Daily Review 21/12/2018
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5:30 pm, December 21st, 2018 - 64 comments
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Daily review is also your post.
This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
And this post will be back some time in the new year. Have a very hipster christmas!
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AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...5 days ago - Minimum wage ‘increase’ is an effective cut
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All those tears on your cheeksJust like deja vu flow nowWhen grandmother speaksSo tell me a story (I'll tell you a story)Spell it out, I can't hear (What do you want to hear?)Why you wear black in the morning?Why there's smoke in the air? Songwriter: Greg Johnson.Mōrena all ☀️Something a ...1 week ago
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Returning to the model that was failing for most polytechnics and Institutes of Technology is not the answer. ...2 days ago
- Release: National buries 1019 planned homes
It’s been revealed that National has cancelled 60 percent of its housing projects planned before mid-2025 amidst housing woes. ...3 days ago
- Release: Rule-Czar bill a right-wing power grab
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...3 days ago
- Release: Why not both? Luxon shuns Waitangi celebrations
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is running away from problems of his own creation, with his decision not to go to Waitangi. ...3 days ago
- Govt’s ‘free speech’ legislation stokes fear, not freedom
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...3 days ago - Release: Nicola Willis spirals country deeper into recession
The economy shrank 1% this quarter and New Zealand has tumbled into the depths of a recession of Nicola Willis’ making. ...4 days ago
- Release: Hikes for company directors but not ordinary Kiwis
Working people are going backwards while company directors are being given huge pay hikes. ...4 days ago
- ECE no place to cut corners
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...5 days ago
- Release: Strengthening Justice Services for New Zealanders
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...5 days ago
- Release: Labour will continue fight against destructive projects
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...5 days ago
- Green Government will revoke dodgy fast-track projects
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...5 days ago
- Government for the wealthy keeps pushing austerity
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...5 days ago
- Release: Visa changes let migrant workers be paid less
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...5 days ago
- Release: Nightmare before Christmas for Nicola Willis
With more debt and a larger deficit, Nicola Willis’ reputation is in tatters after her failure to return the Government’s books to surplus. ...5 days ago
- Warning to Fast-Track Applicants – ‘Exploit the Whenua, Face the Consequences’
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...5 days ago
- Release: Govt cuts wages for lowest paid NZers… again
For the second year running, the government has effectively cut wages for the lowest paid workers in New Zealand. ...6 days ago
- Govt’s miserly 1.5% minimum wage will take workers backwards
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt shirking responsibility for rate hikes
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...6 days ago
- Luxon’s ‘localism’ strikes again
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt breaks promise on EV chargers
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...6 days ago
- Greens call for end to subsidies for Methanex
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...7 days ago
- Govt child poverty targets allow for increase in poverty
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...1 week ago
- Release: Four weeks annual leave under threat
The Government’s attack on workers continues with news it is scrapping work on the Holidays Act. ...1 week ago
- Govt’s emissions plan for measly 1% reduction
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...1 week ago
- Greens stand in solidarity with Whakaata Māori on sad day
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...1 week ago
- Sanctions regime to create more hardship for families
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...1 week ago
- Govt gifts renters housing anxiety for Christmas
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...1 week ago
- Release: National Party urged to support modern slavery legislation
Labour is urging the Prime Minister to walk the talk and support legislation combating modern slavery. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour has lost confidence in the Speaker
The Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament made an unprecedented decision on the government amendment to the Fast Track Approvals Bill last night. ...2 weeks ago
- One year on, still no progress on new ferries
Today’s announcement from the Government on its plan for new ferries throws more uncertainty on the future of the country’s rail network. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Nicola Willis’ smaller ferries will cost more
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...2 weeks ago
- Bill to sanction unlawful occupation of Palestine
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“Immigration NZ was told in 2012 that Czech drug-smuggler Karel Sroubek had been back to his home country in 2009, but this was not included in the original file to the Immigration Minister because the information was somehow overlooked”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12180971
What a complete waste of parliaments time and energy with Simon Bridges so called “holding the govt to account” and the opposition baying for the minister to be “sacked”.
Now, about the National opposition’s leaker……..
Not sure what your point is?
Apart from bosses blaming staff, when it is irrelevant.
He wouldn’t have seen it anyway, given he didn’t actually bother reading the whole thing.
I wonder who ‘somehow overlooked’ it christy. Some kickpuncher fanboi maybe.
Who knows?
Who ever it is the boss is giving them the blame for signing the form.
Signing the form when?
The officials never gave it to him to read twat. He is supposed to possess divine powers and know the document existed eh? As for the other twat, Mark Mitchell… he claims ILG was negligent because he didn’t go looking for the document he had no way of knowing existed.
MM is clearly mentally challenged and that’s the nice way of putting it. He looks it too.
No point at all….just a noisy but weak storm in a leaky grubby cracked faded old blue tea cup.
Maybe the point is that those who wanted the gallows up and IL-G swinging are still dreadfully disappointed they didn’t get their way. The berserk, irrational, plain dumb reactions were not about Sroubek but a First Year Anniversary reminder of losing the election.
Your childish last sentence sums it up – just like a four year old skulking away from the sandpit because he can’t get his own way, the final, heroic, mature poking out of the tongue.
Merry Christmas.
Are you blaming someone for throwing their staff under the bus on a friday arvo? Surely not.
This case consumed the Nats and their taxpayer funded resources. They crossed all sorts of boundaries for nothing. This was their big chance and it’s turned to dust in their mouths.
Good job.
Yep. National is going down the same path towards irrelevancy that Labour did in the wake of their election defeat in 2008.
Actually the Minister should have been sacked. The decision was taken hastily, and advice from officials was apparently accepted without any scrutiny or questioning. Most telling is that ILG appears to have accepted claims around a threat to Sroubeck’s life (from a modern European democracy) entirely at face value. The only reason ILG won’t be sacked is because the PM is running out of competent people to be Ministers. Oh and the PM’s own fingerprints being all over this as well. Let’s not forget that.
Bless. After the Nats threw the kitchen sink at this and came up with nothing, you decide to keep hammering away.
It’s over. Walk away.
I’m not interested in ‘the nats’. Like most people, I’m interested in how a minister who made such an appalling decision can keep his job.
Oh look it’s shadrach coming on here to do what she is here to do.
Merry Christmas shadrach. Labour are in power
In power but not in charge? Seems very trumpish to worship being at the reins of power but also being completely impotent
Let’s not forget that somehow National was informed of Sroubek’s trip to the Czech Republic and the Minister wasn’t? This whole thing fucking stinks.
It does, but then everything the National Party does stinks.
The info trail is probably too hard to pin down in this instance but but there have been several others where info has come from the public service to National opposition MPs. These should be outed and public servants should have the rules read to them once again.
Occasional (past?) commenter srylands is a case in point. He is clearly RW and National Party affiliated. He comments freely on political blog sites such as The Standard and Kiwiblog and probably others. Thats fine, but did you know srylands is a policy analyst on housing in MBIE?
BTW, srylands freely offered this information.
National knew about the trip to Czechoslavakia and ILG was not informed my the Ministry of Immigration sounds like a set up to me ?
Agreed. The Sroubek saga goes back quite a few years so was the former Nat. Minister (Woodhouse) informed and chose to do nothing? That could be how they knew about it and decided to keep it under wraps?
Didn’t Woodhouse recently boast about… having got ILG on something?
Pretty disgusting that a Minister accepts information from officials with no scrutiny.
My suggestion is that a Minister should be briefed by officials. She/he then gets another team of officials to go away and verify everything in the briefing to make sure it is thorough and accurate. When they report back she/he then gets another team to check and verify that the checkers of the thoroughness and accuracy did a good job. When they have reported to the Minister another team would then go out and get information that so far has not been presented or included up to that stage.
One outstanding positive to that approach is that many jobs will be created, not just in advisory staff but in the construction industry building the multi-storied blocks to house all the workers.
Win/win/win! But you can bet there’d still be whinge/whinge/whinge.
How many people work in that Department now, are they all incompetent ?
Or perhaps the “officials” just do their job and make sure the Minister gets ALL the relevant information” Saves time, money and the Opposition making themselves look foolish and usury.
My suggestion would be that when considering the case of a person who decidedly dodgy, the Minister takes a bit longer than an hour and actually does his job.
Public transport was free after 4 pm today in Auckland and I caught the Western Line from Britomart to Kingsland after work as usual. The train was heaving.
I’ve been working in the Woodhill forest area a lot recently and drive through Kumeu to Helensville looking at the rail line sitting there waiting.
I also look at the multiple earthworks in the area north of Huapai and at Waimauku and think what a great place to live when that rail line is electrified. I’m hoping this is in the infrastructure plan somewhere.
I think that the plan is to put Kumeu/Huapai on the Northwestern LRT rather than use heavy rail. Mostly because of capacity constraints on the heavy rail corridor. One things for sure though, in coming years the Northwestern Motorway is not going to be able to cope with the increase in traffic from that part of Auckland.
Nor SH16. This is the problem. Earth is being turned for the houses of many tens of thousands of people and the infrastructure to get them to and from work is an afterthought.
There’s that many people going to be living in that region in 10 years that another line is necessary, not trams.
The light rail will most likely deliver commuters to their destination just as quickly as a heavy rail option and be better than the same drive on the motorway network.
I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t build on the existing infrastructure. Why create another system incompatible with the one in existence?
Not an expert but I do believe light rail is not as fast as heavy rail.
Light rail can be just as fast Muttonbird depending on how it’s incorporated. And believe me, the train I get every morning from Kingsland to Britomart is so fucking slow. Dwell times (the time spent at each station) alone is dismal on the network. A snappy LRT would be a major improvement.
Surely those are just operational problems and part of the severe under investment in public transport this country has been guilty of since its very founding? Light rail isn’t going to do the distances required in a very spread out city such as Auckland. It’s worth noting that there is no modern LRT in this country to date.
The reason there isn’t LRT in NZ yet is due to the very reason you outline, a lack of investment. LRT in dedicated track zones as proposed for both the northwestern and southwestern lines is capable of 80+ kms per hour. It will be plenty good enough for what we need and a cheaper option than heavy rail.
It can’t cope with it now.
Yep. There’s already chaos on the section just finished and that is without 50-100K extra people living out there in the next 10 years.
Trams aren’t going to do the job. Another rain line is crucial, the corridor is already there, electrify it, people travel from Northwest Auckland to the CBD in an hour.
Done.
Trams or LRT, whatever you want to call it can easily do the job. Heavy rail trains may well well zoom from Kumeu to the city but there are serious capacity constraints on the heavy rail network as you head towards Britomart. My train in the morning sits, more often than not, at Newmarket waiting for clearance to proceed to Britomart.
I thought that’s what the CRL was going to alleviate. The reason you sit at Newmarket is that there’s currently only one way out of Britomart.
Even with CRL heavy rail can’t provide Auckland with the service we need. LRT needs to be layered over the top of that.
Well to me LR does the work in close and the big trains do the heavily populated routes such as Airport to CBD and the distance routes such as South to CBD and Northwest to CBD which is the current situation.
In 10 years time AT will figure out there is a problem and get some monkey to do some figures ?
I think this job is so important that it requires a state response not a local one. I’ve always said the state not local government dictates population numbers so the state not local government should be responsible for the infrastructure to get them around.
Agree !00% NZF is working on it.
=
Has anyone costed a completely free (running costs) to user public transport system for Auckland?
I don’t think anyone has done that work for Auckland’s situation. But you’d have to assume the cost would be less than the 1-1.5 billion cost of traffic congestion in this city every year.
Was that a Good Thing™?
A frightening article from Peter Wilson who is a National Party aligned journalist. Even he is shocked at the way the public service operated under the guidance of the National Party.
It’s sad that our once great country has been allowed to be taken over by RWNJs. I’ve been taken to task for calling the National Party evil, but they truely are…
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/378839/week-in-politics-spying-report-must-shake-confidence-in-public-service
Here you go again making accusations / comments about people with nothing to back it up:
“Peter Wilson who is a National Party aligned journalist”
Anything to back that up?
“A frightening article from Peter Wilson who is a National Party aligned journalist. Even he is shocked at the way the public service operated under the guidance of the National Party.
“”The most shocking finding, Stuff reported, was the Ministry of Social Development hiring investigators to dig up dirt on witnesses in the case of two brothers seeking damages from the government for being abused in state care.””
It’s sad that our once great country has been allowed to be taken over by RWNJs. I’ve been taken to task for calling the National Party evil, but they truely are…”
Maybe not exactly evil, but definitely close. However the RWNJs who were sitting on the Gummint benches when that particular outrage was going on were Labour.
https://www.ssc.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Report%20of%20the%20inquiry%20into%20the%20use%20of%20external%20security%20consultants%20by%20government%20agencies.pdf
pages 41-45
It’s sad that our once great country has been allowed to be taken over by RWNJs.
And don’t forget who started the descent to the bottom of the Social Welfare barrel – Christine Rankin. You know, the one Paula Benefit regarded as her most important mentor.
Actually was the Lange Government followed by “the mother of all budgets””. No Government afterwards, National or Labour, has restored welfare benefits, to the levels they were before the lurch to the extreme neo-liberal, right
Yep.
All our governments since 1984 have followed the failed neo-liberal paradigm – including the one we have now.
Trotter wrote very well on this the other day.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/12/21/must-read-working-towards-the-fuhrer/
That’s a good article.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/07/what-if-we-just-buy-off-big-fossil-fuel-a-novel-plan-to-mitigate-the-climate-calamity/
How about using the current subsidies for fossil fuels?
NZ’s first electrical ferry to be built in Wellington
\\http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=115098
Oh, this is so delicious:
Ukrainian Navy commits act of war – is surprised it is fired upon.
US propaganda machine reports that it is all the Russia’s fault.
Yes, moving any type of military hardware through a sovereign state’s territory without permission is an act of war.
Russia reneged on an agreement allowing the Ukraine free navigation in the sea of Azov and the strait of Kerch.
Russia said that it needed the piece of Ukraine it took over officially because it needed safety for its southern ports. Now it is committing bad faith action against Ukraine. Can’t these big powers stop themselves from pushing everyone around. They are all too big I think. Let’s go back to being small and fighting with swords seeing that fighting seems to be hard-wired in our heads.
Joe hates Russia and looks forward to war against them, I fear.
Who is Joe? If you are referring to Joe90, what he said in his comment
is true. And you are being irresponsible suggesting that war is being
‘looked forward to’.
Neil Clark nails it.
“Britain sending warships to the Black Sea to ‘send message to Russia’. It’s the 1850s all over again. Will we have another Charge of the Light Brigade too?”
https://t.co/Wus0xzFBDL?amp=1
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