Winston is on the election warpath. He's going to deal with errant Maori and eliminate all forms of wokery from government. But, I've always found amongst the bluster and bs that is Winston, there's usually a gem of a policy to be found. This time around it's his suggestion to make it a criminal offence to obstruct or assault emergency first responders. Winston probably got that idea from a similar British law that's recently been updated allowing up to two years jail for offenders.
In my experience offenders in NZ fall mainly into two groups: snotty nose middleclass white kids who have never been told 'no,' or feral gang bangers who threaten emergency workers with assault or death if they don't fix their bro on the spot.
The police response in those incidents has always bemused me. Police don't generally arrest offenders on the spot, but try moving them on multiple times.
A major tidal energy project is up and running in the Orkneys: see https://orbitalmarine.com/o2/
It is a floating turbine system that seems innovative. Its rotors can provide power no matter which way the tide is running.
Shouldn't we be doing the same thing in NZ? There must be a likely site in Cook Strait where there are strong currents.
Coupled with Wellington's wind farms, it could mean a huge reduction in reliance on fossil fuels.
HT, Thanks for the topic and link. There must be a multitude of sites around Aotearoa for such turbines. Basically 4 times a day guaranteed output that could be used in conjunction with our hydro storage.
Thank you. I call it out wherever I see it. And you are right, there are groups that use it -often disguised, to indicate that this is a group for women, not for sex mimics. I belong to a crafting group that uses the initials – which was set up when obvious autogynephiliac men invaded a couple of knitting and crochet groups demanding that we "validate" their "femaleness" and their various self modeled constructions.
I really don't believe in banning words. If people want to call me a terf, that is up to. them. It usually alerts to the fact that they have no good arguements re gender ideology and is part of a playbook of no debate and smearing. But I appreciate your point Shanreigh.
I commented on Mickey Savages post "debating with Nazis" that I was reading an interesting book called Bad Arguements (its a compilation of 100 arguements writtern by various phiolosphy academics). One was about when people bring Hitler and Nazis into a debate. Those who bring up Nazis in an arguement are seen as conceding defeat of the arguement. I tend to regard Terf the same way. Although I do like the commenter who suggested Terf be changed to Perf (Penis exclusionary radical feminist)
A replacement word will soon be found to dehumanise the "other", so let it continue. The accusations also lose their potency, when universally applied.
People who believe in polite and productive discussion tend to avoid inflammatory words or words that deliberately misrepresent the position of others. I do not call people "Nazis", I try to avoid "fascist", though I might use "proto-fascist" to suggest a tendency. I do not call people "TERFs" and I do not refer to transwomen as "he", though I might if the trans identity was clearly an intentional ruse.
However, none of this is the point. I don't imagine for a minute that my personal beliefs are grounds for policing the English lexicon.
There have been some excellent responses so far all of which I agree with.
The best argument is that allowing the word does let us easily identify the bad faith commentators as most good faith commentators would use (sic) or other words to distance themselves from the slur.
it doesn't get used that often on TS as a slur. Where people use it as a descriptor I point out the problems and link to terfisaslur. I have also moderated on its use and will continue to do so. If you see someone using it, you can reply to any comment of mine with a link and I will take a look.
It's a common tactic, using words that aren't 100 % accurate but are about the vibe.
For example using anti-vaxxer to describe attendees of the Parliament Grounds protest, regardless of how often it was pointed out how inaccurate it was.
I use/d anti vax/anti vaxxer as a shorthand to describe people who were not getting the vaccination, ie for non medical reasons, did not want others to and thought that by offering vaccinations that Govt was over reaching in some way. Not to mention the people who had been deluded by various people saying the vaccines had nanobots, magnets, trackers etc. I also could not see why being anti vaccination also often meant being anti wearing a mask
To me the protection of sick people in hospital, older people in rest homes, children was more important to the country as a whole during the time of the emergency powers used in the pandemic. These were more important than to cater for people who did not believe the science.
I think in less fraught times we are more accepting of those with this type of view.
The parliamentary protest was a gathering of all sorts of people who felt they had a grievance. Not just those concerned about Covid.
Hence my dad's advice to me when he knew he could not stop me marching. protesting
'Have a look to the left of you , have a look to the right of you
If you don't like what you see, leave'
People coat tail onto to causes.
Using words like T**f, a word used by the transgender community (around 3% perhaps) of the population) to describe 51% of the population seems a little different to me.
As weka explained in another thread, banning is mostly for behaviour (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01-04-2023/#comment-1943140). I think we can tolerate offensive words in robust debate, even when they’re not (at all) necessary and/or can be avoided. The seriousness of being offensive depends on context, intent, and perception. That said, in rare occasions we temporarily put words or word combinations in the Auto-Moderation list (filter) to pre-emptively capture comments from problematic comments who show recidivist behaviour (i.e. they won’t listen or are slow-learners). (NB sometimes, the word itself is not offensive but highly idiosyncratic of the offending commenter). If it is serious enough, we leave a Mod note in the comment when we release it from the Auto-Mod queue. When things settle down again, we remove the word, also because it creates extra work for the Mods. NB most bans are preceded by at least one warning because we encourage positive behaviour and prefer not to ban. You may also have noticed that occasionally we delete serious insults in comments and mark this by [deleted]. This can be for various reasons too, but generally it is to avoid the start of flame wars, without actually changing the content of the comment. I think we have it about right on this site
I agree TS has it about right. I was sick & tired of reading that word repeated ad nauseam by people who really should know better if they were aware of the issues (not on TS so much but other places)
I am now accepting that to leave it & mark it say is better to identify the bad from the good.
A woman, Katrina Biggs, with 'But the Emperor has no clothes' look at the violence against women, women's issues and how this has culminated in the award of Young NZer of the Year to an anti women, anti women's rights, anti freech speech advocate
She concludes:
It seems that being an arsehole is still no barrier to getting a prestigious award, but being a woman who doesn’t want men in her or her daughters’ spaces gets your life put in danger. Good to know that the world hasn’t tilted on its’ axis too much.
The people primarily to blame are, obviously, those making threats and committing violence. But they are enabled by all those who praise the violence, or who say that although they don’t condone it, they understand why the people these women are trying to exclude (aka men) might want to lash out.
It’s really dangerous, and for the first time since stumbling on the nonsense of trans ideology five years ago, I’m seriously worried. It’s not just the glorification of violence against women in trans-rights forums—the posing with guns and t-shirts reading “TERFs get the wall”. It’s the intimidation recast as social justice (Pink News literally described those threatening agitators outside the Lesbian Project, led by an attempted* murderer, as a “joyful pro-trans protest”). And presiding over it all are the idiot politicians, academics and journalists who smear people like Posie, Kathleen and Julie by calling them “anti-trans” rather than pro-women—and then quickly link them to every sort of bigotry, up to Naziism.
Yes a lot of peope on TS don't read the Daily Blog, but Martyn wrote a column on this and the comments were full of people saying they will withdraw their accounts from Kiwibank.
As a KB customer, I hope Grant Robertson will bail the bank out if it fails due to a rush on money..
It is truly disgusted that Lal was awarded young NZ of the year. He never condemned the violence, does anyone know if he was more actively involved in it?
Of what Lal et al don't realize is that this is that this provides another wake up call for all those members of the genneral public who haven't quite realized how anti women trans rights activists are.
Its not the trans protesters that I find objectionable, its the capture of a valid message espoused by Terf women by their misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic Nazi support crew. Surely the antithesis of feminism.
"…me and Molly appear to have got the wrong end of the stick"
I asked questions of psych nurse to clarify – whereas you made an assumption – and ran with it – so you include me in your pseudo-acknowledgement above?
Molly, psych nurse's comment was straightforward and easily comprehended.
Sometimes when we hold fixed views on an issue and we rush to defend a position, it gets in the way of good comprehension, especially when we are reading.
"Sometimes when we hold fixed views on an issue and we rush to defend a position, it gets in the way of good comprehension, especially when we are reading."
Link to where I made any comment in this thread based on assumption.
Or preferably, take heed of your own words, because I am not the one who needs them.
I wondered at your criticism of my reading comprehension and so tested myself with psych nurse's comment. I was pleased by the result. You might reflect upon your own response.
Robert, if you expect me to retract my justified criticisms of your engagement methods, then you'll be waiting a while.
If you persist in asking me to apologise – for something I did not do – just because The Al1en did apologise for something he did, then, again, you'll be waiting a while.
Deal with your hurt feelings resulting from my comments either by giving them no merit, or by considering if they do indeed have merit and improving.
What you appear to be doing here is lashing out, which contributes nothing to any political discourse.
This comment is a prime example of where this kind of exchange ends up, so I'm leaving this – and any other such threads (unless provoked when my patience is low, and my energy is high – which would be against my better judgement).
I will ask if you could refrain from this type of comment stalking when interacting with me, when your responses contain only trite sentences, no pertinent information and zero political analysis.
"Deal with your hurt feelings resulting from my comments…"
I have none.
"What you appear to be doing here is lashing out…"
Seriously?? Lashing out???
Hmmm…
"I will ask if you could refrain from this type of comment stalking when interacting with me, when your responses contain only trite sentences, no pertinent information and zero political analysis."
Exactly, woman have every right complaining about transwomen sharing toilets, changing rooms and sport with transwomen, but they need to chose their allies. Misogynists, homophobes and transphobes are not friends. What is it that's said about lying with dogs.
Misogynists, homophobes and transphobes are not friends. What is it that's said about lying with dogs.
OK I will wade in, if all you have are flogged out labels and sneers – you have lost the argument.
As human beings trans people, like anyone else, had the right to demand the same access to legal rights and human dignity as anyone else. No-one here for one second has denied you this.
What you then went and did was to collapse your entire humanity down to your mere sexual identity. And then demand everyone else accept every implication of this.
I agree, but I see the problem being less about KJK and her associations with the far right, than the fact that the left/liberals used No Debate to shut down progressive GC voices. That's why KJK exists the way she does. There are conservative people with skin in this game. If we want to win, we have to empower progressives to use their voice, or the whole thing will be framed within conservative values, and that doesn't serve women or trans women.
Weka – Frank's usually supported here; what do you make of the points he's presenting?
"
By now, Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshull (aka, Posie Parker) has come and gone. Her mission – to amplify a particularly pernicious form of transphobia (under the cloak of “women’s rights”) – an abject failure. As a marketing exercise to peddle her wares, it went well.
A self-style "woman’s rights activist" Keen-Minshull/Parker has strident views, including rejecting trans women as women. She has been active throughout Britain, Scotland, Australia, and United States.
In February 2019, Keen-Minshull/Parker harassed Sarah McBride, Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary, and trans woman, in the United States’ Capitol Building. The verbal abuse, including mis-gendering and making offensive slurs, was videographed and uploaded onto the internet."
In February 2019, Keen-Minshull/Parker harassed Sarah McBride, Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary, and trans woman, in the United States’ Capitol Building. The verbal abuse, including mis-gendering and making offensive slurs, was videographed and uploaded onto the internet."
HRC is an organisation that should be able answer the questions put forward by KJK while actively lobbying for legislation on those issues;
People are able to have a view, whether it is supported by the facts or evidence is quite another thing.
I have found Frank Macskasy a bit reactionary over the last few years and so stopped reading him. Perhaps I'll start again.
I've found I cherish the progressives more and am willing to read from any side and some times time does not allow diving into Frank's views.
As people think more deeply about the issues on 25/3 we are getting more comment from NZ on the implications for free speech, women's rights. This seemed to be the preserve of writers from overseas in the immediate aftermath. They seemed to be seeing what was happening more clearly than our media did or more likely wanted to (seeing at they had worked themselves into a truly tiny corner)
"The answer to Kim Hill’s question – why did Posie Parker require protection – is because Hill, Minister Wood, O’Brien, Lal and even Justice Gendall had all contributed to an environment where the use of violence was not only being legitimised, but had become a moral necessity.
We have graduated to a cultural landscape where commercial intimidation and even physical violence is permissible against people if their views are deemed unacceptable by the cultural, political and media leadership.
Those in positions of responsibility may wish to reflect on this, rather than stoking further escalation."
I don't always agree with Damien Grant but I do on this.
I am also concerned at the treating of the Ministership as some sort of private fiefdom where instead of getting measured comment on issues within the portfolio we get pronouncements or personal views driven along by the pronouncers being a Minister. (Granted the media seem unable to unlink the two and this does not help)
Marama Davidson seems to be one. You know I don't care about your breathless personal views about the trans community but I do care that you had neither the wit nor sense of reality to work out that any comment supporting or minimising the use of violence against people you disagree with was not appropriate.
You know being quite frank 'I couldn't give a big rats a***' what your personal views are Michael Wood and find them quite inappropriate and calling into question the decision making of the officials of the department you are the Minister of. I would have had much more respect had you stood behind the process and supported this.
I would paraphrase Abraham Lincoln – Quote – Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
"Better to remain silent on issues out of your depth than to comment and to remove all doubt'.
It was presented by Keen-Minshull/Parker’s followers and various far-right individuals that the silver object beside her throat was a knife (or alternatively, scissors). It was supposedly "evidence" of thuggery by counter-protestors at Albert Park.
The object was a cellphone, held by one of her minders. The image had been cropped for maximum misrepresentation-effect.
Keen-Minshull/Parker was not brought to Australia by any feminisist organisation. Her presence was sponsored by the conservative, Trump-affiliated, Conservative Political Action Conference organisation."
Anne, this slur about the scissors was comprehensively walked back some days ago……Molly & Weka had a discussion.
Perhaps you and Frank could elucidate.
The point I took from this picture was that it was so dangerous out there for KJM that her security first had to close guard, walking with someone with arms and shoulders linked around her, to actually having to lift her for speed so she was almost parallel to the ground.
It was a deliberate attempt to help promote the image of mass thuggery coming from the protesting crowd. The kind of tactic used by right wing extremists that the woman in question so obviously is aligned to, despite her howls of protest to the contrary. In fact the more she denies it, the more one knows its true.
More details from whoever posted the original screen shot from the livestream, would be good to know. But unfortunately, I don't know who that was. The images were being deleted and/or corrected even as I was having a conversation with weka, only a few hours after the event.
Many were watching the livestream concerned that they were seeing a woman in extreme physical danger. The livestream shows a degree of the chaos and confustion, and it abruptly cut out for several minutes in the middle of it.
In that resulting distress, people were looking for answers and details, and I also thought this was information coming through. But as I said, people with saner heads at a time of confusion, almost immediately reined that interpretation in.
The social media accounts I followed, corrected and or deleted and did not circulate that image further. (Mind you, I don't have a Facebook or any other social media account, so I don't know if this is true on those platforms).
Thank you Molly. I wonder am I to go on for the rest of my life resisting people who use this and other unproven points about the so-called 'lovely, sun loving, fun loving protest, at Albert Park on 25/3.
Did the woman with the fractured skull run into someone's opened sunscreen lotion bottle or the keep cup with the decaf double shot hazelnut chai latte in it?
That was just one example mentioned and I concede it was quickly discarded by mainstream media at the least. But I recommend this morning's media watch programme on the subject from non-partisan folk who were actually present at the scene:
There was a lot of 'unreality' bandied about by the usual local suspects as well as the overseas media. It always amuses me how much more coverage the reporting of false data receives over the actual facts of a particular situation.
Thanks for conceding the point regarding the image.
However, what point is it that you are trying to make with the RNZ link?
Is it that because some people did not witness it, the violence against women has been exaggerated?
I just want to note, that in the footage of the woman being beaten I can see my daughter and partner about 3m away, and they had no idea that it was taking place directly behind them.
The noise was painfully loud at within the rotunda area that the #LetWomenSpeak attendees were in, once those demonstrators broke through.
"Keen-Minshull/Parker was not brought to Australia by any feminisist organisation. Her presence was sponsored by the conservative, Trump-affiliated, Conservative Political Action Conference organisation."
Need I say more."
CPAC is a political group – it's What We Believe page is here:
Apart from the wholesale support of capitalism (expected) the rest is fairly straightforward.
I don't know the full details of the sponsorship deal – and to be honest I don't care that much. IIRC, Kellie-Jay Keen says that CPAC offered the sponsorship deal partly to give the #LetWomenSpeak events liability cover under their organisation. The cost of liability cover for #LetWomenSpeak events was/is prohibitively high. So the formal sponsorship, removes that expense.
(There is a video where this is related, but I'm not going to trawl through it all to find it, but will post if I come across or remember where to look).
"Many who have concerns have been unable to raise them in existing parties and find themselves politically homeless. Their political representatives seemed to be incapable of having a discussion."
Thought you were talking about the anti-vaxx crowd for a moment…
"I will ask if you could refrain from this type of comment stalking when interacting with me, when your responses contain only trite sentences, no pertinent information and zero political analysis."
Macskasy's article, and the responses to Robert Guyton's comment on same, highlight the fact that, when it comes to 'Posie Parker', some opinions are poles apart.
Keen-Minshull has political aspirations. Time will tell whether she can reach the ‘heights’ of Pauline Hanson – based on PP’s recent encounters down under, imho she has a shot – exclusivity has popular appeal.
"Keen-Minshull has political aspirations. Time will tell if she can reach the heights of Pauline Hanson – based on her recent time down under, she has a shot, imho – exclusion is the name of her 'game'."
Hmmm.. more reason to take a cautious, cynical view of the woman, imo.
I've been, and am presently being, distracted by a 4-man South Korea film crew that has been filming our every move over the past 3 days. I'm just managing to fit in quick glimpses of TS as they set up this scene and that scene, and so am finding it difficult to always choose the right worm.
Yes. That is a strategy that was outlined a while ago, and many GC's know of it.
Many who have concerns have been unable to raise them in existing parties and find themselves politically homeless. Their political representatives seemed to be incapable of having a discussion.
When the idea was first mooted in GC circles to create a party where protest votes could be given, it was treated as a passing fancy.
But the strategy of such a move became apparent.
The creation of a political party would increase the likelihood of the discussion occurring in the political sphere. There is also the added benefit of political engagement and speeches being adequately protected by the authorities. Thereby, avoiding such debacles similar to that we had in Auckland last week.
Elaine Miller, used a similar strategy when contesting a Scottish by-election last year.
KJK AFAIK was a Labour party member. I don't know if she has long term ambition to be a politician, I do know that she (and her support team) are constantly looking to get a public conversation going by whatever legitimate means they can.
I think this might have some success in that objective.
KJK occasionally mentions it on videos or interviews, but it is hard to search videos if you don't know the exact ones.
Here though is a 2018 article from the Spectator. Sorry, I can't quote anything, – I've moved from my phone to here to post the link, and I am out of free articles:
IIRC, the "woman – adult human female "billboard was put up outside a Labour party conference, as women were unable to get Labour politicians to meet or acknowledge concerns raised by party members.
Thanks for that link to the 2018 article in The Spectator. Looks like KJK was a Labour party supporter, so probably a member too.
Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble left Labour; Ruth Richardson and Don Brash left the Nats. They found(ed) a new home – ACT.
Which of NZ's political parties might have policies that align best with KJK's intention to "campaign on the basis of repealing the Gender Recognition Act" and "erase the word 'gender'"?
"Keen-Minshull/Parker was not brought to Australia by any feminisist organisation. Her presence was sponsored by the conservative, Trump-affiliated, Conservative Political Action Conference organisation.""
If that is the case, you need say no more, imo.
Such information casts a shadow over the bright and breezy claim that the woman was "merely an advocate for women".
Because women see no merely about it. She is an advocate for women.
In my view it is time that people started realising that women are quite grown up, we exercise our brains, we can reference, we can assimilate/discern across multiple often competing view, we can see through charlatans and having done all this – we can make up our own minds about the message. In short to use the vernacular 'We can walk and chew gum'.
I see no need to disregard a message because the person may have political aspirations or because she need funding to meet insurance levies or for whatever reason mainstream funding sources were not aviable to her.
Don't you think that the messages she has given about women's rights and women's issues are worth a look?
Trustworthy groups such as Speak Up for Women and Mana Korereo Wahine support the kaupapa of Let Women Speak which is what it is all about.
In the No Debate Self ID crock the voices of women and our concerns were silenced.
You know if a red giraffe wearing thigh waders came to NZ, sponsored by the Pink Panthers Association to moo (or whatever giraffes do) about women's issues I'd go and see it (with a translator of course).
Please focus on the issues that have been raised and let us know why the concerns of women should not be addressed.
Trust us too.
We have done the mahi, researched the issues and the people. You don't need to second guess or 'warn' us
Actually KJM's work has received a huge boost in NZ with people being able to see that there are groups determined to restrict free speech, to 'deserving' people only, and restrict it by the use of force if necessary.
A joke?
I’m sorry I am a women and I don’t have a sense of humour attuned to that kind of ‘joke’ Robert.
My jokes are clearer like
What is brown and goes at 100k through custard?
A prune with an outboard motor.
and
Knock knock
Who’s there
Arthur
Arthur who?
Are there any mince pies left?
My "joke" was concerning the word, "worm", Shanreagh.
Being "mis-taken" seems de rigueur with this issue.
If we can maintain a dignified semi-respect for each other for a while longer, we might (we, being those commenting here) make it through the testing-time.
@Robert Guyton…….I cannot see the word worm in the post I am referring to. Is it in one of the links?
I also don't get the Mis-taken unless it is some poor take on miss. But then I am a woman and I've got no sense of humour. I am not away of a testing-time…this implies some sort of ending. I'm not sure this will end.
I can see how easily it would be for a party other than Labour or Greens to swoop in, put up a policy stating that BDM/safe spaces will be reviewed to see if it is fit for purpose for women, and a wave of women will go there, or at least have a close look..
If you want my honest opinion…the way will become clearer if you read, thought about, noted questions, asked them in a genuine manner and then reflected again on the answers. Then asked any queries.
Perhaps you might find it easier to read the rights based arguments that RW males have that enables them to see where we are coming from. RedLogix and TSmithfield have insights here, TS particularly with the chauvinism idea.
This one shot, 'smarty pants' way of interacting when we are trying to help you expand your knowledge is very off putting.
Many of us have had years, literally decades some of us in groups relating to women's issues, some of us have studied issues to stage 3 Uni levels at the time of the 1970s/80s wave, others since. Others of us have knowledge on human rights, civil rights, unions and are making the link through this. Others have lived the experience of the shifting sands of woman's issues through the fights to be able to live with our loved ones, marry/civil union them. I would venture to say there is not much that Women commentators on TS don't know about the issues.
"Eveyone I don't like is a Nazi" is a contender for most annoying feature of the 'progressive' left. It's appallingly disrespectful to victims of the Nazis, for a start.
Just as annoying is the political right's way of proclaiming that anyone from the left is a communist or Stalinist (Jacinda has been called such many a time) except that oddly enough it hardly raises an eyebrow anymore despite Stalin's appalling record on human rights.
Both the left and right have spawned monsters. But to be fair the legitimate, moderate right has fully, loudly and repeatedly repudiated the Nazis and fascism ever since the end of WW2. While not the same could be said for the broad left of it's catastrophic historic embrace of marxism. I still see plenty of minimising and weaseling on this and a persistent blindness to the modern forms it has morphed into.
Of course this does not mean there are not extremists on both sides who still embrace the old madness'. Mainly for the attention-seeking shock value I sometimes think.
When you boil all the rhetoric away, there is actually little difference between the extreme left and extreme right. They use the same methods to control people – violence and intimidation.
Frankly they can have woman. I’ve always thought it was a slightly offensive word as if we are something just tacked onto the side of men, literally wife man. About as offensive as woman being created from Adam’s rib. I am in favour of women now othering themselves as femme or femina.
The word is being used so often that it becomes meaningless as a slur.
Those who throw it about should do some reading / watching / listening to the vast amount of documentation available about The Holocaust Then hopefully they may start to understand what sort of person a real Nazi actually is, rather than just someone who disagrees with them.
It's a common tactic the "no debate" types use to shut down any discussion. (You're a nazi so I don't need to debate with you)
It's the same with words like facist, racist, transphobic, etc.
After an eye-roll at the headline: "…to challenge induction of transgender member", the rest of the article is an interesting read, of the special treatment given to that member in terms of criteria and induction.
The failure of many to understand how in such cases, single-sex provisions for women allow them to just get on with their day, with objectification is astounding.
The article points out clearly some of the impacts.
“The complaint said that witnesses observed Smith sitting in a chair in the living room of the sorority house on multiple occasions staring at members walking in.
“Smith has, while watching members enter the sorority house, had an erection visible” through leggings, the complaint said.
The morning after a sleepover, prior to the Kappa initiation ceremony for new members, Smith’s conduct was described as “inappropriate and threatening,” according to the complaint.
Though Smith did not sleepover, Smith returned to the sorority house the following morning and “stood silently in the corner of the room near the door while other pledges changed from sleeping garments into other clothing,” the lawsuit said.
Smith allegedly saw a woman not wearing a bra change shirts. After that incident, “other Kappa members informed Ms. Doe VI that while watching her” Smith had “become sexually aroused,” the complaint said, and Smith allegedly “repeatedly asked” Doe VI about her romantic attachments after the encounter. “
(I'm using an ancient laptop with keyboard and trackpad issues, so I resort to an onscreen keyboard, or a phone which either has issues with what I'm asking it to do, or that emphasises my fat finger syndrome to the detriment of efficient posting.)
That’s really taking the piss. I’d be surprised if anyone would support this type of behaviour. Even a teenage boy would know that he’s been a bit dodgy.
Bad or inappropriate behaviour like what is described in the article is not acceptable, and it doesn’t matter who’s doing it.
anyone condoning or justifying it should be called out.
Exactly. So much of this debate swirls around various arcane ideological rabbit holes, when I just see bad behaviour from weak, immature people with no internal boundaries.
Yea but in instances like this one the bad behaviour is enabled by whichever beauracrats decide that allowing a man to join a sorority is ok. (In fact anyone or any organisation that panders to this nonsense)
The young women involved should never have been put in the position of having to deal with this bad behavior in the first place
The large majority of men – men who work for a living, support and provide for their families, act as a good parent, and will sacrifice themselves to protect their family, community and nation – think of this simmering alphabet soup of sex and gender variation as a bit of an aberration; to be tolerated but scarcely embraced.
I have three close family members, each with a relatively rare genetic condition that has had a dramatic impact on their lives. (I may have referenced some of this in the years past, I am not going to detail any here.) The fact of these conditions is something that takes nothing away from their human rights, and expectation that others will treat them with the ordinary courtesy and dignity afforded anyone. Nor does it subtract one jot from my expectation that their disability will be an excuse for bad behaviour. And of course as family they are loved.
But frankly their disability has been a monstrous pain in the arse, changing the course of not just their lives, but all around them. It has massively curtailed their potential to function, achieve and contribute – to be the people they could have been. If any sane person had the a choice in the matter, they would not ask for these disabilities. They are not desirable permutations of the human condition.
Looping then back to the sex/gender issue this comment is about. Where there is a reasonable case for a genetic pre-disposition, or indeed some environmental hormonal disruption that skews the usual path of gender expression – then like most people I am willing to be compassionate and accepting to the extent reasonable on the matter. To repeat this does not diminish their rights as a human being, nor the usual social obligation to treat them with courtesy and respect. You have been very clear on this all the way through and we agree on this.
Just do not try and tell me however these conditions are 'normal', or should be promoted as such. These transgender activists seem to be calling for a free – state-funded – ‘revolutionary genital tourism’ whereby you can, with chemicals or surgery or both, shift at will from being a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ or surgically/chemically ‘non-binary.' And underlying this it is not hard to discern a deeper agenda to discount the heteronormative family as an 'oppressive patriarchal capitalist' construct that might be swept away in a politicised, subversive firestorm of social disintegration. Political revolution from the inside out, disguised as personal freedom.
The 'progression' of this dark agenda is now fairly plain to see, first getting everyone to accept that gender expression is fluid, now dismantling biological sex, after this I anticipate will come the idea that age itself is a mere social construct.
To be clear, the gender/sexual politics of all this does not interest me much. Rather it is the undeniable erosion of stable family formation and structure across much of the world, and the accompanying social and economic dysfunction that always flows from this, is I believe is larger picture most people are either not seeing, or do not feel safe to speak to.
'And underlying this it is not hard to discern a deeper agenda to discount the heteronormative family as an 'oppressive patriarchal capitalist' construct that might be swept away in a politicised, subversive firestorm of social disintegration. Political revolution from the inside out, disguised as personal freedom."
That is a strategy acknowledged by many women, across the political spectrum. However, it sometimes appears to be more clearly recognised and emphatically stated by those with "conservative" politics and viewpoints.
Some seem to have an internal censor that inhibits open acknowledgement. Whether it is tribal, related to acceptable "progressivism" or just wanting not wanting to be seen aligning with conservatives on any issue – I don't know.
This idea of boundaries should be intuitively familiar to most women; most will have had a bad encounter at some point in their lives with someone who lacks them. And all too often it was an immature, weak male who lacking the ability to control his innate capacity for aggression (both active and passive).
On this point, I would argue that much of the debate around violence misses the point that men are innately more physically dangerous than women. Evolutionary sexual selection ensured we would be this way. On average the difference is not very large, we are a dimorphic species, but not excessively so. But at the extremes almost all of the worst offenders will be male; this being an inevitable outcome of how normal distributions work.
But in my view the idea this is biological reality is a social construct, an 'oppressive, misogynistic patriarchy' is not only rather uninteresting, it simply leads us nowhere useful. Thus decades of talking about the scourge of IPV and no change in the outcome.
The correct solution to violence is not to demand men should be weak and harmless, but they are socialised to control their innate aggression and direct it constructively. The role of childhood rough play, adolescent initiation into manhood, male bonding in challenging situations into effective, disciplined teams are all traditional facilitations of this.
But you are of course correct, none of this acceptable left wing discourse.
I have thought long and hard about our institutions such as religion and the patriarchy, including the notion of the nuclear family.
My conclusion is that generally they may be a force for good for many.
But not all especially not all women, I know though that there are many men who have welcomed the results of the fight that women have had on access to maternity leave as it has enable them to participate more in their children's little lives.
In the religion I grew up in women are able to participate to the fullest in ministering.
My ongoing view is that though we may consent to be governed, this is not for all time and we must watch like hawks to make sure the two institutions work for all women.
Unlike other types of activism, referenced by Stuart Munro women's activism is never done.
Activists, having achieved any measure of success, are disempowered by it. They must find new careers, or fresh problems, if they substantially resolve the ones that initially motivated them.
I have noted before being shocked after a period out of the public service at the lack of simple knowledge of institutional racism or sexism held by one CE I came across. Held by him and thus promulgated across his managers. This was 2005.
Yes – all good points. In writing the comment above I was aware of two matters I should clarify.
One is that in drawing an analogy between a genetic condition that is physical in nature, and one that expresses itself primarily in a social context – are not the equivalent things in every respect, but the moral argument is broadly similar enough to convey the point I wanted to make.
And yes there is no reason to demand everyone fits within the traditional structures. Growing up in my rather small extended family I had an older aunt who lived in a same sex relationship all her life. This long before it became fashionable as such. As far as we were concerned it was just who she was and there was never any negative comment or disrespect about it. But it was a private matter, and not something she imposed on others.
While I am sure she would have encountered the usual run of bigots and nosey parkers, as far as I am aware she never allowed this to hold her back from living a full and good life, both socially and professionally. And she had a rather marvelous collection of fast cars and motorbikes.
Newsroom has a new regular post called "Raw Politics."
Welcome to Raw Politics, Newsroom's new, election year weekly video podcast, with Tim Murphy, Jo Moir and Sam Sachdeva. This week: Stuart Nash's demise, Jacinda's Ardern's valedictory and Marama Davidson's ticking off by the PM.
I listened to most of it but think it is a "lets explore every little dark place in which to amplify the terrible management of the Government." Spiteful I reckon especially from Tim Murphy.
Watched it ianmac but probably too early to judge. What with the PP debacle and the Stuart Nash sacking, it was largely about Hipkins and his handling of both situations. I thought he handled them as well as could be expected in the circumstances.
I did think it was a bit underhand to claim this govt. wasbumbling on (my words) without demonstrating any vision for the future ("bread and butter issuesdon't cut it" Murphy said) when we have the budget coming up in a matter of weeks where all will be revealed.
If you can endure your way through Plunket's constant, annoying interruptions, this is a gobsmacking interview. It leaves only two possible explanations for the Police failure to maintain public order and protect the mob's victims:
1. The liaison with the women organising the event was genuine, but the officers involved received instructions from their superiors to stand down and leave the women to face the mob alone.
2. The liaison was duplicitous from the start and the officers involved never had any intention of doing what they were agreeing to.
Option 2 may sound far-fetched, but don't underestimate the misogyny infesting the police force. Here's a reminder of how some of them see women:
Linda speaks well throughout the interview despite – as you mention – Plunket's unnecessary interruptions.
(I did enjoy the rebuke at the beginning when Plunket corrected her "rotund" error. A couple of pointed digs around that later for emphasis from a woman that has just had enough).
The personal experience shared sounds credible, even if it does put the police actions and inactions in a very poor light. It does raise real questions about political influence as well.
It also gives voice to the very real threat that women experienced that has been routinely ignored or downplayed by some commentators, media and politicians.
Police not doing the job we think they should be doing's a theme.
Parliament occupation, Brian tamaki's many antics and P houses left untouched whilst the next street over gets chopper, patrol cars etc to sieze a few plants.
Nationals police force….they get in costers goneburger.
The critical point that many have missed – is that once PP and the women attending the event were thoroughly intimidated, and in some cases assaulted, the Police immediately swung into action, bundling PP to safety in a waiting car, then into protective custody first at the Police station, then at the airport and even escorting her onto the plane.
PP herself has had nothing but good things to say about these officers who did look after her after the crisis. Nor is there any reason to think the handful of officers inside Albert Park who were plainly either under-resourced or under instructions to stand down, can be reasonably accused of misogyny.
Nah – like many people here I strongly suspect this was a political act. All the dots are sitting there waiting to be joined up – and it will only take one disgruntled person to do it. Who knows, maybe a certain ex-Minister of Police.
From other accounts from women present, it was security that directed KJK to the stationary police, and perhaps even into the car. The police then had to act, and standard responses kicked in.
The police – despite requests – also did not go to the rotunda to assist the remaining women AFAIK.
If anyone has evidence or accounts that contradict this, I'd appreciate it being posted.
Plunket had an interview with PP yesterday that covered the events off from her perspective in some detail. I was merely going on that account.
I agree it was probably the people providing her security – and they deserve a good deal more plaudits for their courage than has been credited to them so far – that got her away from the rotunda down to the street.
It is my interpretation that the Police on the ground, once they realised just how out of hand things had gotten, finally had to ignore instructions and do the right thing.
In this paper, we contribute new insight into the differences between perceived and actual bias in an online community’s attempt to facilitate productive exchange on controversial issues.
Suggesting how the site should be run or complaining about moderation is a sure way to cop a self martyr ban.
But the conclusions in the report does contain the following…
“We found that users holding minority views are more likely to be moderated,even after accounting for levels of potentially offensive behaviors across groups”
I also read the suggestion, that I disagree with, that the rules be excruciatingly specific. The theory of specificism is law or similar is well known. For instance many believe in the fair, large and liberal approach where an incomplete and general list is put up. This tends include rather than exclude ideas, words that are similar to those instanced .
The other approach is that the words are included are all that are covered.
I see the benefit in phrases such as say 'apply commonsense' (fair, large & liberal)
rather than an exhaustive list of words trying to convey this.
The trouble with the exhaustive list approach is that if we leave off an example people may argue that this is not covered by 'commonsense' and so is not covered by the moderation.
I look on moderation as a way to get the best out of us and our arguments thus making them clearer and more persuasive to a greater audience. I don't see it is censorship. Not do I think it is designed to please the majority. We can all slip up and not link or link competently (my common mod)
I can recall several posters espousing uncommon views, who put them up and had a number of posters against them. They put them up again, same thing occurs perhaps several times.
The next post is full of ad homs against other posters, Mods, others with different views. They are moderated. They perhaps put up their immoderate views as they were tired of posters being 'agin their views.
I sometimes think that those holding minority views on site are often those whose views on another site or out in town square NZ are in fact majority views. So they are coming to a site they know does not espouse their views per se (and we have a number of wonderful posters on here who do that).
Anyway, a very interesting read.
I am a great supporter of moderation as I believe it helps us add to the sum of knowledge. It is not designed to make us all support vanilla views, but to draw out the hokey pokeys and boysenberries of this world…..a drawn out metaphor.
Yes. There are quite a few who have bailed from this site. I don't blame them. There seems to be a bit of a pack mentality currently developing. You know… 'you gotta completely agree with us cos if you don't we're gonna run you out of town' kind of attitude. Not all commenters (or authors) are guilty of this of course.
Hopefully TS can soon revert to its former environment where people were able to argue the pros and cons (because they always exist) about an issue with reasonable safety – and not a little humour when it was appropriate.
Adrian gets a bollocking, and so have I over time from LPRENT for supporting Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, and Mike Smith. “fool” is how I have been characterised, so I generally self censor to be able to keep posting here.
Which is strange in a way because a look at the archive over a decade or more shows how supportive I have been of Mr Prent for keeping the site going and tackling the likes of SlaterOil in court proceedings.
But hey, no one is perfect and the ultimate counter for whinging posters I guess is obvious–“pay for your own server and site and say what you like!”
I get the feeling that you hadn’t read the article that The Al1en had linked to @ 9.
Your perception of the alleged ‘bollockings’ is a misrepresentation and mischaracterisation stemming from your bias of censorship and moderation on TS and how things work here.
‘Bollocking’, moderating, or banning here is generally not because of viewpoints but of how well or rather how badly one argues for them. Poor arguments can raise the ire of those who don’t suffer fools.
I hope this clears up some of your misunderstandings.
Your quote was so selective it was self-serving. Here’s the full quote with the relevant missing part in my italics:
We found that users holding minority views are more likely to be moderated, even after accounting for levels of potentially offensive behaviors across groups. We found, however, that the effect of this bias is much smaller than how the issue is represented.
It is quite evident from your comments in this thread that you were trying to be subtle, as not to fall into the self-martyrdom hole, and that your intention was to take a swipe at moderation here on TS. You can’t have it your way; say what you mean and mean what you say or you say nothing at all.
Your ‘missing friends’ have had their commenting privileges revoked because of their own actions and not because of poor and unfair moderation. Acknowledging my own biases, I think your insinuations (!) are inaccurate and unfair. I do acknowledge that on some ‘hot topics’ moderation can become more biased and heavy-handed than strictly necessary. Mods are not perfect and the ones that don’t have anything left in the tank take a break, tend to leave on their own accord, or have their Moderation rights revoked.
I hope this helps. When you feel the need to criticise Mods and/or Authors please don’t try to be too subtle and clever for your own good
I'm usually brick subtle but obviously not on here, but as for selective, even if your point is true and the level is much smaller than represented, you'd agree it's still there.
It was and is not my point, it is the finding and conclusion of one study of one online group (community), i.e., of Ravelry’s BID. My guess is that it is always present to some degree because it is inevitable when dealing with humans and human [online] interactions. If you were to ask if it is present here and does it present a problem I’d say “No”, but with the qualifiers that I’ve already mentioned in my previous comment. And no, I would not say this because I’m one of the Mods. I’d say it because I comment and occasionally author here, i.e., if it were a problem [for me], and more akin some other NZ political blog sites, I’d leave immediately and stop spending hours of my time on here. TS is the best of the bunch – spoken with real and genuine bias.
Interesting read, thanks. However, I wouldn’t read too much into it, e.g., extrapolate some of the ‘findings’ and ‘solutions’ to other political blog sites such as TS. Much of it was highly familiar to me, although it seems that none of the authors had any experience as a Mod, but perhaps that was a good thing because it might have induced bias in the study.
The issue that was not addressed is that of bias within the community/commentariat and the six tags attached to comments (that’s what we call them here on TS, as Posts are submitted by people with TS/WordPress Author status). Many a ban occurs because of and after a heated exchange with other commenters here […] and not all come from or start with a stand-alone comment, i.e., more or less entirely self-inflicted by the offender.
It’s tough to act objectively & impartially (neutrally) given my own biases, likes, and dislikes. I do my best.
The comment about the high workload of Mods struck a chord – TS receives more comments a month than the Big Issues Debate (BID) group on Ravelry in that study. Of course, not all comments are equal, but it gives you a bit of an idea of how much the two main Mods here on TS wade through!
If I have time, I will respond to a few other of your comments in this thread, because they leave a few things to the imagination and raise some questions …
There are some commenters who don't believe this, but the things people get banned for here are pretty simple and most of them come down to people ignoring moderation and wasting moderator time (I cannot emphasis the latter enough).
I will note an exception however. The last time you were banned, for 6 months, was for calling a woman commenter, who you were politically disagreeing with, "a nasty old cunt". In my time moderating here, that would be at the worst end of the scale for misogyny directed at women. Fortunately its rare and the reason it is rare is because we moderate before it gets to that point, and we curate a culture where its unacceptable.
We have this rule for good reasons,
We encourage robust debate and we’re tolerant of dissenting views. But this site run for reasonably rational debate between dissenting viewpoints and we intend to keep it operating that way.
What we’re not prepared to accept are pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others.
It takes work to create an environment where a range of people want to comment. I've just asked someone to not call a prominent intersex trans person 'it', because it is dehumanising. That kind of language will also put people off from being here. The commenter did a simple acknowledgement, no drama.
All of which is to say that by far and away the easiest way to not get moderated is to not be an arsehole to the moderators. Imo this largely comes down to intent.
In the years I was commenting before becoming an author, I often talked to moderators about their decisions and I don't think I've ever been modded for that. It's entirely possible to talk about moderation here without crossing that line. This is why I see relatively easily when people are saying they don't care about TS moderation (and hence the site). I no longer see any point in spending time trying to sort that out. In election year we are just handing out long bans after the first few times, to curate a better debate for the election and to save ourselves the aggro and time.
Why? What are the things you’re worried about writing that will get you banned? I know I have plenty, though I do remember you frequently getting tied in knots before you became a moderator, which I noticed hasn’t happened since.
what I'm trying to say is that, calling women cunts aside, people here don't get generally banned for what they say, they get banned for behaviour, often patterns of behaviour. This is good, because it means it's possible to avoid being banned even if one has controversial views.
Weka I'm constantly amazed at how fair you are, how incredibly articulate, and how at pains you are to filter your own biases.You make this site far more civil than it would be without you, and for that my admiration has no bounds.You may get triggered at times, but you never lash out
The words that were used including c**t are unacceptable to me & I am glad they were moderated. Why do we think that people want to see it written. Sounds like a male only worksite of old.
Shouldn't we pride ourselves on making our arguments/discussions without this sort of stuff.
signed
Mother of ten
Auckland
PS I note though several people on my twitter feed have had other Twitterers having to remove the words as inevitably they use them about others and fall foul of the twitter standards
''If you can endure your way through Plunket's constant, annoying interruptions, this is a gobsmacking interview.''
Cheap shot mainly because Plunket isn't ''Left Media.'' In fact it was the interviewee who was tortuous to listen to, but well worth the effort because, as you say, it was a gobsmacking interview.
My guess is it's probably some configuration of your No1 explanation. Andrew Costa may have been mulling over the issue, and because of his wokeness, worried about a backlash against the police protecting so called Nazis. Another angle is the Rainbow Community is still not 100% comfortable with the police as an organisation.
Plenty of history in the UK of Police doing the enforcement work for gender ideology. Chap called Harry Miller in his "Fair Cop" blog does a good job of exposing it.
I fully accept my characterisation of Plunket's interviewing was a personal opinion! I'm torn between being grateful he's providing a platform for these women to be heard and personally annoyed at his interviewing style.
Agree that some variant of option 1 is most likely. Either one is bad, though – can't see any way to put a good spin for the police on what happened.
Strange as it may seem, I agree Plunket can interrupt too much. I think he gets impatient, especially with those with a more ponderous style of talking. Plus you will notice he can't sit still. When I get annoyed I just think '' well, it could have been Duncan Garner at the microphone.
Just returned from the Kimbolton Sculpture Festival. Great morning, wide range of art, stall holders and food.
A couple of observations from snatched excerpts of korero and artists written descriptions of their work. A parade of Mustangs idled their way through the crowd to go on display. More than a couple of comments about how much 'The Greenies' would hate that and 'to enjoy them before they are banned too'. One exhibit was of a heading dog and a cow and calf and a bull. All made out of old pushbike parts and old stuff ftom a shed. The artist reckoned Jacinda and the Greens want to get rid of the cows and this was a reminder of their presence.
Following the fallout of the Shame @ Albert Park, I was thinking these sorts of rural events is perhaps a better environment for a LWS forum/event/tent. Lower key (but still able to be live streamed), organised and run by locals and anyone wishing to silence the speakers would have to pay $15 to do so.
You couldn’t repeatedly punch a senior citizen and get away with it in that community.
The two groups met on Monday night to discuss things and it had been agreed that Ngāti Kauwhata would take part in the event.
But now organiser Tony Waugh said the day had been postponed to a yet-to-be-confirmed date because of uncertainty and the potential for disruption and conflict.
I was thinking about some of RedLogix's posts above.
Something I was pondering is why women supporting PP have received largely positive support from right-wing males, and also left wing to be fair. But not so much the extreme woke-leaning males.
I was wondering if it was due to a degree of chauvinism more likely to be still lingering in us right-wingers. In a positive way though. To the extent that we value women in our lives, and recognise that women tend to be physically weaker than males, and therefore more vulnerable in a physical sense. So, seeing women abused or physically threatened tends to activate the evolutionary protective instincts in males.
On the other hand, many woke males may have had this type instinct replaced with a desire to be protective towards other groups they see as minority, and therefore needing protection, and now just lump biological women in with the majority oppression group.
Well done for a remarkably even-handed analysis; and while it obvious which camp I am located in, I believe you have done justice to the legitimate motives of those in the pro-trans camp as well.
What intrigues me is much less all the minutiae of the public debate around sexual politics, but the broader question around stable families, demographics and how this plays out in terms of social and economic dysfunction. As a psychologist you are surely familiar with the literature that clear confirms that children who grow up in intact, functioning families – ideally with an extended family available – will on average do better in life by almost every measure. Is this not what a legitimate left would want for the people we are supposedly standing up for?
For example, and as we have discussed elsewhere on a recent thread on education, there is a limit to what schools can do, if a positive home environment is lacking.
Of course. The only reason for using the phrase "right wing" was that there was a lot of support for women coming from the likes of kiwiblog. But also, I recognise there are many such as yourself here as well who are on the same wave length.
but the broader question around stable families, demographics and how this plays out in terms of social and economic dysfunction. As a psychologist you are surely familiar with the literature that clear confirms that children who grow up in intact, functioning families – ideally with an extended family available – will on average do better in life by almost every measure.
Not an area I studied in deeply, my study being more along the lines of organisational psychology. But what you are saying seems at least intuitively correct.
But, yes, I think children need stability in their relationships. And, ideally, young boys especially, need to have some positive male role models in their lives in some way or another. Unfortunately, young males often grow up in relationships where their experience of older males is anger and violence. And, it is better for them to be out of those relationships altogether.
Many solo mothers I know intuitively believe their sons need positive male role models, and try to get their sons aligned with positive male role models in one way or another.
The literature suggests male/female differences are in actuality very small. But there are still differences. Not in the way of superiority or anything condescending like that. But more in the way of slight differences due to evolution. So, I think there is value in young men growing up with positive male role models, whether that be through a sporting situation, or club or whatever.
And, I wonder if this is part of the reason why we have more gender confusion now. Because, young men often haven't had that male influence in their lives, and so are confused about what their true identity is. So far as males wanting to transition to female, anyway.
That is not to say I am blaming women for this state of affairs. More, that I am blaming men for often being such bad role models that women feel they have no option but to remove their children from their influence.
More, that I am blaming men for often being such bad role models that women feel they have no option but to remove their children from their influence.
There is no doubting this. Yet professionally you must know that just blaming or hectoring a client to 'be a better person' is rarely an effective clinical tool. The key is to elicit a fresh insight and internal motivation to change. And in this respect much of the usual public discourse yelling at men about how bad they are has probably been remarkably counter-productive.
As a bit of tangent here, in I would point to the large number of WW1 and WW2 Returned Servicemen, many damaged and traumatised by their experiences as a bit of a social tipping point here. These were the first big wars in our society where there was a large civilian contingent of soldiers (as contrasted to the generally professional cadres who traditionally fought wars in the pre-Industrial era) who returned from overseas to families and communities largely uncomprehending what they had gone through.
And often with little support but their mates at the RSA and booze. The consequences for their families was often tragic one way or another.
Then of course we had the 1970's sexual revolution and freely available contraception, that effectively de-coupled sex from reproduction, and diminished the necessity to maintain stable families. Which in turn has spawned generations of fatherlessness.
I recall a story my partner told me years ago, and it may well be apocryphal but it rings true enough. A prison chaplain had the idea to hand out to inmates Mother's Day cards, that were very well received. It was evidently a good idea and counted a success. However when he attempted to repeat the same idea with Fathers Day cards – it fell very flat indeed. There were almost no takers.
Or another story from my own experience. When I started in Cubs (this would be the early 60's and progressing through to Scouts I can clearly recall the heavy involvement of whole families. Summer camps especially saw the enthusiastic and valuable contribution from fathers – in all sorts of ways that in hindsight was quite remarkable. We used to do semi-annual suburb wide bottle drives that took whole weekends of hard work, but were an immense amount of fun because everyone pitched in.
But by the time I progressed into more senior levels in the 70's it suddenly changed. We became a baby sitting service for single mothers and the entire tone shifted. I admire those who persisted with it through this period, but in the end it was not sustainable.
And the Peter Ellis case had a major impact on male teachers entering the teaching profession I think. Basically, males wanting to enter teaching felt like they would be under suspicion of being pedophiles. I think since then, the number of male teachers plummeted.
And, some of the modern marketing which seems deliberately aimed at causing gender confusion in children. For instance, my wife's sister purchased a toy pram for her grand daughter. And, the picture on the front had a boy pushing the pram.
Sure, traditional gender roles are very archaic these days. So, not trying to argue for those. But, this sort of messaging to young children just encourages boys to question their gender I think.
It would be interesting to know how much of the desire for young boys especially to change their gender is due to actual genetic or biological factors and how much is due to modern socialisation. If there is a large amount due to modern socialisation, then we are doing our boys a huge dis-service.
It would be interesting to know how much of the desire for young boys especially to change their gender is due to actual genetic or biological factors and how much is due to modern socialisation.
It is my impression that this 'confusion' manifests itself to varying degrees much more than we think. I think if someone really tried to study this – and I have no idea exactly how – they would find this an almost universal experience in adolescents of both sexes. (In this I have a fair bit of time for Jung's ideas around anima and animus archetypes.)
But like everything else about adolescence this confusion is transitory. In my view encouraging children to engage in chemical or physical mutilation at this highly vulnerable, suggestible phase of their life is no more defensible than allowing older sexual predators to groom and exploit them sexually.
As for autogynophelia – that has an almost entirely mid-life onset in males. I hesitate to comment – beyond saying this is probably an entirely separate phenomenon that should not be conflated with the adolescent puberty process.
I had forgotten about the Peter Ellis case – I agree it was remarkably damaging to teaching in NZ; but parallel events were happening in many places in the world, meaning that teaching became a completely female dominated profession. Even the handful of men left had to modify their approach in order to survive.
And as far as I am concerned this has been a catastrophe for a significant cohort of young boys as they pass through our education system. The most obvious symptom is the now complete dominance of females at the tertiary level. I don't have any NZ stats to hand, but in the US there is now a 2:1 ratio of female to male graduates – way more when you filter out the STEM subjects. All the indicators suggest young men are piling out of universities and either heading toward technical trades or small business. Or playing video games in their mother's basement.
A big consequence of this being the rise of the so-called, and much despised, 'incel' movement – a whole cohort of young men who have realised they have almost zero chance of every finding a mate and forming a family. Again we can yell at them as much as we like about how terrible they are – this merely confirms for them the correctness of their world view.
Or even if we step back from this noisy group and just consider the wider statistic that – again in the US – we are seeing a dramatic rise in the number of young men who are not in any kind of sexual relationship even by the age of 30. Not even casually much less formally. And while there is a similar rise for young women it is much smaller.
And this is before I start mentioning the massive impact of dating apps that enforce a brutal Pareto principle on males – with the top handful of 'high value' males guaranteed of unlimited attention, a modest 15% or so who stand a chance – and the bottom 80% virtually ignored. In essence we are heading back toward a mating structure that looks a lot like serial polygamy than anything else.
On the female side this same dynamic manifests as a dramatic rise in involuntary childlessness. The stats are brutal, if a woman has not has had their first child by the age of 30, it is 50:50 she never will. By 40yrs the odds are much worse.
Much of the drop in average fertility rates across the world are not so much attributable to smaller family sizes as we like to think. It appears that once a woman has their first child, they will go on to have pretty much the same number of children on average as did their mothers and grandmother's generation. It is the huge rise of women who never have children who are the big factor here – and while we know this suits some women well enough – for the large majority it becomes a matter of great sadness in later life, not to mention the dire demographic implications for the fate of whole communities and nations.
This only touches of a few points off the top of my head right now – my overall point is that family structures everywhere are under enormous pressure from many different directions – and not a lot of people on the left are open to talking about this.
It appears that once a woman has their first child, they will go on to have pretty much the same number of children on average as did their mothers and grandmother's generation.
Observationally, this isn't true among the cohort of professional women I know. Having a single child is achievable without completely sacrificing your career – it's exponentially harder with each subsequent child.
Tied with the fact that professional women are more likely to have their first child when their career is established (so mid 30s or later) – when fertility levels are already dropping.
Every single one of these single-child women in my friendship/acquaintance group comes from a family of at least 2 siblings.
Also, observationally, my teen's class would have at least 40% of the kids from single-child families. Growing up, that was really rare – I can only remember possibly 2 or 3 kids in my class who were singletons (much envied by the rest of us, as they didn't have to share their stuff with siblings)
In NZ, we are 'lucky' that this is balanced by the number of blue and/or white collar workers, who choose to have a higher number of children – at a younger age. Our different cultural mix is a factor here, too (Pasifika and Maori women are more likely to have multiple children – cf Marama Davidson).
Other countries (Germany and Japan, for example) are considerably more severely affected by this demographic change. And, China is already in demographic free-fall following their one-child policy of the 20th century.
I appreciate this assertion around family size is counter intuitive. I gleaned this data from recent work by author and researcher Stephen J Shaw who was just as surprised as anyone else to uncover the real data once you drilled in beneath the aggregate numbers everyone else was looking at.
On the female side this same dynamic manifests as a dramatic rise in involuntary childlessness. The stats are brutal, if a woman has not has had their first child by the age of 30, it is 50:50 she never will. By 40yrs the odds are much worse.
I think that women (if they are prepared to go the solo-mum route), do have quite a few options.
Certainly the fertility clinics report increasing numbers of single women, choosing that route, because they are not in a stable relationship – and don't forsee one happening.
Also, it's relatively easy for women to source 'donations' from male friends (indeed several lesbian couples I know, have done this, (often from gay friends) rather than going down the official route).
I think that much of the involuntary childlessness is women leaving it 'too late'. Many are still not aware of how radically fertility can drop from late-20s onwards; and several I know had early onset menopause in their 30s.
We (as a society) still haven't come to terms with the fact that, biologically, the best time for women to have children is 18-28; but socially this is the most career-damaging time for women to take time out of the workforce.
And, having said all that. I also know several women who have chosen not to have children, and are perfectly happy with that choice. Some of them are devoted aunts and fairy godmothers (but happy to return them at the end of the day); others just aren't really interested in kids at all.
I also know several women who have chosen not to have children, and are perfectly happy with that choice.
The data Shaw came up with however is that while there are of course some women who happily choose not to have children, it turns out they are a minority. What he found is that around 80% of childless women in later life wound up thus involuntarily – and to varying degrees found this the cause of grief and sadness.
To be clear, no-one is suggesting for one moment that women should in any manner be compelled to have children they do not want. I am speaking to the exact opposite here, women who do want a family but find out too late for one reason or another that it never happened.
I'd really like to see the data. I'm suspecting a bit of a biased sample with 80% regret figures.
For example: Surveying women who have unsucessfully been through fertility treatment is going to throw up higher 'regret' figures, than surveying highly successful, and childless-by-choice business-women.
We (as a society) still haven't come to terms with the fact that, biologically, the best time for women to have children is 18-28; but socially this is the most career-damaging time for women to take time out of the workforce.
Yes very much to this.
The obvious challenge is that it is almost impossible for a single mother in her early 20's to manage young children and grow a career at the same time. With the support of a partner and extended family the picture looks quite different. With the opportunity to work more from home, the picture changes again.
If we normalised life-long learning for all adults, if the political left more aggressively went after long standing workplace prejudices around age – for both young and old – this would help massively.
If we dismantled the lie we tell young people that career is the only thing that matters in life, and restored the innate dignity and respect parenthood is rightly due – this might shift the picture again.
With the support of a partner and extended family the picture looks quite different. With the opportunity to work more from home, the picture changes again.
While the support of a partner *can* make having a family and a career possible, it doesn't always do so. And working from home is frequently not realistic with small children (as many families found out during lockdown).
Our cultural attitudes assume that managing the family is 'women's work' (and even worse, unpaid women's work). So that means that it is Mum's career which comes second, Mum who has to organize and manage all of the childcare and family organization, and Mum who takes time off work when the kids are sick, or other arrangements fall through. Extended family, means it's Grandma who does all of this (not Grandpa).
Case in point. Recent school strike. We have around 30 people where I work who are parents of kids (or Grandparents – extended family) in the affected age group (5-14). In not one instance was it Dad or Grandad who was taking time off work, or arranging for alternative family care – in every case, it was Mum or Grandma.
There is absolutely *nothing* stopping Dad stepping up to the plate to either take responsibility or organize alternative care [We are a highly family-friendly firm, and the CEO had already said that we would support families through this by offering working from home, or shifting hours or taking leave – whatever they needed]. It's just an unspoken cultural assumption that Mum will deal with it.
I know two highly-paid businesswomen with kids (we became friends when we were all going through the toddler years). In both cases, they went back to work after the first year – and Dad was a SAH Dad. Both women *still managed all of the family organization* – Nannies, Kindy, School admin, sports teams. All of the stuff that a family with kids needs to keep organized and under control. Mum still does it.
Many solo mothers I know intuitively believe their sons need positive male role models, and try to get their sons aligned with positive male role models in one way or another.
And on that topic – a shout-out to the amazing group "Big Buddy" – which does exactly that. Buddy up boys who have no male role models in their lives with blokes who are looking to be mentors.
An outstanding charity – which makes a positive difference to so many boys.
It seems intuitively obvious that young boys and young girls will benefit greatly from having a positive Male role model (hopefully their Dad) fully involved in their upbringing.
It would seem the stats back this up (especially for young boys)
I was lucky enough to have two loving parents (mum and dad) in the same household and am 100% certain it helped me immeasurably.
Mum taught me how to treat a woman and Dad taught me how to behave towards women (which yes is probably horribly old fashioned these days).
But growing up observing how Dad treated Mum and behaved to all women (as an absolute gentleman) and the fact that they were married 50 odd years makes me think sometimes that some of these 'old fashioned' ideas are worth keeping.
I suspect that many young men these days are never taught and have no idea or even concept of what being a gentleman (or just a man) is.
Sometimes when I see or hear about another female victim of horrific violence or even at the other end of the scale just rudeness I have to remind myself that the way I feel about such things isn't 'built in' ,which is what it feels like but mostly taught or learned.
I've forgotten my point now…hehehe
[Good morning, a week ago you agreed to stick to one username + e-mail address (see https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-27-03-2023/#comment-1941759). If you keep using two e-mail addresses, I will permanently ban one of them and your comments will disappear from the radar before the Mods can see & approve them; the Mods won’t be able to restore your comments, even if they’d want to. Your call – Incognito]
Its certainly been an interesting discussion and raised many things, and hopefully some self reflection too.
Also been a welcome change from the usual diet of dreary National/Act bad, Labour/Green good, opinion posts. And hasnt it been revealing of assorted politicians and assorted contributors you thought you knew?
I’ve felt intellectually challenged to think about some things, in a way that I havent, for a long time on the TS.
One thing I've learnt is that my ideas can change and be modified by other commenters.Especially when a commenter lacks animus, is engaging in a genuine exercise to understand ,to articulate how they think and feel, rather than slamming or insulting others
Reading these comments from Belladonna, Redlogix and Tsmithfield again. And the reflections by Hetzer, MichaelP and Francesca.
I have learned so much from them and I see I have already used your comment TS about chauvinism and seeming RW male support of women's issues……hope I credited you but I fear I may not have. ?
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
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Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
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My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
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Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
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The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available 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 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
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A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
Winston is on the election warpath. He's going to deal with errant Maori and eliminate all forms of wokery from government. But, I've always found amongst the bluster and bs that is Winston, there's usually a gem of a policy to be found. This time around it's his suggestion to make it a criminal offence to obstruct or assault emergency first responders. Winston probably got that idea from a similar British law that's recently been updated allowing up to two years jail for offenders.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/sep/15/maximum-jail-term-attacking-emergency-workers-doubled
In my experience offenders in NZ fall mainly into two groups: snotty nose middleclass white kids who have never been told 'no,' or feral gang bangers who threaten emergency workers with assault or death if they don't fix their bro on the spot.
The police response in those incidents has always bemused me. Police don't generally arrest offenders on the spot, but try moving them on multiple times.
A good law if implemented by any political party.
A major tidal energy project is up and running in the Orkneys: see https://orbitalmarine.com/o2/
It is a floating turbine system that seems innovative. Its rotors can provide power no matter which way the tide is running.
Shouldn't we be doing the same thing in NZ? There must be a likely site in Cook Strait where there are strong currents.
Coupled with Wellington's wind farms, it could mean a huge reduction in reliance on fossil fuels.
It’s been tried here at least once.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaipara_Tidal_Power_Station
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc
Thanks for the link to the lecture – I'll watch it.
Your welcome. it makes for grim listening but its always better to know what we have to work with…and its a lot less than most assume.
HT, Thanks for the topic and link. There must be a multitude of sites around Aotearoa for such turbines. Basically 4 times a day guaranteed output that could be used in conjunction with our hydro storage.
I am wondering if The Standard should have a blanket ban on the word Terf.
Quite apart from it being derisory and anti women it does not describe the role or point of view of women who have concerns.
Terf is a trans generated word of distain, disgust etc at women. It does not describe our views merely their reaction to our views.
It is not required in the discussions we have on TS.
There is an alternative to describe us and that is GCF
Sometimes when we are quoting the quote may include 'Terf 'we could put the word (sic) in brackets after, so '…..terf(sic).
sic
used in brackets after a copied or quoted word that appears odd or erroneous to show that the word is quoted exactly as it stands in the original…..
https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
PS I am aware that some GCF have tried to reclaim this word as a way of being sarcastic about the 'cause'
Thank you. I call it out wherever I see it. And you are right, there are groups that use it -often disguised, to indicate that this is a group for women, not for sex mimics. I belong to a crafting group that uses the initials – which was set up when obvious autogynephiliac men invaded a couple of knitting and crochet groups demanding that we "validate" their "femaleness" and their various self modeled constructions.
I really don't believe in banning words. If people want to call me a terf, that is up to. them. It usually alerts to the fact that they have no good arguements re gender ideology and is part of a playbook of no debate and smearing. But I appreciate your point Shanreigh.
I commented on Mickey Savages post "debating with Nazis" that I was reading an interesting book called Bad Arguements (its a compilation of 100 arguements writtern by various phiolosphy academics). One was about when people bring Hitler and Nazis into a debate. Those who bring up Nazis in an arguement are seen as conceding defeat of the arguement. I tend to regard Terf the same way. Although I do like the commenter who suggested Terf be changed to Perf (Penis exclusionary radical feminist)
I agree.
A replacement word will soon be found to dehumanise the "other", so let it continue. The accusations also lose their potency, when universally applied.
I prefer PERL – penis exclusionary radical lesbian. Happy to put my hand up for either of those.
perf is too close to perv.
penis exclusionary radical vagina?
People who believe in polite and productive discussion tend to avoid inflammatory words or words that deliberately misrepresent the position of others. I do not call people "Nazis", I try to avoid "fascist", though I might use "proto-fascist" to suggest a tendency. I do not call people "TERFs" and I do not refer to transwomen as "he", though I might if the trans identity was clearly an intentional ruse.
However, none of this is the point. I don't imagine for a minute that my personal beliefs are grounds for policing the English lexicon.
Polonius: What do you read my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words…
There have been some excellent responses so far all of which I agree with.
The best argument is that allowing the word does let us easily identify the bad faith commentators as most good faith commentators would use (sic) or other words to distance themselves from the slur.
Faith restored!
it doesn't get used that often on TS as a slur. Where people use it as a descriptor I point out the problems and link to terfisaslur. I have also moderated on its use and will continue to do so. If you see someone using it, you can reply to any comment of mine with a link and I will take a look.
It's a common tactic, using words that aren't 100 % accurate but are about the vibe.
For example using anti-vaxxer to describe attendees of the Parliament Grounds protest, regardless of how often it was pointed out how inaccurate it was.
I use/d anti vax/anti vaxxer as a shorthand to describe people who were not getting the vaccination, ie for non medical reasons, did not want others to and thought that by offering vaccinations that Govt was over reaching in some way. Not to mention the people who had been deluded by various people saying the vaccines had nanobots, magnets, trackers etc. I also could not see why being anti vaccination also often meant being anti wearing a mask
To me the protection of sick people in hospital, older people in rest homes, children was more important to the country as a whole during the time of the emergency powers used in the pandemic. These were more important than to cater for people who did not believe the science.
I think in less fraught times we are more accepting of those with this type of view.
The parliamentary protest was a gathering of all sorts of people who felt they had a grievance. Not just those concerned about Covid.
Hence my dad's advice to me when he knew he could not stop me marching. protesting
'Have a look to the left of you , have a look to the right of you
If you don't like what you see, leave'
People coat tail onto to causes.
Using words like T**f, a word used by the transgender community (around 3% perhaps) of the population) to describe 51% of the population seems a little different to me.
Turf the terf
As weka explained in another thread, banning is mostly for behaviour (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01-04-2023/#comment-1943140). I think we can tolerate offensive words in robust debate, even when they’re not (at all) necessary and/or can be avoided. The seriousness of being offensive depends on context, intent, and perception. That said, in rare occasions we temporarily put words or word combinations in the Auto-Moderation list (filter) to pre-emptively capture comments from problematic comments who show recidivist behaviour (i.e. they won’t listen or are slow-learners). (NB sometimes, the word itself is not offensive but highly idiosyncratic of the offending commenter). If it is serious enough, we leave a Mod note in the comment when we release it from the Auto-Mod queue. When things settle down again, we remove the word, also because it creates extra work for the Mods. NB most bans are preceded by at least one warning because we encourage positive behaviour and prefer not to ban. You may also have noticed that occasionally we delete serious insults in comments and mark this by [deleted]. This can be for various reasons too, but generally it is to avoid the start of flame wars, without actually changing the content of the comment. I think we have it about right on this site
I agree TS has it about right. I was sick & tired of reading that word repeated ad nauseam by people who really should know better if they were aware of the issues (not on TS so much but other places)
I am now accepting that to leave it & mark it say is better to identify the bad from the good.
A woman, Katrina Biggs, with 'But the Emperor has no clothes' look at the violence against women, women's issues and how this has culminated in the award of Young NZer of the Year to an anti women, anti women's rights, anti freech speech advocate
She concludes:
https://aboldwoman.substack.com/p/young-new-zealander-of-the-year-award?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Helen Joyce also has a good piece up:
https://www.thehelenjoyce.com/joyce-activated-issue-42/
Yes a lot of peope on TS don't read the Daily Blog, but Martyn wrote a column on this and the comments were full of people saying they will withdraw their accounts from Kiwibank.
As a KB customer, I hope Grant Robertson will bail the bank out if it fails due to a rush on money..
It is truly disgusted that Lal was awarded young NZ of the year. He never condemned the violence, does anyone know if he was more actively involved in it?
Of what Lal et al don't realize is that this is that this provides another wake up call for all those members of the genneral public who haven't quite realized how anti women trans rights activists are.
Chole Swarbrick defended the protesters (and failed to condemn the violence) saying it was a joyous celebrations of trans (or words to that effect)
Such a disappointment seeing Chloe use all the meaningless cliches
Trans Joy eh?
Oh the Rapture!
Its not the trans protesters that I find objectionable, its the capture of a valid message espoused by Terf women by their misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic Nazi support crew. Surely the antithesis of feminism.
"its the capture of a valid message espoused by Terf women by their misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic Nazi support crew. "
What valid message? And how is it captured?
Purposefully ignoring the rest because I'm trying to understand what your main point is here.
Oh ffs. Is that really where you’re at? 🙄
It's crystal clear the post is referencing trans supporters having their placards taken off them.
Psych Nurse is of course at liberty to confirm or deny.
What post? There is no link on this thread.
Psych Nurse's post directly above the one you replied to and quoted 🙄
Whaaa?
Some valid message that "Terfs " endorse has been taken up by xxxx – various insults xxxx -Nazi support crew
But what is that valid message?
Psych nurse?
Any message on anyone's placard or banner contains a valid message to them holding it, whether you agree with it or not.
My clearly stated opinion is the nature of the debate shown here is quite deceitful.
And even if it's not a sign or banner but just the pro trans message in general, it's still perfectly valid for those who hold or espouse it.
Even if it is built on hate or fabrication?
as far as I can tell psych nurse is objecting to GC positions being coopted by Nazis.
You're correct, mate, me and Molly appear to have got the wrong end of the stick, but validity is still the purview of the holder.
"…me and Molly appear to have got the wrong end of the stick"
I asked questions of psych nurse to clarify – whereas you made an assumption – and ran with it – so you include me in your pseudo-acknowledgement above?
Why don't we just wait for psych nurses reply?
I didn’t need to wait. As an honest person, I admit I probably misread the post, and have now acknowledged it publicly.
Guessing you are well practiced…
Don't know why you're laughing at my honesty but anyone reading can consider both our points, and see who answers sincerely.
Edit: Posted before your edit.
"…me and Molly appear to have got the wrong end of the stick".
Sincerely.
@The Al1en
"Sincerely"
Molly, psych nurse's comment was straightforward and easily comprehended.
Sometimes when we hold fixed views on an issue and we rush to defend a position, it gets in the way of good comprehension, especially when we are reading.
Robert.
I only asked for clarification, and was not the only one who didn't find it "straightforward and easily comprehended."
The Al1en also made an assumption, like you right now, and apologised.
Psych nurse clarified several hours later.
"Sometimes when we hold fixed views on an issue and we rush to defend a position, it gets in the way of good comprehension, especially when we are reading."
Link to where I made any comment in this thread based on assumption.
Or preferably, take heed of your own words, because I am not the one who needs them.
"Purposefully ignoring the rest because I'm trying to understand what your main point is here."
I found the whole comment simple to comprehend.
Must've been having a moment of clarity in an otherwise befuddled life.
… alternatively, befuddlement IS clarity to you.
I wondered at your criticism of my reading comprehension and so tested myself with psych nurse's comment. I was pleased by the result. You might reflect upon your own response.
The Al1en did.
Robert, if you expect me to retract my justified criticisms of your engagement methods, then you'll be waiting a while.
If you persist in asking me to apologise – for something I did not do – just because The Al1en did apologise for something he did, then, again, you'll be waiting a while.
Deal with your hurt feelings resulting from my comments either by giving them no merit, or by considering if they do indeed have merit and improving.
What you appear to be doing here is lashing out, which contributes nothing to any political discourse.
This comment is a prime example of where this kind of exchange ends up, so I'm leaving this – and any other such threads (unless provoked when my patience is low, and my energy is high – which would be against my better judgement).
I will ask if you could refrain from this type of comment stalking when interacting with me, when your responses contain only trite sentences, no pertinent information and zero political analysis.
Let's see how that goes.
"Robert, if you expect me to retract…"
I don't.
"If you persist in asking me to apologise"
I'm not.
"Deal with your hurt feelings resulting from my comments…"
I have none.
"What you appear to be doing here is lashing out…"
Seriously?? Lashing out???
Hmmm…
"I will ask if you could refrain from this type of comment stalking when interacting with me, when your responses contain only trite sentences, no pertinent information and zero political analysis."
Ask away.
Our cognitive styles seem not to mesh.
No worries.
I'll hold the fort while you are away.
Peace and love etc.
Exactly, woman have every right complaining about transwomen sharing toilets, changing rooms and sport with transwomen, but they need to chose their allies. Misogynists, homophobes and transphobes are not friends. What is it that's said about lying with dogs.
OK I will wade in, if all you have are flogged out labels and sneers – you have lost the argument.
As human beings trans people, like anyone else, had the right to demand the same access to legal rights and human dignity as anyone else. No-one here for one second has denied you this.
What you then went and did was to collapse your entire humanity down to your mere sexual identity. And then demand everyone else accept every implication of this.
I agree, but I see the problem being less about KJK and her associations with the far right, than the fact that the left/liberals used No Debate to shut down progressive GC voices. That's why KJK exists the way she does. There are conservative people with skin in this game. If we want to win, we have to empower progressives to use their voice, or the whole thing will be framed within conservative values, and that doesn't serve women or trans women.
Weka – Frank's usually supported here; what do you make of the points he's presenting?
"
By now, Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshull (aka, Posie Parker) has come and gone. Her mission – to amplify a particularly pernicious form of transphobia (under the cloak of “women’s rights”) – an abject failure. As a marketing exercise to peddle her wares, it went well.
A self-style "woman’s rights activist" Keen-Minshull/Parker has strident views, including rejecting trans women as women. She has been active throughout Britain, Scotland, Australia, and United States.
In February 2019, Keen-Minshull/Parker harassed Sarah McBride, Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary, and trans woman, in the United States’ Capitol Building. The verbal abuse, including mis-gendering and making offensive slurs, was videographed and uploaded onto the internet."
https://frankmacskasy.substack.com/p/5-reasons-why-provocateur-parkers
In February 2019, Keen-Minshull/Parker harassed Sarah McBride, Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary, and trans woman, in the United States’ Capitol Building. The verbal abuse, including mis-gendering and making offensive slurs, was videographed and uploaded onto the internet."
HRC is an organisation that should be able answer the questions put forward by KJK while actively lobbying for legislation on those issues;
This is a blogpost on the HRC -1st of 3:
https://www.the11thhourblog.com/post/all-aboard-the-human-rights-campaign-and-the-making-of-transgender-industry-leaders-part-i
A bit of background to your quoted item here:
https://twitter.com/WomensLibFront/status/1300574218908823552?s=20
Now, you don't have to believe or be convinced by such accounts, but you have been introduced to a different perspective.
People are able to have a view, whether it is supported by the facts or evidence is quite another thing.
I have found Frank Macskasy a bit reactionary over the last few years and so stopped reading him. Perhaps I'll start again.
I've found I cherish the progressives more and am willing to read from any side and some times time does not allow diving into Frank's views.
As people think more deeply about the issues on 25/3 we are getting more comment from NZ on the implications for free speech, women's rights. This seemed to be the preserve of writers from overseas in the immediate aftermath. They seemed to be seeing what was happening more clearly than our media did or more likely wanted to (seeing at they had worked themselves into a truly tiny corner)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/131660282/damien-grant-were-having-a-free-speech-moment-it-isnt-going-well
……
"The answer to Kim Hill’s question – why did Posie Parker require protection – is because Hill, Minister Wood, O’Brien, Lal and even Justice Gendall had all contributed to an environment where the use of violence was not only being legitimised, but had become a moral necessity.
We have graduated to a cultural landscape where commercial intimidation and even physical violence is permissible against people if their views are deemed unacceptable by the cultural, political and media leadership.
Those in positions of responsibility may wish to reflect on this, rather than stoking further escalation."
I don't always agree with Damien Grant but I do on this.
I am also concerned at the treating of the Ministership as some sort of private fiefdom where instead of getting measured comment on issues within the portfolio we get pronouncements or personal views driven along by the pronouncers being a Minister. (Granted the media seem unable to unlink the two and this does not help)
Marama Davidson seems to be one. You know I don't care about your breathless personal views about the trans community but I do care that you had neither the wit nor sense of reality to work out that any comment supporting or minimising the use of violence against people you disagree with was not appropriate.
You know being quite frank 'I couldn't give a big rats a***' what your personal views are Michael Wood and find them quite inappropriate and calling into question the decision making of the officials of the department you are the Minister of. I would have had much more respect had you stood behind the process and supported this.
I would paraphrase Abraham Lincoln – Quote – Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
"Better to remain silent on issues out of your depth than to comment and to remove all doubt'.
An excellent resumé by Frank Macskasy. Thank you Robert.
I highlight the following excerpt:
"Context: This image was circulated throughout social media:
.
It was presented by Keen-Minshull/Parker’s followers and various far-right individuals that the silver object beside her throat was a knife (or alternatively, scissors). It was supposedly "evidence" of thuggery by counter-protestors at Albert Park.
The object was a cellphone, held by one of her minders. The image had been cropped for maximum misrepresentation-effect.
Keen-Minshull/Parker was not brought to Australia by any feminisist organisation. Her presence was sponsored by the conservative, Trump-affiliated, Conservative Political Action Conference organisation."
Need I say more.
Anne, this slur about the scissors was comprehensively walked back some days ago……Molly & Weka had a discussion.
Perhaps you and Frank could elucidate.
The point I took from this picture was that it was so dangerous out there for KJM that her security first had to close guard, walking with someone with arms and shoulders linked around her, to actually having to lift her for speed so she was almost parallel to the ground.
It was a deliberate attempt to help promote the image of mass thuggery coming from the protesting crowd. The kind of tactic used by right wing extremists that the woman in question so obviously is aligned to, despite her howls of protest to the contrary. In fact the more she denies it, the more one knows its true.
@Anne
More details from whoever posted the original screen shot from the livestream, would be good to know. But unfortunately, I don't know who that was. The images were being deleted and/or corrected even as I was having a conversation with weka, only a few hours after the event.
Many were watching the livestream concerned that they were seeing a woman in extreme physical danger. The livestream shows a degree of the chaos and confustion, and it abruptly cut out for several minutes in the middle of it.
https://twitter.com/EdgeWatching/status/1639541306056929280?s=20
In that resulting distress, people were looking for answers and details, and I also thought this was information coming through. But as I said, people with saner heads at a time of confusion, almost immediately reined that interpretation in.
The social media accounts I followed, corrected and or deleted and did not circulate that image further. (Mind you, I don't have a Facebook or any other social media account, so I don't know if this is true on those platforms).
It never really got traction in the social media environment which I inhabit thanks to the integrity of commentators like weka.
Thanks to her timely and accurate reminder, I spent several hours posting corrections like this (along with others) on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/EdgeWatching/status/1639541306056929280?s=20
That interpretation disappeared quite quickly (within 24hrs) from GC discourse.
Do a couple of searches on Twitter “posie parker ” + “scissors” or “KJK” + “scissors” to see who continued to promulgate this story.
Thank you Molly. I wonder am I to go on for the rest of my life resisting people who use this and other unproven points about the so-called 'lovely, sun loving, fun loving protest, at Albert Park on 25/3.
Did the woman with the fractured skull run into someone's opened sunscreen lotion bottle or the keep cup with the decaf double shot hazelnut chai latte in it?
/Sarc
Well clearly the lovely Frank is one.
Why?
What would be his rationale for repeating something that has been debunked…..I couldn't possibly imagine. /sarc
That was just one example mentioned and I concede it was quickly discarded by mainstream media at the least. But I recommend this morning's media watch programme on the subject from non-partisan folk who were actually present at the scene:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018883958/media-mismatch-on-an-out-of-control-mob
There was a lot of 'unreality' bandied about by the usual local suspects as well as the overseas media. It always amuses me how much more coverage the reporting of false data receives over the actual facts of a particular situation.
@Anne
Thanks for conceding the point regarding the image.
However, what point is it that you are trying to make with the RNZ link?
Is it that because some people did not witness it, the violence against women has been exaggerated?
I just want to note, that in the footage of the woman being beaten I can see my daughter and partner about 3m away, and they had no idea that it was taking place directly behind them.
The noise was painfully loud at within the rotunda area that the #LetWomenSpeak attendees were in, once those demonstrators broke through.
CPAC is a political group – it's What We Believe page is here:
https://www.conservative.org/what-we-believe/
Apart from the wholesale support of capitalism (expected) the rest is fairly straightforward.
I don't know the full details of the sponsorship deal – and to be honest I don't care that much. IIRC, Kellie-Jay Keen says that CPAC offered the sponsorship deal partly to give the #LetWomenSpeak events liability cover under their organisation. The cost of liability cover for #LetWomenSpeak events was/is prohibitively high. So the formal sponsorship, removes that expense.
(There is a video where this is related, but I'm not going to trawl through it all to find it, but will post if I come across or remember where to look).
"Many who have concerns have been unable to raise them in existing parties and find themselves politically homeless. Their political representatives seemed to be incapable of having a discussion."
Thought you were talking about the anti-vaxx crowd for a moment…
@Robert Guyton
.https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01-04-2023/#comment-1943235
My request:
Your response:
.https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01-04-2023/#comment-1943242
*Ask away"
and this as a complete response:
"Thought you were talking about the anti-vaxx crowd for a moment…"
I'll be noting such stalking from now on.
It'll be a numbers exercise, my impression of you is becoming increasingly fixed.
Macskasy's article, and the responses to Robert Guyton's comment on same, highlight the fact that, when it comes to 'Posie Parker', some opinions are poles apart.
Keen-Minshull has political aspirations. Time will tell whether she can reach the ‘heights’ of Pauline Hanson – based on PP’s recent encounters down under, imho she has a shot – exclusivity has popular appeal.
A new age of democratic extremes [4 November 2022]
"Keen-Minshull has political aspirations. Time will tell if she can reach the heights of Pauline Hanson – based on her recent time down under, she has a shot, imho – exclusion is the name of her 'game'."
Hmmm.. more reason to take a cautious, cynical view of the woman, imo.
Don't know about cynical, but I’ll not throw ‘PP caution’ to the wind.
Perhaps Robert meant sceptical, but I’m cynical about that 😉
I did mean "sceptical", Incognito.
I've been, and am presently being, distracted by a 4-man South Korea film crew that has been filming our every move over the past 3 days. I'm just managing to fit in quick glimpses of TS as they set up this scene and that scene, and so am finding it difficult to always choose the right worm.
It was a joke).
All good, Robert, although some here consider it not a laughing matter.
I assume the filming is not for a K-Pop documentary called Guyton Style.
Yes. That is a strategy that was outlined a while ago, and many GC's know of it.
Many who have concerns have been unable to raise them in existing parties and find themselves politically homeless. Their political representatives seemed to be incapable of having a discussion.
When the idea was first mooted in GC circles to create a party where protest votes could be given, it was treated as a passing fancy.
But the strategy of such a move became apparent.
The creation of a political party would increase the likelihood of the discussion occurring in the political sphere. There is also the added benefit of political engagement and speeches being adequately protected by the authorities. Thereby, avoiding such debacles similar to that we had in Auckland last week.
Elaine Miller, used a similar strategy when contesting a Scottish by-election last year.
https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2023/01/corstorphine-murrayfield-by-election-elaine-miller/
KJK AFAIK was a Labour party member. I don't know if she has long term ambition to be a politician, I do know that she (and her support team) are constantly looking to get a public conversation going by whatever legitimate means they can.
I think this might have some success in that objective.
If your knowledge is right, then when and why KJK left the party.
KJK occasionally mentions it on videos or interviews, but it is hard to search videos if you don't know the exact ones.
Here though is a 2018 article from the Spectator. Sorry, I can't quote anything, – I've moved from my phone to here to post the link, and I am out of free articles:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/labour-s-refusal-to-accept-the-definition-of-a-woman/
IIRC, the "woman – adult human female "billboard was put up outside a Labour party conference, as women were unable to get Labour politicians to meet or acknowledge concerns raised by party members.
Thanks for that link to the 2018 article in The Spectator. Looks like KJK was a Labour party supporter, so probably a member too.
Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble left Labour; Ruth Richardson and Don Brash left the Nats. They found(ed) a new home – ACT.
Which of NZ's political parties might have policies that align best with KJK's intention to "campaign on the basis of repealing the Gender Recognition Act" and "erase the word 'gender'"?
"Keen-Minshull/Parker was not brought to Australia by any feminisist organisation. Her presence was sponsored by the conservative, Trump-affiliated, Conservative Political Action Conference organisation.""
If that is the case, you need say no more, imo.
Such information casts a shadow over the bright and breezy claim that the woman was "merely an advocate for women".
Has someone actually said
"merely an advocate for women".
Because women see no merely about it. She is an advocate for women.
In my view it is time that people started realising that women are quite grown up, we exercise our brains, we can reference, we can assimilate/discern across multiple often competing view, we can see through charlatans and having done all this – we can make up our own minds about the message. In short to use the vernacular 'We can walk and chew gum'.
I see no need to disregard a message because the person may have political aspirations or because she need funding to meet insurance levies or for whatever reason mainstream funding sources were not aviable to her.
Don't you think that the messages she has given about women's rights and women's issues are worth a look?
Trustworthy groups such as Speak Up for Women and Mana Korereo Wahine support the kaupapa of Let Women Speak which is what it is all about.
In the No Debate Self ID crock the voices of women and our concerns were silenced.
You know if a red giraffe wearing thigh waders came to NZ, sponsored by the Pink Panthers Association to moo (or whatever giraffes do) about women's issues I'd go and see it (with a translator of course).
Please focus on the issues that have been raised and let us know why the concerns of women should not be addressed.
Trust us too.
We have done the mahi, researched the issues and the people. You don't need to second guess or 'warn' us
Actually KJM's work has received a huge boost in NZ with people being able to see that there are groups determined to restrict free speech, to 'deserving' people only, and restrict it by the use of force if necessary.
A joke?
I’m sorry I am a women and I don’t have a sense of humour attuned to that kind of ‘joke’ Robert.
My jokes are clearer like
What is brown and goes at 100k through custard?
A prune with an outboard motor.
and
Knock knock
Who’s there
Arthur
Arthur who?
Are there any mince pies left?
My "joke" was concerning the word, "worm", Shanreagh.
Being "mis-taken" seems de rigueur with this issue.
If we can maintain a dignified semi-respect for each other for a while longer, we might (we, being those commenting here) make it through the testing-time.
yeah, I don't see how the Nazis are a support crew. As you say, they're trying to capture the women's rights issues and turn them into bigotry.
the problem with the word terf: terfisaslur.com/
"Attendant crew" more.
Moths to a flame.
Bats to a bleeding toe.
@Robert Guyton…….I cannot see the word worm in the post I am referring to. Is it in one of the links?
I also don't get the Mis-taken unless it is some poor take on miss. But then I am a woman and I've got no sense of humour. I am not away of a testing-time…this implies some sort of ending. I'm not sure this will end.
I can see how easily it would be for a party other than Labour or Greens to swoop in, put up a policy stating that BDM/safe spaces will be reviewed to see if it is fit for purpose for women, and a wave of women will go there, or at least have a close look..
If you want my honest opinion…the way will become clearer if you read, thought about, noted questions, asked them in a genuine manner and then reflected again on the answers. Then asked any queries.
Perhaps you might find it easier to read the rights based arguments that RW males have that enables them to see where we are coming from. RedLogix and TSmithfield have insights here, TS particularly with the chauvinism idea.
This one shot, 'smarty pants' way of interacting when we are trying to help you expand your knowledge is very off putting.
Many of us have had years, literally decades some of us in groups relating to women's issues, some of us have studied issues to stage 3 Uni levels at the time of the 1970s/80s wave, others since. Others of us have knowledge on human rights, civil rights, unions and are making the link through this. Others have lived the experience of the shifting sands of woman's issues through the fights to be able to live with our loved ones, marry/civil union them. I would venture to say there is not much that Women commentators on TS don't know about the issues.
We love to help those with a genuine interest.
"Eveyone I don't like is a Nazi" is a contender for most annoying feature of the 'progressive' left. It's appallingly disrespectful to victims of the Nazis, for a start.
Just as annoying is the political right's way of proclaiming that anyone from the left is a communist or Stalinist (Jacinda has been called such many a time) except that oddly enough it hardly raises an eyebrow anymore despite Stalin's appalling record on human rights.
Both the left and right have spawned monsters. But to be fair the legitimate, moderate right has fully, loudly and repeatedly repudiated the Nazis and fascism ever since the end of WW2. While not the same could be said for the broad left of it's catastrophic historic embrace of marxism. I still see plenty of minimising and weaseling on this and a persistent blindness to the modern forms it has morphed into.
Of course this does not mean there are not extremists on both sides who still embrace the old madness'. Mainly for the attention-seeking shock value I sometimes think.
When you boil all the rhetoric away, there is actually little difference between the extreme left and extreme right. They use the same methods to control people – violence and intimidation.
Wait until you see this one, it is hilarious.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1642045592158507009
Frankly they can have woman. I’ve always thought it was a slightly offensive word as if we are something just tacked onto the side of men, literally wife man. About as offensive as woman being created from Adam’s rib. I am in favour of women now othering themselves as femme or femina.
100% Psycho Milt.
The word is being used so often that it becomes meaningless as a slur.
Those who throw it about should do some reading / watching / listening to the vast amount of documentation available about The Holocaust Then hopefully they may start to understand what sort of person a real Nazi actually is, rather than just someone who disagrees with them.
It's a common tactic the "no debate" types use to shut down any discussion. (You're a nazi so I don't need to debate with you)
It's the same with words like facist, racist, transphobic, etc.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/7-sorority-sisters-university-wyoming-sue-kappa-kappa-gamma-challenge-rcna77266
Women in a sorority object to transwoman with visible erect penis in their single sex spaces
It's a girl dick though right?
After an eye-roll at the headline: "…to challenge induction of transgender member", the rest of the article is an interesting read, of the special treatment given to that member in terms of criteria and induction.
The failure of many to understand how in such cases, single-sex provisions for women allow them to just get on with their day, with objectification is astounding.
The article points out clearly some of the impacts.
“The complaint said that witnesses observed Smith sitting in a chair in the living room of the sorority house on multiple occasions staring at members walking in.
“Smith has, while watching members enter the sorority house, had an erection visible” through leggings, the complaint said.
The morning after a sleepover, prior to the Kappa initiation ceremony for new members, Smith’s conduct was described as “inappropriate and threatening,” according to the complaint.
Though Smith did not sleepover, Smith returned to the sorority house the following morning and “stood silently in the corner of the room near the door while other pledges changed from sleeping garments into other clothing,” the lawsuit said.
Smith allegedly saw a woman not wearing a bra change shirts. After that incident, “other Kappa members informed Ms. Doe VI that while watching her” Smith had “become sexually aroused,” the complaint said, and Smith allegedly “repeatedly asked” Doe VI about her romantic attachments after the encounter. “
Reposted link:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/7-sorority-sisters-university-wyoming-sue-kappa-kappa-gamma-challenge-rcna77266
Thanks Molly .I no longer have the facility to copy and paste (frozen touch pad syndrome)
I sympathise.
(I'm using an ancient laptop with keyboard and trackpad issues, so I resort to an onscreen keyboard, or a phone which either has issues with what I'm asking it to do, or that emphasises my fat finger syndrome to the detriment of efficient posting.)
That’s really taking the piss. I’d be surprised if anyone would support this type of behaviour. Even a teenage boy would know that he’s been a bit dodgy.
Bad or inappropriate behaviour like what is described in the article is not acceptable, and it doesn’t matter who’s doing it.
anyone condoning or justifying it should be called out.
Just not acceptable. Ever.
Exactly. So much of this debate swirls around various arcane ideological rabbit holes, when I just see bad behaviour from weak, immature people with no internal boundaries.
Yea but in instances like this one the bad behaviour is enabled by whichever beauracrats decide that allowing a man to join a sorority is ok. (In fact anyone or any organisation that panders to this nonsense)
The young women involved should never have been put in the position of having to deal with this bad behavior in the first place
it's a feature not a bug.
The large majority of men – men who work for a living, support and provide for their families, act as a good parent, and will sacrifice themselves to protect their family, community and nation – think of this simmering alphabet soup of sex and gender variation as a bit of an aberration; to be tolerated but scarcely embraced.
I have three close family members, each with a relatively rare genetic condition that has had a dramatic impact on their lives. (I may have referenced some of this in the years past, I am not going to detail any here.) The fact of these conditions is something that takes nothing away from their human rights, and expectation that others will treat them with the ordinary courtesy and dignity afforded anyone. Nor does it subtract one jot from my expectation that their disability will be an excuse for bad behaviour. And of course as family they are loved.
But frankly their disability has been a monstrous pain in the arse, changing the course of not just their lives, but all around them. It has massively curtailed their potential to function, achieve and contribute – to be the people they could have been. If any sane person had the a choice in the matter, they would not ask for these disabilities. They are not desirable permutations of the human condition.
Looping then back to the sex/gender issue this comment is about. Where there is a reasonable case for a genetic pre-disposition, or indeed some environmental hormonal disruption that skews the usual path of gender expression – then like most people I am willing to be compassionate and accepting to the extent reasonable on the matter. To repeat this does not diminish their rights as a human being, nor the usual social obligation to treat them with courtesy and respect. You have been very clear on this all the way through and we agree on this.
Just do not try and tell me however these conditions are 'normal', or should be promoted as such. These transgender activists seem to be calling for a free – state-funded – ‘revolutionary genital tourism’ whereby you can, with chemicals or surgery or both, shift at will from being a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ or surgically/chemically ‘non-binary.' And underlying this it is not hard to discern a deeper agenda to discount the heteronormative family as an 'oppressive patriarchal capitalist' construct that might be swept away in a politicised, subversive firestorm of social disintegration. Political revolution from the inside out, disguised as personal freedom.
The 'progression' of this dark agenda is now fairly plain to see, first getting everyone to accept that gender expression is fluid, now dismantling biological sex, after this I anticipate will come the idea that age itself is a mere social construct.
To be clear, the gender/sexual politics of all this does not interest me much. Rather it is the undeniable erosion of stable family formation and structure across much of the world, and the accompanying social and economic dysfunction that always flows from this, is I believe is larger picture most people are either not seeing, or do not feel safe to speak to.
That is a strategy acknowledged by many women, across the political spectrum. However, it sometimes appears to be more clearly recognised and emphatically stated by those with "conservative" politics and viewpoints.
Some seem to have an internal censor that inhibits open acknowledgement. Whether it is tribal, related to acceptable "progressivism" or just wanting not wanting to be seen aligning with conservatives on any issue – I don't know.
I wrote an article here some time back that touches on this.
.https://thestandard.org.nz/trifold-politics-and-boundaries/
This idea of boundaries should be intuitively familiar to most women; most will have had a bad encounter at some point in their lives with someone who lacks them. And all too often it was an immature, weak male who lacking the ability to control his innate capacity for aggression (both active and passive).
On this point, I would argue that much of the debate around violence misses the point that men are innately more physically dangerous than women. Evolutionary sexual selection ensured we would be this way. On average the difference is not very large, we are a dimorphic species, but not excessively so. But at the extremes almost all of the worst offenders will be male; this being an inevitable outcome of how normal distributions work.
But in my view the idea this is biological reality is a social construct, an 'oppressive, misogynistic patriarchy' is not only rather uninteresting, it simply leads us nowhere useful. Thus decades of talking about the scourge of IPV and no change in the outcome.
The correct solution to violence is not to demand men should be weak and harmless, but they are socialised to control their innate aggression and direct it constructively. The role of childhood rough play, adolescent initiation into manhood, male bonding in challenging situations into effective, disciplined teams are all traditional facilitations of this.
But you are of course correct, none of this acceptable left wing discourse.
Thank you Redlogix.
I have thought long and hard about our institutions such as religion and the patriarchy, including the notion of the nuclear family.
My conclusion is that generally they may be a force for good for many.
But not all especially not all women, I know though that there are many men who have welcomed the results of the fight that women have had on access to maternity leave as it has enable them to participate more in their children's little lives.
In the religion I grew up in women are able to participate to the fullest in ministering.
My ongoing view is that though we may consent to be governed, this is not for all time and we must watch like hawks to make sure the two institutions work for all women.
Unlike other types of activism, referenced by Stuart Munro women's activism is never done.
Stuart Munro13
31 March 2023 at 7:12 pm
I have noted before being shocked after a period out of the public service at the lack of simple knowledge of institutional racism or sexism held by one CE I came across. Held by him and thus promulgated across his managers. This was 2005.
Yes – all good points. In writing the comment above I was aware of two matters I should clarify.
One is that in drawing an analogy between a genetic condition that is physical in nature, and one that expresses itself primarily in a social context – are not the equivalent things in every respect, but the moral argument is broadly similar enough to convey the point I wanted to make.
And yes there is no reason to demand everyone fits within the traditional structures. Growing up in my rather small extended family I had an older aunt who lived in a same sex relationship all her life. This long before it became fashionable as such. As far as we were concerned it was just who she was and there was never any negative comment or disrespect about it. But it was a private matter, and not something she imposed on others.
While I am sure she would have encountered the usual run of bigots and nosey parkers, as far as I am aware she never allowed this to hold her back from living a full and good life, both socially and professionally. And she had a rather marvelous collection of fast cars and motorbikes.
Flippin' heck I just took a really long time to write a post (Which, on my phone is much more of a chore than anyone might think) explaining my point
Wish I had the sharps to have just nailed it like that instead Weka!
haha, usually it's me writing a novel and someone else coming along and saying it more succinctly in a sentence.
Newsroom has a new regular post called "Raw Politics."
I listened to most of it but think it is a "lets explore every little dark place in which to amplify the terrible management of the Government." Spiteful I reckon especially from Tim Murphy.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/pro/the-raw-of-the-crowd?utm_source=Newsroom&utm_campaign=ababd46e25-Week+In+Review+28.03.2023&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-ababd46e25-95522477
Watched it ianmac but probably too early to judge. What with the PP debacle and the Stuart Nash sacking, it was largely about Hipkins and his handling of both situations. I thought he handled them as well as could be expected in the circumstances.
I did think it was a bit underhand to claim this govt. was bumbling on (my words) without demonstrating any vision for the future ("bread and butter issues don't cut it" Murphy said) when we have the budget coming up in a matter of weeks where all will be revealed.
First person account of the police involvement in the lead up to the #LetWomenSpeak event, and their actions on the day.
Worth the listen:
https://youtu.be/TJ9FqiNcV80
If you can endure your way through Plunket's constant, annoying interruptions, this is a gobsmacking interview. It leaves only two possible explanations for the Police failure to maintain public order and protect the mob's victims:
1. The liaison with the women organising the event was genuine, but the officers involved received instructions from their superiors to stand down and leave the women to face the mob alone.
2. The liaison was duplicitous from the start and the officers involved never had any intention of doing what they were agreeing to.
Option 2 may sound far-fetched, but don't underestimate the misogyny infesting the police force. Here's a reminder of how some of them see women:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-case-ruined-my-life-says-rickards-accuser/TDKSJMQY5S7U5KLVGPIZZFHD2A/
Linda speaks well throughout the interview despite – as you mention – Plunket's unnecessary interruptions.
(I did enjoy the rebuke at the beginning when Plunket corrected her "rotund" error. A couple of pointed digs around that later for emphasis from a woman that has just had enough).
The personal experience shared sounds credible, even if it does put the police actions and inactions in a very poor light. It does raise real questions about political influence as well.
It also gives voice to the very real threat that women experienced that has been routinely ignored or downplayed by some commentators, media and politicians.
Police not doing the job we think they should be doing's a theme.
Parliament occupation, Brian tamaki's many antics and P houses left untouched whilst the next street over gets chopper, patrol cars etc to sieze a few plants.
Nationals police force….they get in costers goneburger.
The critical point that many have missed – is that once PP and the women attending the event were thoroughly intimidated, and in some cases assaulted, the Police immediately swung into action, bundling PP to safety in a waiting car, then into protective custody first at the Police station, then at the airport and even escorting her onto the plane.
PP herself has had nothing but good things to say about these officers who did look after her after the crisis. Nor is there any reason to think the handful of officers inside Albert Park who were plainly either under-resourced or under instructions to stand down, can be reasonably accused of misogyny.
Nah – like many people here I strongly suspect this was a political act. All the dots are sitting there waiting to be joined up – and it will only take one disgruntled person to do it. Who knows, maybe a certain ex-Minister of Police.
From other accounts from women present, it was security that directed KJK to the stationary police, and perhaps even into the car. The police then had to act, and standard responses kicked in.
The police – despite requests – also did not go to the rotunda to assist the remaining women AFAIK.
If anyone has evidence or accounts that contradict this, I'd appreciate it being posted.
People made 111 calls to the police from the rotunda, afaik these were ignored.
The police had more than enough time to get more bodies on site to manage what was happening. The question is why they didn't.
Plunket had an interview with PP yesterday that covered the events off from her perspective in some detail. I was merely going on that account.
I agree it was probably the people providing her security – and they deserve a good deal more plaudits for their courage than has been credited to them so far – that got her away from the rotunda down to the street.
It is my interpretation that the Police on the ground, once they realised just how out of hand things had gotten, finally had to ignore instructions and do the right thing.
Well worth the read.
Perceptions of Censorship and Moderation Bias in Political Debate Forums.
https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/15002/14852
So as to make/keep a debate going what are your conclusions?
Do they apply to any fora you post in?
I suggest you read the FAQ.
Suggesting how the site should be run or complaining about moderation is a sure way to cop a self martyr ban.
But the conclusions in the report does contain the following…
“We found that users holding minority views are more likely to be moderated,even after accounting for levels of potentially offensive behaviors across groups”
Yes I did read that.
I also read the suggestion, that I disagree with, that the rules be excruciatingly specific. The theory of specificism is law or similar is well known. For instance many believe in the fair, large and liberal approach where an incomplete and general list is put up. This tends include rather than exclude ideas, words that are similar to those instanced .
The other approach is that the words are included are all that are covered.
I see the benefit in phrases such as say 'apply commonsense' (fair, large & liberal)
rather than an exhaustive list of words trying to convey this.
The trouble with the exhaustive list approach is that if we leave off an example people may argue that this is not covered by 'commonsense' and so is not covered by the moderation.
I look on moderation as a way to get the best out of us and our arguments thus making them clearer and more persuasive to a greater audience. I don't see it is censorship. Not do I think it is designed to please the majority. We can all slip up and not link or link competently (my common mod)
I can recall several posters espousing uncommon views, who put them up and had a number of posters against them. They put them up again, same thing occurs perhaps several times.
The next post is full of ad homs against other posters, Mods, others with different views. They are moderated. They perhaps put up their immoderate views as they were tired of posters being 'agin their views.
I sometimes think that those holding minority views on site are often those whose views on another site or out in town square NZ are in fact majority views. So they are coming to a site they know does not espouse their views per se (and we have a number of wonderful posters on here who do that).
Anyway, a very interesting read.
I am a great supporter of moderation as I believe it helps us add to the sum of knowledge. It is not designed to make us all support vanilla views, but to draw out the hokey pokeys and boysenberries of this world…..a drawn out metaphor.
As I said, it's well worth the read, and hopefully some comfort to our missing friends.
Yes. There are quite a few who have bailed from this site. I don't blame them. There seems to be a bit of a pack mentality currently developing. You know… 'you gotta completely agree with us cos if you don't we're gonna run you out of town' kind of attitude. Not all commenters (or authors) are guilty of this of course.
Hopefully TS can soon revert to its former environment where people were able to argue the pros and cons (because they always exist) about an issue with reasonable safety – and not a little humour when it was appropriate.
Hopefully knowing they're mostly in good company is a small comfort, Anne.
Adrian gets a bollocking, and so have I over time from LPRENT for supporting Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, and Mike Smith. “fool” is how I have been characterised, so I generally self censor to be able to keep posting here.
Which is strange in a way because a look at the archive over a decade or more shows how supportive I have been of Mr Prent for keeping the site going and tackling the likes of SlaterOil in court proceedings.
But hey, no one is perfect and the ultimate counter for whinging posters I guess is obvious–“pay for your own server and site and say what you like!”
I get the feeling that you hadn’t read the article that The Al1en had linked to @ 9.
Your perception of the alleged ‘bollockings’ is a misrepresentation and mischaracterisation stemming from your bias of censorship and moderation on TS and how things work here.
‘Bollocking’, moderating, or banning here is generally not because of viewpoints but of how well or rather how badly one argues for them. Poor arguments can raise the ire of those who don’t suffer fools.
I hope this clears up some of your misunderstandings.
Your quote was so selective it was self-serving. Here’s the full quote with the relevant missing part in my italics:
You referred to this site’s FAQ but, of course, it is in the Policy (https://thestandard.org.nz/policy/).
It is quite evident from your comments in this thread that you were trying to be subtle, as not to fall into the self-martyrdom hole, and that your intention was to take a swipe at moderation here on TS. You can’t have it your way; say what you mean and mean what you say or you say nothing at all.
Your ‘missing friends’ have had their commenting privileges revoked because of their own actions and not because of poor and unfair moderation. Acknowledging my own biases, I think your insinuations (!) are inaccurate and unfair. I do acknowledge that on some ‘hot topics’ moderation can become more biased and heavy-handed than strictly necessary. Mods are not perfect and the ones that don’t have anything left in the tank take a break, tend to leave on their own accord, or have their Moderation rights revoked.
I hope this helps. When you feel the need to criticise Mods and/or Authors please don’t try to be too subtle and clever for your own good
I'm usually brick subtle but obviously not on here, but as for selective, even if your point is true and the level is much smaller than represented, you'd agree it's still there.
It was and is not my point, it is the finding and conclusion of one study of one online group (community), i.e., of Ravelry’s BID. My guess is that it is always present to some degree because it is inevitable when dealing with humans and human [online] interactions. If you were to ask if it is present here and does it present a problem I’d say “No”, but with the qualifiers that I’ve already mentioned in my previous comment. And no, I would not say this because I’m one of the Mods. I’d say it because I comment and occasionally author here, i.e., if it were a problem [for me], and more akin some other NZ political blog sites, I’d leave immediately and stop spending hours of my time on here. TS is the best of the bunch – spoken with real and genuine bias.
Ok
Interesting read, thanks. However, I wouldn’t read too much into it, e.g., extrapolate some of the ‘findings’ and ‘solutions’ to other political blog sites such as TS. Much of it was highly familiar to me, although it seems that none of the authors had any experience as a Mod, but perhaps that was a good thing because it might have induced bias in the study.
The issue that was not addressed is that of bias within the community/commentariat and the six tags attached to comments (that’s what we call them here on TS, as Posts are submitted by people with TS/WordPress Author status). Many a ban occurs because of and after a heated exchange with other commenters here […] and not all come from or start with a stand-alone comment, i.e., more or less entirely self-inflicted by the offender.
You're welcome, and while your here, I think you, personally, do a fairly decent and mostly dispassionate job here.
Appreciated, ta.
It’s tough to act objectively & impartially (neutrally) given my own biases, likes, and dislikes. I do my best.
The comment about the high workload of Mods struck a chord – TS receives more comments a month than the Big Issues Debate (BID) group on Ravelry in that study. Of course, not all comments are equal, but it gives you a bit of an idea of how much the two main Mods here on TS wade through!
If I have time, I will respond to a few other of your comments in this thread, because they leave a few things to the imagination and raise some questions …
To be honest I hope you don't because I don't really feel safe to post freely.
fwiw, I don't feel safe to post freely either.
There are some commenters who don't believe this, but the things people get banned for here are pretty simple and most of them come down to people ignoring moderation and wasting moderator time (I cannot emphasis the latter enough).
I will note an exception however. The last time you were banned, for 6 months, was for calling a woman commenter, who you were politically disagreeing with, "a nasty old cunt". In my time moderating here, that would be at the worst end of the scale for misogyny directed at women. Fortunately its rare and the reason it is rare is because we moderate before it gets to that point, and we curate a culture where its unacceptable.
We have this rule for good reasons,
.https://thestandard.org.nz/policy/
It takes work to create an environment where a range of people want to comment. I've just asked someone to not call a prominent intersex trans person 'it', because it is dehumanising. That kind of language will also put people off from being here. The commenter did a simple acknowledgement, no drama.
All of which is to say that by far and away the easiest way to not get moderated is to not be an arsehole to the moderators. Imo this largely comes down to intent.
In the years I was commenting before becoming an author, I often talked to moderators about their decisions and I don't think I've ever been modded for that. It's entirely possible to talk about moderation here without crossing that line. This is why I see relatively easily when people are saying they don't care about TS moderation (and hence the site). I no longer see any point in spending time trying to sort that out. In election year we are just handing out long bans after the first few times, to curate a better debate for the election and to save ourselves the aggro and time.
Why? What are the things you’re worried about writing that will get you banned? I know I have plenty, though I do remember you frequently getting tied in knots before you became a moderator, which I noticed hasn’t happened since.
it's not safe for me to talk about my safety concerns 🤷♀️
My main point was that it's possible to have robust debate here within the moderation boundaries, and it's not a free for all for anyone.
what I'm trying to say is that, calling women cunts aside, people here don't get generally banned for what they say, they get banned for behaviour, often patterns of behaviour. This is good, because it means it's possible to avoid being banned even if one has controversial views.
Weka I'm constantly amazed at how fair you are, how incredibly articulate, and how at pains you are to filter your own biases.You make this site far more civil than it would be without you, and for that my admiration has no bounds.You may get triggered at times, but you never lash out
🙏
Me too Weka.
The words that were used including c**t are unacceptable to me & I am glad they were moderated. Why do we think that people want to see it written. Sounds like a male only worksite of old.
Shouldn't we pride ourselves on making our arguments/discussions without this sort of stuff.
signed
Mother of ten
Auckland
PS I note though several people on my twitter feed have had other Twitterers having to remove the words as inevitably they use them about others and fall foul of the twitter standards
Teacher's pet!
''If you can endure your way through Plunket's constant, annoying interruptions, this is a gobsmacking interview.''
Cheap shot mainly because Plunket isn't ''Left Media.'' In fact it was the interviewee who was tortuous to listen to, but well worth the effort because, as you say, it was a gobsmacking interview.
My guess is it's probably some configuration of your No1 explanation. Andrew Costa may have been mulling over the issue, and because of his wokeness, worried about a backlash against the police protecting so called Nazis. Another angle is the Rainbow Community is still not 100% comfortable with the police as an organisation.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/376950/pride-and-police-the-history-issues-and-decisions-behind-the-debate
Plenty of history in the UK of Police doing the enforcement work for gender ideology. Chap called Harry Miller in his "Fair Cop" blog does a good job of exposing it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-59727118
Coster, not Costa.
I fully accept my characterisation of Plunket's interviewing was a personal opinion! I'm torn between being grateful he's providing a platform for these women to be heard and personally annoyed at his interviewing style.
Agree that some variant of option 1 is most likely. Either one is bad, though – can't see any way to put a good spin for the police on what happened.
Strange as it may seem, I agree Plunket can interrupt too much. I think he gets impatient, especially with those with a more ponderous style of talking. Plus you will notice he can't sit still. When I get annoyed I just think '' well, it could have been Duncan Garner at the microphone.
Just returned from the Kimbolton Sculpture Festival. Great morning, wide range of art, stall holders and food.
A couple of observations from snatched excerpts of korero and artists written descriptions of their work. A parade of Mustangs idled their way through the crowd to go on display. More than a couple of comments about how much 'The Greenies' would hate that and 'to enjoy them before they are banned too'. One exhibit was of a heading dog and a cow and calf and a bull. All made out of old pushbike parts and old stuff ftom a shed. The artist reckoned Jacinda and the Greens want to get rid of the cows and this was a reminder of their presence.
Following the fallout of the Shame @ Albert Park, I was thinking these sorts of rural events is perhaps a better environment for a LWS forum/event/tent. Lower key (but still able to be live streamed), organised and run by locals and anyone wishing to silence the speakers would have to pay $15 to do so.
You couldn’t repeatedly punch a senior citizen and get away with it in that community.
lol, so true.
It's a good idea doing LWS away from the main centres.
Kimbolton being a bastion of inclusiveness and all that.
/
https://twitter.com/RawiriTaonui/status/1613117332792152065
The two groups met on Monday night to discuss things and it had been agreed that Ngāti Kauwhata would take part in the event.
But now organiser Tony Waugh said the day had been postponed to a yet-to-be-confirmed date because of uncertainty and the potential for disruption and conflict.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/300793858/settlers-day-event-postponed-due-to-uncertainty-and-potential-for-conflict
That's right, they elected Michael Laws as mayor… no hang on, that was somewhere else.
Indeed, a terrible mistake. But fucked off, twice, and disowned when the community realised the error of it's ways.
"…a terrible mistake."
He was elected mayor twice, then post mayor, y'all had him back as a coucillor and on the Health Board.
Some here might be interested in this:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/300843919/tiktok-is-addictive-for-many-girls-especially-those-with-depression
Stuff and other MSM have this frustrating habit of not properly referencing let alone linking to the primary source data:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-mental-health-how-girls-really-feel-about-social-media
Are the reporters afraid that we will check their articles or put them out of a job?
For some reason, the second part of my comment triggered Wordfence!?
I was thinking about some of RedLogix's posts above.
Something I was pondering is why women supporting PP have received largely positive support from right-wing males, and also left wing to be fair. But not so much the extreme woke-leaning males.
I was wondering if it was due to a degree of chauvinism more likely to be still lingering in us right-wingers. In a positive way though. To the extent that we value women in our lives, and recognise that women tend to be physically weaker than males, and therefore more vulnerable in a physical sense. So, seeing women abused or physically threatened tends to activate the evolutionary protective instincts in males.
On the other hand, many woke males may have had this type instinct replaced with a desire to be protective towards other groups they see as minority, and therefore needing protection, and now just lump biological women in with the majority oppression group.
Perhaps because it gives left leaning men the excuse to be as misogynist as they like under the guise of dumping on the "wrong kind of women".
Well done for a remarkably even-handed analysis; and while it obvious which camp I am located in, I believe you have done justice to the legitimate motives of those in the pro-trans camp as well.
What intrigues me is much less all the minutiae of the public debate around sexual politics, but the broader question around stable families, demographics and how this plays out in terms of social and economic dysfunction. As a psychologist you are surely familiar with the literature that clear confirms that children who grow up in intact, functioning families – ideally with an extended family available – will on average do better in life by almost every measure. Is this not what a legitimate left would want for the people we are supposedly standing up for?
For example, and as we have discussed elsewhere on a recent thread on education, there is a limit to what schools can do, if a positive home environment is lacking.
Of course. The only reason for using the phrase "right wing" was that there was a lot of support for women coming from the likes of kiwiblog. But also, I recognise there are many such as yourself here as well who are on the same wave length.
Not an area I studied in deeply, my study being more along the lines of organisational psychology. But what you are saying seems at least intuitively correct.
But, yes, I think children need stability in their relationships. And, ideally, young boys especially, need to have some positive male role models in their lives in some way or another. Unfortunately, young males often grow up in relationships where their experience of older males is anger and violence. And, it is better for them to be out of those relationships altogether.
Many solo mothers I know intuitively believe their sons need positive male role models, and try to get their sons aligned with positive male role models in one way or another.
The literature suggests male/female differences are in actuality very small. But there are still differences. Not in the way of superiority or anything condescending like that. But more in the way of slight differences due to evolution. So, I think there is value in young men growing up with positive male role models, whether that be through a sporting situation, or club or whatever.
And, I wonder if this is part of the reason why we have more gender confusion now. Because, young men often haven't had that male influence in their lives, and so are confused about what their true identity is. So far as males wanting to transition to female, anyway.
That is not to say I am blaming women for this state of affairs. More, that I am blaming men for often being such bad role models that women feel they have no option but to remove their children from their influence.
There is no doubting this. Yet professionally you must know that just blaming or hectoring a client to 'be a better person' is rarely an effective clinical tool. The key is to elicit a fresh insight and internal motivation to change. And in this respect much of the usual public discourse yelling at men about how bad they are has probably been remarkably counter-productive.
As a bit of tangent here, in I would point to the large number of WW1 and WW2 Returned Servicemen, many damaged and traumatised by their experiences as a bit of a social tipping point here. These were the first big wars in our society where there was a large civilian contingent of soldiers (as contrasted to the generally professional cadres who traditionally fought wars in the pre-Industrial era) who returned from overseas to families and communities largely uncomprehending what they had gone through.
And often with little support but their mates at the RSA and booze. The consequences for their families was often tragic one way or another.
Then of course we had the 1970's sexual revolution and freely available contraception, that effectively de-coupled sex from reproduction, and diminished the necessity to maintain stable families. Which in turn has spawned generations of fatherlessness.
I recall a story my partner told me years ago, and it may well be apocryphal but it rings true enough. A prison chaplain had the idea to hand out to inmates Mother's Day cards, that were very well received. It was evidently a good idea and counted a success. However when he attempted to repeat the same idea with Fathers Day cards – it fell very flat indeed. There were almost no takers.
Or another story from my own experience. When I started in Cubs (this would be the early 60's and progressing through to Scouts I can clearly recall the heavy involvement of whole families. Summer camps especially saw the enthusiastic and valuable contribution from fathers – in all sorts of ways that in hindsight was quite remarkable. We used to do semi-annual suburb wide bottle drives that took whole weekends of hard work, but were an immense amount of fun because everyone pitched in.
But by the time I progressed into more senior levels in the 70's it suddenly changed. We became a baby sitting service for single mothers and the entire tone shifted. I admire those who persisted with it through this period, but in the end it was not sustainable.
And the Peter Ellis case had a major impact on male teachers entering the teaching profession I think. Basically, males wanting to enter teaching felt like they would be under suspicion of being pedophiles. I think since then, the number of male teachers plummeted.
And, some of the modern marketing which seems deliberately aimed at causing gender confusion in children. For instance, my wife's sister purchased a toy pram for her grand daughter. And, the picture on the front had a boy pushing the pram.
Sure, traditional gender roles are very archaic these days. So, not trying to argue for those. But, this sort of messaging to young children just encourages boys to question their gender I think.
It would be interesting to know how much of the desire for young boys especially to change their gender is due to actual genetic or biological factors and how much is due to modern socialisation. If there is a large amount due to modern socialisation, then we are doing our boys a huge dis-service.
It is my impression that this 'confusion' manifests itself to varying degrees much more than we think. I think if someone really tried to study this – and I have no idea exactly how – they would find this an almost universal experience in adolescents of both sexes. (In this I have a fair bit of time for Jung's ideas around anima and animus archetypes.)
But like everything else about adolescence this confusion is transitory. In my view encouraging children to engage in chemical or physical mutilation at this highly vulnerable, suggestible phase of their life is no more defensible than allowing older sexual predators to groom and exploit them sexually.
As for autogynophelia – that has an almost entirely mid-life onset in males. I hesitate to comment – beyond saying this is probably an entirely separate phenomenon that should not be conflated with the adolescent puberty process.
I had forgotten about the Peter Ellis case – I agree it was remarkably damaging to teaching in NZ; but parallel events were happening in many places in the world, meaning that teaching became a completely female dominated profession. Even the handful of men left had to modify their approach in order to survive.
And as far as I am concerned this has been a catastrophe for a significant cohort of young boys as they pass through our education system. The most obvious symptom is the now complete dominance of females at the tertiary level. I don't have any NZ stats to hand, but in the US there is now a 2:1 ratio of female to male graduates – way more when you filter out the STEM subjects. All the indicators suggest young men are piling out of universities and either heading toward technical trades or small business. Or playing video games in their mother's basement.
A big consequence of this being the rise of the so-called, and much despised, 'incel' movement – a whole cohort of young men who have realised they have almost zero chance of every finding a mate and forming a family. Again we can yell at them as much as we like about how terrible they are – this merely confirms for them the correctness of their world view.
Or even if we step back from this noisy group and just consider the wider statistic that – again in the US – we are seeing a dramatic rise in the number of young men who are not in any kind of sexual relationship even by the age of 30. Not even casually much less formally. And while there is a similar rise for young women it is much smaller.
And this is before I start mentioning the massive impact of dating apps that enforce a brutal Pareto principle on males – with the top handful of 'high value' males guaranteed of unlimited attention, a modest 15% or so who stand a chance – and the bottom 80% virtually ignored. In essence we are heading back toward a mating structure that looks a lot like serial polygamy than anything else.
On the female side this same dynamic manifests as a dramatic rise in involuntary childlessness. The stats are brutal, if a woman has not has had their first child by the age of 30, it is 50:50 she never will. By 40yrs the odds are much worse.
Much of the drop in average fertility rates across the world are not so much attributable to smaller family sizes as we like to think. It appears that once a woman has their first child, they will go on to have pretty much the same number of children on average as did their mothers and grandmother's generation. It is the huge rise of women who never have children who are the big factor here – and while we know this suits some women well enough – for the large majority it becomes a matter of great sadness in later life, not to mention the dire demographic implications for the fate of whole communities and nations.
This only touches of a few points off the top of my head right now – my overall point is that family structures everywhere are under enormous pressure from many different directions – and not a lot of people on the left are open to talking about this.
Fascinating discussion. I am finished for the night now, but something we should continue with on another day.
Observationally, this isn't true among the cohort of professional women I know. Having a single child is achievable without completely sacrificing your career – it's exponentially harder with each subsequent child.
Tied with the fact that professional women are more likely to have their first child when their career is established (so mid 30s or later) – when fertility levels are already dropping.
Every single one of these single-child women in my friendship/acquaintance group comes from a family of at least 2 siblings.
Also, observationally, my teen's class would have at least 40% of the kids from single-child families. Growing up, that was really rare – I can only remember possibly 2 or 3 kids in my class who were singletons (much envied by the rest of us, as they didn't have to share their stuff with siblings)
In NZ, we are 'lucky' that this is balanced by the number of blue and/or white collar workers, who choose to have a higher number of children – at a younger age. Our different cultural mix is a factor here, too (Pasifika and Maori women are more likely to have multiple children – cf Marama Davidson).
Other countries (Germany and Japan, for example) are considerably more severely affected by this demographic change. And, China is already in demographic free-fall following their one-child policy of the 20th century.
I appreciate this assertion around family size is counter intuitive. I gleaned this data from recent work by author and researcher Stephen J Shaw who was just as surprised as anyone else to uncover the real data once you drilled in beneath the aggregate numbers everyone else was looking at.
https://www.invertedworld.com/p/birthgap-childless-world-part-1
Otherwise yes your point around professional women having more than one child is taken.
I think that women (if they are prepared to go the solo-mum route), do have quite a few options.
Certainly the fertility clinics report increasing numbers of single women, choosing that route, because they are not in a stable relationship – and don't forsee one happening.
Also, it's relatively easy for women to source 'donations' from male friends (indeed several lesbian couples I know, have done this, (often from gay friends) rather than going down the official route).
I think that much of the involuntary childlessness is women leaving it 'too late'. Many are still not aware of how radically fertility can drop from late-20s onwards; and several I know had early onset menopause in their 30s.
We (as a society) still haven't come to terms with the fact that, biologically, the best time for women to have children is 18-28; but socially this is the most career-damaging time for women to take time out of the workforce.
And, having said all that. I also know several women who have chosen not to have children, and are perfectly happy with that choice. Some of them are devoted aunts and fairy godmothers (but happy to return them at the end of the day); others just aren't really interested in kids at all.
Yup to all of those points.
The data Shaw came up with however is that while there are of course some women who happily choose not to have children, it turns out they are a minority. What he found is that around 80% of childless women in later life wound up thus involuntarily – and to varying degrees found this the cause of grief and sadness.
To be clear, no-one is suggesting for one moment that women should in any manner be compelled to have children they do not want. I am speaking to the exact opposite here, women who do want a family but find out too late for one reason or another that it never happened.
I'd really like to see the data. I'm suspecting a bit of a biased sample with 80% regret figures.
For example: Surveying women who have unsucessfully been through fertility treatment is going to throw up higher 'regret' figures, than surveying highly successful, and childless-by-choice business-women.
Yes very much to this.
The obvious challenge is that it is almost impossible for a single mother in her early 20's to manage young children and grow a career at the same time. With the support of a partner and extended family the picture looks quite different. With the opportunity to work more from home, the picture changes again.
If we normalised life-long learning for all adults, if the political left more aggressively went after long standing workplace prejudices around age – for both young and old – this would help massively.
If we dismantled the lie we tell young people that career is the only thing that matters in life, and restored the innate dignity and respect parenthood is rightly due – this might shift the picture again.
All this just scratches the surface.
While the support of a partner *can* make having a family and a career possible, it doesn't always do so. And working from home is frequently not realistic with small children (as many families found out during lockdown).
Our cultural attitudes assume that managing the family is 'women's work' (and even worse, unpaid women's work). So that means that it is Mum's career which comes second, Mum who has to organize and manage all of the childcare and family organization, and Mum who takes time off work when the kids are sick, or other arrangements fall through. Extended family, means it's Grandma who does all of this (not Grandpa).
Case in point. Recent school strike. We have around 30 people where I work who are parents of kids (or Grandparents – extended family) in the affected age group (5-14). In not one instance was it Dad or Grandad who was taking time off work, or arranging for alternative family care – in every case, it was Mum or Grandma.
There is absolutely *nothing* stopping Dad stepping up to the plate to either take responsibility or organize alternative care [We are a highly family-friendly firm, and the CEO had already said that we would support families through this by offering working from home, or shifting hours or taking leave – whatever they needed]. It's just an unspoken cultural assumption that Mum will deal with it.
I know two highly-paid businesswomen with kids (we became friends when we were all going through the toddler years). In both cases, they went back to work after the first year – and Dad was a SAH Dad. Both women *still managed all of the family organization* – Nannies, Kindy, School admin, sports teams. All of the stuff that a family with kids needs to keep organized and under control. Mum still does it.
And on that topic – a shout-out to the amazing group "Big Buddy" – which does exactly that. Buddy up boys who have no male role models in their lives with blokes who are looking to be mentors.
An outstanding charity – which makes a positive difference to so many boys.
https://www.bigbuddy.org.nz/
Yeah, that is fantastic.
It seems intuitively obvious that young boys and young girls will benefit greatly from having a positive Male role model (hopefully their Dad) fully involved in their upbringing.
It would seem the stats back this up (especially for young boys)
I was lucky enough to have two loving parents (mum and dad) in the same household and am 100% certain it helped me immeasurably.
Mum taught me how to treat a woman and Dad taught me how to behave towards women (which yes is probably horribly old fashioned these days).
But growing up observing how Dad treated Mum and behaved to all women (as an absolute gentleman) and the fact that they were married 50 odd years makes me think sometimes that some of these 'old fashioned' ideas are worth keeping.
I suspect that many young men these days are never taught and have no idea or even concept of what being a gentleman (or just a man) is.
Sometimes when I see or hear about another female victim of horrific violence or even at the other end of the scale just rudeness I have to remind myself that the way I feel about such things isn't 'built in' ,which is what it feels like but mostly taught or learned.
I've forgotten my point now…hehehe
[Good morning, a week ago you agreed to stick to one username + e-mail address (see https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-27-03-2023/#comment-1941759). If you keep using two e-mail addresses, I will permanently ban one of them and your comments will disappear from the radar before the Mods can see & approve them; the Mods won’t be able to restore your comments, even if they’d want to. Your call – Incognito]
Mod note
Its certainly been an interesting discussion and raised many things, and hopefully some self reflection too.
Also been a welcome change from the usual diet of dreary National/Act bad, Labour/Green good, opinion posts. And hasnt it been revealing of assorted politicians and assorted contributors you thought you knew?
I’ve felt intellectually challenged to think about some things, in a way that I havent, for a long time on the TS.
One thing I've learnt is that my ideas can change and be modified by other commenters.Especially when a commenter lacks animus, is engaging in a genuine exercise to understand ,to articulate how they think and feel, rather than slamming or insulting others
Yes I agree Francesca
Which of us (commenters here) "lacks animus,"
Please explain. I'm genuinely interested (others may be also).
The discussion above has been fantastic……
Too late now for me to do than skim read but tomorrow I will read in more depth.
I certainly feel heartened by the good sense here.
Reading these comments from Belladonna, Redlogix and Tsmithfield again. And the reflections by Hetzer, MichaelP and Francesca.
I have learned so much from them and I see I have already used your comment TS about chauvinism and seeming RW male support of women's issues……hope I credited you but I fear I may not have. ?