Daily review 30/09/2024
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5:30 pm, September 30th, 2024 - 20 comments
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- Dance Magic
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...8 hours ago - Government Forces Universities to Enforce “Free Speech” While Limiting Universities̵...
ACT would like to dictate what universities can and can’t say. We knew it was coming. It was outlined in the coalition agreement and has become part of Seymour’s strategy of “emphasising public funding” to prevent people from opposing him and his views—something he also uses to try and de-platform ...8 hours ago - Fact brief – Are we heading into an ‘ice age’?
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading ...20 hours ago - As Our Power Lessens: Published
So the Solstice has arrived – Summer in this part of the world, Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. And with it, the publication my new Norse dark-fantasy piece, As Our Power Lessens at Eternal Haunted Summer: https://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/winter-solstice-2024/as-our-power-lessens/ As previously noted, this one is very ‘wyrd’, and Northern Theory of Courage. ...1 day ago - By Any Other Name.
The Natural Choice: As a starter for ten percent of the Party Vote, “saving the planet” is a very respectable objective. Young voters, in particular, raised on the dire (if unheeded) warnings of climate scientists, and the irrefutable evidence of devastating weather events linked to global warming, vote Green. After ...1 day ago - Bernard’s last Saturday Soliloquy for 2024
The Government cancelled 60% of Kāinga Ora’s new builds next year, even though the land for them was already bought, the consents were consented and there are builders unemployed all over the place. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political ...1 day ago - Bernard’s Picks ‘n’ Mixes for Saturday, December 21
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on UnsplashEvery morning I get up at 3am to go around the traps of news sites in Aotearoa and globally. I pick out the top ones from my point of view and have been putting them into my Dawn Chorus email, which goes out with a podcast. ...1 day ago - 2024 OIA stats
Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine: 82 OIA requests sent in 2024 7 posts based on those requests 20 average working days to receive a response Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, ...2 days ago - Climate Change: A perverse incentive
The government published its first Biennial Transparency Report under the Paris Agreement yesterday, and the media has correctly noted that it is missing any plan to actually meet our target. While it hypes domestic emissions reductions so far - which have been good, but will likely get worse thanks to ...2 days ago
- Economic Bulletin December 2024
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The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, slamming the Bill as a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and an attack on tino rangatiratanga and the collective rights of Tangata Whenua. “This Bill seeks to legislate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles that are ...2 days ago
- ZB’s Power Couple
I don't knowHow to say what's got to be saidI don't know if it's black or whiteThere's others see it redI don't get the answers rightI'll leave that to youIs this love out of fashionOr is it the time of yearAre these words distraction?To the words you want to hearSongwriters: ...2 days ago - Austerity thumps GDP most since 1991
Our economy has experienced its worst recession since 1991. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 20 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below ...2 days ago
- Weekly Roundup 20-December-2024
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The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the year’s news with: on climate. Her book of the year was Tim Winton’s cli-fi novel Juice and she also mentioned Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Fresh Water. ...2 days ago
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The Government can head off to the holidays, entitled to assure itself that it has done more or less what it said it would do. The campaign last year promised to “get New Zealand back on track.” When you look at the basic promises—to trim back Government expenditure, toughen up ...3 days ago - Skeptical Science New Research for Week #51 2024
Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment: Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance ...3 days ago
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This morning I awoke to the lovely news that we are firmly back on track, that is if the scale was reversed.NZ ranks low in global economic comparisonsNew Zealand's economy has been ranked 33rd out of 37 in an international comparison of which have done best in 2024.Economies were ranked ...3 days ago - Book Review: How Big Things Get Done
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In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...5 days ago
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New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...5 days ago
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At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...5 days ago
- Shameless, clueless
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...5 days ago - Minimum wage ‘increase’ is an effective cut
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...5 days ago
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson In this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...5 days ago
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In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...5 days ago - When austerity worsens public debt & cuts GDP
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Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...6 days ago
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- Thank You
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...7 days ago - 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
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I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...1 week ago - Nothing here but the shadows
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Hi,“What I love about New Zealanders is that sometimes you use these expressions that as Americans we have no idea what those things mean!"I am watching a 30-something year old American ramble on about how different New Zealanders are to Americans. It’s his podcast, and this man is doing a ...1 week ago - Chris Penk’s Hate Parade
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Returning to the model that was failing for most polytechnics and Institutes of Technology is not the answer. ...2 days ago
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It’s been revealed that National has cancelled 60 percent of its housing projects planned before mid-2025 amidst housing woes. ...2 days ago
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The economy shrank 1% this quarter and New Zealand has tumbled into the depths of a recession of Nicola Willis’ making. ...3 days ago
- Release: Hikes for company directors but not ordinary Kiwis
Working people are going backwards while company directors are being given huge pay hikes. ...4 days ago
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The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...4 days ago
- Release: Strengthening Justice Services for New Zealanders
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...4 days ago
- Release: Labour will continue fight against destructive projects
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...5 days ago
- Green Government will revoke dodgy fast-track projects
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...5 days ago
- Government for the wealthy keeps pushing austerity
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...5 days ago
- Release: Visa changes let migrant workers be paid less
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- Release: Nightmare before Christmas for Nicola Willis
With more debt and a larger deficit, Nicola Willis’ reputation is in tatters after her failure to return the Government’s books to surplus. ...5 days ago
- Warning to Fast-Track Applicants – ‘Exploit the Whenua, Face the Consequences’
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- Release: Govt cuts wages for lowest paid NZers… again
For the second year running, the government has effectively cut wages for the lowest paid workers in New Zealand. ...5 days ago
- Govt’s miserly 1.5% minimum wage will take workers backwards
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...5 days ago
- Release: Govt shirking responsibility for rate hikes
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...5 days ago
- Luxon’s ‘localism’ strikes again
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt breaks promise on EV chargers
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...6 days ago
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The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...6 days ago
- Govt child poverty targets allow for increase in poverty
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...1 week ago
- Release: Four weeks annual leave under threat
The Government’s attack on workers continues with news it is scrapping work on the Holidays Act. ...1 week ago
- Govt’s emissions plan for measly 1% reduction
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...1 week ago
- Greens stand in solidarity with Whakaata Māori on sad day
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...1 week ago
- Sanctions regime to create more hardship for families
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...1 week ago
- Govt gifts renters housing anxiety for Christmas
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...1 week ago
- Release: National Party urged to support modern slavery legislation
Labour is urging the Prime Minister to walk the talk and support legislation combating modern slavery. ...1 week ago
- Release: Labour has lost confidence in the Speaker
The Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament made an unprecedented decision on the government amendment to the Fast Track Approvals Bill last night. ...1 week ago
- One year on, still no progress on new ferries
Today’s announcement from the Government on its plan for new ferries throws more uncertainty on the future of the country’s rail network. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Nicola Willis’ smaller ferries will cost more
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...2 weeks ago
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The Government has done the right thing in moving to ban greyhound racing. ...2 weeks ago
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I saw the RNZ stand up interview, notice how Luxon always has to have an escape route, standing outside and the only one with a microphone, but shit he is good, I’ve met quite a few arseholes in 75 years but he absolutely slays it with the taking credit for others hard work and initiative. How the fuck can he straight faced take the credit for Labour projects while bagging everything Labour did. King of the Arseholes. So glad to see at last lots of others starting to get angry as well.
Hes the product of his environment: elite private schools, paths opened up via networks to well paid corporate gigs and now, just like key, hes having a run out in politics.
Just another job to chris, not as directly well paid but the indirect benefits will more than compensate over time…..kaching !
At a little over 7 minutes long, this Checkpoint interview with the Clutha mayor hammers the nail into the coffin of CoC hopes of retaining many marginal seats in the South Island.
He's quite outspoken about the $14 billion in tax cuts = no hospital in Dunedin/Tasman etc.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018957761/clutha-mayor-speaks-on-dunedin-hospital-u-turn
Cadogan is a gem.
Yes Cadogan was rather wonderful…eloquent and logical while somehow still sounding folksy.
Now people like him and the Dunedin mayor are taking National apart there is a great deal of hope at the next election. As Idiot/Savant says in his article, this is a tipping point.
The problem for Luxon is that public hospitals have never ever been part of his life,,.they are for bottom feeders…the other 95%.
Southland and Otago are true Blue hell will freeze over b4 they go Red
.
"I found a considerable lack of work after doing concerts for Palestinian children.. if that's the way it has to be, that's the way it has to be. If you support human rights, you gotta support them everywhere."
– Kris Kristofferson
aj 100%
Federated Fuckwits blame change in land use for the demise of sheep meat and the Alliance Group's Smithfield plant.
It was land use change alright but not to forestry, it was to dairy.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/529474/forestry-not-to-blame-for-smithfield-meatworks-closure-industry-says
That is not even considering that while global sheep meat prices dropped it was those farmers who chose to sell to forestry for massive personal gain rather than planting on their own farms for these mythical carbon credits.
FF complain about trees destroying the rural lifestyle and rural communities. Farming went through the same rationalisation from the 1930s-50s when small farms were no longer economically viable and amalgamated with better transport and trucking able to cart milk longer distances. We saw a swathe of small daity factories closed, small farms aggregated into larger ones, rural schools and settlements hollowed out. It's not like it's anything new
Turmeric. They sprayed turmeric with lead chromate to enhance it's colour.
“It’s the crime of the century,” says Bruce Lanphear.
He’s not talking about a murder spree, a kidnapping or a bank heist.
Lanphear – an environmental epidemiologist at Simon Fraser University – is referring to the fact that an estimated 800 million children around the world are poisoned by lead – lead in their family’s pots and pan, lead in their food, lead in the air. That’s just about half of all children in low- and middle-income countries, according to UNICEF and the nonprofit Pure Earth.
For decades, very little has been done about this. But this is the story of how two women – a New York City detective and a California student – followed the data and helped crack a puzzling case that spanned the globe in the ongoing “crime” of lead poisoning.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5011028/detectives-mystery-lead-poisoning-new-york-bangladesh?
As long a Rimmer heavily fines these privileged white parents for their offspring's truancy there should not be a problem.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/529475/parents-on-travel-during-school-terms-it-s-the-cost-not-the-time
Basically, the money saved on the flights to and accomodation in Denarau would be offset by the government fine for truancy.
Let's see how that plays out. Methinks Seymour will come down a lot harder on low income brown families who find it difficult to navigate the demands of NZ’s protestant, colonial, neoliberal economy. Funny that.
As for the clown parents blaming airlines for supply and demand charging well, isn't that the height of hypocrisy!
Oh come on! Children need parents-only time too.
It has always been the way of things. Flights to Disney Land versus working for food. Those who don't wish to see turn their heads away. A Tuvaluan boy, asked about his regular absences… “Mum does not speak english well, so I go to tell her what the Doctor says.”
The Prime Minister responding to questions about not paying any tax on the $480,000 of capital gain from the sale of 2 of his 6 rental properties.
In 35 OF 36 OECD nations he would have paid tax on the CG.
No wealth is generated for New Zealand by the CG on the properties, only himself. And he was the one who chose not to invest the money in the productive sector of the economy.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/09/30/revealed-luxon-gains-almost-500k-on-property-sales/
Here Luxon also is also opposed to an inheritance tax/estate tax.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/06/11/luxon-challenged-over-his-7-houses-who-owns-more-than-you/
24/36 OECD nations have an inheritance or estate tax (ours was removed by Richardson in the 1990-1993 period).
We also have no gift duty (since Key got rid of that in 2013, so families could help children into homes with equity).
Douglas opposed a CGT, but kept the estate/inheritance tax – saying he preferred an assets tax (wealth tax) to a CGT.
It's an angle Luxon is open to attack from- the conflict of interest, where he directly benefits from landlording/tax breaks/capital gains.
Unfortunately, those who should be attacking him for it, Labour, are kinda compromised in that they are 'prpoerty investors' too.
Too many landlords in our parliament for them to solve housing inaffordability.
The Civilian in the Beehive can report that Barack Obama will not again be on the same golf course with John Key.
The former New Zealand Prime Minister has sullied his reputation.
He notes that Trump
Yet despite noting that a Trump policy would result in the
he
For whom? Not the poor and struggling middle class. What then does economy mean – for investors/shareholders/business owners?
The right wing economics first line will ruin society and the planet. And Trump is a threat to international cooperation and democracy within the USA.
Capitalism first, is a dangerous cult.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350434743/why-sir-john-key-thinks-donald-trump-should-win-us-election
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1fs09vx/dr_ganesh_nana_on_the_economy_and_debt_private/