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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Since invading in 2001, the US has consistently claimed that their war in Afghanistan has been going well, even when it continued year after year after year. Of course, they were lying, and thanks to the Washington Post and the US Freedom of Information Act, we get to see just ...
How should we think about artificial intelligence and the implications that it has for our work and leisure? There are many articles on artificial intelligence and its potential impacts on jobs, and the ethics of applications. These are important topics, but I want to focus on some less discussed aspects, ...
I love data. It’s amazing the sort of “discoveries” I can make given a data set and computer statistical package. It’s just so easy to search for relationships and test their statistical significance. Maybe relationships which ...
The other big story concerning Leeds Hospital is Boris Johnson's bizzare behaviour at Leeds Hospital, where he was confronted by a journalist and challenged about a four year old boy with suspected pneumonia who was left sleeping on the floor, rather than getting abed like a sick kid would in ...
So, for a brief period of history, it was alleged that a protester had punched Matt Hancock's SPAD (not a euphemism; special adviser) when Hancock visited Leeds Hospital.This was reported by the likes of Robert Peston and Laura Keunssberg, as well as the less credible Guido Fawkes. It also quickly ...
by Daphna Whitmore Last week France passed a law that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. It is based on a definition of anti-Semitism that includes criticism of Israel such as: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist ...
Over the past year we've seen major bus problems in Hamilton and Wellington, as drivers have sought better wages and an end to the bullshit of split shifts, which basicly see them "married to the job". And now its Auckland's turn. When NZBus's drivers planned low-level strike action of not ...
The government has been congratulating itself over the passage of the Zero Carbon Act, which sets out long-term emissions targets. But those targets are insufficient. Meanwhile, Denmark is showing us how its done:Denmark’s parliament adopted a new climate law on Friday, committing to reach 70% below its 1990 emissions in ...
Another day, another piece of legislation with a secrecy clause. This time its the innocuous-seeming Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill, which (after establishing a new body and making it subject to the OIA in three different ways) includes the rapidly-becoming-standard clauses enabling it to request information from other public ...
The state of the United Kingdom is fractured, torn up, shredded. The Empire is gone, it died a long time ago. And yet, the country is still tracking with a lead in favour of the ones who play to the ingrained, class-bound division for political gain. It is a disgrace ...
On 27 September, Greta Thunberg addressed a crowd of 500,000 at the School Strike for Climate in Montreal, saying: “You are a nation that is allegedly a climate leader. And Sweden is also a nation that is allegedly a climate leader. And in both cases, it means absolutely nothing. Because ...
It should be obvious by now but let’s be clear: The same folk who regularly traffic in disinformation, misinformation and “fake news” are also those who most strongly claim that their freedom of expression rights are being violated when moves are made to curb hate speech (as opposed to protected ...
Michael SchulsonWhen Shane Burcaw flies on an airplane, he brings along a customized gel cushion, a car seat, and about 10 pieces of memory foam. The whole arsenal costs around $1,000, but for Burcaw it’s a necessity. The 27-year-old author and speaker — who, alongside his fiancée, Hannah ...
We are very pleased to publish this submission is from Lucinda Stoan. She is a social justice activist, mother, and educator, based in Washington State in the US. This detailed and comprehensive source-linked overview of trans issues and what is at stake will be useful for many people, especially in ...
New Zealand's Underarm Banker: It bears recalling that the “independence” of the Reserve Bank Governor was for decades held up by neoliberal capitalists as the most compelling justification for passing the Reserve Bank Act. Interesting, is it not, how the ruling class’s support for the Bank’s independence lasted no longer than ...
Rubbish In, Rubbish Out: Put all this together, and it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that anyone who responds positively to a pollster’s request to “answer a few questions” is just ever-so-slightly weird. Desperately lonely? Some sort of psephological train-spotter? Political party member primed to skew the poll for or against ...
“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. A long and bitter court feud between former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig and Jordan Williams has been settled, with an apology and compensation from Williams. On Tuesday, Craig sent out ...
Samuel Becher, Victoria University of Wellington and Jessica C Lai, Victoria University of WellingtonEarlier this year, the New Zealand-based pizza chain Hell Pizza offered a limited-edition “Burger Pizza”. Its customers weren’t told that the “meat” was plant-based. Some customers complained to the Commerce Commission, which enforces consumer law in ...
Some people seem to want to close down any critical discussion of the current research into the relationship between water fluoride and child IQ. They appear to argue that claims made by researchers should not be open to critical review and that the claims be accepted without proper consideration ...
The government has been congratulating itself over the passage of the Zero Carbon Act, which sets out long-term emissions targets. Meanwhile, Climate Action Tracker has the shameful reality: those targets are insufficient:While New Zealand is showing leadership by having passed the world’s second-ever Zero Carbon Act in November 2019, under ...
The government introduced a Racing Industry Bill today. As an urban who horse racing as pointless-to-cruel, and gambling as a tax on stupidity and/or hope, this isn't normally a bill which would interest me in the slightest, beyond grumpiness at more government money for a dying industry. But there is ...
Check. Check. One, two, three, four. Is this thing ON? Hello readers, I logged in last night (yeah, it’s been a while) to mark THE END of the landmark legal case, Jordan Williams v Colin Craig, which (gulp) reached The Supreme Court, in which New Zealand’s most-defamed man was suing the politician he ...
Before The Birth: Israel’s most fervent supporters set their clocks ticking in Biblical times. They cite the kingdoms of David and Solomon as proof that, in the words of the Exodus movie’s theme-song: “This land is mine.” The majority of Israel’s backers, however, start their clocks in 1933 – the year Adolf ...
In an unreliable, strange and confusing world, Public Address is proud to present a measure of comfort and stability by annually asking everyone what words or phrases sum up the year that's been – and then giving some of them consumer goods as prizes for being clever or simply lucky.Well, ...
Both my parents are pretty handy – and they seem to have the right tools for most jobs in the garage and they know how to fix practically anything. A similar story could be told about their generation’s experience in the workforce – being a generalist was not unusual and ...
When it was revealed that NZ First had tried to enrich itself from public office via the Provoncial Growth Fund, the Prime Minister assured us that everything was OK as Shane Jones, the Minister responsible for the fund, had recused himself. Except it seems that that recusal came very late ...
Today is a Member's Day, and probably the last one of the year. After the marathon of the End of Life Choice Act, most of the bills up for debate today are uncontentious. First up is the second reading of Chlöe Swarbrick's Election Access Fund Bill. This will be followed ...
The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has reported back on the government's odious and tyrannical control orders bill. As expected, the fraudulent select committee process has made no significant changes (partly because they couldn't agree, but mostly because it was a stitch-up from the start, with no intention of ...
Yesterday, the government released its draft Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill, which will be put to a non-binding referendum at the next election. I'm not a drug policy expert, but Russell Brown is, and he thinks its pretty good. And pretty obviously, it will be a massive improvement on the ...
As you're probably aware, the draft bill outlining the proposed legal cannabis regime to be put to a referendum late next year was published yesterday, and has already attracted a flurry of comment. It's notable that a good deal of the comment is about proposals that aren't actually new.A minimum ...
One of the big problems in New Zealand climate change policy is the government working at cross-purposes with itself. It wants to reduce fossil fuel use, but encourages oil and gas exploration. It wants to reduce transport emissions, but then builds enormous new roads. The problem could be avoided if ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzAccording to the United Nations, food shortages are a threat ...
Last year, the government announced it was ending offshore oil exploration by no longer issuing new permits. The idea was that the industry would then die off as permits expired. Except almost immediately the government revealed its bad faith, by saying they would extend permits and alter conditions to keep ...
The government introduced the Education and Training Bill to Parliament yesterday. Its a massive bill, which replaces both existing Education Acts, as well as various other bits of legislation (including some which are still proceeding through the House). I'll leave the serious analysis to teachers and people who actually know ...
Amelia SharmanThere’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to micro-credentials, those bits of bite-sized learning that can help workers stay on top of technological change. What’s a micro-credential? While definitions vary, micro-credentials can be understood as short courses that allow people to learn new skills or have an existing competency recognised. ...
All Smiles Now: Claire Szabo is taking up her presidential role after serving as the CEO of Habitat For Humanity. Which is absolutely perfect! After KiwiBuild was so comprehensively mismanaged by Phil Twyford, the party has not only elected a new president from a thoroughly respectable not-for-profit, but one who ...
While much of the NZ left has transitioned to postmodern and identity politics in relation to transgender ideology, there are some very good articles about that deploy Marxist methodology in relation to this subject. The one below is from the British marxist group Counterfire and appeared on their site here ...
by Daphna Whitmore At Golden Oaks, a luxurious country retreat in the Hudson Valley, pregnant women have the best care money can buy. From the organic food, personalised exercise programmes, private yoga instruction and daily massages Golden Oaks looks like a country lodge for the upper class. Set some time ...
When Labour was running for election in 2017, it felt it needed to demonstrate "fiscal responsibility" and signed itself up to masochistic "budget responsibility rules". It was a fool's errand: the sorts of voters who demand fiscal responsibility are also the sorts of voters who believe that labour can never ...
Writing in Stuff, Joel MacManus looks at what we need to do to meet the Zero Carbon Act's targets. The core of it:1. Convert 85 per cent of vehicles on the road to electric. 2. Eliminate fossil fuels from all industrial heating up to 300 degrees Celsius. 3. Double our ...
Professors Janet Hoek and Richard Edwards, Emeritus Professor Phil Gendall, Jude Ball, Dr Judith McCool, Anaru Waa, Dr Becky FreemanRecent media reports have presented conflicting evidence on youth vaping in NZ. While some NZ school principals report concerns about increasing vaping on school grounds and confiscating vapes, ASH Year ...
“America the Beautiful!”, staunch defender of democracy, freedom and… a whole lot of despotic tyrants that play nice with what is called “the Washington Consensus.” America is indeed capable of immense good, but like any Nation, and most assuredly any aspirant to the mantle of Empire, great, immense evil. All ...
Image credit:The beginner’s guide to blogging I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is ...
1080 is used to control pests in NZ. Its use is contested by a noisy few. A new report claims high levels of 1080 in rats washed up on a beach. Flora and Fauna of Aotearoa (F&F) won’t name the laboratory that did their testing. It has sparked a hunt ...
What Kind Of Empire? The thing for Kiwis to decide is what kind of empire they want to belong to. The kind that, while offering its own citizens democratic rights, demands absolute obedience from its “friends”? Or, the kind that, while authoritarian at home, takes a relaxed attitude to the ...
It hasn't been a good week for the Conservatives, pollwise. All major recent polls are showing their lead shrinking.Comparing each pollster's current (between 29/11 and 22/11) and previous most recent poll.Com Res - Conservative lead down 3 points.You Gov - Conservative lead down 1 point.Kantar - Conservative lead down 4 ...
Paramedics have reiterated their support for New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball's bill to impose mandatory prison sentences on those who assault our first responders and prison officers. There are more than 50 cases of abuse and assault against New Zealand paramedics each week. The figure has remained largely unchanged ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has revealed the Party’s stance on a proposed single public broadcaster. He said it had been the NZ First policy to support and strengthen public sector media. "For this reason, we welcome the initiative of Minister Faafoi to progress work in this area. Both ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First Introduction Good morning, and thank you for your attendance here today. Let us start by acknowledging the work of all the media outlets and reporters, particularly the regional reporters, who have been covering this week’s tragedy at Whakaari White Island. It ...
New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball’s bill introducing a six-month minimum sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its first reading in Parliament. Mr Ball said the new offence of "injuring a first responder or prison officer with intent" would target people who attacked paramedics, police, firefighters, and corrections ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters gave his final interview for 2019 on The Country to tell farmers they have never had it better under the current coalition Government. “Here you've got these record returns [for farmers]. These returns would be nothing like a record if the currency under the ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters said that New Zealand's Cook Islands High Commissioner, Tessa Temata, has died over the weekend. Ms Temata, 52, died in Palmerston North and had returned to New Zealand for medical treatment. She was the first New Zealand High Commissioner to the Cook Islands of Cook Island ...
A new defence report has mapped out how New Zealand's soldiers will navigate rising seas, and a year after the Defence Force announced its need to prepare for climate change. In the “Responding to the Climate Crisis” report, the Force restates its operational plan and sets goals to tackle climate ...
We're rebuilding New Zealand - our transport network, our hospitals, our schools and more... After nine years of neglect there's a lot to fix - but we're getting on with the job. ...
We're rebuilding New Zealand - our transport network, our hospitals, our schools and more... After nine years of neglect there's a lot to fix - but we're getting on with the job. ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First spokesperson for Primary Industries, Mark Patterson, has called for awareness to be raised and more stringent biosecurity checks to be put in place for African Swine Fever (ASF), a widespread virus that is uncontrolled in most of Asia and a serious ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Human Rights A critical step has been taken to end gender based violence against women and girls in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for Human Rights Jenny Marcroft MP has welcomed the passing of the first reading of the Crimes (Definition of Female ...
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones says it's time to recognise market forces haven't led to the expected reduction in Māori smoking rates and try a new approach. The Party had recently invoked the agree to disagree clause in their Coalition Agreement with the Labour Party, and will not support ...
Live from the Whanganui Opera House, on the final day of the 2019 Labour Party Conference, Jacinda Ardern announced the largest investment in school property in 25 years. ...
The Coalition Government will be banning foreign donations to political parties and candidates, ahead of next year’s general elections. Legislation will be introduced to Parliament and passed under urgency – emphasising the need for such restrictions to safeguard our democracy. The bill introduces a new requirement that party secretaries and ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones opened Taipā's $19 million bridge recently, improving transport infrastructure in the Northland region. The two-lane bridge is 107m long with a 2.5m-wide shared walking and cycling path, and will reduce the congestion that the old one-lane bridge was notorious for. The project had also included ...
The Overseas Investment Office have rejected the application of Mercury Agriculture LP, which is 92 per cent controlled by Canadian interests, to purchase more than 2000 hectares of South Canterbury and Otago land. Mercury wanted to buy 2000ha at Rangitata, 1494ha near Ashburton, 816ha near Cromwell and 212ha near Temuka. ...
This weekend was Labour's 103rd Party Conference! We welcomed over 500 of our Labour whānau in red to Whanganui, where we reflected on the last two years in Government, and looked ahead to 2020 and beyond. We know the long-term challenges facing New Zealand won't be tackled overnight, but we're making ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced that the Provincial Growth Fund will invest $9.6 million to seal the final unsealed section of State Highway 43 from Stratford to Taumarunui. The Minister said sealing the 12-kilometre gravel section of the highway – also called the “Forgotten World Highway” - through ...
Former Finance Minister and former chair of the Tax Working Group, Sir Michael Cullen, has voiced his support for New Zealand First’s decision to oppose the planned increase in tobacco excise tax. In an interview with The Weekend Collective, he said that increasing the price was no longer effective in ...
Māori are natural storytellers. On the marae we use stories to tell our history, to teach the next generation life lessons and to let people know, in our most creative of ways, who we are and where we have come from. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First has invoked the ‘Agree to Disagree’ provisions of the Coalition Agreement because it cannot support the announced 11.46 percent increase in the tobacco excise from 1 January 2020. “Studies show that the automatic tobacco excise increases are having less effect ...
Taupō-based company Geo40 has made a breakthrough in extracting near battery-grade lithium from geothermal fluid which its says could be a gamechanger. Its chief executive John Worth said the earth mineral was highly prized, with battery-grade lithium selling for US$10,000 (NZ$15,600) a tonne. Geo40 was founded in 2010 to find ...
Crown research institute AgResearch Ltd, as part of its Future Footprint plan, had intended to relocate top scientists and support staff — particularly those focused on sheep genetics and genomics — from Invermay to Lincoln. However, those plans seem to have been shelved at the request of the Coalition Government. ...
Ten engineering firms in Southland are receiving a total of $2.13 million in Provincial Growth Fund funding to lift productivity and create new jobs. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced in Invercargill that the 10 engineering and manufacturing firms would receive funding to assist them with buying equipment that ...
The number of new residents to New Zealand is the lowest it has been in nearly two decades and it has earned the ire of the immigration industry. The industry alleges that 'Trump-style extreme vetting' is being put in place aimed at keeping a lid on immigration numbers. June Ranson, ...
The Royal New Zealand Air Force is one step closer to modernising its fleet after the United States State Department recently approved the sale of five new C-130J Hercules aircraft to New Zealand. Arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, in Fort Worth, Texas, will provide the aircraft, but as a "foreign military ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development A $261,000 loan from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) has helped a family-run business in Manawatū to scale up manufacturing capacity, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced at its opening today. Ashhurst-based skin-care business The Herb Farm is on track to ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Regional Freight Hub near Palmerston North has taken a step forward with the completion of the master plan, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said. Shane Jones unveiled the high-level design of the new Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) backed rail-road hub ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of DefenceTērā te haeata takiri ana mai i runga o Pukaha!Ara tai uru, whai uru, whai uru!Ara whai ato, whai ato, whai ato!Ara rā tini, ara rā tini, ara ri!The rays of the morning sun strike a new dawn upon Pukaha ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic DevelopmentThe Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $772,000 in opportunities for growth in Manawatū-Whanganui, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today.NZ Bio-Forestry Limited will receive a $380,000 boost for game-changing research which could unlock significant growth in the wood processing sector, ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced today the appointment of diplomat Sarah Lee as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to South Africa. She will be the first female Head of Mission to represent New Zealand in Africa. “New Zealand’s relationship with South ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones wants to create a log barging facility at Hicks Bay and turn the area into a Special Economic Zone. The move would be part of protecting New Zealand's forests from being depleted by India and China, he said. It follows his announcement last week to strengthen ...
New Zealand First supports the changes recommended by the Winter Grazing Taskforce to improve animal welfare outcomes through the winter months, and the establishment of a pan-sector action group to implement them. New Zealand First Primary Industries Spokesperson Mark Patterson says the report highlights areas of concern about the animal ...
Former prime ministers Helen Clark and Sir John Key, formerly from the Labour and National parties respectively, have joined forces in support of New Zealand First’s plan to relocate Auckland's port to Whangārei. While Ms Clark and Sir John spent their political careers on opposite sides of the political divide, ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is in Japan for the Foreign Ministers' meeting of the G20 grouping of countries as one of nine "invited" countries. He has used the opportunity to cast a spotlight on the plight of Pacific countries, calling out countries which still offered subsidies or Government assistance to ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on his election victory. “New Zealand and the United Kingdom are close friends and despite our distance we are strongly connected by our history and people,” Jacinda Ardern said. “I look forward to continuing to work with Prime ...
The Government has released its long term vision for a sustainable 21st Century rail network that gets our cities moving, connects our regions and gets more freight off the roads. Deputy Prime Minister and State Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters said the Government is committed to rebuilding New Zealand’s ...
I want to start by acknowledging the families who have experienced such grief and such loss since the extraordinary tragedy on Monday. Today was all about reuniting them with their loved ones. We've just come from the airport where many of them were gathered and in amongst what you can ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further support for Samoa’s longer term needs as it continues to respond to a devastating measles epidemic. “Samoa’s health system has experienced massive strain in the wake of the measles epidemic. The volume of patients needing care during this outbreak, and the number of ...
Discounted electric bikes will be offered up to public sector staff across the country as part of the Government’s work to reduce transport emissions and support healthier transport options. Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter officially launched the new initiative at Wellington Hospital today. “The Government has negotiated bulk-purchase ...
The Australian and New Zealand Governments today launch an historic joint bid to bring the FIFA Women’s World Cup to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time. Australian Minister for Youth and Sport, Richard Colbeck and New Zealand Minister for Sport and Recreation Grant Robertson will announce the bold campaign, ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) has approved a $15 million loan to help re-establish a gold mining operation at Blackwater Gold Mine, near Reefton, Rural Communities Minister and local MP Damien O’Connor announced at an event on the West Coast today. “This is great news for the Coast that could ...
Papakāinga model inspires whānau well-being A housing project by Kohupātiki whānau in Hastings is an outstanding example of a Māori-led housing initiative that can reduce financial pressure and reconnect whānau to their whakapapa says the Minister for Māori Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta. Minister Mahuta officially opened the Aroha Te Rangi ...
Restoration efforts for a significant wetland in the Hawke’s Bay are getting more support announced Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage. “Wetlands are vital to healthy landscapes and ecosystems. They function as nature’s ‘kidneys’, filtering and protecting water quality, acting as nature’s sponges after rain and are home to ...
Nelson has today seen the launch of Housing First Nelson Tasman. Today’s launch marks the expansion of the Government’s homelessness programme, Housing First, to the top of the South Island. “Housing First is a proven programme that puts people who are experiencing homelessness and multiple, high and complex needs into ...
New Government funding announced today will help communities make a difference in tackling environmental issues Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage announced in Hawkes Bay today. The Ministry for the Environment’s Community Environment Fund is dedicating $243,101 to growing the capacity and capability of the Environment Hubs Aotearoa’s (EHA) ...
The days of vulnerable consumers falling victim to loan sharks, truck shops and other predatory lenders are numbered, following the Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill passing its third reading tonight. “Too many Kiwis are being given loans that are unaffordable and unsuitable, trapping them in debt and leaving their families ...
A Bill that prevents terrorism and supports the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas has passed its third reading, Justice Minister Andrew Little says. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill is a carefully targeted response to manage the risk posed by a small number of New Zealanders who have ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio will travel to Samoa on Friday, where New Zealand medical teams are helping Samoa respond to an outbreak of measles. “New Zealand has been working closely with the Government of Samoa and offering our assistance from the ...
The Government has changed the law to improve student safety and welfare in university halls of residence and other student accommodation. The Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill passed its third reading this afternoon and details of an interim Code of Practice setting out the Government’s expectations of tertiary providers have also been released. ...
A new tool to help councils fund and finance infrastructure could mean some housing developments happen a decade earlier than currently planned, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford said today. “This new tool, developed by the Government in partnership with industry and high-growth councils, will allow councils to access private debt ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has welcomed the release of a bold new vision for the country’s vital food and fibre sector. “I’m delighted that New Zealand’s major farmer and grower organisations are today supporting the Primary Sector Council’s vision – Fit for a Better World,” he said. “The international consumers ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has congratulated the Government of Papua New Guinea and the Autonomous Bougainville Government for completing a well-conducted referendum on the future political status of Bougainville. “New Zealand supported the referendum process by providing technical advice through the New Zealand Electoral Commission and leading a Regional Police ...
In light of Cabinet’s position that freight operations on prime land in downtown Auckland are no longer viable, the Government will now embark on a short work programme to enable decision-making in the first half of next year, Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones says. Minister Jones is today releasing the ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter has received the report back from a surgical mesh restorative justice process undertaken by Victoria University. The process heard stories, either in person or online submission, from more than 600 people affected by surgical mesh. “The report made for heart-breaking and confronting reading,” says ...
The Water Services Regulator Bill – Taumata Arowai , introduced to Parliament today, is a milestone for drinking water safety in New Zealand and will help improve environmental outcomes for urban waterways, rivers and lakes. “This is a breakthrough for New Zealanders in terms of providing safe drinking water throughout ...
Kia ora koutouE ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā matā wakaTēnā koutou katoaHaere ngā, moe maiKoutou ma ngā Rangatira Ko Anaru ahauKo au te Minita mo ngā TureHe Honore tino nui kei roto I ahau No reira tena koutou katoa Today, we are releasing two reports that are the ...
The Government is looking to turn around the long-term challenges of criminal justice by taking a new approach to break the cycle of offending to ensure there are fewer victims of crime. Justice Minister Andrew Little released two reports today, Turuki! Turuki! from Te Uepū Hāpai I te Ora, and ...
New Zealand firms expanding beyond the start-up phase are set for more support after today’s passage of the Venture Capital Fund Bill, Associate Finance Minister David Parker said. The Bill, which establishes a $300 million Venture Capital Fund, puts in place a key initiative of the Wellbeing Budget’s economic package. ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira mā. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Señora Presidenta, Excellencies, Delegates. International action A common thread that runs through the Paris Agreement is the commitment we have made to each other to do what we can to ...
The Government is lifting capital investment to the highest level in more than 20 years as it takes the next step to future-proof New Zealand. Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced $12 billion of new investment, with $8 billion for specific capital projects and $4 billion to be added to ...
The Government is forecast to run $12 billion worth of surpluses across the four years to 2023/24 as the economy continues to grow. The surpluses will help fund day-to-day capital requirements each year. These include fixing leaky hospitals, building new classrooms to cover population growth and take pressure off class ...
Budget 2020 will continue the Coalition Government’s focus on tackling the long-term challenges facing New Zealand while also investing to future-proof the economy. When the Government took office in 2017 it was left with crumbling infrastructure, severe underinvestment in public services, degraded rivers and lakes, a housing crisis and rising ...
The Minister responsible for the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 (te Takutai Moana Act 2011), Andrew Little has welcomed the launch of an online geospatial tool that provides data-rich, dynamic coastline maps that will significantly boost research and evidence-gathering under the Act. Te Kete Kōrero a Te ...
The Chief Victims Advisor to Government Dr Kim McGregor, QSO, has been reappointed in her role for a further two years. Dr McGregor has held the role since it was established in November 2015. She provides independent advice to government on how to improve the criminal justice system for victims. ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Civil Defence Minister Peeni Henare have today announced the deployment of a network of DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami) buoys. “New Zealand and the Pacific region are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. It is vital we have adequate warning systems in place,” ...
DART Buoys Announcement Aotea Wharf, 9.30am 11 December 2019 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements to Minister for Civil Defence Hon Peeni Henare also here today. White Island It is with regret that this event shadows the tragic natural disaster two days ago. The volcanic eruptions on White Island have claimed 5 lives, ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has welcomed the first reading of the Racing Industry Bill in parliament today. This is the second of two Bills that have been introduced this year to revitalise New Zealand’s racing industry. “Our domestic racing industry has been in serious decline. The Government is committed to ...
Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni, is pleased to announce that $291,321 is to be awarded to national and local community initiatives to maintain and promote the use of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). “New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world where Sign Language is an ...
Minister for Veterans Ron Mark has announced today the Coalition Government’s initial response to work completed by the independent statutory body, the Veterans’ Advisory Board. “When Professor Ron Paterson completed his review of the Veterans’ Support Act in 2018, he made a number of recommendations, including one which I referred ...
The Government will fund the bulk of the cost of a rural water supply for the Ohakea community affected by PFAS contamination, Environment Minister David Parker announced today at a meeting of local residents. This new water scheme will provide a reliable and clean source of drinking water to the ...
I have had the opportunity to be briefed on the details of the volcanic eruption of Whakaari/White Island, off the coast of Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty. The eruption happened at 2.11pm today. It continues to be an evolving situation. We know that there were a number of tourists ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare have today confirmed initial Government support of $100,000 for communities affected by the severe weather that swept across the South Island and lower North Island over the weekend. The contribution will be made to Mayoral relief funds across the ...
New Zealand's High Commissioner to the Cook Islands, Tessa Temata, died in Palmerston North over the weekend, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said today. Ms Temata, 52, had recently returned to New Zealand for medical treatment. "On behalf of the Government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, we extend ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today announced construction is underway on Wellington commuter rail upgrades which will mean more frequent services and fewer breakdowns. The upgrades include converting the Trentham to Upper Hutt single track section to a double track, with a new signalling system, upgraded stations and level crossings, and ...
To celebrate the 50th birthday of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth, Walters Prize-winning artist Ruth Buchanan has rehung their collection, bringing previously unseen works and skeletons out of the closet. Her new exhibition The scene in which I find myself/Or, where does my body belong examines ...
It is hard to remember a year in which New Zealand was so repeatedly in global headlines, writes Kamahl Santamaria, a Kiwi journalist based in Doha.Time zones are a strange thing. You go to sleep, and then for eight hours or so, you miss out on everything happening on the ...
Napoleon demanded that his generals be lucky. Conservative PM Boris Johnson, as he surveys a thumping victory in the British general election, would meet that criterion.His luck bears a resemblance to that of Margaret Thatcher. Like her, he has made a decisive break with orthodox establishment thinking. That presents ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison has rejected or sidelined a number of recommendations from the long-awaited Thodey review of the public service that might have constrained his and his government’s power. Not surprisingly, a proposal to ensure changes ...
Analysis - The "do nothing" government announces a big spend-up on infrastructure, moving the Port of Auckland, and Winston Peters throws his weight behind NZME's bid to buy Stuff. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]For their last video for the year, University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini and Michelle Grattan look backwards to the big issues which have shaped political discourse. They discuss the surprise election results, and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has acknowledged Ngāti Awa for their role as tangata whenua (people of the land) in leading and caring for affected whānau (family members), following the Whakaari / White Island eruption and recovery operation earlier today. ...
The Environment Committee has opened for public submissions on the Urban Development Bill. The bill follows on from the Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities bill, which disestablished Housing New Zealand and set up a Crown entity in the same name. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Loader, Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Murdoch University, Murdoch University This article is part of our Gender and Christianity series. To understand contemporary Christian ideas about gender, and specifically masculinity, we need to go all the way back to the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Gissing, General Manager, Risk Frontiers, Adjunct Fellow, Macquarie University Calls are growing for a national bushfire plan, including from former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who says they are an issue of national security and the federal government must provide hands-on leadership. ...
Pro-democracy lobby group Democracy Action welcome New Zealand First’s commitment to hold firm rejecting the Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene’s bill to entrench the Māori seats. The Bill, which would require any changes to the seats to require the ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.Sometimes you are just doing a podcast as usual and then Colin Mathura-Jeffree gives you a call and throws your world off its axis. In a very special edition of Colin’s Cranny: Live, ...
We get a handle on the artists and artworks that shaped this decade in Aotearoa.As 2019 draws to a close, the four nominees for this year’s Turner Prize subverted the competition – they asked to receive the award as a collective. Meanwhile, at Art Basel Miami Beach, a banana taped ...
The second and final report of Te Uepū Hāpai i te Ora, the Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group, contains nothing we didn’t know 30 years ago. Yet generations of politicians have ignored the same advice, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira.Between the 1950s and 1990s, New Zealand experienced seismic social, economic ...
Fuel company Z Energy has cut its earnings forecast for the year by 10 percent because of tougher competition and falling margins, and is forecasting a big cut in dividends. ...
Liquidators of the hacked cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia have travelled to the United States, to retrieve customers' information and certain crypto-assets. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kath Albury, Professor of Media and Communication, Faculty of Health, Arts and Design, Swinburne University of Technology Popular commentary on dating apps often associates their use with “risky” sex, harassment and poor mental health. But anyone who has used a dating app ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Grimmer, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania Australian shoppers are set to spend $52.7 billion this Christmas. In the words of the retail industry, we are “stampeding” to empty our wallets, both online and ...
NZ Herald and many other media outlets ran a story on a man whose farts could repel mosquitos, despite the story coming from a satire news site and not being verified in any way, writes Dan Satherly for Newshub.“Man’s farts so deadly he kills mosquitoes in a 6m radius” is ...
Timing right to borrow our way to a stronger economy in 2020 The Government’s announcement of its intent to invest significantly in the county’s infrastructure could turbo charge an economic recovery that was already showing positive signs for ...
A poem by writer, journalist, and former Manus Island refugee Behrouz Boochani.Forgive me my loveTranslated by Moones Mansoubi, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, 2018 Forgive me my bird as I am not able to embrace you.But here,in this corner,I know some migrating birds that I smile to at dawn.I embrace them ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Powles, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Massey University The Autonomous Region of Bougainville, a chain of islands that lie 959 kilometres northwest of Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, has voted unequivocally for independence. The referendum saw 85% voter turnout during ...
Fisheries New Zealand starts consultation today on proposed changes to catch settings for rock lobster and scallops for the new fishing year beginning 1 April 2020. ...
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. This was the declaration of the pigs who control the government in George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm– a tart comment on the hypocrisy of governments that proclaim the absolute equality of their citizens but gives power and privileges ...
SPCA has been working flat out to desex more than 80 animals a day over the last year, which is the most desexing SPCA has done since recording the figures. ...
“The fact so many families are struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table must be addressed urgently if we’re to provide the foundations for a good life for the next generation of New Zealanders,” says Scott Figenshow, Chief Executive ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton, $40)Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize.2The Body: ...
This holiday season Te Tari Taiwhenua, Department of Internal Affairs wants to offer parents and caregivers some advice on how to help keep your family safe online. ...
A report released by the Chief Victims advisor Kim McGregor advising there needs to be an Independent Victims body is being welcomed by Victim Rights lobby group Sensible Sentencing Trust. National spokesperson Jess McVicar says the trust have ...
For the third time in five years, the United Kingdom has gone to the polls today. From the summer islands of New Zealand, join The Spinoff as we follow the results rolling in.9.30am: So, with polls about 90 minutes away from closing, the top line is this – we’ve got ...
Winston Peters will back an NZME proposal to buy Stuff with a 'Kiwishare' guarantee the merged news company will keep regional news and separate websites for at least two years. ...
The Executive Director of Dapaanz (Addiction Practitioners’ Association Aotearoa New Zealand), Sue Paton says the announcement that Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment court would become permanent immediately, following successful pilots in Auckland ...
Online marketplace Sidekicker is taking advantage of people who have little choice but to juggle multiple low-paying jobs to make ends meet, writes artist and freelancer Ben Markley.After graduating early this year with one of the least vocational degrees, I didn’t expect the largest array of job prospects. Nevertheless, I ...
National is vowing to bring back and expand health sector targets dropped by the current Government and mulling whether to scrap elected District Health Boards. ...
More than 10,000 people have signed a petition launched a week ago, calling for better support and funding for community midwives. The 10k figure was reached after the first four days. Chief executive of the College of Midwives, Alison Eddy, said last ...
Information obtained by animal rights organisation SAFE has revealed rodeo organisers are refusing to halt calf-roping events in rodeo, despite the Government’s animal welfare advisors’ recommendation that they do so. ...
Subject; Deputy PM said quote; “New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has challenged his Cabinet colleagues for the delay over a Northport decision, criticising it as "paralysis by analysis". https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/405385/paralysis-by-analysis-winston-peters-assessment-of-the-delay-over-northport ...
If the Productivity Commission's report on local government funding, released yesterday, had been relied on by NASA as the basis for getting astronauts to the moon, its greatest achievement by now would have been launching a $2 skyrocket 40 feet into the air ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Mayne, Molecular biologist and bioinformatician, CSIRO Humans have a “natural” lifespan of around 38 years, according to a new method we have developed for estimating the lifespans of different species by analysing their DNA. Extrapolating from genetic studies of species with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Evans, Professor of Governance and Director of Democracy 2025 – bridging the trust divide at Old Parliament House, University of Canberra A new, ongoing survey on how young Australians understand and imagine their democracy is already challenging long-held stereotypes. The survey ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francesco Paolucci, Associate Professor; Head of Health Policy Program, Sir Walter Murdoch School of Public Policy and International Affairs, University of Newcastle Private health insurance has come under intense scrutiny in recent months, as it becomes clear health insurers are failing to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project; and Online Teacher at Education Queensland’s IMPACT Centre, The University of Queensland This is the second of two essays exploring key theories – cognitive load theory and constructivism – underlying teaching ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW On Monday the Australian government will release the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO). This will – as required by the Charter of Budget Honesty – provide an update on the key assumptions made in this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia It seems like every time we switch on the idiot box we are confronted with news footage of another disaster. Bushfires in Australia. A hurricane in North America. A tsunami ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Andrew Little indicates justice system changes after reports, Auckland buses back on the road, and National release health proposals. Two significant reports for the justice sector were released yesterday. The first was Turuki! Turuki! Transforming our Criminal Justice System from the Chester Borrows-led Safe and ...
On Wednesday, the government announced a $12 billion infrastructure package. It turns out that scrapped National Party roading projects are back in consideration for funding under the scheme. ...
Andy Ruiz Jr pulled of a massive shock by KO’ing Anthony Joshua in New York. And then delivered another stunning moment when he stepped onto the scales in Saudi Arabia. ...
What happens when your work is the victim of attempted sabotage by a group of slow-moving middle-aged men? Author and journalist Michelle Duff reveals all.Initially, it was kind of unclear what I was looking at. The disembodied hand loomed from the shaky first-person footage, flipping the cover of the book ...
The National Party leader sits down with Alex Braae to talk political rhetoric, misinformation, and whether he’ll have any dance partners after next year’s election.How cynical is Simon Bridges? It’s a question that has dogged National’s leader over the past year.Being an opposition leader is, of course, a difficult job ...
Sharon Brettkelly calls home to the Bay of Plenty to give us an insight into what Whakatane locals are thinking in the wake of Whakaari-White Island's eruption ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison is picking up that Australia’s devastating, prolonged fires are producing a soured, anti-government mood among many in the community. It may not be entirely rational for people to turn on politicians in such ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katharine Kemp, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UNSW, and Co-Leader, ‘Data as a Source of Market Power’ Research Stream of The Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation, UNSW Today, the federal government responded to the recommendations of the Australian Competition and ...
Winston Peters hopes mergers of NZME and Stuff and RNZ and TVNZ will save local journalism. Bernard Hickey argues they are more likely to again prove costly diversions. ...
The foreign affairs minister Winston Peters will be travelling to Samoa tomorrow to visit hospitals and medical teams dealing with the ongoing measles outbreak. ...
Andrew Little says the justice system is “taking wrecked lives and wrecking them just a little bit more”, but will the Govt cough up with what's needed for transformative change? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lidia Morawska, Professor, Science and Engineering Faculty; Director, International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (WHO CC for Air Quality and Health); Director – Australia, Australia – China Centre for Air Quality Science and Management (ACC-AQSM), Queensland University of Technology Bushfire smoke ...
Daily review 30/04/2019 
by Karim Pourhamzavi Mass protests are occurring across Iran, taking place in over 100 cities. The protests have been sparked by the government’s cutting of fuel subsidies, a measure which caused fuel prices to double overnight. Mass protests are hardly new in Iran, but there is an important difference ...11 hours ago
What other song could we play as the UK's political rule book gets torn up and thrown away?Video courtesy of YouTubeThis post is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...16 hours ago
Legendary in my own mind, I mean. All times are NZ, which is an hour10.00am (NZ) There's about an hour to go until the exit poll is released. At that point, half of the British voting public will devastated, and the other half celebrating wildly. Unless everyone is simply confused.Turnout seems ...19 hours ago
If you want to study propagandist techniques, you are typically told to study Dictatorships. Not unfair, but what’s always been more interesting to me is so-called “democratic” countries and their broader information systems. Why? Because people opt for it, even as they decry “totalitarian regimes!”.. It’s quite an eye ...2 days ago
Introducing legislation which shits on the public's right to know seems to have become a daily occurrence for this government. Today's example is the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill. The bill establishes a framework for the establishment of "special purpose vehicles" (SPVs) to hide debt from local government balance sheets ...2 days ago
Below is the longlist of words and phrases generated in the korero phase of Public Address Word of the Year 2019, with some editorial moderation. Now it's time to vote. As you'll doubtless be able to see, you get three ranked choices. Use your power wisely. Or frivolously, whatever.As usual, ...2 days ago
by Daphna Whitmore This week 800 unionised bus drivers in Auckland were suspended from work after they refused to collect fares as part of a campaign of industrial action. Drivers working for Auckland’s largest bus company NZ Bus are asking for more pay and better working conditions after being offered ...2 days ago
As details emerge about what unfolded on Whakaari / White Island two days ago, my thoughts go out to all the families affected by this terrible event. My thoughts are also with the first responders who worked in perilous circumstances to assist and protect those affected. Both local and ...2 days ago
I love data. It’s amazing the sort of “discoveries” I can make given a data set and computer statistical package. It’s just so easy to search for relationships and test their statistical significance. Maybe relationships which ... 4 days ago
The state of the United Kingdom is fractured, torn up, shredded. The Empire is gone, it died a long time ago. And yet, the country is still tracking with a lead in favour of the ones who play to the ingrained, class-bound division for political gain. It is a disgrace ...6 days ago
It should be obvious by now but let’s be clear: The same folk who regularly traffic in disinformation, misinformation and “fake news” are also those who most strongly claim that their freedom of expression rights are being violated when moves are made to curb hate speech (as opposed to protected ...7 days ago
“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. A long and bitter court feud between former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig and Jordan Williams has been settled, with an apology and compensation from Williams. On Tuesday, Craig sent out ...1 week ago
“America the Beautiful!”, staunch defender of democracy, freedom and… a whole lot of despotic tyrants that play nice with what is called “the Washington Consensus.” America is indeed capable of immense good, but like any Nation, and most assuredly any aspirant to the mantle of Empire, great, immense evil. All ...2 weeks ago
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Paramedics have reiterated their support for New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball's bill to impose mandatory prison sentences on those who assault our first responders and prison officers. There are more than 50 cases of abuse and assault against New Zealand paramedics each week. The figure has remained largely unchanged ...13 hours ago
Just after 2pm on Monday this week, Whakaari / White Island erupted. Read the Prime Minister's statement here, and watch her statement to the House below. ...13 hours ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on his election victory. “New Zealand and the United Kingdom are close friends and despite our distance we are strongly connected by our history and people,” Jacinda Ardern said. “I look forward to continuing to work with Prime ...11 hours ago
To celebrate the 50th birthday of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth, Walters Prize-winning artist Ruth Buchanan has rehung their collection, bringing previously unseen works and skeletons out of the closet. Her new exhibition The scene in which I find myself/Or, where does my body belong examines ...8 mins ago
Napoleon demanded that his generals be lucky. Conservative PM Boris Johnson, as he surveys a thumping victory in the British general election, would meet that criterion. His luck bears a resemblance to that of Margaret Thatcher. Like her, he has made a decisive break with orthodox establishment thinking. That presents ...4 hours ago
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Along with all of Judith Collins' other faults we can add scaredy cat. She's not even got the confidence to take down Mr 5%.
Or the ability to form consensus. Not really PM material I would have thought.
Judith..she's a 'Shonkey Tonk Woman'…give me..give me..
Judith would be popular with right-wing extremists and conservative over 60's, but she's hardly the fresh new face needed to take the National Party forward. She would be a fill-in leader at best.
The Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill – first reading in Parliament.
The PM says they decided to go with a limit of a doubling of the poan in repayment, rather than cap interest rates.
However pay day lenders could just resort to shorter repayment periods with rollovers – thus 4 such 3 month loans in 12 months – and thus 4 times the value of a loan over 12 months.
There should be a constraint to a doubling within 12 months of loan values, or this is borderline meaningless.
Even Sir Jong Kee is endorsing the corrupt old trout. Takes one to know one I guess. 😂
Remember both Key and Collins were super tight with Cameron Slater who is now mentally, financially and physically broken from his own corruption and malevolency…takes one to know one indeed.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/04/newshub-understands-sir-john-key-has-shown-support-for-judith-collins.html
Fuckers, the lot of them.
It is now just a matter of when …
“Newshub understands former Prime Minister Sir John Key has shown some support behind the scenes for Judith Collins to be National leader.
Key would not confirm this to Newshub, only to say, “I don’t comment on leadership issues” – but because of his standing in the party, MPs still go to him for advice and he commands huge respect in the National Caucus.
An endorsement – or even a subtle nod – could be a game-changer.
Newshub was also leaked details of the National Party’s Caucus meeting on Tuesday, which included a specific warning to MPs not to talk to Newshub. ”
https://twitter.com/NewshubNZ/status/1123111319769456640
You better hope they stick with Bridges.
Collins would be a game-changer, which is why the media is pushing her so hard.
Bridges is dull and uninspiring. Collins is a balls to the wall sort of candidate, she’ll either soar like an eagle or go down in flames.
Because?
Because what?
Actually, I thought I'd deleted that, but as I didn't I was asking why we would want to stick with Bridges and have Judith instead. I think people seriously underestimate Jacinda, not to mention Winston, if she tried to take them on – not to mention our current speaker.
Besides, too many people are aware of her corrupt practices, and some may have more evidence than has yet been seen fit to reveal.
It would, I suppose, provide the media with a lot of entertainment which would give them even less reason to provide a decent service than they do now
What corrupt practices?
Oravida detour comes to mind for a start.
But Collins is a fool if she wants the poisoned chalice of leadership before the election. Especially with this much lead-in: would have been ok after losing the election because everyone knows she took a hospital pass.
Collins would be more accountable for a negative result, and unfortunately for her she is as good at making political allies as the rest of her former cabinet colleagues.
Besides, the mood of the moment is for empathy, not brutality.
Oravida would have to be the lamest of all scandals.
Nothing but a left-wing media beat up, that any thinking New Zealander could see was a storm in a teacup and a desperate attempt at trying to damage John Key and National.
My God, she visited the company her husband worked for while in China and had dinner with some Ovrivida execs.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/timeline-judith-collins-and-oravida-2014050512
Fucks sake, have a look at this timeline and see how pathetically trivial the whole thing was.
Still bigger than slushigate.
But I reckon she would be better off supporting someone else to replace soimon, someone more competent than him but still mediocre, and knife the replacement after the next election. Unless the replacement starts to turn things around, in which case she'd have to knife them in a year or just under.
She's the only person in National that has the ability and personality to make this a one-term government.
If Collins isn't leading National into 2020, I'd bet everything I own on a Labour/NZ First maybe the Greens? win.
So many National voters will do a spoiler vote for Peters it won't be funny, I reckon he'll probably get somewhere between 10-15% of the vote.
I think she's the preferred choice for party management, but unless caucus also love her, she'll still have a leak problem. And I suspect there are some junior members who want to sweep aside the old guard.
And even if she gets everybody in step, 2020 is the coalition's to lose, and they haven't screwed up too badly yet. Although the budget is coming up – cross your fingers 🙂
I agree with that, it's highly likely Bridges and his supporters would feel quite bitter about him getting replaced by Collins and undermine her for all it's worth.
Probably best for Bridges to fail in 2020 and Collins takes over with a clean slate.
Looks like it's going to be a spoiler vote for me and try and minimize the damage by making Peters the turd in the punch bowl once again.
In this scenario Ardern would be gone by the end of year one, sticking around for another three years where the rug can be pulled out from underneath you at any time probably wouldn't appeal that much.
Especially when far greener pastures are on offer.
Spoiler vote to who BM? ACT?
NZ First.
If that's the best you can hope for, you need a better party
Looks like it's going to be a spoiler vote for me and try and minimize the damage by making Peters the turd in the punch bowl once again.
That probably is the most damage a National supporter can do to Labour and the Greens at the next election. Peters certainly has proven to be a turd in the punch bowl for them in this term of government – mind you, the voters didn't deliver a mandate for the policies most of us here would like the current government to implement, so I shouldn't complain too much.
Why, if it was a "left-wing media beat up", did the entire National Party apparatus (and the “media” that wasn’t “left-wing”) go to such great lengths to conceal, dissemble and lie about it then?
Because they fucked up and allowed the media to make a huge issue out of nothing.
It's exactly the fact that National regards ministers using their political position to support friends' or relatives' private business interests as "nothing" that is the problem.
Go down in flames for sure. She can't even organise a coup.
collins can't even roll bridges – lol – now THAT is pretty useless
This is malicious isn't it – shows bad faith by someone in authority with the Police ? Who keeps their behaviour within bounds – The ICPC is supposed to be a bit close to them for judgments to be unbiased.
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-wrongful-disclosure.html
I drove through the Atiamuri crash site yesterday just a day after the tragedy.
Road cones and signs were in place and tyre marks from emergency services were still raw and visible.
It's an unremarkable bend but as I'd driven about 1000km over yesterday and today I wondered if the usual mens about speed were relevant anymore.
What I noticed with my own driving and those around me was that excessive speed was not an issue. I travelled on or around 100km/hr and wan't passed more than once or twice.
What I did notice though was a moment's diversion of concentration on a bend led me to be a meter or two away from the proper line. I'm talking about in car and out of car distraction on poor quality roads. It's as simple as checking the speedo, clock or fuel gauge. Or reading a road sign for slightly too long.
These are normal processes when driving so the conclusion that our roads are not fit for purpose must be reached.
Time for median barriers of some sort I think.
People not paying attention is the killer.
Fuck the median barriers, people just have to get it into their thick heads that when they're driving you concentrate on your driving and that's it.
Checking your phone, arseing about with whoever is in the car will get you, you’re family and innocent people killed.
I don't live in the Waikato, but my sister lives in Putaruru so I am fairly familiar with the roads all around. Every time I hear of an accident my blood runs cold because I know the chances that the accident is so likely to be in her area, and yet the roads seem no worse than anywhere else, and a lot better then some. What's going on?
I'd say it's because those roads are most driven by locals and as such locals drive longer distances at greater speeds on average roads.
I don't agree they are good roads – SH3 south of Te Kuiti is dire – far worse than Tauranga to Katikati which seems to be the black spot of choice these days.
I didn't say 'good' I said 'no worse than'. If you want to see dire you should take a look up here in Northland!
Every time I hear of an accident my blood runs cold …
Our home is on SH39, a rat- run bypass between Ngaruawahia and Otorohanga. Not a single passing lane and at least 15 speed controlled corners on just the fifteen or so k's I regularly drive. Or more so my grown kids who live in the house while we're up North. That 'blood runs cold thing' many times, thanks to the multitude of fatal accidents we hear about on the radio. Not the first time we have folded our tent and driven to an area where there's cell phone coverage just to check on the offspring.
The solution is for drivers to slow down. Just slow down and give everyone more time to react.
not saying case here but cell phones
No road will ever be twit proof. It would be neither possible nor practical to put median barriers on all our roads…so then what? Impose lower speed limits on un- twit proofed roads? Have special licenses for those with the proven ability to drive defensively and to the conditions? The rest have to stay on the roads with median barriers?
I see where you're coming from Muttonbird but it's just not practical, and it ignores the fact that on the whole, Kiwis are crap drivers.
Impatient. Arrogant. Attention span of hyperactive fleas. Extraordinarily easily distracted. And that's just the bad drivers. Most of us are simply too casual. We simply don't engage 100% with what we are doing. Defensive driving courses should be mandatory, and I'm inclined to agree with some that perhaps we should all be having refresher practical driving tests every ten years or so…or sooner if pinged with driving offenses.
Awful, awful tragedies.
True, I've driven so many km, not once did I think this is a dangerous road.
99% of crashes are down to driver inattention or driver stupidity
Ye gods and little fishes….I find myself agreeing with BM.
Having said that…Muttonbird has a point…our roads take no prisoners.
Strewth….we should all be much better drivers as a consequence.
Why the hell aren't we?
We talk of our driving population, often forgetting the millions who visit, plus the trucks and vans now on our roads, replacing freight trains
Roads have been improved, but our modern cars are able to accelerate in a very few seconds. When stopping distances are understood and the forces of a collision grasped, driving defensively makes so much more sense to those who see this demonstrated.
Seat belts are fundamental, yet we still have people going through windscreens.
"Phones are dangerous but we still have swipers and texters. Utter madness. You are right about refresher courses Rosemary.
You've never experienced a corner that tightened up a lot and gone off-camber? Never been on a long straightaway that had a hard-to-see dip deep enough to hide oncoming traffic with no warning clues it was there?
There's a lot we could do but don't in road design and markings to help less-skilled drivers safely negotiate our roads. That's a fact that has come clearly into my view through helping my eldest learn (with my twins starting to learn in 6 weeks. Be afraid)
Good luck Andre, but still send them for two or three official lessons, as they teach all the new skills, show them the traps for beginners and take them over the driving test route. (Had a Traffic Officer friend who taught privately after taking the Defensive driving courses for years). Cheers.
Definitely for the driving lessons.
I gotta say, there's a few things they expect drivers to do that I honestly think make things more hazardous. Like overusing indicators every time you go past a parked car on a narrow street. So nobody can tell when you actually want to turn into a driveway or something instead of just that you're going past a parked car. Plus the way they watch the speedo like a hawk and don't allow for speedos being 3% to 8% optimistic (that's an international standard BTW).
Once my eldest got his restricted, there was another couple of weeks unteaching him some of things he had to do to pass the test, and teach him how to more go with the flow instead of pissing off everyone around him.
Whenever I get on the open road the thing that scares me the most about other drivers is the widespread failure to keep left. I agree with Andre about the lack of driver training for open road driving. I realised very early in life that this was a skill set I needed to develop fast and I worked hard at developing the ability to read the road ahead, working out how to set up a line through a bend and disciplining myself to stay left and drive to the shoulder delineator. It's my observation that a lot of drivers are scared to get close to the shoulder because they haven't worked out how to judge exactly where their offside wheels are in relation to the shoulder and so their whole driving style is based around driving to the centre line instead of the shoulder line.
I agree about driver inattention vs road condition.
My 16yr old son on his restricted license, 100km road, had a driver not stop at a stop sign. He didn't have a chance to brake or swerve.
Thankfully for us, airbags saved him from serious injuries. The ute he was in was extremely written off.
Unfortunately the 30something driver's mother in the other car passed away at the scene. He was using Google maps to navigate from Hawkes Bay to Taranaki.
Just before the the stop sign there is a slightly raised railway crossing. The driver said that as he had crossed the railway line his aattention was then looking further down the road.
Inexplicably not seeing the stop sign nor the main road.
Hallelujah for airbags.
This incident has impacted my driving. STOPPING at stop signs and having another look and taken the edge off my main cruising speed. Both in the car and on my motorbike.
New Zealand roads are some of the most well engineered in the world and considering the terrain they have to cover too.
Barriers aren't the answer either, huge costs involved and too much area to cover. I think it's very easy to get up in a safety overreaction when it's impossible to make our roads accident proof.
New Zealand roads are some of the most well engineered in the world and considering the terrain they have to cover too.
100% agreement. I am constantly awestruck. A trade that should command much more respect.
Just doubling the budget for yellow paint would make a big difference.
Next time you're out on the open road, keep an eye out for the little white crosses on the side of the road and note how many of them are near a low visibility corner that has a dashed white centreline around the corner.
Anywhere that's not safe to pass should have centreline markings that show that. Corners with low visibility should always have double yellow centrelines. When coming up to a corner where there's not enough visibility for passing, the centreline should change to dashed yellow (your side)/whatever is appropriate (other side) around 250m before the corner, then change to solid yellow (your side)/whatever is appropriate (other side) about 120m before the corner.
When they did this between Puhoi and Warkworth, speeds around the corners dropped noticeably, and tailgating and other aggressive driving also reduced. Solid yellow lines down the centreline do a good job of communicating to drivers that there is some extra hazard here to pay extra attention to.
Even though the Atiamuri crash site already had double yellows, I'd hazard a bet it would make a significant difference elsewhere. FFS, even late 90s Zimbabwe could mark their roads better than we do.
yellow is invariably ignored by idiots…you could double yellow the entire state highway network and there would still be head ons
There would still be some. But not as many. The utility of yellow paint is much more as an aid to the inexperienced and unskilled to help them not make mistakes.
That one simple cheap solution doesn't fix all the problems isn't a reason not to do it, it just means it's only one part of a multi-part attack on the problem.
Behaviour control for idiots needs quite a different approach. Personally I'd like to see all patrol cars be mufti, with instructions to be looking for idiots and ignore minor speeding (unless the minor speeding is in itself quite dangerous).
it is unusually the inexperienced or the unskilled that ignore them…the fact is we are appalling drivers, and getting progressively worse…driverless cars cannot come soon enough, or better still mass public transport
Behaviour control for idiots needs quite a different approach.
That driver…the only one in a long line of traffic who thinks that if they just duck in and out of line, passing one or two cars at a time, they'll get to wherever it is their dying to get to all the quicker.
Nab that bugger. Stern talking to. Make them ride with police and emergency services to get first hand view at how fragile the human body is. Get them to spend serious time in a spinal or head injury unit. Or a burns unit. Still driving like a twat? Implant device than disables any vehicle they sit their sorry arse in.
Sincere best wishes with the Offspring's driving lessons…and Patricia's right about the professional lessons to finish them off. And defensive driving…https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/112321299/kiwi-drivers-lack-of-ability-on-our-roads-scares-former-supercars-driver-greg-murphy
IMO Murphy missed a couple of big issues we do poorly on here.
Driver training and testing for most new drivers happens entirely in urban and suburban environments, with maybe a quick diversion onto a motorway from one exit to the next. Sure it's the most intense driving environment with lots of different stimulus from different directions, but crashes are mostly just bent sheet metal and minor injuries (unless you're a pedestrian or cyclist). But most serious injuries and deaths occur in open road crashes. Unfortunately the only training and testing my kids are getting in open road driving is from me, not from anyone with professional expertise.
The second big issue is about attitude and behaviour towards other drivers. One of the first things I talked about with my kids is how when they first started, they woulod be hesitant- they wouldn't be sure exactly what others expected and they would slow or stop in weird places, which is dangerous so we try to move them through the hesitant level as quickly as possible. The next level is relaxed – where they know what they should do and what others expect and they do it. But if something unusual happens or someone else makes a mistake, it doesn't bother anyone and they just deal with it and move on. Then the next level is assertive – where they can use "body language" to head off someone that looks like they're about to pull a dick move that's going to mess up traffic and that they're comfortable accelerating hard to use a smaller than ideal gap when traffic is busy.
I tell them I want them to be relaxed, but able to shade into assertive occasionally when needed. And that I never want them to go to the next level of being aggressive, coz that's when the chances of people getting hurt goes way up.
But none of the training materials or any of the instructors really have much of anything to say about attitude and how that relates to interaction with other road users.
and none of that can account for idiots
No it doesn't account for all idiots.
But it might help some be not quite so idiotic in their late teens and early twenties. Certainly my mates and I never heard anything like that in our early years of driving. If we had heard things like that and had it modeled for us, it might have lowered the peaks of stupidity of some of the things we got up to.
It's not a problem with one silver bullet answer. There's just a whole lot of incremental improvements across all the different aspects of the problem.
am not sure why but you seem to be assuming that the idiots are predominantly young and inexperienced where my observations are that is far from the reality….idiocy is prevalent across all demographies
https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/97953239/road-toll-which-kiwi-road-users-are-most-at-risk
That driver…the only one in a long line of traffic who thinks that if they just duck in and out of line, passing one or two cars at a time, they'll get to wherever it is their dying to get to all the quicker.
As someone who does that a lot, and has had to pass up to five at a time, I can tell you that they're not just thinking that, they do get there a lot quicker. And the number of crashes caused by someone overtaking multiple slow drivers where there's plenty of room to overtake them? None that I've heard of.
If you're forming an 80 kph convoy behind a camper van or crappy old truck, don't feel superior to someone who doesn't see any reason to join you in that convoy, just let them past: keep left and use any length of hard shoulder if there are people waiting to pass: keep a good following distance so there's room for overtakers to pull back in: try not honking your horn indignantly as they come past you. Driving slowly isn't a virtue.
I can tell you that they're not just thinking that, they do get there a lot quicker.
Really? So why is it so common to meet up with that 'gotta pass' numpty at the next set of lights or bottle neck that my man and I now consider it normal? And we are in a heavy vehicle doing 90kph.
My guess is that you, in your haste and desperate bid to demonstrate your superior driving ability, simply are not registering the other vehicles around you.
If you're forming an 80 kph convoy behind a camper van or crappy old truck, don't feel superior to someone who doesn't see any reason to join you in that convoy, just let them past:
Make no mistake sunshine…I am more than happy to see your rear disappear down the highway. I have no desire to get caught up in your suicide bid. Unfortunately, as I noted above, 15 ks down the road or so and there you are….stuck in the same convoy as the rest of us.
try not honking your horn indignantly as they come past you.
Now that is interesting. If you are getting honked at when passing another vehicle, could it be because you are driving in a manner that disregards the existence of other road users and the honker is simply trying to get you to realise there is actually a live human in that vehicle you just passed…or forced off the road in the on coming lane?
Driving slowly isn't a virtue.
Yes Psycho Milt, of course you're right. Better dead with your ego intact than stuck in traffic eh?
So why is it so common to meet up with that 'gotta pass' numpty at the next set of lights or bottle neck…
My comment assumes the person is driving long distance. There's not much point in passing all the slow-vehicle convoys if you're only travelling 50k.
My guess is that you, in your haste and desperate bid to demonstrate your superior driving ability, simply are not registering the other vehicles around you.
Now that sure would be dangerous driving. On the contrary, overtaking tends to focus the mind very strongly on what other vehicles are doing.
If you are getting honked at when passing another vehicle, could it be because you are driving in a manner that disregards the existence of other road users …
One isn't privy to the thinking of other drivers of course, but the circumstances it's happened in suggest to me there are just some people who regard overtaking as inherently dangerous driving. I might just as well honk at them for queuing up behind a slow vehicle, driving too close to the vehicle in front, not using the hard shoulder to let others past, and leaving people like me half a dozen vehicles to get past, but honking at other people because you don't like their driving is a dick move.
Better dead with your ego intact than stuck in traffic eh?
Overtaking slow vehicles is not inherently fatal, just like driving slowly is not inherently a virtue.
For the last six years or so our regular trip is between south of Hamilton and north of Kaitaia. Our observations of the 'gotta pass' brigade is generally focused on the sections of SH 1 or SH 16 where there are few, if any passing lanes…(on which of course we slow down to 60 or 70 ks to encourage everyone to pass us.) The traffic lights are generally the ones around Warkworth and the southern approach to Whangarei. And the usual pinch points at the Brynderwyns, Pohuehue, Dome Valley, etc.
Having said that…even on the motorways around Auckland we'll catch up with vehicles that passed us with a hiss and a roar ten or twenty ks back. On one hand its amusing that these drivers seem blithely oblivious they are not actually travelling any further than the rest, but it is also quite frightening they are, well, oblivious.
Ah, I see. The upper North Island is a driver's nightmare that I do my best to avoid. Most of my open-road driving is between Rotorua and Wellington.
Ever noticed how most people drive out by the center line . Roads are wider than most realise if everyone drove to the left of their lane they would greatly lower the head ones .
Its saved me more than once .
That's to follow the visual cue of the centre line, rather than visualise the whole road. And to look for overtaking opportunities, and block the driver behind from doing the same. In short poor driving skills.
A large downside of driving to the left of the lane is the same drivers as above who interpret your action as an invitation to overtake and tailgate until they can. Moving back to the middle / right of the lane moves them back to a better following distance.
The problem is virtually none of us have had proper driver training, we just meet a minimum standard of vehicle control and road rules and then get shoved out to learn as we go. Combine that with a natural tendency to want to cram 10 – 12 hours into an 8 hour day, and we get what we have.
Greg Murphy was calling for better training and regular retesting a couple of days ago, which even looking through his large conflict of interest, is a very good idea.
There isn't a "one size fits all" for good road position. The physical road environment, how you are driving, what other road users around you want to do are factors.
If I'm just cruising at 90-95ish because I'm not in a hurry and can't be arsed continually watching for cops and keeping an eye out for cops or have a trailer on, then I'll be as far left as reasonable without kicking up stuff off the road onto cars behind, and try to make it easy for cars behind to pass where there's opportunities.
If I'm more pressed for time, then I'll be closer to the centreline and closer to the car in front, for visibility, being able to pass quicker and safer where reasonable, and to communicate to the vehicle in front that I want to pass.
On residential streets I'll also stay close-ish to the centreline – because soft easily damageable hazards (kids, pets, cyclists) are most likely to suddenly come from the side of the road
As far as being able to save yourself from a head-on on rural roads, knowing how to safely put a couple of wheels at speed onto an unsealed shoulder is a big one that a lot of people don't know how to do. Getting off the brakes before the wheels leave the seal and being smooth and gentle with the steering goes against instinct and has to be learned. It takes a lot of rural driving experience and/or specific training to learn it, which mostly city drivers won't get.
As long as you're comfortable with the fact that you are 3 feet closer to a head on when your in ready to pounce mode all good i guess
You're also in a better position to see it coming and react early, rather than being totally caught by surprise when the vehicle in front suddenly dives to the left.
I have noticed that the most helpful improvement is a newly painted white line on the left hand side. Especially at night or poor visibility.
I try to drive so I can just see that white line through my left wing mirror.
A rather long, cheery read for a Tuesday evening.
The asteroid was vaporized on impact. Its substance, mingling with vaporized Earth rock, formed a fiery plume, which reached halfway to the moon before collapsing in a pillar of incandescent dust. Computer models suggest that the atmosphere within fifteen hundred miles of ground zero became red hot from the debris storm, triggering gigantic forest fires. As the Earth rotated, the airborne material converged at the opposite side of the planet, where it fell and set fire to the entire Indian subcontinent. Measurements of the layer of ash and soot that eventually coated the Earth indicate that fires consumed about seventy per cent of the world’s forests. Meanwhile, giant tsunamis resulting from the impact churned across the Gulf of Mexico, tearing up coastlines, sometimes peeling up hundreds of feet of rock, pushing debris inland and then sucking it back out into deep water, leaving jumbled deposits that oilmen sometimes encounter in the course of deep-sea drilling.
The damage had only begun. Scientists still debate many of the details, which are derived from the computer models, and from field studies of the debris layer, knowledge of extinction rates, fossils and microfossils, and many other clues. But the over-all view is consistently grim. The dust and soot from the impact and the conflagrations prevented all sunlight from reaching the planet’s surface for months. Photosynthesis all but stopped, killing most of the plant life, extinguishing the phytoplankton in the oceans, and causing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere to plummet. After the fires died down, Earth plunged into a period of cold, perhaps even a deep freeze. Earth’s two essential food chains, in the sea and on land, collapsed. About seventy-five per cent of all species went extinct. More than 99.9999 per cent of all living organisms on Earth died, and the carbon cycle came to a halt.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died
alternative link for those who've used up their monthly freebies
http://archive.li/8uWyN
Wow! That is some story. Makes one realise just what insignificant little creatures we humans really are, albeit with superior brains… if only we would use them to help ensure our survival.
George Carlin on saving the planet
correct…and potentially very incorrect….venus springs to mind
The government built in some guarantees for safe nurse staffing with Health Boards, why are they not doing the same with doctor staffing/hours of work?
https://www.asms.org.nz/news/asms-news/2018/07/30/government-led-accord-on-public-hospital-safe-nurse-staffing-levels-welcomed/
Oh look, Dr Cut-n-Paste has gone behind the paywall. He'll be happy he's preaching solely to his own audience now…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12226627
Oz election looming, half the electorate are underwhelmed by both dinosaur parties (all parties actually): https://www.roymorgan.com/morganpoll
"A special Roy Morgan SMS Poll conducted for the Australian Futures Project last week on April 17-18, 2019 with a cross-section of 1,546 electors shows 27% of electors are yet to make up their mind who they will vote for in next month’s Federal Election and 44% of them say no party is addressing the issues that matter to them."
A quarter of the electorate currently undecided, only a 2% gap, so no matter how useless the govt keeps proving itself to be, seems like the opposition keeps trying to prove it can wriggle under the extremely low bar they've set!
No wonder that Indian students are so keen or even desperate to study here. Knowing their stories might give pause to some people who accuse them of coming here and abusing the system.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/112362614/faulty-marking-software-blamed-for-20-student-suicides-in-india
Assistant commissioner Richard Chambers said the fact 80 per cent of the population was using 16 kilograms a week of meth "was a lot" and disappointing. He described the data as the "best information we have ever had".
So, I read the above and damn near fell off my chair. (And since I'm not using any meth, does that mean some poor bugger is using 32 kilograms per week?)
It is late and I am weary, but even the Young Person thought it an unfortunate quote from an article chocka block with poorly presented data.
And if this is the best they can do….
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/112352168/meth-nzs-top-drug–its-in-the-water
Let me tell you what I find very annoying right now in NZ…
The idea that NZ is a hotbed of extremism and hatred, or even in anyway extreme and full of hate.
The Christchurch terror attacks were carried out by a foreigner.
It was a foreign attack on NZ soil for fucks sake
We are doing our country a significant disservice by forgetting this at all times and assuming it was a New Zealand thing.
Bullshit
See main article in New Zealand Geographic magazine for a prime example of this.
.
I'm over it and am pushing back on anyone who claims it is a New Zealand thing.
Once more – it was a foreigner who attacked
Like it was the French Government who sun k the rainbow warrior – it wasn;t fucking us.
.