I understand that a deal has been struck for the waste to be relocated back to Tiwai Point.
Then what? Surely as part of Rio Tinto's conditions to operate includes appropriate actions to deal with waste. Not get a third party to 'store' it elsewhere.
Can't wait for the Nats to get rid of the RMA../sarc.
There's a worthwhile dispassionate commentary on Spinoff from a rightist who I've never agreed with before. He dissects the swirling currents of the public mood created by pandemic and election comprehensively, accurate enough for me to endorse.
Force one was the nose-tapping savants who have divined in their Machiavellian brilliance that the move to alert level two in Auckland is “political”, that the government has decided it can’t afford to keep Auckland in level three lockdown a moment longer because it could cost them the election.
When a rightist critiques a rightist critique, we get an effective reality check. There's enough cut-through of the mean-spirited sectarianism to strengthen common sense.
armchair experts, conspiracy theorists and the less scrupulous of the government’s political opponents are happy to suggest that this decision is just about Jacinda Ardern making sure she wins the election. Well hang on a second, Maestro. What if she’s wrong, the virus gets away on us because of the level two decision and it’s rampant by October 17?
Indeed. That's the risk the govt is taking. Civil disobedience by non-mask-wearers is a thing in Oz & the USA, fortunately not yet large-scale here and we must get heavy with those who defy convention to ensure it doesn't get traction.
Jacinda-maniacs who will hear nothing said against their favourite angel
The most that can reasonably be said against her is that she's too tolerant of public service insubordination and incompetence.
the inexplicably alarmist instruction over the weekend telling everyone in south and west Auckland to get a Covid test. That was a botch-up. Someone will pay a price for it.
How will we ever know that?? The privileged caste always evades public accountability. It's a relic of colonialism. It was established by the empire. Above the people forever, by design.
And Jacinda telling everyone `the only information to believe is on the govt websites' while the media show everyone the crap right there on the govt website for all to see. Unbelievable! Talk about cognitive dissonance!
But for the cynical armchair experts, it’s all just part of the plan to frighten and control, while the loyalists say anyone can make a mistake. Get over it, they say, especially journalists asking about it. It’s only 700,000 people being told to do something unnecessary and worrying that took an age to correct. So what?
What a lot of the critics of what are essentialy minor mistakes and mis-steps have forgotten or never really wanted to believe is that the Covid fight is a war, and in war you can only react to what the enemy has surprised you with.
There is an old saying that the problem with an army is that it only prepares to fight the last war, that was obvious in Vietnam and even Afghanistan and particularly WW2, who for instance in 1939 could have expected V2 rockets. It is known as Aysemmetrical War, different to that which has gone before and bloody difficult to counter.
This virus is exactly the same, it is markedly different to Sars Covid-2 as it hides its infectiousness for several days to give it an element of surprise so of course there will be scrambling to counter all sorts of subtelties thrown at those we hope and trust can counter the threat, so stop bagging them at ever turn, from Jacinda and Ashley and some of the worlds best virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists and whatever we are immensely lucky to have on our side.
Oh, indeed. 🤫 I use it as a colloquialism. Very handy. Stuff being real is relative to how closely one looks. Near enough is good enough for most folk in the room…
6% is a remarkably low number for the anti-lockdown opinion.
But it's a familiar story … all (yes, all) the serious surveys since we went to level 4 in March have registered overwhelming support for the government's approach. (This includes polls by Reid Research, Colmar Brunton, Horizon, Spin-Off/Sticky Beak, etc).
The vast gulf between commentators and actual public opinion has been an unchanging feature of NZ's response to Covid.
She told Stuff about novel elements of her govt's foreign policy:
We’re very focused on engaging with Māori business and understanding where we can find benefits in terms of the free trade agreement for both the UK and New Zealand, particularly thinking about the Māori economy and Māori small and medium-size enterprises.”
“We want to work with Māori on our climate change agenda, drawing on that indigenous knowledge and perspective,” Clarke said. “The UK, with its COP presidency as a whole, is wanting to put indigenous perspectives at the heart of its work.
“We’re saying, ‘We’ve got this shared planet, we have these shared taonga, we need to work together going forward, and where there are difficulties we need to be honest about it and work on them’.”
She's been making a Green connection here too:
Greenvale Pastures in Methven, which produces high-quality specialist seeds and cereals using environmentally sustainable farming practices. “They’re doing really innovative work in terms of agritech and making sure that as you do your farming you’re not using any more water or putting any more inputs into the soil than you should, and a whole load of things you can do in terms of using technology and best practice."
"There’s a lot of that sort of thinking going on in the UK as well, and so if the UK and New Zealand can come together to collaborate more and share that best practice more widely across the world, collectively that’s going to reduce overall emissions quite a lot.”
What's Biden doing about it? He gave a pretty good speech saying Trump (as president) can't escape responsibility for what is happening. A start – but he needs to announce something specific and credible on policing reform – a serious promise to deliver reform combined with a call to people to get off the streets before it all escalates out of control.
This is from his Criminal Justice policy – and it falls way short of what is needed in terms of specifics:
"Our criminal justice system cannot be just unless we root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system. Black mothers and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking the streets of America. And, when a police officer pins on that shield and walks out the door, the officer’s family should know they’ll come home at the end of the day."
Is he relying on flowery Obama-style rhetoric or sentimental homilies to carry the day? Such rhetoric peters out into nothing under pressure from special interests. Look's like he's playing safe and remaining what he considers to be 'electable' – but there are times when the apparently safe option is the most dangerous thing you can do.
Gimme more of a clue, huh? 18 minutes of my day is a big chunk, so I'm only like to watch a mathematician if he proves capable of telling me something I don't already know. I paused at 1min 40, when he had introduced an algorithm explaining how negative feedback cycles stabilise populations in ecosystems.
Well, I'm already giving him too much credit. He did not in fact deduce & declare the general principle – merely used rabbits as an example of his equation. Metaphysics is just so damn hard when you're a typical product of the antique education system!
Well I tried that, got to 11 mins & he was still telling us what we learnt in the late '80s so I baled out. Cool for those who missed chaos theory tho…
Cyber attacks ' Asghar believes the Government needs to step in and help fight the cyber attacks. Media companies Stuff and RNZ have also been hit by attempted hacks.'
This funding of the Green School in Taranaki gets even more bizarre Not only crystals and 5th dimension consciousness but the owners name is Christof ( or Christ of) thinks he is a King and a Priest. His last name Melchizedek is a role in Abrahamic religions, modelled on Melchizedek, combining the dual position of king and priest.[1]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_of_Melchizedek
No, seems sincere. Just a typical new-ager. I've got several in my circle of old friends. One eventually develops self-discipline around tolerance of loopiness.
Further down the page you get to the connection between the Goddess & World Cup cricket, which Mark Richardson would find inspiring. Perhaps. I was mildly irritated that he didn't specify which goddess but we can't expect precision from folks who talk (and think) in words starting with capital letters…
Yeah but don't forget this stuff has real deep cultural roots. Not just the christians. Snake oil salesmen were the 19th century exponents, right? PT Barnum (`there's one born every minute'). Illuminati (18th century).
It's even something the political left & right share. Peale's Power of Positive Thinking, Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich exemplify the capitalist strands. The communist strands constitute a spider's web emanating from the 19th.
In science you have cold fusion etc. The human psyche consists of a real/imaginal interface. Imagining alternate realities is hard-wired.
In science you prove it with actual repeatable demonstrations of hard evidence. So Fleischmann and Pons very rapidly got deservedly ridiculed when their claims could not be substantiated.
(Muon-catalysed cold-fusion is an actual real thing, but so far utterly useless for any real or imagined application)
The persistence of this kind of snake-oil is as least partly due to apologists who should fkn know better validating the evidence-free bullshit as somehow legitimate.
Yeah, I share your bias. I differ inasmuch as having a `feet on the ground & head in the clouds' kind of outlook. So I concede that flakiness does work for some. Who are we too condemn choices others make on a spiritual basis? And if they make commercial choices consequent?
Karmic consequences are a personal learning curve. We can't really say that the delusional new-agers are wrong, because social reality is co-created. But we can erect boundaries around them to protect our peace of mind.
As an aside – I saw a genuine snake oil salesman at a market in Gupo, near Seoul. There was no deception, though there were a couple of pythons on show. The oil was in small bottles, each with a small snake, no more than 15cm long in it. It was genuine snake oil, and local belief was apparently that it had some benefit for sufferers of joint pain.
The expression may have arisen more from the US medicine shows, that variously sold alcohol or low end religion or some mixture of the two, than the relatively humble bottled snake.
Got any linky about the Melchizedeks having any ownership stake in the Green School?
Everything I've seen describes them as school parents. While they certainly appear to own the entity that's peddling crystal woo-nonsense and even kookier conspiracy stuff, that doesn't appear have a formal Green School ownership connection.
"Funding scandal" or more realistically small "funding mistake" that has been hysterically blown up by the media in order to discredit the Greens even though it is an all-government initiative.
Even Hipkins, when questioned on the issue on Morning Report today, didn’t mention the Greens.
I wish he hadn't. Should have refused as no matter how clearly it is explained the media will use it to beat him/Green Party up. The ignorance about how governments work is not helped by juicy soundbites.
And since when has a normal decision made by a Govt committee been a ‘scandal’. Either it fitted the criteria or it did not…..end of story. All this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and responding to Nats is not going to clarify anything.
The 'bad' is totally manufactured by the media. A mistake by no means necessitates this over the top over-reaction. It shows up an ignorance about how Govt works, and also about how people make mistakes. There is no story and I wish they had just stood staunch. The application apparently met the criteria and what we are seeing is a woe is me about the concept of the school and who announced the decision.
No-one answered my earlier query about if there would have been a problem if the approval had been announced by Labour, NZ First so I will answer it myself
Of course there would not have been. But all hell breaks loose when the Govt's decision is announced by a Minister who is also a Green Party MP.
If it had been shown that the approval had been given even though the application did not meet the Govt's criteria for accessing the fund then we would have a legitimate reason for concern. No, a minor mistake or something not related to the application itself was made by one of those approving that does not go to the heart of the application and its merits.
In terms of decision making it is a grounds for an administrative review had material not relevant to the making of the decision been made part of the decision making process. If Shaw had concerns he should have disqualified himself, but I am not sure how that looks either legally. The point is that this is a Govt decision NOT a party decision.
By continuing this we are all falling into where the Nats want us.
You are entirely correct, Shanreagh. This is hair-pulling-out time for some of us. Still, this it to be expected in this period of the electoral cycle. Cringeworthy though. We have met the enemy and he is us.
Yeah that's the guts. But James must cater to that body of opinion within the Greens that does knee-jerk moral outrage with brain disengaged. Their numbers are sufficiently large to be catered to.
It is out of his hands now yet it was never fully and solely in his hands to start with. His mistake was to claim credit for it and therefore ownership and responsibility for its justification. Shane Jones would not have encountered the same problem had he announced it instead.
Shaw is sacrificing his own persona and taking on his shoulders all the hoop-lah from the loud and scatty of whom there appear to be many in Greens. Perhaps they have been in space-type suspended animation for the last few decades and have just woken up. The shock, the fluster of how things appear to these Rip van Winkles, horrific!
Now we have a fluster-cluster muster just when we should be tramping along like the old tortoise that is guaranteed to get over the finishing line in the fable The Hare and the Tortoise. How did Aesop know all this stuff, he an Nostradamus really had muchly foresight, I hope it doesn't end up a foresigh.
(Nostradamus from Wikpedia – had experience of plague effects and dealing with people in authority who had closed minds. Nothing changes does it dear Nostra!)
Nostradamus's family was originally Jewish, but had converted to Catholic Christianity before he was born. He studied at the University of Avignon, but was forced to leave after just over a year when the university closed due to an outbreak of the plague. He worked as an apothecary for several years before entering the University of Montpellier, hoping to earn a doctorate, but was almost immediately expelled after his work as an apothecary (a manual trade forbidden by university statutes) was discovered.
But we shouldn't be surprised at this turn of events; it happens every time. If it's not a Green School, it's Morris dancing, or Metiria's past, or the Exclusive Brethren flyers, or.. whatever the Right wing can devise, whip up, fabricate or beat up. It's pretty much impossible to counter; those who seek to destroy the chances of a Green presence in Government are skilled at the dark art of dirty politics, but it galls when "our own people" add fuel to the Right's indignant fires.
Well, that was such a pile of steaming unfossilised coprolite that I'm embarrassed to have even clicked the link. FFS, starting out by fantasising two bizarre scenarios and pretending that out of the entire universe of things that might have led to the situation, those are the only two to be considered.
Andre & Pat Are you the only ones who can try to examine the entrails of politics? You certainly come up with some questionable ideas yourselves. And that is good – we need to be questioning stuff, but not just what you decide we should.
Occam’s Razor allows of only two reasonable explanations.
1) That the action was deliberate and its consequences foreseen.
2) That the calibre of the staff responsible for its release was so abysmal that the notice’s glaring deficiencies passed unnoticed.
Neither explanation offers us much comfort. The first admits to sabotage. The second to utter incompetence.
The question to be decided, therefore, is whether we are looking at a conspiracy or a cock-up?
As usual, I will apply both/and logic. Public servants who vote National have been awarded management roles, plus public servants who vote Labour have been likewise awarded management roles, and they have collaborated (conspired) to orchestrate a cock-up. Everybody happy?
Interesting. There's probably a name for whatever it is that might result from an attempted synthesis starting from a false dichotomy, but I've no idea what it is.
He's not eminent, but he is greasy, and he sure as shit isn't a power behind a throne.
Trotter has a unique ability to smmon up a thousand-odd words of enbloviated indignation merely by inserting the word "glaring" into the phrase "the notice’s deficiencies".
I do agree with the jist of your reponses to this bruhaha, I've gotta draw the line at this being a right wing beat-up.
James Shaw stood on a landmine that did trigger a lot of upset. Sure some of those do get upset out of proportion, but he has owned it and gone up a little in my eyes.
As for the right making hay out of this, they are so desperate for a break they would pay big money for any straws you may have.
Oh, this one wasn't a Right-wing set up, but they're certainly beating it up as far as it can be beaten. Sadly, they were aided in their work by a lot of Lefties who might have held their breath until James had fully explained where it was he went wrong. Perhaps next time, there'll be some pause taken.
yep. I wonder if people feel so powerless now that they don't consider their words have an effect. Or that the collective and compounding nature of left wing response actually matters.
The Greens are vulnerable because they will tell the truth and they will do right by process. The left's ability to eat its young never ceases to amaze me.
I've been debating with conspiracy types lately, weka – followers of Billy Te Kahika and Jamie-Lee Ross, trying to open up some channels through which fresh air and light might flow, but have made precious little progress, despite my love for story, words, language and imagination. At one point, I asked an assembled group, "How do you form your ideas? From whom do you get your information? Who are your trusted-advisors? I hoped to use the analogy of a waka ama, a canoe with outriggers to try to create a model that showed how important it is to have relationships with trusted friends and mentors, face to face and distant, present and past, to test ones ideas against, to check-in and see if their view is close to yours. I wanted also to suggest that those people need not be commenting on the issue of the day, but in general terms, if they showed they had their heads screwed on right over a period of time, they were likely to be trustworthy and could provide guidance when times got tricky, as these times are, when media reports, memes, gossip, cartoons, video-clips etc. swamp the mind of the inquisitive person and create confusion. However, all I got from them was, on-line sources and "my gut, my heart" which surprised me a little. Perhaps this is a common phenomenon and explains the situations we find ourselves in now. I'm not really exploring the depths of the idea but I hope you get my drift
This is a very good description, better than my go to which is to talk about critical thinking (which everyone thinks they have).
I'm avoiding my friends who are BTK followers, because I don't trust myself not to say things that will make it worse. This whole phenomena is one of the top things that worries me about NZ now.
I think we are so far down the rabbit hole of fear, distrust, and stress from CC, Australian bushfires, the Trump presidency, Dirty Politics and so on, that the good man that Shaw is will be missed or maybe people just won't care in their bloodlust for vengeance. It actually breaks my heart to see lefties still doing this, still believing that anger and blame will be enough to see us through.
Otoh, I am heartend by the poll, 11.5 is truly excellent and I am pleased for the Greens it came out today.
I've been wrassling a few of these online – their sources are almost always ranter websites. Soros + sheeple + wake up + pedos + NWO + Killary is a pretty common equation – like they formed out of the tail of the product that was used against Hillary Clinton.
I'd like to see some of that material taken down – it has no basis in fact and seems to be designed to radicalize folk unfamiliar with ideas about weight of sources.
Andre ( 10.2) I stand corrected, assumed was an owner from the press , i have no evidence of such, thus a friend / supporter of the school is probably more appropriate
A pathetic reparation sum for such vile behaviour from a landlord. He is the one who should now be in prison.
First he tried an illegal 12.5% rent increase, then he tried an illegal eviction, then he went into their home, took the front door and destroyed their property.
No charges, just a fine, where are the police?
Some landlords are pure evil, and the tenancy tribunal is soft on those evil landlords.
What puzzles me about the whole shenanigans is that for 2 years the tenants were OK. Then over the time of Covid a rush of blood to the head and the landlord behaves in this despicable and frightening way.
I didn't say the school is a real whack job. The Melchicks seem a bit odd but the school and its curriculum is probably reasonably sound for those wealthy enough to attend. The test will be if/when they get full approval.
There'll be plenty of crystal enthusiast parents at most schools in rural New Zealand and Titirangi, don't worry about that.
Stuff reported the school when it opened last summer, so the kids attending have had half a year or more. I had some interrupt my conversation with their CEO the other day when I went to have a look.
You could always look at the new-age time slots as entertainment, eh? I trust the teachers & kids both to provide reality checks so no real prospect of brainwashing.
Are the airlines required to conduct basic screening for covid in passengers before flying them? We seem to have an uptick of cases caught at the border and the fewer of those we have the better surely.
The only way to be sure someone does not have Covid is to quarantine them for 14 days. If they then stay in full surgical grade PPE all the way to the airport and on the flight and to the arrivals gate, then they will be safe. Anything else is false reassurance and theatre.
I was more wondering if some vaguely symptomatic people where getting on planes (temperature up, coughing etc) and not being rejected given how quickly they are diagnosed here.
Historic tax grab will see Treasury push for a raid on capital gains, pensions, internet sales, fuel and inheritance
Treasury officials are pushing for the largest tax rises in a generation to plug the gaping holes in the public finances, in a move being resisted by Downing Street, The Telegraph can disclose….
Thanks Barfly. I'll try again – but note there is a paywall and I put it as my source. Go to google with heading is the idea and get a vid link I think.
Coronavirus: Positive tests in Scotland rise by 123 in 24 hours
(Not good but overall not bad — percentage of positives under 1% with 'record' testing) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-53965868
Wales – Quarter of Covid cases in England and Wales have dementia.
UK records 1715 cases in worst weekend since mid-May https://www.theguardian.com/uk/wales
Wales has one of the lowest mortality rates for coronavirus during the pandemic so far, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The 75.7 deaths per 100,000 people up until the end of July is lower than England and all its regions, apart from the south west and south east. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53946092
As with all other polling that measures approval, there is no indication of any mood for change. Party vote numbers can vary within the "blocs", but the underlying trend has been consistent for many months.
Greens support increased 3.5% to 11.5% in August and is now up 5.2% since the 2017 election and the party is on track to repeat the result of the 2011 NZ Election when it won 14 seats.
Whoopee! Thud! The yoyo effect from wealth tax & Green school funding. So let's wait for the next poll!
…and stuff-up an excellent Environment Court decision in Wanaka, that represented sustainable management of the landscape, so that he could make more money.
Collins has apologised for the National party’s misleading Facebook ad about Hipkins’s parliamentary answers to questions from Shane Reti. Hipkins had sought to have the matter referred to the Privilege’s Committee. Collins is named as authorising the ad but claims to have not done so.
Considering National's focus on the individual and that everyone should be able to do what they like I suspect that being their leader is an exercise* in herding cats.
* I did consider the option of using lesson instead but figured she wouldn't learn anything from it
“but you should see what Judith Collins’ husband has been posting.”
Sneaky and dishonest, National Party. Got away with it because Parliament is set to be dissolved on Sunday.
“"The post involved the manufacture of a fake ministerial letterhead to lend authenticity to the misrepresentation."“
“Mallard said Collins has apologised and he has no plans to take any further action because Parliament is set to be dissolved on Sunday ahead of the election. “
But more importantly, as you point out- "Over a few months this Government has created a massive response and created lifesaving processes." World class and will, in time, be reflected on and used as a blueprint for future responses. Yet if you scan the print media, Act/Nat utterances, or talkhate radio you would think it was an incompetent balls-up.
The big end of the fat national party is continuing to expose itself downwards to the utter gutter.
The old worn out wrecks in national are bashing the young, talented Jacinda Ardern who has been building a new Democracy in New Zealand.
Ms Jacinda Ardern is just 40yrs and World renowned in her fields.
Mrs Collins, an aging, weighty woman, is headed for her seventies. And is not known much anywhere. Not even in Auckland. She wrangles and mangles and calls herself Crusher. She does cook nice cakes for the wealthy.
National has totally parted from NZ Youth in the most disgusting way. National Does not know what Democracy is. But Has a big interest in keeping the poor poorly paid unhoused.
They built One House in their 9yr term – under the command of J.Key and Mr English. They absolutely abused our Kiwi Youth. and denied them work and housing.
Possibly because of age, Mrs Collins has allowed her uncouth husband to write unadulterated abuse of our Prime Minister, Ms Jacinda Ardern. in Auckland rags,
I can see the National Party soon dying the death. They are there for the money. Your money.
Democracy will, I believe make a great Parliament.
Democracy does not look anything like the present rabid national party. It must depart. And it will.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
I feel for the residents in and around Mataura, dealing with having a ticking pile of waste in their back yard.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/424912/we-shouldn-t-have-to-live-like-this-mataura-resident-on-third-toxic-waste-scare
I understand that a deal has been struck for the waste to be relocated back to Tiwai Point.
Then what? Surely as part of Rio Tinto's conditions to operate includes appropriate actions to deal with waste. Not get a third party to 'store' it elsewhere.
Can't wait for the Nats to get rid of the RMA../sarc.
And this…wtf ?!
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/no-risk-toxic-waste-fire-sparks-fear-among-mataura-residents
Hissing Collinsss is keen to open "negotiations" with those rio tinto slime. By whatever power let the nats NEVER regain control.
There was this small victory against the corporate creeps…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/424299/rio-tinto-executives-stripped-of-bonuses-over-destruction-of-juukan-gorge-rock-shelters
The mayor has all the drive and energy of a limp fish.
There's a worthwhile dispassionate commentary on Spinoff from a rightist who I've never agreed with before. He dissects the swirling currents of the public mood created by pandemic and election comprehensively, accurate enough for me to endorse.
When a rightist critiques a rightist critique, we get an effective reality check. There's enough cut-through of the mean-spirited sectarianism to strengthen common sense.
Indeed. That's the risk the govt is taking. Civil disobedience by non-mask-wearers is a thing in Oz & the USA, fortunately not yet large-scale here and we must get heavy with those who defy convention to ensure it doesn't get traction.
The most that can reasonably be said against her is that she's too tolerant of public service insubordination and incompetence.
How will we ever know that?? The privileged caste always evades public accountability. It's a relic of colonialism. It was established by the empire. Above the people forever, by design.
And Jacinda telling everyone `the only information to believe is on the govt websites' while the media show everyone the crap right there on the govt website for all to see. Unbelievable! Talk about cognitive dissonance!
Freak out the masses in the middle of a pandemic, no problem. Bureaucrats doing their usual thing. Move on, nothing to see here…
What a lot of the critics of what are essentialy minor mistakes and mis-steps have forgotten or never really wanted to believe is that the Covid fight is a war, and in war you can only react to what the enemy has surprised you with.
There is an old saying that the problem with an army is that it only prepares to fight the last war, that was obvious in Vietnam and even Afghanistan and particularly WW2, who for instance in 1939 could have expected V2 rockets. It is known as Aysemmetrical War, different to that which has gone before and bloody difficult to counter.
This virus is exactly the same, it is markedly different to Sars Covid-2 as it hides its infectiousness for several days to give it an element of surprise so of course there will be scrambling to counter all sorts of subtelties thrown at those we hope and trust can counter the threat, so stop bagging them at ever turn, from Jacinda and Ashley and some of the worlds best virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists and whatever we are immensely lucky to have on our side.
Common sense isn't.
Oh, indeed. 🤫 I use it as a colloquialism. Very handy. Stuff being real is relative to how closely one looks. Near enough is good enough for most folk in the room…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vvdtaaprzw
A Message to Young People from Andrei Tarkovsky
https://twitter.com/swordfish7774/status/1300538075093716993
Interesting the consistency across the age groups.
[fixed the name in this one and deleted the other comment, as this one stays as a reply to – weka]
6% is a remarkably low number for the anti-lockdown opinion.
But it's a familiar story … all (yes, all) the serious surveys since we went to level 4 in March have registered overwhelming support for the government's approach. (This includes polls by Reid Research, Colmar Brunton, Horizon, Spin-Off/Sticky Beak, etc).
The vast gulf between commentators and actual public opinion has been an unchanging feature of NZ's response to Covid.
That's because the commentators are trying to change public opinion and not just report it.
Swordfish@4..wait for the 'rogue poll' narrative along with DPF's dodgy data distractions
Who knew this?
British High Commissioner Laura Clarke is married to a kiwi human rights barrister (https://www.gov.uk/government/people/laura-clarke).
She told Stuff about novel elements of her govt's foreign policy:
She's been making a Green connection here too:
Trump promising to visit the high protest areas shows his team need to read the likely response better.
Last time Trump stepped in to the protest arena – the one with the Bible in front of the church – Biden got a good bump.
However Law and Order is a supremely strong sat of cards for Trump to play. Fear, played well, trumps hope most times.
If BLM and the crowds really go nuts on tv with fires and overturned cars, Trump could well win Florida and Pennsylvania back.
Law and Order would be a supremely powerful set of cards for Drongo Unbrained to play if he were the challenger. Like Nixon in '68.
But since all this American carnage has built up on his watch, it's a more difficult trick to to play.
What's Biden doing about it? He gave a pretty good speech saying Trump (as president) can't escape responsibility for what is happening. A start – but he needs to announce something specific and credible on policing reform – a serious promise to deliver reform combined with a call to people to get off the streets before it all escalates out of control.
This is from his Criminal Justice policy – and it falls way short of what is needed in terms of specifics:
"Our criminal justice system cannot be just unless we root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system. Black mothers and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking the streets of America. And, when a police officer pins on that shield and walks out the door, the officer’s family should know they’ll come home at the end of the day."
Is he relying on flowery Obama-style rhetoric or sentimental homilies to carry the day? Such rhetoric peters out into nothing under pressure from special interests. Look's like he's playing safe and remaining what he considers to be 'electable' – but there are times when the apparently safe option is the most dangerous thing you can do.
Why the world is always more complex than you can think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJcsL7vyrk&
Gimme more of a clue, huh? 18 minutes of my day is a big chunk, so I'm only like to watch a mathematician if he proves capable of telling me something I don't already know. I paused at 1min 40, when he had introduced an algorithm explaining how negative feedback cycles stabilise populations in ecosystems.
Well, I'm already giving him too much credit. He did not in fact deduce & declare the general principle – merely used rabbits as an example of his equation. Metaphysics is just so damn hard when you're a typical product of the antique education system!
Patience grasshopper.
Well I tried that, got to 11 mins & he was still telling us what we learnt in the late '80s so I baled out. Cool for those who missed chaos theory tho…
And so you missed the interesting bit.
Bugger. And you don't want to give me a clue. 😥
http://www.ams.org/notices/200009/fea-lyubich.pdf
Mathematics is everywhere..
Mathematics is everywhere
Yeah, I know, I had to pass stage 3 maths at university to graduate in physics long ago! But it didn't take you 18 mins to write that…
This series is quite interesting. Episode 4 Digits gives another maths example. Currently showing on Netflix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connected_(2020_TV_series)#:~:text=Zero%20Point%20Zero%20Production%20Inc.&text=Connected%3A%20The%20Hidden%20Science%20of%20Everything%20is%20a%202020%20docuseries,each%20other%20and%20the%20universe.
Cyber attacks ' Asghar believes the Government needs to step in and help fight the cyber attacks. Media companies Stuff and RNZ have also been hit by attempted hacks.'
Have all media companies been hit?
This funding of the Green School in Taranaki gets even more bizarre Not only crystals and 5th dimension consciousness but the owners name is Christof ( or Christ of) thinks he is a King and a Priest. His last name Melchizedek is a role in Abrahamic religions, modelled on Melchizedek, combining the dual position of king and priest.[1]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_of_Melchizedek
Dude's a barking con artist.
https://www.christof.love/about/
Oh wow. Their Lemurian heritage is what enables them to bring us these blessings.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gRfdq0chx4QJ:https://www.christof.love/nz2020/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz&client=firefox-b-d
Einstein was wrong. Along with human stupidity, the cray-cray is also infinite.
I'm torn between the heart and lung clearing protocols and the corona sound frequency zapper.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChristofMelchizedek/videos
Reckon that might be where One Two disappeared to?
Oh Jeebus. I shouldn't have clicked those links. Now all my google ads are for weirdy-beardies shilling shit like "Inner Engineering".
No, seems sincere. Just a typical new-ager. I've got several in my circle of old friends. One eventually develops self-discipline around tolerance of loopiness.
Nice wormhole photo here but doesn't say which starship it was taken from: https://www.christof.love/processing-through-the-portal/
Further down the page you get to the connection between the Goddess & World Cup cricket, which Mark Richardson would find inspiring. Perhaps. I was mildly irritated that he didn't specify which goddess but we can't expect precision from folks who talk (and think) in words starting with capital letters…
I'm in pain. I think I ruptured something from laughing so hard. That has to be one of the generator's better outputs.
Yeah but don't forget this stuff has real deep cultural roots. Not just the christians. Snake oil salesmen were the 19th century exponents, right? PT Barnum (`there's one born every minute'). Illuminati (18th century).
It's even something the political left & right share. Peale's Power of Positive Thinking, Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich exemplify the capitalist strands. The communist strands constitute a spider's web emanating from the 19th.
In science you have cold fusion etc. The human psyche consists of a real/imaginal interface. Imagining alternate realities is hard-wired.
In science you prove it with actual repeatable demonstrations of hard evidence. So Fleischmann and Pons very rapidly got deservedly ridiculed when their claims could not be substantiated.
(Muon-catalysed cold-fusion is an actual real thing, but so far utterly useless for any real or imagined application)
The persistence of this kind of snake-oil is as least partly due to apologists who should fkn know better validating the evidence-free bullshit as somehow legitimate.
Yeah, I share your bias. I differ inasmuch as having a `feet on the ground & head in the clouds' kind of outlook. So I concede that flakiness does work for some. Who are we too condemn choices others make on a spiritual basis? And if they make commercial choices consequent?
Karmic consequences are a personal learning curve. We can't really say that the delusional new-agers are wrong, because social reality is co-created. But we can erect boundaries around them to protect our peace of mind.
As an aside – I saw a genuine snake oil salesman at a market in Gupo, near Seoul. There was no deception, though there were a couple of pythons on show. The oil was in small bottles, each with a small snake, no more than 15cm long in it. It was genuine snake oil, and local belief was apparently that it had some benefit for sufferers of joint pain.
The expression may have arisen more from the US medicine shows, that variously sold alcohol or low end religion or some mixture of the two, than the relatively humble bottled snake.
Got any linky about the Melchizedeks having any ownership stake in the Green School?
Everything I've seen describes them as school parents. While they certainly appear to own the entity that's peddling crystal woo-nonsense and even kookier conspiracy stuff, that doesn't appear have a formal Green School ownership connection.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/08/couple-who-called-covid-19-manufactured-natural-disaster-held-dna-activation-event-at-green-school.html
Maybe he hypnotised James Shaw, or cast a spell or sutin.
'Murica
https://twitter.com/KagroX/status/1299779623765585920
Shaw going live on funding scandal now.
"Funding scandal" or more realistically small "funding mistake" that has been hysterically blown up by the media in order to discredit the Greens even though it is an all-government initiative.
Even Hipkins, when questioned on the issue on Morning Report today, didn’t mention the Greens.
I wish he hadn't. Should have refused as no matter how clearly it is explained the media will use it to beat him/Green Party up. The ignorance about how governments work is not helped by juicy soundbites.
And since when has a normal decision made by a Govt committee been a ‘scandal’. Either it fitted the criteria or it did not…..end of story. All this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and responding to Nats is not going to clarify anything.
Good to see Davidson recognise that the issue was so serious for them that it could affect them making 5%. They get how bad it is.
The 'bad' is totally manufactured by the media. A mistake by no means necessitates this over the top over-reaction. It shows up an ignorance about how Govt works, and also about how people make mistakes. There is no story and I wish they had just stood staunch. The application apparently met the criteria and what we are seeing is a woe is me about the concept of the school and who announced the decision.
No-one answered my earlier query about if there would have been a problem if the approval had been announced by Labour, NZ First so I will answer it myself
Of course there would not have been. But all hell breaks loose when the Govt's decision is announced by a Minister who is also a Green Party MP.
If it had been shown that the approval had been given even though the application did not meet the Govt's criteria for accessing the fund then we would have a legitimate reason for concern. No, a minor mistake or something not related to the application itself was made by one of those approving that does not go to the heart of the application and its merits.
In terms of decision making it is a grounds for an administrative review had material not relevant to the making of the decision been made part of the decision making process. If Shaw had concerns he should have disqualified himself, but I am not sure how that looks either legally. The point is that this is a Govt decision NOT a party decision.
By continuing this we are all falling into where the Nats want us.
There is no story.
You are entirely correct, Shanreagh. This is hair-pulling-out time for some of us. Still, this it to be expected in this period of the electoral cycle. Cringeworthy though. We have met the enemy and he is us.
a Govt decision
Yeah that's the guts. But James must cater to that body of opinion within the Greens that does knee-jerk moral outrage with brain disengaged. Their numbers are sufficiently large to be catered to.
"The point is that this is a Govt decision NOT a party decision."
Indeed it was though for whatever reason Shaw has taken it upon himself to personally wear it….curiouser and curiouser.
It is out of his hands now yet it was never fully and solely in his hands to start with. His mistake was to claim credit for it and therefore ownership and responsibility for its justification. Shane Jones would not have encountered the same problem had he announced it instead.
It would be interesting to know whose idea it was for Shaw to announce it.
Trouble for the Greens and Shane Jones in the same sentence
It is the difference between a minor scratch and the airbags inflating.
Shaw is sacrificing his own persona and taking on his shoulders all the hoop-lah from the loud and scatty of whom there appear to be many in Greens. Perhaps they have been in space-type suspended animation for the last few decades and have just woken up. The shock, the fluster of how things appear to these Rip van Winkles, horrific!
Now we have a fluster-cluster muster just when we should be tramping along like the old tortoise that is guaranteed to get over the finishing line in the fable The Hare and the Tortoise. How did Aesop know all this stuff, he an Nostradamus really had muchly foresight, I hope it doesn't end up a foresigh.
(Nostradamus from Wikpedia – had experience of plague effects and dealing with people in authority who had closed minds. Nothing changes does it dear Nostra!)
Nostradamus's family was originally Jewish, but had converted to Catholic Christianity before he was born. He studied at the University of Avignon, but was forced to leave after just over a year when the university closed due to an outbreak of the plague. He worked as an apothecary for several years before entering the University of Montpellier, hoping to earn a doctorate, but was almost immediately expelled after his work as an apothecary (a manual trade forbidden by university statutes) was discovered.
But we shouldn't be surprised at this turn of events; it happens every time. If it's not a Green School, it's Morris dancing, or Metiria's past, or the Exclusive Brethren flyers, or.. whatever the Right wing can devise, whip up, fabricate or beat up. It's pretty much impossible to counter; those who seek to destroy the chances of a Green presence in Government are skilled at the dark art of dirty politics, but it galls when "our own people" add fuel to the Right's indignant fires.
The source of your gall may have be about to have company
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2020/09/what-just-didnt-happen.html
Well, that was such a pile of steaming unfossilised coprolite that I'm embarrassed to have even clicked the link. FFS, starting out by fantasising two bizarre scenarios and pretending that out of the entire universe of things that might have led to the situation, those are the only two to be considered.
Andre & Pat Are you the only ones who can try to examine the entrails of politics? You certainly come up with some questionable ideas yourselves. And that is good – we need to be questioning stuff, but not just what you decide we should.
Wouldnt dream of speaking for Andre but for myself Im not sure how you can arrive at that conclusion from a link and the accompanying comment
I recall a similar sentiment being expressed around funding streams recently.
What golden trickling down on you?
lol….mustve missed that
Thus from the éminence grise:
As usual, I will apply both/and logic. Public servants who vote National have been awarded management roles, plus public servants who vote Labour have been likewise awarded management roles, and they have collaborated (conspired) to orchestrate a cock-up. Everybody happy?
so a combination of the two….plausible but the result is potentially the same…the upsetting of a delicate balancing act.
Interesting. There's probably a name for whatever it is that might result from an attempted synthesis starting from a false dichotomy, but I've no idea what it is.
Whether its a false dichotomy or not may (or may not) be established, maybe, sometime….they think.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/covid-19/424882/covid-19-review-ordered-into-testing-order-blunder
the explanation would appear to be something difficult to ascertain
He's not eminent, but he is greasy, and he sure as shit isn't a power behind a throne.
Trotter has a unique ability to smmon up a thousand-odd words of enbloviated indignation merely by inserting the word "glaring" into the phrase "the notice’s deficiencies".
Spot on Robert….or the dope smoking dreadlocked deadbeat benefit scroungers
I do agree with the jist of your reponses to this bruhaha, I've gotta draw the line at this being a right wing beat-up.
James Shaw stood on a landmine that did trigger a lot of upset. Sure some of those do get upset out of proportion, but he has owned it and gone up a little in my eyes.
As for the right making hay out of this, they are so desperate for a break they would pay big money for any straws you may have.
Oh, this one wasn't a Right-wing set up, but they're certainly beating it up as far as it can be beaten. Sadly, they were aided in their work by a lot of Lefties who might have held their breath until James had fully explained where it was he went wrong. Perhaps next time, there'll be some pause taken.
yep. I wonder if people feel so powerless now that they don't consider their words have an effect. Or that the collective and compounding nature of left wing response actually matters.
The Greens are vulnerable because they will tell the truth and they will do right by process. The left's ability to eat its young never ceases to amaze me.
I've been debating with conspiracy types lately, weka – followers of Billy Te Kahika and Jamie-Lee Ross, trying to open up some channels through which fresh air and light might flow, but have made precious little progress, despite my love for story, words, language and imagination. At one point, I asked an assembled group, "How do you form your ideas? From whom do you get your information? Who are your trusted-advisors? I hoped to use the analogy of a waka ama, a canoe with outriggers to try to create a model that showed how important it is to have relationships with trusted friends and mentors, face to face and distant, present and past, to test ones ideas against, to check-in and see if their view is close to yours. I wanted also to suggest that those people need not be commenting on the issue of the day, but in general terms, if they showed they had their heads screwed on right over a period of time, they were likely to be trustworthy and could provide guidance when times got tricky, as these times are, when media reports, memes, gossip, cartoons, video-clips etc. swamp the mind of the inquisitive person and create confusion. However, all I got from them was, on-line sources and "my gut, my heart" which surprised me a little. Perhaps this is a common phenomenon and explains the situations we find ourselves in now. I'm not really exploring the depths of the idea but I hope you get my drift
This is a very good description, better than my go to which is to talk about critical thinking (which everyone thinks they have).
I'm avoiding my friends who are BTK followers, because I don't trust myself not to say things that will make it worse. This whole phenomena is one of the top things that worries me about NZ now.
I think we are so far down the rabbit hole of fear, distrust, and stress from CC, Australian bushfires, the Trump presidency, Dirty Politics and so on, that the good man that Shaw is will be missed or maybe people just won't care in their bloodlust for vengeance. It actually breaks my heart to see lefties still doing this, still believing that anger and blame will be enough to see us through.
Otoh, I am heartend by the poll, 11.5 is truly excellent and I am pleased for the Greens it came out today.
I've been wrassling a few of these online – their sources are almost always ranter websites. Soros + sheeple + wake up + pedos + NWO + Killary is a pretty common equation – like they formed out of the tail of the product that was used against Hillary Clinton.
I'd like to see some of that material taken down – it has no basis in fact and seems to be designed to radicalize folk unfamiliar with ideas about weight of sources.
Andre ( 10.2) I stand corrected, assumed was an owner from the press , i have no evidence of such, thus a friend / supporter of the school is probably more appropriate
Cheers. I'm relieved. If there actually was any ownership link, that would have been a vastly greater failure of due diligence.
The press I read was quite clear. Perhaps you didn't read it properly?
A pathetic reparation sum for such vile behaviour from a landlord. He is the one who should now be in prison.
First he tried an illegal 12.5% rent increase, then he tried an illegal eviction, then he went into their home, took the front door and destroyed their property.
No charges, just a fine, where are the police?
Some landlords are pure evil, and the tenancy tribunal is soft on those evil landlords.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/122623348/landlord-ordered-to-pay-tenants-6500-after-prison-threats-removing-front-door
What puzzles me about the whole shenanigans is that for 2 years the tenants were OK. Then over the time of Covid a rush of blood to the head and the landlord behaves in this despicable and frightening way.
Muttonbird 10.2 Perhaps you are right, irrespective sounds like that school is a real whack job
[Fixed typo in e-mail address]
I didn't say the school is a real whack job. The Melchicks seem a bit odd but the school and its curriculum is probably reasonably sound for those wealthy enough to attend. The test will be if/when they get full approval.
There'll be plenty of crystal enthusiast parents at most schools in rural New Zealand and Titirangi, don't worry about that.
Stuff reported the school when it opened last summer, so the kids attending have had half a year or more. I had some interrupt my conversation with their CEO the other day when I went to have a look.
You could always look at the new-age time slots as entertainment, eh? I trust the teachers & kids both to provide reality checks so no real prospect of brainwashing.
Are the airlines required to conduct basic screening for covid in passengers before flying them? We seem to have an uptick of cases caught at the border and the fewer of those we have the better surely.
The only way to be sure someone does not have Covid is to quarantine them for 14 days. If they then stay in full surgical grade PPE all the way to the airport and on the flight and to the arrivals gate, then they will be safe. Anything else is false reassurance and theatre.
I was more wondering if some vaguely symptomatic people where getting on planes (temperature up, coughing etc) and not being rejected given how quickly they are diagnosed here.
Airlines have rejected symptomatic people all along.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/29/treasury-officials-push-bombshell-tax-hikes-pay-virus/Treasury officials push for bombshell tax hikes to pay for virus
Aug.29/20
Historic tax grab will see Treasury push for a raid on capital gains, pensions, internet sales, fuel and inheritance
Treasury officials are pushing for the largest tax rises in a generation to plug the gaping holes in the public finances, in a move being resisted by Downing Street, The Telegraph can disclose….
"error 404 page not found"
Thanks Barfly. I'll try again – but note there is a paywall and I put it as my source. Go to google with heading is the idea and get a vid link I think.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/29/treasury-officials-push-bombshell-tax-hikes-pay-virus/
Further uk –
Coronavirus: Positive tests in Scotland rise by 123 in 24 hours
(Not good but overall not bad — percentage of positives under 1% with 'record' testing)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-53965868
Wales – Quarter of Covid cases in England and Wales have dementia.
UK records 1715 cases in worst weekend since mid-May
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/wales
Wales has one of the lowest mortality rates for coronavirus during the pandemic so far, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The 75.7 deaths per 100,000 people up until the end of July is lower than England and all its regions, apart from the south west and south east. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53946092
But Wales recently had a cut-price airline flight from Zante Ionian Islands with TUI Airline with 193 passengers plus crew told to self-isolate and has resulted in 16 positive cases. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/coronavirus-cases-flight-zante-cardiff-18856588
Voters want certainty, clarity, and honesty, which they won’t get from National’s flip-flopping yo-yoing weathercock’s pin-head dancing on policies.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300096912/coronavirus-national-still-keen-to-let-international-students-selfisolate-in-dorms-when-it-is-safe
New Roy Morgan poll:
Scroll down for the confidence rating – the real story.
As with all other polling that measures approval, there is no indication of any mood for change. Party vote numbers can vary within the "blocs", but the underlying trend has been consistent for many months.
Looks rather good for a Labour/Green coalition.
Whoopee! Thud! The yoyo effect from wealth tax & Green school funding. So let's wait for the next poll!
On the current rating Lab-Green could govern. Wonder what happens if Lab-Green dropped to say 48%?
Zero MIQ workers have tested positive. Back to the drawing board, National.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/424948/no-quarantine-or-managed-isolation-staff-have-tested-positive-woods
"Useless" Sam Morgan can't peddle his Covid-Card. I thought he was supposed to be a genius business man?
Perhaps all he has done in his life is use dad's money to copy E-Bay.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/122626522/sam-morgan-gives-up-on-covidcard-in-frustration-with-ministry-of-health
…and stuff-up an excellent Environment Court decision in Wanaka, that represented sustainable management of the landscape, so that he could make more money.
The current app as one of the IT peeps put it "is a rich person's solution". At least the covid card was an attempt to be an all persons gig.
Collins has apologised for the National party’s misleading Facebook ad about Hipkins’s parliamentary answers to questions from Shane Reti. Hipkins had sought to have the matter referred to the Privilege’s Committee. Collins is named as authorising the ad but claims to have not done so.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/judith-collins-apologises-over-national-party-ad-chris-hipkins-complained-was-misleading.html
Cool! We're in the middle of Politicians Apology Week. How contagious will it get? 😍
PAW Week. Who's the catspaw here?
Who's the mouse?
It's great for New Zealand that Labour is standing up for itself and calling out National's continued Dirty Politics.
This was a social media ad clearly forged and fabricated, and authorised by Mrs Wong-Tung.
Good on Hipkins.
Looks like she has someone else that she needs to control a bit more.
Does she have any control on those around her?
Considering National's focus on the individual and that everyone should be able to do what they like I suspect that being their leader is an exercise* in herding cats.
* I did consider the option of using lesson instead but figured she wouldn't learn anything from it
“but you should see what Judith Collins
’ husbandhas been posting.”Sneaky and dishonest, National Party. Got away with it because Parliament is set to be dissolved on Sunday.
“"The post involved the manufacture of a fake ministerial letterhead to lend authenticity to the misrepresentation."“
“Mallard said Collins has apologised and he has no plans to take any further action because Parliament is set to be dissolved on Sunday ahead of the election. “
Jingoes!
In case any more evidence was needed how unfit to govern they are.
Perhaps her hubby authorised it and she couldn't stop him because he's 64.
EQC was ill-equipped for the Earthquakes. Over 9 years it was not fixed by the then Government.
NZ was ill-equipped to handle a pandemic. Over a few months this Government has created a massive response and created lifesaving processes.
So which Parties would be good to handle future crisis?
"So which Parties would be good to handle future crisis?"
Well not one Gerry Brownlee is involved in. According to him you need a standing army to deal with it…
"You don't have a standing army waiting around for a natural disaster, and that's what would have had to have happened…"
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/424881/government-plans-to-transform-earthquake-commission-in-wake-of-inquiry
But more importantly, as you point out- "Over a few months this Government has created a massive response and created lifesaving processes." World class and will, in time, be reflected on and used as a blueprint for future responses. Yet if you scan the print media, Act/Nat utterances, or talkhate radio you would think it was an incompetent balls-up.
Was Collins' apology for lying printed in the Herald.
I know there'll be many of her lies/mistruths so I'll narrow it down – https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/judith-collins-apologises-over-national-party-ad-chris-hipkins-complained-was-misleading.html
Beginning of the end – for National
The big end of the fat national party is continuing to expose itself downwards to the utter gutter.
The old worn out wrecks in national are bashing the young, talented Jacinda Ardern who has been building a new Democracy in New Zealand.
Ms Jacinda Ardern is just 40yrs and World renowned in her fields.
Mrs Collins, an aging, weighty woman, is headed for her seventies. And is not known much anywhere. Not even in Auckland. She wrangles and mangles and calls herself Crusher. She does cook nice cakes for the wealthy.
National has totally parted from NZ Youth in the most disgusting way. National Does not know what Democracy is. But Has a big interest in keeping the poor poorly paid unhoused.
They built One House in their 9yr term – under the command of J.Key and Mr English. They absolutely abused our Kiwi Youth. and denied them work and housing.
Possibly because of age, Mrs Collins has allowed her uncouth husband to write unadulterated abuse of our Prime Minister, Ms Jacinda Ardern. in Auckland rags,
I can see the National Party soon dying the death. They are there for the money. Your money.
Democracy will, I believe make a great Parliament.
Democracy does not look anything like the present rabid national party. It must depart. And it will.