“At least 13,000 people joined Labour last week and most of them did so to support the party’s under pressure leader Jeremy Corbyn, according to ITV’s political editor Robert Peston.
Peston posted on social media saying that 60% of people who have signed up to the Labour Party last week gave “supporting Corbyn” as the reason why they joined”
“. Newsnight has spoken to more than 50 Constituency Labour Party chairs and secretaries who endorsed Corbyn last year. Of those, 45 continue to offer their support and believe that their constituencies will again nominate the leader in the now inevitable leadership contest.”
Corbyn has to be far tougher than Cunliffe was. When he gets the Leadership confirmation, he needs to go through to all the electorate committees and get everyone of his disloyal MPs deselected, starting at the top.
There was a #DelectThem action earlier in the week. I didn’t find out what is possible though. How would that process work? Is deselection a matter of the local committee deciding that a sitting MP can’t stand again? I’d be interested to know for NZLP too.
Apparently up until Blair got in local parties could choose their candidate before each general election, so that kept MPs focused on keeping their party membership behind them. Blair and the New Labour changes meant MPs have automatic reselection unless they decide not to run.
Within the last day Ken Livingstone has called for the ability to deselect be given back to the party members.
(I’ve tried 3 times to reply to this so you may end up with 4 comments from me).
Under Blair & New Labour automatic reelection for MPs. Before that local party would select for each general election. Livingstone has called in the last day for local party to be given back that power.
[Apologies, GregJ. I put your namesake Greg into moderation for the night and your handle also got caught. Fixed now. TRP]
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, greedy, uncaring and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
Uncaring.
This government’s management of the homelessness crisis.
Man found dead in bale was homeless
The body of a man found in a cardboard bale at a recycling plant in Hamilton had been taken to the plant by truck, police say.
Daniel Bindner, 40, was homeless and had been living rough in his home town of Te Awamutu.
His body was discovered by workers at OJI Fibre Solutions’ plant in Frankton on Tuesday.
The last recorded sighting of Daniel Bindner was on June 21 at McDonald’s in Te Awamutu.
Trucks carry cardboard to the plant, where it is then processed into bales.
When the dairy downturn started biting, Daniel Bindner’s world started unravelling.
The Waikato father lost his job as a farm worker, broke up with the mother of his children and ended up homeless before he disappeared.
It was almost a week after the 40-year-old was last seen that workers at a Hamilton recycling plant discovered the father of three’s body in a compressed bale of cardboard.
A letter in today’s ODT from a woman asking All Black Fans/NZ Males to please not grope her, yell obscenities at her, say gross suggestive stuff to her, just to let her walk home in safety & peace. I just thought it was ironic with the anti-muslim, anti-refugees brigade wanting them to sign that NZ Values thing. Just sayin’.
Greg is part of a pretty small group of men in NZ who outright hate feminism and anything that even looks like it. His comment is pretty despicable, but we do know that such people are getting less in number.
you sound all misandry by making misogynist claims,
feminism and islam have one thing in common,
they dont like any criticism,
[You know what? You’re getting boring, Greg. Take the night off and have a think about your language and its patronising tone. Language that has the effect of excluding people is covered in the policy. Read it, then make up your mind whether this is the blog for you. If it is, get a grip. If not, off you go. Don’t like it? Well cry me a fucken river. TRP]
On that display, the Right is completely unhinged and lacks any intellectual depth.
The only justification I have seen for Trump is that he has appeal to ignorant , frustrated people.
If he achieves selection as Presidential Candidate in the country that is supposed to be the world’s leading democracy, maybe our species deserves the extinction that climate change now threatens us with.
Those who believe in God need to pray hard – but in His usual manner, He will probably refuse to intervene.
Which is why I should not have given him capital letters..
Presumably that’s because they’re at sea for long periods of time. Why would a cruise ship in dock be different than something like a university hostel?
Well, for one thing looking at the cruise ships that come into Dunedin vs the colleges of residence, the ships look like they’re much more densely packed than the colleges. I also read an article recently that reckoned cruise passengers were purposefully fed foods of a particular type to, er, be easy on the plumbing, which was built to a minimum cost spec. Take that with a grain of salt though lol.
But to be fair there’s been more than one norovirus outbreak in a college of residence, too. But then both colleges and cruise ships are designed around short term stays. How long are homeless folk expected to live there, and are the layouts even conducive to “living” as opposed to being a holiday cabin? Long double-barrel corridors?
Ships and colleges also have quite strong social hierarchy structures and support staff on every floor if not more. Is this the plan for auckland?
Cunning plan lure them too the docks with hopes of free accommodation and warmth, send in the press gangs, fill up the war ships and traders and head out…
Oh that’s 19th century my bad.
Employ there kids in our mills and mines,, oh bugger wrong book again…
It’s here somewhere.. the solution , one of us honourable Tories would have written a book on it..
He estimates the cost of purchasing and transporting it to New Zealand to be at least NZ$5m. It could reach New Zealand from Europe in a month, House said.
Considering the cost of a brand new cruise ship I would expect one that costs $5m, including transporting it to NZ, to probably not be seaworthy. It certainly wouldn’t be habitable.
I’m not against the idea but these people obviously haven’t thought about all the practicalities involved and the $5m is a figure that they’ve pulled out of their arse. See this type of shit from NZ managers all the bloody time. They haven’t got a clue as to what’s really needed and how much it’s going to cost.
Climate change is happening.
But the news media just can’t bear to mention the words climate change.
Two-year drought runs long time farmer off his land.
The farm has been in Nick Hamilton’s family for four generations, but today sits barren and stockless.
Hamilton was born on North Canterbury’s Minnivey Downs, but abandoned it after two years of drought had made the farm unsustainable.
He took up work pruning grapes in Waipara to make ends meet.
When English Key talk Welfare they talk in general Stats. They avoid individual stories like a plague. So Katherine’s story might bring reality to the awful plight that many face.
Tory Justice Minister Michael Gove has got in first announcing he’s running for the leadership of the Conservatives. Theresa May & Boris Johnson expected to announce their bids in the next few hours.
Like most people here, I’ve been thinking about the EU vote over the past week and its causes in particular. Then I remembered this video from Charlie Brooker from just over half a decade ago – I think it was soon after the GFC.
I just watched Theresa May’s full speech for her bid to be Conservative leader.
If she gets it and works as she says then the Torys will definitely be moving the political centre leftwards. A big if of course… if she means it and if she gets it.
If her record on immigration fails to send a chill down your spine, then consider one of May’s very first acts in the role of Home Secretary: in 2010, she ensured that public bodies no longer had to actively try to reduce inequality.
This departure from a key tenet of the Equality Act was not an isolated step; three years later, May expressed her disdain for the Human Rights Act, telling the Sunday Telegraph that she “personally” felt that it had caused problems in the UK.
Yup. She’s had an epiphany or I forgot the sarc tag. I haven’t workedo ut which yet.
Either way, she’s done the business. Not that there was much to challenge. Labour’s Blairite’s will have taken note and will have to work out how to differentiate themselves I suspect.
“When leaders choose the facts that suit them, ignore the facts that don’t and, in the absence of suitable facts, simply make things up, people don’t stop believing in facts – they stop believing in leaders. They do so not because they are over-emotional, under-educated, bigoted or hard-headed, but because trust has been eroded to such a point that the message has been so tainted by the messenger as to render it worthless.”
“To describe this as a working-class revolt against the elites is to give the elites more credit than they are due. With both sides run by Old Etonians and former Bullingdon boys, the elites were going to win no matter who you voted for.”
But the only thing worse than the result and its consequences is the poisonous atmosphere that made it possible. The standard of our political discourse has fallen more precipitously than the pound and cannot be revived as easily. This did not happen overnight, and the sorry conduct of the referendum campaign was only the latest indication of the decrepit state of our politics: dominated by shameless appeals to fear, as though hope were a currency barely worth trading in, the British public had no such thing as a better nature, and a brighter future held no appeal. Xenophobia – no longer closeted, parsed or packaged, but naked, bold and brazen – was given free rein. A week before the referendum, an MP was murdered in the street. When the man accused of killing her was asked his name in court he said: “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain.”
So two main protagonists (Cameron and Johnson) have political careers in ruins. Well deserved. Contempt for the poor, years of destruction of working class lives, removal of social support systems. They bear some responsibility for the death of Jo Cox, imo. Maybe not as much as Farage, but some. After unleashing that destruction they cut and run.
Boris knows a poisoned chalice when he sees one…..
Boris Johnson’s surprise announcement in full
Here is Johnson’s surprise announcement at the end of his speech. It came after he called for measures to cut inequality and spread opportunity.
That is the agenda for the next prime minister of this country.
Well, I must tell you, my friends, you who have waited faithfully for the punchline of this speech, that having consulted colleagues and in view of the circumstances in parliament, I have concluded that person cannot be me.
My role will be to give every possible support to the next Conservative administration to make sure that we properly fulfil the mandate of the people that was delivered at the referendum and to champion the agenda that I believe in, to stick up for the forgotten people of this country.
And, if we do so, if we invest in our children and improve their life chances, if we continue to fuel the engines of social mobility, if we build on the great reforming legacy of David Cameron, if we invest in our infrastructure and we follow a sensible, one nation Conservative approach that is simultaneously tax-cutting and pro-enterprise, then I believe that this country can win and be better and more wonderful and, yes, greater than ever before.
The Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) had part of its committee stage yesterday. its a generally tedious bill about the nitty-gritty of local government reorganisation. But it includes a clause making the Local Government Commission subject to the Ombudsmen Act, and hence the OIA. Great! Except of ...
Yesterday Ihumātao's mana whenua reached a consensus that they would like their land back, and asked the government to negotiate with Fletcher's for its return. The government's response? Try and undermine that consensus, while talking about how doing anything would undermine existing Treaty settlements. The first is just more bad ...
Its Suffrage Day, the 126th anniversary of women winning the right to vote (but not stand in elections) in New Zealand. And to celebrate, the government has bought Kate Sheppard's house in Christchurch:The government has bought Kate Sheppard's former home in Christchurch for more than $4 million. The Ilam villa ...
The UN climate summit is happening in new York next week, and unlike previous years, coal-burners and denier-states are not being invited to speak:Leading economies such as Japan and Australia will not be invited to speak at next week’s crunch UN climate change summit, as their continued support for coal ...
Get Back Jojo! The elation in Mayor Phil Goff’s camp may be easily imagined as they watched social media light up in indignation at challenger John Tamihere’s "Sieg Heil to that" quip. Just when JT’s notoriously right-wing, sexist and homophobic stains were beginning to fade back into his ‘colourful’ past, ...
Patrick Gower is good value when he's high. Not that I've ever, you know, got stoned with him. But in the second part of his documentary Patrick Gower on Weed, he does what you'd expect in a modern weed documentary and immerses himself – first with a doctor, then a ...
We surveyed candidates on their attitudes to issues facing the Western Bay Region, find out what they think: “Closing the Gap” Tauranga, one of the area groups of Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc., has surveyed all candidates in the three local body elections to discover attitudes to some basic issues ...
Please spread widely, and sign, to support science and rationalism over the new irrationalism sweeping universities and institutions. PROJECT NETTIE Sexual reproduction, the generation of offspring by fusion of genetic material from two different individuals, evolved over 1 billion years ago. It is the reproductive strategy of all higher animals ...
Just when I was thinking that Palmerston North's mayoral race (which includes a convicted child molester / public wanker and a convicted child beater) was the worst in the country, Auckland mayoral candidate John Tamihere opened his mouth:Auckland mayoral candidate John Tamihere is being slammed for using the words "sieg ...
We reprint below an article from the excellent website the Economics of Imperialism by Tony Norfield This is an update of the statistics for my Index of Power, using data for 2018-19 and discussing what a country’s ranking reflects. The major change is that China’s rank has shifted up and ...
The All Blacks have been, for more than a century, arguably the most successful International sports team in the world. But they are more than that; even for those Kiwis who are immune to the charms of rugby (and there are more than a few), the All Blacks are ambassadors ...
Alone, Alone, All, All, Alone: To argue that the Prime Minister is the victim of her advisers’ failure to keep her informed may offer Jacinda some measure of exoneration – but only at the cost of casting her as a hopeless political ingénue. A star-dusted muppet, whose only purpose is to ...
In times of hysteria about the “World coming to an end” and “rising sea levels” so-called ‘Journalists’ who can barely spell words longer than four letters are having a ball! Though the majority of the Public have worked out that manmade climate change is nothing short of pseudo-science, and the ...
I don't want to give pblicity to certain parts of the internet that are better left to fester in their own irrelevance (I know, a bit like this place) but the listing of Chris Trotter as a 'author' on Cameron Slater's spinoff website, the BFD requires some explanation.Now, I don't ...
The text below is a Twitter thread by Heather Heying that explains the essence of sexual reproduction and it long evolutionary history. She is an evolutionary biologist and a “professor-in-exile” after she and her husband, Bret Weinstein, stood up to supporters of an enforced “Day of Absence” for white staff and teachers ...
With crunch time for new Zealand climate policy approaching, most of the New Zealand media have got on board with a global reporting effort to cover the issue. There's one strand of stories today about polling and what it shows about changing public attitudes to the crisis, but the strand ...
Dangerous Foes: For those readers of Bowalley Road who feel disposed to dismiss any prospect of an Israeli destabilisation of New Zealand politics, the example of the United Kingdom repays close attention. Ever since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party, the Israelis have sanctioned, funded and ...
Make It 16, the youth-led campaign to lower New Zealand's voting age, is holding an official campaign launch at Parliament this Friday from 16:30. If you'd like to attend, you can register using EventBrite here. ...
by Don Franks It was a lovely sunny Wellington afternoon with blue skies above the beaches. In Courtenay Place, political activists packed out a stuffy upstairs room for an important meeting. The assembled pacifists, anarchists, communists and independent young radicals of Peace Action Wellington felt the need for a mission ...
Current and former NZDF top brass are being publicly grilled this week by the hit and run inquiry over their public responses to allegations of civilian casualties. Previously, they've claimed there were no casualties, a position which led them to lie to Ministers and to the public. Now, they're saying ...
by Rafael D. Quiles (gender-critical gay man from Puerto Rico) The writing on the wall is right in people’s faces and people just don’t see it or don’t want to. What could actually possess a heterosexual male to want to feminize himself and claim that he is a lesbian? Because ...
From the Wall Street Journal:Inside a room of the ornately decorated Hotel du Palais during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, President Trump awaited a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Mr. Trump looked over a gathering of American and Egyptian officials and called out in ...
by the Redline blog collective At Redline we are very saddened to hear of the death of Magdalen Burns who passed away on the morning of Friday, September 13 (British time). Magdalen was a great fighter for the rights of women in general and lesbian women in particular, a defender ...
The Brexit issue has certainly brought with it a series of apparently difficult constitutional issues, many of them concerning the respective roles of the executive and parliament. Most of them arise because of the unwillingness of MPs, despite their professions to the contrary, to be bound by a constitutional rarity ...
. . This blogpost is different to my usual format of reporting on issues… Since July 1011, I have blogged on a variety of political issues; near always political and/or environmental; mostly highly critical of the previous National Government. Other issues included Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of ...
Those close to the Police Minister believe the initiative may be the result of Nash “seeing a great deal” on AliExpress. In a move that comes seemingly out of nowhere, Police Minister Stuart Nash announced this afternoon that he expects all frontline staff to don bearskin hats, famously worn by ...
The government has released its Arms Legislation Bill, containing the second tranche of changes to gun laws following the March 15 massacre. And it all looks quite sensible: a national gun register, higher penalties for illegal possession and dealing, tighter restrictions on arms dealers and shooting clubs, and a shorter ...
Private prisons are a stain on humanity. Prison operators explicitly profit from human misery, then lobby for longer prisons terms so they can keep on profiting. And in the US, prison companies run not only local and state prisons, but also Donald Trump's immigration concentration camps. Faced with this moral ...
When National was in power, they were very keen on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) - basicly, using private companies to finance public infrastructure as a way of hiding debt from the public. They were keen on using them for everything - roads, schools, hospitals. But as the UK shows, that "service" ...
Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...
by Philip Ferguson Much of the left, even people who formally identify as marxists, have collapsed politically in the face of postmodern gender theory of the sort pioneered by American philosopher Judith Butler. For Butler even biological sex is socially constructed. “If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps ...
The media is reporting that the (alleged) Labour party sexual assaulter has resigned from their job at Parliament, which means hopefully he won't be turning up there making people feel unsafe in future. Good. But as with everything about this scandal, it just raises other questions. Most significantly: why the ...
By Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern I am every bit as angry as you are. I am every bit as disappointed as you must be. The people with power, oversight and the ability to do something about these processes within the Labour Party should be ashamed. Whoever those people are, I ...
Property developers think there is an "oversupply" of houses in Auckland:High turnover rates and falling prices may be a sign that there are too many new houses going in to some parts of Auckland, commentators say. [...] Property developer David Whitburn said there was a "bit of an oversupply" in ...
Labour Party president Nigel Haworth resigned yesterday over the party's sexual assault scandal. But while that's good news, its unlikely to take away the stench of a coverup. Because according to Paula Bennett in Parliament yesterday, pretty much everyone in the Prime Minister's office was involved as well:I have been ...
Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a ...
There has been a lot of talk about Boris Johnson wanting an election, and he has blustered with great gusto about 'chicken' Jeremy Corbyn refusing one, but I think there are many reasons why he is secretly glad he has been refused the opportunity:The Tories are an utter rabble,tearing themselves ...
Scottish appeal court judges have declared that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament in the run-up to the October Brexit deadline is unlawful. The three judges, chaired by Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, overturned an earlier ruling that the courts did not have the powers to interfere in the prime ...
By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...
I understand there's some stuff going round about how the SIS "was removed from the list of public offices covered by the Public Records Act in 2017". The context of course being their records derived from US torture, which will be disposed of or sealed. The good news is that ...
Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ...
Australia is burning down again, and meanwhile its natural disaster minister is denying climate change:Australia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, has said that he doesn’t “know if climate change is manmade”. Clarifying earlier comments that the question is “irrelevant” when considering the Coalition government’s response to ...
Auckland Philippines Solidarity is excited to host Professor Judy Taguiwalo for a speaking tour of NZ in September. She is a well-known activist in the Philippines and was a political prisoner under the Marcos dictatorship. Professor Taguiwalo briefly served as a Cabinet member under President Duterte but was forced from ...
This open letter to the Green Party was penned after an opinion piece by Jill Abigail, a feminist and founding member of the party, was censored by the Greens’ leadership. (Redline has reprinted her article here).The intolerance of the Green Party leaders and their acceptance of the misogyny of gender ...
Today is a Member's day, and David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill continues its slow crawl through its committee stage. They're spending the whole day on it today, though the first hour is likely to be spent on voting left over from last time. After that they'll move on ...
An ambitious plan to fly to Los Angeles petered out into a brief sight-seeing trip and a desire to return home and get some sleep before work tomorrow. Air New Zealand has confirmed a flight to Los Angeles last night was turned back about a quarter of the way into ...
There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...
Here’s another novelty chocolate to shove in your gob, New Zealand Cadbury could be seeking to make itself great again with a rumoured new release: Pineapple Trumps, a spin on its classic chocolate-encased pineapple treat and do-it-yourself tooth remover. The global confectionery manufacturer and bumbling “before” character in an infomercial, ...
During my time in the Pentagon I had the privilege of sitting down with military leaders and defence and security officials from a variety of Latin American nations. Sometimes I was present as a subordinate assistant to a senior US defence department official, sometimes as part of a delegation that ...
Kia ora, Aotearoa. It’s that magical time of year. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. In English, the week that frightens talk radio. As you probably know by now, all your favourite media outlets are participating, some more successfully than others. Stuff has changed its name to Puna for the ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. So how's that going? I was curious, so I asked for all advice about the proposal. ...
As the Brexit saga staggers on, the focus is naturally enough on the Prime Minister and his attempts to achieve Brexit “do or die”. But the role played by the Leader of the Opposition is of almost equal interest and complexity. The first problem for Jeremy Corbyn is that he ...
Last week, English Prime Minister Boris Johnson boldly declared that he would rather die be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit. Unfortunately for him, the UK parliament accepted the challenge, and promptly dug one for him. The "rebellion bill" requires him to ask for and secure yet another temporary ...
Lost In Political Space: The most important takeaway from this latest Labour sexual assault scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of ...
by Daphna Whitmore Every Sunday for the past two months unionists from First Union, with supporters from other unions, have set out to the Ihumatao land protest, put up gazebos and gas barbeques, and cooked food for a few hundred locals and supporters who have come from across the country. ...
Newsroom today has an excellent, in-depth article on pine trees as carbon sinks. The TL;DR is that pine is really good at soaking up carbon, but people prefer far-less efficient native forests instead. Which is understandable, but there's two problems: firstly, we've pissed about so long on this problem that ...
Canan Kaftancioglu is a Turkish politician and member of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). Like most modern politicians, she tweets, and uses the platform to criticise the Turkish government. She has criticised them over the death of a 14-year-old boy who was hit by a tear gas grenade during ...
Hi there, just call me Tim.We face tough problems, and I’d like to help, because there are solutions.An Auckand District Health Board member has nominated me for as a candidate for the ADHB, because her MS-related pain and fatigue is reduced with hemp products from Rotorua. Nothing else helped her. If I ...
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has published their report on whether the SIS and GCSB had any complicity in American torture. And its damning. The pull quote is this:The Inquiry found both agencies, but to a much greater degree, the NZSIS, received many intelligence reports obtained from detainees who, ...
Bewhiskered Cassandra? Professor Hugh White’s chilling suggestion, advanced to select collections of academic, military and diplomatic Kiwi experts over the course of the past week, is that the assumptions upon which Australia and New Zealand have built their foreign affairs and defence policies for practically their entire histories – are ...
For most of the time I was a British MP, my party was out of government – these were the Thatcher years, when it was hard for anyone else to get a look-in. As a front-bencher and shadow minister, I became familiar with the strategies required in a parliamentary democracy ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh On August 29th a video in which veteran FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) commander Iván Márquez announced that they had taken up arms again was released. There was no delay in the reaction to it, from longtime Liberal Party figure and former president Uribe, for ...
Air New Zealand couldn’t believe its luck that this seemingly ideal piece of real estate had so far gone entirely unnoticed. Air New Zealand’s search for a site to build a second Auckland Airport may have made a breakthrough this afternoon, after employees scanning Google satellite imagery spotted a huge, ...
No-one on the anti-capitalist left in this country today puts forward a case that Labour is on the side of the working class. There are certainly people who call themselves ‘socialist’ who do, but they are essentially liberals with vested interests in Labourism – often for career reasons. Nevertheless, there ...
When National was in government and fucking over the poor for the benefit of the rich, foodbanks were a growth industry. And now Labour is in charge, nothing has changed: A huge demand for emergency food parcels means the Auckland City Mission is struggling to prepare for the impending arrival ...
Growth has now slowed to a 6-year low, and downside risks are dominating. June quarter GDP growth came in at 0.5%qoq, in line with our expectation, and slightly above consensus. Although there were a few sensational reports of the chance of a negative print. ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is calling the release of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) framework a good first step in balancing New Zealand’s response to climate change. ...
Family First NZ says that a new Colorado report compiled by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area finds marijuana-positive traffic fatalities, hospitalisations, marijuana use, and illegal market activity have exploded since marijuana legalization. ...
This year’s Ratepayers’ Report , local government league tables released yesterday, reveals which local councils owe the most and which owe the least. ...
Rachel MacGregor welcomes the decision released today by Justice Hinton. The key issue on which all the various litigation has been based is the question, did Colin Craig sexually harass Rachel. That question has been answered – he did. Justice ...
The Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) has today ratified a ground breaking pay deal with Dunedin Railways which will see all union members being paid a living wage and the lowest paid receiving an 18% wage increase. Higher paid RMTU members ...
Inclusion for trans women/men and non-binary peoples has today been announced as the cornerstone of a new resolution for the National Council of Women New Zealand (NCWNZ). ...
It took a testy Morning Report interview this week to remind me that Simon Bridges was still the Leader of the Opposition. Until then, he had been largely invisible as the events of recent weeks unfolded. ...
The National Council of Women NZ has today welcomed the news that the Government has purchased Kate Sheppard’s house in Christchurch, the base for the NZ suffrage campaign. ...
The Māori Party supports mana whenua of Ihumātao and acknowledges their coming together to reach consensus on the future of their whenua. “We also acknowledge the leadership of the Kīngitanga who have played an important role in supporting ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning why, for the second time, Jacinda Ardern has appointed a Crown-owned company Chief Executive to Chair her “Business Advisory Council”, following her announcement that Mercury CEO Fraser Whineray ...
Responding to the Government’s decision to give around $300 million to Amazon as a sweetener for filming a TV series in New Zealand, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: “As a matter of simple waste, this is striking, ...
I am very pleased with Air New Zealand’s Decision to backdown and withdraw their application to trademark into a logo Kia Ora. I said at the time that it was an ill conceived idea and poorly thought out – more importantly it should never have been ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa members will be joining with others across the union movement by wearing black and white in support of pay equity on Suffrage Day tomorrow, and urging the Government to commit to a settlement for teacher aides this year. ...
Yesterday’s announcement from the Minister for Immigration, to improve temporary work visas for migrant workers, provides some positive changes but more detail is needed. The Council of Trade Unions fundamentally supports the principle of making ...
FIRST Union today welcomed Westpac’s public admission of the significant gender pay gap in its workforce and reiterated its call for employers to work with unions to close this disparity, arguing that this work must begin at the bottom of the pay ...
Changes to the work visa system announced by the Minister of Immigration are not all positive for employers or migrants, comments Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment (NZAMI) , a leading voice in the ...
The Dairy Workers Union (DWU) has welcomed the announcement from dairy company, Synlait, that they will be boosting parental leave entitlements significantly for working parents. ...
In June, the Children’s Commissioner announced a thematic review into Oranga Tamariki’s policies, processes and practice relating to care and protection issues for tamariki Māori aged 0-3 months. Today the Children’s Commissioner has released the full ...
“Closing the Gap” Tauranga, one of the area groups of Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc., has surveyed all candidates in the three local body elections to discover attitudes to some basic issues of the Western Bay region. We believe that this is ...
In response to DairyNZ's attempt to dismiss an economic report that highlighted dairy's role in the New Zealand economy is only three per cent of GDP, Fish & Game New Zealand Chief Executive Martin Taylor says: "If DairyNZ wishes to reject a report ...
Kiingi Tuuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has successfully guided the mana whenua of lhumaatao to reach a consensus on the future of their whenua. ...
Two activists disguised as shareholders interrupted the AGM of a gold mining company in central Auckland this morning to inform shareholders their plans to mine for gold in conservation estate in the Karangahake Gorge were unwelcome. ...
The Capital and Coast District Health Board (CCDHB) has been labelled ‘NATO’ (no action, talk only) when it comes to child mental health, with just 0.6 full time staff (24 hours per week) for inpatient child psychology and just 0.8 full time staff ...
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has awarded three New Zealand climate youth groups with its Ambassador of Conscience award, its highest recognition for human rights work, previously given to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Ai Weiwei and Malala Yousafzai. ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union , in partnership with the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance , has today published this year's Ratepayers' Report – online local government league tables – at www.ratepayersreport.nz . ...
NZUS Council executive director Jordan Small welcomes the news New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will meet with US President Donald Trump in New York next week. ...
The recent NZIER report trivialises the significant role the dairy sector plays in New Zealand’s economy – and fails to look at the specifics of the Government’s freshwater package, according to DairyNZ. DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle said ...
This week, the New Zealand Parliament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) will jointly host a seminar on tackling the global spread of illicit weapons. ...
In a landmark judgment issued this morning, the Court of Appeal confirmed that the Southern Response Concealment Class Action will proceed issued on an "opt out” basis. ...
Mainstream media, as the purveyors of truth and source of balanced information, took another backward step today with the announcement by Stuff that most New Zealand organisations had joined 170 media outlets from around the world in the “Covering ...
The goal of one million Kiwis having basic conversations in te reo by 2040 is unrealistic if more is not done to get serious about reo acquisition says the Māori Party. “While small steps have been taken to bolster efforts to increase the numbers of speakers, ...
Changes announced today by the Immigration Minister to employer-assisted visas will help businesses, but more work is needed to boost economic growth says Business Central. ...
DairyNZ Chief Executive Dr Tim Mackle is welcoming today’s announcement that the Government will be streamlining the employer assisted work visa process to help businesses and farms fill skills shortages. ...
Lawrence Yule MP wrote to our Office with concerns about the Department of Corrections' approach to procuring design and build services for rapid deployment of prison accommodation. We have published our response to Mr Yule on our website . ...
That from the chair of the Wellington Region of the College of Midwives, Siobhan Connor, following the news that Hutt Valley District Health Board is targeting midwives from overseas to help fill gaps in maternity units. ...
70% of New Zealand’s surface water take is allocated to Meridian’s Manapouri Power Scheme. But when Environment Minister David Parker asked to exempt the Scheme from his Freshwater Action Plan, he didn’t tell Cabinet that. ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that officers responded in a timely and appropriate manner as soon as they were aware that a fleeing driver had hit a pedestrian. ...
prevention and intervention. Following Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s post-Cabinet press conference we are encouraged to see the acknowledgement of the mistakes made and the need to address this. The five points outlined in the action plan, which ...
A surge in teen vaping rates and a series of deaths being linked to vaping has resulted in a number of bans on the sales of flavoured Vape juice products in the United States. Though it is widely acknowledged that vaping is far less harmful than smoking tobacco, ...
The governments’ new environmental proposals will further accentuate the move of good, productive farmland into forestry according to environmental lobby group 50 Shades of Green. ...
17 September 2019: New Zealanders are acutely aware of the impact food production processes have on our planet according to new research released today by the 5+ A Day Charitable Trust. ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is making no apology for her focus on the Christchurch Call at the United Nations next week and points to Facebook's recent action as a sign of early success. ...
Auckland mayoral candidate John Tamihere's latest verbal outrage moves his campaign strategy from the bellicose to the bizarre. Mark Jennings listens in at yet another debate. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Household Finances, Grattan Institute Compared to the rest of the world, income inequality is not particularly high in Australia, nor is it getting much worse. The real problem is housing inequality. Rising house prices have increased wealth inequality. ...
A harrowing account of what it’s like trying to save your child from suicide, and the toll it takes on everyone involved.This essay discusses suicide in detail. Please proceed with caution.Last week there was a lot of stuff shared around suicide awareness, and I wanted to share something as well, ...
Chloe Blades reviews Kate Weinberg’s first novel, which is selling like mad and earning the London writer comparisons to Agatha Christie and Donna Tartt. It was always going to be unfair on whichever book I read after Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women; that divisive, genre-defying masterpiece on the manipulation of female desire. ...
Annual economic growth has slowed to its weakest level in nearly six years as growth in service industries offset construction and manufacturing weakness. ...
By Wansolwara staff in Suva Twelve leading journalists from 11 Pacific Island countries will converge in Suva, Fiji, this Friday to discuss critical issues affecting the region including climate change and natural disaster relief and recovery and regional security. The one-day “Capstone at The University of the South Pacific” (USP) Laucala ...
Covering Climate Now: The release of the new Nissan Leaf electric vehicle signals a shift in the role of cars in our society. Simon Day was at the launch of the new model. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!According to ...
Covering Climate Now: Charging businesses for their greenhouse gas emissions seems simple enough, but in New Zealand, at least, emissions keep on rising. Is the system flawed, or is it how we’re implementing it?The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Economists ...
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 content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Foreign affairs and trade Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Global uncertainty and domestic troubles as Ardern heads ...
Covering Climate Now: Earlier this year, the climate change response (zero carbon) bill had its first reading. The public was then invited to submit their takes on it to the government. We assessed a few of the stranger ones.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to ...
Op-Ed by Luis Alfonso de Alba – UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Climate Action SummitLuis Alfonso de Alba – UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Climate Action SummitClimate change is not a far-away problem– it is causing huge damage right now in Asia-Pacific and around the world. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bill Bateman, Associate professor, Curtin University Every spring in Australia is heralded by reports of magpies swooping at people. While it is of little comfort to those at the receiving end of a surprise attack, such events are actually quite rare when ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University There’s no shortage of special days throughout the year. Some — like International Literacy Day — speak to important issues in society. Others speak to our inner dag. Today marks one of the daggier days, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Pickles, Professor of History at the University of Canterbury and current Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi James Cook Research Fellow, University of Canterbury Today marks the passing of the much celebrated 1893 Electoral Act, 126 years ago, which made ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meagan Brennan, Clinical A/Prof Breast Physician, Westmead Breast Cancer Institute, University of Sydney Victorian Minister for Health Jenny Mikakos recently announced six new 3D breast screening machines would be rolled out across the state. These will be used to assess women recalled ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Brodie, Professorial Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University Few feel the pain of the Great Barrier Reef’s decline more acutely than the scientists trying to save it. Ahead of next week’s UN climate summit, two ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hilary Whitehouse, Associate Professor, James Cook University This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Youqing Fan, Lecturer, Western Sydney University Affordable housing is a critical problem for Australia’s biggest housing markets. Five Australian cities are in the top 25 with “severely unaffordable” housing in a 2019 Demographia survey of 91 major metropolitan markets. Sydney was ranked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Angelina Hurley, PhD candidate, Griffith University From Darkness, directed by Isaac Drandic, La Boite Theatre From Darkness is the story about the aftermath of sorry business – Aboriginal rituals that are observed during a period of mourning. It looks at how, on ...
Mana whenua say they want the government to negotiate with Fletcher Building to return the land at Ihumātao. But Winston Peters is questioning if the consensus includes everyone's voice. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Difficult decision looms for govt over Ihumātao, NZDF story scrutinised at inquiry, and innovative new bus service to be trialled in Timaru. This is far from the end of the story about what will happen to the land at Ihumātao. A ...
People in central and eastern Europe take a different view on climate change than many in the west, writes the Hungarian news site Index, for the Covering Climate Now project. ...
The power balance of the incoming Auckland Council could be decided by two overheated local debates about a golf course and a carpark. Hayden Donnell reports.The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.Albert-Eden local ...
Covering Climate Now:Carys Goodwin reflects on giving up, and what convinced her to take up the fight again. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Four years ago, while working for the Green Party in parliament, I did a brief stint ...
By RNZ Pacific Vanuatu and Solomon Islands have raised the issue of human rights abuses against West Papuans at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The two governments made a statement which also noted that Indonesia had not yet given access to Papua for the UN Human Rights ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Rogue construction union boss John Setka is already in fights with the Labor party and the ACTU leadership. Now he faces a battle with parliament. Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick is moving to refer an ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paxton Loke, Paediatric Allergist and Immunologist, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Spring has sprung and if you’re one of the one in five Australians who get hay fever, you’ve probably noticed some of those pesky symptoms: sneezing; an itchy, runny or stuffy nose; ...
Covering Climate Now: Alex Casey watches 2040, a climate change documentary determined to let the light in. I’ve seen enough documentaries about climate change to know what I don’t want to see anymore. I don’t want Leonardo DiCaprio stroking his goatee on a sheet of ice and saying “folks: it’s bad”. ...
Covering Climate Now: We need to broaden our measures of success if we want to have any chance of reaching blunt targets for reducing emissions, writes Catherine Leining.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Since 1992, multiple rounds of greenhouse gas ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has acknowledged the Labour sexual assault scandal risks hurting New Zealand's reputation on the world stage as she heads abroad. ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has acknowledged the Labour sexual assault scandal risks hurting New Zealand's reputation on the world stage as she heads abroad. ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has acknowledged the Labour sexual assault scandal risks hurting New Zealand's reputation on the world stage as she heads abroad. ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Thousands of forest fires have been burning across Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra, disrupting air travel, closing schools and sickening thousands of people, reports the New York Times. Officials have said that about 80 per cent of the fires were intentionally set to make room for lucrative ...
Daily Review 30/06/2016 
The Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) had part of its committee stage yesterday. its a generally tedious bill about the nitty-gritty of local government reorganisation. But it includes a clause making the Local Government Commission subject to the Ombudsmen Act, and hence the OIA. Great! Except of ...24 mins ago
Get Back Jojo! The elation in Mayor Phil Goff’s camp may be easily imagined as they watched social media light up in indignation at challenger John Tamihere’s "Sieg Heil to that" quip. Just when JT’s notoriously right-wing, sexist and homophobic stains were beginning to fade back into his ‘colourful’ past, ...8 hours ago
Patrick Gower is good value when he's high. Not that I've ever, you know, got stoned with him. But in the second part of his documentary Patrick Gower on Weed, he does what you'd expect in a modern weed documentary and immerses himself – first with a doctor, then a ...17 hours ago
We surveyed candidates on their attitudes to issues facing the Western Bay Region, find out what they think: “Closing the Gap” Tauranga, one of the area groups of Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc., has surveyed all candidates in the three local body elections to discover attitudes to some basic issues ...24 hours ago
Please spread widely, and sign, to support science and rationalism over the new irrationalism sweeping universities and institutions. PROJECT NETTIE Sexual reproduction, the generation of offspring by fusion of genetic material from two different individuals, evolved over 1 billion years ago. It is the reproductive strategy of all higher animals ...1 day ago
Why is New Zealand climate change policy so crap? The Herald this morning has a long article on the twists and turns of climate change policy in New Zealand [paywalled / depaywall script], which shows where we've been. The short version is that the government first began worrying about this ...1 day ago
The All Blacks have been, for more than a century, arguably the most successful International sports team in the world. But they are more than that; even for those Kiwis who are immune to the charms of rugby (and there are more than a few), the All Blacks are ambassadors ...1 day ago
2 days ago
In times of hysteria about the “World coming to an end” and “rising sea levels” so-called ‘Journalists’ who can barely spell words longer than four letters are having a ball! Though the majority of the Public have worked out that manmade climate change is nothing short of pseudo-science, and the ...2 days ago
3 days ago
Dangerous Foes: For those readers of Bowalley Road who feel disposed to dismiss any prospect of an Israeli destabilisation of New Zealand politics, the example of the United Kingdom repays close attention. Ever since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party, the Israelis have sanctioned, funded and ...3 days ago
Make It 16, the youth-led campaign to lower New Zealand's voting age, is holding an official campaign launch at Parliament this Friday from 16:30. If you'd like to attend, you can register using EventBrite here. ...3 days ago
by Don Franks It was a lovely sunny Wellington afternoon with blue skies above the beaches. In Courtenay Place, political activists packed out a stuffy upstairs room for an important meeting. The assembled pacifists, anarchists, communists and independent young radicals of Peace Action Wellington felt the need for a mission ...3 days ago
From the Wall Street Journal:Inside a room of the ornately decorated Hotel du Palais during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, President Trump awaited a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Mr. Trump looked over a gathering of American and Egyptian officials and called out in ...4 days ago
. . This blogpost is different to my usual format of reporting on issues… Since July 1011, I have blogged on a variety of political issues; near always political and/or environmental; mostly highly critical of the previous National Government. Other issues included Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of ...5 days ago
Those close to the Police Minister believe the initiative may be the result of Nash “seeing a great deal” on AliExpress. In a move that comes seemingly out of nowhere, Police Minister Stuart Nash announced this afternoon that he expects all frontline staff to don bearskin hats, famously worn by ...6 days ago
Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...6 days ago
By Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern I am every bit as angry as you are. I am every bit as disappointed as you must be. The people with power, oversight and the ability to do something about these processes within the Labour Party should be ashamed. Whoever those people are, I ...7 days ago
Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a ...1 week ago
By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...1 week ago
Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ... 1 week ago
An ambitious plan to fly to Los Angeles petered out into a brief sight-seeing trip and a desire to return home and get some sleep before work tomorrow. Air New Zealand has confirmed a flight to Los Angeles last night was turned back about a quarter of the way into ...1 week ago
There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...1 week ago
Here’s another novelty chocolate to shove in your gob, New Zealand Cadbury could be seeking to make itself great again with a rumoured new release: Pineapple Trumps, a spin on its classic chocolate-encased pineapple treat and do-it-yourself tooth remover. The global confectionery manufacturer and bumbling “before” character in an infomercial, ...1 week ago
During my time in the Pentagon I had the privilege of sitting down with military leaders and defence and security officials from a variety of Latin American nations. Sometimes I was present as a subordinate assistant to a senior US defence department official, sometimes as part of a delegation that ...1 week ago
Kia ora, Aotearoa. It’s that magical time of year. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. In English, the week that frightens talk radio. As you probably know by now, all your favourite media outlets are participating, some more successfully than others. Stuff has changed its name to Puna for the ...1 week ago
Lost In Political Space: The most important takeaway from this latest Labour sexual assault scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of ...1 week ago
Bewhiskered Cassandra? Professor Hugh White’s chilling suggestion, advanced to select collections of academic, military and diplomatic Kiwi experts over the course of the past week, is that the assumptions upon which Australia and New Zealand have built their foreign affairs and defence policies for practically their entire histories – are ...1 week ago
Air New Zealand couldn’t believe its luck that this seemingly ideal piece of real estate had so far gone entirely unnoticed. Air New Zealand’s search for a site to build a second Auckland Airport may have made a breakthrough this afternoon, after employees scanning Google satellite imagery spotted a huge, ...2 weeks ago
A new opinion poll released today by Gun Control NZ shows that 70% of Kiwis support strengthening New Zealand’s existing gun laws. ...41 mins ago
An investigation into the poisoning of cattle with 1080 on a King Country farm a year ago still has not been completed. ...56 mins ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is making no apology for her focus on the Christchurch Call at the United Nations next week and points to Facebook's recent action as a sign of early success. ...1 hour ago
Auckland mayoral candidate John Tamihere's latest verbal outrage moves his campaign strategy from the bellicose to the bizarre. Mark Jennings listens in at yet another debate. ...2 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Household Finances, Grattan Institute Compared to the rest of the world, income inequality is not particularly high in Australia, nor is it getting much worse. The real problem is housing inequality. Rising house prices have increased wealth inequality. ...2 hours ago
A harrowing account of what it’s like trying to save your child from suicide, and the toll it takes on everyone involved.This essay discusses suicide in detail. Please proceed with caution.Last week there was a lot of stuff shared around suicide awareness, and I wanted to share something as well, ...2 hours ago
Chloe Blades reviews Kate Weinberg’s first novel, which is selling like mad and earning the London writer comparisons to Agatha Christie and Donna Tartt. It was always going to be unfair on whichever book I read after Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women; that divisive, genre-defying masterpiece on the manipulation of female desire. ...2 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Rich, Lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies, Curtin University This week’s strikes on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing facilities in Saudi Arabia represent the latest in a pattern of actions by the Islamic Republic of Iran to escalate tensions ...2 hours ago
Annual economic growth has slowed to its weakest level in nearly six years as growth in service industries offset construction and manufacturing weakness. ...2 hours ago
By Wansolwara staff in Suva Twelve leading journalists from 11 Pacific Island countries will converge in Suva, Fiji, this Friday to discuss critical issues affecting the region including climate change and natural disaster relief and recovery and regional security. The one-day “Capstone at The University of the South Pacific” (USP) Laucala ...3 hours ago
Covering Climate Now: The release of the new Nissan Leaf electric vehicle signals a shift in the role of cars in our society. Simon Day was at the launch of the new model. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!According to ...4 hours ago
Covering Climate Now: Charging businesses for their greenhouse gas emissions seems simple enough, but in New Zealand, at least, emissions keep on rising. Is the system flawed, or is it how we’re implementing it?The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Economists ...5 hours ago
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.
Op-Ed by Luis Alfonso de Alba – UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Climate Action Summit
New Zealand's largest bank has said it has no intention of selling off farm debt to overseas investors. ...6 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bill Bateman, Associate professor, Curtin University Every spring in Australia is heralded by reports of magpies swooping at people. While it is of little comfort to those at the receiving end of a surprise attack, such events are actually quite rare when ...6 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Rich, Lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies, Curtin University This week’s strikes on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing facilities in Saudi Arabia represent the latest in a pattern of actions by the Islamic Republic of Iran to escalate tensions ...6 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University There’s no shortage of special days throughout the year. Some — like International Literacy Day — speak to important issues in society. Others speak to our inner dag. Today marks one of the daggier days, ...6 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meagan Brennan, Clinical A/Prof Breast Physician, Westmead Breast Cancer Institute, University of Sydney Victorian Minister for Health Jenny Mikakos recently announced six new 3D breast screening machines would be rolled out across the state. These will be used to assess women recalled ...6 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Brodie, Professorial Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University Few feel the pain of the Great Barrier Reef’s decline more acutely than the scientists trying to save it. Ahead of next week’s UN climate summit, two ...6 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Angelina Hurley, PhD candidate, Griffith University From Darkness, directed by Isaac Drandic, La Boite Theatre From Darkness is the story about the aftermath of sorry business – Aboriginal rituals that are observed during a period of mourning. It looks at how, on ...6 hours ago
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Difficult decision looms for govt over Ihumātao, NZDF story scrutinised at inquiry, and innovative new bus service to be trialled in Timaru. This is far from the end of the story about what will happen to the land at Ihumātao. A ...8 hours ago
Agency offshoot’s first product taps into anonymised location data from mobile phone towers. ...9 hours ago
People in central and eastern Europe take a different view on climate change than many in the west, writes the Hungarian news site Index, for the Covering Climate Now project. ...10 hours ago
The power balance of the incoming Auckland Council could be decided by two overheated local debates about a golf course and a carpark. Hayden Donnell reports.The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.Albert-Eden local ...10 hours ago
Covering Climate Now: Carys Goodwin reflects on giving up, and what convinced her to take up the fight again. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Four years ago, while working for the Green Party in parliament, I did a brief stint ...10 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific Vanuatu and Solomon Islands have raised the issue of human rights abuses against West Papuans at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The two governments made a statement which also noted that Indonesia had not yet given access to Papua for the UN Human Rights ...15 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paxton Loke, Paediatric Allergist and Immunologist, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Spring has sprung and if you’re one of the one in five Australians who get hay fever, you’ve probably noticed some of those pesky symptoms: sneezing; an itchy, runny or stuffy nose; ...19 hours ago
Covering Climate Now: Alex Casey watches 2040, a climate change documentary determined to let the light in. I’ve seen enough documentaries about climate change to know what I don’t want to see anymore. I don’t want Leonardo DiCaprio stroking his goatee on a sheet of ice and saying “folks: it’s bad”. ...20 hours ago
Jacinda Ardern flies to New York with hope of action on the Christchurch Call and climate change. ...20 hours ago
Without targets, the Government will have a difficult task in defining whether the gun buyback is successful. Some say it’s impossible. ...22 hours ago
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Thousands of forest fires have been burning across Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra, disrupting air travel, closing schools and sickening thousands of people, reports the New York Times. Officials have said that about 80 per cent of the fires were intentionally set to make room for lucrative ...23 hours ago
“At least 13,000 people joined Labour last week and most of them did so to support the party’s under pressure leader Jeremy Corbyn, according to ITV’s political editor Robert Peston.
Peston posted on social media saying that 60% of people who have signed up to the Labour Party last week gave “supporting Corbyn” as the reason why they joined”
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/robert-peston-says-thousands-have-joined-labour-to-support-corbyn-2016-6?r=UK&IR=T
“. Newsnight has spoken to more than 50 Constituency Labour Party chairs and secretaries who endorsed Corbyn last year. Of those, 45 continue to offer their support and believe that their constituencies will again nominate the leader in the now inevitable leadership contest.”
http://bbc.in/29cwOUV
Corbyn has to be far tougher than Cunliffe was. When he gets the Leadership confirmation, he needs to go through to all the electorate committees and get everyone of his disloyal MPs deselected, starting at the top.
There was a #DelectThem action earlier in the week. I didn’t find out what is possible though. How would that process work? Is deselection a matter of the local committee deciding that a sitting MP can’t stand again? I’d be interested to know for NZLP too.
Apparently up until Blair got in local parties could choose their candidate before each general election, so that kept MPs focused on keeping their party membership behind them. Blair and the New Labour changes meant MPs have automatic reselection unless they decide not to run.
Within the last day Ken Livingstone has called for the ability to deselect be given back to the party members.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-ken-livingstone-labour-party-leadership-mp-deselection-rebels-a7109586.html
(I’ve tried 3 times to reply to this so you may end up with 4 comments from me).
Under Blair & New Labour automatic reelection for MPs. Before that local party would select for each general election. Livingstone has called in the last day for local party to be given back that power.
[Apologies, GregJ. I put your namesake Greg into moderation for the night and your handle also got caught. Fixed now. TRP]
The Independent is reporting today that Corbyn will win the Labour members vote 64-33.
Go those Corbanistas!!!!
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, greedy, uncaring and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
Uncaring.
This government’s management of the homelessness crisis.
oh gawd.
Just awful.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/81607939/mans-body-found-in-parts-in-cardboard-bales–reports
I strongly suggest not trying to score political points on this sad tail.
A letter in today’s ODT from a woman asking All Black Fans/NZ Males to please not grope her, yell obscenities at her, say gross suggestive stuff to her, just to let her walk home in safety & peace. I just thought it was ironic with the anti-muslim, anti-refugees brigade wanting them to sign that NZ Values thing. Just sayin’.
She’s an Attention seeker.
Here’s the reality:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2822982/New-Zealand-model-walks-busy-city-streets-remake-New-York-harassment-film.html
gotcha.
Daily Mail says sexual harrassment doesn’t exist. End of discussion.
Do you ever go out on a friday night?
The New York walk was outed as fake, and the walker tried suing the producer for royalties.
Im just pointing out the Queen street walk got nothing.
Though she was looking pretty drab, or maybe men in Queen street have better taste.
Oh another point, notice the lack of beggars:
if she did that now, she would have to walk a gauntlet of them.
Any Herald reporters reading this and want to do another walk,
it should get front page ,
Speechless, as a father of daughters your comment utterly depresses & scares me.
Greg is part of a pretty small group of men in NZ who outright hate feminism and anything that even looks like it. His comment is pretty despicable, but we do know that such people are getting less in number.
once again, Feminism has liberated me, i dont need to get married, to prove anything, .
what did you read into my post thats anti-feminist,
I said the New York slut walk was fake,
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/04/living/amber-rose-slutwalk-feat/
the Queen street one highlighted the fact kiwi men in Queen street have more class, (+and are not rugby boofheads,)
and if she did it today she would be walking a gauntlet of MALE beggars,
and women marry up not down, its not anti feminism its just how things are:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rich-women-like-rich-men-and-rich-men-like-slender-women-2015-09-28
“She’s an Attention seeker.”
That, and your anti-feminist comments of late mark you as a misogynist.
you sound all misandry by making misogynist claims,
feminism and islam have one thing in common,
they dont like any criticism,
[You know what? You’re getting boring, Greg. Take the night off and have a think about your language and its patronising tone. Language that has the effect of excluding people is covered in the policy. Read it, then make up your mind whether this is the blog for you. If it is, get a grip. If not, off you go. Don’t like it? Well cry me a fucken river. TRP]
The Trump campaign’s daily dose of unhinged racism.
Unhinged is right
On that display, the Right is completely unhinged and lacks any intellectual depth.
The only justification I have seen for Trump is that he has appeal to ignorant , frustrated people.
If he achieves selection as Presidential Candidate in the country that is supposed to be the world’s leading democracy, maybe our species deserves the extinction that climate change now threatens us with.
Those who believe in God need to pray hard – but in His usual manner, He will probably refuse to intervene.
Which is why I should not have given him capital letters..
Bloody men!
I used to like krsna he was a good sort god – the stern dude never appealed.
Plague ships for the poor:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/30/homeless-cruise-ship-new-zealand
Great idea, I like it.
Whats wrong with permanent house boats, convenient, storms aside …
gastro traps, for one thing.
Presumably that’s because they’re at sea for long periods of time. Why would a cruise ship in dock be different than something like a university hostel?
Well, for one thing looking at the cruise ships that come into Dunedin vs the colleges of residence, the ships look like they’re much more densely packed than the colleges. I also read an article recently that reckoned cruise passengers were purposefully fed foods of a particular type to, er, be easy on the plumbing, which was built to a minimum cost spec. Take that with a grain of salt though lol.
But to be fair there’s been more than one norovirus outbreak in a college of residence, too. But then both colleges and cruise ships are designed around short term stays. How long are homeless folk expected to live there, and are the layouts even conducive to “living” as opposed to being a holiday cabin? Long double-barrel corridors?
Ships and colleges also have quite strong social hierarchy structures and support staff on every floor if not more. Is this the plan for auckland?
Looks like a square peg for a round hole to me.
Certainly not ideal, and if you are going to spend $5M why not build some actual houses.
$5m will build between 10 and 20 houses housing between 40 and 80 people. A cruise liner with 400 beds houses 400.
Of course, as I point out below, $5m for a cruise liner is essentially getting you scrap metal and not something that you house people in.
I also tend to wonder about who will own the docks against which the permanent resident would be moored.
Yep, these people will be looking for a government guaranteed profit.
Like in the good old days…
http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item102904.html Prison ships…
Cunning plan lure them too the docks with hopes of free accommodation and warmth, send in the press gangs, fill up the war ships and traders and head out…
Oh that’s 19th century my bad.
Employ there kids in our mills and mines,, oh bugger wrong book again…
It’s here somewhere.. the solution , one of us honourable Tories would have written a book on it..
/sarc
Considering the cost of a brand new cruise ship I would expect one that costs $5m, including transporting it to NZ, to probably not be seaworthy. It certainly wouldn’t be habitable.
I’m not against the idea but these people obviously haven’t thought about all the practicalities involved and the $5m is a figure that they’ve pulled out of their arse. See this type of shit from NZ managers all the bloody time. They haven’t got a clue as to what’s really needed and how much it’s going to cost.
Climate change is happening.
But the news media just can’t bear to mention the words climate change.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/81626379/twoyear-drought-runs-long-time-farmer-off-his-land
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, greedy, uncaring and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
Cruel.
The MSD.
Waatea 5th Estate “The Case of Katherine and the MSD”
This should be compulsory viewing for all New Zealanders.
What is this country coming to?
so very wrong
When English Key talk Welfare they talk in general Stats. They avoid individual stories like a plague. So Katherine’s story might bring reality to the awful plight that many face.
Northern hemisphere jet stream crosses the equator – welcome to climate chaos.
That is terrifying.
Indeed.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-studies-details-of-a-greening-arctic
Thanks for the sources.
They make for depressing reading.
Tory Justice Minister Michael Gove has got in first announcing he’s running for the leadership of the Conservatives. Theresa May & Boris Johnson expected to announce their bids in the next few hours.
You beat me to it.
Looks like the Tories are taking a leaf out of UK Labour’s book:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36671336
Opps – apparently leadership contests in both the Tories and Labour are pointless now! 🙂
http://eveningharold.com/2016/06/29/lord-vetinari-takes-control-of-the-uk/
Like most people here, I’ve been thinking about the EU vote over the past week and its causes in particular. Then I remembered this video from Charlie Brooker from just over half a decade ago – I think it was soon after the GFC.
Sums up the lie Key has passed on to many New Zealanders.
And they wonder why productivity is down,
its all a fantasy aint it,
workers are just doing enough to survive because we are on a downward slide against the free market,
=
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/144-years-of-marriage-and-divorce-in-the-united-states-in-one-chart/
I just watched Theresa May’s full speech for her bid to be Conservative leader.
If she gets it and works as she says then the Torys will definitely be moving the political centre leftwards. A big if of course… if she means it and if she gets it.
Impressive response to it on the twitter
Yeah nah.
If her record on immigration fails to send a chill down your spine, then consider one of May’s very first acts in the role of Home Secretary: in 2010, she ensured that public bodies no longer had to actively try to reduce inequality.
This departure from a key tenet of the Equality Act was not an isolated step; three years later, May expressed her disdain for the Human Rights Act, telling the Sunday Telegraph that she “personally” felt that it had caused problems in the UK.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-conservative-party-leader-shes-no-progressive-conservative-a7109121.html
Yup. She’s had an epiphany or I forgot the sarc tag. I haven’t workedo ut which yet.
Either way, she’s done the business. Not that there was much to challenge. Labour’s Blairite’s will have taken note and will have to work out how to differentiate themselves I suspect.
“When leaders choose the facts that suit them, ignore the facts that don’t and, in the absence of suitable facts, simply make things up, people don’t stop believing in facts – they stop believing in leaders. They do so not because they are over-emotional, under-educated, bigoted or hard-headed, but because trust has been eroded to such a point that the message has been so tainted by the messenger as to render it worthless.”
“To describe this as a working-class revolt against the elites is to give the elites more credit than they are due. With both sides run by Old Etonians and former Bullingdon boys, the elites were going to win no matter who you voted for.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/30/brexit-disaster-decades-in-the-making
That’s an excellent piece by Gary Younge.
So two main protagonists (Cameron and Johnson) have political careers in ruins. Well deserved. Contempt for the poor, years of destruction of working class lives, removal of social support systems. They bear some responsibility for the death of Jo Cox, imo. Maybe not as much as Farage, but some. After unleashing that destruction they cut and run.
That’s the nature of the beast.
Boris knows a poisoned chalice when he sees one…..
Boris Johnson’s surprise announcement in full
Here is Johnson’s surprise announcement at the end of his speech. It came after he called for measures to cut inequality and spread opportunity.
That is the agenda for the next prime minister of this country.
Well, I must tell you, my friends, you who have waited faithfully for the punchline of this speech, that having consulted colleagues and in view of the circumstances in parliament, I have concluded that person cannot be me.
My role will be to give every possible support to the next Conservative administration to make sure that we properly fulfil the mandate of the people that was delivered at the referendum and to champion the agenda that I believe in, to stick up for the forgotten people of this country.
And, if we do so, if we invest in our children and improve their life chances, if we continue to fuel the engines of social mobility, if we build on the great reforming legacy of David Cameron, if we invest in our infrastructure and we follow a sensible, one nation Conservative approach that is simultaneously tax-cutting and pro-enterprise, then I believe that this country can win and be better and more wonderful and, yes, greater than ever before.
He should be up on fraud charges.