[…] i thought I would remind you of how you are, in-fact, the only people to enslave your own race. sure white people enslaved others, at least we were united enough not to enslave ourselves.
Although the guy talking about people on hilltops seeing the page and “screaming racism from the top of their lounges” made me smile.
Does it reveal that many Pakeha got where they are today because of their ethnicity rather than their talents? Positive discrimination is such a handicap, eh.
Kia ora whanau – I’d really like you all to stop being so greedy and start sharing the myriad of riches that we have (which are listed above) with all of our Pakeha brothers & sisters. I fully tautoko this party who wish to share in the undeserved lifestyle that we so ungratefully complain about and wish that they could enjoy the bountiful riches that have been bestowed on us by themselves.
When the working class are abandoned and ignored by social democracy and a lot of white/pink people wind up genuinely in the shit, see no way out and are looking for answers/explanations, racism will always come along and offer easy answers; answers that largely blossom from (in the case of NZ) society’s pre-existing and utterly ingrained casual racism.
Both liberal and conservative elites and all governing institutions will, of course, continue to pretend that economic injustice is not an integral part of the market economy and so simply decry the racism. And ‘the best’ of it? Some of the targetted ‘identity politics’ policies of recent years that sought to ameliorate economic disparity while denying the existence of class, is going to be feeding right on back into this shite.
Maybe some chickens are looking to be coming home to roost.
Bill, while I think you may be right that a rising tide lifts all boats, for some identity politics are always going to be more compelling than economics. Far better to accept that and move on rather than this impotent railing, no?
Nothing wrong with identity politics if class is factored in or acknowledged too. And it works the other way too race and gender should be factored in or acknowledged when looking at class.
And if you accept the fact of class being made invisible by politicians and their parties/policies, then the fucking racism that is clearly evident from comments on that fb page is going to continue to fester and grow.
btw. What exactly was it Hone said about housing and how was it reported so that some guy came to be thinking that there was going to be ‘Maori only’ housing? And has that been put to rights and explained amid all the jibing and piss taking that, to be honest, seems to be more about the fb guy’s political naivity and lack of media savvy?
And what about all that racism being expressed in comments and the apparent popularity of those sentiments? Is the idea just to ignore all that cos, y’know, it’s just stupid white trash speak and worth nothing beyond ridicule and superior smirking silences?
Because if that is to be the broad response in NZ, then NZ is setting itself up for some ugly shit some time in the future.
Right now, people are focussed on racism. I’d suggest it be taken seriously and underlying causes addressed and misconceptions challenged. But, y’know, I expect that suggestion and concern to fall on stoney ground. I expect to see a couple of days of ridicule topwards the likes who are commenting on that fb page alongside expressions of dismissive anger from leftists. And then for it to ‘go away’ and allowed to fester until next time around.
What exactly was it Hone said about housing and how was it reported so that some guy came to be thinking that there was going to be ‘Maori only’ housing? And has that been put to rights and explained amid all the jibing and piss taking that, to be honest, seems to be more about the fb guy’s political naivity and lack of media savvy?
From what I remember, and this is only from the MSM and ts, Mana’s first press releases were about housing for Maori. After the reaction to that, they came out and said that the policy would be for all people. I don’t know if that was a policy change, or if they just presented it differently. The thing that struck me at the time was that either Mana were being very naive in how they presented that whole policy (or they didn’t care), or they were very clever (if you look at the timing with the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election, they sent a clear message of support to Maori, and then a few days later they pacified Pakeha). I don’t know which I think is true.
Nothing wrong with identity politics if class is factored in or acknowledged too. And it works the other way too race and gender should be factored in or acknowledged when looking at class.
And if you accept the fact of class being made invisible by politicians and their parties/policies, then the fucking racism that is clearly evident from comments on that fb page is going to continue to fester and grow.
I agree. I’m not sure quite what you mean about the connection with other identity politics, as I don’t see NACT or Labour as engaging in that majorly other than with some individual policies like gay marriage. That they’re removing class from the debate is definitely happening, and I agree there needs to be a conversation about why so many people agree with the Pakeha Party. The main problem here, on ts, is that that conversation has largely been initiated by vto, who’s race politics are too near the John Ansell end of the spectrum, so the discussions never get passed that. Personally I’d be interested in having the conversation amongst people that are already grounded in acceptance of the Treaty etc.
I think maybe what you are saying is that white, working and underclass men are getting a very hard time and that this needs to be acknowledged and responded to. I agree. The question is how to frame that debate, and how to engage with people who already frame that debate in racist and proto-racist ways.
Let me know if I’ve missed the mark there with how I’ve read your comment.
The Mana housing policy was originally released in a Maori electorate, to Maori voters. The release was targeted at them, which in the circumstances was fair enough. I asked if it would be extended to all people in need of housing and the unequivocal answer was yes. I asked on the day of public release. Even though I think Mana need to learn a lot about using social media, there was no intent for this to be a Maori only policy.
“And ‘the best’ of it? Some of the targetted ‘identity politics’ policies of recent years that sought to ameliorate economic disparity while denying the existence of class, is going to be feeding right on back into this shite.”
Just go to the fb page comments for some examples. The whole ‘Maori are privileged by the education system’ tripe is just one of many you will see being said over and over again.
I can’t take the comments on that page as serious examples of identity politics policies. Can you give some examples of what you mean? eg which education policies. Or were you meaning perception of policies rather than actual policies?
I know that the Clark govt removed much of the funding available directly to Maori community projects, to the great detriment of many grass roots initiatives. That happened in direct response to people complaining about race based funding and Labour being afraid of losing votes. Despite the removal of race based funding, we still hear alot of criticism of things like Whanau Ora, Tariana Turia’s project, despite Whanau Ora funding being open to all ethnic groups.
I’m sure there are some targetted policies, and it would certainly be very useful to know what they are and analyse them. At the moment it looks like another case of us all arguing about something without the facts (not you and I, but the whole country).
Nothing like stunning ignorance to further divide and hurt our country. When we are as weak as we are, pathogens like this silly Pakeha Party can really infect the minds of already deluded folks.
Diving? Well, I ‘d have to say that ultimately John Key is responsible for sending the country into a nose dive, but he has been aided by the likes of Sky Casino, Warner Bro’s, and of course his trusty pals Paula, Hekia, Simon, Peter, John and so on. Then there’s a media that feeds all the petty misinformed jealousies of the fools of this country. It’s a social, moral and economic nosedive. Although if you meant to say divide, it would be all of the above as well.
Oh, and not to mention the increasingly hostile approach of employers in this country. At this rate there will be no turning back to a time of fairness, dignity and trust in the workplace. The NZ workplace has been divided by mistrust and power grabbing by employers. See Helen Kelly’s excellent article as an example of this
Could be good for the Left. Would never get an electorate seat and unlikely to get to 5% of the vote but still take enough support from the same pool of rednecks who would otherwise vote for Keys, so could help push a Left coalition over the line. When things get as tight as they have done in NZ over the last two general elections the slightest variable could make a big difference.
While redneck’s etymology is not clear Wiki offered rural origins, and the modern US usage as ‘used broadly to degrade working class and rural whites that are perceived by urban progressives to be insufficiently liberal’
Your view is unnecessarily narrow, focusing on ‘working'(class) ie origin, rather than on the illiberalism ie attitude, that it connotes for majority users in NZ. You might like to consider the extent to which the term is gendered, too.
I’m sort of with Morrissey on this one. If redneck doesn’t denote prejudice then neither does wetback.
There’s nothing wrong with the term being used to describe a farmer or a manual worker. The problem is when it is foolishly and inappropriately used to mean “bigot”.
The vilest, most ignorant, most illiberal views in this country come from radio loudmouths like Michael Laws and Leighton Smith, a whole raft of complacent newspaper opinionistas, right wing “Think Tank” reptiles like Bob McCoskrie and Bruce Logan, ACT on Campus halfwits, and assorted other bewildered/nasty/lazy/st000pid souls.
Note that nearly all of them are distinguished by their LACK of hard work, and especially by their lack of hard PHYSICAL work. They do not get sunburnt, except when they lie on the beach at a Fiji resort. They are bigots, not rednecks. In fact, I can think of only two bigots who could fairly be described as “rednecks”—John “Hone” Carter and Garth “The Knife” McVicar.
“Redneck”, when used as a term of abuse, is nothing more than a sniffy east coast liberal putdown of ALL working people, who the Eastern liberal establishment, i.e. the Democratic Party, resented because they were unconvinced by the Barack Obamas and Bill Clintons of the late ’60s and early ‘seventies.
You need to stop indolently recycling such abusive, foolish, and inaccurate language.
You’re right. Sorry, that was ignorant of me. I hadn’t realised that the term had that meaning at all. I’d always thought it was limited to white conservative bigots but realise now that’s not the case.
This gives me a great deal of hope. We only have to turn one in four of those pre-Orewa gnat supporters and Labour will once again lead in the polls. But how to do it?
Sadly I can’t help thinking that the current Labour caucus seems more intent on winning over some of the 17% that went to the gnats post Orewa.
theres really only two outcomes i can see from this
1) theyre actually well meaning but deluded – so when they start saying what it is they want politically, every one will go “yeah, youve got that already, whats your point again?”, and their support will atrophy and/or no-one will bother working with them
or
2) they will expose them selves as outright racists and their support will atrophy and/or no-one will want to work with them
either way – i see it as no biggie really. the pefect response to all this “The maori party is a racist party” is “so what?”
If you can get enough people who want to join theres nothing stopping you, go for your life. If you wanted to have a one armed jewish lesbian party theres nothing stopping you if youve got the numbers. If youre just bonkers or dont really have much of a clue – you will expose yourself pretty quickly
there’s more of them than we’d like to think in NZ. Most won’t come out into the sunlight as they prefer to slither around under rocks with their own kind. So they’ll probably stay with the gnats or nzf
Remember, this is exactly the same bullshit that nearly got Don Brash elected in 2005. And he never came up with a single concrete example of “special maori privilege”.
Right now they’re just a couple of idiots, but what they’ve got is momentum. And while a stationary idiot is just an idiot, a rolling mass of idiocy can do a lot of damage.
If that momentum is sustained for much longer, they’ll be approached by smarter, shrewder, more calculating players who will quietly take over behind the scenes and try to translate this momentum into real political support for something.
Maybe Lusk for a faction within National. Maybe Gibbs for the rebirth of ACT. It’s open to anyone really, bunch of angry ignorant voters for the taking.
Shit, it may have already happened for all we know.
😀 There is one good thing that has come out of it. It’s got a lot of people talking, typically people that don’t vote.
Other than that, couldn’t really care less. Knowing their luck, it will become a political party. New Zealand is crazy like that. I think this will appeal to a lot of people.
If the Pakeha party wanted to have a discussion about untangling the causes from the symptoms of poverty in a marginalised and disadvantaged racial group where they reject what we are currently doing and propose something else, that would not necessarily be an inherently racist thing to do.
But the Pakeha Party isn’t interested in that. They just want to have a whine about Maori because somehow they think Maori are already more “privileged”. They have constructed a mental fantasyland where stealing the land off it’s rightful owners, exploiting that stolen wealth for their exclusive enrichment and entrenching their white privilege somehow makes them martyrs.
The question is WHY do they feel like martyrs? Why this constant bubbling up of ignorant but popular racism? Generally speaking this party appeals to a broad range of blue collar and mortgage belt whites who think they see a lazy brown elite getting rich on unearned rents and handouts while their hard work is rewarded with increasingly unaffordable housing, stagnant wage growth and poor job security. They feel they’ve played the capitalist game honestly but the rules have been changed. The concerns of this constituency is completely ignored or belittled by the neo-liberal intelligensia component of our elites who dominate the race debate. Who, actually, does speak for Joe and Jane Six-Pack on Struggle Street?
The political vacuum left by the captured political and intellectual technocrats in the elite cadres of our political establishment is always going to be filled by increasingly incoherent and radical parties of the popular right, just like it is in Europe. This wave will be beaten back, but every time the sea recedes on an Orewa or a Pakeha Party the tide is just that little further up the beach for the established order.
I can nail it for you quite easily. It’s because of the land/money given to Maori tribes and such. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but that this stuff was meant to be tidied up along time ago, but keeps going on and on and on.
Rubbish. Do you honestly believe the dog whistling will stop? Why would the Right give up the opportunity to exploit the divisions it has manufactured?
“Not that there is anything wrong with it, but that this stuff was meant to be tidied up along time ago, but keeps going on and on and on.”
Well yeah, it was meant to be tidied up around 1840 or so, but pakeha chose to ignore that and plough ahead as if they owned the place for the next 150 years, largely to the detriment of maori.
Bit rich to turn around after 150 years and blame maori for it going on and on and on.
You mean a bunch of people who have benefited from an imbalance are upset that the situation is being righted and they want to stop the process before they lose any more of their advantage.
“Not all pakeha are hot under the collar about maori catching up either.
So what?”
The point in this context is that white, working/underclass men (and women I guess) have genuine grievances with how society is treating them. One problem is they’re blaming the wrong target. Telling them they are privileged in comparison to Maori doesn’t solve that, it most likely makes it worse (depending on how it is done).
The other problem is that the people with genuine grievances are merged with the people who are simply just racist. But treating those two groups as the same is a mistake.
The other side of it though is that working class/underclass members of the dominat culture are still privileged over working class/underclass members of minority cultures.
Well the Maori have their own party and what have they done? Got into bed with the very people who stand to do all of the things outlined in this diatribe. You can not expect change if you are not willing to put in the “hard yards” and so far this party just look like a bunch of opportunists.
Really need more anvils dropped in high school and documentaries on Te Treati O Waitangi and NZ history to make people realise just how much the Crown fucked over Maori tribes T_T
Then just click on the lowest “reply” button in that thread. So in this instance you should have clicked on the reply button in the 12:14pm comment by felix.
Your post 19 should have used the reply button. You do that a lot (don’t use the reply button so your comment is out of whack with the rest of the discussion). Just wondered why.
The Pakeha Party: initially I thought it was a clever prank, but apparently not. It’s party purpose-built for Troglodytes, Knuckle-Draggers & Mouth-Breathers: now they’ve found themselves a place to call Home, which is convenient for the rest of us, as it will allow us to keep an eye on ’em.
MONDAY JULY 6Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said Salon.TUESDAY JULY 7The ABC Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Sarah Phelps has done incredible things with ...
I think we can all agree that the mainstream media in New Zealand has a very different set of rules for the right wing compared to the left. While Labour and Green Party politicians don’t seem to be able to fart without it becoming a sackable offence, National and Act ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020Editor's Choice'2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentaryA timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...
Racist National MP Hamish WalkerEven before Todd Muller's coup ousted Simon Bridges by a single vote, it was patently obvious that the National Party promotes and stands for white privilege. In fact they’ve always worked to ensure the discriminatory status quo in New Zealand doesn’t change.So it’s no surprise that ...
Dave HeatleyZero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a newloca branch of the American prohibitionist organisation SAM.It turns out Family First aren't the only ones helping ...
Nik GreenMuch of the public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused on the extent to which government regulations have restricted personal and business activity.Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government Here in New Zealand, the question of when to change Alert Levels dominated the ...
Raising The Bar: Would that the Prime Minister and her colleagues would listen as intently to what the people – as opposed to the power elites – are saying as the Greens. Were they so disposed, the popular clamour for a transformational post-Covid reset would be loud in their ears. ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzDo you think the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown will slow or ...
A bit like a letter home. I have now been full-time at the University of Melbourne since 2019. Before that, I was 20 years at the University of Otago, Wellington. Indeed, I set up this very Public Health Expert Blog with Nick Wilson ten years ago. Now I am your ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections House Democrats have released a comprehensive report showing how – if they control the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives – they might move forward on climate change. Their “Climate Crisis Action Plan,” released June 30 by the ...
Not Ready: Todd Muller’s lack-lustre and self-contradictory performances offer conclusive proof that a political leader cannot be managed into competence. National’s new boss has Janet Wilson handling his media and Matthew Hooton writing his speeches. Both are highly professional political and public relations specialists, and Muller is lucky to have ...
Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...
It started as a family story, about a step-father who went out one night to break into an embassy in Wadestown, Wellington. John Daniell wanted to understand what his family had been part of when his mother and then step-father work for New Zealand’s Security Intelligence. He wanted to know ...
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could ...
My house is currently supplied electricity by Meridian. As soon as I can change I will because Meridian spilled water to hike electricity prices. They got consumers to spend an extra $80 million on power unnecessarily. Clever them. The Electricity Authority has called their behaviour an “undesirable trading situation”, or ...
When Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly became the Labour Party leader shortly before the 2017 general election, she promised to lead a government of transformation. After nearly three years occupying the Treasury benches, health professionals working in public hospitals have been keenly waiting for transformational progress, including in the capacity and quality ...
Last night, One News ran a follow-up story to its Colmar Brunton poll results on the cannabis referendum, headed here as Government accuses big American anti-cannabis group of interfering in NZ politics.In truth it wasn't just the government: Justice minister Andrew Little, National's Shane Reti and the Greens' Chloe Swarbrick ...
When the government refused to put cameras on fishing boats to ensure fishers obeyed the law, Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash claimed that coalition partner NZ First (which has received large donations from the fishing industry) was not responsible for the decision. He has repeated that claim repeatedly since then. But ...
Heroic Evasions: Labour needs to be unequivocal in its communications with the electorate. Either it has a plan to prevent their fellow New Zealanders from falling off the economic cliff, or it doesn’t. Either it has a fiscal policy equal to the task of funding that plan, or it hasn’t. ...
Prof John Potter*Elimination has been an effective strategy for New Zealand in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic virus (SARS-CoV-2). Most other countries have not pursued this goal and are ignoring the opportunity even now. SARS-CoV-2 is not manageable by the influenza playbook; its longer incubation period makes tracing ...
This is a re-post from Weather Underground by Bob HensonAbove: This rainbow appears unusually low in the sky because it has formed early in the afternoon, rather than toward sunset. For a rainbow to form, water droplets must be present in the air in front of an observer ...
On Monday, Todd Muller gave an important speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, He spoke firmly about his belief in the need for foreign investment, for the public sector to partner with the private sector rather than boss it around and, crucially, demanded the government deliver a clear strategy ...
Todd Muller's first act on become party leader was to appoint an all-white front bench. This understandably raised eyebrows, so he is now apparently reconsidering caucus and list rankings. Which is obviously necessary, but there's still the underlying problem: National doesn't have a lot of Māori MP's. And the reason ...
Meridian energy has been caught manipulating the electricity market for fun and profit: Meridian Energy pushed up power prices by unnecessary spilling water from its south dams in December that could have been used for generation, the Electricity Authority has ruled in a preliminary decision. The authority said the ...
When the Christchurch murderer pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder and a number of other violent assault charges a few months ago, he effectively closed the door on what the public will know about the lead up to and commission of the event. His plea means that no evidence ...
Daphna Whitmore The Philippines is enduring one of the longest lockdowns in the world. For President Duterte the lockdown provides an opportunity to garner more powers and to push through a brazen assault on human rights. A new law called the Anti-Terror Bill has been passed under urgency and it ...
Hearing the Prime Minister castigate the Warehouse for laying off 1,000 workers after receiving $52 million in wage subsidies reminds me of the fabled frog who agreed to carry a scorpion across a river. The scorpion stings the frog halfway across, dooming both to drown. The frog cries “Why on ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig, Prof Michael BakerCompared with other OECD countries NZ is a stand-out success story by ending community transmission of COVID-19. While there have been some well-publicised recent deficiencies (eg, quarantine organisation), there has still been no evidence of community transmission for many weeks. Nevertheless, ...
It’s June 30th, marked as Asteroid Day by many people of an astronomical bent around the globe. On this date in 1908, early in the morning in a remote part of central Siberia, the sky fell in. Well, not literally. What happened is a substantially-sized lump of cosmic detritus ...
There really is not much about Paula Bennett concerning her career trajectory, the policies she promoted, and most importantly, the socio-economic effect this had upon New Zealand (and particularly the most vulnerable in this, our oft-cited “egalitarian” society of this country) that can be said now that hasn’t already been ...
Don Franks Poverty, inequality – really – aren’t politicians paid to sort that stuff ? Why can’t they just get it together and come up with something fair and sensible? A cold rainy 2020 morning, a headline showed promise. “Green Party’s $8b plan would guarantee an income of $325 a ...
A guest repost by Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) staff attorney Augusta Wilson. Fundraising is not the objective of this article but readers may wish to know that CSLDF is currently conducting a summer fundraiser to support defense of research scientists and research integrity from anti-science interference by politicians and industrial interests. The COVID-19 pandemic ...
Helloy… My name is Todd Muller and I am the leader of the National Party of New Zealand. Many people come up to me on the street and ask me who I am. I’m often walking through Tauranga, or in a mall in suburban Auckland, or maybe even a farmers’ ...
The US state of Mississippi has finally voted to remove the Confederate emblem from its state flag. Good. Its appalling that it was put there in the first place, but even more appalling that it took so long to remove it. Its basicly as if a German Länder still had ...
No one could have predicted when David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill was passed by Parliament last November that the referendum required to bring the legislation into force would be held against the backdrop of a deadly global pandemic. Since then, the mounting tally of casualties around the world ...
Paul GoldsmithYou can often tell just how effective a progressive policy proposal will be by how much the right wing criticise it. The more socially beneficial, the more vitriolic and unhinged they seem to become.That was the case when the Green Party announced their Poverty Action Plan yesterday. The response ...
Back at the beginning of April, when we had much else on our minds, I wrote this post urging some caution in interpreting the results of the latest Horizon poll, conducted in February, on voting intentions in this year's cannabis referendum, which was paid for by Helius Therapeutics.I wrote that ...
Over the weekend the Greens made their first election policy announcement, and promised transformational change: a more progressive tax system, with new rates applying to incomes of $100,000 and $150,000; a new wealth tax on net wealth over $1 million; and a guaranteed minimum income to eliminate poverty. Its bold, ...
Story of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Global Warming Is Melting Our Sense of Time Satellite image of smoke from active fires burning near the ...
. . Plague town? There are two things right now in Aotearoa New Zealand that are guaranteed to piss people off. Firstly, it’s National playing silly-bugger politics with the covid-19 pandemic. This cost Simon Bridges his job as National’s Leader. Lately, Michael Woodhouse has been playing fast and loose with ...
Tertiary fees in New Zealand versus Australia: Fees Are Important, but not as Important as Financing In Australia, the Education Minister Dan Tehan has proposed an overhaul of the existing higher education funding system to offer 39,000 additional study places by 2023 and 100,000 by 2030. The proposal has been ...
The latest opinion poll forecasts a landslide win by Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party, but when taken alongside other polling, it illustrates New Zealand politics remains volatile and the contest is still very open. According to the Colmar Brunton poll published by TVNZ last night, Labour would easily romp back ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 21 through Sat, June 27, 2020Editor's ChoiceFacebook creates fact-checking exemption for climate deniers Facebook is "aiding and abetting the spread of climate misinformation,” said Robert Brulle, an ...
The images and reports delivered to us by the world’s media leave us in no doubt that the rest of the world is still in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of slackening, but is actually uncontrolled and picking up pace in many countries; and even ...
Minister of Health - David ClarkIf you follow politics at all in New Zealand, David Clark is likely a name you’re a bit familiar with. The current Minister of Health is perhaps the most disliked Member of Parliament at the moment, which amongst very stiff competition is really saying something. ...
SUNDAY JUNE 28Beat the Chasers (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). Judging by the tweets, which is probably a bad idea, over lockdown, all of New Zealand found itself in front of The Chase every night at 5pm. It is a brilliant fomat: hardly anyone wins any money ...
SATURDAY JUNE 27Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art (Sky Arts, Sky 017, 8.00pm). There was graffiti before Banksy, but perhaps his pungent political messages hit home a bit harder. Anyways, a doco about his influence on street art featuring a bunch of cool people.SUNDAY JUNE 28Beat the Chasers (TVNZ 1, ...
We have been assailed by Fox News-style headlines, lurid stories of “a breach!”. An almost nuclear level disaster on the horizon scream, “Fiasco!” here, “Hero to Zero!” there… Oh quick, panic everyone!This has fueled an unbelievably stupid environment of panic among some, and spurred useless, counterproductive political ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters A massive dust storm formed over the Sahara Desert last week and invaded the Caribbean over the June 20-21 weekend, bringing dangerous levels of air pollution and low visibility to the islands. The dust is accompanied by a large amount ...
Will the Covid Crisis lead to a dramatic redirection for New Zealand and the World? A hinge in history occurs where the past and present are connected but they point in different directions. Big hinges are rare but crucial in the development of humankind. Not in Narrow Seas identifies six. ...
RNZ reports that Refining NZ is considering shutting down Marsden Point and effectively turning itself into a fuel distribution service. The problem they're immediately trying to address is that running a refinery is expensive, and it is cheaper just to import processed fuel. But there's a longer-term problem too: climate ...
We all know that the COVID-19 virus is a terrible infectious disease that has already caused untold misery and numerous deaths around the world. Nearly half a million people have already died, and those are just the cases we know about.But how bad could things actually get exactly?Today, the NZ ...
This essay by Alex Hochuli examines the global phenomena of BLM protests . He is a freelance writer and research consultant based in São Paulo, Brazil. He is the co-host of the global politics podcast, Aufhebunga Bunga, and co-author of the forthcoming Politics at the End of the End of History (Zero ...
Are You Still Here? Just like his colleague, Phil Twyford – of KiwiBuild fame – David Clark juts out his chin and shamelessly apportions blame to everybody but himself. Even worse, he has turned viciously on Ashley Bloomfield, the nearest approximation to a competent, decent, humble and accountable public servant ...
. . 20 June The bad news: Aotearoa New Zealand has two new cases of covid-19. The good news: the two cases were picked up at an Auckland quarantine facility. The terrifying news: had the story of the two women leaving quarantine without testing not broken four days ...
Willing Victims: What would all those Americans in MAGA hats be left with if they abandoned Trump? Just the sick feeling of having been cheated. Just the knowledge that the man in the White House is nothing more than a shape-shifting New York grifter; and that they have always been ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Like an earthquake rumbling down the San Andreas Fault, Jeff Gibbs’ and Michael Moore’s controversial film “Planet of the Humans” tore a rift through the environmental movement, a rift its leaders would not yearn for in an election year. After activists have spent ...
There have been a number of articles written about the voting in the final statges of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill, during which National MPs voted alongside the Green Party to force a change that would prevent the removal of sentenced prisoners from the Electoral Roll. You can ...
Last night should have been a cause for muted celebration in Parliament. The Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Bill’s final passage through the House partially erases a stain on New Zealand’s democratic system. It’s a drum I’ve been beatingfor thepast decade, but denying all sentenced prisoners the right to vote is a ...
Jordan WilliamsIt’s pretty obvious to all and sundry that the Taxpayers Union, run by Jordan Williams, isn’t really a union at all. Instead it’s a small lobby group for privileged white folk, namely the old fools behind the scenes of the corrupt and largely defunct Act Party.With an incorrectly attributed ...
Last year, I highlighted a secrecy problem with the government's Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill. The Bill would establish a new class of public entity, "special purpose vehicles", to hide debt from local government balance sheets fund infrastructure such as roads and sewers in "high-growth" councils. The SPVs would collect ...
Both the leader of the opposition Todd Muller and University of Auckland Professor Des Gorman have gone on the record as saying they suspect Covid-19 is spreading in the community in New Zealand once again. Let me explain why I don’t agree with them. As best I can tell there ...
By Geoffrey Miller A former MP and Associate Minister of Defence says that New Zealand’s Covid-19 border and quarantine issues illustrate why a new dedicated national security agency is needed. Heather Roy, a former deputy leader of the Act Party who held the associate defence portfolio from 2008-10, told the ...
Annual fishing report It's been about a year since we swapped out the Research News deckhand. It seems longer— particularly the past 4 months— and not because of this particular work. Over the course of the year somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,500 articles have been caught in our net, ...
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...
This week we moved into the second half of 2020 - and our Government delivered another week of big changes and major progress for New Zealanders. Read below for a wrap of the key things moments from the week - from extending paid parental leave, to making major investments in ...
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...
Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson is calling for the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and prevent more families entering into further debt with the Ministry of Social Development. ...
There has been renewed focus on New Zealand First acting as a handbrake on the Government after our decision to not support Auckland light rail. We are a handbrake for bad ideas, that istrue, but our track record since 2017 has seen New Zealand First constructively also serve as an ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP New Zealand First’s Fair Residency for Superannuation Bill passed its First Reading in Parliament today. The Bill makes a significant change to NZ Super by raising the minimum residency requirement from 10 to 20 years, after age 20. “Currently, a migrant of ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball introducing a six-month minimum prison sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its second reading in Parliament. The new offence of "injuring a first responder or corrections officer with ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Deputy Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the launch of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, gifted with the name from Waikato-Tainui - Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, announced in Hamilton today by Justice Minister Andrew Little. “New Zealand First has long believed in and ...
The Green Party is celebrating over $800m in new funding for green projects, which will get people into jobs while solving New Zealand’s long-term challenges. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
We wrapped up the first half of 2020 with a busy month, taking additional steps to support New Zealanders as we continue with our economic recovery. We rolled out targeted packages to support key industries like tourism and construction, helped create jobs in the environmental and agriculture sectors, and set ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
The Green Party has today put forward an amendment to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to ensure all people in prisons can vote in general elections. ...
The Green Party welcomes the decision to not proceed with Public Public Investment (PPI) delivery of Auckland’s light rail project and to instead run the process through the public service. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Hon Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises A new ‘super depot’ to be built for NZ Post in Wellington will create around 350 jobs during construction, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises Shane Jones says. Shane Jones today attended a ground-breaking and blessing ceremony for the parcel-processing depot ...
Our strong economic management prior to COVID-19 - with surpluses, low debt and near-record-low unemployment - put us in a good position to weather the impact of the virus and start to rebuild our economy much earlier than many other countries.Now we're putting our plan to recover and rebuild ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order Recently released Police fleeing driver statistics have shown yet another increase in incidents with another record-high in the latest quarter. “This new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014. The data shows incidents ...
New Zealand First MP Fletcher Tabuteau is pleased to be confirmed today as the party’s candidate for the Rotorua electorate. Speaking at the Rotorua AGM for New Zealand First, Mr Tabuteau said this is an election that is incredibly important for the people of Rotorua. “The founding principles of New ...
The Human Rights Commission’s PRISM report on the issues impacting people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) provides an excellent programme of work for future governments to follow, say the Greens. ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the trans-Tasman bubble had not been jeopardised after aborder botch-upresulted in New Zealand having two active cases of COVID-19. On Friday, Mr Peters told RNZ's Morning Report he had heard from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that borders for trans-Tasman travel would open by ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said today he was pleased the army was now running the quarantine and isolation process - up until now it has been the Ministry of Health. Peters told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking that the army knew how to introduce and follow protocols and instil discipline. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First MP and Minister for Defence and Veteran’s Affairs Ron Mark has confirmed his bid for the Wairarapa seat.“The Coalition Government has done a lot of good work throughout the Wairarapa, but many constituents have told ...
New Zealand First is pleased to release the names of its next tranche of candidates for the 2020 election. We’re proud to announce these hardworking New Zealanders that have put their hand up to fight for a commonsense and resilient future.Jamie Arbuckle – Kaikoura Mark Arneil – Christchurch Central Jackie ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence A massive joint effort between New Zealand Government agencies, employers, and the Vanuatu Government is underway to repatriate over 1000 Vanuatu nationals stranded in New Zealand, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing more than $7.5 million in Northland ventures to combat the economic impact of the COVID-19 virus, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment is going to the Northern Adventure Experience and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris Hipkins today announced significant funding for Auckland’s Northcote College as part of the first wave of a new nationwide school redevelopment programme to upgrade schools over the next 10 years. The $48.5 million project brings the total investment in Northcote College to ...
The Government has opened an urgent response fund to support schools and early learning services to get children and young people back on track after the Covid-19 lockdown. “While we are seeing improvements in attendance under Alert Level 1 Ministry of Education data shows that attendance rates in our schools ...
The law to boost the economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19 by speeding up resource consenting on selected projects has passed its second and third readings in the House today. “Accelerating nationwide projects and activities by government, iwi and the private sector will help deliver faster economic recovery and ...
Five port-related projects in Whanganui will receive a $26.75 million Provincial Growth Fund investment to support local economic recovery and create new opportunities for growth, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This is a significant investment that will support the redevelopment of the Whanganui Port, a project governed ...
Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery will receive an investment of up to $12 million administered by the Provincial Growth Fund to support its redevelopment, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. The project is included in a $3 billion infrastructure pipeline announced by Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Shane Jones yesterday. ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing nearly $2.5 million into three Te Ara Mahi programmes to support Manawatū-Whanganui jobseekers and employees to quickly train and upskill, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Up to 154 local people will be supported into employment within the first year by these ...
This morning I have formally tendered my resignation as Minister of Health, which was accepted by the Prime Minister. Serving as Minister of Health has been an absolute privilege – particularly through these extraordinary last few months. It’s no secret that Health is a challenging portfolio. I have given ...
Scholarships for 57 early-career agricultural emissions scientists from 20 developing countries is another example of New Zealand’s international leadership in primary sector sustainability, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. Mr O’Connor, announcing the scholarships today, says hundreds of applications were received for this fourth round of the CLIFF-GRADS programme (Climate, Food ...
A project to help rejuvenate the Horowhenua town of Foxton will receive a Provincial Growth Fund investment of $3.86 million, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This funding for the Foxton Regeneration project will be used to make the well-known holiday town even more attractive for visitors and ...
Moa bones and other sub-fossil remains of extinct species are set to have improved protection with proposals to prevent the trade in extinct species announced the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “We have lost too many of our native species, but these lost species, such as moa, remain an ...
The Government’s free and healthy school lunches programme moves south for the first time creating jobs for around 30 people in Otago and Southland. “Eighteen schools with 3000 students are joining the programme – 11 have already begun serving lunches, and seven are preparing to start during Term 3. This is ...
Thousands of Kiwi jobs and investment in New Zealand productions will be protected through a screen sector support package announced today by Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford and Minister for Broadcasting Kris Faafoi. The package also includes investment in broadcasting ...
The Government has established a new $10 million fund for the domestic events sector to help save jobs and protect incomes as it recovers from the impacts of COVID-19, Minister of Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. This funding from Budget 2020 follows talks with the event sector designed to ...
The Government has taken another step in its commitment to making sure New Zealanders get a fairer deal at the petrol pump with the introduction of legislation to improve competition in the retail fuel market, says Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods. “The fuel market study that this Government ordered ...
New Zealand has joined a global initiative that aims to enable all countries to access a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. The COVAX Facility was recently launched by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The Alliance includes the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank ...
From today new legislation takes effect to both restore the right to legal representation at the start of a Care of Children (CoCA) dispute in the Family Court, and allow parties to those proceedings to access legal aid where eligible. During a visit to the Family Court in Auckland today, ...
Home-based early childhood education (ECE) subsidised by the government will transition to a fully qualified workforce by 2025 to ensure better and more consistent quality, Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced today. “Quality early learning helps provide children with a strong foundation for their future,” Chris Hipkins said. From 1 January ...
The new Criminal Cases Review Commission | Te Kāhui Tātari Ture (CCRC) has started work and can now independently investigate claimed miscarriages of justice. “Even though we have appeal rights and safeguards against unsafe convictions, from time to time our justice system does get things wrong. The design of the ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha, tēnā koutou Ki a koutou Te Āti Awa, Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, ngā mana whenua o te rohe nei, tēnā koutou Ko Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa ki ngā take o te Ao (NZIIA), Ko te Rōpū Tohu Tono ...
The Government’s increase to paid parental leave kicks in today with another 4 weeks taking New Zealand up to a full 6 months (26 weeks, up from 22 weeks) leave for new parents, and the maximum weekly payment will increase by $20pw, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. ...
A new package of infrastructure investments will help kick-start the post-COVID rebuild by creating more than 20,000 jobs and unlocking more than $5 billion of projects up and down New Zealand. Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones today outlined how the $3 billion infrastructure fund in the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today expressed the New Zealand Government’s deep disappointment at the passage by China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee of a national security law for Hong Kong. “New Zealand has consistently emphasised its serious concern about the imposition of this legislation on Hong Kong without inclusive ...
More jobs and more family time with newborns are the centrepiece of a suite of Government initiatives coming into effect today. July 1 is a milestone day for the Government as a host of key policies take effect, demonstrating the critical areas where progress has been made. “The Coalition Government ...
Environment Minister David Parker has today “called in” Auckland’s application to the Waikato Regional Council to take an extra 200 million litres of water a day from the lower reaches of the Waikato River for Auckland drinking water and other municipal uses. The call-in means the application has been referred ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker announced today that New Zealand’s hosting of APEC in 2021 will go ahead using virtual digital platforms. Mr Peters said the global disruption caused by COVID-19, including resultant border restrictions, had been the major factor in the ...
The start of construction on a new link road between Matakana Road and State Highway 1 will create jobs and support the significant population growth expected in the Warkworth area, Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Mayor Phil Goff announced today. Transport Minister Phil Twyford said construction of the Matakana Link ...
The Government is prioritising its latest investment in PPE for frontline health workers, including staff at managed isolation and quarantine facilities, Health Minister David Clark says. “With no community transmission of COVID-19 our response now has a firm focus on keeping our border safe and secure. “We must ensure that ...
The Parihaka Papakāinga Trust in Taranaki will receive up to $14 million for a new visitor centre and other improvements at the historic settlement that will boost the local economy and provide much-needed jobs, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little have ...
Protections for workers who are employees of one employer but working under the direction of another business or organisation have come into force, closing a gap in legislation that made the personal grievance process inaccessible for some workers, says Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “This Government is working hard to ...
A range of improvements are already underway to address issues identified in the rapid review of the Managed Isolation and Quarantine system released today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. The review was commissioned just over a week ago to identify and understand current and emerging risks to ensure the end-to-end ...
The important brown kiwi habitat around Whakatāne will receive added protection through an Iwi-led predator free project announced by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. “The Government is investing nearly $5 million into Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa’s environmental projects with $2.5 ...
An extra 4,000 tonnes of offcuts and scraps of untreated wood per year will soon be able to be recycled into useful products such as horticultural and garden mulch, playground safety surfacing and animal bedding as a result of a $660,000 investment from the Waste Minimisation Fund, Associate Environment Minister ...
The Governor-General has referred Scott Watson’s convictions for murder back to the Court of Appeal, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. Mr Watson was convicted in 1999 of the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. His appeal to the Court of Appeal in 2000 was unsuccessful, as was his ...
A new five-year funding agreement for the Reserve Bank will mean it can boost its work to protect New Zealanders’ finances, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. “New Zealand has a strong and stable financial system. Financial stability is an area that we are not prepared to cut corners for, particularly ...
A law change has been introduced to make it easier for forgotten funds in institutional accounts to be returned more easily to their rightful owners. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash has introduced an amendment to the Unclaimed Money Act 1971. It will update the rules controlling forgotten sums of money held ...
The campaign to stop the Department of Conservation exterminating tahr in national parks is gathering increasing public support, with nearly 40,000 people signing the petition calling for a halt to DOC’s plans. The Change.org petition was started ...
DATE: Sunday, 5th July 2020 TIME: 15:00 LOCATION: Taylor Preston's, Centennial Highway, Wellington On Sunday, Wellington Animal Save will be bearing witness to animals on their way to slaughter, outside Taylor Preston's slaughterhouse. ...
Local Government’s Regional Sector are welcoming an announcement today of over $162 million in central government funding for 22 regional and unitary council Jobs for Nature projects, saying the strong support is an endorsement of the return on ...
Political editor Justin Giovannatti reports from Te Papa, where the prime minister today addressed Labour’s 2020 Congress.Jacinda Ardern looked to slap a Labour sticker on the team of five million with the launch today of the party’s Covid-19 recovery plan, at an event which serves as the unofficial kickoff to ...
Kelvin Davis stole the show at Labour’s 2019 conference with a hilarious speech about the formation of the coalition government. The party’s oft-underestimated deputy leader was again in the spotlight this year, but with a more solemn yet at times impassioned address outlining the country’s Covid-19 sacrifices. Here is the text: Anne Guenole. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Russo, Associate Professor, Director Cabrini Monash University Department of Nursing Research, Monash University The Victorian government’s decision to “close and contain” nine public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne represents a significant escalation in the fight against COVID-19. Under the ...
By Grace Auka-Salmang in Port Moresby Key findings from the 2016 to 2018 Papua New Guinea Demographic and Health Survey reveals that 56 percent of women aged 15 to 49 in PNG have experienced physical violence around the age of 15. And 28 percent have experienced sexual violence. Also 18 ...
The New Zealand Herald recently published a column which criticises its own record on race. Teuila Fuatai explains why she felt she had to call out the paper that commissioned her. In the column, freelance journalist Teuila Fuatai detailed her concerns about the Herald’s record on race and her efforts to ...
Dunedin writer Victor Billot farewells retiring National MP Paula Bennett.Working Class Hero I came up the hard way in Taupo, you see, surviving off Weetbix (just occasionally.) I waited tables then knocked off a degree, perhaps with the help of a state subsidy. Then a man with a ...
Three of the country's biggest seafood companies have broken ranks with the rest of the sector and declared their support for cameras on fishing boats. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne This article was updated July 5. With 77% of enrolled voters counted at Saturday’s Eden-Monaro byelection, Labor’s Kristy McBain currently leads the Liberals’ Fiona Kotvojs by a 50.8-49.2 projected ...
The family of pioneering New Zealand suffragist Kate Sheppard kept an important secret – one that possibly explains a lot about her life, her beliefs and her motivation.Kate Sheppard’s secret involved her father, Andrew Wilson Malcolm, and what happened to him after she was born. An extensive and painstaking quest ...
Covid-19 or not, renewable energy is the future. That’s why one grassroots business is taking a leap of faith and trusting that the current downturn will eventually yield to an ecotourism boom.To launch an ecotourism business in rural Otago right now, you’d need to be either a visionary or just ...
Sam Brooks reviews Auckland writer Lil O’Brien’s memoir Not That I’d Kiss A Girl, and finds it a valuable yet unclear story of the author’s struggle with her own acceptance.As queer people, we can be unnecessarily harsh on media that is about us, and by us. I think of the ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
In the wake of lockdown, Volunteering New Zealand is calling on people to reshape the way they think about volunteering. To unite with whānau, friends and workmates to make a group commitment to a community or cause that matters to them. Covid-19 ...
Mahesh Bindra has been a loyal member of NZ First for almost 15 years. But as an Indian-New Zealander, what does he make of members of his party attacking his community? Multicultural Times editor Gaurav Sharma reports.Winston Peters, deputy prime minister and leader of New Zealand First, likes to say ...
As Auckland suffers its worst drought in 27 years, many of the city’s self-service car washes are doing a roaring trade. Michael Andrew finds out how these businesses are getting around the strict water restrictions.Car washing may seem like a wasteful luxury in the middle of a drought, but take ...
Call it last, call it the foundation: Georgie Dansey is 84th on the Labour Party list for the 2020 election. Here she explains how she got there.What does it take to come last on the Labour list? It’s a bit of a story, so if you’re feeling tl;dr then just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne At Saturday’s Eden-Monaro byelection, Labor’s Kristy McBain currently leads the Liberals’ Fiona Kotvojs by a 50.7-49.3 projected margin in The Poll Bludger’s Eden-Monaro election page. This page has all the ...
The controversial MP says his former party put a target on the minister’s back, but Melissa Lee insists there was no concerted campaign.The MP who exited the National Party in a tailspin attack on former leader Simon Bridges has publicly apologised to Clare Curran for his role in the treatment ...
By Jane Patterson, political editor of RNZ News The State Services Minister says the government will do everything it can to track down who is responsible for a massive privacy breach relating to New Zealand’s active covid cases, and is not ruling out pursuing criminal charges. An investigation has been ...
The National editorial Hundreds walked the Sir John Guise drive on Thursday calling for justice for the brutal death of 19-year-old mother-of-two – Jenelyn Kennedy last week. Jenelyn’s battered lifeless body was taken into the Port Moresby General Hospital last Tuesday by four men (one believed to be the father ...
*Watch the full video in the player below*In the first 48 hours of life, blood from newborn New Zealand babies is taken and tested. Most parents will never hear back. For others, it’s life-changing, and life-saving. Frank Film investigates. Performed 48 hours after birth, it’s a medical procedure ...
Latest from the Beehive Shane Jones, the Minister of Munificence, in a joint statement with fellow Northlander and Deputy PM Winston Peters, wrapped up a week of handout investment announcements with news of more millions for the people of his patch in the Far North. This time it was a ...
By Rebecca Kuku in Port Moresby A passionate plea by men, women and children has echoed around the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby – that it is time to turn the corner on addressing gender-based violence in the country. Gatherings, a peaceful march and a vigil were staged ...
Former Race Relations Commissioner Gregory Fortuin has called out National MP Hamish Walker for his racist comments towards people of colour. This follows Walker's press release objecting to people from Pakistan, India and Korea potentially being quarantined ...
Khruangbin have established their live reputation with spacious instrumentals, but the band’s third album, Mordechai, features prominent vocals and disco-funk jams. Andrew Drever interviews the Texas-based trio upon its release.While the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage in the US, the situation has actually been a blessing in disguise for Khruangbin ...
The State Services Minister says the government will do everything it can to track down who is responsible for a massive privacy breach relating to New Zealand's active Covid cases, and is not ruling out pursuing criminal charges. ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
With the collapse of Bauer NZ resulting in Australian magazines flooding our shelves, Wendyl Nissen looks back at her battle to get homegrown content given the star billing it deserved.Thanks to some hard-fought battles 30 years ago, New Zealand women have been enjoying their own version of Woman’s Day and ...
Extending the franchise to prisoners is the latest in a series of contentious electoral reforms enacted by this government, but history suggests the ‘convention’ for consensual election reform is more imagined than real.The Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act, passed last week and corrected this week, extends the franchise ...
Since publication of Newsroom’s extensive investigation into serious issues at Oranga Tamariki, our inbox has been flooded with stories from more current and former employees. In less than 48 hours after Newsroom’s in-depth inquiry into the children's ministry was published we received a high volume of correspondence from current and former ...
“She’d come into town on the bus. The photographer, so her mother had told her, was famous”: a short story by Wellington writer Elspeth Sandys. It was to be a present for her father who was dying. A photograph of her in her first ball gown. When she reached for ...
Those who can’t afford to travel will “attend” the terror sentencing via video link, the Immigration Minister says. David Williams reports The Immigration Minister is demanding officials give urgent help to overseas victims of the Christchurch terror attack and their families. Yesterday, High Court Justice Cameron Mander announced the terrorist, ...
Controversy over Wellington's Shelly Bay has ensnared iwi, the council and politicians for years. Investigative journalist Nicky Hager uses official documents to lay out the roles of money, power and wheels-within-wheels on this most contentious of developments. Any time I am asked whether we have corruption in New Zealand, I ...
Is the answer to saving New Zealand's professional sports teams creating super-franchises? The Extra Time podcast asks sports leaders. Professional sport is slowly emerging from the grip of the pandemic but its financial future is far from certain. Covid-19 highlighted a weakness in the structure of professional sport in New ...
Before Covid-19, it’d take a long flight and half a grand to see Hamilton in the flesh. Now, the biggest musical of the past two decades is available to watch on Disney+. Sam Brooks takes stock of this extraordinary move. Right now, Broadway is a sleeping dragon. New York theatres ...
Sacked cabinet minister Clare Curran speaks for the first time about the brutal end to her political career – and what she calls the toxicity and bullying that marked her years in parliament. By Donna Chisholm.Of all the humiliations – often self-inflicted – that Clare Curran endured during her 12-year ...
On 03 July Children’s Commissioner was given additional responsibility by the Minister of Justice which extended its role as the independent monitor of the conditions and treatment of children and young people in secure detention centres. The Children’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, ARC Future Fellow, UNSW The term “heatwave” is no stranger to Australians. Defined as when conditions are excessively hot for at least three days in a row, these extreme temperature events have always punctuated our climate. With many of us ...
Pacific Media Watch A senior Indonesian government official and a New Zealand journalism professor have clashed over differing perspectives on access for journalists and media to the West Papua region. Speaking on a webinar organised by the Jubi newspaper in Jayapura, Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ director of the European affairs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Mintzes, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney To beat the coronavirus pandemic, countries need to collaborate. We need the best possible science to develop vaccines and drugs, and to test, track and contain the virus. If we’ve learned anything ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Let’s turn back the hands of time. Before extinction knocked dinosaurs off their pillar, before the “Great Dying” extinction wiped out 95% of all organisms – we had the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Williams, Researcher at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine (VELiM), University of Sydney Last week, outgoing chief medical officer Brendan Murphy announced all returned travellers would be tested for COVID-19 before and after quarantine. Some were surprised ...
A new package to help foreign nationals stuck in New Zealand due to Covid-19 is inadequate and needs to be supplemented with the emergency benefit, say Community Law Centres O Aotearoa (CLCA) and the Human Rights Commission (HRC). The assistance ...
With Shortland Street’s 7,000th episode screening tonight, Tara Ward salutes the soap for keeping calm and carrying on through level three lockdown. It’s been one heck of a week on Shortland Street. Leanne lost her winning $8 million Lotto ticket, Louis slipped over in a pile of vomit, and Desi tried ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Clift, Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate, University of Melbourne In recent days, the prime ministers of the UK and Australia each declared they are working toward providing safe haven visas for Hong Kong residents. In the US, lawmakers passed a bill ...
How two multi-millionaires, two pandemic futurists, Air NZ’s former boss, a dairy executive on a break, a retired anaesthetist (and a few others) nearly saved NZ. ...
A commitment from Labour to protect productive farmland from blanket afforestation if re-elected is a step in the right direction, Federated Farmers Meat & Wool Chairperson William Beetham says. "We’re really pleased there is now ...
Tomorrow, 4 July, will see protests in at least nine centres around New Zealand against Israeli plans to steal more Palestinian land (Details are at the end of this media release) “Virtually the entire international community is standing together ...
Pacific Media Watch Australia’s ABC has revealed the Australian Federal Police (AFP) recommendation regarding the Afghan Files investigative journalism report is for the Commonwealth DPP to consider charging journalist Dan Oakes for his role in the leak. The revelation has prompted a renewed call by the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom ...
While we’re growing in confidence that we are in the enviable position of basically eliminating Covid-19, our trading nation at the bottom of the world is also in the unenviable position of locking off our economy to the world. “No is not an answer ...
Netflix’s new adaptations of The Baby-Sitters Club makes long-time fan Tara Ward fall in love with the series all over again. When I was 12 years old, my class had to write a letter to a famous person. Some of my classmates wrote to an All Black, Tom Cruise or ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning the scale and value of the Government’s $230m screen industry recovery package. Union spokesperson Jordan Williams says: “The official justification for this ‘recovery package’ is the impact of COVID-19 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Former Ambassador and Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland Chinese activity in Papua New Guinea was not the only factor behind Australia’s Pacific “Step-Up”. As a former high commissioner to PNG, I know it ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk A Papuan church leader and advocate for social justice has penned an open letter to the Indonesian government calling for justice and an end to racism to enable a genuine self-determination process for the Melanesian region. “The problem of Papua has become increasingly complex and severe ...
Latest from the Beehive – Nine press releases (when we checked this morning) had flowed from the Beehive since we last reported. Eight of them brayed about the money Ministers have been spending and (as they prefer to put it) investing. The sole exception came from Environment Minister David ...
CEAC pre-election review of National Party ‘climate change policy’, is lacking in substance without any clear policy, that will leave voters with no idea of what National Party plans for saving our climate, and glancing at their ‘Transport plans’, ...
Film crews can get exemptions to enter New Zealand, so why not the families and supporters of terror victims, David Williams asks. OPINION: If the public needs a sign last year’s terrorist attack has slipped off the Government’s radar, this is it. A sentencing date has been set for the ...
A new poem by Michaela Keeble.Only the ocean only the oceanturns me overlike this only the oceanturns meon like this only the oceangives warning: what will changeand when so it doesn’t comeacrosslike violence white capsdrift inon the rising tide i feel likeopening my legs i don’t wantto do anything elsetoday i don’t wantto goto work i want to lie downwith ...
As the Covid-19 pandemic rages round the world, New Zealanders are re-discovering food production is the fundamental engine of the economy. And farming is not a sunset industry. Instead of being rubbished by lobby groups for so-called “dirty dairying”, the country’s core export industry has the chance to transform itself ...
The world-famous best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman (Bloomsbury, $34)This is the one that kicks off with the essay about the Tongan ...
The New Zealand Down syndrome community is urging the Government to ignore the recommendations in the recent Health and Disability Sector Review. “New Zealand has made terrific progress to enhance the quality of life for people with Down syndrome and other disabilities ...
The Covid Plan B group says New Zealand can minimise the economic consequences of Covid-19 if it opens its borders following the rest of the world. The group, which has critiqued the Government's lockdown response since March, has today added its ...
MONDAY JULY 6Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said Salon.TUESDAY JULY 7The ABC Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Sarah Phelps has done incredible things with ...4 hours ago
8 hours ago
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020 Editor's Choice '2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentary A timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...16 hours ago
Dave Heatley Zero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...1 day ago
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...2 days ago
Three years ago the ABC used leaked information to expose war crimes by Australian troops in Afghanistan. Since then the chief of Australia's special forces has admitted that his troops committed war crimes. But guess who the Australian government is prosecuting? Police have referred allegations against an ABC journalist relating ...2 days ago
2 days ago
Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...3 days ago
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could ...4 days ago
When the Christchurch murderer pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder and a number of other violent assault charges a few months ago, he effectively closed the door on what the public will know about the lead up to and commission of the event. His plea means that no evidence ...5 days ago
Daphna Whitmore The Philippines is enduring one of the longest lockdowns in the world. For President Duterte the lockdown provides an opportunity to garner more powers and to push through a brazen assault on human rights. A new law called the Anti-Terror Bill has been passed under urgency and it ...5 days ago
There really is not much about Paula Bennett concerning her career trajectory, the policies she promoted, and most importantly, the socio-economic effect this had upon New Zealand (and particularly the most vulnerable in this, our oft-cited “egalitarian” society of this country) that can be said now that hasn’t already been ...6 days ago
Helloy… My name is Todd Muller and I am the leader of the National Party of New Zealand. Many people come up to me on the street and ask me who I am. I’m often walking through Tauranga, or in a mall in suburban Auckland, or maybe even a farmers’ ...6 days ago
. . Plague town? There are two things right now in Aotearoa New Zealand that are guaranteed to piss people off. Firstly, it’s National playing silly-bugger politics with the covid-19 pandemic. This cost Simon Bridges his job as National’s Leader. Lately, Michael Woodhouse has been playing fast and loose with ...7 days ago
Tertiary fees in New Zealand versus Australia: Fees Are Important, but not as Important as Financing In Australia, the Education Minister Dan Tehan has proposed an overhaul of the existing higher education funding system to offer 39,000 additional study places by 2023 and 100,000 by 2030. The proposal has been ...7 days ago
The images and reports delivered to us by the world’s media leave us in no doubt that the rest of the world is still in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of slackening, but is actually uncontrolled and picking up pace in many countries; and even ...1 week ago
We have been assailed by Fox News-style headlines, lurid stories of “a breach!”. An almost nuclear level disaster on the horizon scream, “Fiasco!” here, “Hero to Zero!” there… Oh quick, panic everyone! This has fueled an unbelievably stupid environment of panic among some, and spurred useless, counterproductive political ...1 week ago
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...6 hours ago
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...3 days ago
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...3 days ago
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...5 hours ago
The campaign to stop the Department of Conservation exterminating tahr in national parks is gathering increasing public support, with nearly 40,000 people signing the petition calling for a halt to DOC’s plans. The Change.org petition was started ...1 hour ago
Political editor Justin Giovannatti reports from Te Papa, where the prime minister today addressed Labour’s 2020 Congress.Jacinda Ardern looked to slap a Labour sticker on the team of five million with the launch today of the party’s Covid-19 recovery plan, at an event which serves as the unofficial kickoff to ...3 hours ago
Kelvin Davis stole the show at Labour’s 2019 conference with a hilarious speech about the formation of the coalition government. The party’s oft-underestimated deputy leader was again in the spotlight this year, but with a more solemn yet at times impassioned address outlining the country’s Covid-19 sacrifices. Here is the text: Anne Guenole. ...4 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Russo, Associate Professor, Director Cabrini Monash University Department of Nursing Research, Monash University The Victorian government’s decision to “close and contain” nine public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne represents a significant escalation in the fight against COVID-19. Under the ...4 hours ago
Labour has announced its plans to extend the Small Business Loan Cashflow Scheme and spend $162 million on a waterway clean-up package. ...6 hours ago
Dunedin writer Victor Billot farewells retiring National MP Paula Bennett. Working Class Hero I came up the hard way in Taupo, you see, surviving off Weetbix (just occasionally.) I waited tables then knocked off a degree, perhaps with the help of a state subsidy. Then a man with a ...8 hours ago
*Watch the full video in the player below* In the first 48 hours of life, blood from newborn New Zealand babies is taken and tested. Most parents will never hear back. For others, it’s life-changing, and life-saving. Frank Film investigates. Performed 48 hours after birth, it’s a medical procedure ...1 day ago
Latest from the Beehive Shane Jones, the Minister of Munificence, in a joint statement with fellow Northlander and Deputy PM Winston Peters, wrapped up a week of handout investment announcements with news of more millions for the people of his patch in the Far North. This time it was a ...1 day ago
Since publication of Newsroom’s extensive investigation into serious issues at Oranga Tamariki, our inbox has been flooded with stories from more current and former employees. In less than 48 hours after Newsroom’s in-depth inquiry into the children's ministry was published we received a high volume of correspondence from current and former ...2 days ago
“She’d come into town on the bus. The photographer, so her mother had told her, was famous”: a short story by Wellington writer Elspeth Sandys. It was to be a present for her father who was dying. A photograph of her in her first ball gown. When she reached for ...2 days ago
Those who can’t afford to travel will “attend” the terror sentencing via video link, the Immigration Minister says. David Williams reports The Immigration Minister is demanding officials give urgent help to overseas victims of the Christchurch terror attack and their families. Yesterday, High Court Justice Cameron Mander announced the terrorist, ...2 days ago
Controversy over Wellington's Shelly Bay has ensnared iwi, the council and politicians for years. Investigative journalist Nicky Hager uses official documents to lay out the roles of money, power and wheels-within-wheels on this most contentious of developments. Any time I am asked whether we have corruption in New Zealand, I ...2 days ago
Is the answer to saving New Zealand's professional sports teams creating super-franchises? The Extra Time podcast asks sports leaders. Professional sport is slowly emerging from the grip of the pandemic but its financial future is far from certain. Covid-19 highlighted a weakness in the structure of professional sport in New ...2 days ago
How two multi-millionaires, two pandemic futurists, Air NZ’s former boss, a dairy executive on a break, a retired anaesthetist (and a few others) nearly saved NZ. ...2 days ago
Latest from the Beehive – Nine press releases (when we checked this morning) had flowed from the Beehive since we last reported. Eight of them brayed about the money Ministers have been spending and (as they prefer to put it) investing. The sole exception came from Environment Minister David ...2 days ago
Film crews can get exemptions to enter New Zealand, so why not the families and supporters of terror victims, David Williams asks. OPINION: If the public needs a sign last year’s terrorist attack has slipped off the Government’s radar, this is it. A sentencing date has been set for the ...2 days ago
As the Covid-19 pandemic rages round the world, New Zealanders are re-discovering food production is the fundamental engine of the economy. And farming is not a sunset industry. Instead of being rubbished by lobby groups for so-called “dirty dairying”, the country’s core export industry has the chance to transform itself ...2 days ago
If Maori get it they want it to… do what? Cryptic.
First time I’d even heard of these non-factors… now that I do a google search I see that they’ve been getting some oxygen today…
Ah, see, they think “the Maori” isn’t a group of people, but rather a hivemind, like the Borg Collective.
So if The Maori get something, they want The Maori to get it. They’re really supportive, see?
Aha! We should have known there was a non-racist purpose buried within their mashing of the English language.
I liked Toby Manhire’s take at the Listener
“If the Maori get it, we want it to!” Yeah! But want it to what? The missing word, almost certainly, is “thrive”.
http://www.listener.co.nz/commentary/the-internaut/pakeha-party-launched-a-new-voice-for-non-racism/
Unfortunately the very funny wiki page that included mention of Manhire’s satire has been edited and recommended for deletion.
I think Tā moko will look impressive on them.
I see they are looking to change their name already – how about “One Nation” after Pauline Hanson’s Australian party? Seems to suit.
This is obviously pretty poor satire.
[um. no it’s not. you fucken idiot. Zet]
ZET:
Oh I thought it was satire like the “Billionaires for Bush” thing.
That familiar nagging sensation in your head is you being wrong and shooting your mouth off before doing any basic research. Again.
QOT:
It seemed like satire, it’s that bizarre.
Brett. The post isn’t a screen shot of the site page.
Yeah, could do with a better explanation and a link to the FB page.
The fb page is worse than WO:
Although the guy talking about people on hilltops seeing the page and “screaming racism from the top of their lounges” made me smile.
I know, it’s part horror part hilarity
“Hand’s up whos here to laugh and troll?”
For those that haven’t have the pleasure yet
https://www.facebook.com/ThePakehaParty
Yeah I assumed it was a troll page, just because there was way too much U MAD BRO? etc
Beholdth Brett Dale, the man without a brain.
Marvel as he stumbles and makes an ignorant arse out of himself on anything more complex than eating.
Be dazed at the depths of his stupid as he tries and fails to understand relatively simple issues.
And lastly, laugh as he digs himself in deeper Every. Single. Time.
_______________________________
🙄
Stick to sports m’kay? At least in that you can successfully bluff to some state of “knowledge”. At least until a true sports geek noms on you.
What is the point of that comment?
This reveals more about you than you might want to actually admit to.
Does it reveal that many Pakeha got where they are today because of their ethnicity rather than their talents? Positive discrimination is such a handicap, eh.
“This reveals more about you than you might want to actually admit to.”
Such as?
Kia ora whanau – I’d really like you all to stop being so greedy and start sharing the myriad of riches that we have (which are listed above) with all of our Pakeha brothers & sisters. I fully tautoko this party who wish to share in the undeserved lifestyle that we so ungratefully complain about and wish that they could enjoy the bountiful riches that have been bestowed on us by themselves.
When the working class are abandoned and ignored by social democracy and a lot of white/pink people wind up genuinely in the shit, see no way out and are looking for answers/explanations, racism will always come along and offer easy answers; answers that largely blossom from (in the case of NZ) society’s pre-existing and utterly ingrained casual racism.
Both liberal and conservative elites and all governing institutions will, of course, continue to pretend that economic injustice is not an integral part of the market economy and so simply decry the racism. And ‘the best’ of it? Some of the targetted ‘identity politics’ policies of recent years that sought to ameliorate economic disparity while denying the existence of class, is going to be feeding right on back into this shite.
Maybe some chickens are looking to be coming home to roost.
Bill, while I think you may be right that a rising tide lifts all boats, for some identity politics are always going to be more compelling than economics. Far better to accept that and move on rather than this impotent railing, no?
Nothing wrong with identity politics if class is factored in or acknowledged too. And it works the other way too race and gender should be factored in or acknowledged when looking at class.
And if you accept the fact of class being made invisible by politicians and their parties/policies, then the fucking racism that is clearly evident from comments on that fb page is going to continue to fester and grow.
btw. What exactly was it Hone said about housing and how was it reported so that some guy came to be thinking that there was going to be ‘Maori only’ housing? And has that been put to rights and explained amid all the jibing and piss taking that, to be honest, seems to be more about the fb guy’s political naivity and lack of media savvy?
And what about all that racism being expressed in comments and the apparent popularity of those sentiments? Is the idea just to ignore all that cos, y’know, it’s just stupid white trash speak and worth nothing beyond ridicule and superior smirking silences?
Because if that is to be the broad response in NZ, then NZ is setting itself up for some ugly shit some time in the future.
Right now, people are focussed on racism. I’d suggest it be taken seriously and underlying causes addressed and misconceptions challenged. But, y’know, I expect that suggestion and concern to fall on stoney ground. I expect to see a couple of days of ridicule topwards the likes who are commenting on that fb page alongside expressions of dismissive anger from leftists. And then for it to ‘go away’ and allowed to fester until next time around.
+1
What exactly was it Hone said about housing and how was it reported so that some guy came to be thinking that there was going to be ‘Maori only’ housing? And has that been put to rights and explained amid all the jibing and piss taking that, to be honest, seems to be more about the fb guy’s political naivity and lack of media savvy?
From what I remember, and this is only from the MSM and ts, Mana’s first press releases were about housing for Maori. After the reaction to that, they came out and said that the policy would be for all people. I don’t know if that was a policy change, or if they just presented it differently. The thing that struck me at the time was that either Mana were being very naive in how they presented that whole policy (or they didn’t care), or they were very clever (if you look at the timing with the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election, they sent a clear message of support to Maori, and then a few days later they pacified Pakeha). I don’t know which I think is true.
Nothing wrong with identity politics if class is factored in or acknowledged too. And it works the other way too race and gender should be factored in or acknowledged when looking at class.
And if you accept the fact of class being made invisible by politicians and their parties/policies, then the fucking racism that is clearly evident from comments on that fb page is going to continue to fester and grow.
I agree. I’m not sure quite what you mean about the connection with other identity politics, as I don’t see NACT or Labour as engaging in that majorly other than with some individual policies like gay marriage. That they’re removing class from the debate is definitely happening, and I agree there needs to be a conversation about why so many people agree with the Pakeha Party. The main problem here, on ts, is that that conversation has largely been initiated by vto, who’s race politics are too near the John Ansell end of the spectrum, so the discussions never get passed that. Personally I’d be interested in having the conversation amongst people that are already grounded in acceptance of the Treaty etc.
I think maybe what you are saying is that white, working and underclass men are getting a very hard time and that this needs to be acknowledged and responded to. I agree. The question is how to frame that debate, and how to engage with people who already frame that debate in racist and proto-racist ways.
Let me know if I’ve missed the mark there with how I’ve read your comment.
The Mana housing policy was originally released in a Maori electorate, to Maori voters. The release was targeted at them, which in the circumstances was fair enough. I asked if it would be extended to all people in need of housing and the unequivocal answer was yes. I asked on the day of public release. Even though I think Mana need to learn a lot about using social media, there was no intent for this to be a Maori only policy.
“And ‘the best’ of it? Some of the targetted ‘identity politics’ policies of recent years that sought to ameliorate economic disparity while denying the existence of class, is going to be feeding right on back into this shite.”
Can you give some examples Bill?
Just go to the fb page comments for some examples. The whole ‘Maori are privileged by the education system’ tripe is just one of many you will see being said over and over again.
I can’t take the comments on that page as serious examples of identity politics policies. Can you give some examples of what you mean? eg which education policies. Or were you meaning perception of policies rather than actual policies?
I know that the Clark govt removed much of the funding available directly to Maori community projects, to the great detriment of many grass roots initiatives. That happened in direct response to people complaining about race based funding and Labour being afraid of losing votes. Despite the removal of race based funding, we still hear alot of criticism of things like Whanau Ora, Tariana Turia’s project, despite Whanau Ora funding being open to all ethnic groups.
I’m sure there are some targetted policies, and it would certainly be very useful to know what they are and analyse them. At the moment it looks like another case of us all arguing about something without the facts (not you and I, but the whole country).
Between this lot and the Conservative Party, holding Winston 1st to 4.9% ought to be a doddle.
and the Maori Party aren’t racist? Talk about double standards.
No, they aren’t. Glad we could clear that up.
Looks like John Key’s got a coalition partner after all.
+1 Mary.
Nothing like stunning ignorance to further divide and hurt our country. When we are as weak as we are, pathogens like this silly Pakeha Party can really infect the minds of already deluded folks.
What do you think is diving the country now?
“What do you think is diving the country now?”
Diving? Well, I ‘d have to say that ultimately John Key is responsible for sending the country into a nose dive, but he has been aided by the likes of Sky Casino, Warner Bro’s, and of course his trusty pals Paula, Hekia, Simon, Peter, John and so on. Then there’s a media that feeds all the petty misinformed jealousies of the fools of this country. It’s a social, moral and economic nosedive. Although if you meant to say divide, it would be all of the above as well.
Oh, and not to mention the increasingly hostile approach of employers in this country. At this rate there will be no turning back to a time of fairness, dignity and trust in the workplace. The NZ workplace has been divided by mistrust and power grabbing by employers. See Helen Kelly’s excellent article as an example of this
Could be good for the Left. Would never get an electorate seat and unlikely to get to 5% of the vote but still take enough support from the same pool of rednecks who would otherwise vote for Keys, so could help push a Left coalition over the line. When things get as tight as they have done in NZ over the last two general elections the slightest variable could make a big difference.
Stop calling bigots “rednecks”. That’s an ignorant and elitist term of contempt for working people.
+1
Rebuke uncalled for.
While redneck’s etymology is not clear Wiki offered rural origins, and the modern US usage as ‘used broadly to degrade working class and rural whites that are perceived by urban progressives to be insufficiently liberal’
Your view is unnecessarily narrow, focusing on ‘working'(class) ie origin, rather than on the illiberalism ie attitude, that it connotes for majority users in NZ. You might like to consider the extent to which the term is gendered, too.
I’m sort of with Morrissey on this one. If redneck doesn’t denote prejudice then neither does wetback.
I’m sort of with Morrissey on this one. If redneck doesn’t denote prejudice then neither does wetback.
There’s nothing wrong with the term being used to describe a farmer or a manual worker. The problem is when it is foolishly and inappropriately used to mean “bigot”.
The vilest, most ignorant, most illiberal views in this country come from radio loudmouths like Michael Laws and Leighton Smith, a whole raft of complacent newspaper opinionistas, right wing “Think Tank” reptiles like Bob McCoskrie and Bruce Logan, ACT on Campus halfwits, and assorted other bewildered/nasty/lazy/st000pid souls.
Note that nearly all of them are distinguished by their LACK of hard work, and especially by their lack of hard PHYSICAL work. They do not get sunburnt, except when they lie on the beach at a Fiji resort. They are bigots, not rednecks. In fact, I can think of only two bigots who could fairly be described as “rednecks”—John “Hone” Carter and Garth “The Knife” McVicar.
“Redneck”, when used as a term of abuse, is nothing more than a sniffy east coast liberal putdown of ALL working people, who the Eastern liberal establishment, i.e. the Democratic Party, resented because they were unconvinced by the Barack Obamas and Bill Clintons of the late ’60s and early ‘seventies.
You need to stop indolently recycling such abusive, foolish, and inaccurate language.
You’re right. Sorry, that was ignorant of me. I hadn’t realised that the term had that meaning at all. I’d always thought it was limited to white conservative bigots but realise now that’s not the case.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/redneck
Good on you, Mary. You have provided a lesson in humility and good grace.
Are you watching, Populuxe1?
What this filthy piece of ‘reasonable’ sounding racism reminds me of – whether it’s meant to be satire or not – is that nine years ago the gnat party was at 28%… and then within 2 weeks of Brash’s Orewa speech they surged to 45%
The slippery self-serving neolib that currently heads parliament and who has no idea of what building a nation is all about, has only managed to increase support from Brash’s 45% to 46.5%
This gives me a great deal of hope. We only have to turn one in four of those pre-Orewa gnat supporters and Labour will once again lead in the polls. But how to do it?
Sadly I can’t help thinking that the current Labour caucus seems more intent on winning over some of the 17% that went to the gnats post Orewa.
theres really only two outcomes i can see from this
1) theyre actually well meaning but deluded – so when they start saying what it is they want politically, every one will go “yeah, youve got that already, whats your point again?”, and their support will atrophy and/or no-one will bother working with them
or
2) they will expose them selves as outright racists and their support will atrophy and/or no-one will want to work with them
either way – i see it as no biggie really. the pefect response to all this “The maori party is a racist party” is “so what?”
If you can get enough people who want to join theres nothing stopping you, go for your life. If you wanted to have a one armed jewish lesbian party theres nothing stopping you if youve got the numbers. If youre just bonkers or dont really have much of a clue – you will expose yourself pretty quickly
sunlight – disinfectant etc etc
there’s more of them than we’d like to think in NZ. Most won’t come out into the sunlight as they prefer to slither around under rocks with their own kind. So they’ll probably stay with the gnats or nzf
On the other hand they can do what they like in the voting booth.
Which is to take votes from Key. Will be interesting to see whether they get more of the vote than UntiedFuture like the Legalise Cannabis Party.
Hmm, I dunno framu.
Remember, this is exactly the same bullshit that nearly got Don Brash elected in 2005. And he never came up with a single concrete example of “special maori privilege”.
Right now they’re just a couple of idiots, but what they’ve got is momentum. And while a stationary idiot is just an idiot, a rolling mass of idiocy can do a lot of damage.
If that momentum is sustained for much longer, they’ll be approached by smarter, shrewder, more calculating players who will quietly take over behind the scenes and try to translate this momentum into real political support for something.
Maybe Lusk for a faction within National. Maybe Gibbs for the rebirth of ACT. It’s open to anyone really, bunch of angry ignorant voters for the taking.
Shit, it may have already happened for all we know.
true – caution is neccessary.
but i still like the approach of giving them enough rope as opposed to trying to make them go away
“a rolling mass of idiocy can do a lot of damage.” gold – 🙂
Not if it’s vigorously, publicly cluebatted and ‘anvilled from orbit :3
But yeah, you’re pretty much on the ball on this probably being used to resurrect the Kwi/Iwi zombie or shock ACT back into a shambling half-life 🙁
This is a good thing – makes it easier to round them up later 🙂
The sad thing about the supporters of this party of ignorance, is that many of them think any attention is proof of the validity of their claims.
infused, you’re one of the sponsors aren’t you? Where do you see it going?
😀 There is one good thing that has come out of it. It’s got a lot of people talking, typically people that don’t vote.
Other than that, couldn’t really care less. Knowing their luck, it will become a political party. New Zealand is crazy like that. I think this will appeal to a lot of people.
If the Pakeha party wanted to have a discussion about untangling the causes from the symptoms of poverty in a marginalised and disadvantaged racial group where they reject what we are currently doing and propose something else, that would not necessarily be an inherently racist thing to do.
But the Pakeha Party isn’t interested in that. They just want to have a whine about Maori because somehow they think Maori are already more “privileged”. They have constructed a mental fantasyland where stealing the land off it’s rightful owners, exploiting that stolen wealth for their exclusive enrichment and entrenching their white privilege somehow makes them martyrs.
The question is WHY do they feel like martyrs? Why this constant bubbling up of ignorant but popular racism? Generally speaking this party appeals to a broad range of blue collar and mortgage belt whites who think they see a lazy brown elite getting rich on unearned rents and handouts while their hard work is rewarded with increasingly unaffordable housing, stagnant wage growth and poor job security. They feel they’ve played the capitalist game honestly but the rules have been changed. The concerns of this constituency is completely ignored or belittled by the neo-liberal intelligensia component of our elites who dominate the race debate. Who, actually, does speak for Joe and Jane Six-Pack on Struggle Street?
The political vacuum left by the captured political and intellectual technocrats in the elite cadres of our political establishment is always going to be filled by increasingly incoherent and radical parties of the popular right, just like it is in Europe. This wave will be beaten back, but every time the sea recedes on an Orewa or a Pakeha Party the tide is just that little further up the beach for the established order.
I can nail it for you quite easily. It’s because of the land/money given to Maori tribes and such. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but that this stuff was meant to be tidied up along time ago, but keeps going on and on and on.
“Given”.
An interesting choice of word. The fact is that the land etc has been returned.
Yeah, I’m not arguing that. Like I said, someone just needs to finish it and let the country move on.
Rubbish. Do you honestly believe the dog whistling will stop? Why would the Right give up the opportunity to exploit the divisions it has manufactured?
Yes I do.
“Not that there is anything wrong with it, but that this stuff was meant to be tidied up along time ago, but keeps going on and on and on.”
Well yeah, it was meant to be tidied up around 1840 or so, but pakeha chose to ignore that and plough ahead as if they owned the place for the next 150 years, largely to the detriment of maori.
Bit rich to turn around after 150 years and blame maori for it going on and on and on.
You know what I mean.
Yep, I think I do.
You mean a bunch of people who have benefited from an imbalance are upset that the situation is being righted and they want to stop the process before they lose any more of their advantage.
You’re such a dickhead felix.
I genuinely think that’s what you mean. Pakeha have an advantage and they don’t want to lose it.
If that’s not what you mean then say what you mean.
Not all Pakeha have an advantage, or privilege.
Its insane to think so.
Not all pakeha are hot under the collar about maori catching up either.
So what?
so what????
Felix, is some kid posting under your name?
Yep. The last two comments I’ve posted, a child has posted underneath.
ps the “so what” was because your comment doesn’t mean anything in the context of this discussion, Brett.
“Not all pakeha are hot under the collar about maori catching up either.
So what?”
The point in this context is that white, working/underclass men (and women I guess) have genuine grievances with how society is treating them. One problem is they’re blaming the wrong target. Telling them they are privileged in comparison to Maori doesn’t solve that, it most likely makes it worse (depending on how it is done).
The other problem is that the people with genuine grievances are merged with the people who are simply just racist. But treating those two groups as the same is a mistake.
Yeah that’s a fair point weka.
The other side of it though is that working class/underclass members of the dominat culture are still privileged over working class/underclass members of minority cultures.
” given to Maori tribes and such” GIVEN??!
Well the Maori have their own party and what have they done? Got into bed with the very people who stand to do all of the things outlined in this diatribe. You can not expect change if you are not willing to put in the “hard yards” and so far this party just look like a bunch of opportunists.
The stupid, it burns:
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/pakeha-party-considers-registering-popularity-soars-5502997
Really need more anvils dropped in high school and documentaries on Te Treati O Waitangi and NZ history to make people realise just how much the Crown fucked over Maori tribes T_T
So do something about it. Start a political party, make some noise, rather than just complaining.
T_T
Yes, because pointing out that something is wrong is totes badzors
🙄
Envy is a left wing word
And yet the righties keep using it (“envy”) about the left.
As in National referring to the left as “the politics of envy”?
Weka:
Agree.
What, with everything I say?
your post about underclass working men and woman.
Ok. Is there a reason you so often fail to use the reply button?
weka:
It didnt show up in your post.
“It didn’t show up in your post.”
Then just click on the lowest “reply” button in that thread. So in this instance you should have clicked on the reply button in the 12:14pm comment by felix.
P.s. I’m not trying to encourage you.
Thanks for the tip and lack of encouragement.
You are welcome, just do a little extra homework on some issues before you shoot your mouth off, and I’ll encourage you with a +1 or similar.
What?
Your post 19 should have used the reply button. You do that a lot (don’t use the reply button so your comment is out of whack with the rest of the discussion). Just wondered why.
weka:
Your asking me how the internet works???
Lol, no, but I understand now from fender’s comment 🙂
To quote The Don,
They’ll be gone by lunchtime…
Can’t even be bothered blogging about them… *yawn*
This is so ridiculous it’s not even funny.
What specifically do these Pakeha want anyway?
To promote their internet business, mostly.
The Pakeha Party: initially I thought it was a clever prank, but apparently not. It’s party purpose-built for Troglodytes, Knuckle-Draggers & Mouth-Breathers: now they’ve found themselves a place to call Home, which is convenient for the rest of us, as it will allow us to keep an eye on ’em.