practiced lots of other non-scientific methods that didn't reliably or repeatably find out anything.
What I'm seeing people say is that they were actually practicing some other equally efficacious – or perhaps even superior sort of truth-finding that isn't scientific and that strikes me as a complete non-sequitur.
To the extent that ancient people discovered things that worked, they were practicing science.
That hijacks the word and blurs over a crucial historic distinction. In my view the word science is the explanation for this graph.
This universal transformation happened for a reason – science. Airbrushing that away to appease woke racists intent on eradicating 'whiteness' is bullshit.
'Economic growth is a very recent phenomenon'-really -Portugal,Spain,England,France all had huge economic growth…with Empire.
'– but this was the tiny elite of the tribal leaders, pharaohs, kings and religious leaders.'-like the 1% today you mean.
-'and the average person was living in conditions that we would call extreme poverty today.-nothing much has changed except maybe locations,25,000 a day dying of starvation.
' global GDP per capita – shows that the world economy has moved from a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game.'-delusional,meaningless drivel'(imo)
The data given with that article simply proves you wrong.
The reality is that by 2021 around 85% of humanity had escaped absolute poverty – something utterly unimaginable in 1821. In most respects you live a much better life than even the 1% elites of that era.
nothing much has changed except maybe locations,25,000 a day dying of starvation.
Due almost entirely to political incompetence and ethnic conflicts.
Does not matter what starvation is due to.
As you know re data…lies,damn lies and statistics'.
If there are 100,000 billionaires in the world and 100,000 people with .50c …if we add the totals and ascertain the average of 200,000 people it comes out as quite…meaningless.
Can you define this 'much better life'?
Does not matter what starvation is due to.
If you are not interested in the root causes, you probably are not interested in fixing the problem.
Nor does it seem to me you even bothered to read the article you're so airily dismissing.
Flawed analysis…stopped reading at this…
' it is a time in which the income of the average person grew immensely – from an average of £1051 incomes per person per year increased to over £30,000 a 29-fold increase in prosperity. This means an average person in the UK today has a higher income in two weeks than an average person in the past had in an entire year. Since the total sum of incomes is the total sum of production this also means that the production of the average person in two weeks today is equivalent to the production of the average person in an entire year in the past'
As I've mentioned before…what does this 29 fold increase buy ,adjusted for inflation!-line it up with house prices as an example.
This guy seems to be your go to…his analysis is so selective,to be ..useless-imo.
We've had this discussion before on correcting for inflation in monetary time series data. If you will not understand that then really you have no place in this discussion.
And how often have I seen this phrase “I stopped watching/reading at …”. It’s the hallmark signal of the cognitive dissonance that happens when data conflicts with fixed thinking.
This guy seems to be your go to…his analysis is so selective,to be ..useless-imo.
Attacking the messenger without bothering to find out anything about them.
I don't accept your criticism at all.
I have already pointed out specific flaws in his analysis.
Love to see what someone like Piketty would have to say.
I certainly understand he is taking inflation into account.That does not alter my query…food and shelter are vital to survival.
Alot of assumptions are relied on…define a 'much better life'!
29x increase….relate that to a comparative house price in London or a major city relevant to the time…frame he relies on.
I have already pointed out specific flaws in his analysis.
No you haven't. All you have done is claim that a comparison was not time corrected for inflation, without producing any evidence.
RL i think the problem here is your focus on global outcomes, while ignoring the experience of the western working class.
The Actuality of Marx’s Immiseration Thesis in the 21st Century – Regeneration Magazine
Let's play 'have/haven't' then.
1-'Economic growth is a very recent phenomenon'-really -Portugal,Spain,England,France all had huge economic growth…with Empire.'
Is 'recent' the get out clause?
@roblogic
That's a genuine objection. I agree that incomes in the developed West started to fall behind productivity sometime in the 70's.
My response is that this coincides with the final major expansion of the post WW2 global trade order to fully embrace Asia, India and Latin America – which inevitably brought workers in Europe and the Anglosphere into direct competition with the developing world.
It also coincided with the early 80's overshadowing of Keynsian policy settings with the idiotic neo-liberal idea that because capitalist markets were good at solving some economic problems – they must therefore be good at solving all problems.
And finally the absence of a global governance system that might moderate and regulate these affairs has meant we lacked the tools to address the concerns you raise.
Roblogic said the same thing I alluded to….with graphs!
"to appease woke racists intent on eradicating 'whiteness' is bullshit."
Well that's interesting. We both disagree with the woke racists but from different angles. You think they're wrong for saying ancients did science, and I think they're wrong for saying the ancients' magic was just as good as science.
"That hijacks the word "
People are either using the scientific method or they're not. If they're reliably and repeatably discovering anything about reality then they must be using it, because there was never any other way that worked. The hijack is in reserving the word just for science that leads to your specific set of outcomes. That is starting from the conclusion and working backwards, and is not very scientific.
👍
I also think that context matters here. If I were stuck in the Australian outback with no help coming, would I want to be with a group of local Aboriginal people who knew how to live on the land, or would I want to be with a hydrologist, botanist and zoologist?
I would actually want a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon).
But to answer your question in good faith – if I was in the outback yes the local people would have better knowledge of the outback. And if I was in the Arctic tundra I would definitely pick the local Inuit.
But if I did not know in advance where I might land up – in other words I had to deal with the general case – I would pick the group of scientists as far more likely to be able to discover what we needed to know to survive regardless of the setting. (I accept a few cans of baked beans to get us through while they worked it out would be a bonus.)
I'm not trying to be smart here – this is an important qualitative difference.
You think they're wrong for saying ancients did science, and I think they're wrong for saying the ancients' magic was just as good as science.
That works for me both ways. Happy to accept this point.
People are either using the scientific method or they're not. If they're reliably and repeatably discovering anything about reality then they must be using it, because there was never any other way that worked.
The crux of this is 'reliably and repeatedly'. Look back at the comparison I made above between Polynesian and Portuguese deep water navigation. One led to the GPS chart plotter, the other did not. One method was amenable to deeper levels of abstraction and generalisation, the other was not. One has become a universal tool, the other a cultural curiosity that's of niche appeal only.
So, parliament recognised the right to self-determination.
I do empathise with victims of traditional social categorising, having experienced such victimhood myself in the distant past (longhaired male, cannabis etc). We all ought to have the legal right to express our identity in our own terms.
However, inasmuch as the new law may permit infringement of the civil rights of others, we could be exchanging one evil for another, eh?
If guys pretending to be women are empowered to invade women's spaces by this law, there could be harm done. Enabling any serious mysogynist to target women easily!
You can stop recycling the strawperson arguments now. Men already harm women without needing to change anything. This has been talked to death all year.
Give a shout when the bill causes harm in New Zealand.
Wake us all up.
Clearly the parliamentarians are taking an evidence-based approach to the thing. We just need to wait for the opportunists to spot the opportunity, get in there & do their usual thing. Human nature always produces predators as offenders. Shouldn't take long for the reports to come in…
"Clearly the parliamentarians are taking an evidence-based approach to the thing."
How did you come to that conclusion? What evidence? What 'thing'?
It's my take from the (unanimous?) decision. Evidence of harm. Potential abuse & consequent harm. In other words, the precautionary principle never entered into their thinking…
Thanks, Dennis. Reading through the Regulatory Impact statement gives some weight to your perspective.
Harm cannot be seen, measured or avoided when you are deliberately not looking for it.
hard to assess evidence when you refuse to look at it and you are part of the movement to silence dissent.
And yes, why be cautious when you know there are no problems.
It doesn't make sense of course. International experts gave evidence via submissions, and that's all backed up by copious amounts of information and discussion online going back years now. So either one believes that NZ is somehow immune to the problems we should be cautious about compared to other countries, or one believes that women and kids are ok as collateral damage, or one is so immersed in the ideology that it's not possible to see outside of it anymore.
And let's not forget that there is immense pressure on people, women especially, to not speak out. I actually can't imagine any women in the Greens or Labour being able to speak out as a gender critical feminist and not put their career at risk. Ad and co can assert that all women MPs wanted this but this speaks to what I assume is his large ignorance or denialism about the impact that No Debate has and is still having.
But hey, we're supposed to just shut the fuck up now. Women, talking about women's business, are supposed to not talk or go away somewhere else. As if men get to tell women what to do. Lol, how do progressive men even rationalise that in their own heads?
Seems to me that the situation calls for a new phase of feminist politics. However I'm too remote from the experiential side of the issue & will have to await reaction from female activists in their twenties & thirties to get a sense of the potential for that.
one of the things that gives me the greatest hope at the moment is the rise of the gender critical feminist movement in the UK (aka Terf Island). This is largely older left wing or centre left feminists with long histories of political, social justice, activist and academic work. They are organising at the grassroots level and have been successful in changing government policy. Lots of battles being fought on many fronts, and not all wins, but the solidarity and sisterhood is something to behold. They also hold a lot of power in various ways.
And yes, there are plenty of young GCFs. From what I can tell Gen Z are more sceptical of the ideology than Millenials have been.
The detrans women's community is also growing in strength and producing its own body of knowledge that is important to the debate.
We tried, Sacha. But it was obviously past your bedtime.
Sure, we should wait until women are harmed, then there will be a long string of excuses by left wing men about collateral damage.
As Sacha points out, it's all been discussed, so we know that some left wing men take the position that women already get sexually assaulted and harassed, so what's a few more women being raped, eh?
We know from international experience that housing trans women and other males via self-ID into women's prisons results in sexual assault of women prisoners, but who cares about them, trans women get raped too so women will just have to suck it up.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/112432880/transgender-prisoner-investigated-for-sexual-assault-behind-bars
We know that the rate of men recording women in changing rooms and toilets is on the rise.
We know that the dignity and privacy and safety of women who are rape and sexual assault survivors, or who have religious restrictions on how they interact with men, is being surrendered for not just trans women, but other males for whom self-IDing as women gives them psychological and sexual satisfaction.
But sure, let's wait until self-ID in NZ is causing widespread harm and then I expect the left wing men currently supporting to do exactly nothing. Because NZ is special and can't possibly be like those other terrible places, or maybe it's just that we don't actually care that much about women's right to their own politics unless it aligns with what the men want.
The left wing men thing is getting tiresome.
tell me about it.
All feminists in Parliament vote for it.
All women.
All Greens.
So you can tell them.
They're not listening Ad, and apparently you're not either.
Left wing blokes telling women their politics aren't the correct women's politics is nothing new.
The whole of Parliament is telling you that they listened, and that your opinion has had no bearing at all.
Your cause is lost.
Oh right, so you think that parliament gets to be the sole arbiter of society and women's politics. Just women's politics presumably, we are still allowed to challenge parliament on other things they get wrong.
Parliament gets to evaluate bills that become Acts, and that is their prerogative entirely. Not only was any evidence proposed against it unpersuasive, it was unpersuasive right across the entire political spectrum, every party, every woman, every man, and across every Member of Parliament.
It doesn't get more comprehensive than that.
And the new gender religion is still false.
Thanks Patronising Man. But we have a long, very important history of protest against government when it gets it wrong.
Except for two things,
There's a term on social media called Peak Trans. It's problematic because it unfairly places emphasis on trans people rather than gender identity ideologists/activists, but it's essentially the process liberal and progressives go through when they realise that their young teen age girls will have to share changing rooms with intact males, or they learn what AGP is, or they read about the feminist academics in the UK losing their jobs for saying that biological sex is important, or that women prisoners are being raped by males who self-ID into women's prisons, or that lesbians are being sexually assaulted by trans identified males because lesbians are supposed to now like girl dick and are transphobes if they don't. Not a comprehensive list by any means.
Comprehensive was however also when men in parliament were refusing women the right to vote, or not be raped in marriage, or to own property. Like I said, none of what you are doing is new. It's old and tedious. We get it. Women’s rights and politics gets supported by men when it suits the men, not because women deserve their own political sovereignty.
Submissions to parliament were 73% against the proposed bill in its current form. That's not listening, Ad.
That does not mean that submitters were against the proposal for transgender recognition. In fact, many submissions supported that concept, just not in this particular form that has resulted in many issues in countries that have passed it.
With all due respect Ad I really think we are the ones who need to decide whether our cause is lost, not you.
If the women on this blogsite are anything to go by, we are only just beginning.
Once women start putting it together that the male in their change room is allowed to be there, because of this law, and the De-transitioners start to get more of a voice (yes that's right the 22,000 and counting young people whose bodies and fertitlity and ability to have an organism are compromised, then some of these politicians may regret their votes.
Personally I don't know how people can be taken in by this ideology.
The whole of parliament is telling us that they don't, and never have, had any respect whatsoever for the people they ostensibly represent.
Another stupid step down the road to Trumpism.
Left wing men do not have a majority in parliament or on any select committee or in society.
what's your point SPC? If you are trying to tell me that there is no issue with left wing men's support for gender identity ideology against women's rights when I'm pointing right at it, I'd have to ask what you are on about.
Yes, yes, #notallleftwingmen
In the 1960s and 70s left wing men told women to shut the fuck up about women's issues, so women went off and organised themselves into second wave feminism.
A more recent example would be two left wing male authors on TS blocked and basically did a hatchet job on the women's project that was trying to get more women authors and commenters on TS.
I still don't know what your point is. Maybe instead of asking questions and speaking obliquely you could just spell it out? Are you objecting to me talking about left wing men as being opposed to women's politics?
Sorry, what? National Organisation of Women? What's their role in gender identity ideology and how does this relate to the discussion today?
Yep … looks very much like women from the Trans-Gender ID Feminist faction … eg Stephanie Rodgers / Jan Logie & so on … are the core supporters & promoters … & certainly the major propagndists on social media … sadly their adversaries (who I generally have some sympathy for) – the Gender Critical Feminists – are still stuck in the obsessive It's all down to Men dogma. An underlying misandry prevents them seeing the Wood for the Trees.
sadly the Gender Critical Feminists are still stuck in the It's all down to Men dogma. Can't see the Wood for the Trees.
tut tut – you really were not supposed to say that out loud.
That's stupid. I was talking about men on TS, because it's an obvious pattern and a specific dynamic that causes issues for women. Nothing I have said implies that only lw men are responsible.
Many of the GCF women on TS have been criticising NZ women, just read the comments about the self-ID select committee process. I haven't seen NZ women offsite saying it's all on lw men either. But perhaps you haven't been reading what GCFs actually say.
You basically just made a bunch of stuff up.
as for misandry, it's not hateful to hold men to account for their behaviour. You of all people know about that.
I was/am not aware of TS's left wing author background issues (and do not need to …).
PS Above while editing a post in reply to one of yours I decided to delete it and start again (not knowing you had made a reply). I'll reboot that on today's DR.
👍
Yes, it's not necessary to know the details of what's happened back end on TS (and there are limits on what I can say), but I wanted to give two examples from quite different times but including a contemporary example, that demonstrate that left wing male antipathy towards women's politics has form and outside of the gender identity fight.
You don't think it may already have due to the #NoDebate stance, the disdain shown to questions by the MPs, and the farcical submission process?
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For me this one was more difficult to make a determination on than the civil unions, PR and same sex marriages.
The claims made then by opponents that there would be harm resulting was not something to take seriously – and democracy is not about conformity to a world view imposed on society by some inter-generational order of God (whatever the faith of some/many of its citizens).
Both the transgender and women have a right to be safe and then there is the next level confusion when issues of identity, puberty and social and physical development inter-act with the role of the parent in the life of the child.
Both the transgender and women have a right to be safe and then there is the next level confusion when issues of identity, puberty and social and physical development inter-act with the role of the parent in the life of the child.
I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
Safeguarding of women and children is "not something to take seriously"
OK then.
"Next level confusion"
You got that right. Lies about fundamental aspects of human nature are at the centre of this ideology. Confusion is useful camouflage when you're trying to demolish biological reality in service of an abhorrent political project.
From your link (yes I do read many of them):
Well given that over the past 3 – 4 generations fatherhood has been marginalised into virtual irrelevancy then we should not be surprised at this next level extension. And given this was always one of the open goals of marxism the dots start connecting in bold neon highlighter.
The marginalisation of fatherhood is a open goal of Marxism? I assume you can back this assertion with a citation.
For those who think the man as head of the family is a cornerstone of society order and that atheistic socialism wants the state (of equal vote to male and female) to have power instead of the traditional patriarchy
(see the Frankfort School and The Rocky Horror Picture Show send up of it)
were just the beginning, next the Goddess will be an equal to God and priests will wear frilly undergarments.
To help your comprehension emphasis added. But it should have been obvious what the meaning was – it spoke to then – those past issues.
Your claim that this means not taking safety of women and children seriously is worse than the average strawman but a deliberate and calculated insult.
I can presume that because you were able to determine the meaning of the last paragraph – it is going to be even more difficult to parent children through those years than before. A child centred approach is fine but interaction between the state and parent is going to get complicated.
Great to hear Minister Allen is clear of cancer.
She's a good unit.
That is good news that she's in remission.
You have made my day . She is gold.
Was pleased to read that. Glad she's come through, and scans show NED.
(Might be of interest to note that breast cancer patients do not have scans after treatment. They are advised that they will become aware if the cancer returns, usually by the bone-deep pain they will experience. Although 1 in 9 women in NZ will get breast cancer, and I have friends and family that had gone through it, I wasn't aware this was the case.)
And the Births Deaths and Marriages Bill sails through Parliament's final vote, unanimously.
Self-identification A New Milestone In New Zealand’s History | Scoop News
Green Party celebrates wholeheartedly:
Green Party Celebrates Gender Self-ID Legislation Becoming Law | Scoop News
The Green Party shut down debate, within the party, about gender identity ideology and how it and self-ID impact on women. That's the Green Party with some of most democratic processes of any political party in NZ, and they refused to let it be discussed. Just so we are clear that the Greens have been part of No Debate, and that this is reflected in their position on the Bill.
Amidst a political reshufflling the Greens remain unable to break double figures…that should be shouting volumes.
I think it may impact on them in the long run, I'm not convinced it is happening yet. Most people don't know about debate being shut down in the party, and most people don't know what the gender critical/feminist arguments about self-ID are. We will see in time. It's possible people won't care. And there is the problem of who else would one vote for? It's not like Labour are any better.
Yeah but the shout is only audible to anyone listening. I've said it here many times before but repetition is often necessary in the comms process: the Green Party remains on the same level of popular support it had the year it was formed (7%). Any upward fluctuations are reciprocal to ebbing support for Labour.
The interesting question is why the Greens aren't ever trying to recruit centrists. Given that centrists always create election outcomes, you'd think the logic would be persuasive. My explanation has always been leftist political positioning – but I'm open to other views.
because the Greens want change not power, and being left of Labour is a better way to get change than trying to compete with Labour in the centre. They pulled Labour left on climate for instance.
the irony of course is that lots of lefties criticise them for not being left enough, but won't actually vote for them and pull them left 🤡
Mostly I just think the Greens know better than most about what works for them. I am disappointed in them not going hard on climate especially in terms of making waves about Labour's slow action, but we can't have it both ways. We either want them in government (kind of) and making change in the system, or we want them out and able to rabble rouse. If I saw NZers actually willing to make changes for climate I'd be more believing that the latter would work. I just don't see the evidence.
There were plenty of people in the Labour Party who understood the seriousness of CC back in the late 1970s and 80s weka. But I do agree with you that the parliamentary wing were well behind the ball game – not all of them but most of them.
I sometimes wonder if Norman Kirk had lived to complete two full terms at the helm whether Labour would have been higher on the CC awareness scale sooner.
It seems to me that they remain incapable of making themselves relevant to the majority….they appear obsessed with fringe issues to their own detriment.
If it continues it will ultimately cost them some of the support they currently enjoy.
I see them doing solid work in a number of areas, and making gains that fit with GP principles and values. I would guess that at this point in the election cycle, making those gains is a high priority. This will including stuff we don't see much about like how government departments are run.
Imo it's still impossible to tell how much of the GP's stuck vote is due to Ardern, and Labour's handling of the pandemic.
Recent polls have shown the GP trending upwards.
But I agree that they appear to be focused on issues that won't give them the heft to become a big player. We know that they got badly burned with the backlash against Turei's speech, so I'm not sure that the perpetual call from some on the left to do something radical is that useful.
Do something radical or do something relevant?
such as?
devote their energies to issues of concern to the wider public…..if they gain support then they have the power to address anything they desire.
Here's something:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/457597/auckland-housing-crisis-monumental-task-for-first-home-buyers-as-prices-continue-to-rise
Swarbrick is one of the few bright lights on the political horizon.
"Swarbrick is one of the few bright lights on the political horizon."
I wonder what she thinks about gender self-id. We already know how she votes.
I think it would be impossible for any Green MP to differ from the policy line they have taken.
Issues of concern to the wider public, such as?
Obviously not the issues they are focusing on
Identity Politics and Self ID?
When did Jan Tinetti join the Greens?
ok Pat, you either won't say or you're just hand waving in a general direction of something vague. Yes, the Greens should do better. No-one is prepared to say how exactly.
such as-
'Swarbrick said New Zealand needed a "seismic shift" in how we see housing, including actually taxing wealth and capital gains.'
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-11/15th%20Ipsos%20New%20Zealand%20Issues%20Monitor_Report%20V2.pdf
With a Gov that’s losing support it shouldnt be too difficult for those seeking support to discover where their energies should be directed.
Swarbrick and Menendez are doing awesome work, including putting out actual left wing ideas. But remember what happened when Turei did this as co-leader? It ended her parliamentary career.
So anyone saying the Greens should be bolder and do more needs to say how. We know what we want to happen, but the Greens still exist within NZ's conservative political culture.
@Pat, so you want the GP to be Labour, good to know.
When she met me 🙂
Who actually ended Turei's career?…..Id suggest it was the Greens themselves.
I wonder how it would have played out had she been supported?
Supported by who? She was unequivocally supported by Shaw and the caucus apart from the two MPs who monkey wrenched GP process. But the MSM went viciously hard, including lefties like John Campbell. Nothing tells me more than this that the political classes in NZ are classist af. If someone like Campbell doesn't get it then there's no hope of the wider electorate either. NZ doesn't want a left wing govt, it's doesn't want to solve poverty or end the housing crisis. And that includes the larger proportion of the left. But sure, blame the Greens, who are actually left of Labour and have solid left wing policies.
"@Pat, so you want the GP to be Labour, good to know."
Meh….I want someone to be what Labour should be (and are obviously incapable of being, since Douglas)…if its the Greens then all good, and if they are as 'solid left wing' as you claim then it shouldnt be so difficult for them.
If we want more action on inequality, housing or the environment the evidence is in that the Labour party will not do it without a pull from the left. The Greens remain committed to actually trying to solve these issues and it’s clear Labour is only happy to work with them on their own terms. That the Greens are the ones to blame for this has always baffled me.
I want more action on inequality, housing and the environment and so to make sure this happens I support the Greens. That isn’t to say I agree with everything they do but this is MMP and I am hopeful that new and first-time voters understand this too.
same.
On my cynical days I conclude that most NZ liberals in fact don't want action on those things. Hard core Labourites I can understand, but the people that want action but won't vote for the party that has the actual policies, this is beyond me.
It is hard not to feel cynical about it, I agree.
then there's the fact that so many Labour voters own property /cynicism
Someone should do some research on that to see if it’s actually a thing. People won’t vote for the Greens because when it comes down to their personal wealth they’re protectionist, damn the poor.
The Greens don't talk about poverty much though, all we ever hear from them is gender identity, sexuality, hate speech, how everything and everyone is racist and occasionally they'll talk about weed or climate change.
The Greens have become a stand in for a left wing party like an alliance or a European socialist minor party because despite the poverty and wealth and housing inequality we don't seem to have the talent to create party focused soley on class. Mana was a decent attempt but it was a Maori nationalist party not specifically a class based party, the internet party was… A disaster. Since the alliance fell the greens have kind of been a stand in for that kind of party.
But The Greens are absolutely not the party or vehicle to achieve action on poverty or class issues because they are mostly an upper middle class outfit. The amount of Green voting NIMBYs is insane. The weird upper middle class identity politics and micro aggressions obsessions.
The greens are a party of the left but they can never be a party of the class left nor should they have to be, there is plenty of space for a die linke or an alliance style party and instead of demanding a party of mostly upper middle class to wealthy but nice and compassionate people represent poor people activists should work to create a party over many election cycles that can be a class party.
However failing that of the greens want to be an actual player they can learn how to do politics. If labour ever needs their votes and won't give them what they have the power to put labour in a minority govt and say they'll vote with them on a case by case basis. Give us what we want or we walk.
And in hindsight the greens shouldn't have done a deal with labour, it only benefits labour not having anyone to the left of them attacking them in the house. It makes the greens invisible they could potentially be polling on par with act right now as rabble rousers then again they might be polling the same but they could run in the next election as a change party where as now they are a party of the status quo with nothing to really show for the agreement other than some ministerial limos
This is very insightful commentary Corey.
'The amount of Green voting NIMBYs is insane'
Sue Bradford was a great loss from the Greens and Parliament. Metiria Turei would have filled the "class left" void.
But now, our “representatives” are all coiffurred neoliberals voting by focus group. Only the Maori Party offers a dim hope of something different.
As WMBAD pointed out, we need to organize, loose ourselves to a group, a cause. Then the Arderns, the Davidsons, Shaws, Robertsons will follow.
The first, obvious group is a union relating to work. I have been scratching my head as to the next type of group.
I have just recently joined a Biochar group. Already, I can see I am being a bit of a pain in the arse.
If, by making Biochar, you allow the smoke to escape the process, you are releasing CO, methane and other CC nasties. However, catching and condensing the smoke, you are left with awesome resources and a 'carbon negative' process.
Associate Professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment is from Politics and International Relations at the University of Auckland and is an expert in political marketing:
Not disagreeing with her, but how do they validate political marketing claims?? Marketing pros in the economy can validate with purchasing stats, due to buying & selling going on record. Does the analogy with voting patterns suffice?
Interesting that she sees a downside for both major parties:
Check out her graph showing the switch from 2017 to 2020 – spectacular! Then her advice to National…
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/navigating-unknown-waters-political-marketing-and-the-2023-nz-election
Link please.
Inserted, thanks
Whats new about this…the role of Crosby Textor in election campaigns is well known,and their results speak for themselves.
Key said he wouldn't be using them and of course he…did.
Its all about perception and getting that perception in voters heads.
Thanks Dennis. All a matter of perception.
Sharon Weiss – just sayin'
Perspective.
https://twitter.com/LOCMaps/status/1468581131645857794
I have been a cigarette smoker many years ago and tried to give up many times until I gave up giving up and strangely shortly after I gave up.
what I always thought would be best advice regarding cigarettes is for people who do smoke be registered through a GP who would distribute a weekly amount along with quitting advice to these registered smokers.
Cigarettes could then be banned from sale, that would put an end to future victims and eventually the registered would either successfully be helped to give it up or will die from it.
Case solved.
Bill wrote a post about it once https://thestandard.org.nz/curing-tobacco/
"I gave up giving up and strangely shortly after I gave up."
Profound!
Fantastic news. Also, NZ in this map, lol.
https://twitter.com/BreezyScroll/status/1468815027608047618
Re the new cigarette ban announcement from Labour
https://twitter.com/cameronlord01/status/1468825489707986946?s=21
Doubt that many under 13's have ever been buying…houses.
the new smoking ban is that anyone who was born after 2008 won't be able to buy cigarettes. Ever.
The tweet about housing was a joke, but the same principle applies. People who are 13 years old now will never be able to buy a house, ever.
Be interesting to see if the smoking ban will work.
Seems like Prohibition=black,criminal market.
Liked the Dr's prescription idea better.
As for housing ,the damage to society from not addressing the crisis will be immense,its a disgrace.
Ardern has indeed become 'Tony Blair in high heels'!
NZ is a good place to trial the ban, because of our large sea border. But I haven't read the detail of the policy to see what they are planning.