Btw, are you FCV-free? (khaleesi/Calici)
Apologies @ Sanc. It’s just that I’ve had to witness (over the past 12 hours) the ‘yoof of today’ indulging in virtual foreplay via a couple of cell phones – culminating in what was apparently a transactional ‘bootie call’.
Geez, that Jemaine Clement’s looking a bit grey these days eh?
That Wellington Supernatural better be worth it eh?
RNZ’s taking a real gamble I rekon shuvving him up on their interweb site.
Never mind. Someone from The Spinoff will be along very soon to legitimise it all.
Unfortunately I listened in as well but my primary task was getting breakfast so the time wasn’t totally wasted.
Didn’t you just love the preconceived prompt to several interviewees like: “so you’re saying the foreign buyers legislation will have the opposite effect on providing affordable housing than is intended”.
Please, please say yes or my whole “story” will collapse. The term “chilling effect” was used several times.
I was struck by one guy (American I think) who sounded so concerned that the Bill was sending signals being picked up offshore that NZ didn’t want foreign investment and this was a BAD thing. Good I thought. Too damned right many of us don’t.
His horror was what decades of neoliberalism and centuries of capitalist pillaging and theft does to you I guess.
Agreed @ Grey Area.
Mee toooo, except I wasn’t so concerned with getting on with breakfast, I was more concerned with the apparent fob off from Sanctuary in my quest for a hookup, I went back to sleep.
And now, I’m listening to the sage Corin Dann on PLUS 1 and wondering whether it’d not be better to take another hour out of life in the name of sleep.
Decisons decisons!. Such a hard life!
OH CHRIST!!!! Now Wayne Mapp has just popped up as the gin-soaked sage.
I was horrified with Q+A today and exited that show for’ Discovery channel’ as I needed sanctuary for my mind to stay sane.
We need a new ‘Channel seven’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVNZ_7 now more than ever with real depth in investigative journalism not a horror show of empty ‘talking heads.’
I was struck by one guy (American I think) who sounded so concerned that the Bill was sending signals being picked up offshore that NZ didn’t want foreign investment and this was a BAD thing. Good I thought. Too damned right many of us don’t.
I’m pretty sure that the majority of us don’t want it and the only reason why we have it is because governments over the last decades have forced it upon us against our will.
Which means that we live in a dictatorship and not a democracy.
And then those parties go round doing things that we don’t want them to do. The whole neo-liberal implementation was against what the people wanted but no matter who we voted for we got the same shit. National did the TPPA which the majority didn’t want. Labour promised to change it or even to get rid of it if it didn’t meet their bottom lines. It didn’t meet those bottom lines and then they went and signed it anyway.
At what point were our wishes actually listened to?
The whole neo-liberal implementation was against what the people wanted but no matter who we voted for we got the same shit.
and then some of us campaigned and succeeded in changing the voting system but many people still continue to vote Labour regardless of the continual betrayals. We get the government that we collectively deserve.
‘we have elections every three years and a range of parties to vote for.’
Yes we do but we are constabtly brainwashed by the heavy use of right wing compliant broadcasting controlled by the right wing spin doctors and corportate involvement,.
So we are effectively controlled by the bussiness commutity and their interests and not ours.
This is not democracy – but is corpocracy, which is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.
We have been indocrinated by this corpocracy medium in all our media here in NZ today.
<blockquote…but is corpocracy, which is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.
If you’re going to quote Wikipedia then it would be good form to link to the article.
…is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.
Queenstown should just scede from NZ and apply to become a SAR of China. I can just imagine them all waving little Chinese flags as the PLA marches up the main drag.
RNZ has gone deep into the south island I have noted, – and RNZ dont carry any ‘free half hour shows’ for our most isolated noth Island regions such as northland and Gisborne/HB east coast as they do in the south.
Perhaps that is because the HQ for RNZ has been centered in Dunedin for years.
Tim Brown is the RNZ regional reporter for Otago/Southland/Lakes.
I looked at his content, and it is the stereotypical regional reporter mix of human interest stories, crime, weather and good news propaganda for the local chamber of commerce/Federated Farmers. The guy is on a good wicket, he can file happy happy joy joy stories based on his chummy relationships with local business people and the rest of his content is derived from ringing up his mate at the cop shop, chatting to the mayor at events, and the weather. An easy life, with the advantage you get lots of nice invites and freebies.
This morning ridiculous piece highlights the danger of using a regional reporter to create an in depth critical investigation feature.
In this case, the local beat reporter is clearly the wrong person to do such a story, because he has clearly become far too chummy with the movers and shakers in town, which helps him get news and he (understandably) doesn’t want to shit in own nest.
The simple reality is if he had run a piece critical of of the despoiling of Queenstown by rampant speculation and unregulated development and supportive of the government position a whole lot of doors would slam shut on him. Why rock the boat?
As such, we should consider this mornings insight on RNZ mainly as an extended job application by Tim Brown for a role as PR flack for Queenstown Lake’s property developers association…
Good analysis. My half an ear told me he was out of his depth and/or doing a PR piece for foreign ownership and overseas financing of the “development” of Queenstown.
It saddens me that NZers are so venal and/or stupid that we allow a jewel like Queenstown to be so over-developed that we spoil the very character that drew people to it in the first place.
I last visited Queenstown six years ago and enjoyed a couple of days there but from what I’ve heard recently it’s over-full of tourists and traffic congestion. We’ll be visiting the South Island later this year but will be avoiding Queenstown.
It was one of the places we used to go to when I was a child (50s and 60s) but I haven’t been near it for a very long time – I think I would just burst into tears. My compensation for the ruination of Queenstown is that while the ghastlies who wrought all this damage are all corralled in Queenstown they aren’t wrecking the rest of NZ. Does Queenstown just need to take one for the team?
We are probably well into the autumn of this development cycle most of the fruit on the tree is getting pretty squishy, the rest that hasn’t ripened by now is unlikely to before winter sets in. And it’s looking like a very hard winter is going to sweep through our local economy, it’ll be tough for those that can’t afford to keep warm.
But hard winters kill off the bugs and weeds to allow the spring growth opportunities to flourish.
Interesting to look at the photo accompanying the RNZ piece of Shotover Country. Each of those houses would be a tradie with a million dollar mortgage, unfortunately they are unlikely to winter well.
The Queenstown council are bascially traitors who would gladly run a Vicy-style puppet regime for a foreign power. They need to be packed and more patriotic people put in their place.
I listened to the Insight report, and as a Queenstown resident for 35 years I thought it was quite balanced for an outside cub reporter. Tim Brown gave away his lack of local knowledge and experience in the fist few minutes when he described Queenstown as a winter, and now summer resort. Sorry Tim, our peak time is summer, and has always been, going back to 1860’s. The winter product is quite new, developed initally in the 50’s and greatly expanded in 80’s through to now.
The treatment of our housing problems, which are nothing new, it’s been a problem from the very start of European settlement in the early 1860’s and a constant issue for as long as I have been here was accurate.
The section on the American owners Glenorchy Camping Ground and Gibbston Valley Wines I found enlightening regarding their attitude to New Zealand residency. That both parties could easily gain residency, but choose not to, made me wonder about their commitment to New Zealand.
Our housing trust is doing some very good work in providing accomodation for workers, using a variety of models which are evolving with time. The proposed legislation is being tweaked to accomodate situations like the housing trust, hopefully it can be made to work well at this end.
The choice, if you can call it that, between high end homes ($5 Million +) for the 1% and suburban sprawl for “kiwi workers” comes down to sustainability. The high end is a lot easier on the landscape and environment and provides ongoing, sustainable employment. Building houses to house people to build more houses to house more people to do I don’t know what isn’t going to make Queenstown a better place. The reality is that enjoyment of our environment is the only productive economic activity the place has been able to sustain. The challenge is to do this in a form that the environment, both physical and social, can sustain.
It’s my view that the high end has a lot to offer in this regard, and suburbia spreading across the landscape may not be the way to go.
I live in the queenstown lakes district and have to disagree. The high end $10-20 million houses tend to be located intrusively in the landscape where everyone is forced to look at them and their negative effects on landscape values. In this way one rich prick adversely affects many people visiting the District.These houses also negatively impact the local economy which relies on these landscapes.
Any house, of any value designed or sited inappropriately is a tragedy for the landscape. In my experience here, the “rich pricks” don’t have a monopoly on this behaviour.
There’s plenty of quite modest homes and subdivisions slapped in middle of bare paddocks around the district, and a lot of very well designed and sympathetically sited mansions around the place too. The “rich pricks” generally have the resources, and inclination to do something about mitigating the landscape effects of their presence, which is more than can be said for the mass of roofs that’s Shotover Country.
“We tested many possible alternatives and the most plausible one is that ’Oumuamua must be a comet, and that gasses emanating from its surface were causing the tiny variations in its trajectory.”
The other being that it’s actually a spaceship and it’s altering its trajectory for it’s next port of call.
Google throws up this https://youngnats.national.org.nz/contact
Postal Address. NZ Young Nats 41 Pipitea Street Thorndon, Wellington 6011 … The Best Party on Campus. Authorised by G Hamilton, 41 Pipitea St, Wellington.
The Am Show Good morning your in Queens Town that place won’t be so popular when man made Global warming melts the snow its a beautiful little Town .
Yes Duncan I found that out about the day light hours in Southland you won’t get light till about 9 am its Day light in the beautiful Rotorua at 730 am.
I think a $10 tax charge per bed in Queens town is a need to keep this Aotearoa Iconic little town functioning efficiently and in a environmentally friendly way.
Our waste recycling well we will have to charge the company’s who produce this waste and pass the money on to make recycling profitable make the policy so that manufactures will save money by using less packing they could even reuse some of this packing thats they way money people react to being hit in the hip pocket .
I say that money payed for plastic bags should passed on to the recycling industry so they can afford to by the plants to recycle this waste in Rotorua we have just got recycling bins for every house which is a good thing but its a shame if the recycling just ends up in warehouseing there is a good oppertunity for Rotorua being central to most of Aoteraroa city’s to create a recycling industry land is affordable here and we need more jobs for Our people . You know that the whole Papatuanuku heres about Queens town thats were all the VIP go .ka kite ano.
P.S Congratulations Samantha you deserved your win
Good evening Newshub at six some of these males who complained about the winner of Dancing With The Stars don’t realise that wahine can win to and there moans just show there core values are archaic Samantha deserved her win.
Yes many Tangata whenua fall victim to the loan predators I say that interest rates should be caped at 5x the Reserve Banks rate not100 % .
Car finance is a major player in this as one tangata has mentioned the thing is by the time the tangata has payed the car off its stuffed so they trade it in get nothing for the trade in and refinance thats a sham. Ingred its quite warm for Rotorua Ka kite ano
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The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The New Zealand public sector and judiciary has again been ranked the least corrupt in the world. The 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released today by global anti-corruption organization Transparency International ranks New Zealand first equal ...
New Zealand is again ranked first equal with Denmark in the Transparency International annual index of perceived levels of public sector corruption. Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has welcomed New Zealand’s position in the 2020 index. He says New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Kaufman, Research Fellow, Vaccine Uptake Group, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute The federal government’s A$23.9 million COVID-19 vaccination information campaign, launchedyesterday, aims to reassure the public about vaccine safety and effectiveness. It will also provide information about the vaccine rollout. We’ve ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he’s joined by Hongi Luo, brand director at TikTok.In terms of cultural reach and impact, the ...
After Covid devastated its 2020, Basement Theatre comes roaring into 2021 with its Summer Season. Here’s the rundown of shows in-store, with some comments from programmer Nisha Madhan.Pre-FringeLust IslandWhen’s it on: February 2-6, 8pmWho’s involved: The women of improv troupe Hearthrobs (McKenzie’s Daughters, Salem Bitch Trials), including Brynley Stent, Alice ...
The whānau of Te Ahikaiata Turei supported by Māori and non-Māori staff at Unitec will take back a portrait of the Tūhoe leader who led the establishment of Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae and the values that brought the institute back from the brink of ...
A poll across the Early Childhood Education community found 93% in favour of pausing the ‘lunchbox rules’, or the Ministry of Education’s new Food Safety/choking changes to the Licensing Criteria, which came into effect on 25 January. “The message ...
Cycling advocates are calling for the transformation of urban transport, as New Zealand races to cut carbon. The Climate Change Commission will release its initial advice on Sunday 31 January. “Bikes and e-bikes are perfect for many local trips, ...
Three Ministers, led by the PM, joined in chorus today to warble about a bunch of measures aimed at helping to meet New Zealand’s 2050 carbon neutral target, create new jobs and boost innovation. Mind you, the measures mentioned seem to be more matters of decisions yet to be made ...
Michelle Kidd defines her role at Auckland’s specialist family violence court as te kaiwhakatere – the navigator. It’s a one-of-a-kind job, helping guide defendants through the court system. And there’s no one better suited to it than Whaea Michelle.First published November 24, 2020.Whaea Michelle is part of Frame, a series of short ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sallie Yea, Associate professor & Principal Research Fellow, La Trobe University Each year, thousands of men and boys labour under extremely exploitative conditions on commercial fishing vessels owned by Taiwanese, Chinese and South Korean companies. The Taiwanese fleet, which operates in all ...
Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis believes the Crown should maintain responsibility for the care and protection of at-risk and vulnerable children, regardless of their race. Moreover, he is confident his all-Maori team of advisers will not be taking race into account as they help to improve Oranga Tamariki’s care and protection of ...
It’s easy to sacrifice John Banks. It’s a lot harder for brands, sports organisations and government to truly stop funding racism. Are they willing to try?Yesterday John Banks, the former Auckland mayor and MP, became subject to one of the fastest firings in media history when audio covering his approving ...
A community is outraged after Auckland Council granted consent for a row of trees planted by local kids to be removed along a revitalised waterway in South Auckland, reports Justin Latif. An Auckland Council decision to give contractors the all-clear to chop down 12 mānuka and kānuka trees shading Māngere’s Tararata ...
Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu hopes that the recent changes to Oranga Tamariki leadership present an opportunity for a long overdue paradigm shift that will place whānau at the heart of the child welfare sector. Pouārahi Helen Leahy says that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rice, Professor of Management, University of New England Elon Musk is now the world’s richest person, edging out previous title holder Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. His rocketing fortune is due to the booming share price of Tesla, the maker of electric vehicles ...
There are now three returnees who contracted the virus in the Auckland isolation facility then left into the community while positive. These are some of the questions that need to be resolved. At 10.20pm last night the Ministry of Health confirmed that the two cases they’d been treating as probable ...
Having a hard time remembering to scan in on the NZ Covid Tracer app when you’re out and about? Get this song stuck in your head and you’ll never forget again.Learn the lyrics:Aotearoa, it’s time to get scanning!I mean if you think about it, it never really wasn’t time we ...
We conclude our week-long examination of New Zealand writer Roderick Finlayson with a review of his stories by John Newton Roger Hickin’s Cold Hub Press is one of the small miracles of contemporary New Zealand publishing. Over the last decade, on what can only be a shoe-string budget, the ...
Thursday 28th January, AUCKLAND: Drive Electric, the not-for-profit with one mission – making electric vehicle uptake in New Zealand mainstream, welcomes the announcement by the Government today as a sign of what’s to come through 2021, and we are confident ...
The Government announced today key policy decisions on the proposed clean car policies. The MIA has stated on many occasions that we support well thought out and constructive policies that will lead to an increased rate in the reduction of CO2 emissions from ...
Get wild, get cultured, get fed and then get to bed: the essential guide to a perfect few days in the southern city. There’s one thing that preoccupies the staff of The Spinoff almost as much as arranging popular food items into arbitrary lists, and that’s Dunedin. A quite remarkable ...
John Banks’ racist exchange with a Magic Talk listener on Tuesday was the latest in nearly 50 years of talkback controversies. Donna Chisholm has the receipts.John Banks axed over Māori ‘stone age culture’ comments on Magic Talk1972: On Radio I, sports talkback host Tim Bickerstaff launches a “Punch a Pom ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission.Two new community Covid-19 cases have been identified as the more infectious South African variant, but Auckland Mayor Phil Goff sayit would be "premature to go into lockdown now". The two new cases of Covid-19 identified in the ...
Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine in Southland to Fonterra’s ...
KiwiRail STOP Hauling COAL Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Dunn, Associate professor, University of Sydney The government is rolling out a new public information campaign this week to reassure the public about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, which one expert has said “couldn’t be more crucial” to people actually getting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Therese O’Sullivan, Associate Professor, Edith Cowan University The COVID vaccine rollout has placed the issue of vaccination firmly in the spotlight. A successful rollout will depend on a variety of factors, one of which is vaccine acceptance. One potential hurdle to vaccine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernard Walker, Associate Professor in Organisations and Leadership, University of Canterbury Kiwis know what it’s like when life throws curveballs. We’ve had major quakes, floods, fires, an eruption, a terrorist attack and now a pandemic. In those situations, it’s the ability to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Irwin, Emeritus professor, Murdoch University While we continue to be occupied with the COVID pandemic, another life-threatening disease has emerged in northern Australia, one that’s cause for considerable alarm for the millions of dog owners around the country. This disease — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cath Ferguson, Academic, Edith Cowan University Almost half of Australian adults struggle with reading. Similar levels of struggling readers are reported in the United Kingdom and United States. This does not mean all struggling readers are illiterate. It means they often struggle ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abbas Shieh, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Design, Islamic Azad University The industrial revolution transformed cities, resulting in places of residence and work becoming more distant than ever before. This spatial segregation is still largely embedded in the design of our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Review: Occupation: Rainfall, written and directed by Luke Sparke Historically, when a sequel to a film was greenlit, you could rest assured this was because the first film made a ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 28, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Tourism suffers in the shadow of Covid-19, two new positive cases in Auckland confirmed, and National will contest the Māori electorates.The front page of the January 4 Greymouth Star carried grim tidings for several of the glacier towns on the ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Two people who left managed isolation on January 15 have been confirmed as positive Covid-19 cases, with the Ministry of Health urging anyone who visited the same locations during the same time period as the infected pair in Auckland to ...
The watchlist of 'offensive or unreasonable' babies' names is to be reviewed, to include more names from other languages. Generations of the Īhaka family have played a meaningful role in bringing Te Reo and stories of Māori to our wider community. Archdeacon Sir Kīngi Matutaera Īhaka (Te Aupōuri, 1921-93) was known as the orator of ...
After Morocco’s flagrant violation of the terms of the ceasefire in Western Sahara on Friday 13 November 2020 war broke out between the two sides. In the midst of this war Tauranga based Ballance Agri-Nutrients has decided to carry on importing phosphate ...
Nicholas Agar suggests that our handling of the pandemic could be partly down to our distinctive Treaty of Waitangi relationship, and Māori ideas that enabled us to make it through without tens of thousands of deaths A mission for universities in the coming decade will be a deep understanding of the meaning ...
A young girl who once sent $5 to an embattled America's Cup team is now among the women on the water helping run the contest for the Auld Mug. As an eager and generous nine-year-old, Melanie Roberts posted a letter, with a $5 note, to OneAustralia’s America’s Cup team. It was 1995, ...
At 5am today, cock’s crow, the embargo lifted on the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlist. Here are the books in the race, followed by thoughts from poetry editor Chris Tse and books editor Catherine Woulfe. A shortlist of four books in each category will be announced March 3, with ...
Ignoring those QR codes when you drop into the supermarket? Can’t be bothered when you grab a coffee? The people serving you notice, and you’re freaking them out.So far, New Zealanders’ use of the Covid-19 Tracer app has been notably woeful. Food industry workers who’ve watched streams of customers walk ...
Steve Braunias reveals the longlist of the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards Apart from one or two unfortunate omissions which cast doubt on the sanity and intellectual acumen of judges, especially the nobodies who judged this year's non-fiction, the longlist for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards is ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea’s biggest hospital is straining to provide medical services to the growing population of the capital Port Moresby – with an estimated growth rate of 3 percent annually, a medical executive says. Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Nationals who attend Thursday’s memorial service in Tweed Heads for Doug Anthony, who died last month aged 90, may muse on the contrast between the state of their party when he led it and now. ...
Returning to quarantine-free travel in 2021 doesn't just need a vaccine, but a way to check whether arriving passengers are actually immune to the virus. A smart Kiwi science start-up is working with a global biometrics giant to make that happen. A deal signed between Kiwi research and development company Orbis Diagnostics, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlyn Forster, PhD Candidate, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney This summer’s wetter conditions have created great conditions for flowering plants. Flowers provide sweet nectar and protein-rich pollen, attracting many insects, including bees. Commercial honey bees are also thriving: ...
Lotto scratchie tickets featuring the pop band Six60 are being withdrawn after a public backlash. In a statement, Lotto NZ said there had been a mutual decision made with the band to remove the tickets from sale following the negative feedback, and it offered an apology. The band faced criticism, both ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Shell-crushing predation was already in full swing half a billion years ago, as our new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals. A hyena devouring ...
Vodafone has suspended advertising on the radio station amid calls for talkback host John Banks to be taken off air after yet another racist outburst. Alex Braae reports. In an alarming segment of talkback radio, former Auckland mayor John Banks endorsed the views of a caller who described Māori as a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Welch, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland When a COVID-19 case was found in Northland last Sunday, Aotearoa’s second-longest period with no detected community case came to an end. ESR scientists worked late into Sunday night to obtain a whole genome sequence ...
He has the perfect moustache, an exceptional mullet, and he uses terms like ‘face hole’ on national TV. Who or what is Dr Joel Rindelaub?I was drawn in by the moustache, but it was the mullet that really kept me there. Watching TVNZ’s Breakfast yesterday morning I was fixated. Often, ...
We’ll never be royals with nearly a quarter of declined baby names featuring “Royal” in some form or another. Te Tari Taiwhenua Department of Internal Affairs has released the list of names declined in 2020 by the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and ...
After a raft of inquiries delving into and recommending what should be done about the politically beleaguered Orangi Tamaraki, along with the briefing papers we suppose he has been given, we imagined Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis would have no more need for expert advice. Wrong. He has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University There’s a common assumption men take longer than women to poo. People say so on Twitter, in memes, and elsewhereonline. But is that right? What could explain it? And if ...
Just as sexuality is a spectrum, so too is asexuality. In Ace of Hearts, members of New Zealand’s asexual community talk about the challenges and misconceptions of identifying as ace.First published November 17, 2020.Ace of Hearts is part of Frame, a series of short documentaries produced by Wrestler for The Spinoff.“A ...
Sam Brooks wasn’t allowed to watch kids TV as a kid. Now, as a 30 year old man, he watches it for the first time.My mother’s approach to parenting was unorthodox. I wrote weekly book reports on top of my actual homework, I did maths equations in Roman numerals and ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk More leading Indonesian figures have made racial slurs against Natalius Pigai, former chair of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) – and all West Papuans, says United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda. “Since the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1963, Indonesian ...
“The Government’s failure to even conduct a standard cost-benefit analysis for the most expensive infrastructure project in New Zealand’s history is mind-bogglingly arrogant,” says New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke. “A ...
The Ministry of Health is today drawing backlash from the local New Zealand vaping industry following its release of proposed regulations for the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act. Vaping Trade Association New Zealand (VTANZ) President, ...
Sophie Gilmour and Simon Day are joined by special guest Hugo Baird, co-owner of Grey Lynn’s Honey Bones and Lilian, to talk about opening new pub Hotel Ponsonby.Auckland is a city of many bars but few really good pubs – the kind of places you’d be just as comfortable going ...
The appointment of an advisory board for Oranga Tamariki is welcome and should be a step toward a total transformation of the care and protection system to a by Māori, for Māori approach, Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft said today. Minister ...
Taking control of your financial wellbeing can have cascading positive impacts for your life and it can also be fun. With the help of the team at Kiwi Wealth, we’ve compiled some simple tricks for balancing your books in 2021. There’s something about the beginning of a new year, especially after ...
White Rabbits!
Ribbit ribbit. My……. you’re up early big boy.
Btw, are you FCV-free? (khaleesi/Calici)
Apologies @ Sanc. It’s just that I’ve had to witness (over the past 12 hours) the ‘yoof of today’ indulging in virtual foreplay via a couple of cell phones – culminating in what was apparently a transactional ‘bootie call’.
So um, can we? CAN WE!!!!?
Geez, that Jemaine Clement’s looking a bit grey these days eh?
That Wellington Supernatural better be worth it eh?
RNZ’s taking a real gamble I rekon shuvving him up on their interweb site.
Never mind. Someone from The Spinoff will be along very soon to legitimise it all.
Thanks. I’ll go have a listen.
Hmmm, sounds like the Queenstown Property Speculators are getting a free half hour show courtesy of some moron reporter on RNZ just now.
#switchedoff
Unfortunately I listened in as well but my primary task was getting breakfast so the time wasn’t totally wasted.
Didn’t you just love the preconceived prompt to several interviewees like: “so you’re saying the foreign buyers legislation will have the opposite effect on providing affordable housing than is intended”.
Please, please say yes or my whole “story” will collapse. The term “chilling effect” was used several times.
I was struck by one guy (American I think) who sounded so concerned that the Bill was sending signals being picked up offshore that NZ didn’t want foreign investment and this was a BAD thing. Good I thought. Too damned right many of us don’t.
His horror was what decades of neoliberalism and centuries of capitalist pillaging and theft does to you I guess.
Agreed @ Grey Area.
Mee toooo, except I wasn’t so concerned with getting on with breakfast, I was more concerned with the apparent fob off from Sanctuary in my quest for a hookup, I went back to sleep.
And now, I’m listening to the sage Corin Dann on PLUS 1 and wondering whether it’d not be better to take another hour out of life in the name of sleep.
Decisons decisons!. Such a hard life!
OH CHRIST!!!! Now Wayne Mapp has just popped up as the gin-soaked sage.
Easy.
Snore!!!!!!!!!!!
Agreed OnceWasTim,
I was horrified with Q+A today and exited that show for’ Discovery channel’ as I needed sanctuary for my mind to stay sane.
We need a new ‘Channel seven’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVNZ_7 now more than ever with real depth in investigative journalism not a horror show of empty ‘talking heads.’
I’m pretty sure that the majority of us don’t want it and the only reason why we have it is because governments over the last decades have forced it upon us against our will.
Which means that we live in a dictatorship and not a democracy.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10678798
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11986751
https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/poll-voters-love-labours-foreign-buyer-ban-ck-176137
Yes that’s right, its not like we have elections every three years and a range of parties to vote for.
We do that – yes.
And then those parties go round doing things that we don’t want them to do. The whole neo-liberal implementation was against what the people wanted but no matter who we voted for we got the same shit. National did the TPPA which the majority didn’t want. Labour promised to change it or even to get rid of it if it didn’t meet their bottom lines. It didn’t meet those bottom lines and then they went and signed it anyway.
At what point were our wishes actually listened to?
The whole neo-liberal implementation was against what the people wanted but no matter who we voted for we got the same shit.
and then some of us campaigned and succeeded in changing the voting system but many people still continue to vote Labour regardless of the continual betrayals. We get the government that we collectively deserve.
Well, there’s that too.
But even that just means that we need a better democratic system. One that doesn’t leave policy decisions solely to the MPs.
NZF is the only logical alternative ?
Yeh, right, because Winston has never gone back on a bottom line.
He’s so honest that he took his website down after the election.
solka;
‘we have elections every three years and a range of parties to vote for.’
Yes we do but we are constabtly brainwashed by the heavy use of right wing compliant broadcasting controlled by the right wing spin doctors and corportate involvement,.
So we are effectively controlled by the bussiness commutity and their interests and not ours.
This is not democracy – but is corpocracy, which is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.
We have been indocrinated by this corpocracy medium in all our media here in NZ today.
<blockquote…but is corpocracy, which is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.
If you’re going to quote Wikipedia then it would be good form to link to the article.
Queenstown should just scede from NZ and apply to become a SAR of China. I can just imagine them all waving little Chinese flags as the PLA marches up the main drag.
Falun Gong is not big in Q-Town.
And it’s illegal in China.
Yep, Sanctuary
RNZ has gone deep into the south island I have noted, – and RNZ dont carry any ‘free half hour shows’ for our most isolated noth Island regions such as northland and Gisborne/HB east coast as they do in the south.
Perhaps that is because the HQ for RNZ has been centered in Dunedin for years.
RNZ is headquartered in Auckland and the Dunedin studios were shuttered years ago, and sold to the University of Otago in 2010.
+ 1
Jeepers how can anyone believe anything anyone says.
It pays not to, with certain people anyway. Check this one out …
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/05/10/dr-liz-gordon-fixing-work-and-income/#comment-425956
Let us hope IRD and the PSA and WINZ get the increases correct this set of changes.
Hopefully a small glimmer of hope for many.
Tim Brown is the RNZ regional reporter for Otago/Southland/Lakes.
I looked at his content, and it is the stereotypical regional reporter mix of human interest stories, crime, weather and good news propaganda for the local chamber of commerce/Federated Farmers. The guy is on a good wicket, he can file happy happy joy joy stories based on his chummy relationships with local business people and the rest of his content is derived from ringing up his mate at the cop shop, chatting to the mayor at events, and the weather. An easy life, with the advantage you get lots of nice invites and freebies.
This morning ridiculous piece highlights the danger of using a regional reporter to create an in depth critical investigation feature.
In this case, the local beat reporter is clearly the wrong person to do such a story, because he has clearly become far too chummy with the movers and shakers in town, which helps him get news and he (understandably) doesn’t want to shit in own nest.
The simple reality is if he had run a piece critical of of the despoiling of Queenstown by rampant speculation and unregulated development and supportive of the government position a whole lot of doors would slam shut on him. Why rock the boat?
As such, we should consider this mornings insight on RNZ mainly as an extended job application by Tim Brown for a role as PR flack for Queenstown Lake’s property developers association…
Good analysis. My half an ear told me he was out of his depth and/or doing a PR piece for foreign ownership and overseas financing of the “development” of Queenstown.
It saddens me that NZers are so venal and/or stupid that we allow a jewel like Queenstown to be so over-developed that we spoil the very character that drew people to it in the first place.
I last visited Queenstown six years ago and enjoyed a couple of days there but from what I’ve heard recently it’s over-full of tourists and traffic congestion. We’ll be visiting the South Island later this year but will be avoiding Queenstown.
It was one of the places we used to go to when I was a child (50s and 60s) but I haven’t been near it for a very long time – I think I would just burst into tears. My compensation for the ruination of Queenstown is that while the ghastlies who wrought all this damage are all corralled in Queenstown they aren’t wrecking the rest of NZ. Does Queenstown just need to take one for the team?
Queenstown is…over-ripe.
Your analogy is pretty much spot on Robert.
We are probably well into the autumn of this development cycle most of the fruit on the tree is getting pretty squishy, the rest that hasn’t ripened by now is unlikely to before winter sets in. And it’s looking like a very hard winter is going to sweep through our local economy, it’ll be tough for those that can’t afford to keep warm.
But hard winters kill off the bugs and weeds to allow the spring growth opportunities to flourish.
Interesting to look at the photo accompanying the RNZ piece of Shotover Country. Each of those houses would be a tradie with a million dollar mortgage, unfortunately they are unlikely to winter well.
The Queenstown council are bascially traitors who would gladly run a Vicy-style puppet regime for a foreign power. They need to be packed and more patriotic people put in their place.
Sanctuary….Exactly my thoughts when listening to that Tim Brown piece this morning.
I listened to the Insight report, and as a Queenstown resident for 35 years I thought it was quite balanced for an outside cub reporter. Tim Brown gave away his lack of local knowledge and experience in the fist few minutes when he described Queenstown as a winter, and now summer resort. Sorry Tim, our peak time is summer, and has always been, going back to 1860’s. The winter product is quite new, developed initally in the 50’s and greatly expanded in 80’s through to now.
The treatment of our housing problems, which are nothing new, it’s been a problem from the very start of European settlement in the early 1860’s and a constant issue for as long as I have been here was accurate.
The section on the American owners Glenorchy Camping Ground and Gibbston Valley Wines I found enlightening regarding their attitude to New Zealand residency. That both parties could easily gain residency, but choose not to, made me wonder about their commitment to New Zealand.
Our housing trust is doing some very good work in providing accomodation for workers, using a variety of models which are evolving with time. The proposed legislation is being tweaked to accomodate situations like the housing trust, hopefully it can be made to work well at this end.
The choice, if you can call it that, between high end homes ($5 Million +) for the 1% and suburban sprawl for “kiwi workers” comes down to sustainability. The high end is a lot easier on the landscape and environment and provides ongoing, sustainable employment. Building houses to house people to build more houses to house more people to do I don’t know what isn’t going to make Queenstown a better place. The reality is that enjoyment of our environment is the only productive economic activity the place has been able to sustain. The challenge is to do this in a form that the environment, both physical and social, can sustain.
It’s my view that the high end has a lot to offer in this regard, and suburbia spreading across the landscape may not be the way to go.
I live in the queenstown lakes district and have to disagree. The high end $10-20 million houses tend to be located intrusively in the landscape where everyone is forced to look at them and their negative effects on landscape values. In this way one rich prick adversely affects many people visiting the District.These houses also negatively impact the local economy which relies on these landscapes.
Any house, of any value designed or sited inappropriately is a tragedy for the landscape. In my experience here, the “rich pricks” don’t have a monopoly on this behaviour.
There’s plenty of quite modest homes and subdivisions slapped in middle of bare paddocks around the district, and a lot of very well designed and sympathetically sited mansions around the place too. The “rich pricks” generally have the resources, and inclination to do something about mitigating the landscape effects of their presence, which is more than can be said for the mass of roofs that’s Shotover Country.
If the wunnerful foreign investors had been flat tack erecting cheap houses for workers they might have a bit of a point.
How the darkened side of America thinks. Although to be fair one of them sounds like he’s on the brink of crossing over to the enlightened side:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44649459/trump-supporters-on-family-separations-and-border-security
I will say no more…
When people wonder if Trump can be re-elected look no further than than those folk. We are all a bit “loyal” to our chosen heroes but…
To stay with the theme of the power of music and performing together: https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/opinion/105118732/music-has-the-ability-to-reach-into-my-soul
It would be great if e-tangata could be supported. Kia ora.
https://e-tangata.co.nz/media/we-need-your-help/
I see Winston is getting Nigel Farage’s endorsement because he is so much like Trump.
Kind of humorous
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/06/winston-peters-nz-s-own-version-of-trump-nigel-farage.html
Dunkin’ doesn’t like being kept waiting chrissy.
Knda funny
Little fat maori boy throwing his toys out of the cot ?
In response to the Capital Gazette shooting; here’s a great piece by Laurie Penny on Misogyny and Massacres.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/29/mass-shootings-white-male-fragility-capital-gazette-maryland-misogyny
Surprise.
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/06/30/incels-embrace-capital-gazette-shooter-but-only-after-they-learn-he-harassed-a-woman/
btw, the collective noun for MRA’s? A failure.
Incels…yeah, nah..
Make believe…yeah, yeah!
Truth is stranger than fiction – accelerating away – think about it…
https://www.universetoday.com/139545/oumuamua-accelerated-out-of-the-solar-system-like-a-comet/
The other being that it’s actually a spaceship and it’s altering its trajectory for it’s next port of call.
I’m not sure Occam’s razor is of much help here …
anybody here know who G Hamilton of 41 Pipitea St. Wgton is?
he is running scabby anti government threads on Facebook which are just out and out lies.
Google throws up this
https://youngnats.national.org.nz/contact
Postal Address. NZ Young Nats 41 Pipitea Street Thorndon, Wellington 6011 … The Best Party on Campus. Authorised by G Hamilton, 41 Pipitea St, Wellington.
Ah, so typical National Party lies.
It seems that they train them young.
National party GM.
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/greg-hamilton-596b4926
https://www.nbr.co.nz/tags/greg-hamilton
Have you seen the new Jonathan Pie clip?
He gets fair up the soap-boxers. I think his message is ‘Don’t waste time with shit that doesn’t matter.’
*Fruity language
The Am Show Good morning your in Queens Town that place won’t be so popular when man made Global warming melts the snow its a beautiful little Town .
Yes Duncan I found that out about the day light hours in Southland you won’t get light till about 9 am its Day light in the beautiful Rotorua at 730 am.
I think a $10 tax charge per bed in Queens town is a need to keep this Aotearoa Iconic little town functioning efficiently and in a environmentally friendly way.
Our waste recycling well we will have to charge the company’s who produce this waste and pass the money on to make recycling profitable make the policy so that manufactures will save money by using less packing they could even reuse some of this packing thats they way money people react to being hit in the hip pocket .
I say that money payed for plastic bags should passed on to the recycling industry so they can afford to by the plants to recycle this waste in Rotorua we have just got recycling bins for every house which is a good thing but its a shame if the recycling just ends up in warehouseing there is a good oppertunity for Rotorua being central to most of Aoteraroa city’s to create a recycling industry land is affordable here and we need more jobs for Our people . You know that the whole Papatuanuku heres about Queens town thats were all the VIP go .ka kite ano.
P.S Congratulations Samantha you deserved your win
Here is what Norway is doing to solve its plastic waste Eco Maori thinks this is the solution to OUR plastic waste problems link below .
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjS1uOUg__bAhVWQd4KHT9oDwYQFggvMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.plasgranltd.co.uk%2Fnorwegian-approach-bottle-recycling-revolutionise-british-approach%2F&usg=AOvVaw005IRQ5Z0QXnbGyvkpel8S
Ka kite ano
Here we go someone who can see that the common people the poor pay more tax than a lot of wealthy people the link is below.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12081815
Ka kite ano
Ka pai Mexicans for voteing a left Tangata President all the best for your mokopunas future and yours link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/02/mexico-election-leftist-amlo-set-for-historic-landslide-victory Ka kite ano
Good evening Newshub at six some of these males who complained about the winner of Dancing With The Stars don’t realise that wahine can win to and there moans just show there core values are archaic Samantha deserved her win.
Yes many Tangata whenua fall victim to the loan predators I say that interest rates should be caped at 5x the Reserve Banks rate not100 % .
Car finance is a major player in this as one tangata has mentioned the thing is by the time the tangata has payed the car off its stuffed so they trade it in get nothing for the trade in and refinance thats a sham. Ingred its quite warm for Rotorua Ka kite ano
Here is another reason why we should put a price on plastic waste at the start to reduce waste and protect our seabirds and wild life link below .
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/02/new-zealand-the-most-perilous-place-for-seabirds-due-to-plastic-pollution Ka kite ano