"The latest International Monetary Fund forecast has global growth dipping to -4.9 per cent." Degrowth is now in the pipeline.
It will probably have to occur for a while until mainstreamers start to notice, and then the media will get over their aversion and start reporting it. Normalcy is a state of mind and operates like conventional wisdom.
Facing a reality not previously encountered takes quite a lot of unconventional wisdom. Like turning the Titanic around, after the fraught consensus-building process of agreeing that the iceberg really is looming dead ahead.
So National & Labour are likely to produce alternative economic plans prior to the impact of the election, but such difficult endeavour takes inordinate time. Not business as usual is a hard thing for both bunches of neoliberals to think about.
Mainstreamers that aren't already out of work, you mean? Media not reporting it? Where'd you get that quote you led off with? When is prior to the impact of the election?
Degrowth. Media mainstreamers are averse to reporting a new reality, in normalcy. The conceptual breakthrough that awaits them is when one of their own succumbs to the `emperor's new clothes' effect. That will happen when the fastest slow learner realises the emperor of economic growth is no longer wearing clothes, interprets the drop in gdp as degrowth, then says so!
When is prior to the impact of the election?
When the election gets so close that the risk of delay becomes greater than the risk of announcing the plan too soon.
It ain't a tortoise & hare race, eh? Think tortoise & tortoise. The plans must gestate in the collective minds & processes of National & Labour until the time seems right to launch them. Remember that they both issued schematics of those plans not long ago, and the media commented on how they seemed identical and equally simplistic. So now the challenge is to differentiate!
Q: how can one bunch of neoliberal drones seem cleverer than another?
Of course not. I conclude that as a result of the consistent pattern of their failure to report it. What, you think I haven't waited long enough already?
Well, how long is a piece of string? I'm impatient by nature. A single failure suffices, for me. But yes, if you must wait until a pattern of degrowth denial by the media is well-established, I trust you will report each failure that you notice to us here, and tag it with the correct number in the sequence, so we can watch the sequence develop until it triggers the threshold of your pattern-recognition.
Don't let your impatience impede your understanding. Wait though, you're not just pretending the media are in denial to suit some point you want to make about your perspicacity are you? That would be a tad sly.
Most of the "political commentariat" are shills for National and to keep banging on with their trumping neoliberal memes shows they're owned and not reporting objectively. Relax though as Hosk will maintain the indignant rants.
Collins and Boag have also done a great wrecking job by reminding everyone how DP and that 'win at all costs' are still very much the playbook with national. They don't give a F about the people and Jude showed NZ over ILG she's into those tactics despite denial.
People aren't that stupid and the polls reflect that IMO. JA deserves to govern alone.
Most of the "political commentariat" are shills for National…
Except for the most of the "political commentariat" who people at Kiwiblog claim are shills for Ardern and for Labour.
I guess the "political commentariat" is people who say things you disagree with, as opposed to the intelligent well reasoned journalists you agree with.
In many people's eyes Ardern does deserve to govern alone, but alas she least needs a few ministers to pad out the Cabinet and to front on the bad news.
Goes beyond any party sympathies. For instance, Malpass is a hardcore libertarian cheerleader who has worked for 'thinktanks' of that persuasion in both NZ and Australia.
Ok Pete Who are these marvelous managers in National? Their “Cabinet” is looking very shabby at present.
You are repeating the meme, "They only have Jacinda" when talking about Labour, with "alas she needs a few ministers to pad out the Cabinet"
Journalists who were "truth tellers became targets during Key's time. It is good to see one vindicated to some degree.
We look at the record and behaviour of these people. When their hyperbole draws the attention of theWorld Press, you can hardly accuse us of only attacking those journalists or commentators we disagree with. That is disingenuous.
As the biggest global event since WW2, it seems entirely reasonable that COVID-19 will lead to some sort of political realignment or shift in democratic societies, as happened in and after the 1930s Depression (eg Roosevelt in US, Savage/Fraser in NZ) and WW2 (eg Labour's election victory in UK in 1945, the NHS etc).
It will be hard for any opposition party to argue for smaller government, tax cuts and especially anything that might be seen to weaken the health system. Hard too for National to attack Labour for carrying out pretty much the same economic policies as the British and Australian conservative governments have done during COVID.
Weak piece from van Beynen which doesn't look at underlying causes. Labour is popular right now because for a period of a few months it has told business what to do and insisted that it behave itself. It has put private power under democratic control in the interests of the health of every citizen. A majority of people love that – it's how their families work.
Sure – as things get back to normal Labour will roll over and let business walk all over it again. But it's been nice while it lasted.
That is a very insightful comment- having business behave itself. In terms of the election frankly I don't expect huge policy gobs ( as everything is in flux) but I would be content with a direction of travel.
At the moment I think it would be fair to say that National represent letting business and overseas actors run all over the country again with zero concern for the bulk of citizens, with a very large side dollop of righteous fundamental holly roller.
Labour will do better long term if they make it clear that they see business as a sector that has to be modified community needs.
The Greens might be better to really focus on business being pushed in the environmental direction and into better redistribution towards the low paid but with more emphasis on the part the international wealthy play in this and the level of competition that the workplace settings play in this.
Funny too how the media demand policy from Labour but give the right a free pass although the right rarely disclose their true agenda anyway.
Restating National’s reason for existence is no easy task. It could start by reminding itself who it really represents, whose interests it is there to protect and promote.
National is there to represent the rich and to make the exploitation of the poor by the rich easier. They know this, they don't have to remind themselves. Their problem is that most people are truly starting to realise this and if they state it openly then they lose even more votes.
It could stand for equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome. Civility instead of kindness.
Yeah – no. National has never stood for that. In fact, they stand fully against that. They know that the rich have much more opportunity and they're out to keep it that way by keeping everyone else poor.
After all, equal opportunity can only come when everyone has the same access to the same level of resources.
Does it all matter? Would it be the end of the world if National’s failure to re-establish its relevance meant it withered and died.
Yes, it matters because getting rid of the rich is what we need to do to truly become a prosperous nation.
It’s obviously important for our democracy to have a healthy opposition and National is all we have got at this stage.
Its important for democracy that all voices and ideas are heard, debated and those chosen by the people are researched. It's not important for democracy to have an opposition.
Public support for democracy depends on the other team having a reasonable prospect of governing one day.
That is an outright lie.
Public support for democracy comes from people feeling that their say is heard and that the path that the people choose benefits them and their direct family.
The concept of government and opposition actually prevents that.
Social realities get co-created. Conspiracy theories have been escalating in recent decades and having a US president promoting one or more of them ramps their influence up into the top level of politics. Next step: geopolitics! 👽
When theories are promoted as alternative realities, they can become resilient and adaptive. As complex memes, they achieve contagion and currency.
"QAnon does not possess a physical location, but it has an infrastructure, a literature, a growing body of adherents, and a great deal of merchandising… In the face of inconvenient facts, it has the ambiguity and adaptability to sustain a movement of this kind over time. For QAnon, every contradiction can be explained away; no form of argument can prevail against it."
Conspiracy theories are a constant in American history, and it is tempting to dismiss them as inconsequential. But as the 21st century has progressed, such a dismissal has begun to require willful blindness.
Sceptics tend to make greater fools of themselves than conspiracy theorists. The denialism that drives their dismissal makes them seem more pathetic. They deny the evidence that makes the conspiracy theory superficially plausible. So other sceptics who prefer to be grounded in whatever social reality seems profoundly real have to distance themselves from both groups.
This transcendence of the binary creates a triadic structure in society: true-believers, disbelievers, and agnostics. Amongst the agnostics, you get those who are genuinely interested in the theorising, but require a better match with reality than that proposed by the competing binary nutball groups.
The hero myth was identified by mythologist Joseph Campbell in 1949. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces) When you combine it with the tyranny/freedom mental axis, to produce Trump as liberator from total control of everyone by the deep state, you get traction in the mass mind.
In its broadest contours, the QAnon belief system looks something like this: Q is an intelligence or military insider with proof that corrupt world leaders are secretly torturing children all over the world; the malefactors are embedded in the deep state; Donald Trump is working tirelessly to thwart them.
Next step is to use the internet to make mass contagion more influential. Memes defeat other memes in the process of social darwinism:
If the internet is one big rabbit hole containing infinitely recursive rabbit holes, QAnon has somehow found its way down all of them, gulping up lesser conspiracy theories as it goes.
Then achieve democratic authenticity by identifying with the will of the people:
To believe Q requires rejecting mainstream institutions, ignoring government officials, battling apostates, and despising the press. One of Q’s favorite rallying cries is “You are the news now.”
Waken everyone! Warn them, about Democrats
promoting “mass hysteria” about the coronavirus for political gain: “What is the primary benefit to keep public in mass-hysteria re: COVID‑19? Think voting. Are you awake yet? Q.”
Meanwhile in the real world …. the interview with Oliver Stone was also interesting. I think the Vietnam experience will be viewed in the future as a more telling moment in history than it is even now. I was a teen at the time and it didn't fully sink in, and watching documentaries now what gets to me is the pure fear in the eyes of the conscripts sent there. Stone nailed the zeitgeist of the time so well, and long may he continue to produce rock the boat documentaries and films.
"Sceptics tend to make greater fools of themselves than conspiracy theorists. The denialism that drives their dismissal makes them seem more pathetic."
Really? Equating skepticism to denial(ism) is just weird – maybe it's a conspiracy
"Scepticism is integral to the scientific process, because most claims turn out to be false. Weeding out the few kernels of wheat from the large pile of chaff requires extensive observation, careful experimentation and cautious inference. Science is scepticism and good scientists are sceptical.
Denial is different. It is the automatic gainsaying of a claim regardless of the evidence for it – sometimes even in the teeth of evidence. Denialism is typically driven by ideology or religious belief, where the commitment to the belief takes precedence over the evidence. Belief comes first, reasons for belief follow, and those reasons are winnowed to ensure that the belief survives intact."
RNZ dropped Vicki Hyde as one of their regular commentators. I suspect her ideologically-driven scepticism was pissing off their audience too much. Nothing wrong with traditional scepticism used as a reality-check in science, as described in your red herring. What goes wrong with sceptics is their natural tendency to elevate scepticism to an ideology, whence their degeneration into denial of evidence emerges from. Been seeing that tendency consistently since the 1970s.
Sceptics are able to make a positive contribution to society & culture as long as they keep an open mind and balanced view of the pros & cons of evidence.
Sadly, many can't. This lot give the others a bad name (the analogy with lawyers comes to mind). To err is human, and one could rationalise their inadequacies accordingly. Me, I'm not so charitable. 😇
"I suspect her [Hyde's] ideologically-driven scepticism was pissing off their audience too much."
You've peaked my curiosity, Dennis – I've met Hyde (who in 2013 was appointed a MNZM for services to science), and would struggle to identify the idealogy that you perceive drives her scepticism. Could you expand on the evidence that informs your suspicion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicki_Hyde
"Sceptics are able to make a positive contribution to society & culture as long as they keep an open mind and balanced view of the pros & cons of evidence.
Sadly, many can't."
Yes, it's always sad when an opportunity to make a constructive contribution is lost – those 'patterns of behaviour' are sooo intractable, eh?
"What goes wrong with sceptics is their natural tendency to elevate scepticism to an ideology…" – so many people going wrong!
Conflating denial and scepticism doesn't fly, but, as you say, to err is human.
Pseudoscience as Media Effect
"The popularity of the anti-vax movement in the United States and elsewhere is the cause of new lethal epidemics of diseases that are fully preventable by modern medicine [Benecke and DeYoung, 2019]. Creationism creeps into science classrooms with the aim of undermining the teaching of evolution through legal obligations or school boards’ decisions to present both sides of a debate largely foreign to the scientific community [Taylor, 2017]. And one simply has to turn on the TV and watch so-called science channels to be bombarded with aliens, ghosts, cryptids and miracles as though they are undisputable facts [Prothero, 2012]. Deprecated by its detractors, scientific proof is assimilated to become one opinion among others, if not a mere speculation. Worse, scientific data that challenge partisan positions or economic interests are dismissed as ‘junk science’ and their proponents as ‘shills’ [Oreskes and Conway, 2010]. By echoing such statements, some members of the media, often willing accomplices in conflating denial and scepticism, amplify manufactured controversies and cast growing doubt upon scientific credibility." https://jcom.sissa.it/archive/19/02/JCOM_1902_2020_L01
It’s a big part of their success in the polls sure. But it’s not the only reason. There’s also a growing conviction on the part of voters that the main opposition party is in no shape to bear the responsibilities of office at the moment.
– how dare people use Their money as they see fit, don't they know that Their Kiwi saver AINT theirs to use. How dare they.
People now and then need money. They can borrow it from a bank or go for their savings. If the government is smart it will look at a change in legislation that would allow people to access a certain part of THEIR SAVINGS to start their busienss, pay some healthcare costs, renovate the house, get married, have some childfren et etc etc etc – you know all that stuff that sometimes need money. And besides, 48% of businesses succeed. But then who cares.
I don't think anyone here is considering the No mates party a good steward of anything other then their own bank accounts.
But liberating the Kiwi Safer to their owners would not be a bad idea and should be considered.
Westykev,So, you didn't hear anything about the huge spending on Infrastructure then, the largest spend in NZs history, or the fact they've built more new homes than any Govt since the seventies.
I call that a wish list from a Party that has not delivered big on infrastructure since their elevation to Government. Twyford and team over promised and under delivered on housing and transport.
I hope for New Zealand’s sake they up their game post September.
It's not a wish list, it's an achievement NZ hasn't seen in a decade.
That's why people say Twyford was a failure cos he managed to have more new homes built in NZ than any Govt since the 70s.
In terms of other major Infrastructural projects, there hasn't been anytime in History that NZ has planned and completed the level Infrastructure currently either starting or near completion, roading, rail, Hospitals, Schools.
How many Schools and Hospitals were upgraded under the last Govt?
I think Jacinda and Labour have so far tried to tread a fine line on this. Governments still have to govern right up to election day but most election years haven't been overshadowed by such a crisis and threat.They don't want to be seen to be prioritising election campaigning over the serious business of keeping NZ safe, and if anything went wrong they'd get pilloried for taking their eyes off the ball. On the other hand, they have already got some criticism from media over allegedly treating the upcoming election as a nuisance. Ultimately the best way for a govt to retain power is to be seen to be doing a good job, while also setting out a vision for the future.
Must be why Ardern has an 80% confidence rating, looking after NZ and NZers.
We just happen to be in the luckiest country in the world right now, just there's a few Kiwis that haven't quite recognized that yet, they will in time.
This Virus ain't disappearing any time soon, NZ is the Country to follow for procedural excellence, and we're still learning as we go.have we made mistakes, yes, did we learn from mistakes, yes. What more can you ask for.
The National party are complaining about all the money being spent on Quarintine and Isolation without actually recognizing the Huge financial benefits of ploughing all those funds directly into the economy, employing people and keeping businesses operating, it's called good economic management, something NZers aren't used to seeing.
It'll cost them something, maybe the tail end of their list – but the party that spent so much time whining about opening the borders have scarcely established themselves as a credible alternative.
Covid-19 is a game changer on many levels were community transmission to occur. Due to good political management NZ has been fortunate in not being impacted on a social level other than when in level 4 & 3.
I watched the premier of Victoria on TV and the emotion in his eyes told me that there was a long rocky steep road ahead for his state.
There are some situations in isolation where additional support is needed. Ranging from medical requiring methadone to grief support for children and this needs to be provided to minimise breaking isolation.
The paper headline said yesterday/today that Victoria is thinking of a NZ type lockdown. We did it early and so it tracked through well. Victoria seemed to be doing well but it was careless to have guards supposed to be keeping isolated possibly infected apart but then having sex with them. That was a poor connection in the brain of the careless young, but even worse in the minds of planners who need to allow for the little quirks and needs of humans.
So Victoria may have to go beyond what we did and be authoritarian, and the young would hate it, but then that could be limited by showing some kindness and imagination. Set up ways of communicating so people don't get tense about family and personal problems, and loneliness. Let them watch television a lot and perhaps have classes on learning the ukelele, and put a performance on telly at the end of isolation giving kudos to those who gave it a go in the true Aussie spirit, and build citizen-pride and support. And for the ones that like reading have kindle, and then a book discussion between the isolated and outsiders. Try to get them reading, it may prevent them from joining the most illiterate period since 1820 or something, with most spending time watching mummers on TV.
I don't see that as bad, firms would probably give vouchers, be prepared to give something to do for the fortnight, and make a friend and customer from the situation.
When I say opposition, I mean those parties not part of the Government: National and ACT. At the moment the opposition is on 37%. Just seven weeks out from the election the opposition is at 37%.
For context, the poll that saw Andrew Little admit that maybe he wasn't the right person to lead Labour had the opposition of Labour, Greens, and NZFirst actually collectively at 50%.
…
You have to judge each poll against itself. So in the last Colmar Brunton, which was taken when Todd Muller was leader, National was on 38% and ACT on 3%. So 41% for the opposition. Even that is bad, but now it's worse with National shedding 6% and ACT gaining 2%.
If you compare TV3's Reid Research Polls, the opposition went from 32% to 28%, so a slip of 4%. While National went down 5% and ACT went up 2%.
The trends are pretty much the same.
It was a good call when to release the report into Operation Burnham as the National Party poll could have dipped due to the release. The next poll will reflect the reports finding.
There is a trend going on into inquiries involving National Party MPs and when the inquiry is of an historical event which was handled poorly this reflects on the current National Party.
Were it not for Labour exposing the truth using pages from Hager and Stephenson's book, National and the NZDF would have gotten away with concealing the truth.
Yes. They're the ones who may have followed the saga as it wound its way through the mesh of lies denials and (maybe) even read "Hit and Run".
The young are otherwise occupied unless they are in the NZDF and even then its likely they are not much interested as for many it represents what they would see as a bygone era.
I see this election as a massive renewal for the hard right in New Zealand.
Labour has been faced with such extreme events that it has had to expand the state so fast and so far that the more defensive elements of society are getting more and more ticked off.
National has shrunk.
Act looks likely to get above 5%, and bring in 7-8 MPs. Act's stance on guns is well recognised as bringing in those hard core rifle owners in the Waitake and Southland electorates.
The Conservative Party is back, and it will eat away a percentage or two in Mt Roskill and Mangere.
The coalition of weirdos gathered around Jaimie Lee-Ross will suck .5%-1% across from NZFirst and from National.
I'd like to see this splintering continue, to ensure Labour gets a good four terms and sinks the wooden stake through National's heart good and proper.
Whereas on the left, the Greens are imperilled at 5% and may well be dried to a husk under the 5% threshold, leaving a unified and revived left under Ardern. The harder left has simply nowhere to go and doesn't need to. That makes for much more efficient and surefooted government.
Our government has never been more redistributive, or more Keynsean in the scale of its deficit spending, since Muldoon's second term.
It has utterly massive nationwide support, and support within the Labour Party, for a young and charismatic and effective leader. That hasn't occurred since the first term of Helen Clark – if then.
And it's done so while becoming the most popular government in living memory.
Who do you place the blame on if the Greens don't make it over the line?
I like the Greens, I hope they're part of the next Govt, but they can't complain voters don't support them, they need the policies that attract a broader range of punters
We weren't talking about that, but their comms has been weaker in recent years. Only need to secure one on twenty voters though – not the same 'broad' church as Lab or Nat.
I do not see how removing the Greens from parliament builds unity. Seems like FPP thinking.
No, not really, I think its just we've got a Govt that has become extremely popular, a lot of that due to the response to the pandemic, both support parties are struggling to gain traction even though they are part of the solution, its just the voting public aren't associating those support parties with the pandemic policies, they're not seen promoting the policies or involved in the daily announcements.
I agree the Greens need to improve their coms, they've stumbled making announcements about policy, they've allowed the media to control the policy emphasis, rather than making sure the policy is promoted in a way that voters can aspire to.
I give you their Tax policy release as an example, great policy, but the media immediately described it as the Wealth Tax, that ends up as a discouragement, they needed a clear identity for the policy, like, Tax restructuring policy and made sure it couldn't be renamed to something the voters would want to reject.
I'm confident the Greens will make the cut, you only have see how many here will party vote them to help them on their way.
The Greens are essential to parliament because parties need friends to govern. Sure, Labour might be able to govern alone come election 2020, but what about 2023? Monolith parties lower the odds of being in government if they don't have coalition partners.
The right are in trouble not because they have new minor parties fracturing the vote, but because the new minor parties are largely similar in nature (and extremely nutty).
NZ can't support the Greens, the Environment Party, the ZeroCarbon Party, and the OrganicNZ Party. But the Greens should be able to get 5%.
If we lose the Greens this election, to whom will Labour turn when they drop to 45% in 2023?
Even with a majority to Govern alone, I still think the Greens will be part of the next Govt, even if it's just for improved representation, and very good for democracy.
Winston rose from the soft fresh earth lining his crypt that he had been resting in from 2008 to 2011. So Greens missing out this time isn't necessarily permanent. Especially if they take the time to reflect on the relative weight they give to environmental issues versus other issues in relation to the demographics where they draw their support.
Yeah, but Winston's kind of special like that. Dude has come back from the dead so much that Hammer Films want to make movies about him.
I don't think policy weight is the issue for the Greens – I think they just have a same problem as ACT (although significantly more base support). When their natural coalition partner is dipping a bit, they have a bit more room. When their natural coalition partner is super-popular, they get overshadowed.
But I still think their voice is important to have in parliament.
Maybe not policy-weight as the important factor, but people-weight.
I couldn't bring myself to vote for Greens when their highest profile people were the likes of Tanczos, Bradford, Kedgley. Because it really didn't seem to me their hearts were in environmental issues, but that Greens were a stalking horse for other agendas.
Then when there was a bit more heft on the environment side with the likes of Kevin Hague, Kennedy Graham, Russell Norman as well as Hughes, Sage etc, I found it easier to choke down the idea that the likes of Steffan Browning were part of the package. For the coming election, I feel like the environmental substance has been whittled down to Shaw, Sage, Genter – which feels like quite a step down from where things were.
I'm sort of half and half on that one (personal dislike for Tanzcos aside – on at least one occasion he got pissy with doorstaff when the "don't you know who I am" didn't count as a backstage pass).
MPs neglecting a party's platform just to wank on about a single pet issue is a bit shit. But also I'm not sure how a party serious about fundamentally altering how we as a society operate in relation to the environment can do so without looking at social, economic, and post-colonial issues.
From my point of view, the existence of poverty is every bit as much a part of the values of an environmental party as the discussion of whether NZ national parks should be returned as close to a precolonial state as is possible. Poverty is a direct result of capitalism. It's as wasteful to people as clearfelling or overfishing are to "the environment". I have no idea why any group would want dramatic change in one but be opposed to any effort spent on the other.
And generally not getting candidates, and then MPs who are up to representing the place. The place puts very high demands on it's MP and will quickly destroy someone who's not up to the demands of the job. Certainly did the last two in, with style.
The electorate has a very conservative rural part in Southland, combined with a very liberal, go get it, part in Queenstown and Central Otago. It's one or the other with very little cross over, the two parts of the electorate may as well speak completely different languages, really they do.
How does this happen? According to the Herald a woman traveled from NZ to England in January then came home in March just before lockdown and then on July 20 flew to Sydney where she tested positive on arrival .? She must have dual citizenship but how does she test positive 4 1\2 months later when she thinks she may have had it when feeling sick after coming back in March. Did she not get a test then, was it a false neg if she did?
It may be that the test is detecting fragments of dead virus that haven't been finally cleared by the immune system.
It may be a recent infection and her earlier illness wasn't covid.
It may be that the virus somehow persists in someone's body without activating the immune system enough to fully clear it, or it may find a home in some specific tissues where it's hidden from the immune system.
Today's Ministry of Health media release about the two cases who travelled from Auckland to Sydney.
The first involves a woman who transited through Auckland from Los Angeles to Sydney on 6 July. At this point there are not considered to be any close contacts who need to be traced or tested but enquiries continue with both the airline and airport.
The second involves a woman who travelled from Auckland to Sydney on 20 July. We have already talked directly with the person concerned.
At this point, it appears the person may have been a previously unconfirmed case from March and this is likely to have led to the positive test result.
We will continue to fully investigate the circumstances of this positive result, including travel history.
She arrived in Sydney on the 6th July. Quarantine till the 20th. 11 days later or thereabouts a positive test. Might she have picked it up in quarantine? Sydney? Who would know……scary to think she might have picked it up in the UK in January. I traveled to London mid February arrived home on the 28th. Was visiting an unwell relative so didn’t go touristing. Walking freely around local shops. No hint of what was about to come although I was following covid closely. Trip home on edge a little and practising hand hygiene etc…
I've been aware of this issue for a while now, but I'm rather startled at how many people are at risk here:
Normally hundreds of small yachts sail here from the South Pacific each year to wait the cyclone season out, from September to May.
But this year, with the borders closed because of the pandemic, they're stranded with nowhere to go.
Guy Chester is moored at the island of Nuku Hiva in French Polynesia, and is growing increasingly anxious, as the window closes for the yachts to make the voyage here – he says they only have a few weeks left, and still need planning and application time.
He's been appealing to New Zealand's government since April to create a border entry exemption process for those on small yachts in the Pacific to come to New Zealand before the cyclone season starts.
This is straightforward, and very low risk. By the time you've made the 10 day passage from Tonga or Fiji on a small yacht, you've pretty much isolated anyway. And when you do get to Opua, another week on the boat and a couple of tests represents a very low burden on the quarantine system.
These are foreign (i.e. not kiwi) yachties in French Polynesia who pre-covid would have planned on spending the cyclone season in NZ (or Australia). French Poly is relatively safe from cyclones and in fact many European yachties (not under visa restrictions) spend several years there. Any yachties who have to leave French Poly (e.g. for NZ) cannot land in the Cooks, Niue or Tonga making it a 14 to 20 day trip direct, so basically within quarantine timing. Fiji has opened up under strict conditions but is not a safe cyclone season layover. Can't see the NZ government allowing non NZ yachties in yet, at least until after the election (cyclone season doesn't really begin until November) despite the low health risk.
The closing down of borders and constantly changing rules has impacted many people very hard. I recently met a couple who spent 73 days at sea in SE Asia, being bounced from place to place before finally arriving in Darwin with literally no food or water left on board. This is not an uncommon story.
The trade wind sea routes also mean that if you are in the Pacific, your most feasible destinations lie eastward, and this means ultimately landing up in NZ or Australia at some point. If your home nation is Europe or North America, sailing back upwind to get there is not a simple matter. And until very recently even getting back through Panama was not possible.
And in reality for many, their boat is their home, their only significant asset. Abandoning it and catching a plane back to the country they are nominally citizen's of is a highly non-trivial demand to make of them.
NZ has long had a marine industry that has quietly done very well from a steady flow of boats arriving here; now is the time to extend a generous hand when they really need it.
A good accurate description. However having made the passage westwards once myself, the prospect of spending another year in French Polynesia rather than risk the perilous long trip all the way to NZ seems a lot safer and pleasanter. The other issue is that all the foreign boats from last year are still 'stuck' in NZ (and Oz) meaning there is little safe mooring space left in in marinas for another lot.
Normally, yachts would island hop through to Tonga then down to NZ via Minerva lagoon if necessary. But all the islands west of French Polynesia are inaccessible making it a 2000 nautical mile trip from Bora Bora with the worst bit at the end – not sensible even if NZ allows entry
Even before the pandemic, yachties intending to sail to NZ had to inform Customs at least 4 days before arrival with all info about who's on board, where they were sailing from and their health status. They could only go to the Q (quarantine) dock in Opua or Marsden Cove and wouldn't be allowed on land before an inspection by Customs, Biosecurity and Health. If Guy, whoever he is, just turned up he would have been fined heavily and possibly arrested. Dunno what the protocol is now as only NZ citizens and residents are allowed to sail to NZ. Guess they have to work it out before they leave Australia or French Poly with Customs and any days they haven't spent at sea (subtracted from 14) could be spent tied up to one or the other of the Q docks and only released after a negative test (only guessing!).
Ok, so he could set off and he's not going to be sunk on sight as long as he lets people know who's coming and he's prepared to quarantine. Doesn't sound too oppressive.
No it isn't like that at all. If he just turned up without good reason (such as a genuine sailing emergency) there would be heavy fines, and lots of unhappy consequences.
Most sailing people are highly aware of the often complex arrival procedures necessary in every country and do their best to comply responsibly wherever possible.
Authorities are very aware of the Pacific drug smuggling routes, monitor traffic closely and are generally quite good at catching bad actors. Quite a separate issue.
The exit of so many socially liberal women at the same time leaves a gaping hole in the so-called broad church of the National party that will cause it to list to the religious right.
Audrey Young (I bet she was weeping tears of anger and disappointment when writing this) expands on the rise and rise of the MPs who are religious Right. (But Wrong to me.)
Fast forward to Thursday and you saw Kaye and Adams describing with pride their work on the abortion legislation, the euthanasia bill, gay marriage, and other Rainbow issues.
Their work has been strongly opposed by a group of hardcore Christian colleagues, mainly first-term MPs, who include Hipango, Loheni, Simeon Brown, Chris Penk and Paulo Garcia, along with more experienced MPs Simon O'Connor and Alfred Ngaro, who briefly flirted with the idea of starting a Christian Party.
The religious conservatives in National have been more visible this term than before because of three factors: greater numbers of MPs, more issues around which to organise, and the fact the party did not have a strong liberal leader like John Key.
His departure gave the right greater freedom, permission if you like, to speak out with impunity.
Simon Bridges and Todd Muller are not part of the more zealous group although, as conservatives and Christians, would also have given heart to the hardliners.
It is not yet clear what the balance will be when the votes fall after September 19 and it is yet to be seen how some of the new MPs such as Christopher Luxon will project their Christian views on others.
The chances are there will not be the surplus of polarising issues there have been this term.
But the exit of a swag of social liberals means keeping a balance between liberal and conservative within National is expected be a greater focus for the party's board particularly in its list ranking.
When the Christian Party demised many years ago, I seem to remember a plan to not bother with a Party but instead get individual strong Christians elected to operate from the inside rather than the outside. Maybe they have succeeded?
Yes Draco. Since God is on their side they will mightily hew down those who would defy the Chosen Path to Rightliness and Judith will blossom shrouded in iridescent halos. Alleluya!
Karen Bass in 2010 at a ribbon-cutting for a Scientology church: "That is why the words are exciting of your Founder L. Rob Hubbard…The Church of Scientology I know has made a difference, because your creed is a universal creed and one that speaks to all people everywhere" pic.twitter.com/EghkCwqHi6
If the current govt could get their collective shit together for long enough and not let people in isolation rock off to Countdown every 5 minutes it should be alright
We tend to propose economic policies without thinking of their wider repercussions. It is just so easy to say ‘we should do this’ and ignore the consequences. This was nicely, and sadly, illustrated by a recent controversy between Keith Woodford, retired professor of agribusiness at Lincoln University, and the NZIER, which wrote a report on the contribution of agriculture to the economy. It argued that the sector’s contribution was small (4 to 5 percent of GDP); Woodford argued that the estimate was misleading about the significance of the farm contribution.
Bryan [Philpott] would have been irate, because the analytic framework the NZIER report was so limited. It seemed to be saying that the farm sector was so small we could almost neglect it. That would encourage those who want to diminish or even close down the agricultural sector.
The problem, of course, is that economists have been giving bad advice for decades and, even after the lessons of the GFC, don't seem to have any other advice.
DracoTD, the NZ scene has a significant national body collective? It was a long fought effort to be recognised; now not only receiving charitable funding but receiving significant funding from MSD and ACC.
The body's agencies are working on the ground addressing an overwhelming workload of needs.
Each of the client coming into different agents nation wide, IS the expert on their own lives. The goals for 'remedy' come from their own voices. Support is multi faceted for all dimensions of a person's story and needs; not just abuse issues either nor ironically a single gender or ethnicity, exclusive place. New agencies are underway still spreading into further locales. There is enormous support from a wide collective of grass roots and NGO's all working collaboratively to affect change .( And no, Paula despite your claim in your valedictory speech, you never visited- and in a funding round- nor another high profile dissenter, ' never mind them' pollie. https://malesurvivor.nz/our-organisation/
Australia's Covid 19 toll has doubled in the last two weeks since they had effectively eliminated.
Watching the conversations of resident Victorians around the place it's clear they and their government have no idea about proper pandemic response. This can be applied nationally too. The mixed massages and concessions which led to this horrible 'second wave' (it's not a second wave, it's just a first wave not dealt with properly) are still front and centre of policy there.
For instance, did you know that construction was, is and apparently always will be classed as an essential service? Did you know all Australians were allowed to go to work, even during their highest level of lockdown, if they were unable to work from home?
It's clear the Victorian people and government have no intention of doing what is required and they are now reduced to managing the unmanageable.
The Victorian and federal Australian governments' botched response gives us a very clear picture of what life would be like in New Zealand had the National Party been in charge here.
In the beginning, the Australian state Govts started their own lockdowns as the Fed Govt was missing in action, they finally came to the party and literally copied the NZ system and Morrison was even mimicking Ardern and her demeanor, I remember watching him thinking he must have had a brain transplant, speaking more softly and with emotion, must have taken a fair bit of training.
The state's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton on Friday confirmed a New Zealand-style lockdown was being explored – restrictions which saw all businesses closed except for essential services.
The VIC authorities are doing themselves and everyone else a disservice by claiming the situation the find themselves in now is due to one single quarantine lapse.
I just don't buy that and what it does is minimise the considerable flaws in the rest of their approach which, left unfixed, will result in many, many more deaths.
We should not forget National and business and universities jumping up and down demanding we open the borders before it was safe. Strange isn't it, they have gone pretty quiet about that these days. They were also saying Australia was doing better than we were!
But we must not get complacent. Daughter in Australia says too many people there were selfish idiots.
Daughter in Australia says too many people there were selfish idiots.
It's true, but where does the complacency come from? It comes from complacent and compromised leadership.
Those conversations I mentioned above show the Australian federal government’s relief packages were unwieldy, slow and hard to access. Wage subsidies in NZ were central to the calmness with which we all approached the very well thought out lockdown. Clear and compassionate leadership from JA got us all on board.
Muttonbird, true. It was very clear here, apart from some initial issues about what was or was not essential and untidy issues were quickly tidied up. The daily PM and DG briefings kept us well informed and they reminded us what was expected of us. It became essential viewing. I don't think daughter in Australia had that level of clarity.
He'd certainly want to spellcheck their copy, before publishing.
And peruse the leader’s room for contradictory clues like hats before giving a stump speech
"I think they now have a terrific team who has a good chance of winning the election, or at least can ensure the National Party will remain a broad church after 19 September."
"At least" …
Translation: Campaign strategist expects defeat. I don't think any Lab/Nat person in the leader's office has done this publicly since 1990. Nobody ever does. That's how bad things are on the good ship National.
“I’m pleased to have contributed to getting some of National’s basic messaging done, including the standard sump speech, and also to have helped kickstart the A to Z policy process again.”
One of the first cruise ships in the world to resume sailing since the coronavirus-caused worldwide halt to departures in March is experiencing an outbreak of the illness that has already sent people to the hospital.
Norwegian expedition cruise company Hurtigruten late Friday said four crew members from the 535-passenger Roald Amundsen were admitted to the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromsø, Norway, earlier in the day after the vessel docked in the city.
"Former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp just told @manidunlop on Midday Report he "completely forgot" about a briefing which said civilians were possibly killed during Operation Burnham."
Today chief press secretary Janet Wilson confirmed to the Herald that Hooton and National Party leader Judith Collins had agreed it was time for his work to come to an end.
"It's all very happy," Wilson told the Herald. "We all agreed his work was done."
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We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...
Michelle Boag - LeakerThe Heron report (PDF) was released yesterday, and it was a bit disappointing to say the least. It correctly found that former National Party president Michelle Boag and National Party MP Hamish Walker were politically motivated in leaking peoples private medical information, but didn’t look further into ...
On different trajectories and from different ends of the political spectrum, last night’s One News/Colmar Brunton poll has the Green Party and ACT converging around the five percent mark. And, as odd as it may sound, they head into the election campaign with a lot in common.Putting the Greens and ...
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Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters says the National Party’s Auckland Transport announcement today is a breath-taking plan on the never never. While it is promising to see that National all of a sudden has rediscovered railways in Auckland, including trains ...
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News that Rio Tinto has announced that it is planning to wind-down operations at the Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter could not have a come at a worse time for the people of Southland. While it has been clear that Rio Tinto was never going to support Southlanders over the long haul, ...
Whenua/land, roto/lakes and awa/rivers in the central North Island will benefit from increased habitat protection with new biosecurity investment across iwi and Crown-managed lands and lakes announced Conservation and Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage in Rotorua today. ...
As part of a broader plan to reduce the increasing amount of rubbish ending up in New Zealand’s landfills, the Government is to fund new recycling infrastructure and expand the national waste levy scheme.$124 million Government investment in recycling infrastructurePlans confirmed to increase and expand the waste ...
The Government is providing an investment totalling more than $100 million for regions to protect against and mitigate the effects of climate change, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones have announced. Six regions will receive funding from the $3 billion allocated to infrastructure projects from the ...
Three major local projects at Te Kuiti and Otorohanga have been given the money to get moving after the impact of Covid 19, says the Minister of Māori Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta. The projects range from a Sports Centre for Te Kuiti, a redevelopment of the Otorohanga Kiwi House and ...
The Coalition Government has extended three New Zealand Defence Force deployments to the Middle East and Africa by two years, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “These deployments promote peace in the Middle East and Africa by protecting civilians and countering the spread of ...
The release of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment shows that the progress this Government has made to solve the climate crisis is essential to creating cleaner and safer communities across New Zealand. “Because of this report, we can see clearer than ever that the action our Government is taking ...
The second round of the Community Resilience Fund is now open for applications for sport and recreation organisations experiencing financial hardship between 1 July and 30 September 2020. “The fund opens today for five weeks – closing on September 6. The amount awarded will be decided on a case-by-case basis ...
Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today declared Rakitū Island, off the coast of Aotea/Great Barrier Island, predator free. “I’m delighted to announce that with rats now gone, Rakitū is officially predator free. This is a major milestone because Rakitū is the last DOC administered island in the Hauraki Gulf Marine ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.75 million to restore significant historic sites at Ōhaeawai in the Far North, upgrade marae and fund fencing and riparian planting. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones made the announcements following a service at the historic St Michael’s Anglican Church at Ōhaeawai today. Just ...
The Chatham Islands will receive close to $40 million for projects that will improve its infrastructure, add to its attraction as a visitor destination, and create jobs through a planned aquaculture venture, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the islands, first ...
The Government is delivering more initiatives to reduce energy hardship and to give small electricity consumers a voice, Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods said today. “In addition to the initiatives we have already delivered to support New Zealand families, we are responding to the Electricity Price Review with further ...
Government, iwi, NGOs and rehabilitation groups are working together to turn around the fortunes of the nationally endangered hoiho/yellow-eyed penguin following a series of terrible breeding seasons. The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage helped launch the Five Year Action Plan at the annual Yellow-Eyed Penguin symposium in Dunedin today. “I ...
The membership of the Tourism Futures Taskforce has now been confirmed, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis announced at an event at Whakarewarewa in Rotorua today. “The main purpose of the independent Tourism Futures Taskforce is to lead the thinking on the future of tourism in New Zealand,” Kelvin Davis said. Joining ...
More than $300 million in funding has been approved to protect strategic tourism businesses, drive domestic tourism through regional events and lift digital capability in the tourism industry, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. A $400 million Tourism Recovery Package was announced at Budget 2020, and with today’s announcements is ...
From 2021 permits will be required for New Zealanders wanting to export hard-to-recycle plastic waste. The Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage, today announced the requirements as part of New Zealand’s commitments to the Basel Convention, an international agreement of more than 180 countries which was amended in May ...
The building and construction sector is still showing strong growth, with the number of new dwellings consented up more than 8 per cent compared to last year, reflecting a welcome confidence in the Government’s COVID-19 response package, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. “While it is still too ...
Government investment of $23 million for Bay of Plenty flood protection will allow local communities to address long-standing flood risks and provide jobs, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced in Rotorua today. These projects are being funded by the Infrastructure Reference Group’s (IRG) shovel ...
Investment for projects that will create hundreds of jobs in Rotorua were announced today by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. These projects will provide opportunities for economic development in a region that has been hard hit by COVID-19,” Winston Peters said. Fletcher ...
For the first time, primary schools will have access to funding for counsellors for their students, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. “A major investment of $75.8 million will provide greater access to guidance counsellors to help primary and secondary school students deal with mental health and wellbeing issues,” ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark today welcomed the release of the Report of the Government Inquiry into Operation Burnham and related matters, and the Government response. “I thank the Inquiry for their thorough and detailed report, on a highly complex issue. I accept the recommendations of the report, and fully support ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones has announced $6 million of One Billion Trees funding for seven regional initiatives to create jobs and provide long-lasting environmental and economic benefits. The projects range from improving one of the poorest-quality water catchments in Otago to restoring 52km of waterways around Hokianga Harbour. Six of the ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters today announced $5.5 million in funding from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) for two Kawerau projects and says this is a significant boost for the people of Kawerau. “These projects will bring much-needed investment and will create up to 60 jobs for locals,” Mr Peters ...
Kaingaroa Village in the Bay of Plenty is to get $5 million to help fund a comprehensive upgrade of its infrastructure, facilities and housing, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. Mr Tabuteau travelled to the remote village to make the announcement, telling Kaingaroa residents how the funding ...
The Rangiuru Business Park project near Te Puke is getting $18 million from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This is all about unlocking the potential of this region. When it’s finished, the Rangiuru Business Park will be the Bay of Plenty’s ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has today announced that a $26 million investment in Ōpōtiki will see important public amenities upgraded and further progress made on new aquaculture opportunities. “The people of Ōpōtiki have been waiting decades for real investment in key infrastructure, and support for the incredible aquaculture opportunities ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio wishes to congratulate the Cook Islands community throughout Aotearoa for the 9th year of Te ‘Epetoma o Te Reo Māori Kūki ‘Āirani, the Cook Islands Language Week. “This is a proud milestone that reflects on the huge effort made by the Cook ...
Aucklanders in the Eastern Suburbs will soon have more ways to get around, with Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter kicking off construction on Section 2 of Te Ara Ki Uta Ki Tai, the Glen Innes to Tāmaki Drive Shared Path today. The Glen Innes ...
The Government is stepping up the fight against measles and protecting hundreds of thousands more young adults by investing up to $40 million for a year-long measles-catch-up campaign and $23 million to fully fund and develop the National Immunisation Solution, Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter announced at Mangere ...
Attorney-General David Parker has today released the findings of the Government inquiry held into Operation Burnham and related events. The operation took place on 21-22 August 2010 in Tirgiran Valley, Afghanistan, and was carried out by NZSAS troops and other nations’ forces operating as part of the International Security Assistance ...
From tomorrow, community groups around New Zealand can apply to a $36 million fund established to encourage locally-led solutions as communities rebuild and recover from COVID-19, announced Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni and Minister for Community and Voluntary Sector Poto Williams. “The Community Capability and Resilience Fund (CCRF) builds ...
The Government has committed to improving Māori health and wellbeing over the next five years. The Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health) today released Whakamaua: Māori Health Action Plan 2020-2025 which sets the pathway towards achieving healthy futures for all Māori. “As kaitiaki of the system, the Ministry of Health ...
New environmental standards will make the re-consenting of existing marine farms more consistent across the country. The new regulations for the National Environmental Standards for Marine Aquaculture (NES-MA) will come into effect on 1 December, Environment Minister David Parker and Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash said. “The NES-MA removes complexities and ...
Today marks a milestone as the Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni and Minister for Māori Development Nanaia Mahuta co-sign an Addendum – with the Iwi Chairs of Te Rarawa, Ngāi Takoto and Te Aupōuri – to the Te Hiku o Te Ika Iwi-Crown Social Development and Wellbeing Accord (the ...
The Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill (No 2) passed its third reading today and will become law, announced Minister for Veterans Ron Mark. This amends the Veterans’ Support Act 2014 in response to recommendations from the 2018 review of the operation of the Act by Professor Ron Paterson. “Veterans have been ...
Minister for Racing Winston Peters says race courses can improve safety with this year’s first round of funding from the Racing Safety Development Fund. The Racing Safety Development Fund makes available $990,000 for distribution over two funding rounds for the 2020/21 financial year. “The racing industry is integral to the ...
The Government’s commitment to increase primary sector jobs and opportunities has been further boosted today with the re-opening of the Taratahi Agriculture Centre, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The Wairarapa-based training centre is reopening its doors after two years to deliver industry taster and familiarisation courses, to help workers displaced ...
New Zealanders are being invited to help recognise the work of the many “unsung heroes” in our ethnic communities during COVID-19. “Aotearoa New Zealand is home to 920,000 people who identify their ethnicity as Middle Eastern, Latin American, African, Asian, and Continental European. During the extraordinary time of the COVID-19 ...
The Government is allocating $40 million to assist with the cost of mediation and arbitration for New Zealand businesses and landlords to resolve issues about adjusting rent as they face the economic impacts of COVID-19, Justice Minister Andrew Little said. The Government had previously announced funding to improve access to ...
The Government has announced details of a planned new law to give Police the power to conduct random roadside drug testing of drivers, Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter and Minister of Police Stuart Nash announced today. The Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill was introduced to the house today ...
More warmer, drier homes and a big building boost for regional centres across New Zealand are two of the major benefits from a $500 million investment in the upgrade and renewal of state homes. Associate Housing Minister Kris Faafoi has confirmed the multi-million dollar expansion of the Kāinga Ora – ...
The Government will provide $8 million towards the revitalisation of the Paihia waterfront in the iconic Bay of Islands, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Bay of Islands is the cornerstone of Northland tourism and Paihia the hub for maritime-based tourism and recreation in the area. “Weather and economic ...
Health Minister Chris Hipkins welcomes confirmation of Canterbury DHB’s move into state-of-the-art Christchurch Hospital Hagley building which will serve the community well for decades to come. The Ministry of Health is on track to hand over the facility on 10 August 2020. Sterile Services is due to be operational on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Non-essential retailers across Melbourne will be shut except for “click and collect” and delivery sales, and industries including meatworks and construction will be drastically scaled back, under Victoria’s unprecedented lockdown. The business shutdown details came ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Russo, Associate Professor, Director Cabrini Monash University Department of Nursing Research, Monash University Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced sweeping changes to businesses across metropolitan Melbourne, including closure of retail stores and restrictions on some industries, including construction. The new constraints ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan University In what seems to be a common occurrence, Chinese video-sharing app TikTok is once again in the headlines. After months of speculation about national security risks and users’ data being harvested by ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Controversial Papua New Guinea citizen Joe Chan has been arrested in Malaysia – this time under the name Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra. And also this time as an Indonesian, a wanted and convicted fugitive and graft convict, reports the PNG Post-Courier. He has been on the run ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a ...
We need to crack on with building the systems and infrastructure necessary to be able to safely accommodate far more travellers than the system can currently handle. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Trigg, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of English Literature, University of Melbourne In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic. The Greeks are at the gates, and the city ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says there are plans to increase testing of staff at airports and isolation facilities and to equip GPs to ramp up testing. ...
What happens when New Zealand’s queen of K-Pop rallies a room full of kids to become homegrown popstars? You get TVNZ On Demand’s K-Pop Academy.Korean pop music – or “K-pop” – is, arguably, the biggest musical genre on the planet. BTS is its most famous name, but South Korea is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University Creative destruction “is the essential fact about capitalism”, wrote the great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. New technologies and processes continuously revolutionise the economic structure from within, “incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is condemning Kaikoura District Council and Tararua District Council for failing to identify earthquake-prone buildings , as required by law. Union spokesperson Louis Houlbrooke says, “These Councils broke the law ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) has welcomed today’s release of the first National Climate Change Risk Assessment , but say that unless it’s paired up with a framework that enables councils to act on the assessments, communities will be ...
With women leading both major parties and the highest number of female MPs (38%) since women were first allowed to stand for Parliament in 1919, it’s time that proper attention was paid to one of the most fatal of women’s cancers. ...
Taxpayer handouts to electric car buyers will not save the planet, says the car review website dogandlemon.com . Editor Clive Matthew-Wilson, who has studied electric cars for over a decade, says: “The lobby group Drive Electric , which wants the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, UNSW With Victorians heading into a new round of even harsher lockdown measures, there will again be a focus on how people will cope — the ...
Respected business journalist Rod Oram visits the Nelson region next week to give two talks on the opportunities that Covid-19 presents for New Zealand to tackle climate change, poverty and what he calls “other deeply systemic failures”. Oram has ...
Transparency and clear disclosure of actions and policies have been key to the COVID-19 response, Reserve Bank Head of Financial System Policy and Analysis Toby Fiennes said delivering a speech in Wellington today. Market discipline is one of the three ...
Latest from the Beehive- The tourist industry is the biggest beneficiary of government funding distributed as loans or grants from an array of programmes and pots in the past few days. The $311 million of funding involved has resulted in the $400 million Tourism Recovery Package being fully allocated. Invitations, ...
As Victoria locks down again over a second wave of Covid-19, Andrew Geddis looks at how New Zealand might respond should community transmission be again detected here Melbourne’s adoption of “stage 4” restrictions to combat its Covid-19 outbreak - stay-at-home orders, limited exercise time, a night-time curfew - are a timely warning to us here ...
A major new report has outlined the biggest and most pressing risks New Zealand faces from climate change, and they go well beyond the science of changing weather patterns. What’s all this then?One of the most dangerous and concerning aspects of climate change is the unpredictability of it all. Some ...
The country's first national climate change risk assessment has identified 10 significant areas that need to be urgently addressed by the government in the next six years. ...
The first ever National Climate Change Risk Assessment has found 'New Zealand’s climate is warming, sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe', Marc Daalder reports Over the next 70 years, wildfires and extreme storms will become more common in New Zealand, vast swathes ...
Time is running out to make voting easy in the 2020 General Election and referendums. About 500,000 eligible New Zealanders still haven’t enrolled to vote and half of them are under the age of 30. “Make voting easy this year by getting your enrolment ...
By Bryan Kramer, Papua New Guinea’s Minister of Police Assistant Commissioner Lesa Gale of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) staged a press conference to announce the arrest of five members of an Australian drug syndicate connected to the recent drug bust in PNG. This was a multi-agency operation that had ...
Announcing eight new episodes coming soon to The Spinoff and RNZ.Good news for people who love Bad News – Alice Snedden’s docu-comedy series tackling some of Aotearoa’s most contentious social and political issues is back for a second season.Like the first, which saw Alice go head-to-head with Don Brash in ...
One of the puzzling aspects of the global Coronavirus pandemic has been the absence of an international accord to grapple with the greatest challenge since the Second World War. After the global financial crisis of 2008-9, world leaders agreed to devise solutions – US presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama, ...
The Crazy Rich Asians author creates froth that may in fact be genius, says Sam Brooks. Kevin Kwan’s first novel Crazy Rich Asians had the kind of success every populist author dreams of. It became a beloved bestseller, which turned into a slightly less beloved trilogy, which then turned into ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Labour's economic plan is to focus on Covid recovery with investment in training and jobs, and that National's plan to reduce debt would mean $80 billion in cuts. ...
heTruly making a difference to New Zealanders’ mental health means addressing factors that go far beyond the health system’s remit. There’s a plan ready to go, writes Shaun Robinson of the Mental Health Foundation, and the next government must put it into action. “I need help.” That’s how many of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Celia Harris, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney University We are all living through a major historical event, a once-in-a-century pandemic that has radically changed how we work, learn, travel, socialise and spend our free time. But for many of us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Howard Manns, Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University Things are really jeffed up for Karens right now. The Miley (“coronavirus”) did a Melba (“made yet another a comeback”), and Joe and Jane Bloggs are being drongos. In the process, “Karen” has become the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Moore, Social Researcher, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania In his book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe writes that settler Australians wilfully misunderstood, hid and destroyed evidence of Aboriginal Australians’ farming practices. My analysis of secondary school textbooks shows this behaviour ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Grodach, Professor and Director of Urban Planning & Design, Monash University COVID-19 and the growing recession concentrated in the services sector will not just increase social inequality, but accelerate the growing spatial divide in our cities. As our new research report ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Glennda Scully, Professor, Curtin University The COVID-19 pandemic has driven a surge of calls to domestic violence support services, as survivors of violence spend more time at home with their abusers due to lockdowns and other restrictions. Many feel they can’t leave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carly Osborn, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Adelaide In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic. There is a genre of novel that I have relied upon for many ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 3, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news, politics and the Covid-19 crisis, updated throughout the day. Get in touch at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz7.45am: PM defends limited border chargesJacinda Ardern has defended the government’s decision to only charge Kiwis returning back into ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Exploring the rapid rise of Billy TK’s NZ Public Party, report finds senior military officers misled ministers over Operation Burnham, and Lake Taupō water monitoring to be led by iwi.Within the space of a few months, Billy Te Kahika Jr ...
There are four big decisions to get ready to make in this year's elections. As well as picking a preferred party and candidate, voters will vote on the End of Life Choice Bill and whether they support a bill which would legalise cannabis. Here are the basics on the Cannabis Legalisation and ...
The Health Ministry ticked off the aged care sector for restricting visitors to rest homes before the national lockdown. David Williams reports On March 17, the coronavirus outbreak was seemingly in its infancy – yet it was closer to pushing politicians into drastic action than many thought. Ministry of Health ...
As the cannabis referendum draws nearer, Finlay Macdonald takes note of a new book about New Zealand's attitude towards marijuana Like any number of New Zealanders, I have a rich store of anecdote about my personal relationship with weed. Youthful adventure, horticultural experimentation, bad cabbage, Thai sticks and close shaves ...
We are more comfortable than ever telling stories about intimate experiences in public, so why is miscarriage still such a taboo subject? I recall my mother telling me a story, many years ago, about losing a baby to miscarriage. She had experienced bleeding and been told by her doctor to go home, put ...
Whether in the boardroom, or behind the lens, Angela Ruske has played a crucial part in the Otago Nuggets' golden NBL basketball season. As the Otago Nuggets were on their way to grasping their first men's NBL title, Angela Ruske was trying to stay calm courtside by focusing through her camera lens. ...
When do we get a prime minister who looks like New Zealand, asks Laura O’Connell Rapira.I want a Māori prime minister. I want a trans Samoan deputy prime minister and I want a former refugee as speaker of the house.I want a Muslim mayor. I want a disabled deputy mayor ...
People like me already don’t know when we will see ‘home’ again, thanks to the forthcoming border fees, writes Jai Breitnauer. We don’t need to be judged for it too.About eight weeks ago we got a message we had been dreading – my father-in-law was in hospital having been in ...
New Zealanders are about to vote on two of the most polarising social issues of our time - how much do you know about the cannabis and end of life referendums? In less than five weeks, New Zealanders will vote on two polarising issues in referendums, held at the same ...
What's in the diary for this week? Newsroom Pro collates the newsworthy events you need to know about. Today | 6 July sdfsdf sfsdf sfds Tuesday | 7 July sdfsdf sfsdf sfds Wednesday | 8 July sdfsdf sfsdf sfds Thursday | 9 July sdfsdf sfsdf sfds ...
Social Credit has prevailed in the first round of its High Court challenge to the Overseas Investment Office decision to grant Chinese owned company Hong Kong Jingang permission to take over New Zealand’s second largest milk processing company, Westland ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As Melbourne moved to an extraordinary 8pm to 5am daily curfew and Stage 4 restrictions, and Victoria declared a “state of disaster”, Scott Morrison took to social media with a message for the embattled residents. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rodney Tiffen, Emeritus Professor, Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney James Murdoch is not the most obvious candidate for editorial heroism. His route to resigning from the News Corp board because of “disagreements over certain editorial content” has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Sydney A “state of disaster” has been declared for the whole of Victoria from 6pm, Sunday August 2, for a month. How is this different from the existing “state of emergency” and what powers ...
As the state of Victoria continues to record shocking new Covid-19 numbers – 671 cases today – a strict new stage 4 lockdown is being imposed. Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist at the University of South Australia explains what the means.Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that metropolitan Melbourne will move ...
Jacinda Ardern’s “kind” government rather unkindly wants to push through under urgency this week amendments to residential rental tenancy law that are both unworkable and vicious, Tenancies War spokesman Mike Butler said today. If the Residential Tenancies ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that metropolitan Melbourne will move to “stage 4” restrictions from 6pm Sunday, as new cases of COVID-19 continue to rise. The state recorded another 671 cases and ...
“We welcome the protest letter signed by European Ambassadors against Israel's plans to commence construction in the illegal settlement of "Givat Hamatos" and possibly the so-called E1 Area on the outskirts of occupied Jerusalem. However, ...
By RNZ Pacific Nineteen more cases of covid-19 have been confirmed in Papua New Guinea, taking the total number so far in the country to 91. The Pandemic Response Controller, David Manning, announced the new cases in the capital Port Moresby where almost 80 of PNG’s cases had been confirmed ...
Linguist and author Noam Chomsky says decades of neoliberal policies that shredded the social safety net and public institutions have left the country ill-prepared for a major health crisis.By Democracy Now!As the US coronavirus death toll tops 150,000, Democracy Now! spends the hour with world-renowned political dissident, linguist ...
We can’t tell you who wrote this piece, or where they work. What we can tell you is it’s not Unity. A little while ago, I said to a friend that working at a bookshop kind of sucks. He was clearly bamboozled. “I thought working at ...
A whole heap of vegetables covered in a delicious peanutty, gingery sauce – what’s not to like?This has become one of my go-to weeknight meals. It’s quick and easy to prepare and I feel really virtuous when I serve it up as there’s a good 10 cups of vegetables packed ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 2 where we bring you the latest on New Zealand news, politics and the Covid-19 crisis, updated throughout the day.9.00am: Melbourne set to go into strict lockdownMelbourne could enter level four lockdown “within days” according to the city’s daily newspaper, The Age. ...
Without a capital gains tax, taxing inheritances is the best opportunity to address the entrenched inequalities of inter-generational wealth, argues Jonathan Barrett.The world’s wealthiest people will transfer US$15.4 trillion in assets to their heirs in the next decade, according to a recent report. Published by specialist data analysts Wealth-X, the ...
New Zealand's unofficial poet laureate Victor Billot pens topical verse every Sunday. This week: the co-leader of the Green Party.The Shawrax I was milking a herd of ten thousand brown cows or at least watching someone milk them for me, my accounts were chocka, the banks were happy ...
Open mike 01/08/2020 
Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a 2010 SAS killing raid in Afghanistan. The most recent Colmar Brunton ...5 hours ago
In New Zealand, we've just had the report of the Hit and Run inquiry, which found that a New Zealand led raid had accidentally killed civilians, including a child. meanwhile, around the same time, the British SAS was conducting its own raids in Afghanistan, and theirs were a hell of ...5 hours ago
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study Finds As climate change raises sea levels, storm surges and high tides will ...8 hours ago
"Who's youse accusin' of innference?" Without the timely intervention of a team of top American political consultants and campaign experts, Boris Yeltsin would never have won his second term as President of the Russian Federation. The Russians waited 20 years to return the favour.WHEN IT COMES to the disinformation game, ...11 hours ago
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...13 hours ago
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...1 day ago
Over the last few days, reports have emerged of people travelling from New Zealand and testing positive for Covid-19 upon arrival at their destination. First in South Korea and now in Australia. What might these positive tests mean? They’re false-positives As Toby Morris and I have explained before, there are ...2 days ago
Former National Minister - Wayne MappYou could tell that the Hit and Run book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson was right on the money by the way former National Party Minister of Defence, Wayne Mapp, reacted to its now largely vindicated claims.Even though the recent inquiry into ...2 days ago
We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...3 days ago
TUESDAY AUGUST 4Grand Designs UK (Three, 7.30pm). ...4 days ago
Most of the claims made by anti-fluoride propagandists are simply wrong. Image source: Fluoridation and the ‘sciency’ facts of critics Anti-fluoride propagandists continually cite studies from areas of endemic fluorosis in their arguments against ... 5 days ago
Daphna Whitmore So far this year over 7.4 million people have died from preventable communicable diseases. There were 4.3 million children who died under the age of five. Nearly one million people have died of HIV/AIDS in the past six months. A similar number of people have died from malaria ...6 days ago
. . For the mainstream media, today (22 July) was even a better day than yesterday. More Sex. More Politics. More Sex AND Politics. Yesterday, the msm dealt with Andrew Falloon. The obscure backbench MP had been found to have sent pornographic images to at least four women. The woman’s ...7 days ago
There’s ultimately two key narratives overall that are seeking to take front row in order to reshape the world as a whole going forward from the COVID pandemic. The first is a very desperate attempt to reimpose “a return” to what is perceived as “the old normal”, quite impossible. ...1 week ago
Auckland Philippines Solidarity and Migrante Aotearoa are jointly holding a rally to speak up for human rights in the Philippines. The human rights situation in the Philippines has deteriorated significantly since President Duterte came to power in 2016. As many as 27,000 people have been killed in police operations during ...1 week ago
Hosted by Selwyn Manning and EveningReport.nz, ” A View from Afar” is a podcast series dedicated to exploring current affairs, international relations, political events and military-security issues from somewhat uncommon angles. In this first episode we continue the coverage of the Portland protests first offered on these pages. The conversation ...2 weeks ago
WELLINGTON – Thursday July 23, 2020 Good morning everybody. I’m the latest leader of the National Party. It’s me! Judith Collins. There has been a lot said over the past week month few months years about the culture within the National Party. Today I would like to clear a few ...2 weeks ago
Read article here ...2 weeks ago
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Martin Van Beynen. How the National Party’s default settings are just so wrong for the times we live in.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/122295535/nationals-identity-crisis-is-bad-for-nzs-democracy
And finally, painfully it seems that the political commentariat are realising the scale of the political realignment that’s likely at this election. Every published poll since May has had Jacinda Ardern and Labour heading for a majority.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/122310902/election-2020-how-do-you-run-against-elimination
"The latest International Monetary Fund forecast has global growth dipping to -4.9 per cent." Degrowth is now in the pipeline.
It will probably have to occur for a while until mainstreamers start to notice, and then the media will get over their aversion and start reporting it. Normalcy is a state of mind and operates like conventional wisdom.
Facing a reality not previously encountered takes quite a lot of unconventional wisdom. Like turning the Titanic around, after the fraught consensus-building process of agreeing that the iceberg really is looming dead ahead.
So National & Labour are likely to produce alternative economic plans prior to the impact of the election, but such difficult endeavour takes inordinate time. Not business as usual is a hard thing for both bunches of neoliberals to think about.
Mainstreamers that aren't already out of work, you mean? Media not reporting it? Where'd you get that quote you led off with? When is prior to the impact of the election?
Where'd you get that quote you led off with?
I took it from Scott's second link.
Media not reporting it?
Degrowth. Media mainstreamers are averse to reporting a new reality, in normalcy. The conceptual breakthrough that awaits them is when one of their own succumbs to the `emperor's new clothes' effect. That will happen when the fastest slow learner realises the emperor of economic growth is no longer wearing clothes, interprets the drop in gdp as degrowth, then says so!
When is prior to the impact of the election?
When the election gets so close that the risk of delay becomes greater than the risk of announcing the plan too soon.
It ain't a tortoise & hare race, eh? Think tortoise & tortoise. The plans must gestate in the collective minds & processes of National & Labour until the time seems right to launch them. Remember that they both issued schematics of those plans not long ago, and the media commented on how they seemed identical and equally simplistic. So now the challenge is to differentiate!
Q: how can one bunch of neoliberal drones seem cleverer than another?
A: fakery
So you conclude the media aren't reporting something from a media report?
Of course not. I conclude that as a result of the consistent pattern of their failure to report it. What, you think I haven't waited long enough already?
Well, how long is a piece of string? I'm impatient by nature. A single failure suffices, for me. But yes, if you must wait until a pattern of degrowth denial by the media is well-established, I trust you will report each failure that you notice to us here, and tag it with the correct number in the sequence, so we can watch the sequence develop until it triggers the threshold of your pattern-recognition.
Don't let your impatience impede your understanding. Wait though, you're not just pretending the media are in denial to suit some point you want to make about your perspicacity are you? That would be a tad sly.
Nope, it's elementary. Media denial is proven by lack of contrary evidence. Even you ought to be able to figure that out. Try harder.
Lack of evidence is conclusive proof of sweet fuckall. Very disingenuous of you.
Malpass is not a 'media mainstreamer'; he is a doctrinaire rightie.
Most of the "political commentariat" are shills for National and to keep banging on with their trumping neoliberal memes shows they're owned and not reporting objectively. Relax though as Hosk will maintain the indignant rants.
Collins and Boag have also done a great wrecking job by reminding everyone how DP and that 'win at all costs' are still very much the playbook with national. They don't give a F about the people and Jude showed NZ over ILG she's into those tactics despite denial.
People aren't that stupid and the polls reflect that IMO. JA deserves to govern alone.
Except for the most of the "political commentariat" who people at Kiwiblog claim are shills for Ardern and for Labour.
I guess the "political commentariat" is people who say things you disagree with, as opposed to the intelligent well reasoned journalists you agree with.
In many people's eyes Ardern does deserve to govern alone, but alas she least needs a few ministers to pad out the Cabinet and to front on the bad news.
Goes beyond any party sympathies. For instance, Malpass is a hardcore libertarian cheerleader who has worked for 'thinktanks' of that persuasion in both NZ and Australia.
Look at the story Scott linked to in #1, bearing that in mind: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/122310902/election-2020-how-do-you-run-against-elimination
Ok Pete Who are these marvelous managers in National? Their “Cabinet” is looking very shabby at present.
You are repeating the meme, "They only have Jacinda" when talking about Labour, with "alas she needs a few ministers to pad out the Cabinet"
Journalists who were "truth tellers became targets during Key's time. It is good to see one vindicated to some degree.
We look at the record and behaviour of these people. When their hyperbole draws the attention of theWorld Press, you can hardly accuse us of only attacking those journalists or commentators we disagree with. That is disingenuous.
As the biggest global event since WW2, it seems entirely reasonable that COVID-19 will lead to some sort of political realignment or shift in democratic societies, as happened in and after the 1930s Depression (eg Roosevelt in US, Savage/Fraser in NZ) and WW2 (eg Labour's election victory in UK in 1945, the NHS etc).
It will be hard for any opposition party to argue for smaller government, tax cuts and especially anything that might be seen to weaken the health system. Hard too for National to attack Labour for carrying out pretty much the same economic policies as the British and Australian conservative governments have done during COVID.
Weak piece from van Beynen which doesn't look at underlying causes. Labour is popular right now because for a period of a few months it has told business what to do and insisted that it behave itself. It has put private power under democratic control in the interests of the health of every citizen. A majority of people love that – it's how their families work.
Sure – as things get back to normal Labour will roll over and let business walk all over it again. But it's been nice while it lasted.
That is a very insightful comment- having business behave itself. In terms of the election frankly I don't expect huge policy gobs ( as everything is in flux) but I would be content with a direction of travel.
At the moment I think it would be fair to say that National represent letting business and overseas actors run all over the country again with zero concern for the bulk of citizens, with a very large side dollop of righteous fundamental holly roller.
Labour will do better long term if they make it clear that they see business as a sector that has to be modified community needs.
The Greens might be better to really focus on business being pushed in the environmental direction and into better redistribution towards the low paid but with more emphasis on the part the international wealthy play in this and the level of competition that the workplace settings play in this.
Funny too how the media demand policy from Labour but give the right a free pass although the right rarely disclose their true agenda anyway.
Quoting first link:
National is there to represent the rich and to make the exploitation of the poor by the rich easier. They know this, they don't have to remind themselves. Their problem is that most people are truly starting to realise this and if they state it openly then they lose even more votes.
Yeah – no. National has never stood for that. In fact, they stand fully against that. They know that the rich have much more opportunity and they're out to keep it that way by keeping everyone else poor.
After all, equal opportunity can only come when everyone has the same access to the same level of resources.
Yes, it matters because getting rid of the rich is what we need to do to truly become a prosperous nation.
Its important for democracy that all voices and ideas are heard, debated and those chosen by the people are researched. It's not important for democracy to have an opposition.
That is an outright lie.
Public support for democracy comes from people feeling that their say is heard and that the path that the people choose benefits them and their direct family.
The concept of government and opposition actually prevents that.
Impotus Americanus, most corrupt of all Oompus Loompitica.
Oh well, i guess the swamp is drained now?
Yep. So now we have full view of the noisome creatures that lurk in the muck at the bottom and how they get their jollies down there.
Kim Hill is interviewing the author of this examination of Qanon (on RNZ): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming/610567/
Social realities get co-created. Conspiracy theories have been escalating in recent decades and having a US president promoting one or more of them ramps their influence up into the top level of politics. Next step: geopolitics! 👽
When theories are promoted as alternative realities, they can become resilient and adaptive. As complex memes, they achieve contagion and currency.
Sceptics tend to make greater fools of themselves than conspiracy theorists. The denialism that drives their dismissal makes them seem more pathetic. They deny the evidence that makes the conspiracy theory superficially plausible. So other sceptics who prefer to be grounded in whatever social reality seems profoundly real have to distance themselves from both groups.
This transcendence of the binary creates a triadic structure in society: true-believers, disbelievers, and agnostics. Amongst the agnostics, you get those who are genuinely interested in the theorising, but require a better match with reality than that proposed by the competing binary nutball groups.
The hero myth was identified by mythologist Joseph Campbell in 1949. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces) When you combine it with the tyranny/freedom mental axis, to produce Trump as liberator from total control of everyone by the deep state, you get traction in the mass mind.
Next step is to use the internet to make mass contagion more influential. Memes defeat other memes in the process of social darwinism:
Then achieve democratic authenticity by identifying with the will of the people:
Waken everyone! Warn them, about Democrats
Meanwhile in the real world …. the interview with Oliver Stone was also interesting. I think the Vietnam experience will be viewed in the future as a more telling moment in history than it is even now. I was a teen at the time and it didn't fully sink in, and watching documentaries now what gets to me is the pure fear in the eyes of the conscripts sent there. Stone nailed the zeitgeist of the time so well, and long may he continue to produce rock the boat documentaries and films.
Really? Equating skepticism to denial(ism) is just weird – maybe it's a conspiracy
RNZ dropped Vicki Hyde as one of their regular commentators. I suspect her ideologically-driven scepticism was pissing off their audience too much. Nothing wrong with traditional scepticism used as a reality-check in science, as described in your red herring. What goes wrong with sceptics is their natural tendency to elevate scepticism to an ideology, whence their degeneration into denial of evidence emerges from. Been seeing that tendency consistently since the 1970s.
Sceptics are able to make a positive contribution to society & culture as long as they keep an open mind and balanced view of the pros & cons of evidence.
Sadly, many can't. This lot give the others a bad name (the analogy with lawyers comes to mind). To err is human, and one could rationalise their inadequacies accordingly. Me, I'm not so charitable. 😇
"I suspect her [Hyde's] ideologically-driven scepticism was pissing off their audience too much."
You've peaked my curiosity, Dennis – I've met Hyde (who in 2013 was appointed a MNZM for services to science), and would struggle to identify the idealogy that you perceive drives her scepticism. Could you expand on the evidence that informs your suspicion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicki_Hyde
Yes, it's always sad when an opportunity to make a constructive contribution is lost – those 'patterns of behaviour' are sooo intractable, eh?
"What goes wrong with sceptics is their natural tendency to elevate scepticism to an ideology…" – so many people going wrong!
Conflating denial and scepticism doesn't fly, but, as you say, to err is human.
If I was in labour I would be doubling security at the quarantine hotels and toughing up at the boarders .
We have to keep covid out .
And itll cost them an easy win if it gets back in .
Both outcomes would piss me off .
Especially true when Labour’s campaign so far is about Covid-19
You ain't paying attention if you believe that .!
But it certainly is the biggest issue so rightly is front and center.
It’s the central reason for theIr success in recent polls.
It’s a big part of their success in the polls sure. But it’s not the only reason. There’s also a growing conviction on the part of voters that the main opposition party is in no shape to bear the responsibilities of office at the moment.
What's your point?
Yes but do they even have an election campaign yet, as such?
Have they actually got enough people left to run for something?
I thought he was talking about Labour? Small-target strategy and all.
i thought you were talking about National 'have they got an election campaing'. 🙂
Cash in some kiwi saver invest in a small business that has a 58% risk of failing in the first year.
That's Nationals plan.
Building roads 10 yrs from now.
Saying they are better managers when they can't even manage their caucus
– how dare people use Their money as they see fit, don't they know that Their Kiwi saver AINT theirs to use. How dare they.
People now and then need money. They can borrow it from a bank or go for their savings. If the government is smart it will look at a change in legislation that would allow people to access a certain part of THEIR SAVINGS to start their busienss, pay some healthcare costs, renovate the house, get married, have some childfren et etc etc etc – you know all that stuff that sometimes need money. And besides, 48% of businesses succeed. But then who cares.
I don't think anyone here is considering the No mates party a good steward of anything other then their own bank accounts.
But liberating the Kiwi Safer to their owners would not be a bad idea and should be considered.
Westykev,So, you didn't hear anything about the huge spending on Infrastructure then, the largest spend in NZs history, or the fact they've built more new homes than any Govt since the seventies.
I suppose people only hear what they want.
I call that a wish list from a Party that has not delivered big on infrastructure since their elevation to Government. Twyford and team over promised and under delivered on housing and transport.
I hope for New Zealand’s sake they up their game post September.
It's not a wish list, it's an achievement NZ hasn't seen in a decade.
That's why people say Twyford was a failure cos he managed to have more new homes built in NZ than any Govt since the 70s.
In terms of other major Infrastructural projects, there hasn't been anytime in History that NZ has planned and completed the level Infrastructure currently either starting or near completion, roading, rail, Hospitals, Schools.
How many Schools and Hospitals were upgraded under the last Govt?
I think Jacinda and Labour have so far tried to tread a fine line on this. Governments still have to govern right up to election day but most election years haven't been overshadowed by such a crisis and threat.They don't want to be seen to be prioritising election campaigning over the serious business of keeping NZ safe, and if anything went wrong they'd get pilloried for taking their eyes off the ball. On the other hand, they have already got some criticism from media over allegedly treating the upcoming election as a nuisance. Ultimately the best way for a govt to retain power is to be seen to be doing a good job, while also setting out a vision for the future.
Must be why Ardern has an 80% confidence rating, looking after NZ and NZers.
We just happen to be in the luckiest country in the world right now, just there's a few Kiwis that haven't quite recognized that yet, they will in time.
This Virus ain't disappearing any time soon, NZ is the Country to follow for procedural excellence, and we're still learning as we go.have we made mistakes, yes, did we learn from mistakes, yes. What more can you ask for.
The National party are complaining about all the money being spent on Quarintine and Isolation without actually recognizing the Huge financial benefits of ploughing all those funds directly into the economy, employing people and keeping businesses operating, it's called good economic management, something NZers aren't used to seeing.
WestyKev…..Is that you Paula?
And itll cost them an easy win if it gets back in
It'll cost them something, maybe the tail end of their list – but the party that spent so much time whining about opening the borders have scarcely established themselves as a credible alternative.
Covid-19 is a game changer on many levels were community transmission to occur. Due to good political management NZ has been fortunate in not being impacted on a social level other than when in level 4 & 3.
I watched the premier of Victoria on TV and the emotion in his eyes told me that there was a long rocky steep road ahead for his state.
There are some situations in isolation where additional support is needed. Ranging from medical requiring methadone to grief support for children and this needs to be provided to minimise breaking isolation.
The paper headline said yesterday/today that Victoria is thinking of a NZ type lockdown. We did it early and so it tracked through well. Victoria seemed to be doing well but it was careless to have guards supposed to be keeping isolated possibly infected apart but then having sex with them. That was a poor connection in the brain of the careless young, but even worse in the minds of planners who need to allow for the little quirks and needs of humans.
So Victoria may have to go beyond what we did and be authoritarian, and the young would hate it, but then that could be limited by showing some kindness and imagination. Set up ways of communicating so people don't get tense about family and personal problems, and loneliness. Let them watch television a lot and perhaps have classes on learning the ukelele, and put a performance on telly at the end of isolation giving kudos to those who gave it a go in the true Aussie spirit, and build citizen-pride and support. And for the ones that like reading have kindle, and then a book discussion between the isolated and outsiders. Try to get them reading, it may prevent them from joining the most illiterate period since 1820 or something, with most spending time watching mummers on TV.
Hot security guards at a hotel was tempting for a few.
Spot prizes, grocery and book vouchers, smart phones and ipads, gardening tools and plants…
I don't see that as bad, firms would probably give vouchers, be prepared to give something to do for the fortnight, and make a friend and customer from the situation.
Personally, I'd prefer to see the army doing security rather than a private firm. I really believe that would make a difference.
100% agree Cinny, we don’t want a Victoria like outbreak here.
Yes, a military run operation would be much better as it is required to save lives.
The Army might like to be seen being good and reliable, people to look up to when they try.
(In a brief free access post), David Cormack analyses the latest polls the right way – by bloc, not party: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39896413
It was a good call when to release the report into Operation Burnham as the National Party poll could have dipped due to the release. The next poll will reflect the reports finding.
There is a trend going on into inquiries involving National Party MPs and when the inquiry is of an historical event which was handled poorly this reflects on the current National Party.
Were it not for Labour exposing the truth using pages from Hager and Stephenson's book, National and the NZDF would have gotten away with concealing the truth.
I do wonder which groups of voters pay attention to matters military.
No one specific group of voters and probably those with connections to the NZDF.
I thought maybe older voters?
Yes. They're the ones who may have followed the saga as it wound its way through the mesh of
liesdenials and (maybe) even read "Hit and Run".The young are otherwise occupied unless they are in the NZDF and even then its likely they are not much interested as for many it represents what they would see as a bygone era.
And manboys with a hardon for armymen.
I see this election as a massive renewal for the hard right in New Zealand.
Labour has been faced with such extreme events that it has had to expand the state so fast and so far that the more defensive elements of society are getting more and more ticked off.
National has shrunk.
Act looks likely to get above 5%, and bring in 7-8 MPs. Act's stance on guns is well recognised as bringing in those hard core rifle owners in the Waitake and Southland electorates.
The Conservative Party is back, and it will eat away a percentage or two in Mt Roskill and Mangere.
The coalition of weirdos gathered around Jaimie Lee-Ross will suck .5%-1% across from NZFirst and from National.
I'd like to see this splintering continue, to ensure Labour gets a good four terms and sinks the wooden stake through National's heart good and proper.
Whereas on the left, the Greens are imperilled at 5% and may well be dried to a husk under the 5% threshold, leaving a unified and revived left under Ardern. The harder left has simply nowhere to go and doesn't need to. That makes for much more efficient and surefooted government.
Really?
Really.
Our government has never been more redistributive, or more Keynsean in the scale of its deficit spending, since Muldoon's second term.
It has utterly massive nationwide support, and support within the Labour Party, for a young and charismatic and effective leader. That hasn't occurred since the first term of Helen Clark – if then.
And it's done so while becoming the most popular government in living memory.
That's lovely but how does removing the Green party from government make the left either unified or revived?
Don stop at Government, the Greens might well be ‘removed’ from Parliament altogether. United we stand, divided we fall.
And parliament is not the only avenue of influence for the left either.
Who do you place the blame on if the Greens don't make it over the line?
I like the Greens, I hope they're part of the next Govt, but they can't complain voters don't support them, they need the policies that attract a broader range of punters
We weren't talking about that, but their comms has been weaker in recent years. Only need to secure one on twenty voters though – not the same 'broad' church as Lab or Nat.
I do not see how removing the Greens from parliament builds unity. Seems like FPP thinking.
No, not really, I think its just we've got a Govt that has become extremely popular, a lot of that due to the response to the pandemic, both support parties are struggling to gain traction even though they are part of the solution, its just the voting public aren't associating those support parties with the pandemic policies, they're not seen promoting the policies or involved in the daily announcements.
I agree the Greens need to improve their coms, they've stumbled making announcements about policy, they've allowed the media to control the policy emphasis, rather than making sure the policy is promoted in a way that voters can aspire to.
I give you their Tax policy release as an example, great policy, but the media immediately described it as the Wealth Tax, that ends up as a discouragement, they needed a clear identity for the policy, like, Tax restructuring policy and made sure it couldn't be renamed to something the voters would want to reject.
I'm confident the Greens will make the cut, you only have see how many here will party vote them to help them on their way.
MMP giveth, MMP taketh away.
The Greens are essential to parliament because parties need friends to govern. Sure, Labour might be able to govern alone come election 2020, but what about 2023? Monolith parties lower the odds of being in government if they don't have coalition partners.
The right are in trouble not because they have new minor parties fracturing the vote, but because the new minor parties are largely similar in nature (and extremely nutty).
NZ can't support the Greens, the Environment Party, the ZeroCarbon Party, and the OrganicNZ Party. But the Greens should be able to get 5%.
If we lose the Greens this election, to whom will Labour turn when they drop to 45% in 2023?
Exactly, very good point.
I think Labour recognizes that too.
Even with a majority to Govern alone, I still think the Greens will be part of the next Govt, even if it's just for improved representation, and very good for democracy.
Winston rose from the soft fresh earth lining his crypt that he had been resting in from 2008 to 2011. So Greens missing out this time isn't necessarily permanent. Especially if they take the time to reflect on the relative weight they give to environmental issues versus other issues in relation to the demographics where they draw their support.
Yeah, but Winston's kind of special like that. Dude has come back from the dead so much that Hammer Films want to make movies about him.
I don't think policy weight is the issue for the Greens – I think they just have a same problem as ACT (although significantly more base support). When their natural coalition partner is dipping a bit, they have a bit more room. When their natural coalition partner is super-popular, they get overshadowed.
But I still think their voice is important to have in parliament.
Maybe not policy-weight as the important factor, but people-weight.
I couldn't bring myself to vote for Greens when their highest profile people were the likes of Tanczos, Bradford, Kedgley. Because it really didn't seem to me their hearts were in environmental issues, but that Greens were a stalking horse for other agendas.
Then when there was a bit more heft on the environment side with the likes of Kevin Hague, Kennedy Graham, Russell Norman as well as Hughes, Sage etc, I found it easier to choke down the idea that the likes of Steffan Browning were part of the package. For the coming election, I feel like the environmental substance has been whittled down to Shaw, Sage, Genter – which feels like quite a step down from where things were.
I'm sort of half and half on that one (personal dislike for Tanzcos aside – on at least one occasion he got pissy with doorstaff when the "don't you know who I am" didn't count as a backstage pass).
MPs neglecting a party's platform just to wank on about a single pet issue is a bit shit. But also I'm not sure how a party serious about fundamentally altering how we as a society operate in relation to the environment can do so without looking at social, economic, and post-colonial issues.
From my point of view, the existence of poverty is every bit as much a part of the values of an environmental party as the discussion of whether NZ national parks should be returned as close to a precolonial state as is possible. Poverty is a direct result of capitalism. It's as wasteful to people as clearfelling or overfishing are to "the environment". I have no idea why any group would want dramatic change in one but be opposed to any effort spent on the other.
Ad the hard right has always been here. Put a moustache on the Act Leader.History repeating?
Little man, big ideas, gathering all the malcontents together for what? What Policy/Vision is he offering?
While we battle the virus he is planning. He has been attached to National, but now is trying to relevant in his own right (Pun intended)
We laughed at the twerking… "Nek Minnit"…….??
I am not sure if there is a Clutha electorate Act candidate. If there is, this would be competition on and the National voters might split their vote.
Low end for Seymour is 5 seats and high end is 10 seats.
Basil Walker was ACT candidate for Southland but he resigned and is now standing as an independent in Invercargill, he's also put in an audacious bid for the Tiwai smelter
So looks like ACT are going to be looking for a candidate in Southland too
What is it with the Clutha seat that the electorate MPs tarnish and potential candidates do a runner?
Queenstown
And generally not getting candidates, and then MPs who are up to representing the place. The place puts very high demands on it's MP and will quickly destroy someone who's not up to the demands of the job. Certainly did the last two in, with style.
The electorate has a very conservative rural part in Southland, combined with a very liberal, go get it, part in Queenstown and Central Otago. It's one or the other with very little cross over, the two parts of the electorate may as well speak completely different languages, really they do.
How does this happen? According to the Herald a woman traveled from NZ to England in January then came home in March just before lockdown and then on July 20 flew to Sydney where she tested positive on arrival .? She must have dual citizenship but how does she test positive 4 1\2 months later when she thinks she may have had it when feeling sick after coming back in March. Did she not get a test then, was it a false neg if she did?
Stranger and stranger.
It may be that the test is detecting fragments of dead virus that haven't been finally cleared by the immune system.
It may be a recent infection and her earlier illness wasn't covid.
It may be that the virus somehow persists in someone's body without activating the immune system enough to fully clear it, or it may find a home in some specific tissues where it's hidden from the immune system.
View at Medium.com
There are still many many important things we have yet to learn about this pathogen.
Or a false positive? Or was she tested for antibodies?
Two cases now: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12352798
Today's Ministry of Health media release about the two cases who travelled from Auckland to Sydney.
The first involves a woman who transited through Auckland from Los Angeles to Sydney on 6 July. At this point there are not considered to be any close contacts who need to be traced or tested but enquiries continue with both the airline and airport.
The second involves a woman who travelled from Auckland to Sydney on 20 July. We have already talked directly with the person concerned.
At this point, it appears the person may have been a previously unconfirmed case from March and this is likely to have led to the positive test result.
We will continue to fully investigate the circumstances of this positive result, including travel history.
https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-releases/2-new-cases-covid-19-12
I've been aware of this issue for a while now, but I'm rather startled at how many people are at risk here:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/422509/stranded-boaties-in-dire-situation-appeal-for-new-zealand-s-help
This is straightforward, and very low risk. By the time you've made the 10 day passage from Tonga or Fiji on a small yacht, you've pretty much isolated anyway. And when you do get to Opua, another week on the boat and a couple of tests represents a very low burden on the quarantine system.
These are foreign (i.e. not kiwi) yachties in French Polynesia who pre-covid would have planned on spending the cyclone season in NZ (or Australia). French Poly is relatively safe from cyclones and in fact many European yachties (not under visa restrictions) spend several years there. Any yachties who have to leave French Poly (e.g. for NZ) cannot land in the Cooks, Niue or Tonga making it a 14 to 20 day trip direct, so basically within quarantine timing. Fiji has opened up under strict conditions but is not a safe cyclone season layover. Can't see the NZ government allowing non NZ yachties in yet, at least until after the election (cyclone season doesn't really begin until November) despite the low health risk.
i don't disagree with you but
they had all year to get back to their home countries and did not?
Or is that a point we don't want to discuss?
The closing down of borders and constantly changing rules has impacted many people very hard. I recently met a couple who spent 73 days at sea in SE Asia, being bounced from place to place before finally arriving in Darwin with literally no food or water left on board. This is not an uncommon story.
The trade wind sea routes also mean that if you are in the Pacific, your most feasible destinations lie eastward, and this means ultimately landing up in NZ or Australia at some point. If your home nation is Europe or North America, sailing back upwind to get there is not a simple matter. And until very recently even getting back through Panama was not possible.
And in reality for many, their boat is their home, their only significant asset. Abandoning it and catching a plane back to the country they are nominally citizen's of is a highly non-trivial demand to make of them.
NZ has long had a marine industry that has quietly done very well from a steady flow of boats arriving here; now is the time to extend a generous hand when they really need it.
ah, that makes sense.
Thanks for the clarification.
A good accurate description. However having made the passage westwards once myself, the prospect of spending another year in French Polynesia rather than risk the perilous long trip all the way to NZ seems a lot safer and pleasanter. The other issue is that all the foreign boats from last year are still 'stuck' in NZ (and Oz) meaning there is little safe mooring space left in in marinas for another lot.
Immigration approvals are just a mess.
We've seen it even for the America's Cup teams.
It's the World War Z of immigration policies.
Some yachts do the Tonga-NZ trip in 7 days.
Normally, yachts would island hop through to Tonga then down to NZ via Minerva lagoon if necessary. But all the islands west of French Polynesia are inaccessible making it a 2000 nautical mile trip from Bora Bora with the worst bit at the end – not sensible even if NZ allows entry
So what happens if Guy just sails here regardless?
Even before the pandemic, yachties intending to sail to NZ had to inform Customs at least 4 days before arrival with all info about who's on board, where they were sailing from and their health status. They could only go to the Q (quarantine) dock in Opua or Marsden Cove and wouldn't be allowed on land before an inspection by Customs, Biosecurity and Health. If Guy, whoever he is, just turned up he would have been fined heavily and possibly arrested. Dunno what the protocol is now as only NZ citizens and residents are allowed to sail to NZ. Guess they have to work it out before they leave Australia or French Poly with Customs and any days they haven't spent at sea (subtracted from 14) could be spent tied up to one or the other of the Q docks and only released after a negative test (only guessing!).
Ok, so he could set off and he's not going to be sunk on sight as long as he lets people know who's coming and he's prepared to quarantine. Doesn't sound too oppressive.
No it isn't like that at all. If he just turned up without good reason (such as a genuine sailing emergency) there would be heavy fines, and lots of unhappy consequences.
Most sailing people are highly aware of the often complex arrival procedures necessary in every country and do their best to comply responsibly wherever possible.
What about a yacht used for drug smuggling?
The smugglers are not going to say we picked up 50 kg of meth from a dingy and the person loading the drug had a cold.
If ligit bad time for yacht sailing between countries.
Authorities are very aware of the Pacific drug smuggling routes, monitor traffic closely and are generally quite good at catching bad actors. Quite a separate issue.
Audrey Young (I bet she was weeping tears of anger and disappointment when writing this) expands on the rise and rise of the MPs who are religious Right. (But Wrong to me.)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12352480
(paywalled)
From Audrey:
I suspect the hardcore christian members will be emboldened by their new leader Christ-opher Luxon when he takes over from Crushed Collins.
When the Christian Party demised many years ago, I seem to remember a plan to not bother with a Party but instead get individual strong Christians elected to operate from the inside rather than the outside. Maybe they have succeeded?
So, National has now become the Christian Party?
Yes Draco. Since God is on their side they will mightily hew down those who would defy the Chosen Path to Rightliness and Judith will blossom shrouded in iridescent halos. Alleluya!
Might go the other way for Collins not being a good fit for the leader of the National Christian Party due to her unchristian values.
A lack of christian values doesn't seem to be any barrier to banging on about christian values and inflicting them on everyone else.
Exactly.
All the Christians that I meet have the same values as Collins.
Basically, they're all bludgers.
Thanks, Ian.
oops
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/31/karen-bass-vp-candidate-los-angeles-388430
Is Thompson trying to undermine Bass, joe90 ?
It's this one on Thompson's feed that's a crackup.
Trump having a Covid party at Tampa today using AF1 for covert campaign.
The crowds…..
"Billie Jean is not my lover She's just a girl who claims that I am the one But the kid is not my son.”
https://twitter.com/meridithmcgraw/status/1289295452416827392
its like a horror movie
this virus pounding at the doors
trying to get in
scratching at the handle, in through the lock, under the door
screeching "let us in, let us in…"
"Is that you again Judith?"
Judith doesn't need to attack the door. She is born to rule with the words, "Don't you know who I am?"
She was inside the house all along..
It kind of isn't really.
Our boarders are pretty much closed.
If the current govt could get their collective shit together for long enough and not let people in isolation rock off to Countdown every 5 minutes it should be alright
I know right, that skyrocketing community transmission is proof they aren't keeping many of them in there. Wish we were more like the Strayans.
Is this a conspiracy theory that has worked on our economic system?
Economist Brian Easton says a fellow economist had the good oil but was scuttled by the econo-nasties.
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/the-holistic-perspective-of-bryan-philpott
We tend to propose economic policies without thinking of their wider repercussions. It is just so easy to say ‘we should do this’ and ignore the consequences. This was nicely, and sadly, illustrated by a recent controversy between Keith Woodford, retired professor of agribusiness at Lincoln University, and the NZIER, which wrote a report on the contribution of agriculture to the economy. It argued that the sector’s contribution was small (4 to 5 percent of GDP); Woodford argued that the estimate was misleading about the significance of the farm contribution.
Bryan [Philpott] would have been irate, because the analytic framework the NZIER report was so limited. It seemed to be saying that the farm sector was so small we could almost neglect it. That would encourage those who want to diminish or even close down the agricultural sector.
Economists on the run
The problem, of course, is that economists have been giving bad advice for decades and, even after the lessons of the GFC, don't seem to have any other advice.
DracoTD, the NZ scene has a significant national body collective? It was a long fought effort to be recognised; now not only receiving charitable funding but receiving significant funding from MSD and ACC.
The body's agencies are working on the ground addressing an overwhelming workload of needs.
Each of the client coming into different agents nation wide, IS the expert on their own lives. The goals for 'remedy' come from their own voices. Support is multi faceted for all dimensions of a person's story and needs; not just abuse issues either nor ironically a single gender or ethnicity, exclusive place. New agencies are underway still spreading into further locales. There is enormous support from a wide collective of grass roots and NGO's all working collaboratively to affect change .( And no, Paula despite your claim in your valedictory speech, you never visited- and in a funding round- nor another high profile dissenter, ' never mind them' pollie.
https://malesurvivor.nz/our-organisation/
Today is the third anniversary of Jacinda Arderns elevation to Leader of the Labour Party.
Andrew Little has said he never regretted passing over the reins, the rest is history.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12352809
Andrew deserves our thanks and gratitude, as he was big enough to acknowledge her.
This was the beginning of a remarkable Leadership example from both of them.
Jacinda Ardern is seen as a shining example of sound Leadership.
I wish her "Good luck and health" in these demanding times, may she lead for years.
Yes Patricia, and we'll all be able to thank him on election day.
Australia's Covid 19 toll has doubled in the last two weeks since they had effectively eliminated.
Watching the conversations of resident Victorians around the place it's clear they and their government have no idea about proper pandemic response. This can be applied nationally too. The mixed massages and concessions which led to this horrible 'second wave' (it's not a second wave, it's just a first wave not dealt with properly) are still front and centre of policy there.
For instance, did you know that construction was, is and apparently always will be classed as an essential service? Did you know all Australians were allowed to go to work, even during their highest level of lockdown, if they were unable to work from home?
It's clear the Victorian people and government have no intention of doing what is required and they are now reduced to managing the unmanageable.
The Victorian and federal Australian governments' botched response gives us a very clear picture of what life would be like in New Zealand had the National Party been in charge here.
In the beginning, the Australian state Govts started their own lockdowns as the Fed Govt was missing in action, they finally came to the party and literally copied the NZ system and Morrison was even mimicking Ardern and her demeanor, I remember watching him thinking he must have had a brain transplant, speaking more softly and with emotion, must have taken a fair bit of training.
I don't believe they got close to what we did.
Another example is our bubble concept. Here, we knew very well we were to not mix with anyone outside or family unit – for five weeks.
In Australia, as far as I can tell, you could mix with anyone as long as you were in a group of no more than two people.
Update:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300071763/coronavirus-australias-covid19-death-toll-passes-200-after-three-victoria-deaths
Let's hope they get it right this time.
How much is it going to hurt their economy?
Remember when the right was arguing that we should already have the Borders open, aren't we lucky they weren't in charge.
It won't.
The economy has never been the finances.
Very. Because if they'd been in charge they would have destroyed the economy to keep the rich rich.
But then, that's what National always does.
The mixed massages certainly must have had a big affect on the rising number of cases in Victoria.
Lol.
The VIC authorities are doing themselves and everyone else a disservice by claiming the situation the find themselves in now is due to one single quarantine lapse.
I just don't buy that and what it does is minimise the considerable flaws in the rest of their approach which, left unfixed, will result in many, many more deaths.
TikTok is regularly used as a platform to pillory and satirise Trump.
So he bans it.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12352875
We should not forget National and business and universities jumping up and down demanding we open the borders before it was safe. Strange isn't it, they have gone pretty quiet about that these days. They were also saying Australia was doing better than we were!
But we must not get complacent. Daughter in Australia says too many people there were selfish idiots.
It's true, but where does the complacency come from? It comes from complacent and compromised leadership.
Those conversations I mentioned above show the Australian federal government’s relief packages were unwieldy, slow and hard to access. Wage subsidies in NZ were central to the calmness with which we all approached the very well thought out lockdown. Clear and compassionate leadership from JA got us all on board.
Muttonbird, true. It was very clear here, apart from some initial issues about what was or was not essential and untidy issues were quickly tidied up. The daily PM and DG briefings kept us well informed and they reminded us what was expected of us. It became essential viewing. I don't think daughter in Australia had that level of clarity.
My son in Australia and many others tuned into Jacinda and Ashley's reports, as the advice was universal and clear.
Others did crazy things, like 3000 gathering for a party.
Hooton quit, 70 or so days…
& laughing arse off at NZ First attack ads against the Greens, apparently if I vote Greens I get a Unicorn!!!
So, you're definitely going to vote Greens and not expect the unicorn?
Hoots continues his work outside the mothership. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/422543/political-lobbyist-matthew-hooton-resigns-as-national-party-staffer
He sure is NOT living in the land of reality. But then it has been my observation that he hasn't for a long, long time.
Yes Anne, Hooten is inclined to get hysterical.
What I like is we have confirmed where some people's political "Hat" will be hung.
Conservatives don't live in reality.
That's been true since forever.
Winston's imported brexiteers sure are providing some strange campaign advertising guidance..
Vote NZFist, Get Orcs.
Whose votes are they going for with this?
I don't think they quite get MMP – this ad is just weird.
The standard conservative votes who are all delusional.
English voters, with the hedge and the unicorn and all. #oops
Mathew Hooton has resigned from the National Party and has stated that National have a good chance at winning the upcoming election.
I will say no more.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/08/lobbyist-matthew-hooton-leaving-national-party-months-after-being-hired.html
Go easy on the guy Just Is. Afterall, he wrote, quote the rnz version " the standard sump speech "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_speech
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/422543/political-lobbyist-matthew-hooton-resigns-as-national-party-staffer
YesPaddy. A sump speech will be down the drain I expect. But will Matthew be welcome back as a National Spokesman with NZR?
He'd certainly want to spellcheck their copy, before publishing.
And peruse the leader’s room for contradictory clues like hats before giving a stump speech
They might need to take a honkpill at rnz
Or gosh it might have been in Matty's lil media release, if more than one outlet ran the same error.. https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01-08-2020/#comment-1736678
Well he got that right.
The Herald quote is priceless:
"I think they now have a terrific team who has a good chance of winning the election, or at least can ensure the National Party will remain a broad church after 19 September."
"At least" …
Translation: Campaign strategist expects defeat. I don't think any Lab/Nat person in the leader's office has done this publicly since 1990. Nobody ever does. That's how bad things are on the good ship National.
Odd decision just before an election but for a reason only known to Hooton. Maybe he cannot work with Collins or he jumped before he was pushed.
Turns out those gnatsys are just a bunch of anarchosyndicalist marxist commies. Hootie had to get out while he was still pure.
Hooton has resigned from his party job. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300071836/matthew-hooton-resigns-as-national-party-staffer
Friday: Hager wins.
Saturday: Hooton loses.
The dark side does not always triumph.
We all watched Star Wars and we know that the Dark Side always loses – even if it is after millions of deaths that weren't necessary.
Story really went downhill once Disney bought it.
If my 'rithmetic is correct, that lasted 6.0 Scaramuccis.
"“I can’t justify the impact on my family and other personal and professional responsibilities for seven weeks."
Whaaaa????
Amazing how many Tories suddenly want to spend more time with their family.
To conservatives family is all important – unless you're more than a generation away in which case you're nothing.
heh
Wonder if that really unnatural blotchy orange colouring is photoshopped or just bad lighting.
You couldn't make this shit up.
On second thought, maybe it was too soon.
One of the first cruise ships in the world to resume sailing since the coronavirus-caused worldwide halt to departures in March is experiencing an outbreak of the illness that has already sent people to the hospital.
Norwegian expedition cruise company Hurtigruten late Friday said four crew members from the 535-passenger Roald Amundsen were admitted to the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromsø, Norway, earlier in the day after the vessel docked in the city.
https://thepointsguy.com/news/covid-outbreak-hurtigruten-norway/
Political lobbyist Matthew Hooton resigns as National Party staffer
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/political-lobbyist-matthew-hooton-resigns-as-national-party-staffer/ar-BB17rqkS?li=BBqdg4K
I wonder if him and Judith could not get along or there is somthing more?
"Former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp just told @manidunlop on Midday Report he "completely forgot" about a briefing which said civilians were possibly killed during Operation Burnham."
Hey, Hoots has resigned. Spread the word.
Jumped or pushed?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12352882
What's she on? Silly woman.
A healthy retainer 🙂
brilliant Oz headline ….
James Murdoch resigns to spend less time with family
Great Belgian headline!
Moonshot brings back fromage