Judith would be popular with right-wing extremists and conservative over 60's, but she's hardly the fresh new face needed to take the National Party forward. She would be a fill-in leader at best.
The Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill – first reading in Parliament.
The PM says they decided to go with a limit of a doubling of the poan in repayment, rather than cap interest rates.
However pay day lenders could just resort to shorter repayment periods with rollovers – thus 4 such 3 month loans in 12 months – and thus 4 times the value of a loan over 12 months.
There should be a constraint to a doubling within 12 months of loan values, or this is borderline meaningless.
Even Sir Jong Kee is endorsing the corrupt old trout. Takes one to know one I guess. 😂
Remember both Key and Collins were super tight with Cameron Slater who is now mentally, financially and physically broken from his own corruption and malevolency…takes one to know one indeed.
“Newshub understands former Prime Minister Sir John Key has shown some support behind the scenes for Judith Collins to be National leader.
Key would not confirm this to Newshub, only to say, “I don’t comment on leadership issues” – but because of his standing in the party, MPs still go to him for advice and he commands huge respect in the National Caucus.
An endorsement – or even a subtle nod – could be a game-changer.
Newshub was also leaked details of the National Party’s Caucus meeting on Tuesday, which included a specific warning to MPs not to talk to Newshub. ”
Actually, I thought I'd deleted that, but as I didn't I was asking why we would want to stick with Bridges and have Judith instead. I think people seriously underestimate Jacinda, not to mention Winston, if she tried to take them on – not to mention our current speaker.
Besides, too many people are aware of her corrupt practices, and some may have more evidence than has yet been seen fit to reveal.
It would, I suppose, provide the media with a lot of entertainment which would give them even less reason to provide a decent service than they do now
But Collins is a fool if she wants the poisoned chalice of leadership before the election. Especially with this much lead-in: would have been ok after losing the election because everyone knows she took a hospital pass.
Collins would be more accountable for a negative result, and unfortunately for her she is as good at making political allies as the rest of her former cabinet colleagues.
Besides, the mood of the moment is for empathy, not brutality.
Oravida would have to be the lamest of all scandals.
Nothing but a left-wing media beat up, that any thinking New Zealander could see was a storm in a teacup and a desperate attempt at trying to damage John Key and National.
My God, she visited the company her husband worked for while in China and had dinner with some Ovrivida execs.
But I reckon she would be better off supporting someone else to replace soimon, someone more competent than him but still mediocre, and knife the replacement after the next election. Unless the replacement starts to turn things around, in which case she'd have to knife them in a year or just under.
I think she's the preferred choice for party management, but unless caucus also love her, she'll still have a leak problem. And I suspect there are some junior members who want to sweep aside the old guard.
And even if she gets everybody in step, 2020 is the coalition's to lose, and they haven't screwed up too badly yet. Although the budget is coming up – cross your fingers 🙂
I agree with that, it's highly likely Bridges and his supporters would feel quite bitter about him getting replaced by Collins and undermine her for all it's worth.
Probably best for Bridges to fail in 2020 and Collins takes over with a clean slate.
Looks like it's going to be a spoiler vote for me and try and minimize the damage by making Peters the turd in the punch bowl once again.
In this scenario Ardern would be gone by the end of year one, sticking around for another three years where the rug can be pulled out from underneath you at any time probably wouldn't appeal that much.
Especially when far greener pastures are on offer.
Looks like it's going to be a spoiler vote for me and try and minimize the damage by making Peters the turd in the punch bowl once again.
That probably is the most damage a National supporter can do to Labour and the Greens at the next election. Peters certainly has proven to be a turd in the punch bowl for them in this term of government – mind you, the voters didn't deliver a mandate for the policies most of us here would like the current government to implement, so I shouldn't complain too much.
Why, if it was a "left-wing media beat up", did the entire National Party apparatus (and the “media” that wasn’t “left-wing”) go to such great lengths to conceal, dissemble and lie about it then?
It's exactly the fact that National regards ministers using their political position to support friends' or relatives' private business interests as "nothing" that is the problem.
This is malicious isn't it – shows bad faith by someone in authority with the Police ? Who keeps their behaviour within bounds – The ICPC is supposed to be a bit close to them for judgments to be unbiased.
I drove through the Atiamuri crash site yesterday just a day after the tragedy.
Road cones and signs were in place and tyre marks from emergency services were still raw and visible.
It's an unremarkable bend but as I'd driven about 1000km over yesterday and today I wondered if the usual mens about speed were relevant anymore.
What I noticed with my own driving and those around me was that excessive speed was not an issue. I travelled on or around 100km/hr and wan't passed more than once or twice.
What I did notice though was a moment's diversion of concentration on a bend led me to be a meter or two away from the proper line. I'm talking about in car and out of car distraction on poor quality roads. It's as simple as checking the speedo, clock or fuel gauge. Or reading a road sign for slightly too long.
These are normal processes when driving so the conclusion that our roads are not fit for purpose must be reached.
I don't live in the Waikato, but my sister lives in Putaruru so I am fairly familiar with the roads all around. Every time I hear of an accident my blood runs cold because I know the chances that the accident is so likely to be in her area, and yet the roads seem no worse than anywhere else, and a lot better then some. What's going on?
I'd say it's because those roads are most driven by locals and as such locals drive longer distances at greater speeds on average roads.
I don't agree they are good roads – SH3 south of Te Kuiti is dire – far worse than Tauranga to Katikati which seems to be the black spot of choice these days.
Every time I hear of an accident my blood runs cold …
Our home is on SH39, a rat- run bypass between Ngaruawahia and Otorohanga. Not a single passing lane and at least 15 speed controlled corners on just the fifteen or so k's I regularly drive. Or more so my grown kids who live in the house while we're up North. That 'blood runs cold thing' many times, thanks to the multitude of fatal accidents we hear about on the radio. Not the first time we have folded our tent and driven to an area where there's cell phone coverage just to check on the offspring.
The solution is for drivers to slow down. Just slow down and give everyone more time to react.
No road will ever be twit proof. It would be neither possible nor practical to put median barriers on all our roads…so then what? Impose lower speed limits on un- twit proofed roads? Have special licenses for those with the proven ability to drive defensively and to the conditions? The rest have to stay on the roads with median barriers?
I see where you're coming from Muttonbird but it's just not practical, and it ignores the fact that on the whole, Kiwis are crap drivers.
Impatient. Arrogant. Attention span of hyperactive fleas. Extraordinarily easily distracted. And that's just the bad drivers. Most of us are simply too casual. We simply don't engage 100% with what we are doing. Defensive driving courses should be mandatory, and I'm inclined to agree with some that perhaps we should all be having refresher practical driving tests every ten years or so…or sooner if pinged with driving offenses.
We talk of our driving population, often forgetting the millions who visit, plus the trucks and vans now on our roads, replacing freight trains
Roads have been improved, but our modern cars are able to accelerate in a very few seconds. When stopping distances are understood and the forces of a collision grasped, driving defensively makes so much more sense to those who see this demonstrated.
Seat belts are fundamental, yet we still have people going through windscreens.
"Phones are dangerous but we still have swipers and texters. Utter madness. You are right about refresher courses Rosemary.
You've never experienced a corner that tightened up a lot and gone off-camber? Never been on a long straightaway that had a hard-to-see dip deep enough to hide oncoming traffic with no warning clues it was there?
There's a lot we could do but don't in road design and markings to help less-skilled drivers safely negotiate our roads. That's a fact that has come clearly into my view through helping my eldest learn (with my twins starting to learn in 6 weeks. Be afraid)
Good luck Andre, but still send them for two or three official lessons, as they teach all the new skills, show them the traps for beginners and take them over the driving test route. (Had a Traffic Officer friend who taught privately after taking the Defensive driving courses for years). Cheers.
I gotta say, there's a few things they expect drivers to do that I honestly think make things more hazardous. Like overusing indicators every time you go past a parked car on a narrow street. So nobody can tell when you actually want to turn into a driveway or something instead of just that you're going past a parked car. Plus the way they watch the speedo like a hawk and don't allow for speedos being 3% to 8% optimistic (that's an international standard BTW).
Once my eldest got his restricted, there was another couple of weeks unteaching him some of things he had to do to pass the test, and teach him how to more go with the flow instead of pissing off everyone around him.
Whenever I get on the open road the thing that scares me the most about other drivers is the widespread failure to keep left. I agree with Andre about the lack of driver training for open road driving. I realised very early in life that this was a skill set I needed to develop fast and I worked hard at developing the ability to read the road ahead, working out how to set up a line through a bend and disciplining myself to stay left and drive to the shoulder delineator. It's my observation that a lot of drivers are scared to get close to the shoulder because they haven't worked out how to judge exactly where their offside wheels are in relation to the shoulder and so their whole driving style is based around driving to the centre line instead of the shoulder line.
I agree about driver inattention vs road condition.
My 16yr old son on his restricted license, 100km road, had a driver not stop at a stop sign. He didn't have a chance to brake or swerve.
Thankfully for us, airbags saved him from serious injuries. The ute he was in was extremely written off.
Unfortunately the 30something driver's mother in the other car passed away at the scene. He was using Google maps to navigate from Hawkes Bay to Taranaki.
Just before the the stop sign there is a slightly raised railway crossing. The driver said that as he had crossed the railway line his aattention was then looking further down the road.
Inexplicably not seeing the stop sign nor the main road.
Hallelujah for airbags.
This incident has impacted my driving. STOPPING at stop signs and having another look and taken the edge off my main cruising speed. Both in the car and on my motorbike.
New Zealand roads are some of the most well engineered in the world and considering the terrain they have to cover too.
Barriers aren't the answer either, huge costs involved and too much area to cover. I think it's very easy to get up in a safety overreaction when it's impossible to make our roads accident proof.
Just doubling the budget for yellow paint would make a big difference.
Next time you're out on the open road, keep an eye out for the little white crosses on the side of the road and note how many of them are near a low visibility corner that has a dashed white centreline around the corner.
Anywhere that's not safe to pass should have centreline markings that show that. Corners with low visibility should always have double yellow centrelines. When coming up to a corner where there's not enough visibility for passing, the centreline should change to dashed yellow (your side)/whatever is appropriate (other side) around 250m before the corner, then change to solid yellow (your side)/whatever is appropriate (other side) about 120m before the corner.
When they did this between Puhoi and Warkworth, speeds around the corners dropped noticeably, and tailgating and other aggressive driving also reduced. Solid yellow lines down the centreline do a good job of communicating to drivers that there is some extra hazard here to pay extra attention to.
Even though the Atiamuri crash site already had double yellows, I'd hazard a bet it would make a significant difference elsewhere. FFS, even late 90s Zimbabwe could mark their roads better than we do.
There would still be some. But not as many. The utility of yellow paint is much more as an aid to the inexperienced and unskilled to help them not make mistakes.
That one simple cheap solution doesn't fix all the problems isn't a reason not to do it, it just means it's only one part of a multi-part attack on the problem.
Behaviour control for idiots needs quite a different approach. Personally I'd like to see all patrol cars be mufti, with instructions to be looking for idiots and ignore minor speeding (unless the minor speeding is in itself quite dangerous).
it is unusually the inexperienced or the unskilled that ignore them…the fact is we are appalling drivers, and getting progressively worse…driverless cars cannot come soon enough, or better still mass public transport
Behaviour control for idiots needs quite a different approach.
That driver…the only one in a long line of traffic who thinks that if they just duck in and out of line, passing one or two cars at a time, they'll get to wherever it is their dying to get to all the quicker.
Nab that bugger. Stern talking to. Make them ride with police and emergency services to get first hand view at how fragile the human body is. Get them to spend serious time in a spinal or head injury unit. Or a burns unit. Still driving like a twat? Implant device than disables any vehicle they sit their sorry arse in.
IMO Murphy missed a couple of big issues we do poorly on here.
Driver training and testing for most new drivers happens entirely in urban and suburban environments, with maybe a quick diversion onto a motorway from one exit to the next. Sure it's the most intense driving environment with lots of different stimulus from different directions, but crashes are mostly just bent sheet metal and minor injuries (unless you're a pedestrian or cyclist). But most serious injuries and deaths occur in open road crashes. Unfortunately the only training and testing my kids are getting in open road driving is from me, not from anyone with professional expertise.
The second big issue is about attitude and behaviour towards other drivers. One of the first things I talked about with my kids is how when they first started, they woulod be hesitant- they wouldn't be sure exactly what others expected and they would slow or stop in weird places, which is dangerous so we try to move them through the hesitant level as quickly as possible. The next level is relaxed – where they know what they should do and what others expect and they do it. But if something unusual happens or someone else makes a mistake, it doesn't bother anyone and they just deal with it and move on. Then the next level is assertive – where they can use "body language" to head off someone that looks like they're about to pull a dick move that's going to mess up traffic and that they're comfortable accelerating hard to use a smaller than ideal gap when traffic is busy.
I tell them I want them to be relaxed, but able to shade into assertive occasionally when needed. And that I never want them to go to the next level of being aggressive, coz that's when the chances of people getting hurt goes way up.
But none of the training materials or any of the instructors really have much of anything to say about attitude and how that relates to interaction with other road users.
But it might help some be not quite so idiotic in their late teens and early twenties. Certainly my mates and I never heard anything like that in our early years of driving. If we had heard things like that and had it modeled for us, it might have lowered the peaks of stupidity of some of the things we got up to.
It's not a problem with one silver bullet answer. There's just a whole lot of incremental improvements across all the different aspects of the problem.
am not sure why but you seem to be assuming that the idiots are predominantly young and inexperienced where my observations are that is far from the reality….idiocy is prevalent across all demographies
Those in their early-20s (aged 20-24) are significantly more likely to die as a result of a road accident. In 2016 there were 39 deaths in that age group, equivalent to about 21 per 100,000 people – about three times the rate for the total population.
That driver…the only one in a long line of traffic who thinks that if they just duck in and out of line, passing one or two cars at a time, they'll get to wherever it is their dying to get to all the quicker.
As someone who does that a lot, and has had to pass up to five at a time, I can tell you that they're not just thinking that, they do get there a lot quicker. And the number of crashes caused by someone overtaking multiple slow drivers where there's plenty of room to overtake them? None that I've heard of.
If you're forming an 80 kph convoy behind a camper van or crappy old truck, don't feel superior to someone who doesn't see any reason to join you in that convoy, just let them past: keep left and use any length of hard shoulder if there are people waiting to pass: keep a good following distance so there's room for overtakers to pull back in: try not honking your horn indignantly as they come past you. Driving slowly isn't a virtue.
I can tell you that they're not just thinking that, they do get there a lot quicker.
Really? So why is it so common to meet up with that 'gotta pass' numpty at the next set of lights or bottle neck that my man and I now consider it normal? And we are in a heavy vehicle doing 90kph.
My guess is that you, in your haste and desperate bid to demonstrate your superior driving ability, simply are not registering the other vehicles around you.
If you're forming an 80 kph convoy behind a camper van or crappy old truck, don't feel superior to someone who doesn't see any reason to join you in that convoy, just let them past:
Make no mistake sunshine…I am more than happy to see your rear disappear down the highway. I have no desire to get caught up in your suicide bid. Unfortunately, as I noted above, 15 ks down the road or so and there you are….stuck in the same convoy as the rest of us.
try not honking your horn indignantly as they come past you.
Now that is interesting. If you are getting honked at when passing another vehicle, could it be because you are driving in a manner that disregards the existence of other road users and the honker is simply trying to get you to realise there is actually a live human in that vehicle you just passed…or forced off the road in the on coming lane?
Driving slowly isn't a virtue.
Yes Psycho Milt, of course you're right. Better dead with your ego intact than stuck in traffic eh?
So why is it so common to meet up with that 'gotta pass' numpty at the next set of lights or bottle neck…
My comment assumes the person is driving long distance. There's not much point in passing all the slow-vehicle convoys if you're only travelling 50k.
My guess is that you, in your haste and desperate bid to demonstrate your superior driving ability, simply are not registering the other vehicles around you.
Now that sure would be dangerous driving. On the contrary, overtaking tends to focus the mind very strongly on what other vehicles are doing.
If you are getting honked at when passing another vehicle, could it be because you are driving in a manner that disregards the existence of other road users …
One isn't privy to the thinking of other drivers of course, but the circumstances it's happened in suggest to me there are just some people who regard overtaking as inherently dangerous driving. I might just as well honk at them for queuing up behind a slow vehicle, driving too close to the vehicle in front, not using the hard shoulder to let others past, and leaving people like me half a dozen vehicles to get past, but honking at other people because you don't like their driving is a dick move.
Better dead with your ego intact than stuck in traffic eh?
Overtaking slow vehicles is not inherently fatal, just like driving slowly is not inherently a virtue.
For the last six years or so our regular trip is between south of Hamilton and north of Kaitaia. Our observations of the 'gotta pass' brigade is generally focused on the sections of SH 1 or SH 16 where there are few, if any passing lanes…(on which of course we slow down to 60 or 70 ks to encourage everyone to pass us.) The traffic lights are generally the ones around Warkworth and the southern approach to Whangarei. And the usual pinch points at the Brynderwyns, Pohuehue, Dome Valley, etc.
Having said that…even on the motorways around Auckland we'll catch up with vehicles that passed us with a hiss and a roar ten or twenty ks back. On one hand its amusing that these drivers seem blithely oblivious they are not actually travelling any further than the rest, but it is also quite frightening they are, well, oblivious.
Ever noticed how most people drive out by the center line . Roads are wider than most realise if everyone drove to the left of their lane they would greatly lower the head ones .
That's to follow the visual cue of the centre line, rather than visualise the whole road. And to look for overtaking opportunities, and block the driver behind from doing the same. In short poor driving skills.
A large downside of driving to the left of the lane is the same drivers as above who interpret your action as an invitation to overtake and tailgate until they can. Moving back to the middle / right of the lane moves them back to a better following distance.
The problem is virtually none of us have had proper driver training, we just meet a minimum standard of vehicle control and road rules and then get shoved out to learn as we go. Combine that with a natural tendency to want to cram 10 – 12 hours into an 8 hour day, and we get what we have.
There isn't a "one size fits all" for good road position. The physical road environment, how you are driving, what other road users around you want to do are factors.
If I'm just cruising at 90-95ish because I'm not in a hurry and can't be arsed continually watching for cops and keeping an eye out for cops or have a trailer on, then I'll be as far left as reasonable without kicking up stuff off the road onto cars behind, and try to make it easy for cars behind to pass where there's opportunities.
If I'm more pressed for time, then I'll be closer to the centreline and closer to the car in front, for visibility, being able to pass quicker and safer where reasonable, and to communicate to the vehicle in front that I want to pass.
On residential streets I'll also stay close-ish to the centreline – because soft easily damageable hazards (kids, pets, cyclists) are most likely to suddenly come from the side of the road
As far as being able to save yourself from a head-on on rural roads, knowing how to safely put a couple of wheels at speed onto an unsealed shoulder is a big one that a lot of people don't know how to do. Getting off the brakes before the wheels leave the seal and being smooth and gentle with the steering goes against instinct and has to be learned. It takes a lot of rural driving experience and/or specific training to learn it, which mostly city drivers won't get.
You're also in a better position to see it coming and react early, rather than being totally caught by surprise when the vehicle in front suddenly dives to the left.
The asteroid was vaporized on impact. Its substance, mingling with vaporized Earth rock, formed a fiery plume, which reached halfway to the moon before collapsing in a pillar of incandescent dust. Computer models suggest that the atmosphere within fifteen hundred miles of ground zero became red hot from the debris storm, triggering gigantic forest fires. As the Earth rotated, the airborne material converged at the opposite side of the planet, where it fell and set fire to the entire Indian subcontinent. Measurements of the layer of ash and soot that eventually coated the Earth indicate that fires consumed about seventy per cent of the world’s forests. Meanwhile, giant tsunamis resulting from the impact churned across the Gulf of Mexico, tearing up coastlines, sometimes peeling up hundreds of feet of rock, pushing debris inland and then sucking it back out into deep water, leaving jumbled deposits that oilmen sometimes encounter in the course of deep-sea drilling.
The damage had only begun. Scientists still debate many of the details, which are derived from the computer models, and from field studies of the debris layer, knowledge of extinction rates, fossils and microfossils, and many other clues. But the over-all view is consistently grim. The dust and soot from the impact and the conflagrations prevented all sunlight from reaching the planet’s surface for months. Photosynthesis all but stopped, killing most of the plant life, extinguishing the phytoplankton in the oceans, and causing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere to plummet. After the fires died down, Earth plunged into a period of cold, perhaps even a deep freeze. Earth’s two essential food chains, in the sea and on land, collapsed. About seventy-five per cent of all species went extinct. More than 99.9999 per cent of all living organisms on Earth died, and the carbon cycle came to a halt.
Wow! That is some story. Makes one realise just what insignificant little creatures we humans really are, albeit with superior brains… if only we would use them to help ensure our survival.
The government built in some guarantees for safe nurse staffing with Health Boards, why are they not doing the same with doctor staffing/hours of work?
"A special Roy Morgan SMS Poll conducted for the Australian Futures Project last week on April 17-18, 2019 with a cross-section of 1,546 electors shows 27% of electors are yet to make up their mind who they will vote for in next month’s Federal Election and 44% of them say no party is addressing the issues that matter to them."
A quarter of the electorate currently undecided, only a 2% gap, so no matter how useless the govt keeps proving itself to be, seems like the opposition keeps trying to prove it can wriggle under the extremely low bar they've set!
No wonder that Indian students are so keen or even desperate to study here. Knowing their stories might give pause to some people who accuse them of coming here and abusing the system.
Assistant commissioner Richard Chambers said the fact 80 per cent of the population was using 16 kilograms a week of meth "was a lot" and disappointing. He described the data as the "best information we have ever had".
So, I read the above and damn near fell off my chair. (And since I'm not using any meth, does that mean some poor bugger is using 32 kilograms per week?)
It is late and I am weary, but even the Young Person thought it an unfortunate quote from an article chocka block with poorly presented data.
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Can we postpone this year’s election? Quite frankly, the political parties don’t seem ready for it, and aren’t about to offer voters the necessary policy choices for the unprecedented times we’re in. We’ve ended up with a campaign focused on scandal, personality and leadership, with a policy void that’s worse ...
It is the last sitting day of Parliament, and the last question time before the House is dissolved. So, are there any questions about the damning findings of the Hit and Run inquiry, and how the government plans to bring the military back under democratic control? Of course not. ...
Property speculator - John KeyThe National Party must be in dire straits to have to rely on John Key to campaign on their behalf. Not only has the former PM been in the news claiming the recently released unemployment figures aren’t accurate, the fool has also been promoting the opening ...
Nothing Too Drastic: Few would dispute that the Left, today, are few in number. Is their failure to make the public aware of and act upon the manifest failures of the present system attributable to their lack of active energy and intelligence? Or, is it simply because the Left’s ideas ...
by Don Franks This talk was given to the Wellington Anti Capitalist Alliance, fifteen years ago. The ultimate weapons of mass destruction so far seen on this planet have been used just twice, 60 years ago this month. August 6 and August 9 1945 witnessed the US atomic bombing ...
After I noticed that my name had been taken yet again in vain by my friendly antagonist Tom Hunter over at No Minister, I went over to see what the fuss was about. Nothing much, but then I discovered a post about the Operation Burnham Inquiry by Psycho Milt. I ...
The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 was extended today, until December 1st or the tenth sitting day following the resumption of Parliament after the election. It seems like a necessary extension. While we currently have eradicated the virus in New Zealand, it is still banging at the door, and ...
One of the government's key policies - extracted by NZ First as part of its coalition agreement - is the "Provincial Growth Fund": $1 billion a year spent on creating jobs in rural New Zealand. Yesterday the Auditor-General issued a report on the fund, finding that it lacks transparency, and ...
The Warehouse, one of New Zealand's biggest retailers, has decided to stop selling coal. Good. Coal is a dirty, polluting fossil fuel, and the less of it we have out there, the better. Retailers choosing not to sell it sends a clear message that this is not a fuel we ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and they show that unemployment actually dropped last quarter. All told, there are 111,000 unemployed - 15,000 fewer than when the government took office. But before anyone thinks that the pandemic hasn't put people out of work, remember that this is for ...
Judy KavanaghI’m OK with wearing a CovidCard. But are you? There’s no point me doing it alone.The author modelling a (fake) CovidCard. I didn’t know much about the CovidCard proposal until I read Dave’s latest blog post. You would wear the card visibly on your person. It ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy can’t I use the battery from my electric car ...
As many good things come in threes (as the saying goes), we are happy to announce a third partnership between Skeptical Science and other websites. Fakebook.eco in Brazil is joining Klimafakten.de in Germany and Nauka o Klimacie in Poland to leverage translated rebuttal material and to make the information readily available in other ...
This interview on RNZ with Ross Tucker, the scientist who headed a review of transgender athletes playing in women’s rugby, discusses the findings of the review and what it means for women in sports. The review that World Rugby undertook had a broad range of independent experts and included a ...
Siouxsie WilesThe restrictions in place for metropolitan Melbourne now are in some ways stricter than those that were in force during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown. A curfew is in place and most people have to wear masks when they leave their home – neither of which happened in New ...
On Friday the Hit and Run inquiry delivered a devastating report which found that NZDF had systematically misled Ministers over civilian deaths. The report called into question civilian control of the military (and indeed, military control of the military), a fundamental principle of our democracy. So you'd expect our politicians ...
Let's Do This Again: What else can Jacinda do in a political environment so bereft of imagination and courage but seek a continuance? If she trades upon the extraordinary personal qualities that she has, miraculously, carried with her into the office of Prime Minister, then I, for one, will offer ...
How corrupt are the New Zealand Police? This corrupt: On 10 February 2019, Police attended a family harm incident. The suspect attempted to run the attending officers over in a driveway with his car, narrowly missing them, before fleeing the scene. A short pursuit followed, ending when the suspect stopped ...
Parliament's triennial Review of Standing Orders was released today, and it contains a number of welcome, if minor, improvements. The ones that caught my are: A move to encourage "pre-legislative engagement" - the government consulting widely on legislation before it is introduced - by promising easier passage (e.g. with ...
Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonGlaciers around the world are melting — and for the first time, we can now directly attribute annual ice loss to climate change. We analysed two years in which glaciers in New Zealand melted the most in at least four ...
Caroline Shaw, Anja MizdrakE-bikes are everywhere. Sales are booming and predicted to overtake sales of new cars in a few years. There were three times as many e-bikes and e-scooters imported into NZ in 2019 alone as there are e-cars in the entire country. You can’t go out in ...
New Zealand First is facing a difficult struggle to get re-elected, but Josh Van Veen, who was once a researcher for Winston Peters, argues that there is still a very significant section of cultural conservatives who oppose mass immigration and political correctness and might yet be won back over to ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk Many Americans these days seem unable to avoid controversy on practically any topic, so why not embrace the discord and wade into the especially volatile arena of nuclear energy? Advocates claim it’s the only way to meet global climate goals, ...
Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a 2010 SAS killing raid in Afghanistan. The most recent Colmar Brunton ...
In New Zealand, we've just had the report of the Hit and Run inquiry, which found that a New Zealand led raid had accidentally killed civilians, including a child. meanwhile, around the same time, the British SAS was conducting its own raids in Afghanistan, and theirs were a hell of ...
In addition to establishing a process for setting emissions reductions plans, the Zero Carbon Act established a process for managing the risks of climate change. The first part of this is the preparation of regular risk assessments, looking at the risks to our economy, society, environment, and ecology. The first ...
Over on The spinoff, Amnesty International's Meg de Ronde has a response to Friday's release of the Hit and Run report. And in response to Attorney-General David Parker's claim that the government was being "transparent" by releasing the report, its titled "we shouldn’t have to work this hard to get ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study FindsAs climate change raises sea levels, storm surges and high tides will ...
There's an election next month, so you'd be expecting political parties to be telling us what they stand for and what they'd do if they'd win. But while the Greens have given us a detailed policy platform, and National has talked about roads and austerity, Labour, currently leading the polls ...
"Who's youse accusin' of innference?" Without the timely intervention of a team of top American political consultants and campaign experts, Boris Yeltsin would never have won his second term as President of the Russian Federation. The Russians waited 20 years to return the favour.WHEN IT COMES to the disinformation game, ...
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 26 through Sat, Aug 1, 2020Editor's ChoiceThe four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them allThe shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological ...
Over the last few days, reports have emerged of people travelling from New Zealand and testing positive for Covid-19 upon arrival at their destination. First in South Korea and now in Australia. What might these positive tests mean?They’re false-positives As Toby Morris and I have explained before, there are ...
Former National Minister - Wayne MappYou could tell that the Hit and Run book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson was right on the money by the way former National Party Minister of Defence, Wayne Mapp, reacted to its now largely vindicated claims.Even though the recent inquiry into ...
So, the Hit and Run inquiry has reported back, and found some appalling shit at NZDF and NZSIS. And while they quibble a few of the details - the name of a dead child - they basicly uphold Hager and Stephenson's version of events. The SAS went to those villages. ...
We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...
Michelle Boag - LeakerThe Heron report (PDF) was released yesterday, and it was a bit disappointing to say the least. It correctly found that former National Party president Michelle Boag and National Party MP Hamish Walker were politically motivated in leaking peoples private medical information, but didn’t look further into ...
Adam Smith, Massey UniversityA recent global assessment of shark populations at 371 coral reefs in 58 countries found no sharks at almost 20% of reefs and alarmingly low numbers at many others. The study, which involved over 100 scientists under the Global FinPrint project, gave New Zealand a good ...
On different trajectories and from different ends of the political spectrum, last night’s One News/Colmar Brunton poll has the Green Party and ACT converging around the five percent mark. And, as odd as it may sound, they head into the election campaign with a lot in common.Putting the Greens and ...
Janet Stephenson, University of OtagoA proposed multibillion-dollar project to build a pumped hydro storage plant could make New Zealand’s electricity grid 100% renewable, but expensive new infrastructure may not be the best way to achieve this. New Zealand’s electricity generation is already around 80% renewable, with just over half ...
Truth In Advertising: Labour, it would seem, is the party that knows nothing about running the economy right up until the moment that it does. HOW DID LABOUR acquire its reputation for being a poor economic manager? As with most things political and historical, it’s a long story.In the beginning, the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Government rulemakers looking to decide how much money to spend to avoid adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere need a good estimate of what a warming climate will cost in social damages, for example through more extreme weather events. That point makes ...
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from October 1, 2019 to October 31, 2019. Rainbow Tick threatens to pull Massey’s tick if lesbians are allowed to speak Freer Lives – a gender-critical Marxist site Freer Lives on Violence, debate and Britain’s Gender Recognition Act British ...
It's campaign time! The official countdown to Election Day is underway, with Labour supporters crowding into Auckland's Town Hall for our 2020 Campaign Launch. We recap some of the highlights below ...
It's campaign time! The official countdown to Election Day is underway, with Labour supporters crowding into Auckland's Town Hall for our 2020 Campaign Launch. We recap some of the highlights below ...
We've announced that we will expand the Flexi-wage programme to support up to 40,000 more people into work, or to help them start their own business. It's yet another way we're helping keep our economy moving by getting people into work and training. Read on to find out more ...
Business subsidy of on average $7500, and up to $22,000, to hire unemployed New ZealandersUp to 40,000 jobs to be supported by $311 million investment in keeping New Zealanders off the unemployment benefitRing-fenced fund to help unemployed start their own business ...
This week was the last of the 52nd Parliament: a major milestone for our Government and a great opportunity to look back at all the progress we've made for New Zealanders. This week, we increased support for businesses to take on apprentices, improved access to hospital care in Northland, and ...
Kia orana and kia ora koutou katoa. It is a privilege to be able to speak in this adjournment debate and to mark and acknowledge the fact that we are now two years and 10 months into the conclusion of a parliamentary term that has been extraordinary in so many ...
On 1 August, we marked the anniversary of Jacinda Ardern becoming the Leader of the Labour Party. On that day in 2017, Leader Andrew Little nominated Jacinda Ardern to succeed him and lead the party to victory.Now, three years on, we look back at some of the key moments ...
With the June 2020 quarter showing underemployment increasing, the Green Party is calling for a Guaranteed Minimum Income and an increase to the abatement threshold to ensure everyone has a dignified income. ...
We went hard and we went early in our health response to COVID-19, and we did everything we could to cushion the economic impact too. In fact, we can fill every letter of the alphabet with the steps we took to fight COVID-19 and ensure we were in a position ...
Investing in our people, backing businesses, and upgrading infrastructure and housing throughout the country - it's been another week of progress for New Zealanders as we deliver our plan to recover and rebuild. ...
July was another busy month, packed with key investments aimed at progressing our economic recovery as we rebuild New Zealand. We extended support for businesses, helped create jobs through local infrastructure projects, and kept working to clean up our waterways so Kiwis can access safe clean water. Check out the ...
The Green Party is calling for the Defence Force Chiefs in place between 2010-2017 to front up and explain how dishonesty, process and policy failures within the Defence Force led to ‘a series of incorrect statements in briefings to ministers and public releases’ regarding alleged breaches of international torture prevention ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
The Government is stepping up action to deal with environmentally harmful products – including plastic packaging, tyres and e-waste – before they become waste. ...
The Green Party are ensuring that New Zealanders who were overseas when COVID-19 hit will not be charged for the cost of isolation or quarantine if they return home to live. ...
It's been another week of creating jobs, supporting local businesses, and investing in infrastructure up and down the country - all of which are helping to keep our economy moving post-COVID-19. ...
Law changes to end tenure review and provide for better management of Crown pastoral lands in the South Island high country were considered by Parliament today with the first reading of the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill says Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage. ...
The Green Party have secured legislative amendments in a bill expected to pass third reading this week, to ensure better rules for school teachers and staff, so they can de-escalate children with diverse needs and cognitive differences, such as autism, rather than using unnecessary and often traumatising force. ...
A report undertaken by Ministerial Services into Iain Lees-Galloway’s ministerial expenditure has found no evidence of any inappropriate transactions or spending. Ministerial Services undertook a line by line review of all his expenditure, including staff and spouse expenses for the period 1 January 2019 to 30 June 2020. “I commissioned ...
Managed isolation charges for returnees will come into force from 12.01am Tuesday 11th August, after they passed their last cabinet milestone today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. “The new charging system balances the rights of New Zealanders to return home and helps reduce pressure on the managed isolation and quarantine ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Henry Puna have welcomed the completion of phase one in the establishment of a travel bubble between New Zealand and the Cook Island. Negotiations on the text of an ‘Arrangement to Facilitate Quarantine-Free Travel ...
The Government has launched a new online, phone and onsite service to help New Zealanders connect to a range of employment support and products for workers and businesses affected by COVID-19, announced Minister of Education Chris Hipkins and Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. Connected.govt.nz is a one-stop-shop for jobseekers, ...
Security guards contracted to the Ministry of Social Development will be paid at least the Living Wage from next month supporting the Government’s commitment towards fair pay and employment conditions, announced Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “MSD was among the first government agencies to pay its employees the living ...
The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today launched Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy - a way forward that envisions Aotearoa New Zealand as a place where ecosystems are healthy and resilient, and people embrace the natural world. “Many of New Zealand’s plants and wildlife species ...
“Pacific languages, cultures and identity are essential to the health, wellbeing and lifetime success of our Pacific peoples and their communities in Aotearoa. The strength and resilience of Pacific Aotearoa is not only vital to their own prosperity but integral to the prosperity of all New Zealanders, and is particularly ...
· $38 million to help schools cover unexpected costs related to COVID-19 · $69 million upgrade for online learning · $107 million contingency funding to support school construction suppliers facing additional costs due to the lockdown. The Government is releasing $214 million from the COVID-19 response and recovery fund to ...
Despite the Government installing safety upgrades around the country, people should still take care around rail crossings, said Transport Minister Phil Twyford launching Rail Safety Week. Phil Twyford said installing safety infrastructure is crucial, but we are encouraging people to be more careful around trains too. “We’re making good progress ...
The Government is providing a cash injection to help Palmerston North City Council complete a programme to provide 78 social housing units for vulnerable tenants. The $4.7 million to build 28 units in the Papaioea Place redevelopment comes from the $3 billion set aside for infrastructure in the Government’s COVID-19 ...
A pest free Banks Peninsula/Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū is one step closer with a $5.11 million boost to accelerate this project and create jobs, announced Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage in Canterbury today. “This is a game changer for this ambitious project to restore the native wildlife and plants on Ōtautahi/Christchurch’s doorstep ...
A Government grant of $6.4 million will expand the Pettigrew Arena in Taradale with new indoor courts of national standard. “The project is likely to take 18 months with approximately 300 people employed through the process,” Grant Robertson said. “The expansion will increase the indoor court space up to 11 ...
The Far North tourist destination of Mangonui is to receive Government funding to improve waterfront infrastructure, open up access to the harbour and improve water quality, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. A total of $6.5 million from the $3 billion set aside in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund ...
The Government has re-affirmed its commitment to supporting the hosting of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, which the ICC has delayed from 2021 to 2022. “This is obviously a disappointing decision for cricket players and fans around the world and for the White Ferns and their supporters here at ...
Cyclists and walkers will now have a safer way to get around Taupō, Tūrangi, and between Hamilton and Cambridge, with funding for shared paths and Te Awa River Ride, Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. “The Te Awa River Ride is the latest part of massive growth ...
Six major cycle routes will be completed in Christchurch thanks to funding from the Government’s investment in shovel-ready infrastructure as part of the COVID-19 recovery Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. $125 million will be invested to kick-start construction and fund the completion of the following cycleway ...
Plans are underway for a brand new state-of-the-art hub for Whanganui’s justice and social agencies, following confirmation the ageing Whanganui Central Police Station is to be replaced. Police Minister Stuart Nash has announced $25 million in new infrastructure spending to improve facilities for the wider community, and for staff who ...
An adjustment payment has been made to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu under the relativity mechanisms in their 1995 and 1997 Treaty of Waitangi settlements, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The latest payments to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu are $2,700,000 and $2,600,000 respectively to ensure the ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off the start of the Auckland NZ Upgrade Programme rail projects which will support over 400 jobs and help unlock our biggest city. Both ministers marked the start of enabling works on the third main rail line project ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $3.78 million in Wairoa will create much needed economic stimulus and jobs, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. PGF projects announced today include: $200,000 loan to Nuhaka Kiwifruit Holdings Ltd (operated by Pine Valley Orchard Ltd) to increase the productivity ...
Tenants in public and Māori housing may be benefiting from their own affordable renewable energy in future – a fund to trial renewable energy technology for public and Māori housing has today been announced by Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods and Associate Minister for Housing (Māori Housing) Nanaia Mahuta. ...
Hokianga will receive $2.7 million to redevelop four of its wharves and upgrade its water supply, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Far North District Council will receive $1.8 million from the Provincial Growth Fund for the work on the wharves. “The work will include the construction of ...
A $350 million Residential Development Response Fund is being established to support the residential construction sector and to minimise the economic impact from COVID-19, the Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods has announced. “The Residential Development Response Fund will help to progress stalled or at-risk developments that support our broader housing ...
As part of a broader plan to divert waste from landfill, the Government today announced $10.67 million for new infrastructure as part of the Resource Recovery Network across the Auckland region. “This key investment in Auckland’s community recycling network is part of the Government’s Infrastructure Reference Group ‘shovel ready’ projects ...
The Government is investing $45 million in the first stage of an ambitious urban development project for Tauranga that will employ up to 250 people and help the region grow, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says the funding has been allocated out of the $3 billion ...
Getting low-emission trucks on the road is a step closer with investment in infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles, the Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods has announced. The Infrastructure Reference Group has provisionally approved $20 million for New Plymouth company Hiringa Energy to establish a nationwide network of hydrogen-fuelling stations. ...
A new trades training centre to upskill the local workforce will be built in the South Waikato town of Tokoroa through funding from the Government’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Government will contribute $10.84 million from ...
The Government has agreed to repeal part of the Oranga Tamariki Act subsequent children provisions, Minister for Children Tracey Martin announced today. “There are times when children need to go into care for their safety – the safety and care of children must always be paramount,” Minister Martin said. “But ...
A $1.5 million boost to grow primary mental health and addiction services for Pacific peoples in Auckland, Hamilton and Canterbury will lead to better outcomes for Pacific communities, Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa says. Pasifika Futures has received funding to expand services through The Fono, Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest by ...
Twenty-two projects to boost the sustainability and climate resilience of New Zealand’s food and fibres sector have been announced today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The $18m funding will deliver practical knowledge to help farmers and growers use their land more sustainably, meet environmental targets, remain prosperous, and better understand ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson welcomes an initiative that assists employers to get mature workers into New Zealand small businesses. The disadvantages that older people face in the workplace was highlighted in the whole of Government Employment Strategy. In order to address this, a Mature Workers Toolkit has been developed and ...
New Zealand and Australia reaffirmed today the need for the closest possible collaboration as they tackle a global environment shaped by COVID-19, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said. “In these challenging times, our close collaboration with Australia is more vital than ever,” said Mr Peters. Mr Peters and his Australian ...
The recovery and forensic examination of the loader driven by survivor Russell Smith means the underground team are now moving into an area of the Pike River Mine that has not been seen since the explosion, Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little said. “The fifth and last robot ...
The Government has confirmed a community-wide trial of CovidCard technology as it explores options for COVID-19 contact tracing. “Effective contact tracing is a vital part of the COVID-19 response,” Minister of Health Chris Hipkins said. “While manual processes remain the critical component for contact tracing, we know digital solutions can ...
The government is proposing changes to aquaculture legislation to improve the process for allocating and transferring aquaculture assets to iwi. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash has introduced the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill to Parliament. It proposes a limited new discretionary power for Te Ohu Kaimoana Trustee Limited (ToKM). ...
The Minister of Justice has today introduced the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill – the next step in the ongoing programme of work to fix the failed 2014 Family Court reforms led by then Justice Minister Judith Collins. The Bill arises from the report of the Independent ...
A new Department of Conservation (DOC) action plan tackles the impacts of climate change on New Zealand’s biodiversity and DOC managed infrastructure including tracks, huts and cultural heritage. Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage says extreme weather events around the country have really brought home our vulnerability to changing weather patterns. ...
A heavily scaled back international Antarctic season will commence this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods have confirmed. “Antarctica is the only continent that is COVID-19 free,” Mr Peters said. “Throughout the global pandemic, essential operations and long-term science have continued at ...
The Government is providing up to $30 million to help fund the NZ Campus of Innovation and Sport in Upper Hutt - an investment that will create 244 jobs. “The sports hub is designed to be a world-leading shared service for a range of sports, offering the level of facilities ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today transport projects currently in construction will continue at pace due to extra Government support for transport projects to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. To keep the $16.9 billion 2018-21 National Land Transport Programme going the Government has allocated funding from the COVID Response and ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Concern from the Cook Islands over travel bubble, inquiry clears Iain Lees-Galloway of any spending impropriety, and Oranga Tamariki facing further damaging report findings.A draft agreement on a travel bubble with the Cook Islands is close to being finalised, the ...
Since a nationwide amalgamation in 2017 there have been mass resignations at the SPCA, claims of bullying and employment dispute payouts. Now an online petition calling for a government inquiry has gained nearly 1000 signatures in five days A petition for a government inquiry to be launched into the transparency and accountability ...
A bizarre allegation on the TV news and a scolding of party members by a top official set the scene for a highly charged National Party candidate selection The National Party has chosen Emma Mellow as its candidate for the Auckland Central seat with less than four weeks until early voting begins, ...
In announcing the company's full-year results on Monday, Contact Energy CEO Mike Fuge warned of a "turbulent time" for the electricity market amid the exit of Tiwai Point. ...
After struggling with depression while recovering from a devastating knee injury, Tactix midcourter Erikana Pedersen wants to take her career in a new direction to help others. Last year was the “crappiest" of Erikana Pedersen’s 26 revolutions around the sun. But this year may turn out to be the best. Pedersen's year of ...
The polls and pundits are predicting the demise of NZ First leader Winston Peters and his party, but he has no plans to surrender or retire from politics, Dileepa Fonseka writes. ...
Those most impacted by Covid-19 are those who can least afford to weather it, write Professor Merryn Gott and Dr Jackie Robinson Emerging evidence from overseas regarding the clear link between poverty and Covid-19 is as predictable as it is heartbreaking. People living in the most deprived areas of England and Wales ...
A mining company director demands Newsroom take down a story on rehabilitation conditions agreed with DoC for a former site on conservation land National leader Judith Collins' husband is threatening defamation action against Newsroom over a story about a West Coast mine site that the conservation department allowed to be left ...
A bizarre allegation on the TV news and a scolding of party members by a top official set the scene for a highly charged National Party candidate selection The National Party has chosen Emma Mellow as its candidate for the Auckland Central seat with less than four weeks until early voting begins, ...
An essay, and memoir, by Dunedin writer Talia Marshall on fighting the White Power bitches at school Sophia turns up at my new place by happy accident. We haven’t seen each other properly for over 20 years but we’re friends on Facebook. One of the reasons I like Facebook, apart ...
A lack of central government policy on climate change adaptation has left councils treading water as they attempt to engage with threatened communities. ...
Te Arawhiti is bypassing Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Hikairo to try and get Ngāti Hikairo claims included in the Ngāti Maniapoto Settlement. Ngāti Maniapoto have set up two meetings in Kāwhia ‘with Ngāti Hikairo’ to consult on their Treaty settlements. ...
Welcome to the third edition of Memebers of parliament, a politics column for people who just want the memes.Let’s just get to it, shall we?Buses – YESBuses. They’re back. Winston Peters has had his giant face on a big ol’ bus for a while now, but he surely won’t be ...
The New Zealand government’s aid in developing countries is not going to projects where it is needed most, says Oxfam, according to a new report published by agency today. Less than two percent of aid spending went to activities focused solely on ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is meant to fund… growth… in the provinces. So why is it building a huge new racetrack in one of New Zealand’s biggest cities? Because the racing industry seems to get whatever it wants, argues Duncan Greive. Yesterday morning saw a blazing RNZ report that the Provincial ...
Long awaited changes to tenancy law have been made - are they really the landlord-killers that some make them out to be? Last week the Government passed under urgency a series of big changes to New Zealand's tenancy laws. The reforms of the 1986 Residential Tenancies Act have been in ...
Tonight the National Party has selected Emma Mellow to stand in the Auckland Central electorate for the 2020 General Election. Emma Mellow replaces retiring MP Nikki Kaye who first won the seat from Labour in 2008. Emma leads a team of communications ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Radio 95bFM The Wire’s Zoë Larsen Cumming and Justin Wong talked to Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie today about a resurgence of coronavirus cases in Papua New Guinea and the impact of other Pacific cases on two very important upcoming votes in Bougainville and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Maylea, Senior Lecturer, Law and Social Work, RMIT University The second wave of the coronavirus and the resulting restrictions have impacted all Victorians. Many are struggling, but some are struggling more than others. In response to the increasing number of people ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Stone, General practitioner; Clinical Associate Professor, ANU Medical School, Australian National University Last week, the Australian government announced it will provide ten extra Medicare-subsidised psychological therapy sessions for Australians in lockdown areas due to COVID-19. In such a stressful time, many ...
It looks like science has come off second best in government considerations during the development of Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy, which envisions New Zealand as a place where ecosystems are healthy and resilient, and people embrace the natural world. The press statement announcing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wanning Sun, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Technology Sydney US President Donald Trump’s recent moves against Tiktok, the popular video-sharing platform, have been widely seen as part of a new “tech Cold War” between the US and China. Trump ...
National leader Judith Collins has endorsed David Seymour in the Epsom seat and recent polls have put support for ACT anywhere between 3 and 5 percent - giving it up to six MPs. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lily O’Neill, Research Fellow, Australian National University Huge clean energy projects, such as the Asian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara, Western Australia, are set to produce gigawatts of electricity over vast expanses of land in the near future. The Asian Renewable ...
Remarks by new coach Nathan Brown and the closed-door discussions by the club around recruiting a man facing sexual assault charges undermines the rugby league club’s values, writes Tiffany Salmond.It’s been a hot topic in rugby league circles for well over a year – but not for the right reasons.Former ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Uri Gal, Associate Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney The recent questioning of the heads of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple in the US Congress has highlighted the threat their practices pose to our privacy and democracy. However these big ...
Good habits start young, and with Money Week this week, now is a great time to look at how we can support and nourish our kids’ financial journeys writes Banqer’s Simon Brown. For some reason, a lot of people see money as a boring topic. But the fact is, it’s a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne This week’s federal Newspoll, conducted August 5-8 from a sample of 1,509, gave the Coalition a 52-48 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the last Newspoll, three weeks ago. ...
A tender for underwater inspection services at the abandoned oil field off the coast of Taranaki has shed light on the dubious state of its subsea infrastructure. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Plank, Professor in Mathematics, University of Canterbury Our latest modelling shows New Zealanders need to redouble their efforts to keep track of people they meet, if we are to have a chance of controlling any re-emergence of COVID-19. The director general ...
Local Government New Zealand’s (LGNZ) Regional Sector has today welcomed the launch of Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy, citing robust collaboration with iwi, regional councils and private landowners and leadership from ...
The High Court has ruled today that Greenpeace is entitled to register as a charity and that the Charities Registration Board was in error for declining the environmental campaigning organisation’s application. In a summary of the judgement posted online ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Dobson, Professor and Dean of Education, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The English language in education today is all-pervasive. “Hear more English, speak more English and become more successful” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some say it’s already ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stuart Richards, Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of South Australia Review: Welcome to Chechnya, screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival Welcome to Chechnya, screening online as part of MIFF 68½, is a bracing documentary. This film is part of a queer ...
It’s become fashionable among some political circles to advocate for a laissez-faire approach to debt, on the basis that the government can issue as much debt as it likes – for as long as it likes. But there’s one big drawback to ‘just print more money’ argument, writes Pattrick Smellie ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Australia’s aged care sector was “underprepared” to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak and federal authorities had no specific plan for it, according to a stinging indictment from Peter Rozen QC, senior counsel assisting the royal ...
A Productivity Commission report finding was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of disease transmission dynamics, and now that error has itself been transmitted in the media and into the election campaign, write Nic Steyn, Mike Plank, Alex James, Rachelle Binny, Audrey Lustig and Shaun Hendy of Te ...
Latest from the Beehive Here’s hoping the hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into Northland from the Provincial Growth Fund and other government programmes do much more to promote the region’s economic and social wellbeing than they are doing to enhance Shane Jones’ election prospects. He is bound to be ...
The first Auckland Central debate took place last night, despite the lack of a National candidate. Josie Adams went along to watch Helen White, Chlöe Swarbrick and the rest.The Auckland Central electorate stretches from the depths of Grafton across the Hauraki Gulf to Aotea (Great Barrier). Its residents are Waiheke’s ...
Kiwibank was right to refuse the business of sex-trade operators exploiting women and children, says Wahine Toa Rising, a newly-formed organisation led by survivors of the trade in New Zealand. Spokeswoman Ally Marie Diamond said "we were gutted ...
During the worst days of the Covid-19 outbreak in New Zealand, Matamata was right at the heart of it all. Alex Braae went to the Waikato town to ask people how they’re getting on now.On the signs heading out to the Hobbiton Movie Set about 10 minutes away from the ...
The government has announced a pay increase for security guards at the Ministry of Social Development as the Labour Party makes a commitment to government agency workers for fair pay and working conditions. ...
“As sure as God made little apples, she would have reinvented herself and she will be ripping someone off in England as we speak,” predicted a former colleague of Joanne Harrison. A new investigation reveals the charming fraudster, who stole ...
Lihir is the second mine in Papua New Guinea to report a confirmed covid-19 case as the national total of infections reached 214 at the weekend. Newcrest Mining Limited confirmed that a 30-year-old male, a mine employee who had flown in from the capital Port Moresby on July 30, had ...
E te rangatira, e te tohunga, e te Tiati, haere, haere, haere atu ra. Haere ki o tupuna, no ratou nga taonga i tuku iho ki a koe, hei whangai mai ki a matou. ...
Commitment from all political parties to implementing the new Te Mana o te Taiao - Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy is vital to protecting our future, says Forest & Bird. “The Strategy clearly says that New Zealand’s environment ...
The 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War will be acknowledged on 15 August, with a commemorative service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington, Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage Chief Executive Bernadette ...
New Zealand's total fertility rate has reached an all-time low, with an average of 1.71 children per woman in New Zealand, well below population replacement level. “ Families: Ever Fewer or No Children , How Worried Should We Be? “ - a report ...
Joint Press Release: NextElection, Scoop.co.nz, ScoopCitizen NextElection , a technology platform empowering democracy and Government accountability, and Scoop Independent News have partnered to strengthen citizen participation in the 2020 New Zealand General ...
Since March 15 2019, a string of lone actor, far-right copycat atrocities provide important clues to the kind of transnational, online movement we now confront, writes Emanuel Stoakes.Before storming the Al Noor Mosque, the would-be killer dressed in military fatigues, attempted a livestream and signalled his intent on an image ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cordelia Fine, Professor, History & Philosophy of Science program, School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne How useful are the well-known and hotly contested categories of “male brain” and “female brain”? Among experts, nobody really questions that anatomical sex differences ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University Earlier this month, there were media reports that Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly had posted to Facebook advocating the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a treatment for COVID-19. Kelly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carissa Bonner, Research Fellow, University of Sydney If the media is anything to go by, you’d think people who believe coronavirus myths are white, middle-aged women called Karen. But our new study shows a different picture. We found men and people aged ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Pearman, Professorial Fellow, Australian-German Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne There is global interest in the potential for a hydrogen economy, in part driven by a concern over climate change and the need to move away from fossil fuels. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Aslan, Honorary Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong Australian universities are expected to lose billions of dollars in revenue due to the impacts of COVID-19. The estimated lost revenue from international students alone is A$18 billion by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Owain Emslie, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute Grattan Institute research published today shows the average 25-year-old woman who goes on to have a child can expect to earn A$2 million less by the time she is 70 than the average 25-year-old man who ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Beck Wise, Lecturer in Professional Writing, The University of Queensland You might have scrolled right by Annastacia Palaszczuk’s recent quote posts if you saw them on Instagram – just another lifestyle influencer posting a “deep” quote – but when she (or her ...
Welcome to Election Live for August 10, bringing you the latest on election 2020 and other breaking news. For key dates in the election seasonclick here. For all you need to know about the cannabis referendum click here. For the assisted dying referendum click here. Policy launches tomorrow. Get ...
New Zealand First and leader Winston Peters are up against it this year in the general elections if the polls are to be believed, but the political veteran shows no sign of giving up yet. ...
Daily review 30/04/2019 
Campaigns. Culture. Character. And perhaps most of all, Covid. Now the House has risen and politicians are hitting the road to pitch their woo to voters, those will be front of mind for the candidates.They were also where the new season of politics podcast Caucus began on Thursday. This year ...9 hours ago
There are only a few days left to make a submission on Statistics New Zealand's consultation on sex and gender identity statistical standards. This represents a really important step for recognising the very real diversity of gender, including people with no gender, and ensuring everyone has the option to see ...9 hours ago
Since finishing the Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book, I’ve frequently dipped into that 176-page clip-art library, reshaping the cartoons to fit the 1920 x 1080 pixel format for Powerpoint presentations. I’ve also adapted many of the cartoons for the Cranky Uncle video series. Over the last few weeks, a few people ...13 hours ago
NewsHub Nation has launched a new podcast, "Supplementary Question". Their inaugural episode is about the OIA, and asks "is our most important transparency law fit for purpose?" While they interviewed Justice Minister Andrew Little and Ombudsman Peter Boshier for this, there's not actually a lot of them in there, and ...15 hours ago
Dr Tim Chambers, Prof Nick Wilson, Jayne Richards, A/Prof Simon Hales, Dr Mike Joy, Prof Michael Baker (author affiliations*) Increasing water-related health threats, notably the waterborne campylobacter outbreak in Havelock North, have highlighted failings in NZ’s regulatory system for drinking water. In this blog we consider how the new Water ...22 hours ago
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From some quarters, incessant scaremongering. From others, it’s a full-on tilt into touching the alarmist buttons a little too readily (uncertain times make for very captive audiences with this angle of attack). The (so-called) Opposition (and merely regarding them as that seems to be a far looser term now ...3 days ago
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Along with all of Judith Collins' other faults we can add scaredy cat. She's not even got the confidence to take down Mr 5%.
Or the ability to form consensus. Not really PM material I would have thought.
Judith..she's a 'Shonkey Tonk Woman'…give me..give me..
Judith would be popular with right-wing extremists and conservative over 60's, but she's hardly the fresh new face needed to take the National Party forward. She would be a fill-in leader at best.
The Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill – first reading in Parliament.
The PM says they decided to go with a limit of a doubling of the poan in repayment, rather than cap interest rates.
However pay day lenders could just resort to shorter repayment periods with rollovers – thus 4 such 3 month loans in 12 months – and thus 4 times the value of a loan over 12 months.
There should be a constraint to a doubling within 12 months of loan values, or this is borderline meaningless.
Even Sir Jong Kee is endorsing the corrupt old trout. Takes one to know one I guess. 😂
Remember both Key and Collins were super tight with Cameron Slater who is now mentally, financially and physically broken from his own corruption and malevolency…takes one to know one indeed.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/04/newshub-understands-sir-john-key-has-shown-support-for-judith-collins.html
Fuckers, the lot of them.
It is now just a matter of when …
“Newshub understands former Prime Minister Sir John Key has shown some support behind the scenes for Judith Collins to be National leader.
Key would not confirm this to Newshub, only to say, “I don’t comment on leadership issues” – but because of his standing in the party, MPs still go to him for advice and he commands huge respect in the National Caucus.
An endorsement – or even a subtle nod – could be a game-changer.
Newshub was also leaked details of the National Party’s Caucus meeting on Tuesday, which included a specific warning to MPs not to talk to Newshub. ”
https://twitter.com/NewshubNZ/status/1123111319769456640
You better hope they stick with Bridges.
Collins would be a game-changer, which is why the media is pushing her so hard.
Bridges is dull and uninspiring. Collins is a balls to the wall sort of candidate, she’ll either soar like an eagle or go down in flames.
Because?
Because what?
Actually, I thought I'd deleted that, but as I didn't I was asking why we would want to stick with Bridges and have Judith instead. I think people seriously underestimate Jacinda, not to mention Winston, if she tried to take them on – not to mention our current speaker.
Besides, too many people are aware of her corrupt practices, and some may have more evidence than has yet been seen fit to reveal.
It would, I suppose, provide the media with a lot of entertainment which would give them even less reason to provide a decent service than they do now
What corrupt practices?
Oravida detour comes to mind for a start.
But Collins is a fool if she wants the poisoned chalice of leadership before the election. Especially with this much lead-in: would have been ok after losing the election because everyone knows she took a hospital pass.
Collins would be more accountable for a negative result, and unfortunately for her she is as good at making political allies as the rest of her former cabinet colleagues.
Besides, the mood of the moment is for empathy, not brutality.
Oravida would have to be the lamest of all scandals.
Nothing but a left-wing media beat up, that any thinking New Zealander could see was a storm in a teacup and a desperate attempt at trying to damage John Key and National.
My God, she visited the company her husband worked for while in China and had dinner with some Ovrivida execs.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/timeline-judith-collins-and-oravida-2014050512
Fucks sake, have a look at this timeline and see how pathetically trivial the whole thing was.
Still bigger than slushigate.
But I reckon she would be better off supporting someone else to replace soimon, someone more competent than him but still mediocre, and knife the replacement after the next election. Unless the replacement starts to turn things around, in which case she'd have to knife them in a year or just under.
She's the only person in National that has the ability and personality to make this a one-term government.
If Collins isn't leading National into 2020, I'd bet everything I own on a Labour/NZ First maybe the Greens? win.
So many National voters will do a spoiler vote for Peters it won't be funny, I reckon he'll probably get somewhere between 10-15% of the vote.
I think she's the preferred choice for party management, but unless caucus also love her, she'll still have a leak problem. And I suspect there are some junior members who want to sweep aside the old guard.
And even if she gets everybody in step, 2020 is the coalition's to lose, and they haven't screwed up too badly yet. Although the budget is coming up – cross your fingers 🙂
I agree with that, it's highly likely Bridges and his supporters would feel quite bitter about him getting replaced by Collins and undermine her for all it's worth.
Probably best for Bridges to fail in 2020 and Collins takes over with a clean slate.
Looks like it's going to be a spoiler vote for me and try and minimize the damage by making Peters the turd in the punch bowl once again.
In this scenario Ardern would be gone by the end of year one, sticking around for another three years where the rug can be pulled out from underneath you at any time probably wouldn't appeal that much.
Especially when far greener pastures are on offer.
Spoiler vote to who BM? ACT?
NZ First.
If that's the best you can hope for, you need a better party
Looks like it's going to be a spoiler vote for me and try and minimize the damage by making Peters the turd in the punch bowl once again.
That probably is the most damage a National supporter can do to Labour and the Greens at the next election. Peters certainly has proven to be a turd in the punch bowl for them in this term of government – mind you, the voters didn't deliver a mandate for the policies most of us here would like the current government to implement, so I shouldn't complain too much.
Why, if it was a "left-wing media beat up", did the entire National Party apparatus (and the “media” that wasn’t “left-wing”) go to such great lengths to conceal, dissemble and lie about it then?
Because they fucked up and allowed the media to make a huge issue out of nothing.
It's exactly the fact that National regards ministers using their political position to support friends' or relatives' private business interests as "nothing" that is the problem.
Go down in flames for sure. She can't even organise a coup.
collins can't even roll bridges – lol – now THAT is pretty useless
This is malicious isn't it – shows bad faith by someone in authority with the Police ? Who keeps their behaviour within bounds – The ICPC is supposed to be a bit close to them for judgments to be unbiased.
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-wrongful-disclosure.html
I drove through the Atiamuri crash site yesterday just a day after the tragedy.
Road cones and signs were in place and tyre marks from emergency services were still raw and visible.
It's an unremarkable bend but as I'd driven about 1000km over yesterday and today I wondered if the usual mens about speed were relevant anymore.
What I noticed with my own driving and those around me was that excessive speed was not an issue. I travelled on or around 100km/hr and wan't passed more than once or twice.
What I did notice though was a moment's diversion of concentration on a bend led me to be a meter or two away from the proper line. I'm talking about in car and out of car distraction on poor quality roads. It's as simple as checking the speedo, clock or fuel gauge. Or reading a road sign for slightly too long.
These are normal processes when driving so the conclusion that our roads are not fit for purpose must be reached.
Time for median barriers of some sort I think.
People not paying attention is the killer.
Fuck the median barriers, people just have to get it into their thick heads that when they're driving you concentrate on your driving and that's it.
Checking your phone, arseing about with whoever is in the car will get you, you’re family and innocent people killed.
I don't live in the Waikato, but my sister lives in Putaruru so I am fairly familiar with the roads all around. Every time I hear of an accident my blood runs cold because I know the chances that the accident is so likely to be in her area, and yet the roads seem no worse than anywhere else, and a lot better then some. What's going on?
I'd say it's because those roads are most driven by locals and as such locals drive longer distances at greater speeds on average roads.
I don't agree they are good roads – SH3 south of Te Kuiti is dire – far worse than Tauranga to Katikati which seems to be the black spot of choice these days.
I didn't say 'good' I said 'no worse than'. If you want to see dire you should take a look up here in Northland!
Every time I hear of an accident my blood runs cold …
Our home is on SH39, a rat- run bypass between Ngaruawahia and Otorohanga. Not a single passing lane and at least 15 speed controlled corners on just the fifteen or so k's I regularly drive. Or more so my grown kids who live in the house while we're up North. That 'blood runs cold thing' many times, thanks to the multitude of fatal accidents we hear about on the radio. Not the first time we have folded our tent and driven to an area where there's cell phone coverage just to check on the offspring.
The solution is for drivers to slow down. Just slow down and give everyone more time to react.
not saying case here but cell phones
No road will ever be twit proof. It would be neither possible nor practical to put median barriers on all our roads…so then what? Impose lower speed limits on un- twit proofed roads? Have special licenses for those with the proven ability to drive defensively and to the conditions? The rest have to stay on the roads with median barriers?
I see where you're coming from Muttonbird but it's just not practical, and it ignores the fact that on the whole, Kiwis are crap drivers.
Impatient. Arrogant. Attention span of hyperactive fleas. Extraordinarily easily distracted. And that's just the bad drivers. Most of us are simply too casual. We simply don't engage 100% with what we are doing. Defensive driving courses should be mandatory, and I'm inclined to agree with some that perhaps we should all be having refresher practical driving tests every ten years or so…or sooner if pinged with driving offenses.
Awful, awful tragedies.
True, I've driven so many km, not once did I think this is a dangerous road.
99% of crashes are down to driver inattention or driver stupidity
Ye gods and little fishes….I find myself agreeing with BM.
Having said that…Muttonbird has a point…our roads take no prisoners.
Strewth….we should all be much better drivers as a consequence.
Why the hell aren't we?
We talk of our driving population, often forgetting the millions who visit, plus the trucks and vans now on our roads, replacing freight trains
Roads have been improved, but our modern cars are able to accelerate in a very few seconds. When stopping distances are understood and the forces of a collision grasped, driving defensively makes so much more sense to those who see this demonstrated.
Seat belts are fundamental, yet we still have people going through windscreens.
"Phones are dangerous but we still have swipers and texters. Utter madness. You are right about refresher courses Rosemary.
You've never experienced a corner that tightened up a lot and gone off-camber? Never been on a long straightaway that had a hard-to-see dip deep enough to hide oncoming traffic with no warning clues it was there?
There's a lot we could do but don't in road design and markings to help less-skilled drivers safely negotiate our roads. That's a fact that has come clearly into my view through helping my eldest learn (with my twins starting to learn in 6 weeks. Be afraid)
Good luck Andre, but still send them for two or three official lessons, as they teach all the new skills, show them the traps for beginners and take them over the driving test route. (Had a Traffic Officer friend who taught privately after taking the Defensive driving courses for years). Cheers.
Definitely for the driving lessons.
I gotta say, there's a few things they expect drivers to do that I honestly think make things more hazardous. Like overusing indicators every time you go past a parked car on a narrow street. So nobody can tell when you actually want to turn into a driveway or something instead of just that you're going past a parked car. Plus the way they watch the speedo like a hawk and don't allow for speedos being 3% to 8% optimistic (that's an international standard BTW).
Once my eldest got his restricted, there was another couple of weeks unteaching him some of things he had to do to pass the test, and teach him how to more go with the flow instead of pissing off everyone around him.
Whenever I get on the open road the thing that scares me the most about other drivers is the widespread failure to keep left. I agree with Andre about the lack of driver training for open road driving. I realised very early in life that this was a skill set I needed to develop fast and I worked hard at developing the ability to read the road ahead, working out how to set up a line through a bend and disciplining myself to stay left and drive to the shoulder delineator. It's my observation that a lot of drivers are scared to get close to the shoulder because they haven't worked out how to judge exactly where their offside wheels are in relation to the shoulder and so their whole driving style is based around driving to the centre line instead of the shoulder line.
I agree about driver inattention vs road condition.
My 16yr old son on his restricted license, 100km road, had a driver not stop at a stop sign. He didn't have a chance to brake or swerve.
Thankfully for us, airbags saved him from serious injuries. The ute he was in was extremely written off.
Unfortunately the 30something driver's mother in the other car passed away at the scene. He was using Google maps to navigate from Hawkes Bay to Taranaki.
Just before the the stop sign there is a slightly raised railway crossing. The driver said that as he had crossed the railway line his aattention was then looking further down the road.
Inexplicably not seeing the stop sign nor the main road.
Hallelujah for airbags.
This incident has impacted my driving. STOPPING at stop signs and having another look and taken the edge off my main cruising speed. Both in the car and on my motorbike.
New Zealand roads are some of the most well engineered in the world and considering the terrain they have to cover too.
Barriers aren't the answer either, huge costs involved and too much area to cover. I think it's very easy to get up in a safety overreaction when it's impossible to make our roads accident proof.
New Zealand roads are some of the most well engineered in the world and considering the terrain they have to cover too.
100% agreement. I am constantly awestruck. A trade that should command much more respect.
Just doubling the budget for yellow paint would make a big difference.
Next time you're out on the open road, keep an eye out for the little white crosses on the side of the road and note how many of them are near a low visibility corner that has a dashed white centreline around the corner.
Anywhere that's not safe to pass should have centreline markings that show that. Corners with low visibility should always have double yellow centrelines. When coming up to a corner where there's not enough visibility for passing, the centreline should change to dashed yellow (your side)/whatever is appropriate (other side) around 250m before the corner, then change to solid yellow (your side)/whatever is appropriate (other side) about 120m before the corner.
When they did this between Puhoi and Warkworth, speeds around the corners dropped noticeably, and tailgating and other aggressive driving also reduced. Solid yellow lines down the centreline do a good job of communicating to drivers that there is some extra hazard here to pay extra attention to.
Even though the Atiamuri crash site already had double yellows, I'd hazard a bet it would make a significant difference elsewhere. FFS, even late 90s Zimbabwe could mark their roads better than we do.
yellow is invariably ignored by idiots…you could double yellow the entire state highway network and there would still be head ons
There would still be some. But not as many. The utility of yellow paint is much more as an aid to the inexperienced and unskilled to help them not make mistakes.
That one simple cheap solution doesn't fix all the problems isn't a reason not to do it, it just means it's only one part of a multi-part attack on the problem.
Behaviour control for idiots needs quite a different approach. Personally I'd like to see all patrol cars be mufti, with instructions to be looking for idiots and ignore minor speeding (unless the minor speeding is in itself quite dangerous).
it is unusually the inexperienced or the unskilled that ignore them…the fact is we are appalling drivers, and getting progressively worse…driverless cars cannot come soon enough, or better still mass public transport
Behaviour control for idiots needs quite a different approach.
That driver…the only one in a long line of traffic who thinks that if they just duck in and out of line, passing one or two cars at a time, they'll get to wherever it is their dying to get to all the quicker.
Nab that bugger. Stern talking to. Make them ride with police and emergency services to get first hand view at how fragile the human body is. Get them to spend serious time in a spinal or head injury unit. Or a burns unit. Still driving like a twat? Implant device than disables any vehicle they sit their sorry arse in.
Sincere best wishes with the Offspring's driving lessons…and Patricia's right about the professional lessons to finish them off. And defensive driving…https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/112321299/kiwi-drivers-lack-of-ability-on-our-roads-scares-former-supercars-driver-greg-murphy
IMO Murphy missed a couple of big issues we do poorly on here.
Driver training and testing for most new drivers happens entirely in urban and suburban environments, with maybe a quick diversion onto a motorway from one exit to the next. Sure it's the most intense driving environment with lots of different stimulus from different directions, but crashes are mostly just bent sheet metal and minor injuries (unless you're a pedestrian or cyclist). But most serious injuries and deaths occur in open road crashes. Unfortunately the only training and testing my kids are getting in open road driving is from me, not from anyone with professional expertise.
The second big issue is about attitude and behaviour towards other drivers. One of the first things I talked about with my kids is how when they first started, they woulod be hesitant- they wouldn't be sure exactly what others expected and they would slow or stop in weird places, which is dangerous so we try to move them through the hesitant level as quickly as possible. The next level is relaxed – where they know what they should do and what others expect and they do it. But if something unusual happens or someone else makes a mistake, it doesn't bother anyone and they just deal with it and move on. Then the next level is assertive – where they can use "body language" to head off someone that looks like they're about to pull a dick move that's going to mess up traffic and that they're comfortable accelerating hard to use a smaller than ideal gap when traffic is busy.
I tell them I want them to be relaxed, but able to shade into assertive occasionally when needed. And that I never want them to go to the next level of being aggressive, coz that's when the chances of people getting hurt goes way up.
But none of the training materials or any of the instructors really have much of anything to say about attitude and how that relates to interaction with other road users.
and none of that can account for idiots
No it doesn't account for all idiots.
But it might help some be not quite so idiotic in their late teens and early twenties. Certainly my mates and I never heard anything like that in our early years of driving. If we had heard things like that and had it modeled for us, it might have lowered the peaks of stupidity of some of the things we got up to.
It's not a problem with one silver bullet answer. There's just a whole lot of incremental improvements across all the different aspects of the problem.
am not sure why but you seem to be assuming that the idiots are predominantly young and inexperienced where my observations are that is far from the reality….idiocy is prevalent across all demographies
https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/97953239/road-toll-which-kiwi-road-users-are-most-at-risk
That driver…the only one in a long line of traffic who thinks that if they just duck in and out of line, passing one or two cars at a time, they'll get to wherever it is their dying to get to all the quicker.
As someone who does that a lot, and has had to pass up to five at a time, I can tell you that they're not just thinking that, they do get there a lot quicker. And the number of crashes caused by someone overtaking multiple slow drivers where there's plenty of room to overtake them? None that I've heard of.
If you're forming an 80 kph convoy behind a camper van or crappy old truck, don't feel superior to someone who doesn't see any reason to join you in that convoy, just let them past: keep left and use any length of hard shoulder if there are people waiting to pass: keep a good following distance so there's room for overtakers to pull back in: try not honking your horn indignantly as they come past you. Driving slowly isn't a virtue.
I can tell you that they're not just thinking that, they do get there a lot quicker.
Really? So why is it so common to meet up with that 'gotta pass' numpty at the next set of lights or bottle neck that my man and I now consider it normal? And we are in a heavy vehicle doing 90kph.
My guess is that you, in your haste and desperate bid to demonstrate your superior driving ability, simply are not registering the other vehicles around you.
If you're forming an 80 kph convoy behind a camper van or crappy old truck, don't feel superior to someone who doesn't see any reason to join you in that convoy, just let them past:
Make no mistake sunshine…I am more than happy to see your rear disappear down the highway. I have no desire to get caught up in your suicide bid. Unfortunately, as I noted above, 15 ks down the road or so and there you are….stuck in the same convoy as the rest of us.
try not honking your horn indignantly as they come past you.
Now that is interesting. If you are getting honked at when passing another vehicle, could it be because you are driving in a manner that disregards the existence of other road users and the honker is simply trying to get you to realise there is actually a live human in that vehicle you just passed…or forced off the road in the on coming lane?
Driving slowly isn't a virtue.
Yes Psycho Milt, of course you're right. Better dead with your ego intact than stuck in traffic eh?
So why is it so common to meet up with that 'gotta pass' numpty at the next set of lights or bottle neck…
My comment assumes the person is driving long distance. There's not much point in passing all the slow-vehicle convoys if you're only travelling 50k.
My guess is that you, in your haste and desperate bid to demonstrate your superior driving ability, simply are not registering the other vehicles around you.
Now that sure would be dangerous driving. On the contrary, overtaking tends to focus the mind very strongly on what other vehicles are doing.
If you are getting honked at when passing another vehicle, could it be because you are driving in a manner that disregards the existence of other road users …
One isn't privy to the thinking of other drivers of course, but the circumstances it's happened in suggest to me there are just some people who regard overtaking as inherently dangerous driving. I might just as well honk at them for queuing up behind a slow vehicle, driving too close to the vehicle in front, not using the hard shoulder to let others past, and leaving people like me half a dozen vehicles to get past, but honking at other people because you don't like their driving is a dick move.
Better dead with your ego intact than stuck in traffic eh?
Overtaking slow vehicles is not inherently fatal, just like driving slowly is not inherently a virtue.
For the last six years or so our regular trip is between south of Hamilton and north of Kaitaia. Our observations of the 'gotta pass' brigade is generally focused on the sections of SH 1 or SH 16 where there are few, if any passing lanes…(on which of course we slow down to 60 or 70 ks to encourage everyone to pass us.) The traffic lights are generally the ones around Warkworth and the southern approach to Whangarei. And the usual pinch points at the Brynderwyns, Pohuehue, Dome Valley, etc.
Having said that…even on the motorways around Auckland we'll catch up with vehicles that passed us with a hiss and a roar ten or twenty ks back. On one hand its amusing that these drivers seem blithely oblivious they are not actually travelling any further than the rest, but it is also quite frightening they are, well, oblivious.
Ah, I see. The upper North Island is a driver's nightmare that I do my best to avoid. Most of my open-road driving is between Rotorua and Wellington.
Ever noticed how most people drive out by the center line . Roads are wider than most realise if everyone drove to the left of their lane they would greatly lower the head ones .
Its saved me more than once .
That's to follow the visual cue of the centre line, rather than visualise the whole road. And to look for overtaking opportunities, and block the driver behind from doing the same. In short poor driving skills.
A large downside of driving to the left of the lane is the same drivers as above who interpret your action as an invitation to overtake and tailgate until they can. Moving back to the middle / right of the lane moves them back to a better following distance.
The problem is virtually none of us have had proper driver training, we just meet a minimum standard of vehicle control and road rules and then get shoved out to learn as we go. Combine that with a natural tendency to want to cram 10 – 12 hours into an 8 hour day, and we get what we have.
Greg Murphy was calling for better training and regular retesting a couple of days ago, which even looking through his large conflict of interest, is a very good idea.
There isn't a "one size fits all" for good road position. The physical road environment, how you are driving, what other road users around you want to do are factors.
If I'm just cruising at 90-95ish because I'm not in a hurry and can't be arsed continually watching for cops and keeping an eye out for cops or have a trailer on, then I'll be as far left as reasonable without kicking up stuff off the road onto cars behind, and try to make it easy for cars behind to pass where there's opportunities.
If I'm more pressed for time, then I'll be closer to the centreline and closer to the car in front, for visibility, being able to pass quicker and safer where reasonable, and to communicate to the vehicle in front that I want to pass.
On residential streets I'll also stay close-ish to the centreline – because soft easily damageable hazards (kids, pets, cyclists) are most likely to suddenly come from the side of the road
As far as being able to save yourself from a head-on on rural roads, knowing how to safely put a couple of wheels at speed onto an unsealed shoulder is a big one that a lot of people don't know how to do. Getting off the brakes before the wheels leave the seal and being smooth and gentle with the steering goes against instinct and has to be learned. It takes a lot of rural driving experience and/or specific training to learn it, which mostly city drivers won't get.
As long as you're comfortable with the fact that you are 3 feet closer to a head on when your in ready to pounce mode all good i guess
You're also in a better position to see it coming and react early, rather than being totally caught by surprise when the vehicle in front suddenly dives to the left.
I have noticed that the most helpful improvement is a newly painted white line on the left hand side. Especially at night or poor visibility.
I try to drive so I can just see that white line through my left wing mirror.
A rather long, cheery read for a Tuesday evening.
The asteroid was vaporized on impact. Its substance, mingling with vaporized Earth rock, formed a fiery plume, which reached halfway to the moon before collapsing in a pillar of incandescent dust. Computer models suggest that the atmosphere within fifteen hundred miles of ground zero became red hot from the debris storm, triggering gigantic forest fires. As the Earth rotated, the airborne material converged at the opposite side of the planet, where it fell and set fire to the entire Indian subcontinent. Measurements of the layer of ash and soot that eventually coated the Earth indicate that fires consumed about seventy per cent of the world’s forests. Meanwhile, giant tsunamis resulting from the impact churned across the Gulf of Mexico, tearing up coastlines, sometimes peeling up hundreds of feet of rock, pushing debris inland and then sucking it back out into deep water, leaving jumbled deposits that oilmen sometimes encounter in the course of deep-sea drilling.
The damage had only begun. Scientists still debate many of the details, which are derived from the computer models, and from field studies of the debris layer, knowledge of extinction rates, fossils and microfossils, and many other clues. But the over-all view is consistently grim. The dust and soot from the impact and the conflagrations prevented all sunlight from reaching the planet’s surface for months. Photosynthesis all but stopped, killing most of the plant life, extinguishing the phytoplankton in the oceans, and causing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere to plummet. After the fires died down, Earth plunged into a period of cold, perhaps even a deep freeze. Earth’s two essential food chains, in the sea and on land, collapsed. About seventy-five per cent of all species went extinct. More than 99.9999 per cent of all living organisms on Earth died, and the carbon cycle came to a halt.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died
alternative link for those who've used up their monthly freebies
http://archive.li/8uWyN
Wow! That is some story. Makes one realise just what insignificant little creatures we humans really are, albeit with superior brains… if only we would use them to help ensure our survival.
George Carlin on saving the planet
correct…and potentially very incorrect….venus springs to mind
The government built in some guarantees for safe nurse staffing with Health Boards, why are they not doing the same with doctor staffing/hours of work?
https://www.asms.org.nz/news/asms-news/2018/07/30/government-led-accord-on-public-hospital-safe-nurse-staffing-levels-welcomed/
Oh look, Dr Cut-n-Paste has gone behind the paywall. He'll be happy he's preaching solely to his own audience now…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12226627
Oz election looming, half the electorate are underwhelmed by both dinosaur parties (all parties actually): https://www.roymorgan.com/morganpoll
"A special Roy Morgan SMS Poll conducted for the Australian Futures Project last week on April 17-18, 2019 with a cross-section of 1,546 electors shows 27% of electors are yet to make up their mind who they will vote for in next month’s Federal Election and 44% of them say no party is addressing the issues that matter to them."
A quarter of the electorate currently undecided, only a 2% gap, so no matter how useless the govt keeps proving itself to be, seems like the opposition keeps trying to prove it can wriggle under the extremely low bar they've set!
No wonder that Indian students are so keen or even desperate to study here. Knowing their stories might give pause to some people who accuse them of coming here and abusing the system.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/112362614/faulty-marking-software-blamed-for-20-student-suicides-in-india
Assistant commissioner Richard Chambers said the fact 80 per cent of the population was using 16 kilograms a week of meth "was a lot" and disappointing. He described the data as the "best information we have ever had".
So, I read the above and damn near fell off my chair. (And since I'm not using any meth, does that mean some poor bugger is using 32 kilograms per week?)
It is late and I am weary, but even the Young Person thought it an unfortunate quote from an article chocka block with poorly presented data.
And if this is the best they can do….
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/112352168/meth-nzs-top-drug–its-in-the-water
Let me tell you what I find very annoying right now in NZ…
The idea that NZ is a hotbed of extremism and hatred, or even in anyway extreme and full of hate.
The Christchurch terror attacks were carried out by a foreigner.
It was a foreign attack on NZ soil for fucks sake
We are doing our country a significant disservice by forgetting this at all times and assuming it was a New Zealand thing.
Bullshit
See main article in New Zealand Geographic magazine for a prime example of this.
.
I'm over it and am pushing back on anyone who claims it is a New Zealand thing.
Once more – it was a foreigner who attacked
Like it was the French Government who sun k the rainbow warrior – it wasn;t fucking us.
.