Aww it’s a special occasion. The line could be stretched. Just as long as it springs back again. I would like to see midnight closing most of the time with special times for special seasons and reasons.
Firstly why isnt there a clause in the law for special events, oh like national killed the party long before the greens.
Oh wait, nobody did, you can still get drunk and watch the rugby,just do it at home you blithering idiot media made it sound like a crisis.
Headline, National out of touch with license premises for major sporting events.
Its mondayisation all over again. Dither because the legistlation was rushed.
The Greens kinda stuffed up today. They should have supported Seymour’s bill. I have said before that they need to reach out to the hunters and the fishers if they want to get anywhere, but they are doing everything but.
This wasnt going to be the thin end of the wedge to 24 hour licencing (which, most of the hospitality industry doesnt really support anyway — just a chance for people to have a good time.
John Key ‘answering’ David Parker’s questions today about the shady Saudi sheep dodgy deal. Watch the video here and see Bill English’s demeanor and body language with his head pointing downwards throughout this Q and A, as if in shame/embarrassment/guilt/fear! Notice also the PM not admitting his serious wrongdoing but turning it around to stupidly lie that it was all the Labour’s fault!
Labour has been doing this stuff for the last seven years, seriously why do they think it will be any different this time.
If labour wants to win, Little needs to get out there and show he’s a good bloke, not the whining, grumpy, negative prick he’s getting shown as.
Positive, positive ,positive, no one likes negative, he needs to demonstrate why he’s a better choice than Key and he has to do it in a positive way other wise he’s wasting his time.
Positive, positive ,positive, no one likes negative,
The RWNJs do – John Key and National lie all the time about Labour and, well, everything and the RWNJs still vote for the psychopaths. Hell, they even defend their immoral actions.
This is not about the left. It is about a shockingly corrupt deal performed by this government. It is a disgrace. I would not hesitate to say the same if it were a Labour government that had done it. Do you condone what this government has done here? Be honest.
The fact you are telling ‘the left’ to ‘move on’ just means there is something in this, maybe if you followed your own advice & ‘moved on’ it would peter out, but hey, you are here, failing at diversion trolling & fueling the fire, FAIL!
Today Labour has published documents obtained under the Official Information Act.
It is now clear:
* Mr Al Khalaf had been disaffected for over six years. He had never issued any proceeding against the New Zealand Government. It seems clear he had no legal cause of action.
* There is no evidence in any of the papers released that the Minister or MFAT had any legal advice from their own department or Crown Law to the contrary.
* Mr Al Khalaf was influential in Saudi Arabia, linked to the Saudi Minister of Agriculture, and frustrating progress on the Gulf Cooperation Council Free Trade Agreement.
* Mr McCully wanted to advance the trade agreement by obtaining the cooperation of Mr Al Khalaf.
* The papers released this week record that McCully said “he would not want any (financial) contributions to be treated as compensation as this would involve a plethora of lawyers and bureaucrats”.
* Mr McCully deliberately misrepresented the payments made to the Al Khalaf group.
* The contract dated 19 February 2013 was drafted so as to pretend the $4 million cash payment was for good value for services and intellectual property. It was not.
* Mr McCully did not obtain Cabinet approval for the $4 million payment, despite Treasury advice that he should have. Cabinet was only asked to note the payment.
* Mr McCully then hid the $4 million payment from New Zealanders for over two years.
* The true nature of the $6 million demonstration farm was also misrepresented. In reality this was primarily to buy the co-operation of the Al Khalaf group, not to demonstrate New Zealand technology.
* The same is true of the $1.5 million spent on flying sheep.
Read lots more here under the heading, ‘The Saudi Sheep Files’
by David Parker on August 11, 2015
Come on BM 1, 2, 3,
All together now.. “Labour did it too…”
“Nothing to see here…”
BM – if you were to tell someone to write an invoice to you for $4m but say it was for something that it clearly was not – and subsequently an employer, or the IRD, or whoever found out… Do you think the SFO might be coming to ask you a few questions?
”Low dairy prices will force the sale of a number of farms to foreign owners.”
I think this might be a little presumptuous. The NZ/Ozzie banks have much more to gain from continuing their current mortgage/debt contracts with farmers than selling to the highest bidder if this bidder is/comes from overseas with his own cheap(er) funds. IMO the banks are in it for medium-to-long-term game and not after short-term ‘profits’. The exception might be businesses that are going to cost the banks money, in the long run, in which case they’ll pull the pin and ‘count their losses’, i.e. force a mortgagee sale.
Another factor is that the local banks here in NZ are highly competitive and do not want to gamble away their goodwill with the general public; they’ve worked hard to get to this level of goodwill.
Last thing the banks want to avoid is panic setting in! The farming community is relatively close-knit.
Obviously, some (‘jittery’?) farmers may think that now is a good time to sell to the highest bidder, foreign or not, in which case they hold the future of NZ farming in their own hands.
You’ve weaved a very complex and nuanced tale. But farm mortgagee sales are already happening.
The NZ/Ozzie banks have much more to gain from continuing their current mortgage/debt contracts with farmers than selling to the highest bidder if this bidder is/comes from overseas with his own cheap(er) funds.
Banks can only tolerate a certain level of NPLs. And the biggest risk they take is if farm prices start to fall under what the bank is owed, when the farm business goes insolvent. At that point anyone willing to hand over good hard cash to the bank wins the farm.
Another factor is that the local banks here in NZ are highly competitive and do not want to gamble away their goodwill with the general public; they’ve worked hard to get to this level of goodwill.
It it the patriotic duty of every poster who supported Syriza to take a holiday in Greece.
Thatnkfully, Greece sinking the Euro and China sinking its own currency are also sinking NZ’s kiwi, which in turn is a great downward signal for the NZ Reserve Bank to lower interest rates, which is great for all those investors in Auckland on floating rates.
As usual, this Government leaves it to the RBNZ to do all the heavy lifting with the only power-tool it has: the OCR NZ Finance Minister Bill English says ‘plenty of room’ for interest rate cuts. Obviously, as stated in the article, the surreal surplus is more important to Bill English and his mates than stimulating the economy.
Fortunately, for Bill English, the surprise Chinese devaluation today is likely to force Graeme Wheeler’s hand in September; a cut of 0.50% on the cards?
“When I finally convinced her that I wasn’t joking, she just burst into tears. Then we dreamed about all the ways our lives would change and all the good we could do with the winnings. It was a really special moment.”
Within minutes of winning, the lucky couple were already planning how to spend the winnings – and giving back to their community is at the top of the list.
“We’re part of a really tight-knit community and we want to use some of our winnings to make life easier for those around us as well.
“We already have a big list of things we want to do over the coming months – it’s really exciting!
“We want to organise 500 food hampers that we’ll deliver to families in our area come Christmas time and we have a list of charities and groups we want to help.
“It’s something we always said we’d do if we won and it’s so exciting to be able to make those dreams a reality.”
——————
And what about this for an idea. Use the money to buy some suitable land and build some good three storey social housing units, properly designed., fenced. Have a trust and rent them out at reasonable rent, enough to cover costs, maintenance, administration, and have a few at rent to buy so that people could pay more and the extra adds up to their deposit to purchase. A gift that keeps on giving that would be. It would be the best thing they could do, and they could borrow some of the money, wouldn’t have to use all of their own. They would still have enough left for a lifestyle block for themselves or whatever.
All of which further underscores that the gigaton is the unit that really explains to you how we’re altering the planet — changing its atmosphere, and changing its oceans, at a scale that’s hard for humans to conceive of. Net gigatons of CO2 are going into the atmosphere and net gigatons of H2O are going into the ocean. And if you wanted to reshape a planet, it’s hard to think of a better recipe than that.
Just heard Brian Easton on radionz with Barry Crump. He is going to return in a fortnight – so that is Tuesday 25th August.
8:40 Economics
Is there no such thing as a free lunch – with independent scholar Brian Easton. Is the New Zealand economy heading into a recession? No audio.
He was good like Rod Oram. Must keep an ear out for him.
His own blog has some interesting reading. http://pundit.co.nz/blogs/brian-easton
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/windowsontheworld
And BBC Windows on the World have produced some riveting investigations.
Tonight I was listening to the story behind the polonium poisoning of the Russian dissident. Yesterday it was the story of a young physicist? Moseley who worked at the same time as Rutherford who gave him space to develop his ideas which he did brilliantly until he signed up for the war and got killed.
This is the list for this week.
Monday 10 August 2015: Death of a Physicist
On August 10 1915, while on his first action in World War One, the most talented physicist of his generation was felled by a bullet. He was Henry Moseley, and in a career that lasted just four years, he had confirmed the modern picture of the atom, and explained the underlying principles of the periodic table of the elements, the ‘map’ used by all chemists to this day. A Nobel prize and a glittering future was guaranteed. Instead his death was called a “national tragedy”. Roland Pease looks at the lasting impact of this rarely remembered physicist.
Tuesday 11 August 2015: The Polonium Trail
The former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital in 2006, after drinking tea poisoned with the highly radioactive material – polonium. But who wanted him dead, and why? And where did his killers get the polonium from? As a British judicial Inquiry ends its public hearings, BBC correspondent Richard Watson investigates the murky story surrounding Alexander Litvinenko’s death.
Wednesday 12 August 2015: The Killing of Farkhunda
A 28-year-old woman called Farkhunda was beaten to death in the streets of Kabul in March this year after she was accused of burning a copy of the Koran. The Killing of Farkhunda puts together a picture of who she was, what actually happened and asks what it says about Afghan society. The murder sparked unprecedented protests in Kabul about the treatment of women. In a speedy judicial process four men were convicted of her killing and sentenced to death but these sentences were later quashed. The Killing of Farkhunda tells the story of what happened to Farkhunda on that day, told through the voices of those closest to her and through those who became caught up in the case.
Thursday 13 August 2015: China’s Ketamine Fortress
Celia Hatton goes undercover to The Fortress, the Chinese village at the centre of the world’s illicit ketamine problem. She hears how China is a top maker and taker of the drug.
On August 10 1915, while on his first action in World War One, the most talented physicist of his generation was felled by a bullet. He was Henry Moseley,
If he had lived he would probably have helped bring about the nuclear bomb for WW2.
You could have Barry Crump audio on RNZ for a fortnight no trouble. There’s all those toyota ads you could play for a start.. except they don’t play ads do they, whoops.
Thanks you all. I do mean the esteemed Bryan Crump. But sometimes I wonder if anyone reads what I put up so after this unplanned experiment I shall include a deliberate mistake to draw out the closet watchers!
And about ads – those like the Toyota one have become a classic, transcending the mundane realms of vegetable prices today or whatever. I have bought two Kiwiana CDs and they have a number of radio ads that take me back to when I was knee high to a grasshopper. Funny how affectionate one can feel about an advert. Who would have thought it.
As white men armed with assault rifles stalk the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, police arrest black protestors because they might be armed,
A group of men who call themselves the “Oath Keepers” arrived in Ferguson, Missouri, late Monday night, armed with assault rifles and decked out in military fatigues.
I looked at a few articles about this, and it was not at all clear where these Oath Keepers stand – they appeared to want to protect the protesters from the police, and shops and houses from looters. Some like having them there, others don’t. Their stated position is to uphold the constitution – it looks as if they are putting themselves forward as a vigilante alternative to the state police force that they view as corrupt. It’s scary what things are coming to.
To all those RWNJ critics of “hip hop tours” : suck it you racist snobs
@HelenClarkUNDP Big thanks to Helen & Labour for backing NZ Hip Hop – The Bradas Hip Hop Crew from NZ just won the world Hip Hop Champs!!!— Minder (@ArbyHyde) August 11, 2015
Will Hutton’s Guardian piece made me re-think the issue of student debt and what we load on to the shoulders of the next generation. He says we need to look at the long-term social implications of large student debt. He says, for example, It’s putting people off marriage for many years, until they’re mid or late 30s and then the birthrate falls too.
In the UK, just as is the case here, home ownership among the under 40s has absolutely plummeted … many people emerge from university and spend their entire life renting and trying to pay off their student loan… and they’ll do that well into their 50s.
Of course, the idea that we are trying to educate our youth to improve their prospects … but when you consider the level of debt our students are shouldering, it begs the question whether the system is actually self-defeating.
Will Hutton says Britain is the process of creating the most stratified, least socially mobile and cruelly unfair society because of the way it is treating its young.
And he says the student loan system saves the government between 1 and 1.5 percent of GDP- but the end result is that they are enslaving a generation to debt, and what it cost is that to an economy on the long term?
He ends his piece by saying this issue is often politicised – it’s often marginalised as an issue of the left. But it’s much bigger than that.
Exactly right, student debt is a huge anchor on economic growth as well as people’s lives. Why the f*ck are we not investing *more* in the next generation? But instead we are ripping them off and then expecting them to pay for our retirement too? This is not only unjust, it’s economically infeasible.
Agree with the sentiments regarding student loans.
But does it strike anyone else that too many of our commentators have articles and opinions that are only created after they read someone else’s work?
In fact, most of Smalley’s article is a repeat of his except for a small personal anecdote. There is a referral to the average amount of a loan, (for a UK student – taken from the Guardian article) but how hard can it be to make this NZ Herald article relevant?
The idea of building capacity in a country with education for future smart jobs and the people to fill them from THIS country, and also the idea of investing in your own citizens and knowledge and a wider outlook for our young people for a more advanced society has been demolished.
Now the idea of higher education is that it will give a better higher paying job than otherwise, is useful to the individual as a money earner, and therefore is a private good. So education must be charged for on the basis of that idea. Education is a type of business, where the government pays a limited amount of the cost and charges the student what the market will bear.
But getting a good paying job after successful higher education is only an idea which has become a dream for many because of another neo lib idea, that it is right to bring in laws and practices that crush existing businesses because better newer more efficient ones will grow up in their wake. Not.
So there is no excuse for charging high prices for education and using it as a barrier that people have to jump before they can get to the grassy knoll with all the assassins of our once progressive society with opportunities for advancement and a happy life .
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
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TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
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Boo hoo. Good look for the Greens tonight. The party of shower heads and no fun.
What not allowing people to drink at 7 in the morning? I could not think of anything worse …
It’s not compulsory.
Aww it’s a special occasion. The line could be stretched. Just as long as it springs back again. I would like to see midnight closing most of the time with special times for special seasons and reasons.
Firstly why isnt there a clause in the law for special events, oh like national killed the party long before the greens.
Oh wait, nobody did, you can still get drunk and watch the rugby,just do it at home you blithering idiot media made it sound like a crisis.
Headline, National out of touch with license premises for major sporting events.
Its mondayisation all over again. Dither because the legistlation was rushed.
Bunch of idiots. Who cares.
Boo hoo. Good look for ACT tonight, trying to only-slightly repeal a ban on drinking which their government introduced.
Such defenders-of-freedom, very not-hypocrites, wow. /doge
The Greens kinda stuffed up today. They should have supported Seymour’s bill. I have said before that they need to reach out to the hunters and the fishers if they want to get anywhere, but they are doing everything but.
This wasnt going to be the thin end of the wedge to 24 hour licencing (which, most of the hospitality industry doesnt really support anyway — just a chance for people to have a good time.
They could have abstained or given their members a free conscience vote.
NZ FIrst reaches out to the hunters and fishers and look where it’s got them.
John Key ‘answering’ David Parker’s questions today about the shady Saudi sheep dodgy deal. Watch the video here and see Bill English’s demeanor and body language with his head pointing downwards throughout this Q and A, as if in shame/embarrassment/guilt/fear! Notice also the PM not admitting his serious wrongdoing but turning it around to stupidly lie that it was all the Labour’s fault!
http://www.inthehouse.co.nz/video/38714
You do realize this stuff doesn’t help the left at all.
Beltway boredom.
You do realise when the truth comes out about the shady Nat/Saudi deal it won’t help ‘the right’ at all.
Bored with RW trolls.
Labour has been doing this stuff for the last seven years, seriously why do they think it will be any different this time.
If labour wants to win, Little needs to get out there and show he’s a good bloke, not the whining, grumpy, negative prick he’s getting shown as.
Positive, positive ,positive, no one likes negative, he needs to demonstrate why he’s a better choice than Key and he has to do it in a positive way other wise he’s wasting his time.
You are trying to talk shit to derail the topic instead of addressing the issue raised. Are you looking to get banned?
I’m in daily review bud, what’s there to derail?
Does not matter where you troll and and where you post shit. It is still trolling and still shit.
The RWNJs do – John Key and National lie all the time about Labour and, well, everything and the RWNJs still vote for the psychopaths. Hell, they even defend their immoral actions.
+1
That’s not a very positive contribution BM. Why aren’t you telling us about how the sun shines out of FJK’s arse or something?
This is not about the left. It is about a shockingly corrupt deal performed by this government. It is a disgrace. I would not hesitate to say the same if it were a Labour government that had done it. Do you condone what this government has done here? Be honest.
Haven’t followed it at all, not a bean of interest.
Boring beltway schlock.
I guess, I’m just completely jaded from all the endless left inspired hysteria that I’ve tuned out.
The fact you are telling ‘the left’ to ‘move on’ just means there is something in this, maybe if you followed your own advice & ‘moved on’ it would peter out, but hey, you are here, failing at diversion trolling & fueling the fire, FAIL!
“Not a bean of interest” = three comments desperately trying to convince us there’s no story here.
Today Labour has published documents obtained under the Official Information Act.
It is now clear:
* Mr Al Khalaf had been disaffected for over six years. He had never issued any proceeding against the New Zealand Government. It seems clear he had no legal cause of action.
* There is no evidence in any of the papers released that the Minister or MFAT had any legal advice from their own department or Crown Law to the contrary.
* Mr Al Khalaf was influential in Saudi Arabia, linked to the Saudi Minister of Agriculture, and frustrating progress on the Gulf Cooperation Council Free Trade Agreement.
* Mr McCully wanted to advance the trade agreement by obtaining the cooperation of Mr Al Khalaf.
* The papers released this week record that McCully said “he would not want any (financial) contributions to be treated as compensation as this would involve a plethora of lawyers and bureaucrats”.
* Mr McCully deliberately misrepresented the payments made to the Al Khalaf group.
* The contract dated 19 February 2013 was drafted so as to pretend the $4 million cash payment was for good value for services and intellectual property. It was not.
* Mr McCully did not obtain Cabinet approval for the $4 million payment, despite Treasury advice that he should have. Cabinet was only asked to note the payment.
* Mr McCully then hid the $4 million payment from New Zealanders for over two years.
* The true nature of the $6 million demonstration farm was also misrepresented. In reality this was primarily to buy the co-operation of the Al Khalaf group, not to demonstrate New Zealand technology.
* The same is true of the $1.5 million spent on flying sheep.
Read lots more here under the heading, ‘The Saudi Sheep Files’
by David Parker on August 11, 2015
http://campaign.labour.org.nz/saudi_sheep
Come on BM 1, 2, 3,
All together now.. “Labour did it too…”
“Nothing to see here…”
BM – if you were to tell someone to write an invoice to you for $4m but say it was for something that it clearly was not – and subsequently an employer, or the IRD, or whoever found out… Do you think the SFO might be coming to ask you a few questions?
thanks for your concern
http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/71034771/NZ-dollar-falls-after-Chinas-surprise-currency-devaluation
Might help the farmers a bit
the National party plumbs new depths of puerile excuses…waiting for the ‘dog ate the papers’…we’ve had everything else.
The Saudi Sheep Files http://campaign.labour.org.nz/saudi_sheep
Bryan Gould has written another piece in the NZ Herald NZ a ‘virtual economic trade prisoner of China’.
He writes:
”Low dairy prices will force the sale of a number of farms to foreign owners.”
I think this might be a little presumptuous. The NZ/Ozzie banks have much more to gain from continuing their current mortgage/debt contracts with farmers than selling to the highest bidder if this bidder is/comes from overseas with his own cheap(er) funds. IMO the banks are in it for medium-to-long-term game and not after short-term ‘profits’. The exception might be businesses that are going to cost the banks money, in the long run, in which case they’ll pull the pin and ‘count their losses’, i.e. force a mortgagee sale.
Another factor is that the local banks here in NZ are highly competitive and do not want to gamble away their goodwill with the general public; they’ve worked hard to get to this level of goodwill.
Last thing the banks want to avoid is panic setting in! The farming community is relatively close-knit.
Obviously, some (‘jittery’?) farmers may think that now is a good time to sell to the highest bidder, foreign or not, in which case they hold the future of NZ farming in their own hands.
Interesting times ahead …
You’ve weaved a very complex and nuanced tale. But farm mortgagee sales are already happening.
Banks can only tolerate a certain level of NPLs. And the biggest risk they take is if farm prices start to fall under what the bank is owed, when the farm business goes insolvent. At that point anyone willing to hand over good hard cash to the bank wins the farm.
You’re smoking things.
Greece and EU agree to the deal.
86billion Euro in fresh loans, and aiming for budget surpluses every year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/greece-bailout-deal_55c9b278e4b0923c12be0634?kvcommref=mostpopular
It it the patriotic duty of every poster who supported Syriza to take a holiday in Greece.
Thatnkfully, Greece sinking the Euro and China sinking its own currency are also sinking NZ’s kiwi, which in turn is a great downward signal for the NZ Reserve Bank to lower interest rates, which is great for all those investors in Auckland on floating rates.
So it all works out.
See you at the Parthenon.
Sure — just hang on while I shit out $15,000 or so.
Oops, looks like I dont shit money out after all.
Shame 🙂
As usual, this Government leaves it to the RBNZ to do all the heavy lifting with the only power-tool it has: the OCR NZ Finance Minister Bill English says ‘plenty of room’ for interest rate cuts. Obviously, as stated in the article, the surreal surplus is more important to Bill English and his mates than stimulating the economy.
Fortunately, for Bill English, the surprise Chinese devaluation today is likely to force Graeme Wheeler’s hand in September; a cut of 0.50% on the cards?
“When I finally convinced her that I wasn’t joking, she just burst into tears. Then we dreamed about all the ways our lives would change and all the good we could do with the winnings. It was a really special moment.”
Within minutes of winning, the lucky couple were already planning how to spend the winnings – and giving back to their community is at the top of the list.
“We’re part of a really tight-knit community and we want to use some of our winnings to make life easier for those around us as well.
“We already have a big list of things we want to do over the coming months – it’s really exciting!
“We want to organise 500 food hampers that we’ll deliver to families in our area come Christmas time and we have a list of charities and groups we want to help.
“It’s something we always said we’d do if we won and it’s so exciting to be able to make those dreams a reality.”
——————
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/71016531/hamilton-mans-gut-instinct-leaves-him-93m-richer
P.S:
What a lovely couple.
And well done to the journalist, ‘PHILLIPA YALDEN’ for such lovely writing.
heartwarming on a cold day
And what about this for an idea. Use the money to buy some suitable land and build some good three storey social housing units, properly designed., fenced. Have a trust and rent them out at reasonable rent, enough to cover costs, maintenance, administration, and have a few at rent to buy so that people could pay more and the extra adds up to their deposit to purchase. A gift that keeps on giving that would be. It would be the best thing they could do, and they could borrow some of the money, wouldn’t have to use all of their own. They would still have enough left for a lifestyle block for themselves or whatever.
To truly grasp what we’re doing to the planet, you need to understand this gigantic measurement
Just heard Brian Easton on radionz with Barry Crump. He is going to return in a fortnight – so that is Tuesday 25th August.
8:40 Economics
Is there no such thing as a free lunch – with independent scholar Brian Easton. Is the New Zealand economy heading into a recession? No audio.
He was good like Rod Oram. Must keep an ear out for him.
His own blog has some interesting reading.
http://pundit.co.nz/blogs/brian-easton
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/windowsontheworld
And BBC Windows on the World have produced some riveting investigations.
Tonight I was listening to the story behind the polonium poisoning of the Russian dissident. Yesterday it was the story of a young physicist? Moseley who worked at the same time as Rutherford who gave him space to develop his ideas which he did brilliantly until he signed up for the war and got killed.
This is the list for this week.
Monday 10 August 2015: Death of a Physicist
On August 10 1915, while on his first action in World War One, the most talented physicist of his generation was felled by a bullet. He was Henry Moseley, and in a career that lasted just four years, he had confirmed the modern picture of the atom, and explained the underlying principles of the periodic table of the elements, the ‘map’ used by all chemists to this day. A Nobel prize and a glittering future was guaranteed. Instead his death was called a “national tragedy”. Roland Pease looks at the lasting impact of this rarely remembered physicist.
Tuesday 11 August 2015: The Polonium Trail
The former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital in 2006, after drinking tea poisoned with the highly radioactive material – polonium. But who wanted him dead, and why? And where did his killers get the polonium from? As a British judicial Inquiry ends its public hearings, BBC correspondent Richard Watson investigates the murky story surrounding Alexander Litvinenko’s death.
Wednesday 12 August 2015: The Killing of Farkhunda
A 28-year-old woman called Farkhunda was beaten to death in the streets of Kabul in March this year after she was accused of burning a copy of the Koran. The Killing of Farkhunda puts together a picture of who she was, what actually happened and asks what it says about Afghan society. The murder sparked unprecedented protests in Kabul about the treatment of women. In a speedy judicial process four men were convicted of her killing and sentenced to death but these sentences were later quashed. The Killing of Farkhunda tells the story of what happened to Farkhunda on that day, told through the voices of those closest to her and through those who became caught up in the case.
Thursday 13 August 2015: China’s Ketamine Fortress
Celia Hatton goes undercover to The Fortress, the Chinese village at the centre of the world’s illicit ketamine problem. She hears how China is a top maker and taker of the drug.
If he had lived he would probably have helped bring about the nuclear bomb for WW2.
“ust heard Brian Easton on radionz with Barry Crump. He is going to return in a fortnight – so that is Tuesday 25th August.”
Dont you mean Bryan Crump?
Unless Radio NZ has found out how to resurrect people…
You could have Barry Crump audio on RNZ for a fortnight no trouble. There’s all those toyota ads you could play for a start.. except they don’t play ads do they, whoops.
Thanks you all. I do mean the esteemed Bryan Crump. But sometimes I wonder if anyone reads what I put up so after this unplanned experiment I shall include a deliberate mistake to draw out the closet watchers!
And about ads – those like the Toyota one have become a classic, transcending the mundane realms of vegetable prices today or whatever. I have bought two Kiwiana CDs and they have a number of radio ads that take me back to when I was knee high to a grasshopper. Funny how affectionate one can feel about an advert. Who would have thought it.
As white men armed with assault rifles stalk the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, police arrest black protestors because they might be armed,
A group of men who call themselves the “Oath Keepers” arrived in Ferguson, Missouri, late Monday night, armed with assault rifles and decked out in military fatigues.
http://mashable.com/2015/08/11/oath-keepers-ferguson/
I looked at a few articles about this, and it was not at all clear where these Oath Keepers stand – they appeared to want to protect the protesters from the police, and shops and houses from looters. Some like having them there, others don’t. Their stated position is to uphold the constitution – it looks as if they are putting themselves forward as a vigilante alternative to the state police force that they view as corrupt. It’s scary what things are coming to.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/14/oath-keepers-fergusonprotests.html
Brandon WallVerified account
@Walldo
One of the armed Oath Keepers in Ferguson just said they are there to protect InfoWars reporters
https://twitter.com/Walldo/status/630987538556043264
The batshit crazy J Duane Weed is head of the local oathkeepers chapter.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/22/us/missouri-police-officer-suspended/
To all those RWNJ critics of “hip hop tours” : suck it you racist snobs
Rachel Smalley: Burden of student loans a kick in the teeth to whole generation
Exactly right, student debt is a huge anchor on economic growth as well as people’s lives. Why the f*ck are we not investing *more* in the next generation? But instead we are ripping them off and then expecting them to pay for our retirement too? This is not only unjust, it’s economically infeasible.
Agree with the sentiments regarding student loans.
But does it strike anyone else that too many of our commentators have articles and opinions that are only created after they read someone else’s work?
In fact, most of Smalley’s article is a repeat of his except for a small personal anecdote. There is a referral to the average amount of a loan, (for a UK student – taken from the Guardian article) but how hard can it be to make this NZ Herald article relevant?
So what? She attributed and summarised, and Smalley’s version is a lot more punchy and readable for that. The message was stated effectively.
The idea of building capacity in a country with education for future smart jobs and the people to fill them from THIS country, and also the idea of investing in your own citizens and knowledge and a wider outlook for our young people for a more advanced society has been demolished.
Now the idea of higher education is that it will give a better higher paying job than otherwise, is useful to the individual as a money earner, and therefore is a private good. So education must be charged for on the basis of that idea. Education is a type of business, where the government pays a limited amount of the cost and charges the student what the market will bear.
But getting a good paying job after successful higher education is only an idea which has become a dream for many because of another neo lib idea, that it is right to bring in laws and practices that crush existing businesses because better newer more efficient ones will grow up in their wake. Not.
This is an apposite news item today. that illustrates what I am saying.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/new-zealander-david-hyde-lands-plum-job-at-un-in-geneva-but-is-forced-to-live-in-a-tent/story-fnkgbb6w-1227480058311
So there is no excuse for charging high prices for education and using it as a barrier that people have to jump before they can get to the grassy knoll with all the assassins of our once progressive society with opportunities for advancement and a happy life .