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notices and features - Date published:
5:30 pm, October 19th, 2022 - 28 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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"Sharma said his decision to resign was based on his concern that Hamilton West could be left without a representative. He said he would stand as an independent at the by-election …"
Hamilton West has an MP, Gaurav Sharma. So he resigns because they may not have the representation that they have, him, if he isn't in the job
And he's going to stand in the by-election, hoping to get to be the electorate's representative which he already is.
When he loses in the election I wonder if he's going to go back to being a GP and if he is, whether he'll be the best person to advise others that they need to get help.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/130222437/gaurav-sharma-has-left-parliament-but-did-he-really-need-to
When he loses the byelection he is going to blame it on Labour and Jacinda Ardern in particular. He will claim that there was a deceitful, underhand campaign against him with a view to discrediting him in the eyes of the voter.
The fact that he is the one who is deceitful and underhand will float over the top of him.
Why would he be annoyed at his reputation being tarnished with electors?
If there is one thing he wanted, it was to ensure any future employers were informed about his staff "wasting tax payer money".
Surely he will welcome accusations he is "wasting tax payer money" with an unnecessary by election.
"Why would he be annoyed at his reputation being tarnished with electors?"
Never said he would. He will use it as an excuse however to justify him not winning. In other words, he will tarnish the reputation of the Labour Party. The Sharmas of this world are very good at projecting their own behaviour on to others.
That's why Labour would be better not to stand a candidate. Play him at his own game.
Labour could just signal they are going to boycott the by election, for all the obvious reasons, and not stand a candidate until the general election. Unless of course they had an incredibly well known and popular candidate who was guaranteed to win. Since there are no certainties in this world I suggest they call the Dr's bluff, it can only be sharmageddon in any event……….
no fucking way would I go to him as a GP, and it's nothing to do with party politics.
Genius.
https://twitter.com/JamesL1927/status/1582410548750479360
National have a long list of government policies (current or proposed) that they are promising to scrap.
Here are some of them.
On the other hand, if you want the list of policies that they're going to introduce …
You will have to wait for one more year.
This is absurd. Luxon is hoping to spend a year saying "Trust me". Even our dozy, docile media are going to get tired of that.
I have had this sermon bubbling away for a wee while. The middle class whine-a-thon, known as The Panel on RNZ has motivated me to let it out.
Apparently 30 hospo businesses in Rotorua are going on strike on Monday to protest the government's lack of action in turning the migration tap on enough.
It has just occurred to me, usually when striking, there is a sacrifice for the strikers- going without income. This clown freely admitted that his business was closed Mondays due to a lack of staff.
I started in hospo in 1985 doing a cooking apprenticeship. City and Guilds 706/1 and 2. Took 8,000 hours (2,000 off coz I had School Cert). In the decades since then, I have worked here and overseas and had my own restaurant/bar but also seen the vocation I love decline from a highly skilled calling with pride and mana, to a trade, to skilled labour, to unskilled labour, to where it is now.
My reckons lay the blame at neo-liberalism (surprise surprise). At the start of my career, there was a career path, a chance to progress, with interesting side trips- sommelier, turophile, butchery, patissier etc. Now training is the occasional first aid course, the industry relies on employing someone who has been trained by someone else, either here or overseas. Because the pay has declined in real terms here, they tend to have to come from abroad.
We also had the the horrible trend of nouvelle cuisine in the late '80's/early '90's. I suppose the rise and rise of the cafe scene was a response to the pretentious overpriced food fashion. The boom of cafes in the '90's started to really undermine the industry's foudations, where anyone with a good muffin recipe and a Kruder and Dorfmeister CD could open up and trade, Nothing wrong with that, some school kids and Mums got jobs. Expectations were raised and lowered. Raised in that we could eat well for a good price, lowered because standards have dropped eg. plates not warm or wait staff bringing food to a table and running an auction – 'who had the fish?'
In short (too late), hospo industry ate itself.
Now I am in the building/construction industry and can see the same thing. So much sub-contracted out.
Rant over.
I think you're saying 'quality' no longer counts. Its all about quantity, and making money is the top priority. Pride in the standard of service and cuisine takes second place if it counts much at all.
I agree. That's neoliberalism for you and it rears its ugly head in all sectors of society. No wonder the world is going to hell in a hand basket.
I heard the Rotorua guy. The Government should appease him.
1. Chuck all the 'guests of the state' out of the motels.
2. Let 2000 immigrants into Rotorua to staff the jobs they need done. (They can stay in the motels.)
3. Post 200 more cops in Rotorua.
Yep,
It all went to shit in the 90's, when the bloody Tories 1st brought ECA in 91 & once they destroyed the unions.
Then came after the Trade Apprenticeships, Farm/ Horticulture Cadetships (me), Hospitality Sector & any other non tertiary sector in the mid 90's including the various Industry Training Broads which my Dad was the Union Rep on a couple & a observer on Coal Miner's Training Broad.
The Tories & their respective industry mates destroyed over a 100yr old Training System & Standards in one Great hit. Deregulated building/ Training & Research standards (leaky buildings anyone), training, workers safety etc.
And you wonder why you can't build anything in NZ to a certain standard or last for 50yrs+ now in NZ?
It all started back in the 90's & those chicken's are starting to home to roost now.
Shit even the big end of town, are even starting to understand this, but the stupid Tory Parties don't as they still regurgitating tax cuts will fix everything!!!
Basic Economic History, will tell you tax cuts & cuts to government spending can only go so far before it impacts the bottom half of the tax paying population. And when that happens 9 times out of the economy crashes as there is not a enough money in the system to go round. In other words the poor, the workers & lower middle classes are ones who spend the $$$ to keep the economy going. Because who's going to buy the bulk of the goods like food, water, milk, booze, clothes, eat out & other consumables.
Christ, this 4th- 5th form History. Wish I had the ability to draw to show Edgar Hoovers 29 US Federal Tax cuts which lead to the Great Crash 1930/31.
Truss's tax cuts wiil lead a mass run on the ounce, because of that stupidity it led a massive run on the banks, ounce, not seen the30_
Whatsee atm, is the deathbed of voodoo economics but there is going to some risk to this, but given stat e of most government agencies they are be short staffed people, or even got enough builds
While they're arguing the toss over whether or not the January insurrection was an attempted coup, there's an attempted coup underway.
The Moore case would in practice strip people of the right to fair elections by placing electoral power in the hands of a small group of officials at the state level who set district maps.
[…]
A supermajority of six, unelected ultraconservative justices – three of whom were put on the bench by a president who did not win the popular vote – have aggressively grabbed yet another batch of cases that will allow them to move American law to the extreme right and threaten US democracy in the process. The leading example of this disturbing shift is a little-known case called Moore v Harper, which could lock in rightwing control of the United States for generations.
The heart of the Moore case is a formerly fringe legal notion called the Independent State Legislature (ISL) theory. This theory posits that an obscure provision in the US constitution allowing state legislatures to set “time, place, and manner” rules for federal elections should not be subject to judicial oversight. In other words, state legislatures should have the absolute power to determine how federal elections are run without court interference.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/06/the-most-terrifying-case-of-all-is-about-to-be-heard-by-the-us-supreme-court
this would be funny if it weren't so sad.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/10/19/no-auckland-trains-for-whole-long-weekend-kiwirail/
what's the problem exactly?
it is a long weekend.
many people in Auckland actually do depend on these train services.
these trains predominantly serve people that don't have cars.
bus services in auckland are shite.
these people now have a pretty shite service for the long weekend. The ones with cars will use these.
Essentially they are bit by bit removing access to train services. It is October now, by Jan 2023 they will be shutting down three lines, the western line was 'emergency shut down' last week. Not sure if it is back one.
So two things, either this is routine maintenance and badly advertised. Or the system is so fucked that they are shutting it down because it has become dangerous. Or Kiwirail hates its customers and is thus shutting down a much needed public transport system over a long weekend.
But, I am sure we are gonna have another wee little reminder by the people that glue themselves to stuff and throw tomato soup at stuff how we need to stop oil.
As i said, if it weren't so sad, it would be funny.
Train patronage is quite low in the weekends and even lower in weekends that fall in holidays and the like.
https://at.govt.nz/about-us/reports-publications/at-metro-patronage-report/
The bus services in Auckland are believe it or not the best in the country by a long way. Auckland has had a decade of HOP Card across its services, and Wellington's equivalent only started on trains last month.
The works also enable the faster City Rail Link train frequency which is coming up in 2 years for a 6 minute frequency.
No, it is not the Kiwirail maintenance announced last week.
The point is, that there currently is one lane out of order due to unforseen circumstances. Now you have the closure of these lines over the long weekend. then you have the closure of three lines from Jan onwards.
So either no one ever maintained these tracks to the point where all need to be closed at once, or they really don't care sabotaging the public transport network in Auckland.
again, let me remind you of two things. I don't / never have owned a car in NZ, and i have lived over two decades in Auckland including west Auckland.
If the Auckland bus system is the best in the country, then the rest of the countries bus system is totally fucked.
In the meantime there will be many people switching over to cars again. Someone call the dears from the stop oil troupe, they could block some bus ways. 🙂
No one is in Auckland over Labour Weekend, and it is an historical low point for public transport use.
This rail work accelerates a third rail line from Wiri to the Port which is dedicated to freight alone.
It isn't the deep maintenance stoppage announced by Kiwirail last week.
This work will when complete enable a passenger line uninterrupted and unimpeded by freight, and enable more freight from the port by rail.
So it is specifically for climate action goals.
The poor are in Auckland over the long weekend.
The families with limited resources are in Auckland over the long weekend.
All the people travelling to Auckland for the long weekend are in Auckland.
the working stiffs that man hospitals, businesses etc are in Auckland.
but hey, they may be 'no one' to you. The kindness is gushing all over the place.
https://www.greens.org.nz/redesign_the_tax_system_to_work_for_everyone
This comes after Oxfam 2022 Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index shows our taxation system directly contributes to entrenching inequality:
https://www.oxfam.org.nz/news-media/aotearoa-top-10-in-global-inequality-index-but-tax-systems-inequality-impact-136th
Charming.
/
https://twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1582416971722723329
Prick's spent years harassing people but he's off the hook because he was pissed.
ffs
A man sent to prison for sending death threats to New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has had his conviction overturned.
Michael Cruickshank was sentenced to 12 months in prison in March, for a series of emails in which he made violent threats against Ardern. He argued that he was so drunk he could not remember sending the threats, had no intention of seeing them through, and didn’t intend the recipients to take them seriously. On Wednesday, the court of appeal judged that there had been a miscarriage of justice in the case.
The overturning of his charges hinged on his alleged drunkenness, and whether it had been made clear to the jury that Cruickshank’s intoxication was relevant to his defence. Cruickshank said in police interviews: “To be perfectly frank I do not remember sending any emails … I was absolutely wasted so it’s possible I could’ve.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/19/conviction-overturned-for-man-who-sent-death-threats-to-jacinda-ardern
Yep,
It all went to shit in the 90's, when the bloody Tories 1st brought ECA in 91 & once they destroyed the unions.
Then came after the Trade Apprenticeships, Farm/ Horticulture Cadetships (me), Hospitality Sector & any other non tertiary sector in the mid 90's including the various Industry Training Broads which my Dad was the Union Rep on a couple & a observer on Coal Miner's Training Broad.
The Tories & their respective industry mates destroyed over a 100yr old Training System & Standards in one Great hit. Deregulated building/ Training & Research standards (leaky buildings anyone), training, workers safety etc.
And you wonder why you can't build anything in NZ to a certain standard or last for 50yrs+ now in NZ?
It all started back in the 90's & those chicken's are starting to home to roost now.
Shit even the big end of town, are even starting to understand this, but the stupid Tory Parties don't as they still regurgitating tax cuts will fix everything!!!
Basic Economic History, will tell you tax cuts & cuts to government spending can only go so far before it impacts the bottom half of the tax paying population. And when that happens 9 times out of the economy crashes as there is not a enough money in the system to go round. In other words the poor, the workers & lower middle classes are ones who spend the $$$ to keep the economy going. Because who's going to buy the bulk of the goods like food, water, milk, booze, clothes, eat out & other consumables.
Christ, this 4th- 5th form History. Wish I had the ability to draw to show Edgar Hoovers 29 US Federal Tax cuts which lead to the Great Crash 1930/31.
Truss's tax cuts wiil lead a mass run on the ounce, because of that stupidity it led a massive run on the banks, ounce, not seen the30_
Whatsee atm, is the deathbed of voodoo economics but there is going to some risk to this, but given stat e of most government agencies they are be short staffed people, or even got enough builds
They get it alright. From the Chicago boys in Chile, Reagan, Rogernomics, and the creation of Russia's oligarchy through to Truss and the GOP today their objective has always been the transfer of public wealth to their mates.
https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1577583546524385280
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and other Republicans have recently backed proposals to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, as well as to extend or expand several other corporate tax breaks.
[…]
In a Bloomberg Government article last week, the four Republican lawmakers interested in serving as House Budget Committee chairman in the next Congress all said they’d refuse to raise the debt ceiling next year unless Democrats agreed to entitlement cuts and work requirements on safety-net programs — that is, measures Dems would find abhorrent. This would set the stage for another high-stakes showdown.
Recall that when Republicans held the debt limit hostage in 2011, the United States’ credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history because we came perilously close to default. Since then, the GOP has become more politically unhinged, which means brinkmanship might well go further, which makes a debt default — even by accident — more likely.
https://archive.ph/EjoOd (wapo)
In an interview in August, Johnson, who is seeking a third term in the Senate, lamented that the Social Security and Medicare programs automatically grant benefits to those who meet the qualifications — that is, to those who had been paying into the system over their working life.
“If you qualify for the entitlement, you just get it no matter what the cost,” Johnson said. “And our problem in this country is that more than 70 percent of our federal budget, of our federal spending, is all mandatory spending. It’s on automatic pilot. It never — you just don’t do proper oversight. You don’t get in there and fix the programs going bankrupt. It’s just on automatic pilot.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has proposed to “sunset” all federal programs after five years, meaning they would expire unless renewed. “If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” Scott says in his proposal.
https://archive.ph/srwKv (wapo)
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how-shock-therapy-created-russian-oligarchs-and-paved-the-path-for-putin
The new religion is not so new after all.
Fascinating discussion involving Mark Blyth (always good value) well worth the 30 mins.
Pat