3 news 5 items in, each item showing a govt minister stuffing up and looking bad. The end of the gnats is underway, we need the opposition, the left to keep the pressure on. We DON’T deserve this incompetent government, we really don’t.
They seem to be worried that a near-future government will start getting serious about the housing crisis.
With the slowly increasing prospect of a change of government next year, I expect you are on the button there McFlock. Very interesting response from two of our largest banks – owned by the Aussies but domiciled in NZ.
Btw, I had impression from that newsclip that poor old Nicky Smith was in a serious fit of pique. 😉
I’d be a bit cynical and go with self preservation. They want someone they can pursue / bankrupt to get their money back when it all turns to shit.
This came out earlier (I think) in the Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=11653661
It’s got to go bad, and maybe quite soon, so the banks will be making sure they’re protected. To bad for the borrower who did something that in hindsight was a bit silly, they’ve just got 10 years servitude to the bank.
New Zealand can be a country that restores the Kiwi dream of homeownership.
Why do we have this dream?
Is it one that applies to all people?
What if we were to change it to a dream of somewhere where you know you’ll be able to go to at the end of the day for the rest of your life?
What if we not only did that but made it so that owners couldn’t parasite off of the lives of the renters?
“In this case, the rope had already broken once, but the reasons for that had not been considered. The rope had been repaired, not replaced, and it broke again. The dangers of the snapback zone had been identified but crew were still required to work in that area.
“This is a tragic case which will live with the family of Leighton Muir forever.”
In 2015 Talley’s was found guilty of the same charge after crewman Cain Adams died after falling 6.9m through an open hatch on the Capt. M.J. Souza, when the vessel was in port in Nelson.
The company was fined $48,000 and ordered to pay $35,000 in reparations.
Why do I get the feeling that copping the fine and paying reparations is far cheaper than doing what’s right?
100% correct. Talley’s simply don’t give a shit about their wage slaves. You’ve got to admire their attempt to blame the ship’s senior crew, who have rather conveniently disappeared. It would make some sense if there wasn’t already a culture of bullying at Talley’s that means even their management staff operate in an atmosphere of constant fear.
The questions the captain and bosun would answer would go beyond their own immediate culpability, and might include pressures from head office to maximise catches, budgetary pressures on replacements/repairs (at the very least, knots are quicker than splices), and work hours.
the cynic in me wonders how much of their decision to leave their jobs and skip town was fear of personal liability as opposed to an incentive package from higher up. But I’m sure that would be tremendously out of character for such a respectable company…
heh.
Sell? Give to the state for operation or resale. Iwi have first dibs on resale, operational profits while owned by government go to government, if resold within five years of nationalisation then half of proceeds go to former owners.
if resold within five years of nationalisation then half of proceeds go to former owners.
Nope, the former owners get nothing from the nationalisation of the business but they do get to keep the debt that they incurred to set up the business.
And instead of selling it on the state turns it into a self-owned cooperative. A business that the state has no say in the running of and is run by the workers.
I think you just spiked a post, McFlock! I just got home and was mulling over a post suggesting immediate nationalisation for the safety of the workers; not just physical, but psychological safety. Then I spotted your comment, which is a far better expression of the idea than I had in mind.
I’ve always wanted to ask what first attracted the National Party to the millionaire Peter Talley. Perhaps we’ll never know.
What attracted the Nats to Talley? It may have been they recognised that like them Talley had a kind and gentle heart and was dedicated to improving the lives of ordinary people. Or it was his vast fortune and his willingness to slip lots of it to them to get elected/stay elected and get their own fat little faces snout down in the trough? We will never know. Yeah, right.
It’s not something I’ve really thought through beyond the initial idea and the standard followups (what about the Treaty? what about if bolstering the ghost-surplus was part of the excuse to nationalise? etc)
I’d forgotten the concept of corporate manslaughter, for example.
But the problem with solutions that focus solely on fines and prison is that sooner or later a perfectly good, if poorly run, company would go to the wall and workers would lose their jobs for want of a slight change in management.
The workers coops idea is interesting, but ends up giving workers a theoretical vested interest in poor safety cultures.
And again, if iwi get first dibs on ownership, what if the local iwi was the shit employer in the first place.
They’re obviously panicking with off the hoof policy like $5k to get out of Dodge and renting whole motels and it stinks of poor law thinking. $60-70K plus of debt for families with no money must be irking even the most neo-liberal within the National party, but only because it might cost them votes. The risk is that their responses will intensify the shifting of responsibility for core services to the community. Those ideas are already well and truly here and it’s a short step to locking them in. IH-fucking-C is full of National party arsewipes who are more than ready to help decimate social housing. Welfare will be next.
What a wonderful job JC and Checkpoint are doing bringing these personal stories to us. And JK and PB in particular want everyone to think most of these people are down and out P-users. They are not! I guarantee the so-called p-users would represent less than 10% of the homeless.
This is unbelievable stuff. An $8k debt going up $2k a fortnight for a family with no money. Others with $60-70k plus. Key and Bennett et al must be shitting their pants. It’s still likely that Key could eat a baby and go up in the polls, but this issue just might have the legs to halt that trend. The AAAP group in Auckland and John Campbell are doing a great job.
I feel bad for them. They must feel as though they’re digging a hole as fast as they can, and some bastard from WINZ is just kicking the dirt back into it every week. It’s madness. It makes no logical sense.
ISDS- Australia’s Labor Party have made the following commitment.
Labor is promising to review three of the major free trade agreements signed by the Abbott and Turnbull governments in the hope of removing a controversial clause that allows foreign corporations to sue the Australian government.
It will also make Australia’s involvement in a proposed huge free trade zone in the Asia Pacific – dubbed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – subject to stricter entry conditions than those the Coalition demanded.
The opposition’s trade spokeswoman, Penny Wong, said Labor would try to remove so-called investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses from every trade agreement, and every bilateral investment treaty, that Australia has signed.
Oh, God. The government bring in an anti-vaxxer in place of Grosser. She seems all over the place, to be honest.
I think there’s a real opportunity for us to save the country millions of dollars in pharmaceuticals by treating the whole person and the environment they live in, which is all about healthy eating and healthy living.
-Pugh
Her first thought is about money (of course). If only her political party of choice considered ‘treating people and the environment they live in’ with any respect…
Prescription drugs are almost all inevitably toxic to the liver and to the kidneys, as well as to other tissues of the body.
They should be avoided wherever possible, in favour of supporting and assisting the natural healing faculties of the human body.
There will be some instances of course where there is a need to use pharmaceutical drugs, but especially in the case of polypharmacy the boundary between what is helpful and what is harmful, can quickly be crossed.
Pugh is of course spot on that health doesn’t come from a pill bottle, it comes from a person’s environment, food and life style.
It appears to me that Pugh knows the difference between true healthcare and expensive modern sickness care.
How then does she, or you, reconcile this nurturing approach to the person and their environment with regard to healthcare to the ambulance at the bottom of a cliff approach to the actual environment and to the disenfranchised of society in general?
Everything on the planet is “inevitably toxic” if you do enough. Drinking far too much water can kill you, so at a certain level even homeopathic “remedies” are toxic.
An odd caption for the photo of Key and Pugh.
“National MP Maureen Pugh, who lives in the West Coast-Tasman electorate, with Prime Minister John Key. ” Tut tut.
Mate, she doesn’t even like antibiotics so I assume the rubella vaccine is off limits. A privileged upbringing and Kale smoothies are all her kids needed, apparently.
I know heaps of people who have raised their kids without using antibiotics. Doesn’t make them an anti-vaxxer. Sorry, but your ignorance and prejudices are showing. Not everyone that uses alternative medicines is anti-vaccine (even where they choose to not vaccinate themselves). It’s pretty interesting watching parts of the political commentariat be so arrogant on this issue when they really have no clues about the very large numbers of people who want the govt to better on health promotion beyond the ambulance model, because they know it’s worked in their own lives. I’m guessing you don’t know such people, based on your comment. Which means you are arguing from a place of not really knowing.
There are some instances when antibiotics need to be used. But there is not much to like about the current use of antibiotics in society, and more importantly, in the last 10 years conventional medicine has finally started cottoning on to the damage that antibiotics cause to the human biome.
I commented to that post through Andrews, lets hope it passes a kind censor.
It’s was a good piece in reply by them. It will negate much of Andrews damage and that of the homeless plight on all National Key supporters. It’s just what they want to hear. Labours telling lies we are doing a lot, here’s the statistical proof. they won’t poke any further.
Well done PB and Nick, though your hemoraging swing voters still I suspect!
Interesting to that John key said in Fiji that a healthy democracy is about being challenged by both opposition and the media thats what makes democracy stronger. What a load of BS.
Thanks to Nicky Hager the use of dirty politics by the government has been exposed and its effect diluted. Ministers must now do damage control by media rather than paid operatives.
That is simply a PR piece from those two minister’s grab bag of ill-conceived and piecemeal policy.
Andrew’ words must be hurting them. So good news that they feel the need to shout out and explain and justify. Their problem is that by splurging out with far too many responses, the water is just plain muddied.
Well done Andrew!
‘Clinton, the “women’s candidate”, leaves a trail of bloody coups: in Honduras, in Libya (plus the murder of the Libyan president) and Ukraine. The latter is now a CIA theme park swarming with Nazis and the frontline of a beckoning war with Russia. It was through Ukraine – literally, borderland – that Hitler’s Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, which lost 27 million people. This epic catastrophe remains a presence in Russia. Clinton’s presidential campaign has received money from all but one of the world’s ten biggest arms companies. No other candidate comes close.’
Germany wanted to invade Poland without the USSR pushing back, and the USSR wanted to buy time to prepare itself for inevitable war against the Nazis. So the unfortunate deal was done.
None of that changes Pilgers main points. Which is probably why he didn’t talk about it.
Stitching up a deal to split Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland between themselves wasn’t buying time to prepare itself for inevitable war, it was bog standard imperialism.
Hah. And about halfway round the globe, there’s that other big country getting uppity and needs to be kept in place or taught some lessons. Perhaps the name of that body of water should be changed from South China Sea to something more appropriate like North Philippines Sea.
You’re pretty happy with Russia annexing it’s neighbour’s territory, which is certainly worse behaviour than NATO’s sensible intervention to swiftly end the Balkan war. As I said, two wrongs don’t make a right. However, there’s little point you moaning about war warmongering if you are in fact in OK with it when its your favoured nation doing the bullying. Hypocritical, in fact.
‘Homeless family: The realities of living in a van
A family who lived for four months in their van kept going to work and school throughout their ordeal – and their daughter almost won a scholarship to St Cuthbert’s College.
The two parents and six children aged 7 to 17 got up early every day to shower and eat breakfast at the mother’s workplace.
Their 11-year-old daughter has posted on Facebook under the pseudonym “TA” about how she made lunches for all the children – “but sometimes there’s barely anything”.
“It’s hard to do my homework with my family around,” she wrote.
But despite being homeless, she just missed out on winning one of four scholarships offered by elite St Cuthbert’s College to Year 7 Maori and Pacific students each year.
Favona Primary School deputy principal Heather Harvey, who encouraged her to apply and drove her to the test, said the college offered “fabulous resources” that the girl would never have access to at Mangere’s Decile 1 high schools.
“She’s a very lovely, capable girl,” she said. “She was the head of our kapahaka team.”
Mrs Harvey also wrote a letter supporting the family’s application for social housing, but had no response.
“Things have been very hard for them. I just can’t understand how they lived,” she said.’
I kinda see Te Panel as a repository for just- about- has- beens. It allows them some profile, I guess…but they’re all a bit desperate. (With maybe the exception of Dita Di Boni) I should listen more often, but I’m a recovering masochist….;-)
The nice Michelle Boag insisted that her son had no Student Loans. He worked you see. Virtuous lad.
Two of my sons worked too and gained a degree or two each. Unfortunately they did not live in Christchurch so borrowed a Living Allowance and worked and studied and ended up with a big debt each. She scorns the parents who despair of their children’s debts.
Planetary travel is obviously her forte.
Michelle Boag insisted that her son had no Student Loans. He worked you see
I heard that too and thought: oh yeah, and who used her many influential contacts to get him the work in the first place?
It would be nice if every son/daughter was lucky enough to have a parent who could conjure up a good, well paying job for their children with a snap of their fingers.
Bullshitting is obviously her forte….and I wrote as much to Gentle Jim…
I know it is a smallish misrepresentation of the truth….a trifle in the greater scheme of things…but it pisses me off. Its typical of her and her right wing friends to lie and deny….but these are parasites who got their education for fucking free….and they then denigrate today’s betrayed youth.
More from the they’re so arrogant it’s unfuckingbeleivable file.
The farm was originally owned by Landcorp — a state owned enterprise.
In 2013 it decided to sell. Bay of Plenty iwi Ngāti Whakahemo wanted to buy it and it was part of their original Treaty claim.
Landcorp sought advice from the Office of Treaty Settlements, who said Ngāti Whakahemo’s claims had been settled.
The Supreme Court says that advice was wrong.
Ngāti Whakahemo wrote to numerous Ministers seeking help.
The Supreme Court ruled the decision by Ministers not to intervene was “a wrongful exercise of a public power”, and the decision by Landcorp to sell the farm was also “a wrongful exercise of a public power”.
…
Not only are there no legal consequences, but Mr Finlayson is refusing to apologise.
“Of course I won’t apologise because that’s a finding of law. It’s not as though I’ve done something grievous that requires me to get down on my knees and apologise.”
He says Ngāti Whakahemo didn’t miss out on the opportunity to buy the land because the farm was too expensive.
“They couldn’t have afforded to purchase it on their own, I know that.”
“We’re one of the longest farming families in this district, everyone knows that,” says Mita Ririnui from Ngāti Whakahemo. “We had the means to purchase.”
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Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
3 news 5 items in, each item showing a govt minister stuffing up and looking bad. The end of the gnats is underway, we need the opposition, the left to keep the pressure on. We DON’T deserve this incompetent government, we really don’t.
Little bit of exageration but my point still stands – forgot about missing people – hope they are found safe
mm @ 1
And Paddy Gower earns his keep:
http://www.newshub.co.nz/business/westpac-bans-loans-to-foreign-buyers-2016060914#axzz4AyDemz9Z
It’s bullshit. It’s free marketing. As if Westpac/ANZ have many foreign buyers.
They come here with money from China.
That was stupid coming from gower.
not just free marketing – the first thing industries do to avoid regulation is to pretend to self-regulate.
They seem to be worried that a near-future government will start getting serious about the housing crisis.
They seem to be worried that a near-future government will start getting serious about the housing crisis.
With the slowly increasing prospect of a change of government next year, I expect you are on the button there McFlock. Very interesting response from two of our largest banks – owned by the Aussies but domiciled in NZ.
Btw, I had impression from that newsclip that poor old Nicky Smith was in a serious fit of pique. 😉
I’d be a bit cynical and go with self preservation. They want someone they can pursue / bankrupt to get their money back when it all turns to shit.
This came out earlier (I think) in the Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=11653661
It’s got to go bad, and maybe quite soon, so the banks will be making sure they’re protected. To bad for the borrower who did something that in hindsight was a bit silly, they’ve just got 10 years servitude to the bank.
Good piece by Andrew Little in the Herald on housing.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11653530
Why do we have this dream?
Is it one that applies to all people?
What if we were to change it to a dream of somewhere where you know you’ll be able to go to at the end of the day for the rest of your life?
What if we not only did that but made it so that owners couldn’t parasite off of the lives of the renters?
Nice juxtaposition of comments 1 and 2
Talley’s ordered to pay $94,000 after death of crewman
Why do I get the feeling that copping the fine and paying reparations is far cheaper than doing what’s right?
100% correct. Talley’s simply don’t give a shit about their wage slaves. You’ve got to admire their attempt to blame the ship’s senior crew, who have rather conveniently disappeared. It would make some sense if there wasn’t already a culture of bullying at Talley’s that means even their management staff operate in an atmosphere of constant fear.
The questions the captain and bosun would answer would go beyond their own immediate culpability, and might include pressures from head office to maximise catches, budgetary pressures on replacements/repairs (at the very least, knots are quicker than splices), and work hours.
the cynic in me wonders how much of their decision to leave their jobs and skip town was fear of personal liability as opposed to an incentive package from higher up. But I’m sure that would be tremendously out of character for such a respectable company…
Less than $100,000 for taking a life, and I assume practices can carry on as normal..
A three strikes law? Kill 3 employees (more likely ‘contractors’) and you have to sell your company?
heh.
Sell? Give to the state for operation or resale. Iwi have first dibs on resale, operational profits while owned by government go to government, if resold within five years of nationalisation then half of proceeds go to former owners.
That’ll put it up ’em…
Sounds fair. I can see you’ve thought about this longer than I have.
Nope, the former owners get nothing from the nationalisation of the business but they do get to keep the debt that they incurred to set up the business.
And instead of selling it on the state turns it into a self-owned cooperative. A business that the state has no say in the running of and is run by the workers.
I think you just spiked a post, McFlock! I just got home and was mulling over a post suggesting immediate nationalisation for the safety of the workers; not just physical, but psychological safety. Then I spotted your comment, which is a far better expression of the idea than I had in mind.
I’ve always wanted to ask what first attracted the National Party to the millionaire Peter Talley. Perhaps we’ll never know.
What attracted the Nats to Talley? It may have been they recognised that like them Talley had a kind and gentle heart and was dedicated to improving the lives of ordinary people. Or it was his vast fortune and his willingness to slip lots of it to them to get elected/stay elected and get their own fat little faces snout down in the trough? We will never know. Yeah, right.
It’s not something I’ve really thought through beyond the initial idea and the standard followups (what about the Treaty? what about if bolstering the ghost-surplus was part of the excuse to nationalise? etc)
I’d forgotten the concept of corporate manslaughter, for example.
But the problem with solutions that focus solely on fines and prison is that sooner or later a perfectly good, if poorly run, company would go to the wall and workers would lose their jobs for want of a slight change in management.
The workers coops idea is interesting, but ends up giving workers a theoretical vested interest in poor safety cultures.
And again, if iwi get first dibs on ownership, what if the local iwi was the shit employer in the first place.
Lots of fodder for a post, is my general drift 🙂
Boards of Directors need prison time. That usually sorts things.
Nick Smith: Poor education behind falling rates of Maori and Pasifika home ownership – yes indeed Nick you ignorant slob – back to school with you!
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, greedy, uncaring and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
Homelessness.
Our ‘brighter future’
Some families already thousands in debt to WINZ for emergency motel housing remain in the same accommodation block, with their loans mounting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PcK_PL9AJ4
she has got a kid in a wheelchair in that dump.
200 bucks a night.
One can’t actually make that shit up. This is loan sharking. Winz has been turned into a payday lender.
The AAAP said on RNZ the other day they’re taking this issue through the courts.
WINZ, under this government, has obviously turned into a massive subsidy for National’s mates.
The amount that WINZ are paying they should just buy the flats and be done with it. Be a lot cheaper.
Of course, that would mean that rich, greedy bastards aren’t getting massive income for doing nothing.
They’re obviously panicking with off the hoof policy like $5k to get out of Dodge and renting whole motels and it stinks of poor law thinking. $60-70K plus of debt for families with no money must be irking even the most neo-liberal within the National party, but only because it might cost them votes. The risk is that their responses will intensify the shifting of responsibility for core services to the community. Those ideas are already well and truly here and it’s a short step to locking them in. IH-fucking-C is full of National party arsewipes who are more than ready to help decimate social housing. Welfare will be next.
What a wonderful job JC and Checkpoint are doing bringing these personal stories to us. And JK and PB in particular want everyone to think most of these people are down and out P-users. They are not! I guarantee the so-called p-users would represent less than 10% of the homeless.
This is unbelievable stuff. An $8k debt going up $2k a fortnight for a family with no money. Others with $60-70k plus. Key and Bennett et al must be shitting their pants. It’s still likely that Key could eat a baby and go up in the polls, but this issue just might have the legs to halt that trend. The AAAP group in Auckland and John Campbell are doing a great job.
I feel bad for them. They must feel as though they’re digging a hole as fast as they can, and some bastard from WINZ is just kicking the dirt back into it every week. It’s madness. It makes no logical sense.
ISDS- Australia’s Labor Party have made the following commitment.
http://www.bilaterals.org/?labor-pledges-to-review-trade
Good!! and our lot should follow suit.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=11653661
Front page herald at the top. Doesn’t get much poignant than that!
“Once fully operational, the team should inspect 80 houses a week.
Repairing faulty work would cost about $1000 per repair, he said. Contractors or Fletcher would bear the cost.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/business/the-rebuild/73205717/More-than-6500-homes-need-fix-after-faulty-EQC-repairs
“The Earthquake Commission’s (EQC) home repair programme project manager can not be held responsible for shoddy quake repairs, its contract suggests.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/71124031/no-responsibility-on-fletcher-eqr-for-shoddy-quake-repairs-contract-suggests
“Second-time repairs to Canterbury homes damaged by the earthquakes could cost up to $70 million.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/80873207/remedial-home-repairs-could-cost-eqc-up-to-70m.html
I imagine that 70 mil (plus) could have been better used elsewhere.
Oh, God. The government bring in an anti-vaxxer in place of Grosser. She seems all over the place, to be honest.
-Pugh
Her first thought is about money (of course). If only her political party of choice considered ‘treating people and the environment they live in’ with any respect…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/80884541/national-mp-maureen-pugh-doesnt-believe-in-pharmaceutical-drugs
Prescription drugs are almost all inevitably toxic to the liver and to the kidneys, as well as to other tissues of the body.
They should be avoided wherever possible, in favour of supporting and assisting the natural healing faculties of the human body.
There will be some instances of course where there is a need to use pharmaceutical drugs, but especially in the case of polypharmacy the boundary between what is helpful and what is harmful, can quickly be crossed.
Pugh is of course spot on that health doesn’t come from a pill bottle, it comes from a person’s environment, food and life style.
It appears to me that Pugh knows the difference between true healthcare and expensive modern sickness care.
Interesting.
How then does she, or you, reconcile this nurturing approach to the person and their environment with regard to healthcare to the ambulance at the bottom of a cliff approach to the actual environment and to the disenfranchised of society in general?
Feed’m Aropax and Zopiclone and it’ll be OK
They’re antithetical to each other. If you want healthy people you need a healthy environment and that includes social engagement.
lol
Everything on the planet is “inevitably toxic” if you do enough. Drinking far too much water can kill you, so at a certain level even homeopathic “remedies” are toxic.
An odd caption for the photo of Key and Pugh.
“National MP Maureen Pugh, who lives in the West Coast-Tasman electorate, with Prime Minister John Key. ” Tut tut.
What makes you think she is an anti-vaxxer?
Mate, she doesn’t even like antibiotics so I assume the rubella vaccine is off limits. A privileged upbringing and Kale smoothies are all her kids needed, apparently.
I know heaps of people who have raised their kids without using antibiotics. Doesn’t make them an anti-vaxxer. Sorry, but your ignorance and prejudices are showing. Not everyone that uses alternative medicines is anti-vaccine (even where they choose to not vaccinate themselves). It’s pretty interesting watching parts of the political commentariat be so arrogant on this issue when they really have no clues about the very large numbers of people who want the govt to better on health promotion beyond the ambulance model, because they know it’s worked in their own lives. I’m guessing you don’t know such people, based on your comment. Which means you are arguing from a place of not really knowing.
There are some instances when antibiotics need to be used. But there is not much to like about the current use of antibiotics in society, and more importantly, in the last 10 years conventional medicine has finally started cottoning on to the damage that antibiotics cause to the human biome.
FLASH!!!!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11653723
Nick and Paulas reply to Andrew just popped up on the Herald!
I read it, too little too late. The faithful will be pleased though.
No opportunity to comment below it.
I commented to that post through Andrews, lets hope it passes a kind censor.
It’s was a good piece in reply by them. It will negate much of Andrews damage and that of the homeless plight on all National Key supporters. It’s just what they want to hear. Labours telling lies we are doing a lot, here’s the statistical proof. they won’t poke any further.
Well done PB and Nick, though your hemoraging swing voters still I suspect!
Interesting we are given the right to comment on Little’s comment, yet have no right to reply to Bennett and Smith.
What a crock.
Interesting to that John key said in Fiji that a healthy democracy is about being challenged by both opposition and the media thats what makes democracy stronger. What a load of BS.
They are scrambling.
A reactionary government in action.
Thanks to Nicky Hager the use of dirty politics by the government has been exposed and its effect diluted. Ministers must now do damage control by media rather than paid operatives.
That is simply a PR piece from those two minister’s grab bag of ill-conceived and piecemeal policy.
So not that busy, then….
Time to write a puff piece for the Herald.
Not enough time to visit Te Puea Marae.
No, she would have demanded her staff work late without pay to pull together all sorts of disparate bits from previous media releases.
but but
they are building 40 houses a day.
nick smith and paula bennet say so.
40 a day!
someone should ask nick smith to hire a bus and show us the houses.
Big butt but
When they say they, who is THEY exactly? mm huh mmm
Is that 40 houses a day nationally, by rich pricks? See with national you need a front end loader to clear the shit away so you can see the truth.
Andrew’ words must be hurting them. So good news that they feel the need to shout out and explain and justify. Their problem is that by splurging out with far too many responses, the water is just plain muddied.
Well done Andrew!
Explaining is losing. Bennett has been explaining a lot lately. Smith just doesn’t care.
NATO runs a 31,000 soldier exercise on Russia’s doorstep. (14,000 of them US soldiers).
How aggressive and provocative of Russia to keep placing her country right next to all these NATO and US forces.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a21229/us-nato-exercise/
Saw that the other day. As far as I can make out the West seem to be pushing for a war.
John PIlger seems to think so.
‘Clinton, the “women’s candidate”, leaves a trail of bloody coups: in Honduras, in Libya (plus the murder of the Libyan president) and Ukraine. The latter is now a CIA theme park swarming with Nazis and the frontline of a beckoning war with Russia. It was through Ukraine – literally, borderland – that Hitler’s Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, which lost 27 million people. This epic catastrophe remains a presence in Russia. Clinton’s presidential campaign has received money from all but one of the world’s ten biggest arms companies. No other candidate comes close.’
http://johnpilger.com/articles/silencing-america-as-it-prepares-for-war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbuyki6XZPo
we have started WW3 a long time ago. We are now just simply admitting it.
Pilger conveniently ignores the shitty little deal to divvy up Europe that allowed the Nazi invaders to hand over my Polish uncle and his sole surviving family member to the Soviets who promptly loaded them onto a train and transported them eastward to a Siberian camp.
He was four years old.
Germany wanted to invade Poland without the USSR pushing back, and the USSR wanted to buy time to prepare itself for inevitable war against the Nazis. So the unfortunate deal was done.
None of that changes Pilgers main points. Which is probably why he didn’t talk about it.
Stitching up a deal to split Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland between themselves wasn’t buying time to prepare itself for inevitable war, it was bog standard imperialism.
That is also true. However both the USSR and Germany knew that it was never going to be a deal which would last long.
And if they really had been buying time they wouldn’t have been screwed so badly by barbarossa.
That, and their [the Soviets] blissful unawareness as they considered extending the deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_talks#German_proposed_draft_agreement
Well it was Stalin in charge, so that’s what you get.
So much for buying time.
Hah. And about halfway round the globe, there’s that other big country getting uppity and needs to be kept in place or taught some lessons. Perhaps the name of that body of water should be changed from South China Sea to something more appropriate like North Philippines Sea.
Sea of the American Colony of North Phillipines
At least the NATO effort is just an exercise. Russia does the invasion thing for real.
Libya was NATO for real. Syria was NATO for real. Iraq was NATO for real. Yugoslavia was NATO for real.
Note that none of these countries are anywhere near the USA.
NATO is America’s European tool for spreading the Empire of Chaos.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
That’s four wrongs from NATO/US.
Makes no difference at all. And I don’t think anyone reckons Yugoslavia was a wrong, CV. The intervention was late, but not wrong.
good to know you are ok with NATO attacks against civilian targets without a UN mandate. Same story in Libya. Thanks in large part to Killary.
You’re pretty happy with Russia annexing it’s neighbour’s territory, which is certainly worse behaviour than NATO’s sensible intervention to swiftly end the Balkan war. As I said, two wrongs don’t make a right. However, there’s little point you moaning about war warmongering if you are in fact in OK with it when its your favoured nation doing the bullying. Hypocritical, in fact.
TA’s story hits the MSM.
‘Homeless family: The realities of living in a van
A family who lived for four months in their van kept going to work and school throughout their ordeal – and their daughter almost won a scholarship to St Cuthbert’s College.
The two parents and six children aged 7 to 17 got up early every day to shower and eat breakfast at the mother’s workplace.
Their 11-year-old daughter has posted on Facebook under the pseudonym “TA” about how she made lunches for all the children – “but sometimes there’s barely anything”.
“It’s hard to do my homework with my family around,” she wrote.
But despite being homeless, she just missed out on winning one of four scholarships offered by elite St Cuthbert’s College to Year 7 Maori and Pacific students each year.
Favona Primary School deputy principal Heather Harvey, who encouraged her to apply and drove her to the test, said the college offered “fabulous resources” that the girl would never have access to at Mangere’s Decile 1 high schools.
“She’s a very lovely, capable girl,” she said. “She was the head of our kapahaka team.”
Mrs Harvey also wrote a letter supporting the family’s application for social housing, but had no response.
“Things have been very hard for them. I just can’t understand how they lived,” she said.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11653678
Michelle Boag appears to have told big porkies during her stint as a member of Gentle Jim’s Panel on Natrad this afternoon.
I listened for a nanosecond before walking off in disgust…but felt it only fair that I actually hear her out on the subject of Student Loans.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201803888
…at around about 2 minutes she states that when she went to varsity there was some funding but she had to pay quite a bit….
She graduated in 1977….
Perhaps faulty memory is a National trait?
Why does Brian Edwards tolerate her nonsense?
Too much time spent in Herne Bay?
I kinda see Te Panel as a repository for just- about- has- beens. It allows them some profile, I guess…but they’re all a bit desperate. (With maybe the exception of Dita Di Boni) I should listen more often, but I’m a recovering masochist….;-)
The nice Michelle Boag insisted that her son had no Student Loans. He worked you see. Virtuous lad.
Two of my sons worked too and gained a degree or two each. Unfortunately they did not live in Christchurch so borrowed a Living Allowance and worked and studied and ended up with a big debt each. She scorns the parents who despair of their children’s debts.
Planetary travel is obviously her forte.
Michelle Boag insisted that her son had no Student Loans. He worked you see
I heard that too and thought: oh yeah, and who used her many influential contacts to get him the work in the first place?
It would be nice if every son/daughter was lucky enough to have a parent who could conjure up a good, well paying job for their children with a snap of their fingers.
“Planetary travel is obviously her forte”
Bullshitting is obviously her forte….and I wrote as much to Gentle Jim…
I know it is a smallish misrepresentation of the truth….a trifle in the greater scheme of things…but it pisses me off. Its typical of her and her right wing friends to lie and deny….but these are parasites who got their education for fucking free….and they then denigrate today’s betrayed youth.
she graduated???!!!
More from the they’re so arrogant it’s unfuckingbeleivable file.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/minister-refuses-to-apologise-after-botched-land-deal-2016060918#axzz4B4EM3hJP (autoplay and text).
Yep that minister is the most puffed up, arrogant, look down his nose, distasteful minister of the lot.
Absolutely, drips with superiority, so up himself.
So I wonder who did buy it?
Two interesting moves today by banks. Both in response to the government’s hands off approach to social policy.
One by Westpac and ANZ very, very unusual as far as I am aware.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/305996/westpac-and-anz-stop-lending-to-foreign-buyers
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/306011/rbnz-considers-property-investor-crackdown
The brighter future, where John Key drinks Kava with despots while private banks do the government’s work for them.