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.
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Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
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 ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
Asia Pacific Report Barangay New Zealand’s Rene Molina has interviewed the country’s first Filipino Green MP Francisco Hernandez who was sworn into Parliament yesterday as the party’s latest member. This is the first interview with Hernandez who replaces former Green Party co-leader James Shaw after his retirement from politics to ...
An Australian Strategic Policy Institute report says Pillar Two could raise the industry to state of the art capability - or "crush" it "under the weight of the globe's biggest player". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marlene Longbottom, Associate Professor, Indigenous Education & Research Centre, James Cook University ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the violence experienced by First Nations people in encounters with the Australian carceral system. It also contains references to ...
“Instead of following along countries that are investing in death and better ways of killing people faster, we need to invest in life and in making Aotearoa a fair, just and equitable place where everyone has what they need for a dignified life.” ...
MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI, TPM MP FOR TAI TOKERAU This Government will not waver in its mission to exterminate Māori. CHRISTOPHER LUXON Oh well look you know I don’t think that hard-working Kiwis want to hear language like that. It’s just really unhelpful rhetoric. My Government is genuinely committed to advancing outcomes ...
The body positivity movement started with women confronting the unrealistic expectations and unrepresentative portrayals of them in media and advertising. Men weren’t part of it … their bodies hadn’t been sexualised to the same extremes and they didn’t really need it. But now that’s changed. And in a warped sort ...
The New Zealand comedy legend takes us through her life in television, including the time she hugged Elton John and the unshakeable legacy of a girl named Lyn. In 1981, Ginette McDonald stood on the stage of Auckland’s St James Theatre and directly addressed Queen Elizabeth II. It was a ...
An essay by Lily Duval from the just-released anthology Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child adjacent.I was 22 when my friend Alice gave birth in the living room of our pokey Addington flat. She laboured in the blow-up pool for hours. Garish fish swam along the inflated ...
Ella Borrie on the best books about motherhood she’s come across so far. Over the past few years I’ve been drawn to books about motherhood. I’m fascinated by the joys and horrors of becoming a parent. The question of children also feels more pressing than it used to. It’s like ...
Out of gift ideas for mum? You can’t go wrong with a bottle of toilet cleaner and a new squeegee. Emily Writes is the writer and editor of Emily Writes Weekly. This week marks five years since I published a post on The Spinoff about Mother’s Day marketing titled ‘A ...
My husband is posted overseas for 12 months and I’m armed with an expensive, newfangled vibrator. Will I miss him? The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.A few days after my husband leaves, a new sex toy arrives at the front door. Nestled ...
Jaimie Baird’s new book Here Today Gone Tomorrow is a record of four decades of graffiti and street art in Wellington, told through more than 1,200 photographs. He spoke with Joel MacManus about what inspired the book. How did you first get interested in photographing street art? I remember ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman looks back at a busy week where food of all political leanings dominated. Sometimes you’re just going about your week thinking you’ve got a good handle on what might be coming as far as news topics and then someone (usually a politician) says something so ridiculous that ...
In Melbourne’s hardscrabble western suburbs where AFL – Aussie rules football – is a state religion, Callum Donaldson has been quietly grafting away, four months into an odyssey that he hopes will take him to another promised land: the NRL. It was a solid 2023 for the softly spoken 20-year-old ...
In a week of cold rain and frost, the climate in courtroom four upstairs at the Invercargill courthouse was simmering with restrained indignation. At times it felt like the famous Mexican standoff scene from Reservoir Dogs, or, as someone watching the proceedings described it, there was so much throwing of ...
A banner notification alerts me to the fact that I’ve received an Instagram message from @felicity.loves. She always comments on my posts. I shouldn’t have opened the message, but clicked on the notification before rationalising this. OMG! Are you in Wellys? X I debate not replying, but Instagram will inform ...
Pacific Media Watch Television New Zealand Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver has been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to investigative journalism and Pacific communities in a ceremony at Government House, reports 1News. She has been the Pacific correspondent for 1News since 2002, breaking many ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Tuesday’s budget will respond to the deepening public agitation over Australia’s housing shortages by pouring new money into crisis accommodation for women and children, social housing and infrastructure. A specially-convened national cabinet late Friday ticked ...
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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…
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:
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.