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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My wife grew up in suburban London – not an environment that was conducive, one might think, to developing an interest in wild life. But her father was a bird lover and he helped her, too, to develop a love ...
“You just need a sense of humour”. I heard this patronising and unhelpful advice from a panellist at an Autism New Zealand Conference many years ago. What about access to education and services, understanding, financial and other support?These words came ...
The Giddens Project has its origins in my association with 'Third Way' politics during my time as a member of the New Zealand parliament between 1990 and 2008.read more ...
by Jon Flanders Once again this year I traveled to Cuba on a delegation that visited many interesting sites on the island, once of them being the huge May Day march in Havana. Cuba celebrates May Day as a national ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, May 5 through Sat, May 11, 2019 Editor's Pick Proposal to spend 25% of EU budget on climate change Schoolchildren ...
Film review by Don Franks All is not true but lots is good in the Shakespeare movie now showing in Wellington. In “All is true” , Ben Elton’s script combines, happily to this viewer, the little that’s known of historical Shakespeare ...
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. This post has separate sections for: Climate Change, Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Mitigation, and Other Papers. Climate change mitigation Climate change communicationClimate change and educational attainment in ...
There's a strange thing about having songwriters as longtime friends. On the one hand there are years when you're mates getting in the same scrapes; they're smoking your weed and you're drinking their riders; you're all fitfully growing up, not ...
Just look at all the houses they own. Parliament's Register of Pecuniary Interests was released yesterday, showing all the pies our MPs said they have their fingers in. And their favourite pie is houses. NewsHub has a list here, and ...
Last week, the UK Parliament became the first in the world to recognise the seriousness and urgency of the environmental situation by declaring a climate emergency. And last night, Ireland followed suit:Ireland has become only the second country in the ...
Two developments over the past week or so demonstrate how serious is the existential crisis we now face, in terms of the damage we are doing to our planet, and how far we are from facing up to our responsibilities. ...
This is a fascinating interview – and not only because it is a highly respected independent journalist, Aaron Maté, interviewing his highly respected mental health expert father, Dr. Gabor Maté. It is fascinating because it is objective and adult ...
At the core of a successful economy is ‘trust’. Buy a can of beans and your decision depends on trusting a whole chain of suppliers. Admittedly, you also trust that the law is working in your favour too; it usually ...
A new 23-country survey conducted by the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that America has the highest percentage of climate denial among first-world nations, behind only Indonesia and Saudi Arabia in all the countries surveyed. A total of 13 percent of Americans responded that ...
by Don Franks Way back in the bad old days before cell phones and computers, I helped a fellow car factory militant campaign for a union position. My mate belonged to what was then called the Engineers Union, at that ...
Writing in The Spinoff, former National Minister Wayne Mapp argues that a good first step to meeting the targets of the Zero Carbon Act would be to end fossil fuelled cars. He's right (and I've talked at length about how ...
Yesterday the government announced its Zero Carbon Bill, which would establish a framework for long-term emissions reductions. The most controversial aspect of the Bill is its agricultural targets: for the first time, farmers will face an explicit responsibility to clean ...
This week, TVNZ’s Sunday programme led with a feature about sperm donation. Specifically, about a ‘freelance’ sperm donor, going by the name Tauranga Tony. Real name Tony Ross, he has donated sperm to a number of women. Quite a large number, ...
Shortly after being elected, Labour promised to be "the most open, most transparent Government that New Zealand has ever had". I've commentedrepeatedly on how Labour is failing to meet that promise in its behaviour over parliamentary written questions. And ...
Something odious about the Zero Carbon Bill: it expands the Climate Change Response Act's existing secrecy clause to cover "the Climate Change Commission, in respect of the performance of its functions or exercise of its powers under Parts 1A to ...
Press Release by Speak Up For Women Wellington, 8 May 2019 Speak Up For Women NZ says the sacking of a gender critical British tax expert in the United Kingdom serves as a warning of what is to come if ...
Improving the safety of all road users is the focus of a new public consultation document on the issue of drug driver testing. Plans for public consultation on options to improve the drug driver testing process have been announced by ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash says calling a cop suddenly got a whole lot easier with the launch of a ground-breaking new service for non-emergency calls. “The single non-emergency number ‘ten-five’ is designed to provide better service for the public and ...
Frontline Police numbers have been boosted with today’s deployment of 77 new officers to the regions.Police Minister Stuart Nash today congratulated the recruits of Wing 325 who graduated at a formal ceremony at the Royal New Zealand Police College. ...
One of the biggest IT projects ever undertaken in the state sector has successfully passed its latest hurdle with the transition of more than 19.7 million taxpayer accounts from one Inland Revenue computer system to another. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash ...
The first nationwide snapshot of the consumption of restricted drugs indicates the prevalence of methamphetamine use in New Zealand, says Police Minister Stuart Nash. “The first quarterly analysis of the nationwide wastewater testing programme reinforces the coalition government’s determination to ...
The spectre of trout farming has reared up from the murky shadows of the previous National government’s treaty deals. Māori owners of Lake Rotoaira near Turangi are reported to be backing an attempt to allow trout farming. ...
Our education system is a slowly unfolding disaster. Too many kids leave school without basic literacy and numeracy skills. In 2014, the Tertiary Education Commission found about half of Year 11 students achieved the international reading and numeracy benchmarks. ...
Free speech or hate speech? When do words go too far? We debate whether New Zealand needs new hate speech laws with ACT leader David Seymour and Labour MP Louisa Wall. ...
The Hauraki Gulf Forum, the statutory body tasked with progressing integrated management of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, today recommended two significant goals for the important and much-loved marine park. ...
“I was very disappointed that last night all my Minister could do when confronted with the reality of teaching, was to mouth the same old clichés and platitudes. ...
The Sensible Sentencing Trust say the Children’s Commissioner is guilty of riding the ‘Colonialism’ bandwagon by blaming racism and colonialism after Oranga Tamariki removed a child from its mother’s care. Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew ...
The New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa (NZGB) is inviting submissions on proposals to create dual Māori–English names for 16 sounds and inlets in Fiordland. The NZGB says restoring traditional Ngāi Tahu names alongside ...
Few of us want to think about something happening to us that might impact on our ability to make sound decisions. The reality is, we can’t predict what’s going to happen in life that may impact on our health or ...
Former retired Probation officer Tom Hemopo and Māori Climate Commissioner, Donna Awatere-Huata are due to give evidence this afternoon at the Māori Prisoner’s Voting Inquiry at the Waitangi Trbunal in Wellington. ...
May 20 (BusinessDesk) - The National Party proposes ambitious new trade targets for New Zealand's relations with both China and the United States in a foreign affairs discussion document released this morning for public consultation. ...
Christchurch Central Labour MP Dr Duncan Webb has been criticized by the NZ Jewish Council for his promotion of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement directed at Israel. ...
The highly publicised case of Nicky Stevens who died in 2015 while in the legal care of the Waikato DHB is to be put before the Prime Minister next week. ...
New Zealand's first shelter dedicated to housing pets affected by family violence is being built. Pet Refuge will provide a temporary safe haven for pets, while their owners escape abuse. The initiative comes as new research from Women’s Refuge reveals ...
Forest and Bird, The Tree Council and the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society are dismayed but not surprised at the recent attacks on the scientific credibility of the Auckland Council Monitoring Report that describes the increased spread of kauri ...
Kiwibuild is turning into a corporate welfare racket, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union in response to news that none of the seven Kiwibuild homes marketed in Christchurch have sold, and therefore the Government is likely to pay out the ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s budget later this month could have contained an additional $6 billion in spending without costing taxpayers a single cent more, Social Credit Party Leader, Chris Leitch told the party’s Canterbury Regional conference ...
New Zealand’s specialist sexual violence service sector is heartened to hear today that the government has demonstrated its commitment to the Well-Being of its citizens by announcing a significant injection of money into the work the sector undertakes ...
The spectre of trout farming has reared up from the murky shadows of the previous National government’s treaty deals. Māori owners of Lake Rotoaira near Turangi are reported to be backing an attempt to allow trout farming. ...
The Aotearoa Legal Workers’ Union (ALWU) launches today to advocate for all legal workers and to improve working conditions for junior lawyers in the legal sector. ...
Tammy Ngawhika has recently achieved her dream of becoming a homeowner, together with her four children. She attained her goal through Progressive Home Ownership. Progressive Home ownership is one of the KiwiBuy products the Government is being ...
The National Network of Stopping Violence Services today welcomed the Ardern Government’s Family Violence and Sexual Violence Package announcement, part of its Wellbeing Budget. ...
A distressed and traumatized grandmother from the Rodney Electorate will meet with Rodney Electorate MP Mark Mitchell on Monday, May 20, 10am at the Rodney Electorate Office, Tamariki House, 7 Tamariki Avenue, Orewa. The Rodney Electorate MP has been ...
Over 400,000 New Zealanders say they would definitely seek out medicinal cannabis products when they become widely available from 2020, according to a large independent survey and the first of its kind, just released. ...
The so-called “ Christchurch Call ” summit in Paris on Wednesday, led by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron, marked a significant escalation of the drive by governments throughout the world to censor ...
A new nationwide Curia Market Research poll shows the gap between supporters and opponents of euthanasia is narrowing, and that many people withdraw their support when asked to consider some of the details involved in the End of Life Choice ...
The recently published article by TVNZ is yet another piece of over sensationalised journalism that drives a wedge into New Zealand society. International Students are an integral party of what makes New Zealand a diverse and unique country in the ...
Simon Shepherd: Minister for Children Tracey Martin, Thanks for your time this morning. So, we’ve seen this jump in the number of newborn Maori babies being taken from their parents in the last three years. Is that because it’s a ...
Recently I was talking with a group of people about the growing issue of internet harassment, and in particular, gender based online abuse. We talked about how online violence directed at women is a symptom of deep-seated gender inequality, and ...
Former Hawke’s Bay woman Lou Hutchinson, who has this week been setting up action group Whanau First in response to a meeting she staged in Raglan on Sunday to challenge Oranga Tamariki child removal strategies, said she’s not surprised by ...
New Zealanders with an interest in the outdoors are being invited to have their say on legislation that helps them access nature throughout the country. ...
Mayor Supports Random Roadside Drug Testing South Taranaki District Mayor Ross Dunlop urges the Government to take immediate action on the introduction of random roadside drug testing. Mayor Dunlop makes the call for action after reading the coroner’s ...
Fish and Game New Zealand welcomes the decision by Environment Minister David Parker to appoint a formal investigator to assess Otago Regional Council’s performance of their RMA functions in relation to freshwater management. ...
PRESS RELEASE “Tanzania has been at the forefront of cleaning up their environment of plastic waste in recent years” says Stuart Batty, Honorary Consul for the United Republic of Tanzania . The Government have announced that Effective 1 June 2019, ...
Forest industry leaders say the pre-Budget announcement by Forestry Minister Shane Jones of additional regional resources for Te Uru Rākau is potentially of great benefit to regional New Zealand. ...
Eight Regional Councils, in partnership with their Territorial Authorities and others, have applied for and will receive $14 million of co-funding from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) to obtain, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) elevation datasets. ...
"The latest opinion poll results are in, and 55% of New Zealanders want a New Zealander as our next head of state, only 39% want the next British monarch. This is the third poll in the past three years showing ...
KFC is off the menu this weekend as hundreds of Fast Food workers employed by Restaurant Brands and members of Unite Union take strike action this weekend. ...
The Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) who conduct drug tests on blood samples for a range of government organisations is supporting the introduction of a roadside saliva (oral fluid) test for drug-impaired drivers. ESR forensic toxicologist ...
Today, we celebrate sexual and gender diversity in our communities and welcome the fact that more people than ever are free to identify their gender and love whom they choose. We welcome the progress that has occurred, both in Aotearoa ...
Māori screen organisation Ngā Aho Whakaari says Māori screen practitioners are having to wait until the end of the year for decisions to be made about the promised overhaul of the Māori Media sector in the review being conducted by ...
Up to 120 PSA and E tu union coordinators, contact centre workers and administrators at Access Community Health will be walking off the job from 9:00am as part of a nationwide walk-off. ...
Auckland Action Against Poverty is calling on the CEO and deputy CEO of the Ministry of Social Development to resign following a report by the Privacy Commissioner, which found that the Ministry was unlawfully breaching beneficiaries’ privacy. The report ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sabin Zahirovic, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Scientists are among the millions of die-hard Game of Thrones fans digesting the show’s finale today. The striking landscape of Game of Thrones has ...
It’s week six of Dancing with the Stars, and the cream has risen from beneath the crop! Sam Brooks power-ranks the contestants.Week six! We’re at the stage of the competition where I can listen to a judge’s feedback and guess, with ...
By Michael Andrew Journalism students across Australia collaborated in an immense project to cover this month’s federal election. Organised through The Junction, a website showcasing and promoting student journalism, the coverage featured in-depth stories profiling every candidate in each ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University The last thing the world needs at a moment of significant trade tensions between the United States and China is a Middle ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucy Deng, Staff Specialist Paediatrician, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance; Clinical Associate Lecturer, Children’s Hospital Westmead Clinical School, University of Sydney About 4.1 million Australians are under-vaccinated, meaning they’ve received ...
By RNZ Pacific Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is coming under increasing pressure from his own MPs to switch the country’s political allegiance from Taiwan to China, report local news media. Solomon Islands is one of 17 nations ...
The legislation was introduced by the National government in May 2017 but has languished without progress ever since - it’s the oldest non-members bill yet to receive a first reading by a long way ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Cameron, Research Fellow, University of Sydney Polls had predicted a narrow win for Labor in this election, so what explains the Coalition victory? Data from the Australian Election Study (AES), based ...
Dr Bryce EdwardsThe stars seem to be aligning in favour of the establishment of a socially conservative Christian-based political party, making it more than just a vague possibility. However, some big hurdles remain in place before the National Party ...
After being lobbied to take a stand on scientific terms, the prime minister’s chief science adviser attempted to find out who makes the call on whether or not to approve an application by a majority-Malaysian-owned company to mine at the ...
A Taranaki couple threw in their high-flying careers to bring people together through the joys of good baking.Tucked down an alleyway off New Plymouth’s main street, just a stone’s throw from the famous Len Lye Centre, you’ll find Billow Bakery ...
Broadcasting legend Elizabeth Alley reviews Loving Sylvie, the gorgeous, ephemeral new novel by Elizabeth Smither.A bride is rowed across a grey-green lake to her wedding. She rehearses her new name, “Sylvie Grace Taverner,” as the waters lap the boat. There’s ...
If the wellbeing budget is going to do something about the long-term productivity of the country, it must address the growing gap between digital haves and have-nots, writes Grant Thornton’s Helen Fortune.Many fear that increasing digitisation and automation will result ...
In a series of posts on social media, it is claimed that the touring players targeted a group with ‘homophobic slurs, limp wrists and high pitched voices’.Several members of The Crusaders rugby team have been accused of homophobia following an ...
Tof Eklund reviews Lovestruck, a free-to-play treasure trove of romantic queer gaming content.Voltage’s Lovestruck does not, at first glance, look particularly queer-inclusive. Created in 2017 to unify four otome (‘women’s romance’) mobile games, this game hub now houses at least ...
The Australian left will need to do a far better job of connecting with voters – and what they really care about – if they’re ever going to regain power, writes Australian political historian Geoffrey Robinson.The Australian election result was ...
The National Party has put the relationship with the United States front and centre of its foreign policy, saying it's a relationship that will be prioritised. ...
Katie Meadows reviews Catch-22, George Clooney’s bleak and boring TV adaptation of the classic novel.Even if you are not familiar with Joseph Heller’s 1961 satirical novel, you will be familiar with its title — a catch-22 at its most technical is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen G Bosi, Senior Lecturer in Physics, University of New England Curious Kids is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to ...
The government is investing more than $7.7 million in upgrading the SuperGold card website and an app, plus $600,000 on digital literacy training for seniors. ...
By Marija Taflaga of the Australian National University in Canberra The man that has “always believed in miracles” has just delivered one for the Liberal party. It’s not clear at the time of writing if the government will have ...
May 20 – 26 is macular degeneration awareness week. The subject is a personal one for Grant Thompson and his daughter Donna, who have both been diagnosed the condition which can lead to blindness.“I thought I just needed new glasses, ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentGovernment Colin James: Ardern: transformation now or a ...
National leader Simon Bridges says he is happy to give Alfred Ngaro "the space" to explore setting up a Christian values party, but National will stand a candidate in Botany. ...
National leader Simon Bridges says he is happy to give Alfred Ngaro "the space" to explore setting up a Christian values party, but National will stand a candidate in Botany. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Brynn Hibbert, Emeritus Professor of Analytical Chemistry, UNSW We measure stuff all the time – how long, how heavy, how hot, and so on – because we need to for things ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katinka van de Ven, Research Fellow, Drug Policy Modelling Program, SPRC, UNSW Most media reports would have you believe steroid users are predominantly young men suffering a “crisis of male ego” who ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Green, Lecturer, UNSW Can the design of a climate change message change someone’s beliefs? Absolutely, and with a surprisingly powerful correlation. My research found climate change messages that spark fear and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karyn Healy, Researcher, The University of Queensland School bullying can have serious consequences for victims including depression, psychosis, self-harm and suicide. With increasing evidence of harm, a groundswell of school anti-bullying programs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Stanley, Adjunct Professor, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney Melbourne is growing faster than most cities of similar size in developed countries. Population ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Albo, or Plibersek, or whoever it turns out to be the next Labor leader, might have had a lucky accident. ...
Simon Bridges has been damping down rumours that National Party list MP Alfred Ngaro could split off and set up a Christian values party. Watch live as he speaks to Morning Report. ...
Another KiwiBuild development backed by taxpayer money is failing to generate buyer demand - prompting more calls for Labour's flagship programme to be dumped. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Scott Morrison wins re-election in Australia, major boost in funding for sexual violence services, and stories around Alfred Ngaro party continue to swirl.Few saw it coming, but Australian PM Scott Morrison ...
Auckland today hosts delegations from Los Angeles and Guangzhou in its annual tripartite meeting for economic opportunities between the three cities - at a delicate time of division between the Chinese and US over trade. ...
Auckland's growth pains and urgent needs are well known. But, Rupert Hodson of Beca asks, are we responding as urgently and comprehensively as we should for such a 'crisis'? ...
Wastewater testing provides an objective, standardised way of assessing levels of drug usage, and that has manifold benefits, writes Brent Gilpin of ESR.There are suggestions from time to time that wastewater drug testing is an erosion of our civil liberties and ...
Daily review 30/04/2019 
Perhaps it’s because of the sheer size – and therefore enormous potential – of their country, but Australians have always demonstrated a harder-edged nationalism than have Kiwis. And that tendency has become even more apparent in recent years, when they ...10 hours ago
Current member of the National Party, List MP Alfred Ngaro, has declared he has an intent towards the possibility of setting up a Christian-oriented “values” party. Simon Bridges initially denied discussion, but we all know his denials are really never ...10 hours ago
Australians went to the polls over the weekend, and have apparently re-elected the shit party to government. It was unexpected, but I guess that's what happens when you have a media landscape utterly dominated by a highly partisan monopoly. Meanwhile, ...15 hours ago
New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations National President JamesRanstead argues student voice is crucial in the Reform of VocationalEducation ...15 hours ago
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, May 12 through Sat, May 18, 2019 Editor's Pick 12 excuses for climate inaction and how to refute them Using moral ...2 days ago
While abortion laws in New Zealand are likely to be liberalised, in the US abortion rights are being rolled back. This article from Feminist Current looks at the way the anti abortion movement is reframing its arguments. by Karen Jolly ...3 days ago
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. This post has separate sections for: Climate Change, Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Mitigation, and Other Papers. Climate change An example of principal component analysis application on climate change ...3 days ago
by Sean Kearns It appears that even in Britain, where a lot of unions remain affiliated to Labour, the working class itself is less attached to Labour. The bureaucratic leaderships keep unions chained to Labour, the workers are just not ...3 days ago
In October 2013 I wrote about “Valuing Xero in one hour“, and (although it had a bug) came up with a forecast that justified the then $2.2 billion valuation of Xero with a Weighted Average Cost of Capital of 18%. ...3 days ago
Those with a progressive agenda (and yes, I count myself as one) have been frustrated by our own inability and reluctance to engage head-on in the most important argument in political discourse – the role, function and objective of government.read ...4 days ago
I love the National's Library's Papers Past archive. I've used it many times for work and sometimes just for fun. The one thing I never thought I'd be able to do is vanity-search on it. And yet, here it is: ...5 days ago
Bolton has never conceded that invading Iraq was a mistake, in fact he considers it to this day still as a roaring success. His history in public life is that of an unrepentant, ignorant thug of a politician, a persona ...5 days ago
(fire, California)Some time ago Jeanette Fitzsimons described our action on climate change like a car driving rapidly to a precipice while the occupants argue about whether they should maybe change down a gear. If we are to continue with this ...6 days ago
Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons headquarters in The Hague. Image credit: Prensa Latina Ready Syria to Cooperate with Organization Against Chemical Weapons Multinational bodies, like ... 6 days ago
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, May 5 through Sat, May 11, 2019 Editor's Pick Proposal to spend 25% of EU budget on climate change Schoolchildren ...1 week ago
Improving the safety of all road users is the focus of a new public consultation document on the issue of drug driver testing. Plans for public consultation on options to improve the drug driver testing process have been announced by ...4 days ago
The spectre of trout farming has reared up from the murky shadows of the previous National government’s treaty deals. Māori owners of Lake Rotoaira near Turangi are reported to be backing an attempt to allow trout farming. ...7 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sabin Zahirovic, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Scientists are among the millions of die-hard Game of Thrones fans digesting the show’s finale today. The striking landscape of Game of Thrones has ...3 hours ago
It’s week six of Dancing with the Stars, and the cream has risen from beneath the crop! Sam Brooks power-ranks the contestants.Week six! We’re at the stage of the competition where I can listen to a judge’s feedback and guess, with ...5 hours ago
By Michael Andrew Journalism students across Australia collaborated in an immense project to cover this month’s federal election. Organised through The Junction, a website showcasing and promoting student journalism, the coverage featured in-depth stories profiling every candidate in each ...5 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University The last thing the world needs at a moment of significant trade tensions between the United States and China is a Middle ...5 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucy Deng, Staff Specialist Paediatrician, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance; Clinical Associate Lecturer, Children’s Hospital Westmead Clinical School, University of Sydney About 4.1 million Australians are under-vaccinated, meaning they’ve received ...6 hours ago
A little-known piece of 1990s legislation should give the Zero Carbon Bill's doubters pause. ...7 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is coming under increasing pressure from his own MPs to switch the country’s political allegiance from Taiwan to China, report local news media. Solomon Islands is one of 17 nations ...7 hours ago
The legislation was introduced by the National government in May 2017 but has languished without progress ever since - it’s the oldest non-members bill yet to receive a first reading by a long way ...7 hours ago
The government has proposed further changes to the emissions trading scheme. ...8 hours ago
Medicinal cannabis firm Cannasouth is poised to become NZX's first initial public offering in two years. ...8 hours ago
9 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGreevy, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare Science, University of Sydney In the first edition of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin mentions dogs 54 times. He does so ...9 hours ago
After being lobbied to take a stand on scientific terms, the prime minister’s chief science adviser attempted to find out who makes the call on whether or not to approve an application by a majority-Malaysian-owned company to mine at the ...9 hours ago
A Taranaki couple threw in their high-flying careers to bring people together through the joys of good baking.Tucked down an alleyway off New Plymouth’s main street, just a stone’s throw from the famous Len Lye Centre, you’ll find Billow Bakery ...10 hours ago
The National Party is accusing the Environment Minister David Parker of washing his hands of investigations into firefighting foam contamination. ...10 hours ago
Broadcasting legend Elizabeth Alley reviews Loving Sylvie, the gorgeous, ephemeral new novel by Elizabeth Smither.A bride is rowed across a grey-green lake to her wedding. She rehearses her new name, “Sylvie Grace Taverner,” as the waters lap the boat. There’s ...10 hours ago
Kiwi Property has reported a strong full year underlying profit, as it continues to reinvest in its Auckland retail and office properties. ...10 hours ago
Tof Eklund reviews Lovestruck, a free-to-play treasure trove of romantic queer gaming content.Voltage’s Lovestruck does not, at first glance, look particularly queer-inclusive. Created in 2017 to unify four otome (‘women’s romance’) mobile games, this game hub now houses at least ...12 hours ago
Katie Meadows reviews Catch-22, George Clooney’s bleak and boring TV adaptation of the classic novel.Even if you are not familiar with Joseph Heller’s 1961 satirical novel, you will be familiar with its title — a catch-22 at its most technical is ...13 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen G Bosi, Senior Lecturer in Physics, University of New England Curious Kids is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to ...13 hours ago
By Marija Taflaga of the Australian National University in Canberra The man that has “always believed in miracles” has just delivered one for the Liberal party. It’s not clear at the time of writing if the government will have ...15 hours ago
The New Zealand Bankers' Association is calling for a rethink of the Reserve Bank’s bank capital proposals to avoid hurting the economy. ...15 hours ago
The country's largest power company, Genesis Energy, is easing off its plan to stop using coal completely by 2030. ...16 hours ago
It's not building materials and labour costs making new homes cost so much in New Zealand. Bernard Hickey analyses a new report. ...16 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Brynn Hibbert, Emeritus Professor of Analytical Chemistry, UNSW We measure stuff all the time – how long, how heavy, how hot, and so on – because we need to for things ...17 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katinka van de Ven, Research Fellow, Drug Policy Modelling Program, SPRC, UNSW Most media reports would have you believe steroid users are predominantly young men suffering a “crisis of male ego” who ...17 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Green, Lecturer, UNSW Can the design of a climate change message change someone’s beliefs? Absolutely, and with a surprisingly powerful correlation. My research found climate change messages that spark fear and ...17 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karyn Healy, Researcher, The University of Queensland School bullying can have serious consequences for victims including depression, psychosis, self-harm and suicide. With increasing evidence of harm, a groundswell of school anti-bullying programs ...17 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Stanley, Adjunct Professor, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney Melbourne is growing faster than most cities of similar size in developed countries. Population ...17 hours ago
Anna Rawhiti-Connell gives her selection of the delights of the Auckland Writers' Festival. ...18 hours ago
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Scott Morrison wins re-election in Australia, major boost in funding for sexual violence services, and stories around Alfred Ngaro party continue to swirl.Few saw it coming, but Australian PM Scott Morrison ...18 hours ago
Auckland today hosts delegations from Los Angeles and Guangzhou in its annual tripartite meeting for economic opportunities between the three cities - at a delicate time of division between the Chinese and US over trade. ...18 hours ago
Auckland's growth pains and urgent needs are well known. But, Rupert Hodson of Beca asks, are we responding as urgently and comprehensively as we should for such a 'crisis'? ...20 hours ago
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.
.