Maybe Karl Marx was right after all

Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, October 22nd, 2016 - 44 comments
Categories: capitalism, class war - Tags: , , , ,

It has been many decades since I have read anything about Karl Marx but a recent Guardian article made me think about his writing again. The article by John Harris was about the failure of British political leadership and suggested, perhaps unfairly in the case of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, that both major parties had lost their way and were not even thinking of the inevitable societal change being caused by new technologies.

The article starts off reviewing a conversation between Barack Obama and Joi Ito who is the director of the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology’s Media Lab. The article then sets out how Obama thinks a universal basic income may become a necessity:

Obama’s contributions are all about an acute, worldly kind of cleverness being tentatively applied to things he probably regrets not having enough time to think about. And when he turns his attention to the mess of stuff usually subsumed under the increasingly cliched heading of “automation”, he gets interesting. “As AI gets further incorporated, and the society potentially gets wealthier, the link between production and distribution, how much you work and how much you make, gets further and further attenuated – the computers are doing a lot of the work,” says Obama. “As a consequence, we have to make some tougher decisions.” One is whether it is time to consider a universal basic income, “a debate that we’ll be having over the next 10 or 20 years”.

Harris then sets out demographic change that may mean that the UK society is less able to achieve radical change which may be required.  He also hints at reasons why social media may not be heralding in a new participatory democracy despite our wishes to the contrary.

The electorate is growing older, and politics is clearly being reoriented accordingly. And in any case, Britain – or, rather, England – has long had an ingrained conservatism, there in everything from our eternal fondness for the idea of some lost Arcadian age, to the clarion call of the great English radical William Cobbett, which suits the time of Brexit as well as it fitted the late 18th and early 19th centuries: “We want great alteration, but we want nothing new.” But something more insidious is also going on. Increasingly, the orthodoxies of government and politics are so marginal to the way advanced economies work that if politicians fail to keep up, they simply get pushed aside. Obviously, the corporations concerned are global. The amazing interactions many of them facilitate between people are now direct – with no role for any intermediate organisations, whether they be traditional retailers or the regulatory state.

The result is a kind of anarchy, overseen by unaccountable monarchs: we engage with each other via eBay, Facebook and the rest, while the turbo-philanthropy of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates superficially fills the moral vacuum that would once have pointed to oversight and regulation by the state.

He then sets out starkly the level of change that is occurring and why urgent radical decisions are needed now.

I wonder whether May, Corbyn and others – including, it has to be said, most of the media – grasp that the realities of what Obama talks about are already here. When it comes to automation, do they understand the incredible symbolism of the new Rolls-Royce factory near Rotherham, which covers 150,000 square feet and produces some parts for jet engines in a quarter of the time the processes used to take, but needs a mere 150 people on site?

Do they get the bracing view of the future contained in the same company’s claim about a plant in Tyne and Wear, where the machines run for “between 12 and 45 hours without any [human] intervention, compared to every half-hour before”?

With every turn of those machines and each bleep of a self-service checkout, we get nearer the future in which the Bank of England’s chief economist has said that technology might take 15 million jobs. If that sounds too abstract, try the projections of the Israeli sage Yuval Noah Harari: “Billions of people are likely to have no military or economic function. Providing food and shelter should be possible but how to give meaning to their lives will be the huge political question.”

The article feeds neatly into Labour’s future of work project and shows why the work is so important.

So what did Karl Marx think about technology?  He was not against technology per se, he foresaw a future where everyone would own the means of production and share in the wealth generated so any machine that lessened the need for work was a good thing.  But concentrating the advantages of technology in the hands of the few he thought was retrograde and a continuation of the problem that pure capitalism poses.

From a paper by Mokyr, Vickers, and Ziebarth:

Karl Marx, from a rather different perspective, also argued that technological unemployment was a serious problem in the short run, in the broader context of the immiseration of workers under a capitalist system. But for Marx as well, technological improvement was part of a social and political process that would lead eventually to widespread prosperity. (Of course, the Marxist vision of progress also eventually required a wholesale over- throw of the existing capitalist economic system.)

Before anyone writes me off as a card carrying member of the Communist Party can they say how providing universal basic income is so different to the state owning a larger part of the economy.  It is possible that we can achieve one by increasing taxation but multinational corporations have proved themselves to be very adept at avoiding paying their fair share.

Maybe Marx was right after all.

44 comments on “Maybe Karl Marx was right after all ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Siobhan 1
    22 October 2016 at 10:34 am

    The Americans can’t even manage Universal Health Coverage, and Obama has done next to nothing to reign in the Financial Markets and the Tax ‘minimising’ Corporations. In fact he has reneged on a number of his core promises for the benefit of Corporations, the GMO bill, anti whistle blower legislation etc etc.

    So if they can’t get those issues sorted there is no chance of a UBI.

    Unless of course it serves the purposes of our politicians real masters. In which case we need to figure out what they are really up to, because, let’s face it, they are not our friends.

  2. Gristle 2
    22 October 2016 at 12:46 pm

    By having billions of people with “no military or economic function,” does that make them expendable?

    By the way doesn’t the phrase “military or economic function” strike you as odd?

  3. Draco T Bastard 3
    22 October 2016 at 1:19 pm

    If that sounds too abstract, try the projections of the Israeli sage Yuval Noah Harari: “Billions of people are likely to have no military or economic function. Providing food and shelter should be possible but how to give meaning to their lives will be the huge political question.”

    Isn’t amazing just how limited some people’s view of life is? You’re either in the military or have a job else your life is worthless.

    The job of the government is to ensure that everyone that lives in a nation has all that they need to live at a reasonable standard of living that is also sustainable. It is not to give those people’s lives meaning.

    Unfortunately, the government has come to the conclusion that their job is to make a few people rich and to ignore everyone else.

    (Of course, the Marxist vision of progress also eventually required a wholesale over- throw of the existing capitalist economic system.)

    They say as if that’s a bad thing but history shows us that capitalism simply doesn’t work and always results in the collapse of the society that becomes capitalist.

  4. Tiger Mountain 4
    22 October 2016 at 2:10 pm

    the politics that dare not speak its name eh Micky…

    Marx and subsequent practitioners of dialectical and historical materialism could not foresee the particulars of say finance capitalists using virtually instantaneous digital transfers across the globe

    but they did get right the basic class analysis of how minority capitalist ownership of the means of production leads to global monopolies maintained by the 1%ers (in modern parlance) by armed force and institutions enforcing the capitalist model-media, schools, banks, the bourgeois parliament etc.

  5. Peter 5
    22 October 2016 at 4:02 pm

    I am sorry to say this but I believe in the future 5 billion people will have to go.

    • Tiger Mountain 5.1
      22 October 2016 at 5:07 pm

      and you will be leading by example?

    • mickysavage 5.2
      22 October 2016 at 6:43 pm

      Doesn’t have to happen. We just need to learn to share and look after the planet.

      • jcuknz 5.2.1
        23 October 2016 at 10:25 am

        and engage with birth control instead of irresponsible procreation.
        and stupid games like Maori having lots of kids to preserve their % in the population as one Green leader is reputed to advocate.

      • AmaKiwi 5.2.2
        23 October 2016 at 11:07 am

        “We just need to learn to share and look after the planet.”

        By virtue of disability (and to some degree age), I am effectively “retired.”

        I have never been busier. It is unpaid, but it is important work for my family, my community, and the environment.

        The UBI does NOTHING to rebuild communities. I recently stayed in one of our hundreds economically abandoned provincial towns. It does NOT need bigger welfare checks (UBI). It needs a focus and purpose so small businesses can return to Main St.

        • AmaKiwi 5.2.2.1
          23 October 2016 at 11:11 am

          P.S. The epidemic of emotional depression, youth suicide, and drug dependency is about the breakdown of social relationships. UBI will do nothing to solve that. But destroying neo-liberalism will.

        • jcuknz 5.2.2.2
          23 October 2016 at 2:31 pm

          UBI is NOT a welfare cheque but rather a compensation for the work place being largely deestroyed because of automation and over population.
          If everybody is to receive the benefits of western development then there have to be fewer around for the sharing.
          As I mentioned at one group I associate with ‘Trouble these days is everybody knows their rights but not their responsibilities”
          Sadly we cannot have a responsible society without a similar population.

          • Draco T Bastard 5.2.2.2.1
            23 October 2016 at 4:36 pm

            UBI is NOT a welfare cheque but rather a compensation for the work place being largely deestroyed because of automation and over population.

            You’re correct in that a UBI isn’t a welfare check but it’s not compensation for work being destroyed by automation either.

            It is recognition that the economy is there to provide a reasonable living standard for everyone.

            • Rae 5.2.2.2.1.1
              25 October 2016 at 11:11 am

              A UBI done right is all citizens being shareholders in the technology/machinery that is doing the work.
              What will germinate from a UBI will be small boutique businesses that no machine can replace and creativity.
              BRING IT ON!

  6. greg 6
    22 October 2016 at 6:53 pm

    there will be civil unrest and civil wars no society can function or survive that future what is work has to be redefined the current economic monetary system will need to be redesigned . when there millions of young people with no future you get gangs, isis Syria i honestly hope we don’t head down that path .the rich better learn to share or the pitch forks will come out.

  7. Conal 7
    23 October 2016 at 3:33 am

    Marx wrote some very interesting (and literally prescient) stuff about the evolution of industrial automation and what it would mean for capitalism and for wage-workers. There were some notebooks of Marx’s which contained rough notes which he never intended for publication but which were eventually published in the 20th C under the title “Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy”, AKA “Grundrisse”. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/

    The part that’s particularly relevant to this topic is a part sometimes called “The Fragment on Machines”. http://thenewobjectivity.com/pdf/marx.pdf

    It discusses how relatively independent workers using tools (the “means of labour”) are gradually replaced by workers whose role is reduced to supervising automated systems of machinery.

    But, once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery (system of machinery: the automatic one is merely its most complete, most adequate form, and alone transforms machinery into a system), set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself; this automaton consisting of numerous mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages

    This means the contribution of labourers in production is massively reduced while the contribution of machines grows; that production levels reflect more and more the general level of science and technology in society, and depend less and less on the efforts of labourers, and that this reduction in the need for labour would be a necessary condition for workers to win their freedom from wage-slavery:

    Through this process, the amount of labour necessary for the production of a given object is indeed reduced to a minimum, but only in order to realize a maximum of labour in the maximum number of such objects. The first aspect is important, because capital here — quite unintentionally — reduces human labour, expenditure of energy, to a minimum. This will redound to the benefit of emancipated labour, and is the condition of its emancipation.

    Maybe not even Obama would disagree with that. But I think where Marx went further was in arguing that the replacement of “direct labour” with automation would necessarily undermine the commercial relationship of wage-slavery that exists between bosses and workers, and that this would break capitalism as a system.

    As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value [must cease to be the measure] of use value. The surplus labour of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of general wealth, just as the non-labour of the few, for the development of the general powers of the human head. With that, production based on exchange value breaks down, and the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of penury and antithesis. The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.

    • Incognito 7.1
      23 October 2016 at 10:41 am

      It is obvious that production is the source of wealth.

      How did Marx envision paying for production & consumption once labour ceased to exist as the source of wealth (income)? How are we supposed to support our artistic and scientific endeavours? How are we supposed to disseminate & share these endeavours and ‘products’ thereof without proper infrastructure and who’s to pay for it?

      • weka 7.1.1
        23 October 2016 at 10:51 am

        “It is obvious that production is the source of wealth.”

        What is meant by wealth there? Because it’s not obvious to me that production is the source of wealth.

        • Incognito 7.1.1.1
          23 October 2016 at 11:59 am

          I don’t know what Marx meant by “wealth” but I second-guess that it is anything surplus to individual and social-collective need. Or perhaps it is held in reserve to be used for public (and/or individual?) good if/when the situation requires it.

          I also suppose that Marx also envisioned that society would own the production rather than a few wealthy capitalists that hold all power.

          I get the impression that Marx was thinking of AI but I am not familiar with his works or his thinking.

      • Conal Tuohy 7.1.2
        23 October 2016 at 12:04 pm

        By ‘proper infrastructure’ (for distribution) I take it you’re referring to markets? But Marx’s point would be that the labour market (whose role is to compensate workers for hours worked) would no longer be ‘proper’ when the wealth produced is not in fact dependent on those hours worked, but on a socially shared infrastructure of scientific and technological knowledge.

        In the last quote above, where ‘exchange value’ must cease to be the measure of ‘use value’, you can essentially read ‘exchange value’ to mean ‘money’ or ‘price’, and ‘use value’ as ‘wealth’ (it means the practical value that goods and services have to their consumers).

        Obviously there needs to be accounting, but his insight there (remember this was written a century and a half ago) is that the wages system would cease to reflect what was really going on in production.

        A UBI is one gradual step towards the abolition of the wages system; even though it’s a step that can be achieved within a capitalist economy.

        • Incognito 7.1.2.1
          23 October 2016 at 1:52 pm

          Thank you for your reply; it is much appreciated.

          No, I was not referring to “markets” but to the physical reality of getting things (and people) moved from one to another point; not everything can be transported via fibre. (NB I consider myself relatively naive & ignorant when it comes to political, economic, and social theories & practices)

          I like to think some more about exchange vs. use vs. practical value; somewhere there also has to be creative or aesthetic value, which is (entirely?) subjective. Similarly, something that is rare and ‘valued’ by many, by definition, has a higher value. These kinds of discussions will have to go beyond mere practical need (for survival & existence).

          FWIIW, I tend to be strongly supportive of the UBI concept and am, at the same time, a little disappointed that NZLP has gone very quiet on this after the initial flurry of activity & fanfare with its Future of Work Commission. With an election year coming up I can only hope the UBI will reappear firmly (back) on the agenda.

          PS I missed the last sentence:

          … in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.

          • Conal 7.1.2.1.1
            24 October 2016 at 6:14 pm

            Cheers, Incognito. FYI in Marx’s economic analysis the concept of “use value” does include purely subjective and aesthetic value; anything which satisfies a person’s desire has a “use value”. Wikipedia has a good article on Use value that contrasts it with “exchange value”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_value

            • Incognito 7.1.2.1.1.1
              24 October 2016 at 8:06 pm

              Thank you but I have to say that I found that very heavy going.

              The following sentence stood out most:

              In the case of information or communication as use-values, transforming them into commodities may be a complex and problem-fraught process.

              One could add to this “experience” as use-value, e.g. a (special) holiday or enjoying a superb live concert.

              The outputs of scientific research that add/contribute to our collective scientific knowledge are tricky to commodify; the value goes up the more it is shared and “consumed”. Unfortunately, publishers of scientific literature and journals have found a very effective way of commodifying scientific knowledge even though most of it is funded by public good money.

      • Draco T Bastard 7.1.3
        25 October 2016 at 11:19 am

        Get rid of money. It’s no longer needed.

    • Rae 7.2
      25 October 2016 at 11:13 am

      Nail/head. What Marx wrote about was not a political system but just how he saw what our future progress would be and how it might play out.

  8. Philj 8
    23 October 2016 at 6:23 am

    Thanks Conal
    Would you be able to provide a translation of this for public consumption? This is nigh unintelligible.

    • Sacha 8.1
      23 October 2016 at 9:32 am

      ‘Machines will set the workers free’ seems to be about it.

      • weka 8.1.1
        23 October 2016 at 10:50 am

        And it’s an inevitability that this will happen under capitalism. I don’t quite follow that, because if that’s true by bother overthrowing capitalism?

        • Sacha 8.1.1.1
          23 October 2016 at 11:04 am

          Seems our leveraged, financialised economy was beyond his imagining, understandably.

        • Conal Tuohy 8.1.1.2
          23 October 2016 at 12:14 pm

          The ‘inevitability’ is that capitalist automation will continue to improve productivity and reduce the length of the necessary working week, and that this is inevitably a growing problem for capitalism as a system based on wage labour.

          That ‘growing problem’ is not an alternative to replacing capitalism; it’s actually a precondition for being able to do so.

          • Tiger Mountain 8.1.1.2.1
            23 October 2016 at 7:35 pm

            true collective ownership of all the world’s productive activity (the definition would have to be changed to include caring, research/science, culture, personal development, homelife etc.!) would see many concerns about managing a transition to a post capitalist future covered

            but, the question asked since Marx’s time will no doubt be asked again-is a peaceful transition to a new way of organising society possible?-will the 1%ers and their armed force, control of finance capital’s digital money transfers, control of mass media, control of the bourgeois parliament etc. hand over their ill gotten gains voluntarily by the ballot box or negotiation?

  9. Bill 9
    23 October 2016 at 11:11 am

    Two quick thought s for the day….

    Yuval Noah Harari: “Billions of people are likely to have no military or economic function. Providing food and shelter should be possible but how to give meaning to their lives will be the huge political question.”

    It’s not too unreasonable to suggest that people all across Africa were viewed as having no military or economic function. And we could have provided food and shelter to all of them, but we didn’t. So why will we suddenly change our ways and provide food and shelter to billions in the future if those billions have no military or economic function?

    Second thought.

    ….can they say how providing universal basic income is so different to the state owning a larger part of the economy.

    A UBI is predicated on notions around equality of opportunity. State welfare is predicated on notions around equality of access/outcome. Under a UBI, there is a very real possibility that many, many people get ‘thrown under the bus’ of (for example) profit driven private health care provisions that they can’t afford, while the fitter and healthier shake their heads at those people having an apparent inability to utilise their equal opportunity. There was a very good reason why UBI was very much ‘flavour of the day’ among some of the most rancid and rabid right wing economists….the welfare state ‘dies’ and everything falls back to personal responsibility and the decisions individuals make in a supposed environment of equal opportunity.

    • Olwyn 9.1
      23 October 2016 at 2:48 pm

      That is my concern about the UBI Bill – that under the current ethos it might be used to kill off what remains of the welfare state, and then let wither to the point where it cannot fulfill the function we are being assured it will. While capitalism does not have much interest in supporting those with no “military or economic function”, it does not want them to be free either – free people are not forced to be compliant. So under current conditions it seems unlikely that a UBI will turn out to be quite what we hope it will.

      It is perhaps worth remembering that the sub-prime mortgage disaster began its life with Bill Clinton being sold the appealing idea of a “property-owning democracy” by the banking industry. We know how that turned out. I will only be happy when I see neoliberal capitalism either losing or conceding ground. I am not much reassured by the solutions that it believes it can afford.

  10. jcuknz 10
    23 October 2016 at 2:49 pm

    There has to be a change from the welfare state which breeds mental state of “whatever I do the state will look after me” to a combination of capitalism and welfare softening the hard edges off capitalism.
    Without consumers to use capitalism is doomed.
    Likewise without consumers having sufficient money to pay.

    • aerobubble 10.1
      25 October 2016 at 10:46 am

      Whatever they do the state will look after them… …what!

      Doctor visits cost money. Cas cost money. Homes are cold damp. Food sucks, fast food abounds.

      What exactly is govt looking after them, giving a paltry amount of cash to keep them from living in ghettos, from eating poorly,fromental and other problems.

      Who the frack believes the state will look afer them. Facts are that what passes for welfare nowadays is designed to keep a underclass lethargic, keep disease down, citizens avaliable to new drugs etc that make wealthy people live longer. Every aspect of welfare has a greater payoff for the wealthest.

      Take our roading network, those who profit the most are the wealthiest, yet we all pay the same. Take diplomatic services, wealthy people us them more, yet we all pay the same for a passport. Progressive taxes have been dropping, the giant tax switch, gave wealthy people more financial freedom and no compareable benefit to the other 90%.

      So you want to talk about welfare, tlk about the free ride monied people have thanks to the majorities taxes paying for them. Using our colectively paid resources far more than anyone with less cost thanks to Key. Its as if they think the govt will look after their rich smug behinds.

  11. Rae 11
    25 October 2016 at 11:15 am

    Maybe we would get further if we ditched the term “welfare state” and used another, perhaps something like “interdependent state”.

  12. trendy leftie 12
    26 October 2016 at 10:20 pm

    A UBI is not necessarily based around notions of equality of opportunity. As much as anything, conservatives propose it as a way to put money in the hands of displaced workers to ensure they continue to consume, thus propping up a market economy, which cannot be sustained if no-one has money to buy anything.

    Famous non-Marxists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman were proponents of the UBI.

    • Chris 12.1
      26 October 2016 at 11:21 pm

      “Famous non-Marxists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman were proponents of the UBI.”

      Yeah, but paid at a pittance. Enough to see people eating 4 and a half days out of 7. Just like what benefits do now, but better because no admin costs. Very rational.

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    Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says that New Zealand’s police force will no longer respond to bomb threats, in an attempt to cut costs and redirect police resources to less boring activities. Coster said that threat response and bomb disposal was a “fairly obvious” area for downsizing, as bomb threats are ...
    The CivilianBy Ben Uffindell
    2 days ago
  • A dysfunctional watchdog

    The reality of any right depends on how well it is enforced. But as The Post points out this morning, our right to official information isn't being enforced very well at all: More than a quarter of complaints about access to official information languish for more than a year, ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    2 days ago
  • Climate Change: The threat of a good example

    Since taking office, the climate-denier National government has gutted agricultural emissions pricing, ended the clean car discount, repealed water quality standards which would have reduced agricultural emissions, gutted the clean car standard, killed the GIDI scheme, and reversed efforts to reduce pollution subsidies in the ETS - basically every significant ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    2 days ago
  • Vegas Baby

    Good morning, lovely people. Don’t worry. This isn’t really a newsletter, just a quick note. I’m sitting in our lounge, looking out over a gloomy sky. Although being Rotorua, the view is periodically interrupted by steam bursting from pipes and dispersing—like an Eastern European industrial hellscape during the Cold War.Drinking ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago
  • Why Entrust Needs New Leadership

    I am part of a new team running in the Entrust election in October. Entrust is a community electricity trust representing a significant part of Auckland, set up to serve the community. It is governed by five trustees are elected every three years in an election the trust itself oversees. ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    3 days ago
  • London Bridge is falling down

    In the UK, London is the latest of council groups to signal potential bankruptcy.That’s after Birmingham, Britain’s second largest city, went bankrupt in June, resulting in reduced sanitation services, libraries cut, and dimmed streetlights.Some in the city described things as “Dickens” like.Please, Sir, Can I have some more?For families with ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    3 days ago
  • Govt may kick elderly out of hospitals

    The Government is considering how to shunt elderly people out of hospitals, and also how to cut their access to other support. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • Getting the nephs off the couch

    The so-called “Prince of the Provinces”, Shane Jones, went home last Friday. Perhaps not quite literally home, more like 20 kilometres down the road from his house on the outskirts of Kerikeri. With its airport, its rapidly growing (mostly retired) population, and a commercial centre with all the big retail ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    3 days ago
  • De moralibus orcorum: Sargon of Akkad, Rings of Power, Evil, and George R.R. Martin

    I have noted before that The Rings of Power has attracted its unfortunate share of culture war obsessives. Essentially, for a certain type of individual, railing on about the Wokery of Modern Media is a means of making themselves a online livelihood. Clicks and views and advertising revenue, and all ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    3 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37

    A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, September 8, 2024 thru Sat, September 14, 2024. Story of the week From time to time we like to make our Story of the Week all about us— and ...
    Skeptical Science
    3 days ago
  • Salvation For Us All

    Yesterday, I ruminated about the effects of being a political follower.And, within politics, David Seymour was smart enough on Friday to divert attention from “race blind” policies [what about gender blind I thought - thinking of maternity wards] and cutting school lunches by throwing meat to the media. Teachers were ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    4 days ago
  • A warm embrace

    Far, far away from here lives our King. Some of his subjects can be quite the forelock tuggers, but plenty of us are not like that, and why don't I wheel out my favourite old story once more about Kiwi soldiers in the North African desert?Field Marshal Montgomery takes offence ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    4 days ago
  • Literal clowns are running the place, we must put a timeout on this stupidity… right Aotearoa?

    These people are inept on every level. They’re inept to the detriment of our internal politics, cohesion and increasingly our international reputation. And they are reveling in the fact they are getting away with it. We cannot even have “respectful debate” with a government that clearly rejects the very ...
    exhALANtBy exhalantblog
    4 days ago
  • Fact brief – Does manmade CO2 have any detectable fingerprint?

    Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with John Mason. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Does manmade CO2 have any ...
    Skeptical Science
    4 days ago
  • Judge Not.

    Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Matthew 7:1-2FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY men and women professing the Christian faith would appear to have imperilled their immortal souls. ...
    Bowalley Road
    4 days ago
  • Managed Democracy: Letting The People Decide, But Only When They Can Be Relied Upon To Give the Righ...

    Uh-uh! Not So Fast, Citizens! The power to initiate systemic change remains where it has always been in New Zealand’s representative democracy – in Parliament. To order a binding referendum, the House of Representatives must first to be persuaded that, on the question proposed, sharing its decision-making power with the people ...
    Bowalley Road
    4 days ago
  • Looking For Labour’s Vital Signs.

    Flatlining: With no evidence of a genuine policy disruptor at work in Labour’s ranks, New Zealand’s wealthiest citizens can sleep easy.PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN has walked a picket-line. Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has threatened “price-gauging” grocery retailers with price control. The Democratic Party’s 2024 platform situates it well to the left of Sir ...
    Bowalley Road
    5 days ago
  • Forty Years Of Remembering To Forget.

    The Beginning of the End: Rogernomics became the short-hand descriptor for all the radical changes that swept away New Zealand’s social-democratic economy and society between 1984 and 1990. In the bitterest of ironies, those changes were introduced by the very same party which had entrenched New Zealand social-democracy 50 years earlier. ...
    Bowalley Road
    5 days ago
  • Kōrero Mai – Speak to Me.

    Good morning all you lovely people. 🙂I woke up this morning, and it felt a bit like the last day of school. You might recall from earlier in the week that I’m heading home to Rotorua to see an old friend who doesn’t have much time. A sad journey, but ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • Winning ways

    Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on anything you may have missed. Street architecture adjustment, KolkataShare Read more ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    5 days ago
  • 48 seconds on a plan that would reverberate for a million years

    Despite fears that Trump presidency would be disastrous for progress on climate change, the topic barely rated a mention in the Presidential debate. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories short, here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Using blunt instruments and magical thinking to ignore evidence of harm

    The abrupt cancellations and suspensions of Government spending also caused private sector hiring, spending, and investment to freeze up for the first six months of the year. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāThis week we learned:The new National/ACT/NZ First Coalition Government ignored advice from Treasury that it didn’t have to ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Is This A Dagger Which I See Before Me: A Review and Analysis of The Rings of Power Episode 5 (Seaso...

    Another week of The Rings of Power, season two, and another confirmation that things are definitely coming together for the show. The fifth Episode of season one represented the nadir of the series. Now? Amid the firmer footing of 2024, Episode Five represents further a further step towards excellent Tolkien ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    5 days ago
  • In Open Seas; A Book

    The background to In Open Seas: How the New Zealand Labour Government Went Wrong:2017-2023Not in Narrow Seas: The Economic History of Aotearoa New Zealand, published in 2020, proved more successful than either I or the publisher (VUP, now Te Herenga Waka University Press) expected. I had expected that it would ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    5 days ago
  • The Hoon around the week to Sept 13

    The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts and talking about the week’s news with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on the latest climate science on rising temperatures and the climate implications of the US Presidential elections; and special guests Janet ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Do or do not. There is no try

    1. Upon receiving evidence that school lunches were doing a marvellous job of improving outcomes for students, David Seymour did what?a. Declared we need much more of this sort of good news and poured extra resources and funding into them b. Emailed Atlas network to ask what to do next c. Cut ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago
  • Dangerous ground

    The Waitangi Tribunal has reported back on National's proposed changes to gut the Marine and Coastal Area Act and steal the foreshore and seabed for its greedy fishing-industry donors, and declared it to be another huge violation of ti Tiriti: The Waitangi Tribunal has found government changes to the ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    6 days ago
  • Climate Change: National wants to cheat on Paris

    In 2016, the then-National government signed the Paris Agreement, committing Aotearoa to a 30 (later 50) percent reduction in emissions by 2030. When questioned about how they intended to meet that target with their complete absence of effective climate policy, they made a lot of noise about how it was ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    6 days ago
  • Treasury warned Govt lower debt limits meant less ‘productivity-enhancing investment’

    Treasury’s advice to Cabinet was that the new Government could actually prudently carry net core Crown debt of up to 50% of GDP. But Luxon and Willis instead chose to portray the Government’s finances as in such a mess they had no choice but to carve 6.5% to 7.5% off ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago
  • Is the Media Complicit?

    This is a long read. Open to all.SYNOPSIS: Traditional media is at a cross roads. There is a need for those in the media landscape, as it stands, to earn enough to stay afloat, but also come across as balanced and neutral to keep its audiences.In America, NYT’s liberal leaning ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    6 days ago
  • Black Friday

    It's Black Friday, the end of the weekYou take my hand and hold it gently up against your cheekIt's all in my head, it's all in my mindI see the darkness where you see the lightSong by Tom OdellFriday the 13th, don’t be afraid.No, really, don’t. Everything has felt a ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    6 days ago
  • Weekly Roundup 13-September-2024

    Ooh, Friday the thirteenth. Spooky! Is that why certain zombie ideas have been stalking the landscape this week, like the Mayor’s brainwave for a motorway bridge from Kauri Point to Point Chev? Read on and find out. This roundup, like all our coverage, is brought to you by the Greater ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    6 days ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #37 2024

    Open access notables Early knowledge but delays in climate actions: An ecocide case against both transnational oil corporations and national governments, Hauser et al., Environmental Science & Policy: Cast within the wide context of investigating the collusion at play between powerful political-economic actors and decision-makers as monopolists and debates about ‘the modern ...
    Skeptical Science
    6 days ago
  • What it is

    I liked what Kieran McAnulty had to say about the Treaty Principles bill this morning so much I've written it down and copied it out for you. He was saying that rather than let this piece of ordure spend six months in Select Committee, the Prime Minister could stop making such ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago
  • A government-funded hate campaign

    Cabinet discussed National's constitutionally and historically illiterate "Treaty Principles Bill" this week, and decided to push on with it. The bill will apparently receive a full six month select committee process - unlike practically every other policy this government has pushed, and despite the fact that if the government is ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    7 days ago
  • How Substack works to take (some) craziness out of America’s elections

    I spoke with Substack co-founder yesterday, just before the Trump-Harris debate, about how Substack is doing its thing during the US elections. He talks in particular about how Substack’s focus on paid subscriptions rather than ads has made political debate on the platform calmer, simpler, deeper and more satisfying ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    7 days ago
  • Kamala Harris Did Something Unthinkable

    Hi,Yesterday me and a bunch of friends gathered in front of the TV, ate tortillas, drank wine, and watched the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.Some of you may have joined in on the live Webworm chat where we shared thoughts, jokes and memes — and a basic glee ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    7 days ago
  • Kamala Harris Did Something Unthinkable

    Hi,Yesterday me and a bunch of friends gathered in front of the TV, ate tortillas, drank wine, and watched the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.Some of you may have joined in on the live Webworm chat where we shared thoughts, jokes and memes — and a basic glee ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    7 days ago
  • Kamala Harris Did Something Unthinkable

    Hi,Yesterday me and a bunch of friends gathered in front of the TV, ate tortillas, drank wine, and watched the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.Some of you may have joined in on the live Webworm chat where we shared thoughts, jokes and memes — and a basic glee ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    7 days ago
  • David Seymour is such a loser

    For paid subscribersNot content with siphoning off $230,000,000 of taxpayers money for his hobby projects - and telling everyone his passion is education and early childcare - an intersection painfully coincidental to the interests of wealthy private families like Sean Plunkett’s1 backers, the Wright Family, Seymour is back in the ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    7 days ago
  • Cross-party consensus: there’s no pipeline without good faith

    There’s been a lot of talk recently about a cross-party agreement to develop a pipeline for infrastructure, including transport. Last month, outgoing CRL boss Sean Sweeney talked about the importance of securing an enduring infrastructure programme. He outlined the high costs of the relentless political flip-flopping of priorities, which drives ...
    Greater AucklandBy Connor Sharp
    7 days ago
  • Voters love this climate policy they’ve never heard of

    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The Inflation Reduction Act is the Biden administration’s signature climate law and the largest U.S. government investment in reducing climate pollution to date. Among climate advocates, the policy is well-known and celebrated, but beyond that, only a minority of Americans ...
    Skeptical Science
    7 days ago
  • ACC wants to administer inflation at more than double the RBNZ’s target rate

    ACC levies are set to rise at more than double the inflation rate targeted by the RBNZ. Photo: Lynn GrievesonKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, September 12:The state-owned monopoly for accident insurance wants ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    7 days ago
  • Harris vs Trump

    We’ve been selected to rock your asses 'til midnightThis is my term, I've shaved off my perm, but it's alrightI solemnly swear to uphold the ConstitutionGot a rock 'n' roll problem? Well we got a solutionLet us be who we am, and let us kick out the jams, yeahKick out ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    7 days ago
  • Treaty Bill “a political stunt”

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon appears to have given ACT Leader David Seymour more than he has been admitting in the proposals to go forward with a Treaty Principles Bill.All along, Luxon has maintained that the Government is proceeding with the Bill to honour the coalition agreement.But that is quite specific.It ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    7 days ago
  • An average 219 NZers migrated each day in July

    Kia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, September 11:Annual migration of New Zealanders rose to a record-high 80,963 in the year to the end of July, which is more than double its pre-Covid levels.Two ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • What you’re wanting to win more than anything is The Narrative

    Hubris is sitting down on election day 2016 to watch that pig Trump get his ass handed to him, and watching the New York Times needle hover for a while over Hillary and then move across to Trump where it remains all night to your gathering horror and dismay. You're ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 week ago
  • National’s automated lie machine

    The government has a problem: lots of people want information from it all the time. Information about benefits, about superannuation, ACC coverage and healthcare, taxes, jury service, immigration - and that's just the routine stuff. Responding to all of those queries takes a lot of time and costs a lot ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    1 week ago
  • Christopher Luxon: A Man of “Faith” and “Compassion” Speaks on the Treaty Pr...

    Synopsis: Today - we explore two different realities. One where National lost. And another - which is the one we are living with here. Note: the footnote on increased fees/taxes may be of interest to some readers.Article open.Subscribe nowIt’s an alternate timeline.Yesterday as news broke that the central North Island ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    1 week ago
  • Member’s Day

    Today is a Member's Day. First up is the third reading of Dan Bidois' Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill, which will be followed by the committee stage of Deborah Russell's Family Proceedings (Dissolution for Family Violence) Amendment Bill. This will be followed by the second readings of Katie ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    1 week ago
  • Northern Expressway Boondoggle

    Transport Minister Simeon Brown has been soaring high with his hubris of getting on and building motorways but some uncomfortable realities are starting to creep in. Back in July he announced that the government was pushing on with a Northland Expressway using an “accelerated delivery strategy” The Coalition Government is ...
    Greater AucklandBy Matt L
    1 week ago
  • Never Enough

    However much I'm falling downNever enoughHowever much I'm falling outNever, never enough!Whatever smile I smile the mostNever enoughHowever I smile I smile the mostSongwriters: Robert James Smith / Simon Gallup / Boris Williams / Porl ThompsonToday in Nick’s Kōrero:A death in the Emergency Department at Rotorua Hospital.A sad homecoming and ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • Question Two of The Kākā Project of 2026 for 2050 (TKP 26/50)

    Kia ora.Last month I proposed restarting The Kākā Project work done before the 2023 election as The Kākā Project of 2026 for 2050 (TKP 26/50), aiming to be up and running before the 2025 Local Government elections, and then in a finalised form by the 2026 General Elections.A couple of ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Why is God Obsessed with Spanking?

    Hi,If you’ve read Webworm for a while, you’ll be aware that I’ve spent a lot of time writing about horrific, corrupt megachurches and the shitty men who lead them.And in all of this writing, I think some people have this idea that I hate Christians or Christianity. As I explain ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    1 week ago
  • Inside the public service

    In 2023, there were 63,117 full-time public servants earning, on average, $97,200 a year each. All up, that is a cost to the Government of $6.1 billion a year. It’s little wonder, then, that the public service has become a political whipping boy castigated by the Prime Minister and members ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    1 week ago
  • New Models Show Stronger Atlantic Hurricanes, and More of Them

    This is a re-post from This is Not Cool Here’s an example of some of the best kind of climate reporting, especially in that it relates to impacts that will directly affect the audience. WFLA in Tampa conducted a study in collaboration with the Department of Energy, analyzing trends in ...
    Skeptical Science
    1 week ago
  • Where ever do they find these people?

    A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, is how Winston Churchill described the Soviet Union in 1939.  How might the great man have described the 2024 government of New Zealand, do we think? I can't imagine he would have thought them all that mysterious or enigmatic. I think ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 week ago

  • Foreign Minister to travel to New York, French Polynesia

    Foreign Minister Winston Peters is travelling to New York next week to attend the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, followed by a visit to French Polynesia. “In the context of the myriad regional and global crises, our engagements in New York will demonstrate New Zealand’s strong support for ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    11 hours ago
  • Thanking social workers on their national day

    “Today, on Aotearoa New Zealand Social Workers’ Day, I would like to recognise the tremendous effort social workers make not just today, but every day,” Children’s Minister and Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Karen Chhour says. “I thank all those working on the front line for ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    14 hours ago
  • Minister of State for Trade heads to Laos for ASEAN meetings

    Minister of State for Trade Nicola Grigg will travel to Laos this week to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Ministers’ Meetings in Vientiane.   “The Government is committed to strengthening our relationship with ASEAN,” Ms Grigg says. “With next year marking 50 years since New Zealand became ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    14 hours ago
  • Members appointed to retail crime MAG

    The Government has appointed four members to the Ministerial Advisory Group for victims of retail crime, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee say. “I am delighted to appoint Michael Hill’s national retail manager Michael Bell to the group, as well as Waikato community advocate and business ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    16 hours ago
  • Speech to the New Zealand Nurses Organisation AGM and Conference 2024

    It’s my pleasure to be here to join the opening of the NZNO AGM and Conference for 2024.  First, I’d like to thank NZNO Kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku, NZNO President, Anne Daniels, and Chief Execuitve Paul Gaulter for inviting me to speak today.  Thank you also to all the NZNO members ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    17 hours ago
  • Improvements for New Zealand authors

    Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says changes to the Public Lending Right [PLR] scheme will help benefit both the National Library and authors who have books available in New Zealand libraries. “I am amending the regulations so that eligible authors will no longer have to reapply every year ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Minister commends Police for gang operation

    Police Minister Mark Mitchell congratulates Police for the outstanding result of their most recent operation, targeting the Comancheros. “That Police have been able to round up the majority of the Comancheros leadership, and many of their patched members and prospects, shows not only the capability of Police, but also shows ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • New appointments to the EPA board

    Environment Minister Penny Simmonds has announced a major refresh of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) board with four new appointments and one reappointment.   The new board members are Barry O’Neil, Jennifer Scoular, Alison Stewart and Nancy Tuaine, who have been appointed for a three-year term ending in August 2027.  “I would ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Enabling rural recovery works in Hawke’s Bay

    Cabinet has approved an Order in Council to enable severe weather recovery works to continue in the Hawke’s Bay, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds and Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery Mark Mitchell say. “Cyclone Gabrielle and the other severe weather events in early 2023 caused significant loss and damage to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • FamilyBoost childcare payment registrations open

    From today, low-to-middle-income families with young children can register for the new FamilyBoost payment, to help them meet early childhood education (ECE) costs. The scheme was introduced as part of the Government’s tax relief plan to help Kiwis who are doing it tough. “FamilyBoost is one of the ways we ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Prioritising victims with tougher sentences

    The Government has today agreed to introduce sentencing reforms to Parliament this week that will ensure criminals face real consequences for crime and victims are prioritised, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. "In recent years, there has been a concerning trend where the courts have imposed fewer and shorter prison sentences ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Targets data confirms rise in violent crime

    The first quarterly report on progress against the nine public service targets show promising results in some areas and the scale of the challenge in others, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. “Our Government reinstated targets to focus our public sector on driving better results for New Zealanders in health, education, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Asia Foundation Board appointments announced

    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the appointments of Hone McGregor, Professor David Capie, and John Boswell to the Board of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.  Bede Corry, Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has also been appointed as an ex-officio member. The new trustees join Dame Fran Wilde (Chair), ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Endeavour Fund projects for economic growth

    New Zealand’s largest contestable science fund is investing in 72 new projects to address challenges, develop new technology and support communities, Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins says. “This Endeavour Fund round being funded is focused on economic growth and commercial outputs,” Ms Collins says. “It involves funding of more ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Social Services Providers Whakamanawa National Conference 16 September 2024

    Thank you for the introduction and the invitation to speak to you here today. I am honoured to be here in my capacity as Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, and Minister for Children. Thank you for creating a space where we can all listen and learn, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Parihaka infrastructure upgrades funded

    The Government will provide a $5.8 million grant to improve water infrastructure at Parihaka in Taranaki, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka say. “This grant from the Regional Infrastructure Fund will have a multitude of benefits for this hugely significant cultural site, including keeping local ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Serious assaults down 22% in Auckland CBD

    Cross-government action to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour in Auckland is getting traction, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. “Our central cities should be great places to live and work, but in recent years they have become hot spots for crime and anti-social behaviour. In Auckland, businesses and residents suffered as ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Increased certainty for contractors coming

    Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says upcoming changes to the Employment Relations Act will provide greater certainty for contractors and businesses. “These changes to legislation are necessary to ensure businesses and workers have more clarity from the start of their contracting arrangement. It is an ACT-National coalition ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Draft critical minerals list released for consultation

    A draft list of minerals deemed essential to New Zealand’s economy and strengthening its mineral resilience has been released for consultation, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The draft Critical Minerals List identifies 35 minerals essential to economic functions, are in demand internationally, and face high risk of supply disruption domestically ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Government eliminates $190 million in trade barriers to boost the economy

    The Government has successfully removed trade barriers affecting nearly $190 million worth of exports to help grow the economy, Minister for Trade and Agriculture Todd McClay today announced.  “In the past year, we have resolved 14 Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs), returning significant value to kiwi exporters. These efforts directly boost our ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Reo Māori the ‘beating heart’ of Aotearoa New Zealand

    From private business to the Paris Olympics, reo Māori is growing with the success of New Zealanders, says Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka. “I’m joining New Zealanders across the country in celebrating this year’s Te Wiki o te Reo Māori – Māori Language Week, which has a big range ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Need and value at forefront of public service delivery

    New Cabinet policy directives will ensure public agencies prioritise public services on the basis of need and award Government contracts on the basis of public value, Minister for the Public Service Nicola Willis says. “Cabinet Office has today issued a circular to central government organisations setting out the Government’s expectations ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Minister to attend Police Ministers Council Meeting

    Police Minister Mark Mitchell will join with Australian Police Ministers and Commissioners at the Police Ministers Council meeting (PMC) today in Melbourne. “The council is an opportunity to come together to discuss a range of issues, gain valuable insights on areas of common interest, and different approaches towards law enforcement ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
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  • New Bill to crack down on youth vaping

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