Man, those American police are something else. Aggressive, badly trained, heavily armed and often hopeless infiltrated by the far right. American policing is yet another failure of the American state.
And the violence? It seems to me it is voice of the unheard in full throat.
For anyone who reads Chris Hedges – he has an article on Truthdig from 2018 called The Coming Collapse.
In it he discusses the political options available in the US, and the Trump presidency and while he ends with his perspective on how societies collapse. Written two years ago, the added pressure on society and the economy of the Covid-19 pandemic is not included but he relates his experience of watching the collapse of Yugoslavia.
"… An economy reliant on debt for its growth causes our interest rate to jump to 28 percent when we are late on a credit card payment. It is why our wages are stagnant or have declined in real terms—if we earned a sustainable income we would not have to borrow money to survive. It is why a university education, houses, medical bills and utilities cost so much. The system is designed so we can never free ourselves from debt.
However, the next financial crash, as Prins points out in her book “Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World,” won’t be like the last one. This is because, as she says, “there is no Plan B.” Interest rates can’t go any lower. There has been no growth in the real economy. The next time, there will be no way out. Once the economy crashes and the rage across the country explodes into a firestorm, the political freaks will appear, ones that will make Trump look sagacious and benign.
And so, to quote Vladimir Lenin, what must be done?
We must invest our energy in building parallel, popular institutions to protect ourselves and to pit power against power. These parallel institutions, including unions, community development organizations, local currencies, alternative political parties and food cooperatives, will have to be constructed town by town. The elites in a time of distress will retreat to their gated compounds and leave us to fend for ourselves. Basic services, from garbage collection to public transportation, food distribution and health care, will collapse. Massive unemployment and underemployment, triggering social unrest, will be dealt with not through government job creation but the brutality of militarized police and a complete suspension of civil liberties. Critics of the system, already pushed to the margins, will be silenced and attacked as enemies of the state. The last vestiges of labor unions will be targeted for abolition, a process that will soon be accelerated given the expected ruling in a case before the Supreme Court that will cripple the ability of public-sector unions to represent workers. The dollar will stop being the world’s reserve currency, causing a steep devaluation. Banks will close. Global warming will extract heavier and heavier costs, especially on the coastal populations, farming and the infrastructure, costs that the depleted state will be unable to address. The corporate press, like the ruling elites, will go from burlesque to absurdism, its rhetoric so patently fictitious it will, as in all totalitarian states, be unmoored from reality. The media outlets will all sound as fatuous as Trump. And, to quote W.H. Auden, “the little children will die in the streets.”
As a foreign correspondent I covered collapsed societies, including the former Yugoslavia. It is impossible for any doomed population to grasp how fragile the decayed financial, social and political system is on the eve of implosion. All the harbingers of collapse are visible: crumbling infrastructure; chronic underemployment and unemployment; the indiscriminate use of lethal force by police; political paralysis and stagnation; an economy built on the scaffolding of debt; nihilistic mass shootings in schools, universities, workplaces, malls, concert venues and movie theaters; opioid overdoses that kill some 64,000 people a year; an epidemic of suicides; unsustainable military expansion; gambling as a desperate tool of economic development and government revenue; the capture of power by a tiny, corrupt clique; censorship; the physical diminishing of public institutions ranging from schools and libraries to courts and medical facilities; the incessant bombardment by electronic hallucinations to divert us from the depressing sight that has become America and keep us trapped in illusions. We suffer the usual pathologies of impending death. I would be happy to be wrong. But I have seen this before. I know the warning signs. All I can say is get ready."
I've watched the first 5mins, paused it. That point about Abraham Lincoln's generation & how youngsters formed their views caused me to intuit that he's on the right track. Identity politics theory suggests we identify with a group if the social context we emerge into provides thinking around important stuff held in common that we share.
Peer groups seem to form in teenage years quite naturally, suggesting a biological basis. Shared identity gets generated in opposition to parental constraints. Which then generates an inter-generational dialectic. The extent, depth & strength, seems to vary however. Ours was extreme – those that followed, much less evident. The punks were rebel poseurs, they never accomplished anything substantial as a generational zeitgeist.
Peer groups seem to form in teenage years quite naturally, suggesting a biological basis.
That's really interesting; while I try to avoid the trap of biological determinism, biology should never be ignored either. It often provides a good set of pre-suppositions, or starting points, from which the trajectories of human behaviour can be traced.
I'm still digesting Howe's work; perhaps what I like most of all his ideas are not dead-ends, like so much incoherent rage that passes for punditry these days.
Another interesting glimpse of his theory (@ 27mins): "Every era we're entering is an era in which everyone who last experienced it is disappearing." That poses a problem for the communal transmission of wisdom: put your oldies out to pasture & ignore them, you lose their gnosis just as it is becoming relevance in current circumstances.
True. What we learn from experience can be articulated as wisdom or knowledge. We have to cross the bridge between self & other to achieve that, of course. Wisdom transmission seems to require some kind of interpersonal resonance at a deeper level than knowledge.
The bridge is the third element in the triadic structure of relationships (which people experience as binary interactions). A digression into metaphysics – but I'm doing it because relationships are invisible!
As someone who has constantly tried to do it throughout life, I know how rare acknowledgment indicating success is. But you can always see instances from tradition & culture, cited in literature as timeless truths, referred to as pearls of wisdom. So people do believe that it is possible.
Clearly, we’re talking about different things, as usual. If people believe that wisdom can be transmitted then so be it. I believe you can transmit a seed in the mail, pop it in fertile soil, water & nurture it, and a large magnificent tree will grow over time. That, to me, is wisdom. Everything else is just words and word salads.
I'm now up to 13mins, still an interesting dialogue. Found this:
According to the theory, historical events are associated with recurring generational personas (archetypes). Each generational persona unleashes a new era (called a turning) lasting around 20–22 years, in which a new social, political, and economic climate exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory
I've always gone with turnings every seven years though. Steiner's view – although I didn't get it from him. I note an implied multiple by three achieves a correlation between the two. The theory would have to explain that before gaining more adherents.
Will put aside some time to watch it. I prefer reading to videos mostly.
(Have to take my library books back soon, so will have a look for the book there while there. Looks interesting, but I hope there are some solutions proposed as well as the theories.)
Half of that applies to us, its a summation of any nation state of neo-liberalism. The Five Eyes group going down together.
The USA had one goal post WW2 build up an international regime that would survive its decline. And then came the PNAC era and now Trump. 50 years of work trashed.
Nationwide, a lot more people shot by Police are those classed white, and those numbers have been falling. But it's the black people where those numbers are not falling. Here's the breakdown of US shootings broken down by race.
I'd also be surprised if those numbers were based on an authoritative central registry with mandatory reporting from all law enforcement departments, as opposed to tabulated news reports.
The US has some fucked up rules around reporting firearm deaths and the collation of police-caused homicides, ISTR.
Unfortunatley the stats site wants me to pay to see the source.
I was looking at the Order of NZ's members today and I noticed a deceased member is Clarence Beeby. I've always thought it a scandal a university is not named after him – I believe Victoria University of Wellington wants a new name to distinguish itself from all the others, why not rename it Clarence Beeby University? Probably our greatest educationalist with one of the colleges of the original University of New Zealand is a great idea IMHO, and I am sure all those coporate managers who are running our universities as a last stand for neoliberalism nowadays will hate the place being named after a socialist, so there is another good reason.
Good friend of my Grandmother's (she was active in the Wellington Region Labour Party & heavily involved in progressive currents in education through the 1930s-50s). He introduced the IQ Test to NZ & my Mother & Uncles / Aunties are pretty sure they were the first kids in the Country to do the test in the 30s (because of their Mother's friendship with Beeby … they probably bordered on experimental guinea pig status).
If the pandemic socked Trump with a straight right, the riots have followed up with a left hook to the jaw. Woozy, the champ struggles manfully on, but now Biden's status as front-runner is firming up.
"A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows former Vice President Joe Biden clearly ahead of President Donald Trump. Biden's up by a 53% to 43% margin among registered voters in this survey. But it's important to put individual polls into context, and that context continues to show Biden's in one of the best positions for any challenger since scientific polling began in the 1930s." https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/31/politics/biden-maintains-strong-position/index.html
"There were more than 40 national public polls taken at least partially in the month of May that asked about the Biden-Trump matchup. Biden led in every single one of them. He's the first challenger to be ahead of the incumbent in every May poll since Jimmy Carter did so in 1976. Carter, of course, won the 1976 election. Biden's the only challenger to have the advantage in every May poll over an elected incumbent in the polling era."
Biden's strategy of becoming winner by default is looking good due to those double blows fate has inflicted on Trump. Biden even seemed statesmanlike in that speech quoted here last night. The staffer who wrote it is a good hire.
I'm open to that possibility Anne. My problem with Biden is that he hasn't ever showed evidence of such thinking previously, which is the reason for my scepticism.
I'm way more anti-Trump than I was some years ago. I went from seeing him as buffoon to seeing him as natural expression of the anti-establishment zeitgeist in 2015, then hoped he would mature into responsibility in office. He failed.
Biden may yet prove to be an exception to that old dog/new tricks cliche. But even if he just makes a reasonable choice for veep and hires an ok cabinet, then spends his four years doing a Weekend at Bernie's, the last three and a bit years will make it feel like a holiday.
Yeah, exactly. And wouldn't surprise me if the political wind is blowing US centrists that way right now! Polls only capture those who are willing to support the candidates already. Those who create election outcomes aren't counted…
This time around there really isn't much by way of idiots ranting about how Biden is as bad or worse of a neoliberal establishment shill than Trump, or that putting the Cockwork Orange in the Oval Office will be good because he will bring the revolution sooner. Which is a bit odd, since the neoliberal thing is truer of Biden than it was of Hillary.
No doubt those idiots are still out there, but maybe they're just not getting traction. Maybe it's because now that Crassius Cray-cray has an actual record in office it's harder for the loonies to project their fantasies onto him. Or maybe Joe fkn Biden wasn't the revolution they were expecting.
“Let’s face it,” actor and Trump supporter James Woods tweeted recently, “Donald Trump is a rough individual. He is vain, insensitive, and raw,” to which Trump blithely responded: “I think that’s a wonderful compliment. Thanks James.”
In July 2016, shortly before Trump became the Republican nominee for president, I was interviewed by Jane Mayer for an article in The New Yorker that was eventually titled “Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All.” Mayer described my experience with Trump over the 18 months it took me to write The Art of the Deal. During that time, I spent hundreds of hours with him.
The catalyst for my shift came after a friend sent me a long paper written by Vince Greenwood, a Washington, D.C.-based psychologist. Greenwood makes a detailed clinical case that Trump is a psychopath, a term that is now used nearly interchangeably with sociopath. Psychologists continue to debate whether it’s legitimate to diagnose anyone from a distance without the benefit of a clinical interview. In Trump’s case, his life history is so well documented that a thorough assessment does seem possible. As I once did up close, we can observe every daywhich psychopathic traits Trump manifests in his behavior. The highly regarded Hare Psychopathy Checklistenumerates20 of them. By my count Trump clearly demonstrates 16 of the traits and his overall score is far higher than the average prison inmate.
“What makes Trump’s behavior challenging to fathom is that our minds are not wired to understand human beings who live far outside the norms, rules, laws, and values that the vast majority of us take for granted. Conscience, empathy, and concern for the welfare of others are all essential to the social contract.
And that's where I made my shift eventually. There's a functional difference in humanity involved here. Just a question of whether he's stable, habituated to that world-view and partisan stance of his, or unstable. If the latter, there will be signs of increasingly erratic behaviour as pressure increases due to sliding poll ratings…
The really dangerous moment will come when the rotting rage papaya finally realises it's over for him.
That he's run out of fresh rubes to offload his problems onto, that those that have the power to bring him down weren't well enough locked onto him that they would also go down with him, and therefore won't give him a free pass.
That's the moment he will really lash out with zero fucks given about consequences, that the more people he hurts with his ragegasm the better in his mind.
They thought they were smarter than he was. Von Schleicher perished in the Night of the Long Knives, but von Papen lived until 1969. They remind me a bit of another pair of Germanic ne’er-do-wells, viz., Messrs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Will the message finally get through to those in the police (USA) who think they are above the law?
The cost of the riots from damage to buildings and the national guard is going to be expensive at a time when there is high unemployment and a pandemic.
Make America Great Again, there is NOTHING in the USA that is great these days due to having a president who is so absorbed about electioneering and his own position.
“It is common in autocratic countries for journalists to be swept up in arrests during protests and riots, but rare in the United States, where news gathering is protected by the First Amendment,” claimed the article’s authors Michael Grynbaum and Marc Santora.
Followed by a torrent of refutations from (the wrong sorts of) journalists
The journalists being arrested are predominantly black and coloured. This is more and example of systemic racism in the police force than an attack on the 1st amendment.
Caitlin's article actually features predominantly white journalists, all carrying press credentials.
She could also have included the Australian journalist,Tim Arvier , dragged out of his car by the cops, or Kaitlin Rust, Tv reporter shot with pepper bullets, also white, or the reporter who lost her eye to a rubber bullet ,Linda Tirado
Of course, the most publicised arrest has been the CNN reporter Omar Jiminez, and he was black, but while racism seems to infect the entire police department , there has been equal opportunity for arrests amongst journalists
That's just not true. Journalists are being attacked, gassed, shot at, and they've clearly identified themselves as press. Black, white, latino… you're just guessing and you're wrong.
The cops are doing Trumps bidding. You know, the media is the enemy. Also they don't want us to see the violence they're now inflicting en-masse, right across the states.
Protecting the filthy rich, shooting at anyone else.
There are numerous reports by journalists on twitter and the msm in the US highlighting the fact that white members of the media have not been targeted. However their black and coloured colleagues have been. There have been instances of media being attacked by protesters eg. A Fox News team in Washington last night outside the White House.
Both judicial and extra judicial right wing white violence is a routine element of US history. From the various massacres (usually white washed as "wars") of first nations that culminated at Wounded Knee to the attack on the bonus army, the numerous instances of anti-union violence like the Ford massacre and Haymarket martyrs to the Tulsa race massacre, Oklahomo City bombing, police riots and any number of far right inspired mass shootings to the lawless and racist militarised policing now being exposed by the ubiquity of mobile phone cameras, this is how the repressive capitalist US state retains control of anyone of colour or of those who dare to dissent.
Having said that, watching a whole lot of tik tok, twitter and news feeds of US police in action I am simply astonished at what a violent rabble they are. In place of training and discipline they use violence as a first resort, and an extraordinary level of violence at that – immediate recourse to various firearms, tear gas and hyper violent arrests.
Look at this rather grainy bit of footage of Korean riot police in action. Now, Korean political violence actually has a much more ritualised anthropological element than what we are seeing in the USA – a riot is a more "routine" aspect of Korean politics. But the thing to note is the high level of training and discipline in these riot police (I suspect the Korean police chief is a student of ancient military tactics, the various lines are manoeuvering in a way that would make even the most severe Centurion – is that a testudo I spy? – crack a whisp of a smile). By contrast, US police are seen arguing with people, operating in ragged lines, using firearms indiscriminately, getting isolated, displaying ill-disciplined violence etc etc etc.
A common refrain from twitter is that the cops have enough protective gear and ammunition, while medics in the US are using rubbish bags as protective gowns.
The cops are proving their worth as protectors of the privileged and controllers of the oppressed. They will get funding increases after this.
Cops already "get the message" – there are actual and clear repercussions on them only for the crimes that get caught on camera. And then there are the ones who can move from department to department when their tide of misconduct catches up with them.
They get rewarded for this stuff. This proves to them and the elite that they are needed.
Trump intends to make Antifa a terrorist organisation, according to media reports, on the basis that he believes they hijacked the protests.
historian Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, credits ARA as the precursor of the modern US antifa groups in the United States and Canada. In the late 1980s and 1990s, ARA activists toured with popular punk rock and skinhead bands in order to prevent Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other assorted white supremacists from recruiting. Their motto was "We go where they go" by which they meant that they would confront far-right activists in concerts and actively remove their materials from public places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
Antifascist is good. Random property destruction, mindless. I was bemused seeing the protestors trashing CNN's headquarters on the tv news last night. Loathed by Trump & the right as liberal/socialist, CNN became a target of the rabble because it is a pillar of the oppressive establishment, I presume. So much for the validity of left/right framing…
Let's be clear: police brutality and violence is the problem here. The many many documented instances of police violence and outright murder provided the simmering background fuel with the police murder of George Floyd merely being the spark.
100%. In every instance of riot police have opened fire on peaceful protests. Random indiscriminate violence on their own populace. Then people get het up and it kicks off. But it's the police at fault. Tone deaf, ignorant, arrogant, murderous.
Yes, that American police continue to believe that they can get away with such behaviour is disgusting. Obviously that's due to the US justice system failing to hold them accountable after each death. We'll see if the jury let's the latest perpetrator off the hook. Eventually.
What amused me briefly when reading the Antifa wiki was that it is described as a non-organisation. Making it terrorist works if it inspires terror in fascists – but where's the evidence of that? Trump does political theatre. We get that. But prosecutions fail unless evidence supports them…
Reap what you sow……. perhaps the greatest truism of all when we Oldies reflect on life.
Maybe it is finally harvest time in the USA ? I hope so, but a lifetime of watching them fuck everything up does not bode well.
It is time for us to study what we have sown. We have shafted Maori since the day we landed. We have deliberately created a society with a shameful level of poverty with burgeoning social and health problems.
Never vote National – they are always on the wrong side of social and moral issues.
You raise a downside to entertainment. There is hope for the carbon footprint. Madrid is doing a rethink on urban planning, wider footpaths, more cycle lanes.
Given the wage subsidy first round expires 12 June, the government should decide on June 8 to go to Level 1 from June 12. And for the sake of employers deciding on staffing levels indicate this asap.
You are aware that the first phase covers workers in businesses that are down 30% of income. When that goes to a smaller number of businesses down 50% of income, there will be those not longer eligible. How many staff those employers can keep on beyond June 12 sans wage subsidy will be determined by their ability to generate the revenue or not. They will have different revenue projections for Level 1 and 2. And the uncertainty adds to their business risk.
I’ve asked you several times for an explanation and you have not been forthcoming with one and now you react all defensive and make silly statements. You might have been talking about hospitality, retail, or something else. It could be based on reality or perception, or indeed on hearsay and anecdotal evidence. We will never find out this way, will we? What a wasted effort.
The media is full of stories of concerned business folk wanting certainty about when it goes to Level 1, want it at Level 1 now. Because it affects their revenue, and the wage subsidy for their staff is expiring.
All those noises in the media that are becoming louder every day demanding L1 now don’t explain or justify dropping the Alert Level. What has going from L2 to L1 to do with the Wage Subsidy Scheme expiring other than coinciding in time, for obvious reasons? Is L1 magically going to extend the Scheme and L2 is not? What is the compelling difference? Why would revenue go up under L1 as opposed to staying in L2? The border will remain closed regardless. Do you want them to open tomorrow? If not, why not?
I understand that many people are concerned, I get that, thank you, but again, that is neither here nor there and no argument or justification in itself.
It seems that you and others are arguing for L1 for the sake of it and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is mass-psychology, not much else, as far as I can tell.
If that’s me being a pendant then you’re the evasive one. All you’ve given so far is vague soundbites and headline stuff. Can’t you give a link to a decent analysis if you cannot provide one yourself in your own words?
And while you’re at it, maybe you can give us the reasoning for why we’re still in L2? That is the other side of the coin but you have been silent about it as if there’s no reason at all.
I assume you’re aware that Cabinet will review the situation in a week’s time, on Monday 8 June? This was signalled some time back so there are no surprises.
Na you are not. Your second paragraph was a massive effort at distraction, diversion and confusion.
Many businesses will lose wage subsidy for their employees from June 12. The number of employees they retain from then will be impacted by whether we are at Level 1 or 2 – because it impacts on their expectations for revenue.
If there is no evidence of community spread by June 8, and the time related practicalities …
Oh jolly, you’re suggesting I’m liar because I posed a bunch of questions because you have, so far, refused to provide any clear answers. And you still give me this waffly emotive runaround BS without anything specific or substantial except something about “expectations”. Are you repeating the same line because you’ve got nothing better, is that it? It is fine if this is the case but just say so and I can start peeling the potatoes.
Have you read Sacha’s link to the Spinoff piece? I cannot tell from your comments.
Maybe this helps, as stranger things have happened:
Ardern said on Monday that Cabinet would consider the settings of level 2 in 10 days, on June 8, and it will meet no later than on June 22 to look at whether the country could move to level 1.
She reiterated that timetable yesterday, saying it was based on Bloomfield’s advice.
But Cabinet could decide, based on his advice, to open up level 2 even more after June 8, or consider moving to level 1 before June 22. [my italics]
“We have given us some space, just in case,” Ardern said yesterday.
“We are opening up much more rapidly than other countries, but we don’t want to jeopardise the very privileged position New Zealanders have earned.
“They worked hard to get us here and I don’t want to lose that.”
Just as well our govt made decisions about pandemic response based on other public health expertise than the Ferguson model, which was published two and a half months ago. It is now held as an exemplar of a successful response that resulted in likely imminent elimination of COVID-19.
Eradication refers to the reduction to zero (or a very low defined target rate) of new cases in a defined geographical area.
Elimination refers to the complete and permanent worldwide reduction to zero new cases of the disease through deliberate efforts.
We have already eradicated it, but we cannot eliminate it without border closure or perfect quarantine.
The task ahead is to operate at Level 1 June July August until the September Oz bubble (with special entry before then – Am Cup sailors/profesional skiers – a quota of Oz skiers etc).
Erm, other way around on those definitions. Elimination is the local reduction of cases to zero and eradication is the worldwide reduction of cases to zero.
Most of the world has eliminated polio, but because it is still endemic in India and Pakistan it is not eradicated. COVID is almost eliminated in New Zealand, but far from eradicated worldwide.
I googled the two words and got the B C answers displayed from the 4 on WHO questionaire (your first link). Why would google display the wrong answers and not the two correct ones A D?
Because google happened to display a snippet from a quiz that tests your understanding of a topic, not an article intended to inform. Google's algorithms aren't sophisticated enough to catch that little wrinkle from an otherwise authoritative source.
Yet already we have individuals who apparently walked unknowingly through the avatar crowd -who don't look like they have bothered with social distancing within their group. Pus the hotel has other guests and by the look of it some shared corridors etc. Doesn't look like anybody down there is taking it too seriously – are any check in staff, bus drivers etc being quarantined too ? Or do we just have a selfish hotel owner putting up a bunch of selfish over entitled wealthy americans.
Yup separation is the key to effective quarantine.
1. airports – people going through to go into quarantine and others flying out (infected Ozzies returning home and Ozzies flying out onto Enzed from September).
2. hotels – people with the virus but without symptoms coming into quarantine and infecting those ending their time in the hotel.
Yep I feel that the quarantine's should be done in maybe pods of 5-7 days of arrivals. Keep them together and then start the next pod. plus testing of course
And it looks like the hotel manager making all the soothing but no real information noises is an American via the gold coast who has been here about 5 minutes since feb 2020 – so likely to have zero social investment here. Treated the existing guests as if they didn't matter/didn't bother to inform them and it probably hasn't dawned on him that we sometimes evacuate in earthquakes – which we have had lately. Then there are all the compromised people who will likely stay home a little longer …. just in case this large group have brought something with them.
If enough people make a good case for it, govt can certainly change the subsidy timing to follow the public health advice – just not the other way around, thanks.
Saying that the government is merely a cipher of the health advice received is simplifying it a bit.
Largely it has prioritised health considerations, and I suspect it has done so because it was burnt a bit taking business opine into account early on (did not block tourists and quarantine returning Kiwis as soon as advised to).
This has led to mistakes – they should have allowed butchers and greengrocers to open as dairies did, and the growing perception they are being too cautious on the climb back out of the lockdown.
Surely you have read by now the quite practical considerations in that decision about mandatory quarantine?
Similarly the decision about food retailers was as much about reducing risk to supply chain workers as to the public. Supermarkets are more efficient as you'd expect. Dairies were the trade-off.
None of this is any justification for prioritising the wishes of weiners who want their level one now or they'll hold their breath and sulk.
Actually, that's a bit rude of me. It's fair for people to be concerned about the prospect of further immediate job losses and business collapses. That will happen whatever we do, for the rest of the year.
Too many of the voices I'm hearing clamouring for 'back to normal' right now seem motivated by concern for their 'freedoms' rather than other people's livelihoods.
There were adverse business consequences for being slow to control borders at the beginning of this and the future risk is another incursion over the border.
There is now currently near zero risk of internal spread whether at Level 1 or Level 2.
We are back where we were around 1 March
It's the alcoholics nightmare – the hard part is done, but one relapse… But in reality it's not that bad – we now have faster reporting, better testing and tracking and a more prepared health system and business/community battle trained up. We are now pandemic ready – we were not earlier. The goal of easing the rate of spread has been more than achieved.
The practicalities of a quarantine – available space – maant they had to block all tourists earlier to enable it (they did not because of concern for business MBIE etc). There was for me little risk in butchers and greengrocers remainng open (one in and one out – door opened for them) as the more numerous dairies – as for supply chains they were able to use them for deliveries.
I think "business" have reason to think the first phase has been won and they should be given notice that they will be at Level 1 from June 12 barring an outbreak before then.
Thousands of international students could be flown to Wellington on charter flights and quarantined in the city as part of a plan to bring them back to the capital.
Well there won't be any family visits so they can take that out of the equation , who will be paying the quarantine costs which are likely to be large and it takes only one slip up – from an age group which tend to think they are invulnerable-. Oh and I suppose we are still expected to issue those thousands of part time work visa's which will far exceed any jobs saved !
Between tuition, accommodation, student tourism and family visits, international students poured $450 million into Wellington's economy in the 2017/2018 year, supporting 4290 jobs.
If there was anything about, surely it is not all hidden by those staying home and not getting tested, or being passed on along some chain by those without symptoms – just waiting till we get to level 1 to spring forth reborn (it' not got a cunning plan to get us when we let our guard down).
It's like being offered anti-biotics for a cyst removal, for mine we're at risk of becoming over-medicated for our safety.
I do get her safety first approach. But there is no way to be risk free without closing our borders to those overseas, including returning Kiwis.
We should know by June 8, if there was any under the radar spread going on. So the smart play is to inform business to plan for Level 1 June 12 – unless there are new cases.
There's that story about Nixon during the anti war protests outside the Whitehouse, and his secret service couldn't find him, he was amongst the protesters, talking to them. I see #bunkerboy is trending.
In the face of civil unrest, some past presidents looking to defuse tensions granted protesters an audience. Obama met with activists in the Oval Office in 2014 amid demonstrations over the killing of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Richard Nixon was a self-styled law-and-order president, too, who in 1971 talked about hiring teamsters’ union “thugs” to rough up Vietnam War protesters. Yet Nixon also left the White House early one morning in 1970 and made a surprise trip to the Lincoln Memorial, where he spoke to students protesting the war. Nixon told them: “I know probably most of you think I’m an SOB. But I want you to know that I understand just how you feel.”
“He didn’t know how to connect with them, but he did try to empathize and build a bridge,” Timothy Naftali, a former director of the Nixon Presidential Library, told me. “It was an awkward effort, but it was an effort—a unique effort.”
This Op Ed by Robert Reich is particularly pertinent right now:
Fire, pestilence and a country at war with itself: the Trump presidency is over
You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t noticed. His verbal bombshells are louder than ever, but Donald J Trump is no longer president of the United States.
By having no constructive response to any of the monumental crises now convulsing America, Trump has abdicated his office.
He is not governing. He’s golfing, watching cable TV and tweeting.
How has Trump responded to the widespread unrest following the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for minutes as he was handcuffed on the ground?
Trump called the protesters “thugs” and threatened to have them shot. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he tweeted, parroting a former Miami police chief whose words spurred race riots in the late 1960s.
On Saturday, he gloated about “the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons” awaiting protesters outside the White House, should they ever break through Secret Service lines.
In reality, Donald Trump doesn’t run the government of the United States. He doesn’t manage anything
Trump’s response to the last three ghastly months of mounting disease and death has been just as heedless. Since claiming Covid-19 was a “Democratic hoax” and muzzling public health officials, he has punted management of the coronavirus to the states.
Governors have had to find ventilators to keep patients alive and protective equipment for hospital and other essential workers who lack it, often bidding against each other. They have had to decide how, when and where to reopen their economies.
Trump has claimed “no responsibility at all” for testing and contact-tracing – the keys to containing the virus. His new “plan” places responsibility on states to do their own testing and contact-tracing.
Trump is also awol in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
More than 41 million Americans are jobless. In the coming weeks temporary eviction moratoriums are set to end in half of the states. One-fifth of Americans missed rent payments this month. Extra unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of July.
…
Since moving into the Oval Office in January 2017, Trump hasn’t shown an ounce of interest in governing. He obsesses only about himself.
But it has taken the present set of crises to reveal the depths of his self-absorbed abdication – his utter contempt for his job, his total repudiation of his office.
Trump’s nonfeasance goes far beyond an absence of leadership or inattention to traditional norms and roles. In a time of national trauma, he has relinquished the core duties and responsibilities of the presidency.
He is no longer president. The sooner we stop treating him as if he were, the better.
The multi-tiered racism is repulsive, but then there's the "what the hell stock photo companies do you guys frequent" question that keeps drawing me back. Was that the first image that popped up based on their google history? Or did they cycle through dozens of pictures before deciding that they liked that one the best?
If they want to throw more money at fetracism because of my linking rather than ever bothering to learn to screw around with screencaps, that's just a bonus.
I removed the image, but left the link. The whole thing is rape culture. People can call it kink or laugh, I've seen one leftie today say it turned him on while he implied condemnation of the racism. But the meme is clearly about force and is blatantly misogynist and racist.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-31-05-2020/#comment-1716889 @8
Scott put up a post yesterday quoting some published odds. Thanks Scott.
I don’t understand how they work:
“In the UK William Hill is paying 1/7 for Labour to form government after the election versus 9/2 for National.
In Australia, Sportsbet has Labour at 1.14 versus the Nats at 5.50.”
I don’t even no if the odds are good for Labour or good for National?
You bet $7. If Labour win, you get that $7 back plus another dollar ($8 total).
If you bet $2 on the nats, you get that $2 back plus another $9 ($11 total).
I believe the aussie odds are the total payout on a $1 bet, translated to the above it would be 0.14/1 for Labour and 4.5/1 for National.
So the bookmakers will lose more money if National win. Bookmakers don't like to lose money, so the simple model is that the more likely someone is to win, the less the bookmakers pay for thoe bets.
A more accurate model is that bookmakers adjust their odds based on their betting balance, rather than the exact odds a thing has of winning. If everyone in the home team bets for the home team even though the home team sucks, the bookmakers will lower those odds because of how much they stand to lose in the unlikely event the home team wins. But that's more math than the basic odds.
TL, DR: the bookies don't expect the nats to come anywhere close to winning, and Labour are the hot favourite.
Thanks heaps Chris T and McFlock. I guess those odds would “close” nearer the Election but I will adopt a nonchalant all-knowing persona with which to impress my wife. Ta.
Sorry ianmac. I should have taken the time to explain the odds. But McFlock and Chris T have done it pretty well. The good news is the betting agencies think the election (at the moment at least) is Ardern’s for the taking. Let’s hope it stays that way. Interestingly, while the odds were much closer before the Covid crisis none of the agencies have ever had National winning this election.
Peters and Seymour were handed an easy gift by the protests, and naturally they took it. (Muller would have taken it too but National daren't let him speak about anything now).
I've got no problem with (minor) breaking of rules for a cause, that's always happened throughout the history of non-violent protest. Both police and marchers were sensible today, nobody was out to make trouble and there were never going to be mass arrests which would have made things 10X worse.
But like it or not, adherence to level 2 has been finished off today. It can't be credibly enforced now, and Ardern knows she has to announce something at post-Cab on Monday. Waiting until June 22 is a goner.
I've got no problem with (minor) breaking of rules for a cause
Its actually a major problem due to enhanced respiration (aka yelling)and close contact within highly susceptible groups.
Didt listen to the warning.
Earlier she had warned that people coming together in large numbers and shouting or singing are the perfect combination for allowing Covid-19 to spread.
They didn't listen to the warning, but then … there wasn't one. Not from either the PM or Ashley Bloomfield. (I love Siouxie but she isn't the government).
The march was announced several days ago. It was always going to be a problem. A clear statement to the effect that it should not go ahead (emphasising health rather than heavy-handed policing) would have made a difference (it would still have happened but with reduced numbers).
Ardern made a political calculation not to do that, presumably because she knows what she plans to announce tomorrow. If the government simply miscalculated the size of the gathering, then that is a stuff-up. We'll see.
What’s the logic behind that? Because the 100 limit was breached today in several places? Does this make it safe or does it make it a mockery of the Health advice upon which the Government makes its decisions or a mockery of the enforcement?
Well, let's consider it from the POV of organisations that can control the distancing and contact trace the gathering much better than a random crowd on the street (indoor events like religious services etc).
They will reasonably ask why they can't be allowed more leeway. I can't think of a convincing reason why not.
I mean, the PM could say the march was an exception and wrong and shouldn't have happened and so on, but that's a political hornet's nest she probably won't want to prod.
I can think of a few reasons but you’re right that controlled events are easier for contact tracing although prevention would be preferable IMO. If they’re still not allowed under L2, because the risk is still deemed too high, the questions become how it can be reasonably justified to the general public so that (most) people comply and how can it be reasonably enforced given that there are precedents now. Will be interesting to see what will change tomorrow, if anything.
Is it because they're the colour of poo, is that why we treat them like that?
I like to think that we're doing better here than they are East LA but there are so many indicators that make me wonder.
It's about creating opportunities, viable pathways for all of us to feel proud. Being comfortable need not be a dog eat dog competition with those the colour of pus on a 10 metre head-start.
I'm surprised nobody has cracked onto the significance of George's older sister Pink and her hit tune 'Breathe'.
About that princess. I am concerned that she is looking more and more each day like she are something the wicked witch stuck in an apple or maybe some focaccia… whatever. But she definitely has the appearance of a person that has become spellbound or even zombie like…stepford wifeish.. perhaps she has been kidnapped and replaced by an automaton?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Are you talking about Jacinda? When you get to know someone you begin to overlook the way they look and engage with the person they are. NZ warm to her because of what is in her heart.
Speedy Covid testing will be the next Pharma billion. When we've got that, we've got international travel. Before vaccines and effective therapeutics, we will get fab on the spot 100% accurate testing. Easy non-obtrusive testing at the terminal of departure and the terminal of arrival. (Except China, I'm a bit worried they might tell a fib.) Nothing against the folk, love them, I'm a bit concerned about the AA Milne character.
Our tourism department have been harping on from behind the cow pats '100% Pure' for a while now. (Shhhhh). It turns out to be perfect positioning, the 100% Pure country is Covid free, guaranteed. 'Catch it here, we'll give you a bach on Hot Water Beach'.
How many paranoid people with breathing difficulties and dicky hearts are there in the world with $20,000 to spend on their overseas holiday? Millions.
Everyone has nice scenery. Our USP is Maori. They should be paid like they are. Should be the pointy end of our tourism and remunerated accordingly. I'd still like the opportunity to operate a motel but my customers could be coming to my town because they've been sold an adventure tour that incorporates having the tour bus raided by a fake Hone Heke and his warriors on $125k a year.
Follow the money. Big profits will be made by getting good at the easy bits. 'Chew a mint flavoured strip of cardboard and feed it into a machine while waiting for customs to stamp your passport.
Asymptomatic…their unsuspecting victims are not showing up, are they? How many days of nobody saying 'Oh shit, I've got it.' Will it take for you to surmise 'All of this aso stuff was a dead end?
I think much of the asymptomatic thing is to do with people that have had a dose still registering positive, a test result triggered by the anti-body hammered virus residue that lingers in their system.
A border test that determines if a guest shows evidence of 19 infection, has had it and doesn't pose a threat or a potential guest with a rising temperature. That is the Pharma challenge. It is the lowest hurdle to clear.
Shows what happens when tangata show they have had enough.
Cool Mataini will go ahead in level 1 isolation.
Thanks to the Gisborne District Council for deciding to consult Iwi with their plans.
Its quite easy to see MSM do A flip flop on Maori tangata.
Yes the Treaty of Waitangi has not been hounered some are still trying to bluff that Tangata whenua O Aotearoa are better off being colonised. YEA RIGHT it taken 250 years before they even contemplate that Pacific tangata were better sailers than them we were better at fishing many things but in some eyes Tangata Whenua are just Savages then we see that some of the americas cup yacht were designed off Pacific tangata designs.
It will be good to see all the Tangata being taught a trade at Te Wananga O Aotearoa.
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from 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 public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
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Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
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:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
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. ...
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 ...
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. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
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 Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland SmartS/Shutterstock Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines. Many of us think the age of steam has ended. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
Man, those American police are something else. Aggressive, badly trained, heavily armed and often hopeless infiltrated by the far right. American policing is yet another failure of the American state.
And the violence? It seems to me it is voice of the unheard in full throat.
For anyone who reads Chris Hedges – he has an article on Truthdig from 2018 called The Coming Collapse.
In it he discusses the political options available in the US, and the Trump presidency and while he ends with his perspective on how societies collapse. Written two years ago, the added pressure on society and the economy of the Covid-19 pandemic is not included but he relates his experience of watching the collapse of Yugoslavia.
Recently I've been reading Neil Howe's The Fourth Turning which takes a completely different view of how major cycles run through modern history,
You may find this video interesting
I've watched the first 5mins, paused it. That point about Abraham Lincoln's generation & how youngsters formed their views caused me to intuit that he's on the right track. Identity politics theory suggests we identify with a group if the social context we emerge into provides thinking around important stuff held in common that we share.
Peer groups seem to form in teenage years quite naturally, suggesting a biological basis. Shared identity gets generated in opposition to parental constraints. Which then generates an inter-generational dialectic. The extent, depth & strength, seems to vary however. Ours was extreme – those that followed, much less evident. The punks were rebel poseurs, they never accomplished anything substantial as a generational zeitgeist.
Peer groups seem to form in teenage years quite naturally, suggesting a biological basis.
That's really interesting; while I try to avoid the trap of biological determinism, biology should never be ignored either. It often provides a good set of pre-suppositions, or starting points, from which the trajectories of human behaviour can be traced.
I'm still digesting Howe's work; perhaps what I like most of all his ideas are not dead-ends, like so much incoherent rage that passes for punditry these days.
Another interesting glimpse of his theory (@ 27mins): "Every era we're entering is an era in which everyone who last experienced it is disappearing." That poses a problem for the communal transmission of wisdom: put your oldies out to pasture & ignore them, you lose their gnosis just as it is becoming relevance in current circumstances.
If only there was a way of storing and transmitting knowledge that did not rely on one-on-one discussions..
wisdom and knowledge are different things, albeit interrelated. Experience is a different thing again.
True. What we learn from experience can be articulated as wisdom or knowledge. We have to cross the bridge between self & other to achieve that, of course. Wisdom transmission seems to require some kind of interpersonal resonance at a deeper level than knowledge.
The bridge is the third element in the triadic structure of relationships (which people experience as binary interactions). A digression into metaphysics – but I'm doing it because relationships are invisible!
I don’t think you can transmit wisdom as such unlike knowledge. Knowledge is a necessary ingredient of wisdom, but not sufficient.
As someone who has constantly tried to do it throughout life, I know how rare acknowledgment indicating success is. But you can always see instances from tradition & culture, cited in literature as timeless truths, referred to as pearls of wisdom. So people do believe that it is possible.
Clearly, we’re talking about different things, as usual. If people believe that wisdom can be transmitted then so be it. I believe you can transmit a seed in the mail, pop it in fertile soil, water & nurture it, and a large magnificent tree will grow over time. That, to me, is wisdom. Everything else is just words and word salads.
I'm now up to 13mins, still an interesting dialogue. Found this:
I've always gone with turnings every seven years though. Steiner's view – although I didn't get it from him. I note an implied multiple by three achieves a correlation between the two. The theory would have to explain that before gaining more adherents.
Will put aside some time to watch it. I prefer reading to videos mostly.
(Have to take my library books back soon, so will have a look for the book there while there. Looks interesting, but I hope there are some solutions proposed as well as the theories.)
Half of that applies to us, its a summation of any nation state of neo-liberalism. The Five Eyes group going down together.
The USA had one goal post WW2 build up an international regime that would survive its decline. And then came the PNAC era and now Trump. 50 years of work trashed.
Until this riot, crime in Minneapolis was trending consistently downwards for years.
https://www.cityrating.com/crime-statistics/minnesota/minneapolis.html
In fact crime had been trending downwards across the entire state for 17 years.
https://www.cityrating.com/crime-statistics/minnesota/
Nationwide, a lot more people shot by Police are those classed white, and those numbers have been falling. But it's the black people where those numbers are not falling. Here's the breakdown of US shootings broken down by race.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
AND
2019 deaths
White 370
Black 275
Black pop % is 14%
275 shooting of black is 39% of deaths cf to the black pop of 14%
I'd also be surprised if those numbers were based on an authoritative central registry with mandatory reporting from all law enforcement departments, as opposed to tabulated news reports.
The US has some fucked up rules around reporting firearm deaths and the collation of police-caused homicides, ISTR.
Unfortunatley the stats site wants me to pay to see the source.
My jaw dropped when I saw this:
https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1266952661791674370
Psst: If you put the tweet link on a line of its own, this site will automatically embed and show it here.
that's the scariest thing I've seen in a long time.
(I edited your comment so the tweet embedded).
Absolute insanity, trump driving division and flaming the anger.
Big shout out to the Meidas Touch for their style of sharing information, much respect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AtAgLsDkF4
The real Looters…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmxobxjHMmM
I was looking at the Order of NZ's members today and I noticed a deceased member is Clarence Beeby. I've always thought it a scandal a university is not named after him – I believe Victoria University of Wellington wants a new name to distinguish itself from all the others, why not rename it Clarence Beeby University? Probably our greatest educationalist with one of the colleges of the original University of New Zealand is a great idea IMHO, and I am sure all those coporate managers who are running our universities as a last stand for neoliberalism nowadays will hate the place being named after a socialist, so there is another good reason.
By philosophy and deed it seemed that Ministers of Education like Tolley, Parata and at the end Kaye had never heard of Beeby.
Very progressive force in education.
Good friend of my Grandmother's (she was active in the Wellington Region Labour Party & heavily involved in progressive currents in education through the 1930s-50s). He introduced the IQ Test to NZ & my Mother & Uncles / Aunties are pretty sure they were the first kids in the Country to do the test in the 30s (because of their Mother's friendship with Beeby … they probably bordered on experimental guinea pig status).
But it will get mixed up with all those other Clarence Beeby Universities and
studentscustomers will be confused about which brand they are buying.A brilliant suggestion. Beeby was an original.
If the pandemic socked Trump with a straight right, the riots have followed up with a left hook to the jaw. Woozy, the champ struggles manfully on, but now Biden's status as front-runner is firming up.
Biden's strategy of becoming winner by default is looking good due to those double blows fate has inflicted on Trump. Biden even seemed statesmanlike in that speech quoted here last night. The staffer who wrote it is a good hire.
Those polls, as we saw in 2016, are as trustworthy as a denial of wrongdoing by either Trump or Biden.
Now be fair Dennis Frank. I'm sure that speech belonged to Biden but yes, it does help to have a good speech writer in the mix. 😉
I'm open to that possibility Anne. My problem with Biden is that he hasn't ever showed evidence of such thinking previously, which is the reason for my scepticism.
I'm way more anti-Trump than I was some years ago. I went from seeing him as buffoon to seeing him as natural expression of the anti-establishment zeitgeist in 2015, then hoped he would mature into responsibility in office. He failed.
Biden may yet prove to be an exception to that old dog/new tricks cliche. But even if he just makes a reasonable choice for veep and hires an ok cabinet, then spends his four years doing a Weekend at Bernie's, the last three and a bit years will make it feel like a holiday.
Yeah, exactly. And wouldn't surprise me if the political wind is blowing US centrists that way right now! Polls only capture those who are willing to support the candidates already. Those who create election outcomes aren't counted…
This time around there really isn't much by way of idiots ranting about how Biden is as bad or worse of a neoliberal establishment shill than Trump, or that putting the Cockwork Orange in the Oval Office will be good because he will bring the revolution sooner. Which is a bit odd, since the neoliberal thing is truer of Biden than it was of Hillary.
No doubt those idiots are still out there, but maybe they're just not getting traction. Maybe it's because now that Crassius Cray-cray has an actual record in office it's harder for the loonies to project their fantasies onto him. Or maybe Joe fkn Biden wasn't the revolution they were expecting.
There's good grounds for expecting worse to come:
And that's where I made my shift eventually. There's a functional difference in humanity involved here. Just a question of whether he's stable, habituated to that world-view and partisan stance of his, or unstable. If the latter, there will be signs of increasingly erratic behaviour as pressure increases due to sliding poll ratings…
The really dangerous moment will come when the rotting rage papaya finally realises it's over for him.
That he's run out of fresh rubes to offload his problems onto, that those that have the power to bring him down weren't well enough locked onto him that they would also go down with him, and therefore won't give him a free pass.
That's the moment he will really lash out with zero fucks given about consequences, that the more people he hurts with his ragegasm the better in his mind.
…. hoped he would mature into responsibility in office.
Those masterly strategists Von Schleicher and Von Papen hoped similarly in 1932.
😊 and were outmanouevered by a goddam watercolour artist! How galling!
They thought they were smarter than he was. Von Schleicher perished in the Night of the Long Knives, but von Papen lived until 1969. They remind me a bit of another pair of Germanic ne’er-do-wells, viz., Messrs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Will the message finally get through to those in the police (USA) who think they are above the law?
The cost of the riots from damage to buildings and the national guard is going to be expensive at a time when there is high unemployment and a pandemic.
Make America Great Again, there is NOTHING in the USA that is great these days due to having a president who is so absorbed about electioneering and his own position.
Another good piece by Caitlin Johnstone exposing the hypocritical PR machine of the Land of the Free
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/many-us-journalists-arrested-after-new-york-times-falsely-claims-that-doesnt-happen-in-america-7a832ae1c15e
“It is common in autocratic countries for journalists to be swept up in arrests during protests and riots, but rare in the United States, where news gathering is protected by the First Amendment,” claimed the article’s authors Michael Grynbaum and Marc Santora.
Followed by a torrent of refutations from (the wrong sorts of) journalists
"…in the United States, where news gathering is protected by the First Amendment."
Julian Assange used to believe that lie.
The journalists being arrested are predominantly black and coloured. This is more and example of systemic racism in the police force than an attack on the 1st amendment.
But how else to shoehorn Mr Breen's crush into the conversation?
Really?
Where do you get that from?
Caitlin's article actually features predominantly white journalists, all carrying press credentials.
She could also have included the Australian journalist,Tim Arvier , dragged out of his car by the cops, or Kaitlin Rust, Tv reporter shot with pepper bullets, also white, or the reporter who lost her eye to a rubber bullet ,Linda Tirado
Of course, the most publicised arrest has been the CNN reporter Omar Jiminez, and he was black, but while racism seems to infect the entire police department , there has been equal opportunity for arrests amongst journalists
That's just not true. Journalists are being attacked, gassed, shot at, and they've clearly identified themselves as press. Black, white, latino… you're just guessing and you're wrong.
The cops are doing Trumps bidding. You know, the media is the enemy. Also they don't want us to see the violence they're now inflicting en-masse, right across the states.
Protecting the filthy rich, shooting at anyone else.
There are numerous reports by journalists on twitter and the msm in the US highlighting the fact that white members of the media have not been targeted. However their black and coloured colleagues have been. There have been instances of media being attacked by protesters eg. A Fox News team in Washington last night outside the White House.
Guardian article below that begs to differ
Your sources?
Be interested in all points of view
Just a few
https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1266912651373940736
From Axios Reporter Alexi McCammond
https://twitter.com/alexi/status/1266674270576488448?s=19
https://twitter.com/ur_ninja/status/1266913490301792257?s=21
https://twitter.com/AliVelshi/status/1266911534963478532?s=20
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1266910910137995264?s=21
https://twitter.com/killermartinis/status/1266618525600399361?s=21
This twitter thread has many more
https://twitter.com/_nullifidius/status/1266979216865837057
From twitter, I saw early reports mainly about racially-targeted attacks but later ones suggesting a broader anti-reporter focus.
The two horrible phenomena go together, I'm afraid.
Jenn is not black, but the cops just beat her up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXmIH9JcSUU&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=StatusCoup
Both judicial and extra judicial right wing white violence is a routine element of US history. From the various massacres (usually white washed as "wars") of first nations that culminated at Wounded Knee to the attack on the bonus army, the numerous instances of anti-union violence like the Ford massacre and Haymarket martyrs to the Tulsa race massacre, Oklahomo City bombing, police riots and any number of far right inspired mass shootings to the lawless and racist militarised policing now being exposed by the ubiquity of mobile phone cameras, this is how the repressive capitalist US state retains control of anyone of colour or of those who dare to dissent.
Having said that, watching a whole lot of tik tok, twitter and news feeds of US police in action I am simply astonished at what a violent rabble they are. In place of training and discipline they use violence as a first resort, and an extraordinary level of violence at that – immediate recourse to various firearms, tear gas and hyper violent arrests.
Look at this rather grainy bit of footage of Korean riot police in action. Now, Korean political violence actually has a much more ritualised anthropological element than what we are seeing in the USA – a riot is a more "routine" aspect of Korean politics. But the thing to note is the high level of training and discipline in these riot police (I suspect the Korean police chief is a student of ancient military tactics, the various lines are manoeuvering in a way that would make even the most severe Centurion – is that a testudo I spy? – crack a whisp of a smile). By contrast, US police are seen arguing with people, operating in ragged lines, using firearms indiscriminately, getting isolated, displaying ill-disciplined violence etc etc etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsXelz7oJko
Cops don't pay for reconstruction.
A common refrain from twitter is that the cops have enough protective gear and ammunition, while medics in the US are using rubbish bags as protective gowns.
The cops are proving their worth as protectors of the privileged and controllers of the oppressed. They will get funding increases after this.
"Cops don't pay for reconstruction."
I did not say who pays.
There are a lot of oppressed people hurting in the USA who are venting and need to be reassured and listened to.
Cops already "get the message" – there are actual and clear repercussions on them only for the crimes that get caught on camera. And then there are the ones who can move from department to department when their tide of misconduct catches up with them.
They get rewarded for this stuff. This proves to them and the elite that they are needed.
Just sickening – and this is the current PO
TUS.Warning – graphic description of sexual abuse
https://twitter.com/tamedojev/status/1267098528892870656
Trump intends to make Antifa a terrorist organisation, according to media reports, on the basis that he believes they hijacked the protests.
Antifascist is good. Random property destruction, mindless. I was bemused seeing the protestors trashing CNN's headquarters on the tv news last night. Loathed by Trump & the right as liberal/socialist, CNN became a target of the rabble because it is a pillar of the oppressive establishment, I presume. So much for the validity of left/right framing…
Let's be clear: police brutality and violence is the problem here. The many many documented instances of police violence and outright murder provided the simmering background fuel with the police murder of George Floyd merely being the spark.
Let's not obscure that root cause by both-sidesing this: the majority of protest is in fact peaceful. And when violence does occur, it's often initiated by police brutality on the scene. At this stage it's unclear how much of the protest violence is initiated by misinformation and provocateurs, but that element certainly also has a presence.
Let's also keep fresh in our minds how the current maladministration has set the scene for the eruption, by outright signalling that police will likely not be held accountable and by dismantling programs to improve policing.
100%. In every instance of riot police have opened fire on peaceful protests. Random indiscriminate violence on their own populace. Then people get het up and it kicks off. But it's the police at fault. Tone deaf, ignorant, arrogant, murderous.
Yes, that American police continue to believe that they can get away with such behaviour is disgusting. Obviously that's due to the US justice system failing to hold them accountable after each death. We'll see if the jury let's the latest perpetrator off the hook. Eventually.
What amused me briefly when reading the Antifa wiki was that it is described as a non-organisation. Making it terrorist works if it inspires terror in fascists – but where's the evidence of that? Trump does political theatre. We get that. But prosecutions fail unless evidence supports them…
and as always the fat fuck is two hours late
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/antifa-domestic-terrorists-us-security-agencies-homeland-security-fbi-a7927881.html
that guy just can't get anything right. maga. All the fucking way to hell.
Apparently there is a police office (or similar) in the CNN building.
Okay, I guess that explains it. Well, partially, anyway. Thanks for the info.
Reap what you sow……. perhaps the greatest truism of all when we Oldies reflect on life.
Maybe it is finally harvest time in the USA ? I hope so, but a lifetime of watching them fuck everything up does not bode well.
It is time for us to study what we have sown. We have shafted Maori since the day we landed. We have deliberately created a society with a shameful level of poverty with burgeoning social and health problems.
Never vote National – they are always on the wrong side of social and moral issues.
Seems to me journalists are definitely being targeted in the protests…by both sides, that's how toxic it's all become
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/31/george-floyd-protests-reporters-targeted-by-police-and-crowds
A fair few of independent journalist I follow have been targeted – they have either been arrested or beaten.
The US is way down the list of the World Press Freedom Index for 2020
45th out of 180 countries, so it shouldn't be shocking, but it still is
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2006/S00001/after-years-of-trumps-demonization-of-the-media-unprecedented-violence-against-journalists.htm
There is a revival for drive in movies. Nice to see a drive in concert being done so people can participate in person.
Cool, where is that happening?
USA, Denmark, Germany. A lot are pop ups.
I thought we were supposed to be doing things to reduce our carbon footprint?
How do you get to the movies? By levitation?
You raise a downside to entertainment. There is hope for the carbon footprint. Madrid is doing a rethink on urban planning, wider footpaths, more cycle lanes.
Given the wage subsidy first round expires 12 June, the government should decide on June 8 to go to Level 1 from June 12. And for the sake of employers deciding on staffing levels indicate this asap.
Can you please explain what difference Level 1 would make to people currently on the Wage Subsidy Scheme?
You are aware that the first phase covers workers in businesses that are down 30% of income. When that goes to a smaller number of businesses down 50% of income, there will be those not longer eligible. How many staff those employers can keep on beyond June 12 sans wage subsidy will be determined by their ability to generate the revenue or not. They will have different revenue projections for Level 1 and 2. And the uncertainty adds to their business risk.
I can take your word for it but an explanation with a few examples would carry more weight 😉
What is the main difference, in your view, between L2 and L1?
Number of punters that can be packed in at the same time. The gap does diminish with each loosening of Level 2.
I went out for dinner the other night and couldn’t tell we are in L2 still. What punters are you referring to?
Who can argue with yoursay hearsay.
So we can rest easy knowing that business has no problem continuing at Level 2.
I’ve asked you several times for an explanation and you have not been forthcoming with one and now you react all defensive and make silly statements. You might have been talking about hospitality, retail, or something else. It could be based on reality or perception, or indeed on hearsay and anecdotal evidence. We will never find out this way, will we? What a wasted effort.
Na, you've played with a pedant's bat.
The media is full of stories of concerned business folk wanting certainty about when it goes to Level 1, want it at Level 1 now. Because it affects their revenue, and the wage subsidy for their staff is expiring.
No, I’m genuine.
All those noises in the media that are becoming louder every day demanding L1 now don’t explain or justify dropping the Alert Level. What has going from L2 to L1 to do with the Wage Subsidy Scheme expiring other than coinciding in time, for obvious reasons? Is L1 magically going to extend the Scheme and L2 is not? What is the compelling difference? Why would revenue go up under L1 as opposed to staying in L2? The border will remain closed regardless. Do you want them to open tomorrow? If not, why not?
I understand that many people are concerned, I get that, thank you, but again, that is neither here nor there and no argument or justification in itself.
It seems that you and others are arguing for L1 for the sake of it and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is mass-psychology, not much else, as far as I can tell.
If that’s me being a pendant then you’re the evasive one. All you’ve given so far is vague soundbites and headline stuff. Can’t you give a link to a decent analysis if you cannot provide one yourself in your own words?
And while you’re at it, maybe you can give us the reasoning for why we’re still in L2? That is the other side of the coin but you have been silent about it as if there’s no reason at all.
I assume you’re aware that Cabinet will review the situation in a week’s time, on Monday 8 June? This was signalled some time back so there are no surprises.
Na you are not. Your second paragraph was a massive effort at distraction, diversion and confusion.
Many businesses will lose wage subsidy for their employees from June 12. The number of employees they retain from then will be impacted by whether we are at Level 1 or 2 – because it impacts on their expectations for revenue.
If there is no evidence of community spread by June 8, and the time related practicalities …
Oh jolly, you’re suggesting I’m liar because I posed a bunch of questions because you have, so far, refused to provide any clear answers. And you still give me this waffly emotive runaround BS without anything specific or substantial except something about “expectations”. Are you repeating the same line because you’ve got nothing better, is that it? It is fine if this is the case but just say so and I can start peeling the potatoes.
Have you read Sacha’s link to the Spinoff piece? I cannot tell from your comments.
Maybe this helps, as stranger things have happened:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12335604
I'd rather our govt made decisions about pandemic response based on public health expertise. Enough examples in the world of failure to do that.
Yeah there certainly are, the Fergusson projection for one.
But this is more about their wage subsidy being in synch with their Level change timing.
Just as well our govt made decisions about pandemic response based on other public health expertise than the Ferguson model, which was published two and a half months ago. It is now held as an exemplar of a successful response that resulted in likely imminent elimination of COVID-19.
Pandemic language
Eradication refers to the reduction to zero (or a very low defined target rate) of new cases in a defined geographical area.
Elimination refers to the complete and permanent worldwide reduction to zero new cases of the disease through deliberate efforts.
We have already eradicated it, but we cannot eliminate it without border closure or perfect quarantine.
The task ahead is to operate at Level 1 June July August until the September Oz bubble (with special entry before then – Am Cup sailors/profesional skiers – a quota of Oz skiers etc).
Erm, other way around on those definitions. Elimination is the local reduction of cases to zero and eradication is the worldwide reduction of cases to zero.
Most of the world has eliminated polio, but because it is still endemic in India and Pakistan it is not eradicated. COVID is almost eliminated in New Zealand, but far from eradicated worldwide.
https://vaccine-safety-training.org/elements/articles/eradication-difference.html
https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2016/july/global-health-101-control-erad
I googled the two words and got the B C answers displayed from the 4 on WHO questionaire (your first link). Why would google display the wrong answers and not the two correct ones A D?
Andre is correct. Google is just a machine.
Obviously.
Because google happened to display a snippet from a quiz that tests your understanding of a topic, not an article intended to inform. Google's algorithms aren't sophisticated enough to catch that little wrinkle from an otherwise authoritative source.
Obviously.
Yet already we have individuals who apparently walked unknowingly through the avatar crowd -who don't look like they have bothered with social distancing within their group. Pus the hotel has other guests and by the look of it some shared corridors etc. Doesn't look like anybody down there is taking it too seriously – are any check in staff, bus drivers etc being quarantined too ? Or do we just have a selfish hotel owner putting up a bunch of selfish over entitled wealthy americans.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/121686690/guests-stunned-to-find-they-are-staying-alongside-avatar-crew-direct-from-covid19-hot-zone
And if there is a shared entrance way isn't it going to be just dandy if there is an earthquake or any othe kind of evacuation needed.
Yup separation is the key to effective quarantine.
1. airports – people going through to go into quarantine and others flying out (infected Ozzies returning home and Ozzies flying out onto Enzed from September).
2. hotels – people with the virus but without symptoms coming into quarantine and infecting those ending their time in the hotel.
Yep I feel that the quarantine's should be done in maybe pods of 5-7 days of arrivals. Keep them together and then start the next pod. plus testing of course
Yes the fucking government better not let this bug loose again because they are under orders from thoses dicks cameron and the hobbit.
And it looks like the hotel manager making all the soothing but no real information noises is an American via the gold coast who has been here about 5 minutes since feb 2020 – so likely to have zero social investment here. Treated the existing guests as if they didn't matter/didn't bother to inform them and it probably hasn't dawned on him that we sometimes evacuate in earthquakes – which we have had lately. Then there are all the compromised people who will likely stay home a little longer …. just in case this large group have brought something with them.
http://hotelmagazine.co.nz/2020/02/27/ian-charlton-hotel-manager-qt-wellington/
If enough people make a good case for it, govt can certainly change the subsidy timing to follow the public health advice – just not the other way around, thanks.
Saying that the government is merely a cipher of the health advice received is simplifying it a bit.
Largely it has prioritised health considerations, and I suspect it has done so because it was burnt a bit taking business opine into account early on (did not block tourists and quarantine returning Kiwis as soon as advised to).
This has led to mistakes – they should have allowed butchers and greengrocers to open as dairies did, and the growing perception they are being too cautious on the climb back out of the lockdown.
Such is the price of victory in that matter.
Surely you have read by now the quite practical considerations in that decision about mandatory quarantine?
Similarly the decision about food retailers was as much about reducing risk to supply chain workers as to the public. Supermarkets are more efficient as you'd expect. Dairies were the trade-off.
None of this is any justification for prioritising the wishes of weiners who want their level one now or they'll hold their breath and sulk.
Actually, that's a bit rude of me. It's fair for people to be concerned about the prospect of further immediate job losses and business collapses. That will happen whatever we do, for the rest of the year.
Too many of the voices I'm hearing clamouring for 'back to normal' right now seem motivated by concern for their 'freedoms' rather than other people's livelihoods.
There were adverse business consequences for being slow to control borders at the beginning of this and the future risk is another incursion over the border.
There is now currently near zero risk of internal spread whether at Level 1 or Level 2.
We are back where we were around 1 March
It's the alcoholics nightmare – the hard part is done, but one relapse… But in reality it's not that bad – we now have faster reporting, better testing and tracking and a more prepared health system and business/community battle trained up. We are now pandemic ready – we were not earlier. The goal of easing the rate of spread has been more than achieved.
The practicalities of a quarantine – available space – maant they had to block all tourists earlier to enable it (they did not because of concern for business MBIE etc). There was for me little risk in butchers and greengrocers remainng open (one in and one out – door opened for them) as the more numerous dairies – as for supply chains they were able to use them for deliveries.
I think "business" have reason to think the first phase has been won and they should be given notice that they will be at Level 1 from June 12 barring an outbreak before then.
The Bau crowds want to import and quarantine
Well there won't be any family visits so they can take that out of the equation , who will be paying the quarantine costs which are likely to be large and it takes only one slip up – from an age group which tend to think they are invulnerable-. Oh and I suppose we are still expected to issue those thousands of part time work visa's which will far exceed any jobs saved !
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/121687861/charter-flights-considered-to-bring-international-students-back-to-wellington
They do have student hostels and the Chinese have very few current cases.
But yes the student access to jobs has an impact on job availability to locals – thus a gain to the university, but not a net gain to the economy.
I'd do a quota on numbers – prioritise the doctorates, masters students and maybe year 3 undergraduate this year.
Had this same discussion weeks ago here. Not going to repeat it. Anyway, here's Siouxsie: https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/31-05-2020/siouxsie-wiles-many-want-to-go-to-alert-level-one-right-now-i-get-that-but-wed-be-fools-to-rush/
If there was anything about, surely it is not all hidden by those staying home and not getting tested, or being passed on along some chain by those without symptoms – just waiting till we get to level 1 to spring forth reborn (it' not got a cunning plan to get us when we let our guard down).
It's like being offered anti-biotics for a cyst removal, for mine we're at risk of becoming over-medicated for our safety.
I do get her safety first approach. But there is no way to be risk free without closing our borders to those overseas, including returning Kiwis.
We should know by June 8, if there was any under the radar spread going on. So the smart play is to inform business to plan for Level 1 June 12 – unless there are new cases.
I'm not sure which part of two-week lag time is escaping you but as I said this discussion has already been had. Enjoy your eve.
You too. It will be two weeks from last cabinet by June 8.
It is based on expert advice and the aim is to reduce the risk, not to be risk-free, which is a strawman.
"95%"
https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1267267461394714625
There's that story about Nixon during the anti war protests outside the Whitehouse, and his secret service couldn't find him, he was amongst the protesters, talking to them. I see #bunkerboy is trending.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/05/white-house-protest-trump-black-lives-matter/612418/
Yes, it was an effort, and a brave one. Bunkerboy has turned off the lights at the WH hoping no one will notice.
This Op Ed by Robert Reich is particularly pertinent right now:
Fire, pestilence and a country at war with itself: the Trump presidency is over
Those "Hobson's Pledge" jerkoffs have resurfaced again, along with the rest of the pond scum.
Now with imagery that would have made Freud proud:
https://twitter.com/hobsons_pledge/status/1265028898858786817
😩
inorite?
The multi-tiered racism is repulsive, but then there's the "what the hell stock photo companies do you guys frequent" question that keeps drawing me back. Was that the first image that popped up based on their google history? Or did they cycle through dozens of pictures before deciding that they liked that one the best?
would you like a bit of kink with that plate of racism?
definitely a niche website. Rule34Chan maybe?
This image has been previously used widely in a variety of memes, they're aren't the originators of the format, still an odd choice.
wtf?
Pond scum have some use. Hobson outfit don't.
All I'm seeing is references to John Key..
Congrats. You have just given them a boost by linking directly to their tweet rather than a screengrab of it (if you must at all).
If they want to throw more money at fetracism because of my linking rather than ever bothering to learn to screw around with screencaps, that's just a bonus.
I removed the image, but left the link. The whole thing is rape culture. People can call it kink or laugh, I've seen one leftie today say it turned him on while he implied condemnation of the racism. But the meme is clearly about force and is blatantly misogynist and racist.
Good call!
This is four wives Don Brash's outfit, right?
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-31-05-2020/#comment-1716889 @8
Scott put up a post yesterday quoting some published odds. Thanks Scott.
I don’t understand how they work:
“In the UK William Hill is paying 1/7 for Labour to form government after the election versus 9/2 for National.
In Australia, Sportsbet has Labour at 1.14 versus the Nats at 5.50.”
I don’t even no if the odds are good for Labour or good for National?
Aussie ones mean you get 5.50 back for every dollar spent on the Nats winning and only 1.14 for Labour winning,, so Nats bad
UK ones work differently and can't really explain that well in words
From memory of living there for a bit (and could be wrong)
It would be 1/7 – for every 7 pound you get one, 9/2 – for every 2 pound you get 9, so Nats bad
Unless the Nats were to win of course as depending how much you bet you would be loaded 🙂
But could be wrong though, and apologies if I am
You bet $7. If Labour win, you get that $7 back plus another dollar ($8 total).
If you bet $2 on the nats, you get that $2 back plus another $9 ($11 total).
I believe the aussie odds are the total payout on a $1 bet, translated to the above it would be 0.14/1 for Labour and 4.5/1 for National.
So the bookmakers will lose more money if National win. Bookmakers don't like to lose money, so the simple model is that the more likely someone is to win, the less the bookmakers pay for thoe bets.
A more accurate model is that bookmakers adjust their odds based on their betting balance, rather than the exact odds a thing has of winning. If everyone in the home team bets for the home team even though the home team sucks, the bookmakers will lower those odds because of how much they stand to lose in the unlikely event the home team wins. But that's more math than the basic odds.
TL, DR: the bookies don't expect the nats to come anywhere close to winning, and Labour are the hot favourite.
Thanks heaps Chris T and McFlock. I guess those odds would “close” nearer the Election but I will adopt a nonchalant all-knowing persona with which to impress my wife. Ta.
Sorry ianmac. I should have taken the time to explain the odds. But McFlock and Chris T have done it pretty well. The good news is the betting agencies think the election (at the moment at least) is Ardern’s for the taking. Let’s hope it stays that way. Interestingly, while the odds were much closer before the Covid crisis none of the agencies have ever had National winning this election.
I knew someone could put it a lot better than me instantly
One day in the USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7rOSiYiRNQ
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js“>http://<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Protesters in Auckland showing that our team of 5 million are being let down by a small group who think they know better than everyone else. If the authorities allow this to occur then we should be at level 1 tomorrow.</p>— Winston Peters (@winstonpeters) <a href="https://twitter.com/winstonpeters/status/1267347397597818882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 1, 2020</a></blockquote> https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Winston Peters is doing that seductive dance he does around Election time. In this case to the National Party base.
You only need to past the tweet address onto a line of its own, not the full embed code – the system here takes care of the rest:
https://twitter.com/winstonpeters/status/1267347397597818882
Speling, on the other hand..
Peters and Seymour were handed an easy gift by the protests, and naturally they took it. (Muller would have taken it too but National daren't let him speak about anything now).
I've got no problem with (minor) breaking of rules for a cause, that's always happened throughout the history of non-violent protest. Both police and marchers were sensible today, nobody was out to make trouble and there were never going to be mass arrests which would have made things 10X worse.
But like it or not, adherence to level 2 has been finished off today. It can't be credibly enforced now, and Ardern knows she has to announce something at post-Cab on Monday. Waiting until June 22 is a goner.
I've got no problem with (minor) breaking of rules for a cause
Its actually a major problem due to enhanced respiration (aka yelling)and close contact within highly susceptible groups.
Didt listen to the warning.
Earlier she had warned that people coming together in large numbers and shouting or singing are the perfect combination for allowing Covid-19 to spread.
https://twitter.com/SiouxsieW/status/1267359604922408961
Heres the physics for the transport problem.
https://twitter.com/tonyzortea/status/1262795568885239808
Fucking imbeciles.
They didn't listen to the warning, but then … there wasn't one. Not from either the PM or Ashley Bloomfield. (I love Siouxie but she isn't the government).
The march was announced several days ago. It was always going to be a problem. A clear statement to the effect that it should not go ahead (emphasising health rather than heavy-handed policing) would have made a difference (it would still have happened but with reduced numbers).
Ardern made a political calculation not to do that, presumably because she knows what she plans to announce tomorrow. If the government simply miscalculated the size of the gathering, then that is a stuff-up. We'll see.
Will the PM be making a special announcement tomorrow?
Post-Cab. She'll be grilled on Level 1, so it seems certain she'll announce something, even if only a change in Level 2 rules.
No way she can now say "100 limit stays for several more weeks".
Ta
What’s the logic behind that? Because the 100 limit was breached today in several places? Does this make it safe or does it make it a mockery of the Health advice upon which the Government makes its decisions or a mockery of the enforcement?
Well, let's consider it from the POV of organisations that can control the distancing and contact trace the gathering much better than a random crowd on the street (indoor events like religious services etc).
They will reasonably ask why they can't be allowed more leeway. I can't think of a convincing reason why not.
I mean, the PM could say the march was an exception and wrong and shouldn't have happened and so on, but that's a political hornet's nest she probably won't want to prod.
I can think of a few reasons but you’re right that controlled events are easier for contact tracing although prevention would be preferable IMO. If they’re still not allowed under L2, because the risk is still deemed too high, the questions become how it can be reasonably justified to the general public so that (most) people comply and how can it be reasonably enforced given that there are precedents now. Will be interesting to see what will change tomorrow, if anything.
Long time no see!
The Roy Morgan poll is back.
Look at National's numbers, they really need to roll Simon Bridges. Wonder who they've got lined up?
From the roy morgan
PM Jacinda Ardern ascendant as Labour support (56.5%) is now more than double National (26.5%) three months from NZ Election
Is it because they're the colour of poo, is that why we treat them like that?
I like to think that we're doing better here than they are East LA but there are so many indicators that make me wonder.
It's about creating opportunities, viable pathways for all of us to feel proud. Being comfortable need not be a dog eat dog competition with those the colour of pus on a 10 metre head-start.
I'm surprised nobody has cracked onto the significance of George's older sister Pink and her hit tune 'Breathe'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5a4il8A7M
About that princess. I am concerned that she is looking more and more each day like she are something the wicked witch stuck in an apple or maybe some focaccia… whatever. But she definitely has the appearance of a person that has become spellbound or even zombie like…stepford wifeish.. perhaps she has been kidnapped and replaced by an automaton?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Are you talking about Jacinda? When you get to know someone you begin to overlook the way they look and engage with the person they are. NZ warm to her because of what is in her heart.
Are you good looking George?
Speedy Covid testing will be the next Pharma billion. When we've got that, we've got international travel. Before vaccines and effective therapeutics, we will get fab on the spot 100% accurate testing. Easy non-obtrusive testing at the terminal of departure and the terminal of arrival. (Except China, I'm a bit worried they might tell a fib.) Nothing against the folk, love them, I'm a bit concerned about the AA Milne character.
Our tourism department have been harping on from behind the cow pats '100% Pure' for a while now. (Shhhhh). It turns out to be perfect positioning, the 100% Pure country is Covid free, guaranteed. 'Catch it here, we'll give you a bach on Hot Water Beach'.
How many paranoid people with breathing difficulties and dicky hearts are there in the world with $20,000 to spend on their overseas holiday? Millions.
Everyone has nice scenery. Our USP is Maori. They should be paid like they are. Should be the pointy end of our tourism and remunerated accordingly. I'd still like the opportunity to operate a motel but my customers could be coming to my town because they've been sold an adventure tour that incorporates having the tour bus raided by a fake Hone Heke and his warriors on $125k a year.
PCR testing has a 30% false negative rate,you can readily assume that asymptomatic vectors are in our population,
https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1266028903333867521
Follow the money. Big profits will be made by getting good at the easy bits. 'Chew a mint flavoured strip of cardboard and feed it into a machine while waiting for customs to stamp your passport.
Asymptomatic…their unsuspecting victims are not showing up, are they? How many days of nobody saying 'Oh shit, I've got it.' Will it take for you to surmise 'All of this aso stuff was a dead end?
I think much of the asymptomatic thing is to do with people that have had a dose still registering positive, a test result triggered by the anti-body hammered virus residue that lingers in their system.
A border test that determines if a guest shows evidence of 19 infection, has had it and doesn't pose a threat or a potential guest with a rising temperature. That is the Pharma challenge. It is the lowest hurdle to clear.
We could adopt the National Party method for determining if an incoming visitor has Covid-19.
How much money have you got?
It's easy to forget how nice it is to have moved on from that mindset.
I love you and the people that love you.
Kia Ora
Newshub.
The new free training program will be great for Maori Pacific people elderly and Wahine can all get a new trade Ka pai.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama.
That would be good if whale bones could heal Kauri Dieback.
That problem in Te Tai Tokerau is also prevalent in Te Tairawhiti to.
Ka pai to Hoani Waitit Kura Kaupapa for your great mahi teaching te reo to tamariki.
Having the Wairoa Maori film festival online is cool .
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
The Am Show.
He will be 100 % better than the person in charge now.
I've done 4 days working with out sleep. People who can't sleep need to stop the caffeine intake.
One reason for high risk is because minority culture tangata work all the low paid services mahi.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
That's good making adjustments to NCEA and Unervsity targets to get passes for students.
Time to get use to the changes.
A $400 million boost if funding for science in Aotearoa was needed and is awesome.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama.
Shows what happens when tangata show they have had enough.
Cool Mataini will go ahead in level 1 isolation.
Thanks to the Gisborne District Council for deciding to consult Iwi with their plans.
Its quite easy to see MSM do A flip flop on Maori tangata.
Yes the Treaty of Waitangi has not been hounered some are still trying to bluff that Tangata whenua O Aotearoa are better off being colonised. YEA RIGHT it taken 250 years before they even contemplate that Pacific tangata were better sailers than them we were better at fishing many things but in some eyes Tangata Whenua are just Savages then we see that some of the americas cup yacht were designed off Pacific tangata designs.
It will be good to see all the Tangata being taught a trade at Te Wananga O Aotearoa.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora.
The Am Show.
It would be great if Aotearoa lead the World and banned single use plastic bottles.
I can see right through that.
It would be good to see a huge company helping small companies.
Ka kite Ano.