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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TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
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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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHgJKrmbYfg
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.
.