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notices and features - Date published:
5:30 pm, March 13th, 2024 - 26 comments
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https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.jsShe chooses poems for composers and performers including William Ricketts and Brooke Singer. We film Ricketts reflecting on Mansfield’s poem, A Sunset on a ...
https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.jsKatherine Mansfield left New Zealand when she was 19 years old and died at the age of 34.In her short life she became our most famous short story writer, acquiring an international reputation for her stories, poetry, letters, journals and reviews. Biographies on Mansfield have been translated into 51 ...
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Mortgages.
The Oz way and the USA way.
And ours.
https://archive.li/vU8Pc
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/350210418/mechanical-fault-hits-interislander-passenger-service
Have national come up with a plan to replace our aging ferries yet, ?
Like they did when Key was at the helm with the cheapo trains and rolling stock from China…… along with gutting the Hillside Engineering……but wait…saved us 25% on building them here….wonder what ever happened to that 25%…..
When will New Zealand voters ever learn………..
The world is watching.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/03/07/kiwirail-loses-world-first-shipping-loan-certification-after-ferry-project-dumped/
I see that the story told us that it was the first such loan ever issued.
"KiwiRail’s $350m loan facility to finance the purchase of two new Interislander ferries has become the first shipping loan in the world to be certified by the Climate Bond Initiative,”
Were there any other such loans ever made, or was this the first, only, and last of them? Can you tell me whether any other loan was in this category. My attempts to google another came up blank.
Not sure what you’re asking and why, but they have 679 results in their database of which 7 have been revoked and KiwiRail is one of those 7.
https://www.climatebonds.net/certification/certified-bonds
I’m confident that you’ll find your answer in there, somewhere …
School dinners for kids-slashed. Decent intergenerational ferries-slashed. Bike tracks for commuting, healthy recreation and tourism-slashed. Clean car discount-slashed. Public transport in Wellington-slashed. Auckland light rail-slashed.
Skiing for rich pricks-no problem. Please, take this bag with $7 million dollars in it.
I like a bit of skiing (I can see turoa from my doorstep) , but yes endless bailouts for a dying industry is dumb,
If you hired national to run your farm the first thing they would do os stop putting fertilizer on !
I live 50 minutes drive from Cardrona ski-field and have skied there many times.
It is the hypocrisy that gets to me.
I can't figure out if it's climate denial/cognitive dissonance, or they simply don't care and believe that we should make money while we still can. Or short term power gain?
All of the above including pandering to core voter base and picking up a few from the fringes……you know, sunburnt neck, bloke, blokesses, ute, gun, dog, mobile phone, self employed un-contractable wannabe……vote for a fence post with a blue rosette if it promised them what they wanted…..
Pandering and pork barrelling.
National’s Suze Redmayne will become the electorate’s first female MP.
[…]
She also wanted to do whatever she could as an MP to help with the financial strife facing Ruapehu Alpine Lifts.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/whanganui-chronicle/news/election-2023-suze-redmayne-will-be-first-female-mp-for-rangitikei/RZ2XLP4PIJFADESYD7DS77C47Q/
There's never been any to make.
The operation has always been marginal, because users have never been willing to pay the true cost, and now the recreational activities of the privileged few will be subsidised by the taxpayer.
Sorry, I was talking about National. Presumably there's some flow on effect for them of the support.
They're bailing out those who can afford to ski but don't want to pay what it actually costs. Their base.
The shareholders and punters would predominately be National voter and / or donors, but they are also baling out Ohakune and other towns around Ruapehu who get a fair bit of cash from punters who use RAL's facilities. Based on what I see around Queenstown off mountain spend would be equal or more than the lift ticket. You've also got the staff spend, which would be at least the payroll, and a good percentage would be going to local residents.
It's a bit more nuanced than just baling out RAL, there's an economy and community based around the winter product on Ruapehu.
Investing in ruapehu sky feilds os akin to "buying a ticket on the titanic " I once heard a business man say,
Ski fields can generate huge amounts of cash, on a good day. RAL's problem is that some seasons they don't have enough good days.
They aren't alone with that problem, Mt Hutt has gone tits up as regularly as the Ruapehu fields, for the same reason, and only got some stability once NZ Ski got involved and brought them onto a larger group with a bit of scale and geographic diversity.
Probably the best hope for skiing on Ruapehu is for RAL to become part of a bigger group, either Real NZ (Cardrona & Treble Cone), or one of the Australian operators.
Sure it's akin to farming in a drought prone area – but the government says it is not going to give any more assistance (or build dams).
A business has to pay risk insurance for the no snow year with the profit from good years. With an upside of the insurance cost with climate change. Any bankruptcy means no one to operate the business the next good ski season – and the news lifts unused?
Given the investment in the ski lifts … and employment …
Not exactly.
The bail out is to enable the continuance of skiing at Ruapehu.
It would not continue without the subsidy.
With the changing climate, the season is short or non existent without snow-making – making the cost of ski lifts uneconomic – without government subsidy.
Jones says it is out a business support fund and is the last payment (he does not know how to fix the problem and does not want to admit it is climate change related – a fish out of water, a man in a waka without a paddle, a man by a road without a compass, an empty vessel wanting someone to give him a clue).
The local issue is that the winter season is part of an all year round business – tourism/hospitality. A matter of employment – how many jobs depend on their being a winter season.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/511601/ruapehu-alpine-lifts-gets-7m-bailout-from-government
Don't have a lot of sympathy for the police. Past experience and knowledge tells me most of them probably voted for NAct. You get what you asked for?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/511498/government-priorities-clearly-wrong-police-association-says-after-minister-defends-pay-offer
From the Prime Minister a master class in gaslighting the workers who ensure untaxed CG and now once again untaxed rent income to the landlords of New Zealand.
It is also an explanation of what one might call neo liberal Stockholm syndrome – the lords and the peasants dependent on them for their accommodation.
Tenants like battered fish wives (be grateful for whatever standard of rental is provided and hope the government is nice to the landlords so they do not get angry and punish their tenants) and capitalist patriarchy and prosperity gospel – the many making the few closer to God in their "raptured" onto a high place of privilege.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/03/prime-minister-christopher-luxon-says-renters-very-grateful-government-bringing-back-interest-deductibility-for-landlords.html
1.his arguments are specious and need to be fact checked by every self respecting media in the country.
2.is he blinded by self interest from the truth, or just lying to deceive the public?
echos of trump
So..rentals held by landlords with no mortgage didn’t rise in the last few years? Yeah nah. He makes me sick with this framing (as a renter), patronising af as per.
The heat island effect is well known in Sydney – urban intensification.
But if a nation was weaknesses in its building code, those who buy multiple story town houses could have problems in summer (heat and cooling pump on one floor only).
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/511585/the-big-bill-to-cool-new-auckland-townhouses
The reduced 'liveability' of higher stories in houses has been known for a heck of a lot longer. There's a reason that the attic was servants' quarters in Victorian London – baking hot in summer and freezing in winter.
I note that a lot of the issue, in the article, is attributed to lack of natural ventilation (both windows that don't open and crammed-up houses with less natural ventilation available) and the increased specifications for insulation (which keeps the heat in)
So really building specifications.
If the new building code requirements result in houses which require additional temperature control, year-round – then they're not exactly environment-friendly.