Local government politics in its truly lowest form: the Manuwatu District Council argues about Maori Wards, with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor repeatedly undercutting councillors and plotting vigorously to stop them, but then finally at the last minute folding under pressure … all set out in LGOIMA'd (political Darwin Award) emails …
Just that you don't write any thing else apart from a critic of the right. Your views seem very myopic and head in the sand stuff. The fact that I correctly called this adds weight to my point.
I write a fair bit about the right but only because they present such easy targets. Over the past month I have written about UK politics, Samoa, the budget, fair pay agreements, how I thought the Government’s public sector wage freeze was wrong and how Trevor Mallard overstepped the mark when he made allegations against a former staffer.
The sun will come up tomorrow, there I've predicted it. Aren't I clever /sarc
I would have been disappointed if MS hadn't written something about a long standing member of National losing his job under controversial circumstances. It was a headline news topic last night so very topical today. That's what authors here are expected to do.
There is plenty of critiquing of this Government on this site as well.
You have been commenting here for over four years, as far as I can tell, and your first comment here (https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-09032017/#comment-1308153) is perfectly aligned with your displeasure and misplaced criticism of MickySavage’s posts on this site. Why do you confirm and conform to stereotype RW whinger instead of offering something for robust debate, e.g. strong counter-views supported with good arguments? Your comments (AKA oeuvre) on this site have been paper thin, biased, and off-putting. So, please give me a break and take your complaint somewhere else, thanks.
Just a suggestion Pataua4life – you could well change your pseudo to GetaLife. We are discussing how we might get a better life for NZ if we can make changes in past and present thinking so that we end up with better results for all.
You just like to take a poke at what goes on here, showing your lack of concern about others and our country. I presume you are a person with money to spend and time to spare. Can you find something useful to write about with your time instead of going 'yahboo' at people's efforts to think, understand, devise forward plans that fit our needs.
"Morrison stepped in as wingman, saying he concurred with Ardern and then went on to indirectly blame China for that line of questioning.
“I think as great partners, friends, allies and indeed family, there will be those far from here who would seek to divide us, and they will not succeed.’’
“I have no doubt there will be those who seek to undermine Australia and New Zealand’s security by seeking to create … points of difference, which are not there,’’ he said."
One wonders if the Chinese have already infiltrated the Aussie media. Which is why they are shit stirring. Under orders from Beijing.
Please provide the link next time when you quote verbatim. It is common courtesy to the readers of this site who may want to know who wrote it (i.e. Jo Moir) and read the full article for context and further information. Thank you in advance.
Why biological sex matters. Four important points here:
women need separate spaces from men, based on biological sex, for safety reasons. Physical safety and mental health safety
women in prisons have few rights and access to political agency or change
Trans people can and should be supported in their own safety, without compromising the safety of women. Third spaces are a good idea.
Self ID allows any man to ID as a woman or female, whether trans/NB or not. In this piece the point is made that soon we will be unable to count biological females separate from makes, we literally won’t have the data to make policy decisions on. Stats NZ already takes the view that gender ID should take precedence over sex, and Labour want to pass self ID legit this year.
The women with whom I spoke – currently and formerly incarcerated at “Chowchilla” prison (as the Central California Correctional Facility is colloquially known), this state’s highest security women’s prison – are watching as biological males begin to self-identify as females and transfer in. Washington state, which has a similar policy, has already allowed a rapist and serial killer of women to transfer into the women’s prison. As is true in Washington state, California requires no sex reassignment surgeries or hormones for men to become eligible for transfer to the women’s prison. Self-identification is enough. With good reason, these women are terrified.
What is the danger to women from transpeople ? Women prisoners form their own hierachies long before trans people have been in incarcerated with women, where they would be a small minority anyway.
Unfortunately without good evidence to show 'dangers' are any greater than the normal confrontations that any prisoners face it would seem to be without justification.
When I lived in Melbourne a friend lived next to small pub which he said had a lesbian night every saturday and the revving motorbikes at closing time would keep him up. I saw for myself the fights between women at closing time, something you might expect at any pub on a saturday night. Woman only spaces arent as violence free as might be expected.
In US one of the reasons for racial segregation of residential areas was the supposed need to protect white women and families from the 'more violent blacks'
Or as in the UK where they rapidly opened a transgender prison, to respond to the fall out from inappropriately housing an offender in a womans prison.
That question is answered in the article weka linked to…which of course you read?
Nearly all women who commit violent crimes, they told me, do so under the influence of a brutal man (normally a domestic partner). That does not excuse their crimes, of course. Their victims deserved justice; the women deserved incarceration. But it does provide context to their understanding of their new roommates: men, in their experience, are frequently vicious and terrifying. Now, they will be trapped in close quarters with male bodies. Being terrorized in this manner was never part of their sentence.
Many of these women are victims of sexual abuse. Rochelle Johnson is currently serving a life sentence in Chowchilla for felony murder (she was not the killer, but participated in a robbery in which the victim was stabbed). “How are you going to force me to live with somebody when you don’t know what I went through as a child–you don’t know what I went through to make me dislike men?” she said.
Almost no one cares about these women. As convicted felons, many of them have lost their right to vote. Their social and political power is nearly non-existent. But when I sat down with them, I met women who spoke more sense about the reality of sex differences than I find almost anywhere.
I did that in comment 6. People don't have to read links, but if they then make arguments that ignore what is said in the link they risk appearing stupid (especially when the topic is ranging over a number of threads/days and the link answers questions that were raised) and it does tend to make debate messy when it's complex issues and hard held opinions on all sides.
Your question strongly indicated you hadn't even read what was quoted in the original post…never mind that you clearly lack sufficient interest to read the entire article.
Why did you bother replying? Did you just read "trans people" and make the usual kneejerk response we've come to expect from many here?
Unfortunately without good evidence to show 'dangers' are any greater than the normal confrontations that any prisoners face it would seem to be without justification.
Yes, let's allow women to be raped and assaulted while we gather data. We already know that males are dangerous in different ways than females. If you want to argue that trans women are less dangerous than other males, you'd need to produce some evidence.
fwiw, I think that most trans women aren't dangerous. I think the danger here is from a subset of trans women, and from men. Read the link, there's enough there to be concerned with.
There's also the issue of self ID. If all that is needed to be a woman is a statement of self ID, then how does society tell the difference between men pretending to be women, and trans women? This is a serious question.
I have no problem with gender self ID…whatever floats your boat and puts a smile on your dial. Although I do think its more than a little saddening that we still feel the need to identify as any gender. FFS, just be yourself and learn to be at least accepting of your own skin.
Sex self ID on the other hand…I'm going to put a stake in the ground and say stop with the 'sex assigned at birth' crap and follow the science. Whatever the chromosomes say, 98% of babies are clearly either male or female and the remainder are intersex. This is how it has been for many, many decades. There is no good reason to change this convention unless the actual biology has changed due to some seismic evolutionary event.
And it is "Sex" that is required for a birth certificate.
I thought they were already supposed to have a seperate section for any prisoner who posed a threat to other prisoners. Seems like a basic duty of care thing.
Fucks sake you two, you've been in this debate long enough to know these things:
1. putting males in women's prisons is a problem for rape and sexual abuse survivors irrespective of any future acts of violence. There's also the issue of pregnancy.
2. assessing for propensity for violence is already failing. Bear in mind that there are men with convictions for sexual assault being housed with women and raping them. This is already happening. Saying women can be collateral damage to gender ideology and prisons making mistakes is fucked up.
3. men as a class are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual violence, and women the recipients. It doesn't matter if you analyse that via ideas about genitals or hormones or socialisation or whatever, we know that that is true.
And we're mixing up sex and gender again. I really can't be bothered with this if you cannot get the basics straight. It is obviously an emotionally-driven argument and those feelings are quite real and reasonable. The pretzel logic applied afterwards, not so much.
I'm not confused and I'm not mixing up sex and gender. I'm using the words men/women to apply to sex. Where I mean trans woman/trans man specifically, I will say.
If you accept that there is a such a thing as sex as a class (with some variation in intersex people), then what I described above is coherent. Males refers to biologically male people irrespective of gender ID. Women means biologically female.
I'm doing trans women a favour there by implying that the men self IDing into women's prisons and raping women are in fact men pretending to be women. But let me change one word, in 2, so it's crystal clear,
"Bear in mind that there are men males with convictions for sexual assault being housed with women and raping them."
It's actually really clear. If you think I am wrong somehow there, it's on you to point out where and why. If you can't follow the logic, just ask for clarification and stop writing off the now huge body of work that gender critical feminists have produced.
And trans women have been sexually assaulted in men's prisons.
Maybe there might be some sort of security assessment based on an idnividual's case records to assess their tendency to target or be targeted by other prisoners, and their assigned space within a larger facility be controlled accordingly.
yeah, but no-one's actually arguing here that TW should be housed in men's prisons, are they.
revolutionary if you still consider women to be collateral damage I guess in this day and age. Assessment is always going to be flawed. I'd rather see the baseline being third space, with assessment being used to make exceptions eg a post-op, fully transitioned trans woman.
What's your argument against third spaces for trans women and men IDing as women? There's still the issue there of men who pretend, but it makes the issue the problem of the justice system, society and trans activists rather than women being the fall guys.
In a country as small as NZ, there are going to be issues. Trans women in women's prisons segregated from women will end up living in isolation. Third spaces will mean moving trans women to one or two parts of the country probably. Do trans women have particular cultural needs? I think so. Which is yet another reason why the no debate approach has been so damaging. Assuming that TWAW and acting on that is causing damage, when we could have been working through all these issues collaboratively.
My basic argument against third spaces is the same argument. Put transwomen and transmen together in this third space? There will still be the potential for harm between prisoners. Or are we up to four spaces now?
So it comes back to looking at each prisoner and minimising the harm they can do to others if they are assessed to be inclined to do so.
So you think trans men should be housed in men’s prisons. Doesn’t that put them at risk?
I’m think you are missing a critical point here. The problem raised is males in women’s prisons. This is not a problem for the opposite: men aren’t at risk from trans men being in male prisons.
It’s like saying men experience sexism too, as if sexism is some abstract oppression that affects both sides. Whatever prejudice men experience from women it requires a distinct analysis rather than treating it as the flip side of sexism against women.
So it comes back to looking at each prisoner and minimising the harm they can do to others if they are assessed to be inclined to do so.
translation: women are collateral damage.
women have good reasons to be protected from males, it’s regressive to remove that protection.
I mean, if we had any way of knowing which men are going to rape ahead of time the world would be a much safer place for women.
It’s more complex too,
But according to Tyrina Griffin —who served 20 years at Chowchilla for second-degree murder and whose wife, Rachelle Johnson, is currently serving a life sentence there—many of the men who are transferring there aren’t even on hormonal medication. “They’re getting a full erection,” she said. “So you’re locked in this room, 24/7, with a man and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you tell the police you don’t want to live with a man, or you’re afraid or whatever, you’ll get a disciplinary infraction. So you’re basically punished for being scared.”
Because female inmates are typically far less violent than male ones, women’s prisons like Chowchilla don’t separate inmates based on the severity of their crimes. “We’re all mixed together,” Ms. Ichikawa said. “The people who’ve murdered their children are in the same room as the people who’ve stolen boxers fromWalmart. ”
Also unlike men’s prison, inmates at Chowchilla are housed eight to a room, with a sink and toilet inside the cell and only a cowboy door for modesty. The California law specifically states that no inmate may be denied a housing request for “any discriminatory reason,” including “genitalia” or “sexual orientation.” According to some surveys, a majority of biological men who identify as trans women are sexually attracted to women. “How are you going to prevent these people from having sex?” Ms. Ichikawa said. “And how do you then decipher what’s sex and what’s rape?” The women told me—and studies confirm—that the vast majority of incarcerated women are sexual-assault survivors.
"The problem raised" is one of prisoner safety. To maintain your framing that leaves transwomen as collateral damage, you'd rather suggest an entire new class of prisons in which trans people could still be victimised.
Maybe bunking 8 people together with one toilet and no privacy isn't a particularly good thing in any prison.
Heck, maybe prisons should look at each prisoner and assess their risk criteria for causing or being the victim of violence, rather than just throwing them all together according to a general classification of "male" and "female". But no, let's build a prison for another general classification of person and hope that everyone in the "other" category gets on well together there.
The problem raised is the safety of women. If we are talking prisoner safety generally that includes men, it’s prison reform and a different conversation.
How would trans women be victimised by being housed in their own building?
It’s not a general classification of male and female as if for no reason. We have women’s prisons to protect women from men because men have really high levels of violence against women. You appear to be arguing that there is no particular reason why women in prison should be protected from men. Do you think this is true in general society?
as I said, if you have a way to predict which men will rape, let us know, most women on the planet will be very interested. In the meantime please stop treating women as collateral damage.
as also said, there are multiple reasons to have separate spaces for women in prison. Very high numbers of women in prison have been sexually assaulted, they shouldn’t be forced to share close and intimate space with males. And pregnancy (even if people don’t care about the well-being of women that one should be raising alarm bells).
if you have a way to predict which men will rape, let us know, most women on the planet will be very interested.
A "rapist and a serial killer of women", regardless of self-id, for a start should probably be declared a safety risk around women, be the woman a prisoner, a guard or other staff member, or a visitor, no? Regardless of prison type?
I think that's up to trans people to sort out. And NB, and the 3,000 genders or whatever it's up to now. Third space is about male/female/other. Other can be more than third, but as Milt points out, the argument has to be made for society. As far as I'm concerned, trans people have made the argument for their class, and there are plenty of trans people arguing for the third space approach. Maybe have a read of them.
More specifically, if we still accept that sexual violence is gendered (quaint term meaning sex), then it's biological males that need to be segregated from females for the sake of females. Whether testosterone confers problems for women in terms of trans men, I'm good with that being explored and solutions found. Obviously all trans people need to be protected from men including trans women. These are really not hard concepts to get to grips with if one doesn't try and erase sex. Throwing women under the bus from the get go undermines any credibility for arguing that trans people should be safe too. Unless one believes that women are lesser somehow, and there are certainly trans activists that do. It's a new version of garden variety misogyny.
Have women who do not want to mix with trans women considered setting up their own female-only spaces? Leaving all the other women's spaces to those who do not share the fear?
ok, this more than anything tells me you really don't know what is going on. I don't mean to be rude, but you are so far behind the curve on this.
If I put up post on TS arguing for what you just said, I will be called a transphobe and will experience various forms of blow back online. If I continue to post like that the ante will be upped. Women using their real life names risk losing their jobs, being banned from online and real life spaces.
Women HAVE been trying to have female only spaces and they are being ostracised, banned, fired, abused, and subjected to intimidation including via online sexualised violence. The TA agenda is to erase sex and remove single sex spaces. This is literally the centre of the battle in the UK, the push to change legislation.
Lesbians have been talking for *years about the disappearance of lesbian only spaces and what happens to them when they try and maintain female only space. Did you see this?
Women get banned on dating sites for saying biological female only.
Read the history of Michfest, one of the truly great female spaces and what happened to that over the fallout regarding trans women. Make sure you read the feminist versions as well so you get the bits about about how much penises figured in that. That was the 90s. None of this is new. Women have been talking about it a long time.
and, it's not just about fear. There are a whole ranges of reasons to value women's spaces. Women who are afraid doesn't deserve to be segregated from normal society.
There's a women's library in the UK that won't hire out spaces to groups that want female only events. It's ok to exclude men, but not trans women, or NB people including NB males. Please explain that last bit to me, because no-one has been able to.
There's been a lot of political chatter and posturing about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Here's a couple of science-oriented articles discussing the likelihood of various possible origins:
tl;dr: By far the likeliest origin remains a zoonotic origin – it transferred from wildlife to humans through some mechanism such as bushmeat, a human visiting a cave with lots of bats.This kind of zoonotic transfer happens very frequently. None of the features of SARS-CoV-2 cited as evidence of a non-zoonotic origin are in fact unusual in the wild, so they really are not evidence in favour of a lab origin hypothesis. The likelihood of proving a zoonotic origin remains very small – there are many many separated populations of animals that may have been the original source, so it's kind of a needle in a haystack search but much harder. Furthermore, the original source will also have been evolving in different directions to the human virus, so even if searchers come across it, it may be enough different by now to be unrecognisable as the source.
Lab leak of unmodified virus: well, yes, it's possible. But unlikely. A smoking gun could possibly be found in records that have so far been concealed, or in retained blood sample from lab workers, or … But there really shouldn't be anything much read into the Chinese authorities' reluctance to unlimited open-slather access to the lab and records. No matter how much access is allowed, those that want to believe in a lab origin will always continue to believe something could still be hidden, and the Chinese authorities are well aware of that. There's just no upside for them in allowing open-slather access, particularly given their predisposition to secretiveness and authoritarianism.
Read the articles for the actual useful information.
I doubt we'll ever get convincing evidence one way or the other. I'm ok with that. We've been searching for the wild animal reservoir for ebola since the 70s and haven't found it yet.
And like I've said before, there have been plenty of systemic vulnerabilities identified that enable a bunch of potential different origins of the pandemic. I'm even a little worried that if a specific origin is actually identified, all the attention will go on just that one problem and all the other vulnerabilities forgotten about and just left there.
Agreed. As long as we keep hunting for the emotional junior lab worker who let the virus out, we will keep intruding into wildlife habitats and increase the chances of zoonotic transfer. In fact, we will keep doing the latter regardless.
Lab leak of unmodified virus: well, yes, it's possible. But unlikely.
More like,likely to more then likely,due to prior documented errors with SARS,and an absence of a natural reservoir (the bat that didn't ping).
This is the third outbreak of SARS to have been traced to a laboratory: small outbreaks occurred in Taiwan and Singapore last year. “The WHO may call for a containment policy for SARS to reduce the number of samples of the virus and the number of laboratories handling it,” said Dr Hall.
Although the authorities reacted swiftly once the alarm was raised, there was a delay of almost a month from the date of first infection to when the index case of infection was announced. By that time all the other cases of infection had already occurred.
The index patient received medical care in both Beijing and Anhui but was still allowed to travel while sick, despite her high risk occupation and the fact that her mother also had a fever. The mother subsequently died.
So because a different variant infected a worker each at two different labs outside of PRC, it's more than likely a global pandemic was cause by a lab outbreak rather than the wet market in the same area?
I think they meant conceptual evidence or proof of concept, which only shows that something is realistically possible, that it might have happened, but not that it did actually happen.
Context is not everything. Just because something happens in a region which also has a region-related aspect to it, does not mean there is any link between the two. That is nothing more than a conspiratorial response and such responses invariably turn out to be wrong.
Both historical and scientific conclusions thus far indicate the chance this virus was sourced from a wild animal jumping across the species chain to a human far outweighs the possibility it was the result of a manufactured event in a laboratory. It could be years before we have any substantive verification and until such a time conspiracy theories should be avoided.
Both historical and scientific conclusions thus far indicate the chance this virus was sourced from a wild animal jumping across the species chain to a human far outweighs the possibility it was the result of a manufactured event in a laboratory.
If you had read the many papers/articles written by internationally acclaimed professionals that have appeared in all the reputable newspapers and journals – many of which have already been linked to on this site including yesterday – then you wouldn't be making this demand.
Context is king, but is often selective and is always circumstantial.
Virus emerged at a wet market (US intel sources notwithstanding) in a city that had one of several labs looking at a variety of viruses that were of global interest because of their potential to cause a global pandemic, possibly including this exact variant. Or possibly not.
Read both articles carefully. Unimpressive, lots of misdirection and appeal to emotional argument.
In particular the article repeatedly points to the zoonotic origin hypothesis, yet fails to mention that it too remains without any confirming evidence. This remains the key point I was at pains to point out earlier, that while there is no confirming proof for either lab or natural origin, any reasonable assessment of the context cannot ignore the established facts of the location of the first outbreak, and the fact of WIV working with coronavirus' in what can only be called 'gain of function' research that could readily in principle produce SARS-COVID-2. This is established contextual evidence, confirmed by published papers from years prior.
We also know lab-leaks do happen, and may well be a lot more common than we have been led to believe. I have personally met while we lived in Tawa, two separate individuals who both fell seriously ill with infections they caught at their work in NZ's own ESR Institute in Porirua. Both people we met socially quite by random in a short five year period. And in both cases the ESR management went to a lot of trouble to cover the matter over as best they could.
The core problem here is that too many of these experts we are depending on for accurate information have a either a direct, or generally professional, conflict of interest which unavoidably taints their credibility. By contrast much of the discussion supporting the lab leak hypothesis is coming from qualified and competent people not directly involved as virologists, but in closely related fields who know enough to detect compromised narratives when they see it.
The problem here is obvious, this is potentially bio-tech's Titanic moment. If the lab-leak is generally agreed upon as the most likely cause, the blow-back on the people involved will be immense. And rightly so.
The likelihood of proving a zoonotic origin remains very small
Yet somehow within less than a year we managed to establish precisely the species involved for SARS1 and MERS. We even managed to do this decades ago with relatively primitive technology for HIV.
The strongest argument in favour of the zoonotic hypothesis is indeed there is good precedent for it – but if you're going to lean on that then you also have to accept the precedent that we also managed to find the intermediate host and prove the hypothesis in every recent case.
The reason for the bans on posters is the readerscomments are a large scale breach of standards. Has happened on Covid origins posts as well as the comments quickly turn a massive anti chinese racism
As there automated methods pick up the atrocious comments , they ban the whole lot rather than picking out the ones or the lead post taht are acceptable
You could be right as they do give this about facebook pages
'We define hate speech as a direct attack against people on the basis of what we call protected characteristics: race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease.
We define attacks as violent or dehumanising speech, harmful stereotypes, statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt, disgust or dismissal, cursing and calls for exclusion or segregation.
so women wanting to have separate spaces from men is an attack?
disabled people wanting separate spaces from ables?
Maori wanting their own spaces?
Lesbian separatists?
Weird.
The social media giants were developed by a certain class of men who are basically socially inept. Along with the desire to make money, this has created online culture that is very unhealthy. It's no surprise that women aren't protected on reddit, FB, or twitter.
Tencent has a large stake in Reddit, make of that what you will
Reddit is just like any other social media, mostly utter trash, but harsh against any serious political movement that challenges official corporate dogma.
edit
Concerning a certain Oz Scombag I found this interesting little piece about him working for us and National last century. Hey-up – actually it was published in Feb. 2020!
ScoMo Dundee: A future Aussie PM's role in New Zealand's great tourism wars
…Within weeks of his arrival in Wellington in 1998, the future Australian prime minister had plunged headfirst into a messy political saga – dubbed by media at the time as 'the Tourism Wars'.
"Like a cross between Rasputin and Crocodile Dundee," was how former Dominion Post political editor Nick Venter described Morrison after the extent of his involvement in the scandal was revealed…
Darth-Ju in trouble again, this time for endorsing a tweet by a far right social media user who allegedly likened hongi with a head-butt.
'Our leader supports the hongi': National MPs defend Judith Collins amid backlash over controversial tweet
A controversial tweet by Judith Collins, which led many to believe she endorsed a view likening a hongi to a head-butt, has been brushed off by National as a misunderstanding.
The tweet in question was a response to a woman who advised Collins ahead of her meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to "treat him like a civilised human being and don't head-butt him".
Hard to say with this one. There is plausible deniability around the original tweet, and JuCo’s reply. But is does highlight that Collins cannot stay out of trouble. She didn't need to reply on Twitter to a person who is clearly a fringe nut job. I'm certain the account was known to her.
It's clear Judith has either very poor comprehension, or very poor discipline, and probably both. These are terrible attributes in a leader. She either accepted the possible hongi comparison and agreed with it, or she was too stupid to understand that others would make that connection.
She'll claim innocence and purity of mind on this, but really, another nail in the coffin.
Maybe Jude has been reading Chris Trotter – and thinks here is vast reservoir of anger at 'separatism' that she just needs to tap into to rocket back to 40%.
Getting super duper expensive computer system making it a great opportunity to put out all of NZ at once, doesn't cheer me from Andrew Little. Neither does the lack of change in the way that nurses are trained so that it becomes part in hospital, with block tech courses. And perhaps some accolades to assist these hard working people who we rely on more than we rely on politicians. Perhaps we should be run by people with medical training and hospital work experience who understand people and how to lead them to better outcomes.
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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 ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
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 thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
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. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
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 ...
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Local government politics in its truly lowest form: the Manuwatu District Council argues about Maori Wards, with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor repeatedly undercutting councillors and plotting vigorously to stop them, but then finally at the last minute folding under pressure … all set out in LGOIMA'd (political Darwin Award) emails …
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What are the odds on Mickey S writing a post about Nick Smith leaving parliament under some controversy?
Better that even I say.
Bingo
And your point is?
Analysis of the continued destruction of the main right wing party in Aotearoa I think is something that needs to be analysed and written about.
Just that you don't write any thing else apart from a critic of the right. Your views seem very myopic and head in the sand stuff. The fact that I correctly called this adds weight to my point.
I write a fair bit about the right but only because they present such easy targets. Over the past month I have written about UK politics, Samoa, the budget, fair pay agreements, how I thought the Government’s public sector wage freeze was wrong and how Trevor Mallard overstepped the mark when he made allegations against a former staffer.
The sun will come up tomorrow, there I've predicted it. Aren't I clever /sarc
I would have been disappointed if MS hadn't written something about a long standing member of National losing his job under controversial circumstances. It was a headline news topic last night so very topical today. That's what authors here are expected to do.
There is plenty of critiquing of this Government on this site as well.
You have been commenting here for over four years, as far as I can tell, and your first comment here (https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-09032017/#comment-1308153) is perfectly aligned with your displeasure and misplaced criticism of MickySavage’s posts on this site. Why do you confirm and conform to stereotype RW whinger instead of offering something for robust debate, e.g. strong counter-views supported with good arguments? Your comments (AKA oeuvre) on this site have been paper thin, biased, and off-putting. So, please give me a break and take your complaint somewhere else, thanks.
Just a suggestion Pataua4life – you could well change your pseudo to GetaLife. We are discussing how we might get a better life for NZ if we can make changes in past and present thinking so that we end up with better results for all.
You just like to take a poke at what goes on here, showing your lack of concern about others and our country. I presume you are a person with money to spend and time to spare. Can you find something useful to write about with your time instead of going 'yahboo' at people's efforts to think, understand, devise forward plans that fit our needs.
Quoting Newsroom here:
"Morrison stepped in as wingman, saying he concurred with Ardern and then went on to indirectly blame China for that line of questioning.
“I think as great partners, friends, allies and indeed family, there will be those far from here who would seek to divide us, and they will not succeed.’’
“I have no doubt there will be those who seek to undermine Australia and New Zealand’s security by seeking to create … points of difference, which are not there,’’ he said."
One wonders if the Chinese have already infiltrated the Aussie media. Which is why they are shit stirring. Under orders from Beijing.
Please provide the link next time when you quote verbatim. It is common courtesy to the readers of this site who may want to know who wrote it (i.e. Jo Moir) and read the full article for context and further information. Thank you in advance.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/scott-morrison-kills-any-notion-of-china-rift
Sorry, will do in future.
Thank you 🙂
..
"a wealthy literary dilettante"
synonyms:
dabbler · potterer · tinkerer · trifler · dallier · amateur · non-professional · non-specialist · layman · layperson
a person with an amateur interest in the arts.
[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.]
Insert inappropriate jokes about Ashburton being cut off from the world.
More a case of south island cut in two
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/443786/canterbury-flooding-ashburton-bridge-on-state-highway-1-closes
bet that was fun 😳
Hmmm….fortunately it held together until closed.
https://twitter.com/cortychenery/status/1399479980988370944
Lol…inland route should be open in a day or so, thatll cut down the distance a wee bit…still one hell of a detour.
Rubbish, Thompson's Track is open. A better route than SH1
Ta Grumpy. I did ask RNZ to do an explainer with the names of roads and bridges. The council has details on their website which is mostly in localese
Bridge over north branch at Forks closed last I heard
https://www.ashburtondc.govt.nz/news/notices-and-advisories/30-may-2021-weather-event-updates
Why biological sex matters. Four important points here:
https://abigailshrier.substack.com/p/incarcerated-women-brace-for-influx
Seem good points to consider weka. Fairness for all should be the outcome.
Indeed. No good reason we can’t protect women and trans people.
What is the danger to women from transpeople ? Women prisoners form their own hierachies long before trans people have been in incarcerated with women, where they would be a small minority anyway.
Unfortunately without good evidence to show 'dangers' are any greater than the normal confrontations that any prisoners face it would seem to be without justification.
When I lived in Melbourne a friend lived next to small pub which he said had a lesbian night every saturday and the revving motorbikes at closing time would keep him up. I saw for myself the fights between women at closing time, something you might expect at any pub on a saturday night. Woman only spaces arent as violence free as might be expected.
In US one of the reasons for racial segregation of residential areas was the supposed need to protect white women and families from the 'more violent blacks'
There have already been a small number of sexual assault cases in the UK following self id transfer to womans prison.
Prisons have existing methods to deal with prisoners who are danger to other prisoners on a case by case basis.
After all they are prisons and have special wings for violent prisoners and different ways of segregating them from the general population.
Low security prisons are that because the prisoners are almost no danger.
Or as in the UK where they rapidly opened a transgender prison, to respond to the fall out from inappropriately housing an offender in a womans prison.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47434730.amp
What is the danger to women from transpeople ?
That question is answered in the article weka linked to…which of course you read?
Nearly all women who commit violent crimes, they told me, do so under the influence of a brutal man (normally a domestic partner). That does not excuse their crimes, of course. Their victims deserved justice; the women deserved incarceration. But it does provide context to their understanding of their new roommates: men, in their experience, are frequently vicious and terrifying. Now, they will be trapped in close quarters with male bodies. Being terrorized in this manner was never part of their sentence.
Many of these women are victims of sexual abuse. Rochelle Johnson is currently serving a life sentence in Chowchilla for felony murder (she was not the killer, but participated in a robbery in which the victim was stabbed). “How are you going to force me to live with somebody when you don’t know what I went through as a child–you don’t know what I went through to make me dislike men?” she said.
Almost no one cares about these women. As convicted felons, many of them have lost their right to vote. Their social and political power is nearly non-existent. But when I sat down with them, I met women who spoke more sense about the reality of sex differences than I find almost anywhere.
why bother listening to women, or even reading links.
Im not a student in a classroom who has to comment or reply on all of the statements or links in order to get a 'pass grade'
Isnt the blog process supposed to be summarise lengthy links to show its relevancy ?
I did that in comment 6. People don't have to read links, but if they then make arguments that ignore what is said in the link they risk appearing stupid (especially when the topic is ranging over a number of threads/days and the link answers questions that were raised) and it does tend to make debate messy when it's complex issues and hard held opinions on all sides.
Your question strongly indicated you hadn't even read what was quoted in the original post…never mind that you clearly lack sufficient interest to read the entire article.
Why did you bother replying? Did you just read "trans people" and make the usual kneejerk response we've come to expect from many here?
This might help for the future…https://careersure.co.nz/effective-reading
"What is the danger to women from transpeople ?"
Not trans people. Males. You know what rape is.
Yes, let's allow women to be raped and assaulted while we gather data. We already know that males are dangerous in different ways than females. If you want to argue that trans women are less dangerous than other males, you'd need to produce some evidence.
fwiw, I think that most trans women aren't dangerous. I think the danger here is from a subset of trans women, and from men. Read the link, there's enough there to be concerned with.
There's also the issue of self ID. If all that is needed to be a woman is a statement of self ID, then how does society tell the difference between men pretending to be women, and trans women? This is a serious question.
I have no problem with gender self ID…whatever floats your boat and puts a smile on your dial. Although I do think its more than a little saddening that we still feel the need to identify as any gender. FFS, just be yourself and learn to be at least accepting of your own skin.
Sex self ID on the other hand…I'm going to put a stake in the ground and say stop with the 'sex assigned at birth' crap and follow the science. Whatever the chromosomes say, 98% of babies are clearly either male or female and the remainder are intersex. This is how it has been for many, many decades. There is no good reason to change this convention unless the actual biology has changed due to some seismic evolutionary event.
And it is "Sex" that is required for a birth certificate.
A separate section for transgender prisoner seems to be a better idea.
I thought they were already supposed to have a seperate section for any prisoner who posed a threat to other prisoners. Seems like a basic duty of care thing.
Yes, imagine if they segregated based on actual propensity to violence rather than genitals or sexual attraction?
Like conviction for sexual assault?
Fucks sake you two, you've been in this debate long enough to know these things:
1. putting males in women's prisons is a problem for rape and sexual abuse survivors irrespective of any future acts of violence. There's also the issue of pregnancy.
2. assessing for propensity for violence is already failing. Bear in mind that there are men with convictions for sexual assault being housed with women and raping them. This is already happening. Saying women can be collateral damage to gender ideology and prisons making mistakes is fucked up.
3. men as a class are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual violence, and women the recipients. It doesn't matter if you analyse that via ideas about genitals or hormones or socialisation or whatever, we know that that is true.
And we're mixing up sex and gender again. I really can't be bothered with this if you cannot get the basics straight. It is obviously an emotionally-driven argument and those feelings are quite real and reasonable. The pretzel logic applied afterwards, not so much.
And we're mixing up sex and gender again.
Excellent Sacha! You've created an opening for me to ask you to define "sex" and "gender".
Take your time.
heh.
I'm not confused and I'm not mixing up sex and gender. I'm using the words men/women to apply to sex. Where I mean trans woman/trans man specifically, I will say.
If you accept that there is a such a thing as sex as a class (with some variation in intersex people), then what I described above is coherent. Males refers to biologically male people irrespective of gender ID. Women means biologically female.
I'm doing trans women a favour there by implying that the men self IDing into women's prisons and raping women are in fact men pretending to be women. But let me change one word, in 2, so it's crystal clear,
"Bear in mind that there are
menmales with convictions for sexual assault being housed with women and raping them."It's actually really clear. If you think I am wrong somehow there, it's on you to point out where and why. If you can't follow the logic, just ask for clarification and stop writing off the now huge body of work that gender critical feminists have produced.
And trans women have been sexually assaulted in men's prisons.
Maybe there might be some sort of security assessment based on an idnividual's case records to assess their tendency to target or be targeted by other prisoners, and their assigned space within a larger facility be controlled accordingly.
Revolutionary idea, for sure. /sarc
yeah, but no-one's actually arguing here that TW should be housed in men's prisons, are they.
revolutionary if you still consider women to be collateral damage I guess in this day and age. Assessment is always going to be flawed. I'd rather see the baseline being third space, with assessment being used to make exceptions eg a post-op, fully transitioned trans woman.
What's your argument against third spaces for trans women and men IDing as women? There's still the issue there of men who pretend, but it makes the issue the problem of the justice system, society and trans activists rather than women being the fall guys.
In a country as small as NZ, there are going to be issues. Trans women in women's prisons segregated from women will end up living in isolation. Third spaces will mean moving trans women to one or two parts of the country probably. Do trans women have particular cultural needs? I think so. Which is yet another reason why the no debate approach has been so damaging. Assuming that TWAW and acting on that is causing damage, when we could have been working through all these issues collaboratively.
My basic argument against third spaces is the same argument. Put transwomen and transmen together in this third space? There will still be the potential for harm between prisoners. Or are we up to four spaces now?
So it comes back to looking at each prisoner and minimising the harm they can do to others if they are assessed to be inclined to do so.
So you think trans men should be housed in men’s prisons. Doesn’t that put them at risk?
I’m think you are missing a critical point here. The problem raised is males in women’s prisons. This is not a problem for the opposite: men aren’t at risk from trans men being in male prisons.
It’s like saying men experience sexism too, as if sexism is some abstract oppression that affects both sides. Whatever prejudice men experience from women it requires a distinct analysis rather than treating it as the flip side of sexism against women.
translation: women are collateral damage.
women have good reasons to be protected from males, it’s regressive to remove that protection.
I mean, if we had any way of knowing which men are going to rape ahead of time the world would be a much safer place for women.
It’s more complex too,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/male-inmates-in-womens-prisons-11622474215
"The problem raised" is one of prisoner safety. To maintain your framing that leaves transwomen as collateral damage, you'd rather suggest an entire new class of prisons in which trans people could still be victimised.
Maybe bunking 8 people together with one toilet and no privacy isn't a particularly good thing in any prison.
Heck, maybe prisons should look at each prisoner and assess their risk criteria for causing or being the victim of violence, rather than just throwing them all together according to a general classification of "male" and "female". But no, let's build a prison for another general classification of person and hope that everyone in the "other" category gets on well together there.
The problem raised is the safety of women. If we are talking prisoner safety generally that includes men, it’s prison reform and a different conversation.
How would trans women be victimised by being housed in their own building?
It’s not a general classification of male and female as if for no reason. We have women’s prisons to protect women from men because men have really high levels of violence against women. You appear to be arguing that there is no particular reason why women in prison should be protected from men. Do you think this is true in general society?
as I said, if you have a way to predict which men will rape, let us know, most women on the planet will be very interested. In the meantime please stop treating women as collateral damage.
as also said, there are multiple reasons to have separate spaces for women in prison. Very high numbers of women in prison have been sexually assaulted, they shouldn’t be forced to share close and intimate space with males. And pregnancy (even if people don’t care about the well-being of women that one should be raising alarm bells).
Except we don't agree on the definition of "women".
Edit:
if some transwomen are such a danger to women, those individuals might pose a danger to other transwomen, no?
And are transmen left in womens’ prisons, are they in a combined “trans” facility, or are we up to four prison categories now?
I don’t know what that’s in reply to, can you be more specific?
A "rapist and a serial killer of women", regardless of self-id, for a start should probably be declared a safety risk around women, be the woman a prisoner, a guard or other staff member, or a visitor, no? Regardless of prison type?
Third spaces? Are you saying it is OK for trans women to be around trans men, but not around non-trans women?
Is 'transperson' a separate gender now?
I think that's up to trans people to sort out. And NB, and the 3,000 genders or whatever it's up to now. Third space is about male/female/other. Other can be more than third, but as Milt points out, the argument has to be made for society. As far as I'm concerned, trans people have made the argument for their class, and there are plenty of trans people arguing for the third space approach. Maybe have a read of them.
More specifically, if we still accept that sexual violence is gendered (quaint term meaning sex), then it's biological males that need to be segregated from females for the sake of females. Whether testosterone confers problems for women in terms of trans men, I'm good with that being explored and solutions found. Obviously all trans people need to be protected from men including trans women. These are really not hard concepts to get to grips with if one doesn't try and erase sex. Throwing women under the bus from the get go undermines any credibility for arguing that trans people should be safe too. Unless one believes that women are lesser somehow, and there are certainly trans activists that do. It's a new version of garden variety misogyny.
Have women who do not want to mix with trans women considered setting up their own female-only spaces? Leaving all the other women's spaces to those who do not share the fear?
ok, this more than anything tells me you really don't know what is going on. I don't mean to be rude, but you are so far behind the curve on this.
If I put up post on TS arguing for what you just said, I will be called a transphobe and will experience various forms of blow back online. If I continue to post like that the ante will be upped. Women using their real life names risk losing their jobs, being banned from online and real life spaces.
Women HAVE been trying to have female only spaces and they are being ostracised, banned, fired, abused, and subjected to intimidation including via online sexualised violence. The TA agenda is to erase sex and remove single sex spaces. This is literally the centre of the battle in the UK, the push to change legislation.
Lesbians have been talking for *years about the disappearance of lesbian only spaces and what happens to them when they try and maintain female only space. Did you see this?
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01-06-2021/#comment-1795885
And the follow up
https://twitter.com/Matt_Zeleo/status/1399523723208658944
Women get banned on dating sites for saying biological female only.
Read the history of Michfest, one of the truly great female spaces and what happened to that over the fallout regarding trans women. Make sure you read the feminist versions as well so you get the bits about about how much penises figured in that. That was the 90s. None of this is new. Women have been talking about it a long time.
and, it's not just about fear. There are a whole ranges of reasons to value women's spaces. Women who are afraid doesn't deserve to be segregated from normal society.
There's a women's library in the UK that won't hire out spaces to groups that want female only events. It's ok to exclude men, but not trans women, or NB people including NB males. Please explain that last bit to me, because no-one has been able to.
Sweet. Less than five minutes on 0800 to book a covid vaccination.
That is good. From what I understand, most of the C19 call centre workers are doing it from home, using their own PC's.
Bugger, wrong Kissinger.
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1398006124545200128
That guy is a cockroach.
Sacha.. What does "guy” mean.
Besides it's species supremacist to assume cockroaches are in any way inferior in dignity and moral stature to humans.
There's been a lot of political chatter and posturing about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Here's a couple of science-oriented articles discussing the likelihood of various possible origins:
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-lab-leak-theory-of-covid-19-may-be-possible-but-that-doesn-t-make-it-likely
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-revisited/
tl;dr: By far the likeliest origin remains a zoonotic origin – it transferred from wildlife to humans through some mechanism such as bushmeat, a human visiting a cave with lots of bats.This kind of zoonotic transfer happens very frequently. None of the features of SARS-CoV-2 cited as evidence of a non-zoonotic origin are in fact unusual in the wild, so they really are not evidence in favour of a lab origin hypothesis. The likelihood of proving a zoonotic origin remains very small – there are many many separated populations of animals that may have been the original source, so it's kind of a needle in a haystack search but much harder. Furthermore, the original source will also have been evolving in different directions to the human virus, so even if searchers come across it, it may be enough different by now to be unrecognisable as the source.
Lab leak of unmodified virus: well, yes, it's possible. But unlikely. A smoking gun could possibly be found in records that have so far been concealed, or in retained blood sample from lab workers, or … But there really shouldn't be anything much read into the Chinese authorities' reluctance to unlimited open-slather access to the lab and records. No matter how much access is allowed, those that want to believe in a lab origin will always continue to believe something could still be hidden, and the Chinese authorities are well aware of that. There's just no upside for them in allowing open-slather access, particularly given their predisposition to secretiveness and authoritarianism.
Read the articles for the actual useful information.
I’ll know the truth when I see it and I’ll see it when I believe it; I’m a believer
Yeah, nah.
I doubt we'll ever get convincing evidence one way or the other. I'm ok with that. We've been searching for the wild animal reservoir for ebola since the 70s and haven't found it yet.
And like I've said before, there have been plenty of systemic vulnerabilities identified that enable a bunch of potential different origins of the pandemic. I'm even a little worried that if a specific origin is actually identified, all the attention will go on just that one problem and all the other vulnerabilities forgotten about and just left there.
Agreed. As long as we keep hunting for the emotional junior lab worker who let the virus out, we will keep intruding into wildlife habitats and increase the chances of zoonotic transfer. In fact, we will keep doing the latter regardless.
Lab leak of unmodified virus: well, yes, it's possible. But unlikely.
More like,likely to more then likely,due to prior documented errors with SARS,and an absence of a natural reservoir (the bat that didn't ping).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/
So because a different variant infected a worker each at two different labs outside of PRC, it's more than likely a global pandemic was cause by a lab outbreak rather than the wet market in the same area?
Not so sure on that.
Given that most of the contextual evidence that has come out so far points towards the lab, and not towards the wet market. Yes
"Contextual evidence" is it? Good-oh.
I think they meant conceptual evidence or proof of concept, which only shows that something is realistically possible, that it might have happened, but not that it did actually happen.
Context is everything… virus emerged from one of the very few places in the world that does work on bat coronaviruses.
Context is not everything. Just because something happens in a region which also has a region-related aspect to it, does not mean there is any link between the two. That is nothing more than a conspiratorial response and such responses invariably turn out to be wrong.
Both historical and scientific conclusions thus far indicate the chance this virus was sourced from a wild animal jumping across the species chain to a human far outweighs the possibility it was the result of a manufactured event in a laboratory. It could be years before we have any substantive verification and until such a time conspiracy theories should be avoided.
Just because something happens in a region which also has a region-related aspect to it, does not mean there is any link between the two.
Exactly. Remember this…https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/wet-market-coronavirus-racist_ca_5ebad4bec5b6dd02e421a876
Both historical and scientific conclusions thus far indicate the chance this virus was sourced from a wild animal jumping across the species chain to a human far outweighs the possibility it was the result of a manufactured event in a laboratory.
Link, please.
Link please.
If you had read the many papers/articles written by internationally acclaimed professionals that have appeared in all the reputable newspapers and journals – many of which have already been linked to on this site including yesterday – then you wouldn't be making this demand.
Play your games elsewhere.
Context is king, but is often selective and is always circumstantial.
Virus emerged at a wet market (US intel sources notwithstanding) in a city that had one of several labs looking at a variety of viruses that were of global interest because of their potential to cause a global pandemic, possibly including this exact variant. Or possibly not.
Perception is everything, it even trumps reality and the truth.
Read both articles carefully. Unimpressive, lots of misdirection and appeal to emotional argument.
In particular the article repeatedly points to the zoonotic origin hypothesis, yet fails to mention that it too remains without any confirming evidence. This remains the key point I was at pains to point out earlier, that while there is no confirming proof for either lab or natural origin, any reasonable assessment of the context cannot ignore the established facts of the location of the first outbreak, and the fact of WIV working with coronavirus' in what can only be called 'gain of function' research that could readily in principle produce SARS-COVID-2. This is established contextual evidence, confirmed by published papers from years prior.
We also know lab-leaks do happen, and may well be a lot more common than we have been led to believe. I have personally met while we lived in Tawa, two separate individuals who both fell seriously ill with infections they caught at their work in NZ's own ESR Institute in Porirua. Both people we met socially quite by random in a short five year period. And in both cases the ESR management went to a lot of trouble to cover the matter over as best they could.
The core problem here is that too many of these experts we are depending on for accurate information have a either a direct, or generally professional, conflict of interest which unavoidably taints their credibility. By contrast much of the discussion supporting the lab leak hypothesis is coming from qualified and competent people not directly involved as virologists, but in closely related fields who know enough to detect compromised narratives when they see it.
The problem here is obvious, this is potentially bio-tech's Titanic moment. If the lab-leak is generally agreed upon as the most likely cause, the blow-back on the people involved will be immense. And rightly so.
The likelihood of proving a zoonotic origin remains very small
Yet somehow within less than a year we managed to establish precisely the species involved for SARS1 and MERS. We even managed to do this decades ago with relatively primitive technology for HIV.
The strongest argument in favour of the zoonotic hypothesis is indeed there is good precedent for it – but if you're going to lean on that then you also have to accept the precedent that we also managed to find the intermediate host and prove the hypothesis in every recent case.
I am struck by the similarity between the Covid origin debate and the octopus origin one – both await determinative data.
More on the continuing housing movement.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/443785/public-housing-councils-say-more-new-builds-not-achievable-without-support
Why sex matters, part two
https://twitter.com/matt_zeleo/status/1362878554711621635?s=21
The reason for the bans on posters is the readers comments are a large scale breach of standards. Has happened on Covid origins posts as well as the comments quickly turn a massive anti chinese racism
As there automated methods pick up the atrocious comments , they ban the whole lot rather than picking out the ones or the lead post taht are acceptable
yeah, nah. If that were true across the board and there was no women hating going on, all those objectification of women boards would be gone too.
You could be right as they do give this about facebook pages
'We define hate speech as a direct attack against people on the basis of what we call protected characteristics: race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease.
We define attacks as violent or dehumanising speech, harmful stereotypes, statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt, disgust or dismissal, cursing and calls for exclusion or segregation.
Calls for exclusion or segregation are defined as 'attacks'
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech
so women wanting to have separate spaces from men is an attack?
disabled people wanting separate spaces from ables?
Maori wanting their own spaces?
Lesbian separatists?
Weird.
The social media giants were developed by a certain class of men who are basically socially inept. Along with the desire to make money, this has created online culture that is very unhealthy. It's no surprise that women aren't protected on reddit, FB, or twitter.
Its calls for exclusion or segregation based on a persons gender identity.
The safety is just a cover story in my view, which unfortunately has been used for discrimination reasons in other settings.
Aimee Challenor was abusing her power as a Reddit admin.
Tencent has a large stake in Reddit, make of that what you will
Reddit is just like any other social media, mostly utter trash, but harsh against any serious political movement that challenges official corporate dogma.
edit
Concerning a certain Oz Scombag I found this interesting little piece about him working for us and National last century. Hey-up – actually it was published in Feb. 2020!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/119419731/tourism-wars-1m-payouts-and-an-arrogant-future-australian-pm-at-the-centre-of-a-very-kiwi-scandal
ScoMo Dundee: A future Aussie PM's role in New Zealand's great tourism wars
…Within weeks of his arrival in Wellington in 1998, the future Australian prime minister had plunged headfirst into a messy political saga – dubbed by media at the time as 'the Tourism Wars'.
"Like a cross between Rasputin and Crocodile Dundee," was how former Dominion Post political editor Nick Venter described Morrison after the extent of his involvement in the scandal was revealed…
Why sex matters part 3
https://twitter.com/ladyduckpojok/status/1399359780616130568
Darth-Ju in trouble again, this time for endorsing a tweet by a far right social media user who allegedly likened hongi with a head-butt.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/our-leader-supports-the-hongi-national-mps-defend-judith-collins-amid-backlash-over-controversial-tweet.html
Hard to say with this one. There is plausible deniability around the original tweet, and JuCo’s reply. But is does highlight that Collins cannot stay out of trouble. She didn't need to reply on Twitter to a person who is clearly a fringe nut job. I'm certain the account was known to her.
It's clear Judith has either very poor comprehension, or very poor discipline, and probably both. These are terrible attributes in a leader. She either accepted the possible hongi comparison and agreed with it, or she was too stupid to understand that others would make that connection.
She'll claim innocence and purity of mind on this, but really, another nail in the coffin.
Maybe Jude has been reading Chris Trotter – and thinks here is vast reservoir of anger at 'separatism' that she just needs to tap into to rocket back to 40%.
I have a little sympathy with Collins on this one having never ever heard anyone refer to a hongi as a headbutt.
The lady in question has obviously never experienced a 'Liverpool kiss' to know the difference!
I once heard MC Beaton refer to a Glasgow Kiss and it didn't sound ladylike at all though she was referring to a critic about her romance books.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/443788/struggle-to-hire-nurse-raises-concerns-about-wider-issue-of-exhaustion
Getting super duper expensive computer system making it a great opportunity to put out all of NZ at once, doesn't cheer me from Andrew Little. Neither does the lack of change in the way that nurses are trained so that it becomes part in hospital, with block tech courses. And perhaps some accolades to assist these hard working people who we rely on more than we rely on politicians. Perhaps we should be run by people with medical training and hospital work experience who understand people and how to lead them to better outcomes.