You two are showing your Right side a bit much and getting sunburned there.
I think you are suffering from heat exhaustion and need a lie down, perhaps a cup of tea to recover from the bad National news. Be strong, there will be more of this.
What bad news? the last neutral poll had National on 46%
If I was going to make a prediction I’ll be surprised if Cindy makes it to 2020 I think the pressure and grind will get to her and she’ll’ chuck it in.
I don’t think she’ll even show up for parliament this week, that’s the level of her commitment.
Bridges on 6 or whatever it is and the nats in the 40s just shows how damaged our culture really is. The nats are in disarray (for now) but support for what the nats stand for these days is as strong as ever. Selfishness and hateful attitudes became the norm after the 1990s and it’s extremely hard to reverse that stuff. The task has now been left to Ardern and her band of merry people because of course Clark et al in her nine years not only made no effort to fix things but added to the cultural filth she inherited, campaigned to end and then finally adopted as her own. Ardern’s job has become that much harder because of it. Whether she can make a dent remains to be seen, especially given some of the people around her. But I think she’s very capable of being underestimated. And given the extent of the damage inherited by the previous governments from both sides even the slightest bit of progress towards erasing the cultural filth would be no mean feat.
I can’t see many getting into the polling booth and actually ticking National if Bridges is at the helm. That’s the test. TV polls are just anonymous words on the phone. They don’t require ticking the box with the marker.
Maybe the result under the current scenario is likely to be how you describe, especially given the nats’ current leadership crisis etc. But the cultural stuff, the cultural damage, until it’s fixed up, will always mean the they won’t be far behind. That’s what keeps them within striking distance even without coalition partners. All they need to come along is a half-interesting leader, its opponent to fall into leadership crisis or some other positive variable and they’re back in the game. Labour won’t have that luxury until NZ becomes a caring and compassionate nation again and will remain on the back foot until that happens.
Yes, New Zealand has become such a mean place. Perhaps was always this way but as a child of the middle I wasn’t aware of it. Interesting the the PM was though. She cites the lives of those around her growing up as a big reason for entering politics.
I totally believe the foot needs to be kept firmly on the throat of the National Party. They need to be kept in the dungeon for as long as possible because as you say they will eventually come up with an acceptable leader and the base vote of selfish NZ will fall in behind. Another period of division, zero government, and cutbacks will then follow. Communities will be broken and isolated. Those with power will have that power further entrenched. And services will be difficult to access.
And the foot kept on the nats’ throat also gives much needed time to develop the caring society. I sense Ardern knows that, too, and while she’s hampered by those around her, and that cultural change is helped by economic change, it doesn’t necessarily require it. Economic change can follow on. Some would say that a by stealth approach is in fact required.
No updates on the Police investigations into the National Party illegal donations, the Young Nat attempted rape or Maggie’s bullying and illegal use of staff resources. Haven’t heard anything about the death threats sent by the female MP either.
Have the many National Party leakers been silenced for simply telling the truth? It’s very strange. They must have all been paid off to keep quite. National needs the big donations to silence those annoying little people who expose the rot within.
Back when JLR resigned from National/was thrown out, Mallard as Speaker was said to have assigned him a speaking slot on Thurs, 13 December but nothing formal was ever issued/published on this.
This Thursday, 13 December, was set down as the last 2017 sitting day for the House, when the afternoon is taken up with (usually light-hearted) speeches from the leaders of each political party plus any Independent MPs, which is what JLR is now classified as. This is probably what was meant by the rumours of his having been assigned a speaking slot that day.
However. JLR advised (on Twitter?) that he would not be back this year on medical advice.
In mid-November when setting the House sitting programme for 2019, Parliament also agreed to extend their sitting days in December until Weds next week (19 December) when the House will rise and not resume until 12 Feb 2019, after Waitangi Day etc.
JLR apparently quietly slipped into Parliament last week. It has been suggested this was to clean out or move his office.
Media are there to sell stuff. They do that by backing winners, like who the most people support. That’s not sigh.moan at 7% and declining. Same goes for Stuff’s position on the future of our planet.
As for the word cloud, I spent today at a social event with people who would have been around 70% National voters. Stuffs word cloud was a pretty good reflection of opinions about National’s current leader, although today’s sample would have had Muppet quite prominent. But that might have been omitted from the Stuff sample on copyright grounds.
It shows that Bridges’ net favourability – the difference between those who have a positive impression and a negative one – was negative 31 per cent, the lowest of any leader since Jenny Shipley, around the time that National was removed from office in 1999 …
… “That’s just borne out by those [favourability] numbers. We’ve never had, I don’t think, an Opposition leader in such a net negative space,” Talbot said, adding that a string of unsuccessful Labour leaders had not seen such low numbers.
“We never saw that for [Phil] Goff, we never saw that for [David] Cunliffe, we never saw that for [Andrew] Little.
“You get a lot of ‘unsures’ and ‘don’t knows’, but not that almost vitriolic stuff that you’ve got there.
“I’m not having a crack at the guy [Bridges], Talbot said. “I’ve never met him and I don’t know him, but clearly, people are having a sort of quite deep negative emotional reaction to him.”
One should bear in mind, of course, that these results are from UMR’s Late October 2018 Poll, when we were witnessing Peak Jamie-Lee Ross.
You have to wonder how much taxpayer money is getting pushed Stuffs way to peddle this bull shit.
And people try to make out Labour doesn’t do dirty politics.
In fact, UMR have been conducting these Leader-description word clouds for quite some time … and in an entirely objective / robust way.
For example, in early 2011 – when Key was near his height in popularity – UMR’s word cloud was overwhelmingly positive for him: Charismatic / Honest / Personable / Intelligent were prominent … (so no pro-Labour bias)
UMR word clouds outrageously biased toward Labour ?
Wouldn't have thought so.
Here's UMR's word cloud for John Key in early 2011 (when Key was near his height of popularity). Highly positive words are prominent. pic.twitter.com/EFlbVJgu3C
… although by late 2016 the terms assoicated with Key had – like his Favourability ratings – taken a bit of a tumble: Arrogant / Untrustworthy / Smarmy / Liar being paramount.
Of course not. The Labour Party had nothing to do with it and the first Cindy knew about it was when she saw it on TV.
Now perhaps you will answer this question.
Why has your nose grown by 3 centimetres Pinocchio?
Yeah it’s an interesting one, going back in my mind over the various cases that had massive coverage vs those that got a brief report then nothing.
BM phrased it in their usual way, and might be approaching it from the opposite direction for all I know, but as a society we do seem more upset when the murdered person is young, pretty, and pale. We should take all the other murders just as seriously, now they barely get a mention.
It’s a good response.
It’s the correct response.
It’s the response we should have to every murder. And I include myself in that.
So it’s also a moment of self reflection about how we, including me, regard our fellow residents as well as our visitors.
There’s more interest when the victim is a visitor, a guest if you like. The tragedy too has global coverage which NZ media seems to gag for. There’s no global coverage on the death of Maori women.
Also, young tourists have an innocence applied to them by the right rump of NZ which Maori women simply don’t. As Joe90 has pointed out they see Maori victims as bad buggers themselves and not-so-innocent which is why they are ignored and forgotten.
There’s truth in that Muttonbird. I remember the death of a young Pacific Island woman where the police decided that her morals were lacking and that her death was collateral damage of behaving in an immoral way. (Could have been in the 1990s.)
So she was downgraded because they thought she was prostituting or having casual outdoor sex, and they came to that conclusion because she was brown and I think from South Auckland Assumptions, and lack of care about looking closely at a violent death; all blase’ and prejudiced.
There was a journalist who looked into the matter and it was later shown that she had been attacked, and I think had managed to get away and been pursued before being killed.
There was another nasty attack that nearly was a death about that time.
A young Pacific Island woman went into Auckland city and then missed the last bus home to South Auckland. She had to walk home, a long way.
A car drove up behind her and knocked her over, injuring one leg. She managed to get away to a house where she found a gap in the foundations and crawled under there for safety.
There are a thousand stories in the big city goes a saying, and it sure applies to Auckland, most of them ignored by the ‘comfortable other’ people.
I was just looking back a few decades and this comment from an overseas visitor with a NZ spouse on how NZ struck him, death-wish came to his mind:
A ski resort in winter, Whakapapa has a bizarrely posh hotel with interiors circa 1961, a grocery store, a nature centre and some cheap chalets with views across a hundred miles. …We went on a two-hour walk to Taranaki Falls (it took one hour), and slipped behind its thundering curtains. The falls have their dark side. At sunset that evening, two passers-by stopped for a chat. I said how lovely Taranaki was, and one of them, tilting his hat back and creasing up his craggy face, said: ‘Yeah, but did you hear what happened there?’ Pause for effect. ‘Bloke in a wheelchair got pushed off the top by his wife and her lover.’
The story was complicated, a confusing web of murderous threads involving the adulterous wife having sex (pronounced ‘six’ in New Zealand) in a cupboard. A few days later, we were in the Wairarapa, the heat-racked hills and valleys to the west of Wellington, staying with friends in a white clapboard house a few miles from anywhere….A carpenter called John was there and, like most New Zealanders, he was an affable, down-to-earth sort of bloke. He stopped for a drink. After he’d gone, our hostess sighed and shook her head. ‘Poor John,’ she said. ‘His wife tried to cut his head off with a chain saw.’ Poor John! ‘She’s doing life, of course,’ our hostess added. And it just kind of went on like that: everywhere we went, someone had a weird story, often involving menace and crime. https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1999/aug/15/life1.lifemagazine2
We are said to be dour. Was he unlucky or just meeting that 2-3 degrees of separation here head-on and fast because of movement ariund the country and people impressing the visitor with their dramatic tales?
The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures.
Arguments erupted Saturday night before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions by nearly half to avoid catastrophic warming.
Satellite imagery from Google Earth taken on November shows hundreds of Russian main battle tanks at a new military base on the outskirts of the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky.
The large-scale military base only 18 kilometers away from the border with toward rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. Images show hundreds of main battle tank like as T-64 and also T-62M, while a thousand military trucks, artillery systems and tankers are located slightly higher.
The weak international response to the Kerch Strait incident might well embolden Putin to take the canal feeding Crimea, as per Illarionov (below). It appears Russian OPE (propaganda and recon) north of Crimea in Kherson/Zaporozhye is getting more intense. https://t.co/q6GCa1KRmP— Michael Carpenter (@mikercarpenter) December 9, 2018
That would mean taking the entire southwestern portion of Kherson Oblast, up to Nova Kakhovka where the canal takes in its water from the Dnipro. A large-scale military operation, and done under the Russian flag. How would West respond?— Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) December 9, 2018
That would mean taking the entire southwestern portion of Kherson Oblast, up to Nova Kakhovka where the canal takes in its water from the Dnipro. A large-scale military operation, and done under the Russian flag. How would West respond?
Despite its occasional Hippy excesses, VM’s Astral Weeks must surely be one of the greatest Albums of the last 60 years.
Interesting Doco on RNZ a few weeks ago, exploring the production of that seminal album … and emphasising that his session musicians exerted a profound influence on the final sound / arrangement. They really didn’t get their due.
With the likes of .. If I ventured in the slipstream, between the viaducts of your dream/ Where immobile steel rims crack, and the ditch in the back roads stop .. it had to be.
tc (10.1) … Desperate Natz keeping their gobshites in employment, courtesy NZH.
Then come the 2020 election, Natz is likely to commission NZH to dig up the other putrid corpses of Armstrong and Prebble again, to throw the muck at the coalition, in an attempt to keep Natz alive and kicking.
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If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
The New Zealand Government has made arrangements to charter a flight for New Zealanders stranded in Peru to depart the country, following agreement with the Chilean government to allow the necessary transit through Chile, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. “Like many travellers around the world at the moment, ...
Hospital preparations for COVID-19 are well advanced says Health Minister David Clark. “Hospitals across New Zealand are repurposing buildings and training staff to get ready for COVID-19 patients. This gives me confidence that we are well prepared for any potential increase in COVID-19 patients needing hospital level care,” said David ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
After five years, the Final Fantasy VII Remake has finally appeared. Sam Brooks reviews the highly anticipated remake, looking back while leaping forward. Remakes have been around so long as we’ve been making art. We’re used to them, whether they’re new retellings of old myths, covers of old songs, or complete ...
By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern does not want New Zealand to be at level four for “a minute longer than needed”, but says there is no plan to lift it earlier than the planned four weeks. As New Zealand approaches the halfway point of the four-week lockdown, ...
Supercity Mayor Phil Goff says Auckland Airport is entitled to launch a major share issue even if it dilutes the council's own shareholding in a strategic asset Auckland Council will see its shareholding in the city's international airport diluted during a $1.2b equity raising initiative. Auckland International Airport shares traded at $7.20 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew McLachlan, Head of School and Dean of Pharmacy, University of Sydney Researchers testing the head lice drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19 have seen promising results in lab studies. But the research is in its early stages and the ...
In the Covid-19 crisis it seems like it's every country for itself, so where does that leave the European Union? Falling apart like the Roman Empire, says Oliver Hartwich We all know those newspaper segments which feature a previously famous person. And then we read these articles wondering why we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne This week’s Newspoll, conducted April 1-3 from a sample of 1,508 people, showed a huge boost in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s approval rating based on his leadership thus far in ...
Analysis: New Zealand has dedicated itself to going hard and going early against Covid-19. When compared with other countries, how did we do? When Jacinda Ardern announced a requirement for everyone entering the country to self-isolate for 14 days, she told the nation what New Zealand's strategy for the months ...
Covid-19 quickly put Vodafone NZ to the test, but CEO Jason Paris - working out of his son's bedroom - tells Rod Oram the telco is in good shape, with the crisis giving it the opportunity "to accelerate to our digital future" Vodafone New Zealand got an early start preparing ...
Inland Revenue (IR) will turn off its computer systems for seven days from this Thursday to implement the latest round of planned transformation changes. All phone and online services will be unavailable from 3pm on 9 April until 16 April. That ...
Taxis drivers working during lockdown are facing challenges to keep themselves and their passengers safe, and rideshare service drivers face extra problems. The Taxi Federation's John Hart says most companies are asking callers who request a taxi whether the travel is allowed under the lockdown rules. "If they don't meet ...
Auckland Airport is the latest big company to rush to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The company is to raise more than $1.2 billion through a share issue to big institutional investors and existing shareholders, including the Auckland Council which has a 22 percent ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Noy, Professor and Chair in the Economics of Disasters, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Governments across the world have rolled out extensive financial packages to support individuals, businesses and large corporations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Equally, central ...
Pacific Media Watch From the second week of lockdown in New Zealand, to Covid-19 in the Pacific and an “authoritarianism creep” by governments in the Asia-Pacific region provided a fast-changing landscape on the Pacific Media Centre’s Southern Cross radio programme on 95bFM today. New Zealand had crossed the 1000-case ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union is urging the Government to halt its non-essential legislative agenda, including the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Bill, until the worst of COVID-19 has passed. Taxpayers' Union spokesperson Islay ...
Fuel sales have dropped dramatically and stocks are building up, creating pressure on storage facilities globally and in New Zealand. Z Energy's chief executive Mike Bennetts told Morning Report that there are many storage tanks throughout the country and at the Marsden Point Oil Refinery. "The issue for us is more about ...
Join us for our eighth live Q&A session with Dr Ayesha Verrall, a senior lecturer at Otago University who specialises in infectious diseases. Ayesha Verrall is an infectious diseases physician and senior lecturer at Otago University's Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine (Wellington). Dr Verrall has been monitoring the spread and impact of Covid-19 ...
SkyCity has broken the law by sacking hundreds of workers as of today with no consultation or discussion. Salaried managers at SkyCity were told on Friday that their jobs would finish today. Their letter of notice states clearly that the decision has already ...
The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersThese posts collate the most recent statistics and presents them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early ...
Mark Jennings writes on some of the good things to have come out of lockdown - and the tough times that lie ahead. We are well into our second week of lockdown and, for me, our old world already feels strangely remote. I’ve learned that working from home is fine, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Deakin University Some weeks ago, I got an email from a student who had returned to Northern Italy over Christmas to see family. Unable to return to Australia, they were in lockdown. The hospitals were filling ...
The Taranaki-Whanganui Conservation Board (TWCB) has welcomed its latest victory in a long-running court battle to prevent seabed mining off the Taranaki coast. The TWCB has been working with iwi, seafood and other environmental organisations to ...
If you’re a movie-lover but don’t feel like funnelling more money to a giant global corporation right now, good news: there are plenty of free – and legal – streaming options out there. You just have to know where to look.The number of people with access to linear television is ...
The face mask question is more complicated than it might at first seem, explains Siouxsie Wiles.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 crisis is only possible because of the support of members. If you can, please consider joining Spinoff Members here. Read Toby Morris’s new Side Eye comic, created with Siouxsie Wiles, here. ...
In times of economic uncertainty, good information can be an invaluable commodity. So we’ve been working on a way to channel it to you.For many people, knowing what to do in our radically changing economy is like trying to figure out what to do when the power in your house ...
3 April 2020: The Auditor-General has written to the chief executives of a range of public agencies about important governance matters to consider during the response to the pandemic. The contents of this letter are useful matters for all chief executives ...
Cries that coronavirus lockdown was interfering with “essential pest control” were scare-mongering not unlike supermarket panic buying says a hunting organisation the Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust. The comment was in response to an Auckland University ...
The Chief High Court judge’s decision to step down has triggered a question bluntly expressed in a headline on Asian Invasion 2019 – What The Hell Is Going On In The New Zealand Judiciary? First, the blogger says, the judiciary was accepting debate sparked by a newly appointed Supreme Court ...
The daily growth in Covid-19 cases in New Zealand continues to slump as the number of tests carried out yesterday reached a record high, Marc Daalder reports The continuing stagnation in the number of new Covid-19 cases on Monday is encouraging, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said. Monday saw just 67 ...
Laura Jean McKay is hunkered down in Palmerston North but her much-hyped novel The Animals in That Country is out there in the world – earlier than expected, too, because it’s about a strange new flu. Two women stand close to each other in an aisle labelled CANS. They’re young, ...
She’s not a teacher or a fluent speaker – she just wants to practise with you. Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Today we’re making it count – from 0 to 1000!Most of us learned tahi, rua, toru, whā when ...
Human rights lawyer Kingsley Abbott warns that Kiwis should not be too complacent about the restrictions being placed upon them In New Zealand, swimming at the beach is prohibited, an activity so entrenched in the Kiwi psyche that for many it is like being asked to go without oxygen. The ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet ...
Gareth Morgan believes if current trends continue, the Government could "open the jail" in another week Each week we’re locked up imparts irreparable harm to the economy, people’s livelihoods and not least our health. We all know why it’s been necessary and the Government is to be congratulated for moving ...
The Reserve Bank will buy up local government bonds in a major move to support the smooth functioning of the market in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic The Reserve Bank has heeded the call of economists and the country's largest council to expand its multi-billion dollar asset-purchasing programme to include bonds issued by ...
Today President Trump again touted hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for Covid-19, despite a lack of good evidence that it is safe or effective against the coronavirus. Here’s what we do know about the drug Trump calls a ‘game changer’.On Saturday the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use ...
Simon Bridges supports the start of discussions about a possible exit plan from level-4 restrictions, as long as the government remains focused on enforcing an effective lockdown. ...
PACIFIC PANDEMIC DIARY:By Sri Krishnamurthi, self-isolating in Auckland under New Zealand’s Covid-19 lockdown as part of a Pacific Media Watch series. As New Zealand edges toward the third week of lockdown having passed 1000 cases threshold (1039) with 89 new cases, 12 clusters and one death on day ...
It’s a more complicated issue than simply whether one company should control the majority of the market, writes regulatory law expert Edward Willis.The closure of Bauer Media’s operations in New Zealand, along with many well-loved magazine titles, is devastating. The broad impact of the closure, coupled with the realisation that ...
Pacific Media Watch Authorities are cracking down to try and stop the spread of the coronavirus in Fiji, which already has 12 cases, reports TVNZ One News. Police have arrested more than 240 people in the last two days for breaching curfew. “This level of lawlessness is irresponsible, un-Fijian ...
‘When you reach for the exact same thing day after day, your grasp on everything else in the world loosens.’Read more Lockdown Letters hereAt the end of 2001, my brother JP and I picked cherries and thinned apples at an orchard just outside Blenheim. It was hot and tiring work ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin USA still far from worst. Chart by Keith Rankin. Looking at known cases of Covid19, as for Friday 3 April, we still see the dominance of the jetsetter enclaves – including the tax shelters of Europe. We also see the Norse ‘viking’ cluster of Norway, ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentPublic health strategy Charlie Mitchell (Stuff): How hard, how early? The numbers behind New Zealand’s quick lockdown David Fisher ...
Alex Casey talks to a physiotherapist about how we can all save our necks and backs from a world of pain while working from home during the lockdown. As we enter another week of lockdown, you might be starting to feel a new twinge at the nape of your neck, or ...
The country's three major IT groups have been left out of the loop by the Government in the race to speed up critical contact tracing of virus carriers. ...
America faces 'Pearl Harbour moment' this week; Trump still promoting anti-malaria drug; Irish PM to work as doctor as wellA million cases is so last week, huge doubt over data: A weekend is a long time for an exponential epidemic to do its mathematical work. Early today, New Zealand time, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suze Wilson, Senior Lecturer, Executive Development, Massey University Imagine, if you can, what it’s like to make decisions on which the lives of tens of thousands of other people depend. If you get things wrong, or delay deciding, they die. Your decisions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hewson, Professor and Chair, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Climate deniers have been hanging out for the United Nations’ next big summit to fail. In a sense, the coronavirus and its induced policy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Giancaspro, Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide You’ve lost income because of the coronavirus crisis and finding it hard to pay the bills. What if you can’t pay your rent? The short answer, if you live in Australia, is that rules ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Burton, Lecturer in Media Arts, University of Wollongong Being in isolation might be a great time to try something new. In this series, we get the basics on hobbies and activities to start while you’re spending more time at home. ...
The prime minister has pushed back on comments made by an Australian government minister telling New Zealanders to go home if they have no means of support. ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Safe harbour for directors; Virgin Australia shuts NZ base; Z Energy cancels dividend and talks to banks; Serko bounces on cost cutsSafe harbour: Company directors might be sleeping a little easier now that the Government has provided clarity around the issue of reckless trading or trading while insolvent. The ...
Covid 19 coronavirus: Foreign Minister Winston Peters says up to 100,000 foreign nationals may be heading home; and pressure on Government to bring forward capital projects as part of infrastructure injection. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Debate over leaving lockdown fires up, how the tax system could change after Covid-19, and concerns as cyclone bears down on Vanuatu.Over the last few days, a debate has started to fire up about leaving level four restrictions, and restarting some ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Queenstown author Jane Bloomfield on a writing compeition which unlocks kids' imaginations during the lockdown. Encouraging young minds to roam wild is what drives myself and nine other children’s authors to run the online story-writing competition, Fabostory. With the current lockdown in place, we invite writers aged 7–13 to unlock ...
The University of Otago's Patrick Boudreau explains how 'adventure psychology' can help you cope with self-isolation Imagine being halfway up a sheer vertical face of rock. Gripping ledges smaller than the width of your iPhone with the tips of your fingers and edge of your toes. If the rock gives ...
After 15 years on the world pro tennis circuit, Marina Erakovic is chasing a new dream in sports medicine and mentoring young tennis stars. Marina Erakovic can’t run anymore. She didn’t really like it anyway, but still, it’s a measure of the toll a 15-year career at the highest level of tennis has ...
Newsroom wanted to find out why so many small shops still don’t want us to use paywave. And the answer hasn’t changed - bank fees. Suddenly, surfaces are scary. Door handles, taps, light switches, lift buttons, eftpos machines. These days they aren't just useful inanimate objects we touch without a ...
Should all New Zealanders wear face masks in public to reduce the spread of Covid-19? Farah Hancock looks at the science. The success of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in keeping Covid-19 levels low has seen a call for widespread mask-wearing. In the United States, the message from officials has ...
The Global Financial Crisis badly hurt the employment prospects of young people about to enter the workforce. Roger Smyth writes that Covid-19 will have a deeper impact, and the Government needs to respond better this time. Recessions hit the young hardest. Employers stop recruiting. Those without qualifications and those without experience end ...
March 16, 2020 is a day that any share market investor is likely to remember for a long time. That’s the day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index that tracks the top 30 companies listed on US stock exchanges, lost 2997 points, nearly 13 percent of its value. ...
Scientists hope to seek evidence of the coronavirus, or its absence, in wastewater. Mirjam Guesgen explains.The fight against Covid-19 is headed for the sewers, with New Zealand scientists hoping to analyse wastewater samples for signs of the coronavirus.Tests would allow health authorities to see whether New Zealand’s elimination strategy has ...
Since the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment relaxed the rules around the supply of essential non-food items last week, more businesses are announcing that their online stores are up and running. Some things, however, are not what leaps to mind as ‘essential’.Under the new policy allowing essential non-food items ...
By Jane Patterson, political editor of RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it’s too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. At today’s media briefing, Ardern was reluctant to draw too many conclusions from ...
By Stefan Armbruster of SBS News in Brisbane Refugees and asylum seekers in Brisbane have begun daily protests urging for their release after doctors and human rights lawyers flagged fears that a repurposed hotel could become a coronavirus infection hotspot. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Human ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it's too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. ...
Daily Review 10/12/2018 
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...10 hours ago
Nick Wilson,1 Ayesha Verrall,1,2 Len Cook,3 Alistair Gray,3 Amanda Kvalsvig,1 Michael Baker,1 (1epidemiologists, 2infectious disease physician, 3statisticians) In this blog, we raise ideas for how New Zealand might optimise testing to both identify cases in the community as part of the COVID-19 elimination strategy, and to confirm when the virus ...10 hours ago
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggests Research into ocean’s plankton likely to lead to ...14 hours ago
The Treaty on Open Skies is one of the most effective mechanisms for preventing war curently in force. By letting countries make surveillance flights over each others' territory, it eliminates fears that they are secretly preparing for war. So naturally, the US is planning to withdraw from it: The Trump ...15 hours ago
. . April 5: Day eleven of living in lock-down… My one day of rest for the week, and an opportunity to mow my lawns – which I’d been delaying for about three weeks. (On the plus side, the damp micro-climate in my back yard yielded three lovely fresh mushrooms ...15 hours ago
Paul Connett is putting all his eggs in one basket. He says “you only have to read four studies” to find community after fluoridation harmful. Image credit: Fluoride Action Network newsletter. For part 1 of this series see Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 1: Bashash et al (2018). Paul Connett, ...18 hours ago
As far as anyone can say, New Zeaand still has a general election scheduled for September 19 this year. The election will be accompanied by two referenda, one of which will ask voters:Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?The official campaign period for the cannabis referendum begins ...18 hours ago
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https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/109229941/what-the-public-is-saying-about-simon-bridges-according-to-labours-pollsters
If this is your doing labour people ,grow the fuck up.
You have to wonder how much taxpayer money is getting pushed Stuffs way to peddle this bull shit.
And people try to make out Labour doesn’t do dirty politics.
You two are showing your Right side a bit much and getting sunburned there.
I think you are suffering from heat exhaustion and need a lie down, perhaps a cup of tea to recover from the bad National news. Be strong, there will be more of this.
What bad news? the last neutral poll had National on 46%
If I was going to make a prediction I’ll be surprised if Cindy makes it to 2020 I think the pressure and grind will get to her and she’ll’ chuck it in.
I don’t think she’ll even show up for parliament this week, that’s the level of her commitment.
Delusional yet again. You need to get it through your head – just because you say something doesn’t make it true.
She is not a flake like John Key – can’t you get that? Or perhaps you do but it’s all shit and giggles as usual.
She’s flakier than a piece of deep-fried hoki.
Oh look it’s BM commenting again, taking the approach he intends to take
Yes dear.
Yeah no bad news for the gnats LOL it’s all bad news so you and waggy will have to cry into your stouts.
Bridges on 6 or whatever it is and the nats in the 40s just shows how damaged our culture really is. The nats are in disarray (for now) but support for what the nats stand for these days is as strong as ever. Selfishness and hateful attitudes became the norm after the 1990s and it’s extremely hard to reverse that stuff. The task has now been left to Ardern and her band of merry people because of course Clark et al in her nine years not only made no effort to fix things but added to the cultural filth she inherited, campaigned to end and then finally adopted as her own. Ardern’s job has become that much harder because of it. Whether she can make a dent remains to be seen, especially given some of the people around her. But I think she’s very capable of being underestimated. And given the extent of the damage inherited by the previous governments from both sides even the slightest bit of progress towards erasing the cultural filth would be no mean feat.
I can’t see many getting into the polling booth and actually ticking National if Bridges is at the helm. That’s the test. TV polls are just anonymous words on the phone. They don’t require ticking the box with the marker.
Maybe the result under the current scenario is likely to be how you describe, especially given the nats’ current leadership crisis etc. But the cultural stuff, the cultural damage, until it’s fixed up, will always mean the they won’t be far behind. That’s what keeps them within striking distance even without coalition partners. All they need to come along is a half-interesting leader, its opponent to fall into leadership crisis or some other positive variable and they’re back in the game. Labour won’t have that luxury until NZ becomes a caring and compassionate nation again and will remain on the back foot until that happens.
Yes, New Zealand has become such a mean place. Perhaps was always this way but as a child of the middle I wasn’t aware of it. Interesting the the PM was though. She cites the lives of those around her growing up as a big reason for entering politics.
I totally believe the foot needs to be kept firmly on the throat of the National Party. They need to be kept in the dungeon for as long as possible because as you say they will eventually come up with an acceptable leader and the base vote of selfish NZ will fall in behind. Another period of division, zero government, and cutbacks will then follow. Communities will be broken and isolated. Those with power will have that power further entrenched. And services will be difficult to access.
And the foot kept on the nats’ throat also gives much needed time to develop the caring society. I sense Ardern knows that, too, and while she’s hampered by those around her, and that cultural change is helped by economic change, it doesn’t necessarily require it. Economic change can follow on. Some would say that a by stealth approach is in fact required.
Yep, lots of bad news for the National Party.
No updates on the Police investigations into the National Party illegal donations, the Young Nat attempted rape or Maggie’s bullying and illegal use of staff resources. Haven’t heard anything about the death threats sent by the female MP either.
Have the many National Party leakers been silenced for simply telling the truth? It’s very strange. They must have all been paid off to keep quite. National needs the big donations to silence those annoying little people who expose the rot within.
Well, all that might change after Jami-Lee’s welcome return to the House next year.
Ross will have been paid off I suspect. His speech on Thursday will be a walk-back from the brutally candid revelations a month ago.
It’ll be all about how he’s found peace (and a big payout from Peter Goodfellow).
That’s how national roll. Money talks, shouts gets what it’s masters want….silence or mea culpa it was all JLR.
I didn’t see anywhere that Ross was coming back to the House this Thursday. Is that happening?
I thought he was due to speak on 13 December.
Back when JLR resigned from National/was thrown out, Mallard as Speaker was said to have assigned him a speaking slot on Thurs, 13 December but nothing formal was ever issued/published on this.
This Thursday, 13 December, was set down as the last 2017 sitting day for the House, when the afternoon is taken up with (usually light-hearted) speeches from the leaders of each political party plus any Independent MPs, which is what JLR is now classified as. This is probably what was meant by the rumours of his having been assigned a speaking slot that day.
However. JLR advised (on Twitter?) that he would not be back this year on medical advice.
In mid-November when setting the House sitting programme for 2019, Parliament also agreed to extend their sitting days in December until Weds next week (19 December) when the House will rise and not resume until 12 Feb 2019, after Waitangi Day etc.
JLR apparently quietly slipped into Parliament last week. It has been suggested this was to clean out or move his office.
I hope he’s not planning on moving too far.
How is it “dirty politics”? Labour didn’t hire a shill to manipulate and abuse people in order for another shill to pick it up and pass it to the MSM.
Media are there to sell stuff. They do that by backing winners, like who the most people support. That’s not sigh.moan at 7% and declining. Same goes for Stuff’s position on the future of our planet.
As for the word cloud, I spent today at a social event with people who would have been around 70% National voters. Stuffs word cloud was a pretty good reflection of opinions about National’s current leader, although today’s sample would have had Muppet quite prominent. But that might have been omitted from the Stuff sample on copyright grounds.
So who did they say would be a better leader?
It doesn’t matter. The depth isn’t there. The question’s more like who wouldn’t make the worst.
Do you consider Ardern a leader or just a marketable commodity?
A leader. A neoliberal it seems, but a leader nevertheless.
Your lot wouldn’t see any difference, although it does depend on the party you’re talking about.
UMR’s David Talbot
One should bear in mind, of course, that these results are from UMR’s Late October 2018 Poll, when we were witnessing Peak Jamie-Lee Ross.
BM
In fact, UMR have been conducting these Leader-description word clouds for quite some time … and in an entirely objective / robust way.
For example, in early 2011 – when Key was near his height in popularity – UMR’s word cloud was overwhelmingly positive for him: Charismatic / Honest / Personable / Intelligent were prominent … (so no pro-Labour bias)
… although by late 2016 the terms assoicated with Key had – like his Favourability ratings – taken a bit of a tumble: Arrogant / Untrustworthy / Smarmy / Liar being paramount.
The results are sent to corporates and this particular piece of research was not commissioned by the Labour party.
I hope not . Higher standard and all that.
I can tell you that Labour is relishing doing no dirty politics and watching National burn itself to the ground!
Of course not. The Labour Party had nothing to do with it and the first Cindy knew about it was when she saw it on TV.
Now perhaps you will answer this question.
Why has your nose grown by 3 centimetres Pinocchio?
Where’s ‘slick’ waggers? That’d be my choice but nobody asked.
Hey Minister Twyford losing two agency CEs in a day is not a good look
Go kick State Services ass and settle this in January. More fun than DPMC involved where you don’t need them.
And stay safe: we need you driving for multiple terms
Sounds like they were both f%$king useless ?
Prior govt appointees ?
Best of the webs
Oh…
brilliant
Simon Bridges urgently demanded that the Police name the leaker.
The Police told him to fuck off.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/12/exclusive-simon-bridges-urged-top-cop-to-reveal-expenses-leaker-s-identity.html
Hardly surprising when the top cop is working for Labour and doing their bidding.
NZ is a banana republic.
Poor choice, huh.
Had the same thought. Mike Bush a Labour man?
But maybe on the Planet Delusion, who knows?
Oh look it’s BM commenting again, taking the approach he intends to take
BM
You really are clutching at straws.
Hey no need to call him a wanker.
Oh very very well played
🤣🤣
It’s all they’ve got now shonky has taken his snake oil show back to corporate.
It’s hangers on, past the used by and Eade/Lusk acolytes now, good luck with that.
Wow – get simon to investigate it like he did the leaker – who is still leaking LOL
Why don’t you read what you just wrote.
Lol.
BM
NZ is a banana republic.
Actually this is pristine proof that NZ is NOT a banana republic. If it was National would have been provided with the information.
This is the sort of behaviour which leads to the public forming the word cloud they did.
I’m finding the pack hysteria surrounding the death of the English girl a bit disturbing.
My god BM that’s an extraordinary thing to say. You are implying that people are feeling exaggerated or uncontrollable feeling about this tragedy.
Perhaps you have difficulty empathizing. Why other people’s very understandable deep sadness over this is disturbing to you, is IMO disturbing…….
Yet their was little hysteria about the killing of Ariana Eva Mahu,Te Awhiahua Toko, Chozyn Koroheke, Lynace Parakuka, and Aroha Kerehoma.
Yeah it’s an interesting one, going back in my mind over the various cases that had massive coverage vs those that got a brief report then nothing.
BM phrased it in their usual way, and might be approaching it from the opposite direction for all I know, but as a society we do seem more upset when the murdered person is young, pretty, and pale. We should take all the other murders just as seriously, now they barely get a mention.
Gosh can’t we just allow people the compassionate response they are having.
It’s a good response.
It’s the correct response.
It’s the response we should have to every murder. And I include myself in that.
So it’s also a moment of self reflection about how we, including me, regard our fellow residents as well as our visitors.
There’s more interest when the victim is a visitor, a guest if you like. The tragedy too has global coverage which NZ media seems to gag for. There’s no global coverage on the death of Maori women.
Also, young tourists have an innocence applied to them by the right rump of NZ which Maori women simply don’t. As Joe90 has pointed out they see Maori victims as bad buggers themselves and not-so-innocent which is why they are ignored and forgotten.
There’s truth in that Muttonbird. I remember the death of a young Pacific Island woman where the police decided that her morals were lacking and that her death was collateral damage of behaving in an immoral way. (Could have been in the 1990s.)
So she was downgraded because they thought she was prostituting or having casual outdoor sex, and they came to that conclusion because she was brown and I think from South Auckland Assumptions, and lack of care about looking closely at a violent death; all blase’ and prejudiced.
There was a journalist who looked into the matter and it was later shown that she had been attacked, and I think had managed to get away and been pursued before being killed.
There was another nasty attack that nearly was a death about that time.
A young Pacific Island woman went into Auckland city and then missed the last bus home to South Auckland. She had to walk home, a long way.
A car drove up behind her and knocked her over, injuring one leg. She managed to get away to a house where she found a gap in the foundations and crawled under there for safety.
There are a thousand stories in the big city goes a saying, and it sure applies to Auckland, most of them ignored by the ‘comfortable other’ people.
She was missing for a week, so it drew attention. The Father arriving created a new level of sadness. Their worst fears were correct. She was a guest.
Can you articulate why? Not that I am trying to dismiss your reaction, just wondering if you are able to dissect it?
I think a lot of it is fake bandwagoning .the media running it hard to get views and clicks .
I was just looking back a few decades and this comment from an overseas visitor with a NZ spouse on how NZ struck him, death-wish came to his mind:
A ski resort in winter, Whakapapa has a bizarrely posh hotel with interiors circa 1961, a grocery store, a nature centre and some cheap chalets with views across a hundred miles. …We went on a two-hour walk to Taranaki Falls (it took one hour), and slipped behind its thundering curtains. The falls have their dark side. At sunset that evening, two passers-by stopped for a chat. I said how lovely Taranaki was, and one of them, tilting his hat back and creasing up his craggy face, said: ‘Yeah, but did you hear what happened there?’ Pause for effect. ‘Bloke in a wheelchair got pushed off the top by his wife and her lover.’
The story was complicated, a confusing web of murderous threads involving the adulterous wife having sex (pronounced ‘six’ in New Zealand) in a cupboard. A few days later, we were in the Wairarapa, the heat-racked hills and valleys to the west of Wellington, staying with friends in a white clapboard house a few miles from anywhere….A carpenter called John was there and, like most New Zealanders, he was an affable, down-to-earth sort of bloke. He stopped for a drink. After he’d gone, our hostess sighed and shook her head. ‘Poor John,’ she said. ‘His wife tried to cut his head off with a chain saw.’ Poor John! ‘She’s doing life, of course,’ our hostess added. And it just kind of went on like that: everywhere we went, someone had a weird story, often involving menace and crime.
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1999/aug/15/life1.lifemagazine2
We are said to be dour. Was he unlucky or just meeting that 2-3 degrees of separation here head-on and fast because of movement ariund the country and people impressing the visitor with their dramatic tales?
Do you struggle to comprehend other people’s emotions BMmer?
Petrogarchs united.
The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures.
Arguments erupted Saturday night before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions by nearly half to avoid catastrophic warming.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-administration-resists-global-climate-efforts-at-home-overseas/2018/12/09/b94a9ef0-fa41-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html?
It is staged theatre, J90 and
The UN are playing a role too..
Consensus…right…
It was 10 years more 15 years ago…
15 years more 10 years ago…
I believe the UN/IPCC about as much as I believe in Moodeys/S&P…
Same game…same personnel…
So we should be alright then.
You have a gut feeling on this no doubt.
I wonder if they’re there to correct mistakes.
Satellite imagery from Google Earth taken on November shows hundreds of Russian main battle tanks at a new military base on the outskirts of the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky.
The large-scale military base only 18 kilometers away from the border with toward rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. Images show hundreds of main battle tank like as T-64 and also T-62M, while a thousand military trucks, artillery systems and tankers are located slightly higher.
https://defence-blog.com/army/satellite-imagery-shows-hundreds-of-russian-tanks-near-the-border-with-ukraine.html
Not looking very friendly all of that weaponry. Vlad must be getting ready for something…
Just some army-surplus cub scouts going to pop over to say “hi”, honest.
If Ukraine not come to free military fun fair, free military funfair go to Ukraine.
Well, you’d need lots of kit if you were going to take the entire southwestern portion of Kherson Oblast, up to Nova Kakhovka where the canal takes in its water from the Dnipro.
Seventy four years old, fourth album in fourteen months, and sounding as good as he ever has.
Van Morrison – The Prophet Speaks – Ain’t Gonna Moan No More
Despite its occasional Hippy excesses, VM’s Astral Weeks must surely be one of the greatest Albums of the last 60 years.
Interesting Doco on RNZ a few weeks ago, exploring the production of that seminal album … and emphasising that his session musicians exerted a profound influence on the final sound / arrangement. They really didn’t get their due.
With the likes of .. If I ventured in the slipstream, between the viaducts of your dream/ Where immobile steel rims crack, and the ditch in the back roads stop .. it had to be.
Leighton Smith’s last day on Friday. What a great day for New Zealand.
His herald regular column awaits whilst another red neck rant host is lined up.
tc (10.1) … Desperate Natz keeping their gobshites in employment, courtesy NZH.
Then come the 2020 election, Natz is likely to commission NZH to dig up the other putrid corpses of Armstrong and Prebble again, to throw the muck at the coalition, in an attempt to keep Natz alive and kicking.
Quite sad really!