First WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health, 30 October – 1 November 2018
Improving air quality, combating climate change – saving lives
A schoolboy walks through smoke and fumes emitted from a waste dump in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt
Air Pollution is “the ‘new tobacco…” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director general
If you received an invitation to attend the conference and have not yet registered using the INDICO web portal, then please do so before as soon as possible. The link to the INDICO registration web portal can be found in the invitation email message.
The first two days of the conference will present evidence, identify gaps and solutions, and will be targeted at practitioners and other technical and political representatives from the health sector and other sectors relevant to the discourse. The third day will be a High-Level Action Day.
Conference provisional programme – updated 28 October
pdf, 799kb
Live webcast (active from 30 October 2018)
Conference overview agenda
pdf, 205kb
Time to nationalise the banks.
This is well overdue.
Their parasitic behaviour is leeching billions of dollars out of the New Zealand economy.
“ANZ’s New Zealand business made more money than Fonterra, Spark, Fletcher Building, the Warehouse, Air New Zealand and the major supermarkets combined last year and it’s not good enough, according to activist investor Sam Stubbs.
ANZ New Zealand announced a record net profit of $1.98 billion this morning – while its parent company Australia and New Zealand bank made A$6.4b.
But Stubbs, founder and managing director of KiwiSaver provider Simplicity, and a critic of the banks, said ANZ was taking advantage of its dominant position to extract unreasonable profits.
“The ANZ profit is classic rent-seeking behaviour.”
Yo James – what’s your take on the smashing the National Party has taken over the past few weeks and what do you reckon about the likelihood that they’ve a lot more coming?
“not really on topic”
This is Open Mike, James. “Open” probably means…open.
National’s disease must be hurting it’s followers something awful, I reckon. They’ve had a shocker! It’s as if a curtain fell and they were all exposed, standing there, trousers around their ankles, looking startled. Paula Bennett, btw, looks permanently startled these days. Judith Collins always did (it’s the arched eyebrows).
Wow, Stupid and Nasty in the same comments. You’re not a National MP are you? You’re still happy to support at least one rapist who Woodhouse let stay, Tuppence Shrewsbury supports and loves rapists!!! (judging by her comment)
Who said I support national? not supporting labour or the greens does not equal supporting national. Quite enjoying the JLR train wreck to be honest.
Just as I am enjoying watching the amateurs currently in government make stupid calls on an almost daily basis. It concerned me that the JLR affair was letting them off the hook.
The NZ operations are actually quite standalone from the Australian parent. If the Government so decided it COULD nationalise them. The bigger question is where would it get the cash to do so. Unless of course by nationalise they mean taking ownership without compensation. I believe that is called stealing and will lead to the NZ economy imploding.
You have little to no evidence that the State did not get full or even fair value for the Electricity companies. They got Market price, which by definition is full and fair value.
he bigger question is where would it get the cash to do so.
It’s a sovereign government with its own currency. Just create the money – done. And, hey, if they leave them as is they’ll make enough profit to cover it.
WTF is with “stone grill” steak in a restaurant? I got told it was so I could cook the steak to my satisfaction. If I could cook it perfectly at home, I wouldn’t order it in a restaurant. And why does it cost the same as a cooked steak? WTF does the chef do – make the salad? It totally pisses me off. Steak, medium rare, on a plate. That’s what I want. Not a hot rock and a pile of ingredients.
Maybe stonegrill was invented by the devil? Take a prime cut of steak, and give it to someone without the skill to cook it properly, and they paid full price for it so they’ll probably eat the entire thing.
While not quite as bad, deconstructed salads really piss me off. Someone putting all the ingredients of a salad on a plate, that you then have to toss yourself like some sort of after work Paula Bennet.
I can honestly say that I’m not eating beef grown in the Amazon.
Here’s the thing though: If the world was being economic little to no food would ever be imported/exported. Each country would grow the food that it needs to feed its own people.
Tahiti is French, and the French generally cook better than us. The best lamb I have ever eaten was in France, But the French breed their best lambs purely for meat flavour, and do not compromise for quality of wool. Then they cook it better as well.
I doubt if all our best goes to export. Upon returning from France, I was positively impressed with the quality of meat that normal people can buy here.
What you’re actually saying is that many countries can’t support themselves.
That’s what’s called unsustainable.
And, no, trade doesn’t fix that. Take Egypt for example. IIRC, it can presently feed 60% of its population from it’s own farms. The rest is a result of import paid for by the export of their oil. Egypt’s oils has Peaked. This means that in a few years, at most, Egypt is going to be in famine and there’s nothing that they can do about it through trade because have pretty much nothing else to export.
Jeez, if only they had some local attractions or a global trade route to leverage ff. Then they might get someone to stump up several billion for a nuclear power plant to offset that emerging energy deficit. As it is, poor Egypt: Land of the Pharked.
So if they export that energy, or use it to attract energy-intensive industries, they can use the revenue to buy food from countries that have lots of arable land and make lots of food, but possibly want things those industries produces.
We had a mortgage with Westpac. Not our choice, but Westpac swallowed up Trustbank who we were originally with. Weren’t happy, but what can you do. The interest rate wasn’t too bad so we stayed, vowing to change when the mortgage went. Remember how they called themselves WestpacTrust . . . for while . . . just to look good! Anyway, when we got some money, discharged the mortgage and were looking for where to invest, Westpac had the best interest rate. So to get something back out of them we put our money there. We are looking to change banks when the investment matures. Our best options look to be Kiwibank or TSB. I hate the fact that WPC is an Ozzie bank with profits going overseas, however we want the best return for money. Quandary. Hate them but want the most out of our money.
If they are making super profits then that must mean Kiwibank is as well. In which case why doesn’t the government just instruct Kiwibank to hoover up all the customers in NZ by undercutting the other majors?
IF you want an answer to your question about kiwibank’s position in the he market, Sam Stubbs was interviewed on RNZ yesterday.
I heard him mention how they were loaded with post shop assets and an obligation to provide relevant sservices…
There was another issue that I didn’t totally grasp but my attention was divided. Ahh, it was undercapitalised.
Both were dampeners on growth.
Each staff member generated approximately$220,000 profit. Profit!
Surely it makes sense to you to have the many billions of dollars profit stay in Aotearoa.
It can only be an ideologue mindset that makes you see otherwise.
Kiwibank is undercapitalised and can’t take advantage of the market. Hmmm… whose fault is that again? I’ll give you a clue, it is the owner of the Bank.
Doogs, what you said about westpac adding the word trust for a while, made me smile, marketing for sure.
Building Societies are awesome, our local Nelson Building Society (NBS) contributes so much to the community.
For example if one is looking for fundraising for a community event and asks around the banks for support, all the big banks will say no, but not the NBS, they often support community events and needs.
Part of the problem is that it seems, in conversations I’ve had with people, that many have no idea who owns the banks and react with astonishment to discover that banks called Auckland Savings Bank and Bank of New Zealand don’t belong to us!
100% of my personal and business banking is with a 100% NZ-owned bank. Made the switch when I became aware of how much profit Australian banks were extracting from NZ.
That said, it was easy to do as my business banking needs are largely transactional. If you’re a business that requires significant bank lending, you are stuck with the Aussie-owned banks.
To Cinny at 2.1.4 : To change to kiwi -owned banks IS certainly the glaringly obvious solution, and has been for considerable time….confounds me why they are not totally utilised by New Zealanders. I have aways had the best help one could wish.
Recently the ANZ in Motueka closed it’s doors, some friends who bank with them were complaining, but yet they still didn’t move to either Kiwibank or the NBS.
I think it’s one of those things that people place in the ‘too hard basket’, then when they finally get round to changing banks, say things like, gosh that was easy I should have done it a long time ago.
Went with Kiwibank a few years ago, and refinanced the mortgage last year with them again. We haven’t regretted it. The lack of ability to just rock on up to the bank to discuss things is mitigated by online support and us planning a bit better.
If you think they are not providing a suitable service that people are willing to pay for why isn’t Kiwibank doing better then? It is a completely State controlled Bank.
@Gosman, Kiwibank would do better if it was more a full service bank. Also banking has also come down to relationships and history, so that there are big incentives to stick with the same bank as people’s situation gets more insecure with work.
Aka in NZ massive amount of people now are on contract, gig work or self employed. The history of that becomes a key, in a banking arrangement. Nobody wants to shift all their business, then find out, they have a bad month or months and have the bank breathing down their necks.
So there are many reasons that people stay with their bank. Satisfaction and best deals are not the only factors when you get into the NZ situation of significant proportions of the population are in insecure work and therefore take strategic positions on banking and insurance.
The amount of banking, financial institutions and insurance that has gone out of business also makes people cautious in NZ about new banks and services in that sector.
They are profiting not because they are great banks but because NZ has embraced everything to do with neoliberalism and that is all about profits for the most dominant, which are banks here. And our government does not believe in any sort of financial regulation even bank deposits are not guaranteed nor Kiwisaver.
Not sure if Kiwibank have evolved since I thought about joining them, but standing in a queue at the post office stating your business rather than a private office at a bank or getting a mobile person around takes time with Kiwibank and much longer than if you have an existing relationship with a bank and assigned a personal banker.
Had a friend who was a school principal in a small town, so a bit weird that she was queuing up and stating all the business of the school, while the rest of the community could over hear.
Stuff like that, makes Kiwibank less. a fit for complicated, private and urgent types of banking.
Also anything to do with property in Auckland generally require quick and flexible banking decisions as the market is fast and auction driven. Took me so long to buy a house in Auckland that my 6 months of pre application had expired and then you need to get it back quickly if you see a house to bid on. Therefore you don’t want a new bank that might be slower to make decisions on anything.
So maybe Kiwibank and the co operatives can get more market share if they step up for more complicated, faster decision making banking, with more customer service and privacy for customers and a long term relationship approach with customers.
The offshore banks level of customer service has defiantly got a lot worse over the years, so if NZ banks stepped up, they could win more business.
Just telling you what people have told me Solka and my own experiences trying to change to Kiwibank a few years ago, maybe you don’t have a business or run an organisation, or have complicated banking, or what ever.
Judging by your stalking of people and the Green Party I’d say you are a unique individual that would probably need a private room in any instance and Kiwibank staff probably usher you straight to one so people don’t overhear your language and tone so you may have never experienced the problems that polite less demanding people might be experiencing.
Actually, when I made the appointment to see the mortgage person a few years ago we had the option of my place or one of their branches. Small meeting room, 4 chairs, one table, her laptop. Easy as. That was kiwibank.
Shopping around, ANZ went with the open plan, wide spaces between desks idea. Probably had private rooms for people who didn’t need mortgages, though 🙂
to solkta at22.1.1.1: Yes, of course Kiwibank has private rooms and specialists in banking also, friendly at all times. I think some here trying hand at fake news.
My Kiwibank, in Hastings, is a mess. The Carpets are permanently stained, the counter is so banged around it looks like an old pub first thing in the morning, the note counting machine is so temperamental its a running joke, and the manager insists on interviewing people at a table right next to the queue. Its awkward to put it mildly.
if I didn’t know(hope?) better I would think they were purposefully running it into the ground.
+1 Siobhan- Kiwibank needs to look at the details. If a bank looked like you suggest and treated you like that, would you seriously consider it?
A little bird suggests, if you start calling everyone a piece of shit, you might get that private room that a certain poster seems convinced is always offered.
Of course it also might effect that application or have you escorted out too:)
Seriously NZ banks should have an online complaints page for example or even suggestions page at the banks, they might learn a bit more than hiring a marketing firm from Auckland or Wellington who never leave the central suburbs and think they are doing a stellar job at marketing and people are too lazy to change.
There are obstacles to changing and issues with the service levels and criteria levels and types of banking that the NZ banking sectors offers!
Wellsford,s the same Siobhan run by a couple of asian ladies theres often queues and you stand there looking at their static displays of stuff they,d like to sell and cant help thinking “what a load of crap “Heres a relatively large commercial space which presumably the proprietors are renting along with the actual agency but it seems all so halfhearted !?.Why ?Why isnt kiwibank being rolled out in all little towns and villages in nz taking over where the post office used to trade …….buggered if i know ….seems like theres plenty of scope there but not much direction ….or something ….whats holding them back ???
It has very much evolved since then. If you go to most Post shops they have a separate desk and private rooms for Kiwibank customers. I ask again, why isn’t Kiwibank a “Full service Bank”?
@ Gosman, your word ‘most’ is obviously significant. Also more service level might be a recent thing, that people who previously tried to join Kiwibank did not have, at the time. People try to change once, if they don’t have the best experience they may not try again.
P.s. I did not have a bad experience with Kiwibank but it did not work out because I take wholistic approach with banking and even a small house in Aukcland now may require significant amount of debt which you now split loans for and then you have to make sure they all expire at the same time, and then hope that interest rates don’t go up while you are waiting. It’s not that easy to change if you have decent sized loans for business or housing.
I personally hate ANZ and would never bank with them after having a bad experience with them years ago. Also having John Key on the board would put me off. So I would never bank with them.
But they do things like monitor companies house so if you set up a business, voila , you get a friendly letter straight away with free bank fees for your business for 3 years.
That is how they make the money, they are proactive, reel you in, then screw you over with extreme profiteering when they have you tied up.
That’s banking in NZ and the government needs to set higher standards.
And Kiwi bank (or anyone else) never sends a nice letter when they could easily target new businesses like ANZ do.
Kiwibank and other NZ banks needs to understand customers positions and concerns better.
The person who posted about the rural ANZ bank closing but still people don’t change, clearly don’t understand how difficult it is to make money in the rural sector and get loans. It is not easy to change banks in those sectors at all.
Many NZ banks only specialise in retail banking, and have very high, unwieldy criteria for farms and business. NZ banks and regulators don’t seem up to speed or understand that the big OZ banks have those customers screwed over in debt and tied up with few alternatives.
I can’t remember exactly, but somebody posted and I think most of Fletchers? losses, were due to ANZ bank fine print on some refinancing terms of loans they took out.
As for our constant messages on how easy it is to change banks, electrical or telecom companies. Nope… it ain’t… in real terms it often costs you a bundle of time, non productivity, failed services and extra charges. And our regulators do nothing to stop this type of practise of third party fuck ups.
Kiwibank isn’t a state controlled bank and it operates the same way all the other banks do and is artificially constrained so as not to be able to out compete the private banks which it could easily do if the government got in and supported it properly.
The foreign banks treat NZ like the cash cow run from OZ. They are mostly responsible for our 2nd biggest exports out of NZ being profits.
Yep while our government screws up with another bad trade deal of TPPA or what ever they fuck they rebranded it to, (which even the most neoliberal Parker can not describe as a good deal (was it a 7 out of 10 he gave it?). The government also fail to do anything about about banks and the NZ entire economy is always around giving banks more profits aka corporate welfare to construction, more immigration, more immigration to small businesses like petrol attendants and cafe owners (who then support higher rents and prices on commercial property and residential) selling off land assets, privatisation, oil and gas, exports of water…
“our research suggests that PFI may lead to a loss of benefits in kind and a redistribution of income, from the public to the corporate sector. It has boosted the construction industry, many of whose PFI subsidiaries are now the most profitable parts of their enterprises, and led to a significant expansion of the facilities management sector. But the main beneficiaries are likely to be the financial institutions whose loans are effectively underwritten by the taxpayers, as evidenced by the renegotiation of the Royal Armouries PFI (NAO 2001a).”
The public should also ask themselves why the tax working group never recommended financial transaction taxes to tax outward and inward money flows.
In short government wants to continue to transfer profits from the people and assets of NZ to the construction, financial and banking sectors, and are not going to tax the banks and financial industries appropriately for their extreme profits . Nor regulate appropriately to the construction sector or banking to stem the rot right through those sectors.
The NZ banking sector is incredibly competitive including a State controlled Bank. If the banks are making super profits why isn’t the government instructing Kiwibank to undercut them and take a bigger share of the market?
Because the issue with Kiwibank is much more than just a lack of political will. The organisation needs HUGE injection of capital if it has any hope of competing for major work such as being the Government’s banker.
The dogma is that a large bank that makes huge profits every year is a good safe bank (and safe bet for shareholders). I say dogma, but it is really a myth, as we know too well.
It also is ironic that the bank’s customers contribute a large part to the overall profits.
So, it’s a catch-22 for the people: lower the profits and customers will go elsewhere and the bank goes bust or fleece the customers to increase profit margins and they will flock to your bank and thus increase the ‘financial health’ of the bank.
To a point, this would work well if not for greed and bad business decisions on behalf of the banks (cue: GFC).
Of the ~52 corporates in the “List of a few major corporate collapses”, only a third are/were banking businesses.
Banks feature at the top of the “List of scandals without insolvency” (probably needs regular updating):
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group scandal involving misleading file notes in the Financial Ombudsman Service (Australia) presented to the Victorian Supreme Court.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group allegations of racial bigotry toward billionaire businessman Pankaj Oswal and his wife. Court was presented with emails where an ANZ staff member comments to ANZ CEO Mike Smith: “We are dealing with Indians with no moral compass and an Indian woman as every bit as devious as PO (Mr Oswal).”
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group toxic culture. Court case where allegations were made by ex-employees that the bank’s senior management tolerated drugs and strip clubs.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group alleged manipulation of the Australian benchmark interest rates. ANZ is currently being pursued by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which filed an originating process in the Federal Court of Australia against ANZ in March 2016.
“So, it’s a catch-22 for the people: lower the profits and customers will go elsewhere and the bank goes bust or fleece the customers to increase profit margins and they will flock to your bank and thus increase the ‘financial health’ of the bank.”
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence of corruption and rampant profiteering in the banking ‘industry’.
Hypothesis 1. A bank’s profitability will be a contributing factor in determining that bank’s ‘ratings agency grade’ (AAA, AA, A, BBB etc.)
Hypothesis 2. The grades that ratings agencies give banks, and individual bank products/offers/bonds, are factors affecting the (bank/product) choice of some potential customers.
“Garnering better grades [from ratings agencies] for the tobacco bonds meant the bankers could sell more of them…”
These hypotheses may be false; falsifying evidence (a link or two will do) welcome.
Gosman (>140 of comments on The Standard in the last week; 70 (!) on the “National badly wants Kiwibuild to crash” post alone) often asks for evidence, and seems to have a significant aversion to using Google’s search engine – not a single link or quote in those 70 comments.
You claim that “They [the two hypotheses] had nothing to do with the claim i [sic] was questioning.”
If you genuinely don’t understand how these hypotheses relate to the claim you quoted/questioned, then I don’t have the means to help you in this forum.
“Burden of proof is also an important concept in the public arena of ideas. Once participants in discourse establish common assumptions, the mechanism of burden of proof helps to ensure that all parties contribute productively, using relevant arguments.”
Regrettably, the largest political party in parliament has (temporarily) lost its footing and is unable to contribute productively at present.
In your opinion. Given your opinion is quite obviously biased against said political party I don’t think it holds much weight in determining what is or isn’t productive discourse.
I have made no claims regarding my (or your) political bias, or lack thereof, in this particular exchange – such claims are largely unnecessary in this forum (IMO).
Certainly one assumption we can agree on is that we are (both) expressing our opinions.
In my opinion, this recent statement (among others), made by a former 7th-ranked opposition National party MP, has caused said party to (temporarily) lose its footing.
“It dawned on me, ‘I know this script, I helped write this script.’ At that point, I felt bad for what I did to Todd. But that’s the modus operandi of the National Party – when people become a liability you push them out the door.”
IMO this is a revealing quote, and I thank you Gosman for the opportunity to trot it out again (hopefully not for the last time). The opposition National party really is looking a bit wobbly at the moment (IMO), and will likely recover somewhat (again, IMO) ‘going forward’.
Gosman’s Law: as a discussion thread on TS grows longer, the probability of Gosman deliberately misunderstanding or twisting a comment and then asking for evidence approaches one.
One thing I’m curious about is that the 18 apparently arrived on SK1 and SK2 sans baggage, yet I seem to remember seeing the contingent depart with baggage.
(From the images shown on TV in the early stages of it all).
Everything the Saudis have said turns out to be such obfuscation, spin and bullshit, they’d not be out of place as gNat MPs. The latest being that ‘Turkish collaborator’ that they’re so unwilling to identify.
Wonder what was in their luggage then? Didn’t know about that, will check it out, thanks for the info, there are so many dodgy aspects to it all.
The thing with the princes uncle returning is really interesting because he has been away for years, and has never supported the prince being in power.
And uncle does not support the princes ongoing war on Yemen.
I could be wrong @ Cinny though I do recall seeing some of them towing the standard type luggage on wheels. It may take a little more than going thru’ Aljazeera, CNN or BBC footage.
It’s a shame Susie Fergusson didn’t put the idea to Frank Gardiner this morning
Rachel Stewart explains why the election of Bolsonaro is terrible news for life on this planet.
“Bolsonaro has an environmental hit list that is bold and brash. Just when the world needs the “lungs” of the world more than ever, he is planning a paved highway to run right through the Amazon rainforest. And no more will a government commitment to preserving vast areas for indigenous people be tolerated. Bolsonaro has previously said that he will “not give the Indians another inch of land”.
He has also promised to scrap the country’s Environment Ministry altogether, putting it under the scope of the Agriculture Ministry, which is led by agribusiness. Which, to be fair, is only one step further than our own Environment Ministry overseeing regional councils who many — including me — consider to be the biggest enviro rapists on behalf of dairy farming in New Zealand. But, I digress.
……we need the two Americas to work hard on stopping runaway climate change like never before — one being the planet’s biggest emitter and the other holding the massive key to any chance of keeping climate change in check at 1.5C.
Because that’s the Amazon’s job. The rainforest absorbs approximately a quarter of the CO2 absorbed by all the land on earth. Every inch of deforestation matters. And what’s the motive for deforestation in Brazil? Cattle ranching. The billions of us have created a massive consumer demand for beef so that clearing land for cattle ranching is lucrative and with Bolsonaro in charge, now unstoppable.”
No.
We need to stop eating meat in the quantities we do.
Or the planet is doomed.
“The researchers found a global shift to a “flexitarian” diet was needed to keep climate change even under 2C, let alone 1.5C. This flexitarian diet means the average world citizen needs to eat 75% less beef, 90% less pork and half the number of eggs, while tripling consumption of beans and pulses and quadrupling nuts and seeds. This would halve emissions from livestock and better management of manure would enable further cuts.
In rich nations, the dietary changes required are ever more stark. UK and US citizens need to cut beef by 90% and milk by 60% while increasing beans and pulses between four and six times. However, the millions of people in poor nations who are undernourished need to eat a little more meat and dairy.”
And less pets. Get rid of pets (especially cats and dogs) before we eat less red meat. Of course tree hugger veges tend to like hugging furry animals so I suspect they won’t want to do that. They are just happy to expect others to give up something.
This may be an unworthy thought – but I keep having it. Are those two mountain guides dead at least in part because the Morgan family has too much money and can indulge itself at will?
Yes – I guess you are right. Thanks.
Somehow it seemed doubly sad to me that people die doing something as ultimately pointless as indulging the whims of others.
Depends if they were taking undue risks I guess? Need someone with mountaineering knowledge to see if this was a typical hike, or a freak accident. Very sad nonetheless.
Our letter to Government today stating that our NZ Government must participate in this “first World Health air pollution conference this week in Geneva, in our interests to save our citizens health and wellbeing from health effects of all sources of air pollution.
Protecting our environment & health.
In association with other Community Groups, NHTCF and all Government Agencies since 2001.
• Health and wellbeing.
• East Coast Transport Project.
TO;
Hon Phil Twyford – Minister of Transport.
Hon’ Jacinda Ardern PM.
Hon Winston Peters. Deputy PM.
Hon’ Shane Jones. Minister of Regional Development.
Hon’ Grant Robertson. Minister of Finance.
Hon’ Stuart Nash. MP For Napier Wairoa/ Matawai regions.
Hon’ Megan Woods. Minister of Energy.
URGENT PRESS RELEASE; – ACTION NEEDED HERE BY – Transport Minister Twyford.
1st November 2018.
Dear Ministers, Local civic authorities & rail stakeholders,
Subject; http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/ First WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health, 30 October – 1 November 2018
What a “breath of fresh air WHO are as they finally take air pollution seriously” Bravo to World Health Organisation, (WHO).
WHO are also are focusing on the urban residents who are also health effected by “toxic heavy road traffic air pollution” too.
WHO are claiming that even schools and busy traffic routes be redesigned away from schools and suburban areas also.
Rail services restoration will make a dramatic reduction of ‘road based freight’ now ruining our residential areas and the health of our urban communities.
Now World Health Organisation (WHO) are holding a ‘first’ conference over several days in Geneva on ‘urban air quality health effects to humans finally so we need to observe and act in our residential communities best interests for their health and wellbeing, and we advocate all rail services be restored to our cities around NZ and truck routes be realigned away from our current locations wrongly placed close to residential areas such as Napier’s controversial ‘HB Expressway’ which was originally designated as a “commuter road for Hastings residents to get to the new Napier Airport in 1963”.
Sadly the residents living alongside this road were not considered as to the effects to their health and wellbeing, but this road was pushed as a solution to become the principal truck freight route through Napier to the Port and the rest of NZ, without any resulting noise effects or air pollution mitigation was ever planned to be given the affected residents in the final stages of the HB Expressway’s development.
Gisborne has the same issues of loss of rail and using heavy truck fleets to run right through Gisborne city to the Eastland port and destroying the health and wellbeing of its residents too.
What a “breath of fresh air WHO are as they finally take air pollution seriously” Bravo to World Health Organisation, (WHO).
WHO are also are focusing on the urban residents who are also health effected by “toxic heavy road traffic air pollution” too.
WHO are claiming that even schools and busy traffic routes be redesigned away from schools and suburban areas also. http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/
First WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health, 30 October – 1 November 2018
Improving air quality, combating climate change – saving lives
A schoolboy walks through smoke and fumes emitted from a waste dump in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt
Air Pollution is “the ‘new tobacco…” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director general
If you received an invitation to attend the conference and have not yet registered using the INDICO web portal, then please do so before as soon as possible. The link to the INDICO registration web portal can be found in the invitation email message.
The first two days of the conference will present evidence, identify gaps and solutions, and will be targeted at practitioners and other technical and political representatives from the health sector and other sectors relevant to the discourse. The third day will be a High-Level Action Day.
Conference provisional programme – updated 28 October
pdf, 799kb
Live webcast (active from 30 October 2018)
Conference overview agenda
pdf, 205kb
Your response to our call is requested please email
@cleangreen, the NZ taxpayers are subsidising public organisations that subcontract to corporates that do things such as change from trolley buses to diesel and increasing emissions to the public for the next 10 years…http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=113048
While in Auckland our taxes are there to escalate and provide for more polluting cruise ships, some of which apparently can release more emissions than 1million cars in emissions in one day.
So as yet, NZ, not interested in worrying about air pollution. Apart from ways to tax end consumers of course and get that little extra tax in the pocket while pretending it was all to save the planet.
The government and council treatment of corporate polluters and policy around that shows that air pollution is just not on the agenda and that the RMA is woefully inadequate to provide quality decisions, long term risk assessments, regulation , enforcement or penalty around environmental damage in this country.
As David Parker gives himself credit for ratification of #CPTPP, let’s pause for a moment to consider the tremendous work he did to maintain public support for it in Opposition. #nzpolpic.twitter.com/FpfujXo4XK
@BM shocking the government are selling off more state land and NZ assets. Of course that does not excuse the Natz who demolished the state houses on it in 2015. The people of NZ are punched from the left and punched from the right. They seem to share the same neoliberal Thatcher driven sell off state housing and land, policies on housing.
Interesting conflation you have made there. I mean, I am sure your not deliberately diminishing the thousands who are being killed in Yemen by comparing it to local beltway politics. It sure does look that way though.
So, the story is that a block of land in Auckland had a series of State houses demolished in 2015 and part of that land is being developed with new state houses. Another portion is to be sold.
I quote the purpose as stated by the manager of the project from the the third of BM’s reference.
“Housing New Zealand asset development general manager Patrick Dougherty said the development was not part of the KiwiBuild programme but part of the Auckland Housing Programme (AHP).
The AHP started in June 2016 and will deliver 5200 new state homes and about 12,800 new affordable and market homes over 10 years.
The sale of the 20 market sites would enable Housing New Zealand to build more state houses in other high demand parts of Auckland, he said.”
Two things. First, the money goes towards providing more housing. It is after all houses that are required, not land.
Secondly, since it is a stated intention by the Minister that the types of housing should be indistinguishable from the outside, it makes sense to me that the housing provided be of a ‘mixed’ style to avoid the stigmatisation of being a State House tenant. The former ‘pepperpot’ strategy of earlier decades was also expected to help the problem of stigmatising and slums.
Well do I remember my school days of the Sixties when over the northern fence was “The Settlement”.
But they could be developing all the land itself and then using the state controlled rents to keep rents down while paying off the debt over time.
As in the UK examples, selling state housing and land to the private sector does not work, because the rising population demands more cheap rents and social housing to keep up with the population growth, and then the state rents start to rise because the state has less housing to work with to keep afloat and has to pay more to the private sector to rent the houses that they previously owned.
The Mt Albert decision was made by the previous National government. It was subject to considerable public consultation at the time. The number of HNZ dwellings is about the same, and the extra land sales will fund further HNZ properties. HNZ could not get the density they needed with the zoning in Mt Albert.
Patients are still begging for Ministry of Health funding for high dose vitamin C infusions.
Absolutely no doubt that vitamin C at the very least improves the quality of life for many cancer patients and research indicates that it can accentuate radiotherapy efficacy…so why not fund the stuff?
Its not as if its expensive or demands superskills to administer.
I had a quick look at the link provided and could not find a single RCT amongst the citations. One report involved a single patient. Most were reports that concluded bycalling for more clinical studies. “Personal accounts ” represent evidence of the very weakest kind.
One would need to do far better than this to gain public funding. Did you even read the reports that were linked?
I am wondering if you think it would be acceptable for health treatments that are not supported by any RCTs , but by ” personal accounts”, should be publicly funded ?
“I am wondering if you think it would be acceptable for health treatments that are not supported by any RCTs , but by ” personal accounts”, should be publicly funded ? ”
Vitamin C was my secret ingredient for recovery from strength training, and especially after a real workout like we good for nothin’ poor folks are wont to do e.g. 12 hours loading trucks*…
I digress.
If you work/train like a lunatic, try Vitamin C straight after. Faster recovery. It’s good stuff.
*I so want to see the working class collectively go on strike. Haha the world stops, the lights go out. Watch the deluded rich tossers ‘run the place’ then.
It was a mere nine years ago this day that I wrote my first post for the Standard. It contains one of the most polarising, but accurate lines I have ever written:
“To put it simply, you cannot be a socialist, a greenie or any kind of progressive and eat meat.”
Like you, Moz, I’m all in favour. In my opinion, the best way to terrorize journalists is to write pointless and inaccurate transcripts of their shows and post them on the interwebs. That’ll show ’em.
so true, what part of meat is to like really?
Animal cruelty towards sentient beings, slaughter, worker exploitation, gross desensitising conditions for meatworkers, life long health issues, inefficient land use and other negative environmental and climate effects…
…which for more and more people trump the fleeting pleasure some get from deadly chemical saturated processed meats, and charred slabs of “bogus bovis” beef which supermarkets are virtually giving away at the moment
Thank you.
It was an epiphany for me the day I discovered the amorality of eating animals.
Like Ad, stopping eating meat and dairy sawxme shed the kilos.
So it’s a decision for the sake of animals, for the sake of the environment and, as a side benefit, it’s good for your health !
“A self-administration of a death, which we’re calling ‘assisted dying.'”
RNZ National, Thursday 1 November 2018, 9:10 a.m.
This morning Kathryn Ryan employed her most serious, slow talking register, clearly enunciating every word to show how serious she is. One question she never asked was: Who’s going to “administer” this killing of the old and disabled and sick? The army? Will they bring back the institution of executioner?
New research from the University of Otago shows a majority support some form of euthanasia or assisted dying in New Zealand – and those attitudes have remained relatively constant for the past 20 years. A group of researchers from the school of medicine at Otago have examined existing studies from the last 2 decades which asked people what they thought of euthanasia. Lead author, Jessica Young joins Kathryn to talk through the findings.
Interesting question. I am sure they could get soldiers to do it. Perhaps just line them up and use them during weapons qualifying. Or… I know this is crazy but hear me out … it could be done by a doctor who is familiar with the patient and is aware of their needs.
I note from the article only 14% of modern oaths prevent Euthanasia. The argument could be made that by swearing to do no harm a Dr would be required to meet a patients wishes to end suffering.
I agree there are concerns around introduction of Euthanasia. The risk for abuse may mean that it really can’t be viably legalised. I of course wouldn’t make some ridiculous argument about having to get the military or executioners to carry out suicide assistance. Feel free to make a reasoned argument against though. I am always keen to learn.
Full kudos to Iain Lees-Gallaway for recognising and openly stating, that he may have made an unsound decision over the Czech guy and is now proceeding to put it right.
As opposed to the b.s. and bluster we’re hearing from Slimon Bridges.
They need to deport the drug lord asap. Also begs the question why the government granted the drug lord residency in NZ, when he had previously taken trips back to the EU?
Will anybody be held to account, aka the person that compelled the report aka probably his lawyer missing out the pertinent facts??? Also the naivety of our government that falls for a sob story from known liars every time… while being hard of heart to their own people in tents or working 3 jobs to keep these drug lords in prison and the results of their crimes…
Weak. Stone him he is filth. Stone the filthy drug dealing out of him. Stone the drug lord but only after I’ve had a beer and some chaser preloads cos I throw straighter after a few – just ask my pets he he ha ha burp.
Weird, you are the only ones talking about stoning him. The Druglord can have lovely life back in the EU and NZ are well rid of him and hopefully the government can make sure he doesn’t come back under another false passport.
Also he is just as likely, if not more, to be in danger from his drug mates in NZ for narking,( if that is how he managed to help grease his residency application here). Win win to get rid of him where he can be anonymous in the EU unlike in NZ where he is now very well known.
Nope, do you? Save us from pop psychologists or people who have attended too much therapy and therefore feel the need to throw conditions around as insults instead of taking mental health seriously.
I was not insulting Marty or suggesting he had such a condition or making any judgement on those who do but rather making a statement about your incoherent language. Thought that would have been obvious.
When did the offending occur christy? When did he fly home for a visit?
Slick Bodges is outraged at discovering the turd he deposited on the doorstep. Why hasn’t that been cleared up? It’s outrageous.
Yep, apparently Eugenie Sage, didn’t feel there was any options apart from grant the Chinese the offshore water permits…. then looked like a hypocrite and fool and untrustworthy for doing so. I’m not sure how Ian made such a botch up on the drug lord residency, but labour campaigned on cleaning up immigration only to be caught granting it to a convicted criminal drug lord who enjoys trips back to his mates in the EU ???
The message to politicians seems to be to WAKE up and do a bit of research themselves and stick to their guns, rather that look like untrustworthy hypocritical fools and rely on reports and advice that are not fit for purpose.
@Solka, Greens campaign on not selling off overseas water rights then one of their MP’s signs off water rights once getting elected. I think you are the fool for not understanding what hypocrite means.
The Greens also campaigned and stand for good process. Changing laws under urgency is bad practice that the Greens were very vocal criticising National for. Passing retrospective legislation is extremely bad practice and contrary to the principles of natural justice.
They also need to work with their partners and at a pace that allows for competing legislative priorities.
AND, Eugenie did not take this action as a Green MP but as a Crown Minister who is obliged to follow the law.
As usual you just prattle on with your own bigoted view of things totally impervious to the actual details of the matter.
I’m with solkta and well expressed that … solkta!
Really, SaveNZ? Eugenie, selling out at the first opportunity?
Hardly. Have you met the woman? Not a sell-out, by any stretch of (your) imagination.
First, they must pass “Go” and pay their street repairs bill.. There is also a small matter of the sale of the railway stations and the electric utilities!
Mrs Mac1 told me that Guyon Espiner on RNZ this morning really put Simon Bridges and his bluster firmly in place.
Along the lines of
Espiner-“Well, in your time in office you didn’t deport the man.”
Bridges- “Well, the Minister acted on the advice given.”
Espiner- “Well, what’s different, now?”
And the bit I heard at the end- again well-paraphrased.
Espiner-“You want the Minister to resign. Will Mr Woodhouse resign?”
Bridges- “But he’s not the Minister.”
Espiner-“Will he resign as the shadow Minister?”
Bridges-“Rant rant rant”
Bridges never ‘heard’ the Espiner call for Woodhouse’s resignation even though he made it twice.
Chris T, a dismal attempt to attack the government and divert criticism of his own time in power, in all its lacking.
Lets face it, the Natz helped with policy decisions to keep the drugs moving into NZ, created one of the highest immigration in the world for nearly a decade of low skilled people coming here to work in supermarkets, and bakeries and then created committees to put forward policy to evict tenants on Meth tests, and create the shock doctrine housing crisis….
… meanwhile Labour and Greens were blind to it and campaigned on higher taxes, middle class rental standards for people who can’t even afford rental with the above climate created by the Natz, and legalising drugs (Greens)… then they wonder why people can’t choose who to vote for????
People with your view make this country unsafe imo. Drugs are rife idiot. At every sector and height in society. That is why it is a health issue imo. You’d chuck people in jail and that EXPANDS the drug relationships with criminals. Wake up like your name says.
Actually I’m suggesting deport the drug lord, not have our taxes and judicial system spending hundreds of thousands on his prison stay and sentencing, and any further ones, based on his current crime record, it’s not going to be the last time Kiwi tax payers will support his arse in prison where as you say, the prison system “EXPANDS the drug relationships with criminals”.
Now they have the benefit of EU drug lords helping the expansion, yippee!
Am just listening to the midday news, and there is a lot still to go on this issue.
Question Time today has only one question on it from Woodhouse to Lees-Galloway. There are no questions from Bridges or Bennett to the PM or Deputy PM so it is probable that neither Bridges or Bennett will be in the House.
Yes mac1. I heard Bridges stammer and dodge. He had the gall to say, ” The Minister cannot become a detective and go out and detect.”
But says Guyon, “How is that different from the present case?”
Mumble, deflect mumble.
Very funny Simon.
However his reasoning made a mockery of Winston the day before at question time.
Winston made a lot out of Galloway making the decision himself, rather than relying/blaming officials.
Remember, gsays, that Peters made a lot of the Minjster’s decision making by comparing it to the previous government which after 2014 gave the responsibility away to the officials. In this case, Minister Lees-Galloway acted on advice given by officials who did not have for whatever reason the same information that became available to National. That the decision was made by Lees-Galloway was Peter’s point. The quality of advice is another issue and does not reflect at all upon Peters.
One of National’s attack lines since day 1 has been this government is soft on crime. Why feed into that narrative by giving them an example like this on a plate.
Australia exports criminals who have lived in Australia their whole lives. New Zealand imports lying fraudulent drug dealers. That is what the National trolls will be yelling as a result of this cock up.
“It dawned on me, ‘I know this script, I helped write this script.’ At that point, I felt bad for what I did to Todd. But that’s the modus operandi of the National Party – when people become a liability you push them out the door.”
Which is exactly why the nats abrogated responsibility to the ministry for several years.
You get the big pay packet, you make the hard call.
The only real problem is that the increased publicity seems to have uncovered the contradictory information, which in turn could well make it look like the minister caved under pressure rather than simply acting on information received.
At least there is hope they will u turn and make sure that the embarrassment goes away, rather than have him served up next election as the government being the reason he is one of our new residents.
Iain has made a complete idiot of himself. Would love a photo of him to appear hiding behind the pillar to avoid reporters.
The Czech needs to leave the country immediately.
The “new info” will be the excuse for changing the decision. He has clearly not done due diligence in the first place (or made a very big error of judgement). Both National and Labour have been reluctant to send people packing IMO.
‘Immigration NZ is investigating claims that contradict the reasons why Iain Lees-Galloway granted residency to convicted drug smuggler Karel Sroubek.’
No, not really. Just a practical person. Would you want the Czech living next door to you?
As for ILG, I think its hard to say he’s handled the situation well.
I’m not following the Kiwibuild story as too depressing, but someone told me that the couple in the media who got ballot for the house, are a final year doctor who stands to make a lot of money in the future and they got a 4 bedroom house, when they are just a couple.
Good luck to the people as it is very hard to get a house and they are probably riddled with student debts and being a doctor is of great benefit to society, but it does seem a bit sad that those 3 extra bedrooms will be empty when there are families with a lot more kids living in one bedroom emergency housing, that could have benefited from those extra bedrooms and a new secure house.
And I would have preferred my taxes spent on helping families renting and state housing and land still owned by the state for future generations, rather than helping better resourced people up the property ladder.
Even if the land was leasehold to the state, it would have been better. Maybe removing his student loans in return for staying in NZ for 10 years might also be of more benefit to the public than a house that they can sell in 3 years.
Surprise, KiwiBuy working the way everyone thought it would.
That lovely young couple were bragging on the news hub facebook page about making 50 k already.
And then to wade into The comments section of the Newshub Facebook page to boast that they’d already made $50k on it because the smaller house behind them “sold for more”. https://t.co/2LSLAZyQUX
Excellent not only do this deserving couple get given 50 k by the taxpayer, but they can also rent out the other three rooms and get themselves some good extra income.
I doubt there would have been many families in the draw
99% of the people would have been childless young couples with high earning jobs or young people financed by Mum and Dad looking for quick capital gain.
Kiwi Buy is nothing more than a taxpayer subsidy for young New Zealanders who have come from the middle to upper classes.
It is just envy. Your mob denied there was a even a problem lol. The problem is big. It will take multiple initiativess to sort. 1 year into this government and things are starting to happen on this one initiative. Somehow some people would prefer the gnats to still be there cos labour aren’t fixing things fast enough – more fool them I say.
In 2007, honest John Key said NZ was facing an urgent housing crisis.
Is it too late to ask the now Right Honourable Sir John Key his advice on how to stop “making the housing situation a lot worse”? Or maybe the opposition National party has a productive contribution?
“I’m not following the Kiwibuild story as too depressing”
With you there savenz. The argument for the cheerleading seems to be be, – well National created the mess…
Pretty low bar, and even that is not easily cleared, given the previous Clark government had the wheels in motion for the current house crisis.
Politics of envy, NZs talkback radio fav fodder, tall poppy syndrome etc… divide and conquer, one doesn’t dare stick ones head above the parapet, esp if one wins a KB raffle, how dare they!!! Nek minute, Collins claims innocent, well her fan proxies do…
They are giving away free prime state house land as part of the deal. They could retain both the houses and land for the state and future generations. Instead they are doing financial engineering and doublespeak which clearly fools quite a few so called leftie supporters of the Thatcher based scheme, but not all.
when it suits the right wingers and woke lefties house prices are so high because of the cost of the land, (not lazy immigration in fact we need more immigration because who is going to build the houses cheaply the, the Kiwis are drugged out hopeless types) , however it seems to suit woke lefties to now say that state land is not needed for state housing and rightfully given away in return for middle class housing with all the mod cons… a percentage sold off raffle style to those on $180k and without children in a 4 bedroom house.
Clearly logic was at work. I understand the right wingers being on board with the privatisation of state land, but the woke lefties seem just as eager.
Approx 2/3 of the land is no longer owned by the public and according to the woke lefties and righties once upon a time, they said it was the land that was worth all the money. Now suddenly the land is not worth much and they will swap it for building 1/3 houses.
Confused. Well I guess that’s he point but it all end up as state assets sell offs, disguised.
Now somehow the state no longer owns 2/3 of it’s valuable land because it has been non transparently taken through third parties and the state is left with approx 1/3 of the land it once had often with a similar amount of state houses it once had.
And the houses built are only affordable for the top 40% of people who would have got a house anyway.
Thinking about the new 4 bedroom house that will not house a family in need, I wonder what happened to that poor homeless family and little girl who narrowly missed out on a scholarship at St Cuthbert’s. That was a heart wrenching story.
“Over the next 10 years, 100,000 “affordable” homes will be built around the country.
But they’re not for low-income people, they’re not a gift from taxpayers and – in the end, anyway – the price the houses sell for is not the most important aspect of the scheme.
JC: “But they’re not for low-income people, they’re not a gift from taxpayers and – in the end, anyway – the price the houses sell for is not the most important aspect of the scheme.”
The Kiwibuild could never help people under say $40,000. Never intended to. The rebuilding of State houses are the best option for the working poor.
I’d hate to be a musician in his band. The lead singer (what else?) wouldn’t listen to the band, he’d have a different drummer in his head, and the songs (who else would be permitted to write them?) would be disassociated ramblings full of the first person singular.
Wonder what the band would be called? Probably none. Full billing to the lead singer only. No lead breaks for the guitarist and as for the vocal chorus, we won’t go there.
How many members of the family would be involved? What style of music? A little mix of punk, country, and hillbilly, but no blues, Mex or reggae for sure.
On RNZ Nine to Noon there were two very interesting interviews on education.
The first was with Hamish Brewer, a NZer who “now calls Virginia home where his mission is to turn around ailing schools. He is tattooed, he skateboards and he tells the students he loves them, in case no one else in their lives is telling them that. Hamish has won many awards and given speeches about his work.”
This guy was compelling in a “Ted Talks” way – which I don’t usually connect with. We really should be getting him back here, even if just temporarily, for some good ‘out of the box’ thinking. He was actually very supportive of the education he received here and the NZ system overall, but he certainly could give some educators here a bit of a shake-up.
Calling marty mars and other home schoolers (or those interested in home schooling) in relation to the second interview.
I recommend listening to it if you didn’t hear it. It was with Natalie Donaldson and Siobhan Porter, both part of Auckland Home Educators, a support and advocacy group for parent educators. They have five children each and have home-schooled them all.
{As an aside but also in relation to this morning’s Nine to Noon, the description of the interview with Jessica Young, University of Otago, at 11 above on attitudes to assisted dying earlier on in the programme was well off the mark. The interview did cover the restrictions etc on who could carry out or assist in an assisted death in detail – the person themself or a doctor, but not family members. ]
I assume one “veutoviper” is referring to my contribution at 9:25 am when he/she writes:
As an aside but also in relation to this morning’s Nine to Noon, the description of the interview with Jessica Young, University of Otago, at 11 above on attitudes to assisted dying earlier on in the programme was well off the mark.
How was I “off the mark” in pointing out the deceitful, anodyne language used (“self-administration of a death”) and the fact that Kathryn Ryan had failed to ask the obvious question, viz., Who is going to kill these people?
The interview did cover the restrictions etc on who could carry out or assist in an assisted death in detail – the person themself [sic] or a doctor, but not family members.
Doctors take an oath to look after people. “Look after” is not a synonym for “kill”.
She DID ask the question you claim she didn’t raise. As I said above, the answer was that the only people who would legally be allowed to carry out or assist in an assisted death would be the person themselves and/or a doctor; no-one else including family members would be allowed to.
But par for the course for you. Perhaps we (and Kiwiblog) should set up a Give A Little page for hearing aids for you.
the answer was that the only people who would legally be allowed to carry out or assist in an assisted death
To “carry out an assisted death” is a deceitful, euphemistic way of saying “to kill a dying person.” I am correct when I state that Ms. Ryan accepted this distortion of plain language, and failed to ask the pertinent question.
would be the person themselves [sic] and/or a doctor
Doctors take an oath to look after their patients. Palliative care, as in a hospice is assisting the dying; it is a world away from putting someone to death.
I’ll skip your witless little sortie into personal abuse.
When i see a bird dying in my garden i put a spade through its neck. When my old dog was so close to death that he was just suffering i took him for a final visit to the vet. These things to most people seem humane and sensible. When i do these things i feel like i am caring.
Human beings are not like stray birds. Leading humanitarian philosophers like Michael Laws and David Seymour would no doubt appreciate your analogy though.
This is hope fully a good out come for the common people of Yemen Peace and diplomacy is what is best for All Kia kaha
It has taken three years, 14 million people on the brink of starving to death and 10,000 dead civilians before the US finally asked for the chaos in Yemen to stop.
But it may be too late for the impoverished Arab nation, which borders Saudi Arabia, as it faces effectively being wiped off the Earth as more than half its population starve due to a sickening Saudi war tactic.
It was already one of the world’s poorest countries before a brutal civil war began in 2015 when rebel Houthi fighters seized the presidential compound in the country’s capital Sana’a and overthrew the government. Ka kite ano Link is below.
New Neighbour the last lot were sandflys contracted Actors and now it looks like a single wahine is moving in she will be a sandfly payed actor trying to set me up I know they are listening to everything in the house the perverts . So if anything happen its a sandfly set up. The muppets will try anything Ka kite ano
Eco Maori Give A ka pai to the Google employees who have made a stand to back up there wahine employees Equality is what the new generation wants and need.
We not stupid Equality for all and environmentally friendly.Hundreds of Google engineers and other workers around the world walked off the job Thursday (Friday NZ time) to protest the internet company’s lenient treatment of executives accused of sexual misconduct.Kia kaha people ka kite ano link is below.
Eco Maori did warn MP that there staff could be pro national and set them up and the immigration issue that Labour is having at the minute sure looks like a SET UP JOB.
‘ looking like the Government has made an embarrassing stuff-up over the controversial decision to allow a Czech criminal to stay in the country after he finishes his prison sentence. SET UP Ka kite ano link is below. P.S I will give the turned lefty a bit of a ——–
Kia ora Te Kaea the water isuses I say we need to audit all country’s council and legerslate to make them clean up our water.
That was awesome that the sights of the Southern right whale off Ohope Bay of plenty.
The Maori All Blacks will have a good team playing in Chicago this weekend.
Ka kite ano P.S Maori does some thing wrong no name suppression it’s gets plastered in the media???????.
I've got one source saying more Labour MPs than expected are mulling whether to vote for the deal - including names who were not on the letter to Juncker and Tusk— Emilio Casalicchio (@e_casalicchio) 17 October 2019 I've compiled a list of possible reasons why Labour ...
On Wednesday, the government was loudly telling us that it needed to legislate to allow it to impose "control orders" - effectively a parole regime, but imposed without charge, prosecution, conviction or real evidence - on suspected terrorists because they couldn't be prosecuted for their supposed crimes. Today, it turns ...
On Monday, the Hit and Run inquiry heard from NZDF's former director of special operations, who claimed that the defence Minister knew everything about the Operation Burnham raid. Today, the inquiry heard from that (former) Minister - and it turns out that he didn't know nearly as much as NZDF ...
Yoga gurus and cult leaders – I’ve seen a few. Two weeks ago, I unknowingly joined an alleged new-age cult at the Kāpiti coast, together with a giant kraken and some neatly dressed pensioners who would make any book club proud.They were among the two hundred people of all ages ...
The last decade has seen a trend of increasing weapons availability to police. Assault rifles. Tasers on every hip. Guns in cars. And following the march 15 massacre, pistols on every hip, all over the country. At the same time, its also seen an increase in the abuse of force: ...
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy preparing for our summer paper on Science Communication. Looking for something amusing about ‘risk’ in science, I came across this neat xkcd.com cartoon about why so many people come knocking on my door (or phoning me, or emailing me) desperately wanting ...
by John Edmundson The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) have recently reposted a February article, by Romany Tasker-Poland, explaining ISO’s position in the “trans rights” debate. It is available on their website and on their Facebook Page. The article sets out to explain why “socialists support trans rights”. It reads more ...
"Auckland City Mission: 10% of Kiwis experiencing food insecurity", RNZ, 16 October 2019:About half a million people are experiencing food insecurity, according to new research from the Auckland City Mission. Food insecurity, or food poverty, is defined as not having enough appropriate food. The City Mission said over the last ...
Media Statement for Immediate Release 16th October 2019 “Fake News” from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th–there is very little evidence ...
Would You Buy A Used Propaganda Video From This Man? Bridges and the National Party’s strategists have discovered that the ideas and attitudes considered acceptable by today’s editors and journalists are no longer enforceable. The rise and rise of the Internet and the social media platforms it spawned means that ...
There is plenty of evidence of the way the business mentality has permeated every level of society since the recrudescence of market liberalism 35 years ago. You only need to think of how citizens in need of help from their government, their state, their country, are now routinely described as ...
John MacCormickOver the last 40 years, New Zealanders – and people in other countries – have experienced big changes in the jobs they do and where they live and work. These changes include: a decline in manufacturing jobs an increase in jobs in ‘information-intensive’ industries (which are better paid ...
Nick Wilson, Leah Grout, Mereana Wilson, Anja Mizdrak, Phil Shoemack, Michael BakerProtecting waterways has the benefits of: (1) protecting water from hazardous microbes; (2) minimising cancer risk and other problems from nitrates in water; (3) avoiding algal blooms that are hazardous to health; (4) protecting mahinga kai uses (cultural ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In a press release today Massey University announced it has decided to rebrand and reorientate after struggling to be a University for grown-ups. For some time the University has wanted to be a safe play space for wee-woke-misogynists who have been really badly triggered ...
After a brief dalliance with 'hard Revoke' it looks like the Lib Dems are changing ground on on Brexit, with leader Jo Swinson reverting to calling for a second referendum on Johnson's deal.The party has tabled an amendment to the Queen’s speech requesting that any deal brought back from Brussels ...
The government has decided that someone has done Something Bad. But despite their belief, there seems to be no evidence that they have actually broken the law. So the government's solution is to pass a retrospective law allowing them to be punished anyway, on a lower standard of proof. If ...
So, Judith Collins has done a Facebook rant about climate change, peddling the same shit National has been shovelling for the past twenty years: the impacts are overstated, there's no need to do anything about it, and its too hard anyway (oh, and its so unfair that people who peddle ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThere is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...
I came across this song quite by accident. If it isn't one of Greta Thunberg's favourites - it should be.Video courtesy of YouTube.This post is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...
Last month, NZDF's shoddy coverup of what it knew about civilian casualties in Operation Burnham began to fall apart, with the revelation that a report on the matter, which NZDF claimed not to have, had been sitting in an NZDF safe for the past nine years. Yesterday, the man responsible ...
While many imagine that countries like the USA and Europe dominate space activities, in fact India is now a major player on this stage. It launches satellites for its own purposes and also commercially, and has constellations orbiting our planet and returning data of vital importance to that nation in ...
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...
For the past week, Extinction Rebellion has been peacefully protesting in London to demand action on climate change. The British government's response? Ban their protests:Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s ...
An essay by Judith Collins MP reported on Carbon News yesterday seems to show an alarming shift in attitude within the National Party. Collins argues against the Zero Carbon Bill, the Paris Agreement, and downplays the magnitude of climate impacts. The Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015 and ratified ...
When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January ...
A list of indicators of bad science – many of these are found in articles promoted by anti-fluoride activists. Anti-fluoride activists have been pouring money into a scaremongering campaign warning pregnant women not to drink fluoridated water. They claim fluoride will lower the IQ of their future child. Fluoride ...
Nothing Left To Say: Labour's pollster, Stephen Mills, remains swaddled-up in the comforting myths of the 1980s. As if the experience of Roger Douglas’s genuinely radical post-Muldoon policy agenda was literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing – as much as the party could possibly absorb for at least the next 50 years.MEMO ...
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...
With an unfair voting system, uneven electorates and an un-elected upper house, the UK's "democracy" is barely worthy of the name. But now the government wants to make it worse:The government has been accused of suppressing voters’ rights with the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of people after plans ...
Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
Local body election results were released over the weekend, to joy or despair depending on where you live. In Auckland, Phil Goff trounced John Tamihere, who is muttering darkly about running for Parliament again (but which party would want him?) Wellington is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weta Workshop, except ...
How could government evolve over the next decades? Reports of democracy’s imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. However, satisfaction with political systems in many countries is low, so there is much to do for governments of all political stripes to improve relevance and trust. Digital technologies are seen as one ...
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand has prided itself for decades with regard to its lack of pollution, and all will be aware that the ‘100% Pure New Zealand‘ meme is under threat through land, water and air pollution of various causes. There is another type of contamination that the country also faces: light ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?David ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
What is language? We generally assume that it a facility unique to humans, allowing us to share what’s in and on our minds. We can tell of our plans, our past exploits, our knowledge. It also allows us to lie. And yet there are vast numbers of people we can’t ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
The Government today announced its support for a project that could substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. The announcement was made as part of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s visit to Nelson’s Cawthron Aquaculture Park. The Cawthron Institute will receive $100,000 from the Government’s ...
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni has welcomed the first reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Legislation Amendment Bill. “Every New Zealander has a stake in New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension,” says Carmel Sepuloni. “They are our most common form of social assistance – nearly 800,000 New ...
Babies in Auckland aged six months and over can receive a free vaccination and children will all have access to vaccines, Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter announced today at Papatoetoe High School. The move comes as part of Government efforts to step up the fight against measles. ...
***Check against delivery*** Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here, and to have the honour of opening this important conference on behalf of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Let us take the opportunity to acknowledge all the people who have helped make today possible, including our special ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash says the safety of frontline officers and members of the public will be the focus of a new trial of specialist Police response teams in three of our largest urban centres. Police have this morning released details of an initiative to be trialled in Counties Manukau, ...
The Minister of Fisheries is calling for entries for a new public award to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector. “I have established the Seafood Sustainability Awards to recognise and celebrate those throughout industry, tangata whenua and communities who demonstrate outstanding dedication and innovation towards the sustainability of New Zealand’s ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter welcomes leaders in the private sector taking action on closing their gender pay gaps to ensure a fairer workplace for all New Zealanders. Ms Genter today launched a new report, Addressing the gender pay gap and driving women’s representation in senior leadership, from the Champions for ...
Government Ministers today welcomed the release of a marine environment report highlighting the four key issues affecting our oceans, estuaries and coastlines. The release underlines the importance of government proposals to combat climate pollution, ensure clean freshwater, protect biodiversity, make land use more sustainable, and reduce waste and plastic. Environment ...
The Government has approved funding for a new acute mental health facility for Waikato which will provide better care and support to people with mental health and addiction issues. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Dr David Clark announced the $100 million project to replace the aging Henry Rongomau ...
The Government is making progress on its goal to integrate te reo Māori into education by 2025, with over 500 teachers and support staff already graduating from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis made the announcement at an awards ceremony in Waikanae today, for ...
Statistics Minister James Shaw has welcomed the first release of 2018 Census data. The first release of data today, 23 September, includes key data on population, regional growth, the number of homes and the size of different ethnic groups in New Zealand. Data from the 2018 Census will support the ...
Minister for Statistics James Shaw today announced a public consultation on a proposed algorithm charter for government agencies. The charter has been developed by the Government Chief Data Steward in response to growing calls for more transparency in government use of data. Computer algorithms – procedures or formulas for solving ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, Climate Change Minister James Shaw and visiting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte co-hosted a business roundtable in Auckland this morning focused on working together to address climate change. “The Netherlands is an important partner for New Zealand. We share a strong agricultural history. Sustainable agribusiness and ...
The Government is taking action to build an inclusive economy where more of us receive our fair share at work and businesses can compete on great products and services, not undercutting wages and conditions, Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. Two consultations launched today seek feedback ...
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Feedback sought– Lyttelton commercial zone parking The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to remove on-site car parking requirements for new developments in the Lyttelton commercial zone. The proposal, by Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section 71 of the Greater ...
Hon Minister Poto Williams Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration MEDIA STATEMENT Tuesday 15 October 2019 Feedback sought – Hagley Oval The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal about Hagley Oval. The proposal was developed by Regenerate Christchurch ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
As the New Zealand First Party gathers for its annual conference, the question swirling in the year is how it can carve out a path to avoid electoral defeat in 2020, writes Jo Moir for RNZ. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s a familiar break up excuse that’s used ...
To the early intervention therapists, to the teachers, to the speech therapists, the occupational therapists, music therapists, diabetes nurses and all: you change the world.When I was married almost a decade ago we had the following reading at our wedding:You are holding up a ceilingwith both arms. It is very ...
The faces said it all. The smiles of the European leaders crowded round Boris after the Brexit deal was struck. The deal his opponents – no, pretty much everyone – said was impossible.So what’s in it? The detail is still opaque, but subject to gremlins in the fine print, ...
Iran attracts an onslaught of negative media in New Zealand and Western media. But is it fair or deserved? David Robie has spent several weeks travelling in the country on sabbatical and finds the media negativity far from the reality of the “most friendly” country he has ever visited ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Leigh Sullivan discusses the week in politics with Michelle Grattan. They talk about Alan Jones accusing Prime Minister Scott Morrison of failing the immediate needs of drought-striken farmers, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anita Parbhakar-Fox, Senior Research Fellow in Geometallurgy/Applied Geochemistry, The University of Queensland Last month, scientists uncovered a mineral called Edscottite. Minerals are solid, naturally occurring substances that are not living, such as quartz or haematite. This new mineral was discovered after an ...
The Auckland-based collective talk origins, ambitions and making the rave accessible to everybody.Friendly Potential is an outfit that defies easy summary. They’re among the country’s most ambitious and prolific club promoters. In their almost five-years of operation, they’ve been responsible for the local debuts of electronic music icons including Detroit ...
Analysis: Two polls show support for Labour sliding, the government is accused of breaking another promise and the Greens's refusal to back a bill forces Labour to rely on National to get it through. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kiera Lindsey, University of Technology Sydney One spring morning in 1850, over 8,000 Sydneysiders marched through town to protest the resumption of transportation – the act of sending British criminals to Australia. It was the largest protest in Australia thus far, an ...
Two shareholders of failed insurance firm company CBL are leading a class action against the firm's former directors seeking compensation for financial losses. ...
Sam Brooks recaps the third episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and wonders why some of these queens don’t know how to sew.This episode asks, and sort of answers the main question that millions of people across the world: why would you come on Drag Race and not know how to sew?!There ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John M Clarke, Team Leader, Regional Projections, CSIRO Last month we lost Dr Penny Whetton – one of the world’s most respected climate scientists and a brilliant mentor to the next generation of researchers. Penny will also be remembered as a passionate ...
Ten moose were upended into the Dusky Sounds in 1910. Now, their descendants are getting their day in the sun.The climate crisis is affecting wildlife all over the country: rockhopper penguin populations are in drastic decline, tuatara eggs aren’t hatching females, and the ice walls keeping predators away from kea ...
Security footage of NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell being thrown out of a Tauranga bar looks unlikely to ever be aired - despite his leader Winston Peters promising a screening. ...
Amnesty International is concerned that Justice Minister Andrew Little's Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill could have the potential to undermine human rights in New Zealand. The Bill would give the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to ...
Expect the old campaigner Winston Peters to be at his belligerent best as he gears up for another election. He’s kept his party alive for 27 years and he shows no sign of quitting. The omens may be bleak—polls this week showed his party below the 5% threshold– but Peters ...
The National Party has agreed to take down any videos breaching the current rules around the use of parliamentary TV footage, as all parties try to reach consensus. ...
Recently the Health Promotion Agency released a report into hazardous drinking in New Zealand. The report shows that Māori who drink alcohol and live in deprived circumstances are less likely to have a harmful relationship with alcohol if they ...
Turkey-US joint-statement on military ops within Syria’s territory.The Turkish Embassy in New Zealand issued Evening Report this unabridged United States of America-Republic of Turkey joint-statement detailing what both sides agreed to regarding Turkey’s military operations within the so-called security zone within Syrian territory near Turkey’s southern border. It is ...
Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash didn’t mention what winners will receive, when he proudly called for entries for a new public award “to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector”. Nor did he mention the cost to taxpayers of this initiative. Point of Order’s checks with the website where more details have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona R Martin, Senior Lecturer in Convergent and Online Media, University of Sydney One of the basic tenets of the ABC Act is independence from government. Yet once again, in contravention to that principle, the federal government is trying to push through ...
A new poem by Auckland poet Lily Holloway.modernity to globalisationwhen I get there as still life and landscape and also portraitureseeking the cacti in small pots who dot the globeslices of pie offer up the vision after the sermonexpressing emotions without coherent narrative supportbecause no artist responded to this callemploying ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi to rule out any taxpayer-funded purchase or bailout for Mediaworks’s channel Three. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “For the last few months Mediaworks ...
The Police Commissioner's announcement that squadcars of officers with automatic rifles will patrol New Zealand's streets is dangerous and unnecessary, according to the criminal justice community organisation People Against Prisons Aotearoa. The ...
News broke this morning that Mediaworks is seeking to sell off, and even contemplating closing, its TV division. What might that mean for journalism?For journalism in New Zealand, the loss of Three’s TV division is a devastating blow. It is not yet known whether any of the news properties will ...
In our defence of our coalition Government policy on climate change, we fully support Government plan to use rail funding for rail infrastructure upgrades to promote use rail infrastructure for freight around NZ. ...
The billions of tonnes of plastic in our oceans isn’t going away any time soon, but innovative companies here and abroad are working together to find silver linings to this daunting problem.Fishing boats head out to sea and set their nets. They go back to shore. They head back out, ...
An EveningReport.nz investigation by Kevin ListKiwibank services. Image by Kevin List.Evening Report looks into the separation of Kiwibank from New Zealand Post, and considers the impact on the public’s access to banking services in their communities.Kiwibank. What’s going on? Kiwibank and New Zealand Post are in the ...
Local Government New Zealand today confirmed what many local election commentators have observed; that more of the voting public cast their ballots in favour of women candidates than ever before. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington (this week we totted up the data a day early, on Wednesday, to let our books ed. ...
New Zealand's mineral manufacturing sector is expected to face some testing times, with softer prices, tighter margins and sluggish export markets. ...
Portugal has been painted by pro-cannabis legalisation groups as a model to follow. Yet just last month, the mayor of Porto contradicted his previous pro-harm reduction position and endorsed reintroducing criminal penalties for drug use in public spaces. ...
Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Kevin Short announced today the inclusion of six Cook Island First World War soldiers in the New Zealand and Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s official rolls of honour. ...
The latest statistics released by the Health Promotion Agency showing a dramatic fall in the numbers of cigarettes being sold in supermarkets, service stations, and liquor stores are being welcomed by the Vaping Trade Association of New Zealand (VTANZ). ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.NZ First Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Where to from here? How NZ First will win in ...
Aotearoa Climate Emergency (ACE), a climate change network, will host a conference in Wellington on 11 November (Armistice Day) to promote holding a Citizens Assembly in 2020, as a way of breaking the current political deadlock on treating climate ...
MediaWorks’ owners have called time after years of losses from its TV division. Sources say the company will announce it is for sale – if no buyers emerge, it will close within months.Three is facing the biggest crisis in its three decade history today, as its ownership will soon announce ...
Sam Brooks reviews Amazon Prime’s Modern Love, an anthology series based on the New York Times column dedicated to ‘love in all its forms’. A first date that ends up in the emergency room. A flagging marriage that finds new energy through tennis. The founder of a dating app who doesn’t ...
If we want to grow support for New Zealand’s aid, we need to get better at partnering with the ‘unlike-minded’ as well as the ‘like-minded’, and much better at telling people what we do with the money they give, says Josie Pagani, Executive ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Orsola De Marco, Astrophysicist , Macquarie University If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.How are stars made? –Zali, age 8, Karkoo, South Australia. How are stars made? Well, stars are not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gita Mishra, Professor of Life Course Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland All women know to expect the time in life when their periods finish and they reach menopause. Many might even look forward to it. What many women don’t ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGreevy, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare Science, University of Sydney Since ancient times, horse behaviour, and the bond between horses and humans, has been a source of intrigue and fascination. The horse-lore that has accumulated over the centuries is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Wallis, Lecturer and Honorary Research Fellow, University of Southern Queensland A move to the country is often presented in popular culture as an idyllic life, a place where you can escape the pressures of the city. It’s in television shows such ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW The just-announced inquiry into Australia’s retirement income system ought to be anything but run-of-the-mill. Taking place 25 years after the introduction of compulsory superannuation, it provides an opportunity to either fix a broken system, or discard ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allan McCay, Law Lecturer, University of Sydney The rise of artificial intelligence has led to widespread concern about the role of humans in the workplaces of the future. Indeed, Israeli historian, futurist and publishing sensation Yuval Noah Harari warns in his most ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Saunders, Phd candidate, University of Wollongong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people. You leave Sydney and head for holidays on the South Coast. You plan to catch a quick surf, ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Clayton Mitchell denies accusations around a night out, food insecurity on the rise, and UK PM Boris Johnson secures deal with dubious prospects.NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell has got himself in a spot of late night bother in a Tauranga ...
As the rugby world wrestles with the new reality that players can, and will, be dismissed for accidental contact with an opponent’s head it's worth pondering the fate of three All Blacks not selected for the Ireland quarterfinal. ...
A new exhibition in Raetihi offers a rare opportunity to see early, colonialism-focused works by Wellington artist Barbara Strathdee, writes Pat Baskett. ...
Italy's Ambassador to New Zealand Fabrizio Marcelli responds to Newsroom stories - and The Detail podcasts - questioning the price of imported tinned tomatoes in light of reports of slave labour in the industry in his home country. ...
A measles outbreak in Samoa suspected to be responsible for the death of a one-year-old was “inevitable”, according to an expert who thinks NZ could have prevented it. ...
The big shock of the results in the weekend’s local elections was the unseating of Justin Lester as Wellington mayor. We invited him to pen a sort-of-valedictory.My three years as the mayor of Wellington ended on Sunday and I will forever remain grateful for the experience.I’m also acutely aware of ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, Alex Braae reviews a night spent on the Intercity overnight sleeper bus getting from Wellington to Auckland.The most important thing to understand about long haul bus travel is that it’s all about getting exactly ...
Britain and the EU have agreed new terms for divorce. But with the Conservatives’ Northern Irish support party unimpressed, can the British prime minister at last put an end to the interminable shitstorm?At last, a deal! A palpable deal! A path out of the endless brain-melt!“Where there is a will, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Government sources insist shock jock Alan Jones didn’t drive Thursday’s announcement of a cash payment to drought-striken farmers about to be turfed off their household support because they’d reached the four year time limit. They ...
The proposition that global warming driven by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a risk that needs to be dealt with has achieved a large measure of agreement among policymakers. The proposition that it has to be dealt with right now and at great cost has no such consensus.One point ...
A bill to improve the pastoral care of students living in halls of residence has flown through its first reading in Parliament, thanks to cross-party support. ...
In this week's MediaRoom column: could MediaWorks close its TV operations altogether? And the Herald restructures its newsroom to remove a layer of management and shake up its investigative team. ...
Twenty-five young people who represent the future of the Asia-New Zealand relationship have been acknowledged as ‘ones to watch’, by the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono. ...
The taboo that surrounds immigration and our refugee qouta, are two issues rising in New Zealand that need to start being given attention to challenge the fruit loops of the far left. ...
Open Mike 01/11/2018 
I find this unbelievable:
On Wednesday, the government was loudly telling us that it needed to legislate to allow it to impose "control orders" - effectively a parole regime, but imposed without charge, prosecution, conviction or real evidence - on suspected terrorists because they couldn't be prosecuted for their supposed crimes. Today, it turns ...15 hours ago
Yoga gurus and cult leaders – I’ve seen a few. Two weeks ago, I unknowingly joined an alleged new-age cult at the Kāpiti coast, together with a giant kraken and some neatly dressed pensioners who would make any book club proud.They were among the two hundred people of all ages ...17 hours ago
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy preparing for our summer paper on Science Communication. Looking for something amusing about ‘risk’ in science, I came across this neat xkcd.com cartoon about why so many people come knocking on my door (or phoning me, or emailing me) desperately wanting ...21 hours ago
Media Statement for Immediate Release 16th October 2019 “Fake News” from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th–there is very little evidence ...2 days ago
Would You Buy A Used Propaganda Video From This Man? Bridges and the National Party’s strategists have discovered that the ideas and attitudes considered acceptable by today’s editors and journalists are no longer enforceable. The rise and rise of the Internet and the social media platforms it spawned means that ...2 days ago
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz There is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...3 days ago
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...4 days ago
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...4 days ago
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...1 week ago
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...1 week ago
We're rebuilding our hospitals, protecting our oceans, and taking mental health seriously. ...12 hours ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...3 days ago
The Government today announced its support for a project that could substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. The announcement was made as part of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s visit to Nelson’s Cawthron Aquaculture Park. The Cawthron Institute will receive $100,000 from the Government’s ...15 hours ago
As the New Zealand First Party gathers for its annual conference, the question swirling in the year is how it can carve out a path to avoid electoral defeat in 2020, writes Jo Moir for RNZ. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s a familiar break up excuse that’s used ...50 mins ago
Iran attracts an onslaught of negative media in New Zealand and Western media. But is it fair or deserved? David Robie has spent several weeks travelling in the country on sabbatical and finds the media negativity far from the reality of the “most friendly” country he has ever visited ...9 hours ago
A new law targeting potential returning terrorists like Mark Taylor raises questions about human rights and whether the bill is being rushed. ...11 hours ago
Analysis: Two polls show support for Labour sliding, the government is accused of breaking another promise and the Greens's refusal to back a bill forces Labour to rely on National to get it through. ...13 hours ago
Two shareholders of failed insurance firm company CBL are leading a class action against the firm's former directors seeking compensation for financial losses. ...14 hours ago
Amnesty International is concerned that Justice Minister Andrew Little's Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill could have the potential to undermine human rights in New Zealand. The Bill would give the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to ...15 hours ago
Politicians come crawling back after the holidays to repair some 'bad optics'. James Elliott pulls no punches in his news of the week. ...18 hours ago
New Zealand's mineral manufacturing sector is expected to face some testing times, with softer prices, tighter margins and sluggish export markets. ...18 hours ago
Environmental groups are urging the government to crack down on commercial industries whose activities are harming the marine environment. ...19 hours ago
Struggling media company MediaWorks is putting its TV business Three on the sale block, after axing and scaling back shows. ...20 hours ago
As the rugby world wrestles with the new reality that players can, and will, be dismissed for accidental contact with an opponent’s head it's worth pondering the fate of three All Blacks not selected for the Ireland quarterfinal. ...1 day ago
This week's biggest-selling NZ books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan NZ bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias. ...1 day ago
A new exhibition in Raetihi offers a rare opportunity to see early, colonialism-focused works by Wellington artist Barbara Strathdee, writes Pat Baskett. ...1 day ago
Italy's Ambassador to New Zealand Fabrizio Marcelli responds to Newsroom stories - and The Detail podcasts - questioning the price of imported tinned tomatoes in light of reports of slave labour in the industry in his home country. ...1 day ago
A measles outbreak in Samoa suspected to be responsible for the death of a one-year-old was “inevitable”, according to an expert who thinks NZ could have prevented it. ...1 day ago
Plans for Facebook’s proposed “stablecoin”, Libra, appear to be unraveling as awareness about its adverse effects grows. ...1 day ago
Explosives were used to blast a millions-of-years-old rock overhang in a national park. ...1 day ago
Medical issues, party leaks and a surprise resignation have taken their toll - but Winston Peters argues his party is as strong as ever. ...1 day ago
What's different about what Donald Trump did this time to finally snap Democrats into action and launch an impeachment inquiry? ...1 day ago
Former MediaWorks news chief and Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings looks at who or what might save Three now it has been put on the block. ...1 day ago
In this week's MediaRoom column: could MediaWorks close its TV operations altogether? And the Herald restructures its newsroom to remove a layer of management and shake up its investigative team. ...1 day ago
Judith Collins is filling the blackhole that is National’s climate policy with social media posts appealing to science deniers. ...1 day ago
What a “breath of fresh air WHO are as they finally take air pollution seriously” Bravo to World Health Organisation, (WHO).
WHO are also are focusing on the urban residents who are also health effected by “toxic heavy road traffic air pollution” too.
WHO are claiming that even schools and busy traffic routes be redesigned away from schools and suburban areas also.
http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/
First WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health, 30 October – 1 November 2018
Improving air quality, combating climate change – saving lives
A schoolboy walks through smoke and fumes emitted from a waste dump in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt
Air Pollution is “the ‘new tobacco…” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director general
If you received an invitation to attend the conference and have not yet registered using the INDICO web portal, then please do so before as soon as possible. The link to the INDICO registration web portal can be found in the invitation email message.
The first two days of the conference will present evidence, identify gaps and solutions, and will be targeted at practitioners and other technical and political representatives from the health sector and other sectors relevant to the discourse. The third day will be a High-Level Action Day.
Conference provisional programme – updated 28 October
pdf, 799kb
Live webcast (active from 30 October 2018)
Conference overview agenda
pdf, 205kb
Time to nationalise the banks.
This is well overdue.
Their parasitic behaviour is leeching billions of dollars out of the New Zealand economy.
“ANZ’s New Zealand business made more money than Fonterra, Spark, Fletcher Building, the Warehouse, Air New Zealand and the major supermarkets combined last year and it’s not good enough, according to activist investor Sam Stubbs.
ANZ New Zealand announced a record net profit of $1.98 billion this morning – while its parent company Australia and New Zealand bank made A$6.4b.
But Stubbs, founder and managing director of KiwiSaver provider Simplicity, and a critic of the banks, said ANZ was taking advantage of its dominant position to extract unreasonable profits.
“The ANZ profit is classic rent-seeking behaviour.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=12152050
Yo Ed.
How are you going to nationalise an Australian bank ?
You don’t really think your own stuff thru do you ?
Yo James – what’s your take on the smashing the National Party has taken over the past few weeks and what do you reckon about the likelihood that they’ve a lot more coming?
Robert. Hardly on topic is it. But since you asked as I have commented a couple of times it was a clusterfuck.
So back to the topic in hand.
Oops typo so other post in holding.
but in reply – not really on topic is it Robert ?
And I’m guessing nationals week is going better than labour’s.
I bet Cindy regrets backing her minister – reading between the lines.
“not really on topic”
This is Open Mike, James. “Open” probably means…open.
National’s disease must be hurting it’s followers something awful, I reckon. They’ve had a shocker! It’s as if a curtain fell and they were all exposed, standing there, trousers around their ankles, looking startled. Paula Bennett, btw, looks permanently startled these days. Judith Collins always did (it’s the arched eyebrows).
Yep. Open mike. But you have problems understanding how threads and reply work huh?
Sorry James, Robert is on to it. You on the other hand are fully exposed, trousers around your ankles…. Daily.
I think Robert thought the topic was not thinking things through so responded accordingly.
You talkin bout the guy the gnatss let stay here jimbo?
Huh
Didn’t he arrived under a Labour government, and granted residency by a Labour minister?
Yo Bobbie fatdude
Why are labour and the greens still hugging garden variety crims and giving them citizenship?
Didn’t Thiele get in under gnattynil tuppy?
He did, but he didn’t distribute large volumes of class b drugs imported for a meth dealing gang though.
Maybe you can check whether a whole bunch of prisoners donated $14k each to the Labour Party?
I checked, It wasn’t 14k each. each was linked with the 14k though
Oh, well I guess a list MP is worth top dollar then. Even for an opposition party.
Maybe National MP’s are worth more than Labour mp’s, which ever side they sit on.
Maybe the Labour MPs weren’t for sale.
Elegant, McFlock.
Oh they are, the price is so low it’s not worth reporting on though.
Cabinet clubs with GR at the wellington club. Donations being solicited in Auckland Restaurants.
JLR may be pointing fingers, but the coalitions silence on this issue is deafening
Wow, Stupid and Nasty in the same comments. You’re not a National MP are you? You’re still happy to support at least one rapist who Woodhouse let stay, Tuppence Shrewsbury supports and loves rapists!!! (judging by her comment)
Who said I support national? not supporting labour or the greens does not equal supporting national. Quite enjoying the JLR train wreck to be honest.
Just as I am enjoying watching the amateurs currently in government make stupid calls on an almost daily basis. It concerned me that the JLR affair was letting them off the hook.
Opposition is back though! yea booiii
Your politics are to the right of National….
You Nationalise their NZ Operations.
There, that wasn’t that hard really was it?
Not really a detail person are you?
See it’s in the detail that the deluded ideas like this fall apart.
@ James,
Explanation necessary
The NZ operations are actually quite standalone from the Australian parent. If the Government so decided it COULD nationalise them. The bigger question is where would it get the cash to do so. Unless of course by nationalise they mean taking ownership without compensation. I believe that is called stealing and will lead to the NZ economy imploding.
Like the taxpayers not being given a full or even fair value for the flogging of its power generators Gossie ? How about those State houses also….
You have little to no evidence that the State did not get full or even fair value for the Electricity companies. They got Market price, which by definition is full and fair value.
Predictable neolib response and State houses ?
And State Houses what?
Except that the market is delusional.
Ed never says what he means by “nationalise” and will only tell you to ask google. I’ve tried to start that conversation with him a number of times.
Asking Google is a waste of time as there are multiple meanings of the term so Ed is an idiot.
Your logic is impeccable.
It’s a sovereign government with its own currency. Just create the money – done. And, hey, if they leave them as is they’ll make enough profit to cover it.
You don’t allow foreign banks to operate here.
Simple.
By the way, when the Amazon rainforest gets felled to make way for cattle farms, we can thank people who eat beef.
Don’t you care about the world you are leaving your children and grandchildren?
Why would we thank them, Ed? And how would we? Do they all read The Standard?
James always brags about his heavy consumption of steak.
It shows in his constipated commenting style 🙂
Actually it’s mainly in reply to you going nuts over me mentioning a bbq.
As it is – I eat some steak but prefer pork and chicken.
I also love lamb but find it to fatty to eat regularly.
So my steak intake isn’t that high – but when I do eat beef I make sure it’s good quality.
WTF is with “stone grill” steak in a restaurant? I got told it was so I could cook the steak to my satisfaction. If I could cook it perfectly at home, I wouldn’t order it in a restaurant. And why does it cost the same as a cooked steak? WTF does the chef do – make the salad? It totally pisses me off. Steak, medium rare, on a plate. That’s what I want. Not a hot rock and a pile of ingredients.
On this point we are 100% in agreement McFlock. I might have to speak to Lucifer to turn up the heating a tad.
Maybe stonegrill was invented by the devil? Take a prime cut of steak, and give it to someone without the skill to cook it properly, and they paid full price for it so they’ll probably eat the entire thing.
Last time I asked for medium-rare at a restaurant they served me super-rare.
At least you could send it back because someone other than you stuffed it up
Thank You!
While not quite as bad, deconstructed salads really piss me off. Someone putting all the ingredients of a salad on a plate, that you then have to toss yourself like some sort of after work Paula Bennet.
I’m with you 100% on this. I want someone to cook it better than I can – that’s why I pay for the chef
I can pretty safely say I have never eaten any Amazonian beef
And you are aware of the environmental impact of meat, particularly beef, eating?
Imagine if we didn’t eat it! The cattle herds would grow exponentially and cover the face of the earth!
I honestly don’t give a shit.
Yes, James, we discussed constipation resulting from meat-eating earlier.
gold
Ok – that was very funny.
That’s sums your worldview up.
You don’t care.
Me not eating any NZ beef if not going to stop the impact of beef farming in the Amazon.
That’s banning a bank not nationalising it Ed.
Make up your mind.
I eat NZ beef. But you’re welcome none the less.
I thank you for not eating beef Ed, thank you. I am looking forward to Veganuary this year.
Thank the people who own cats and dogs.
I can honestly say that I’m not eating beef grown in the Amazon.
Here’s the thing though: If the world was being economic little to no food would ever be imported/exported. Each country would grow the food that it needs to feed its own people.
This forces sustainability as far as food goes.
Best NZ steak I ever ate was in Papeete Tahiti… but it should have been in NZ . Eat the best and export what is left over .
Tahiti is French, and the French generally cook better than us. The best lamb I have ever eaten was in France, But the French breed their best lambs purely for meat flavour, and do not compromise for quality of wool. Then they cook it better as well.
I doubt if all our best goes to export. Upon returning from France, I was positively impressed with the quality of meat that normal people can buy here.
Whoops – apologies to Ed.
“Each country would grow the food that it needs to feed its own people.”
Environmental factors prevent that. But nice try.
What you’re actually saying is that many countries can’t support themselves.
That’s what’s called unsustainable.
And, no, trade doesn’t fix that. Take Egypt for example. IIRC, it can presently feed 60% of its population from it’s own farms. The rest is a result of import paid for by the export of their oil. Egypt’s oils has Peaked. This means that in a few years, at most, Egypt is going to be in famine and there’s nothing that they can do about it through trade because have pretty much nothing else to export.
Jeez, if only they had some local attractions or a global trade route to leverage ff. Then they might get someone to stump up several billion for a nuclear power plant to offset that emerging energy deficit. As it is, poor Egypt: Land of the Pharked.
It’s not that they have an energy deficit – it’s that they have a resource deficit because they’ve exported all the oil.
Does the Suez Canal and tourism bring in enough to cover the loss of oil exports?
Gross, or compared to their oil imports?
And might Suez be why the Russians are putting $25bill towards a nuke plant?
More specifically, does it provide enough to allow the importation of enough food for 40%+ of their population?
A nuke plant isn’t going to feed them.
Neither is oil.
But energy is a resource, too.
Oh, and they have shedloads of sunshine.
So if they export that energy, or use it to attract energy-intensive industries, they can use the revenue to buy food from countries that have lots of arable land and make lots of food, but possibly want things those industries produces.
And thus we’ve invented global trade.
Sheez, it’s way too early for bickering children.
In keeping with the topic, how many of you use kiwi owned banks for either your home or business?
It’s very very easy to change banks, I highly recommend it.
We had a mortgage with Westpac. Not our choice, but Westpac swallowed up Trustbank who we were originally with. Weren’t happy, but what can you do. The interest rate wasn’t too bad so we stayed, vowing to change when the mortgage went. Remember how they called themselves WestpacTrust . . . for while . . . just to look good! Anyway, when we got some money, discharged the mortgage and were looking for where to invest, Westpac had the best interest rate. So to get something back out of them we put our money there. We are looking to change banks when the investment matures. Our best options look to be Kiwibank or TSB. I hate the fact that WPC is an Ozzie bank with profits going overseas, however we want the best return for money. Quandary. Hate them but want the most out of our money.
If they are making super profits then that must mean Kiwibank is as well. In which case why doesn’t the government just instruct Kiwibank to hoover up all the customers in NZ by undercutting the other majors?
IF you want an answer to your question about kiwibank’s position in the he market, Sam Stubbs was interviewed on RNZ yesterday.
I heard him mention how they were loaded with post shop assets and an obligation to provide relevant sservices…
There was another issue that I didn’t totally grasp but my attention was divided. Ahh, it was undercapitalised.
Both were dampeners on growth.
Each staff member generated approximately$220,000 profit. Profit!
Surely it makes sense to you to have the many billions of dollars profit stay in Aotearoa.
It can only be an ideologue mindset that makes you see otherwise.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018669198
Warning contains talking by Jim Mora and Peter dunne.
Kiwibank is undercapitalised and can’t take advantage of the market. Hmmm… whose fault is that again? I’ll give you a clue, it is the owner of the Bank.
Doogs, what you said about westpac adding the word trust for a while, made me smile, marketing for sure.
Building Societies are awesome, our local Nelson Building Society (NBS) contributes so much to the community.
For example if one is looking for fundraising for a community event and asks around the banks for support, all the big banks will say no, but not the NBS, they often support community events and needs.
Personally I use kiwibank, they’ve been great.
I use a New Zealand bank.
which one?
His mattress
Part of the problem is that it seems, in conversations I’ve had with people, that many have no idea who owns the banks and react with astonishment to discover that banks called Auckland Savings Bank and Bank of New Zealand don’t belong to us!
Precisely why CBA and NAB respectively retained those brands… both very strong in NZ.
100% of my personal and business banking is with a 100% NZ-owned bank. Made the switch when I became aware of how much profit Australian banks were extracting from NZ.
That said, it was easy to do as my business banking needs are largely transactional. If you’re a business that requires significant bank lending, you are stuck with the Aussie-owned banks.
To Cinny at 2.1.4 : To change to kiwi -owned banks IS certainly the glaringly obvious solution, and has been for considerable time….confounds me why they are not totally utilised by New Zealanders. I have aways had the best help one could wish.
Totally agree with you Heather.
Recently the ANZ in Motueka closed it’s doors, some friends who bank with them were complaining, but yet they still didn’t move to either Kiwibank or the NBS.
I think it’s one of those things that people place in the ‘too hard basket’, then when they finally get round to changing banks, say things like, gosh that was easy I should have done it a long time ago.
Went with Kiwibank a few years ago, and refinanced the mortgage last year with them again. We haven’t regretted it. The lack of ability to just rock on up to the bank to discuss things is mitigated by online support and us planning a bit better.
I don’t mind using Australian banks. Equally happy for an Australian to have my dosh as a Kiwi. We’re all Australasians together.
A.
Stalking Ed again James?
Yoo James …. Do you think ANZ appointed Key as a director because they wanted someone who would keep quiet and not dig up or into all the corruption they are involved with …. http://www.sarawakreport.org/2018/03/the-banking-spin-starts-commentary/
“The Panama Papers: ANZ was the leading Australian bank in Mossack’s universe”
” ANZ appears in 7548 of the Mossack documents, reflecting the bank’s extensive work in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Samoa and Jersey. ”
Crooked hires Bent to be blind.
Don’t bother nationalising them – just out-compete them to the point that they go bankrupt.
1. 0% interest on mortgages
2. 0% interest business loans
3. Ban the private banks from creating money in any way, shape or form.
Result – private banks will collapse pretty much immediately and only Kiwibank will be left standing.
Good, Draco..
Much better than the conversation a few days back which you didn’t substantiate…
Which conversation was that?
Absolutely
If you think they are not providing a suitable service that people are willing to pay for why isn’t Kiwibank doing better then? It is a completely State controlled Bank.
@Gosman, Kiwibank would do better if it was more a full service bank. Also banking has also come down to relationships and history, so that there are big incentives to stick with the same bank as people’s situation gets more insecure with work.
Aka in NZ massive amount of people now are on contract, gig work or self employed. The history of that becomes a key, in a banking arrangement. Nobody wants to shift all their business, then find out, they have a bad month or months and have the bank breathing down their necks.
So there are many reasons that people stay with their bank. Satisfaction and best deals are not the only factors when you get into the NZ situation of significant proportions of the population are in insecure work and therefore take strategic positions on banking and insurance.
The amount of banking, financial institutions and insurance that has gone out of business also makes people cautious in NZ about new banks and services in that sector.
They are profiting not because they are great banks but because NZ has embraced everything to do with neoliberalism and that is all about profits for the most dominant, which are banks here. And our government does not believe in any sort of financial regulation even bank deposits are not guaranteed nor Kiwisaver.
What do you mean “Full service bank”?
How is Kiwibank not a “Full service bank”?
Not sure if Kiwibank have evolved since I thought about joining them, but standing in a queue at the post office stating your business rather than a private office at a bank or getting a mobile person around takes time with Kiwibank and much longer than if you have an existing relationship with a bank and assigned a personal banker.
Had a friend who was a school principal in a small town, so a bit weird that she was queuing up and stating all the business of the school, while the rest of the community could over hear.
Stuff like that, makes Kiwibank less. a fit for complicated, private and urgent types of banking.
Also anything to do with property in Auckland generally require quick and flexible banking decisions as the market is fast and auction driven. Took me so long to buy a house in Auckland that my 6 months of pre application had expired and then you need to get it back quickly if you see a house to bid on. Therefore you don’t want a new bank that might be slower to make decisions on anything.
So maybe Kiwibank and the co operatives can get more market share if they step up for more complicated, faster decision making banking, with more customer service and privacy for customers and a long term relationship approach with customers.
The offshore banks level of customer service has defiantly got a lot worse over the years, so if NZ banks stepped up, they could win more business.
Of course Kiwibank has interview rooms. Sounds like you are full of shit giving excuses rather than putting your money where your mouth is.
I’ve been a Kiwibank customer since it was founded.
Yes, Kiwibank had private rooms since the day they opened for business. They also have some branches dedicated to business customers.
No idea what they are like with mortgages or why they would be different than the Aussie-owned banks.
Just telling you what people have told me Solka and my own experiences trying to change to Kiwibank a few years ago, maybe you don’t have a business or run an organisation, or have complicated banking, or what ever.
Judging by your stalking of people and the Green Party I’d say you are a unique individual that would probably need a private room in any instance and Kiwibank staff probably usher you straight to one so people don’t overhear your language and tone so you may have never experienced the problems that polite less demanding people might be experiencing.
Face it, you are full of shit. Best to have a think before using the word “hypocrite” again.
Is your accusations of ‘shit’, how you manage the private room, Solka?
Face it, you are full of shit.
Actually, when I made the appointment to see the mortgage person a few years ago we had the option of my place or one of their branches. Small meeting room, 4 chairs, one table, her laptop. Easy as. That was kiwibank.
Shopping around, ANZ went with the open plan, wide spaces between desks idea. Probably had private rooms for people who didn’t need mortgages, though 🙂
to solkta at22.1.1.1: Yes, of course Kiwibank has private rooms and specialists in banking also, friendly at all times. I think some here trying hand at fake news.
Yes, the staff at the local one always seem like they are happy to be there and to help.
My Kiwibank, in Hastings, is a mess. The Carpets are permanently stained, the counter is so banged around it looks like an old pub first thing in the morning, the note counting machine is so temperamental its a running joke, and the manager insists on interviewing people at a table right next to the queue. Its awkward to put it mildly.
if I didn’t know(hope?) better I would think they were purposefully running it into the ground.
+1 Siobhan- Kiwibank needs to look at the details. If a bank looked like you suggest and treated you like that, would you seriously consider it?
A little bird suggests, if you start calling everyone a piece of shit, you might get that private room that a certain poster seems convinced is always offered.
Of course it also might effect that application or have you escorted out too:)
Seriously NZ banks should have an online complaints page for example or even suggestions page at the banks, they might learn a bit more than hiring a marketing firm from Auckland or Wellington who never leave the central suburbs and think they are doing a stellar job at marketing and people are too lazy to change.
There are obstacles to changing and issues with the service levels and criteria levels and types of banking that the NZ banking sectors offers!
Wellsford,s the same Siobhan run by a couple of asian ladies theres often queues and you stand there looking at their static displays of stuff they,d like to sell and cant help thinking “what a load of crap “Heres a relatively large commercial space which presumably the proprietors are renting along with the actual agency but it seems all so halfhearted !?.Why ?Why isnt kiwibank being rolled out in all little towns and villages in nz taking over where the post office used to trade …….buggered if i know ….seems like theres plenty of scope there but not much direction ….or something ….whats holding them back ???
It has very much evolved since then. If you go to most Post shops they have a separate desk and private rooms for Kiwibank customers. I ask again, why isn’t Kiwibank a “Full service Bank”?
@ Gosman, your word ‘most’ is obviously significant. Also more service level might be a recent thing, that people who previously tried to join Kiwibank did not have, at the time. People try to change once, if they don’t have the best experience they may not try again.
P.s. I did not have a bad experience with Kiwibank but it did not work out because I take wholistic approach with banking and even a small house in Aukcland now may require significant amount of debt which you now split loans for and then you have to make sure they all expire at the same time, and then hope that interest rates don’t go up while you are waiting. It’s not that easy to change if you have decent sized loans for business or housing.
I personally hate ANZ and would never bank with them after having a bad experience with them years ago. Also having John Key on the board would put me off. So I would never bank with them.
But they do things like monitor companies house so if you set up a business, voila , you get a friendly letter straight away with free bank fees for your business for 3 years.
That is how they make the money, they are proactive, reel you in, then screw you over with extreme profiteering when they have you tied up.
That’s banking in NZ and the government needs to set higher standards.
And Kiwi bank (or anyone else) never sends a nice letter when they could easily target new businesses like ANZ do.
Kiwibank and other NZ banks needs to understand customers positions and concerns better.
The person who posted about the rural ANZ bank closing but still people don’t change, clearly don’t understand how difficult it is to make money in the rural sector and get loans. It is not easy to change banks in those sectors at all.
Many NZ banks only specialise in retail banking, and have very high, unwieldy criteria for farms and business. NZ banks and regulators don’t seem up to speed or understand that the big OZ banks have those customers screwed over in debt and tied up with few alternatives.
I can’t remember exactly, but somebody posted and I think most of Fletchers? losses, were due to ANZ bank fine print on some refinancing terms of loans they took out.
That’s how those banks get the massive profits.
As for our constant messages on how easy it is to change banks, electrical or telecom companies. Nope… it ain’t… in real terms it often costs you a bundle of time, non productivity, failed services and extra charges. And our regulators do nothing to stop this type of practise of third party fuck ups.
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=113352
Kiwibank isn’t a state controlled bank and it operates the same way all the other banks do and is artificially constrained so as not to be able to out compete the private banks which it could easily do if the government got in and supported it properly.
The foreign banks treat NZ like the cash cow run from OZ. They are mostly responsible for our 2nd biggest exports out of NZ being profits.
Yep while our government screws up with another bad trade deal of TPPA or what ever they fuck they rebranded it to, (which even the most neoliberal Parker can not describe as a good deal (was it a 7 out of 10 he gave it?). The government also fail to do anything about about banks and the NZ entire economy is always around giving banks more profits aka corporate welfare to construction, more immigration, more immigration to small businesses like petrol attendants and cafe owners (who then support higher rents and prices on commercial property and residential) selling off land assets, privatisation, oil and gas, exports of water…
BTW, the PPP model (also rebranded constantly as an acronym) gives the most profits to banks and the financial sector. https://image.guim.co.uk/sys-files/Society/documents/2004/11/24/PFI.pdf
“our research suggests that PFI may lead to a loss of benefits in kind and a redistribution of income, from the public to the corporate sector. It has boosted the construction industry, many of whose PFI subsidiaries are now the most profitable parts of their enterprises, and led to a significant expansion of the facilities management sector. But the main beneficiaries are likely to be the financial institutions whose loans are effectively underwritten by the taxpayers, as evidenced by the renegotiation of the Royal Armouries PFI (NAO 2001a).”
The public should also ask themselves why the tax working group never recommended financial transaction taxes to tax outward and inward money flows.
In short government wants to continue to transfer profits from the people and assets of NZ to the construction, financial and banking sectors, and are not going to tax the banks and financial industries appropriately for their extreme profits . Nor regulate appropriately to the construction sector or banking to stem the rot right through those sectors.
The NZ banking sector is incredibly competitive including a State controlled Bank. If the banks are making super profits why isn’t the government instructing Kiwibank to undercut them and take a bigger share of the market?
Quite. KB could become our main bank if the political will exists which it doesn’t currently.
But the potential is there thanks to Jim Anderton, Rest In Peace Jim.
Why do you think the political will doesn’t exist?
You claim to understand the world of financials , gosman…
So you should understand why the political will doesn’t exist…
I’d like to hear your version…
Go for it….
Because the issue with Kiwibank is much more than just a lack of political will. The organisation needs HUGE injection of capital if it has any hope of competing for major work such as being the Government’s banker.
Draco’s solutions would work.
That’s about your level of understanding, Gosman….
So how does that feed into the ‘lack of political will’ , IYO ?
Would love to see government use kiwibank instead of an overseas bank for all their transactions.
Jim Anderton, Grandma rated him very highly, he was one of the good guys.
The dogma is that a large bank that makes huge profits every year is a good safe bank (and safe bet for shareholders). I say dogma, but it is really a myth, as we know too well.
It also is ironic that the bank’s customers contribute a large part to the overall profits.
So, it’s a catch-22 for the people: lower the profits and customers will go elsewhere and the bank goes bust or fleece the customers to increase profit margins and they will flock to your bank and thus increase the ‘financial health’ of the bank.
To a point, this would work well if not for greed and bad business decisions on behalf of the banks (cue: GFC).
There is no evidence for that claim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporate_collapses_and_scandals
Of the ~52 corporates in the “List of a few major corporate collapses”, only a third are/were banking businesses.
Banks feature at the top of the “List of scandals without insolvency” (probably needs regular updating):
There has been plenty of frauds in NZ… so clearly no racial bias here..
Verdict on $9.2 million mortgage fraud
http://www.indiannewslink.co.nz/verdict-on-9-2-million-mortgage-fraud/
Husband and wife named in $50m mortgage fraud case
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11886925
Immigration NZ uncovers “significant, organised” agent fraud in India
https://thepienews.com/news/immigration-nz-uncovers-significant-organised-agent-fraud-in-india/
Ummm… what is this in response to? It certainly does not answer my question about Incognito’s claims.
Which claim?
This one
“So, it’s a catch-22 for the people: lower the profits and customers will go elsewhere and the bank goes bust or fleece the customers to increase profit margins and they will flock to your bank and thus increase the ‘financial health’ of the bank.”
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence of corruption and rampant profiteering in the banking ‘industry’.
Hypothesis 1. A bank’s profitability will be a contributing factor in determining that bank’s ‘ratings agency grade’ (AAA, AA, A, BBB etc.)
Hypothesis 2. The grades that ratings agencies give banks, and individual bank products/offers/bonds, are factors affecting the (bank/product) choice of some potential customers.
These hypotheses may be false; falsifying evidence (a link or two will do) welcome.
Gosman (>140 of comments on The Standard in the last week; 70 (!) on the “National badly wants Kiwibuild to crash” post alone) often asks for evidence, and seems to have a significant aversion to using Google’s search engine – not a single link or quote in those 70 comments.
Look up burden of proof and get back to me when you understand it.
BTW what was those two hypothesis you posted about? They had nothing to do with the claim i was questioning.
You claim that “They [the two hypotheses] had nothing to do with the claim i [sic] was questioning.”
If you genuinely don’t understand how these hypotheses relate to the claim you quoted/questioned, then I don’t have the means to help you in this forum.
“The burden of proof (philosophy)”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)
Application> In public discourse>
“Burden of proof is also an important concept in the public arena of ideas. Once participants in discourse establish common assumptions, the mechanism of burden of proof helps to ensure that all parties contribute productively, using relevant arguments.”
Regrettably, the largest political party in parliament has (temporarily) lost its footing and is unable to contribute productively at present.
In your opinion. Given your opinion is quite obviously biased against said political party I don’t think it holds much weight in determining what is or isn’t productive discourse.
I have made no claims regarding my (or your) political bias, or lack thereof, in this particular exchange – such claims are largely unnecessary in this forum (IMO).
Certainly one assumption we can agree on is that we are (both) expressing our opinions.
In my opinion, this recent statement (among others), made by a former 7th-ranked opposition National party MP, has caused said party to (temporarily) lose its footing.
IMO this is a revealing quote, and I thank you Gosman for the opportunity to trot it out again (hopefully not for the last time). The opposition National party really is looking a bit wobbly at the moment (IMO), and will likely recover somewhat (again, IMO) ‘going forward’.
Gosman’s Law: as a discussion thread on TS grows longer, the probability of Gosman deliberately misunderstanding or twisting a comment and then asking for evidence approaches one.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2013/12/10/big-banks-versus-small-banks-size-doesnt-matter/#4fdb55bd1367
For those following the Khashoggi murder….
Keep an eye on what’s happening within the Saudi royal family, uncle has returned after a long absence.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/king-salman-brother-returns-riyadh-khashoggi-crisis-181031094006547.html
One thing I’m curious about is that the 18 apparently arrived on SK1 and SK2 sans baggage, yet I seem to remember seeing the contingent depart with baggage.
(From the images shown on TV in the early stages of it all).
Everything the Saudis have said turns out to be such obfuscation, spin and bullshit, they’d not be out of place as gNat MPs. The latest being that ‘Turkish collaborator’ that they’re so unwilling to identify.
Wonder what was in their luggage then? Didn’t know about that, will check it out, thanks for the info, there are so many dodgy aspects to it all.
The thing with the princes uncle returning is really interesting because he has been away for years, and has never supported the prince being in power.
And uncle does not support the princes ongoing war on Yemen.
I could be wrong @ Cinny though I do recall seeing some of them towing the standard type luggage on wheels. It may take a little more than going thru’ Aljazeera, CNN or BBC footage.
It’s a shame Susie Fergusson didn’t put the idea to Frank Gardiner this morning
Yes you are correct Tim,
They arrived with carry on luggage, then went and brought suitcases with wheels.
Apparently said suitcases were not checked before they went back to Saudi, and there are rumours that said suitcases contained body parts.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/kashoggi-latest-saudi-arabia-murder-turkey-remains-body-parts-consulate-istanbul-cctv-a8598796.html
Duty free, oncey.
Rachel Stewart explains why the election of Bolsonaro is terrible news for life on this planet.
“Bolsonaro has an environmental hit list that is bold and brash. Just when the world needs the “lungs” of the world more than ever, he is planning a paved highway to run right through the Amazon rainforest. And no more will a government commitment to preserving vast areas for indigenous people be tolerated. Bolsonaro has previously said that he will “not give the Indians another inch of land”.
He has also promised to scrap the country’s Environment Ministry altogether, putting it under the scope of the Agriculture Ministry, which is led by agribusiness. Which, to be fair, is only one step further than our own Environment Ministry overseeing regional councils who many — including me — consider to be the biggest enviro rapists on behalf of dairy farming in New Zealand. But, I digress.
……we need the two Americas to work hard on stopping runaway climate change like never before — one being the planet’s biggest emitter and the other holding the massive key to any chance of keeping climate change in check at 1.5C.
Because that’s the Amazon’s job. The rainforest absorbs approximately a quarter of the CO2 absorbed by all the land on earth. Every inch of deforestation matters. And what’s the motive for deforestation in Brazil? Cattle ranching. The billions of us have created a massive consumer demand for beef so that clearing land for cattle ranching is lucrative and with Bolsonaro in charge, now unstoppable.”
So what action can we do ?
Stop eating beef.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=12151404
“
Do “we” eat Brazilian beef?
(Snap, Chris!)
The average NZer is eating less red meat.
No.
We need to stop eating meat in the quantities we do.
Or the planet is doomed.
“The researchers found a global shift to a “flexitarian” diet was needed to keep climate change even under 2C, let alone 1.5C. This flexitarian diet means the average world citizen needs to eat 75% less beef, 90% less pork and half the number of eggs, while tripling consumption of beans and pulses and quadrupling nuts and seeds. This would halve emissions from livestock and better management of manure would enable further cuts.
In rich nations, the dietary changes required are ever more stark. UK and US citizens need to cut beef by 90% and milk by 60% while increasing beans and pulses between four and six times. However, the millions of people in poor nations who are undernourished need to eat a little more meat and dairy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown
Or the world could just have less kids
And less pets. Get rid of pets (especially cats and dogs) before we eat less red meat. Of course tree hugger veges tend to like hugging furry animals so I suspect they won’t want to do that. They are just happy to expect others to give up something.
How very alex jones of you.
fewer
This may be an unworthy thought – but I keep having it. Are those two mountain guides dead at least in part because the Morgan family has too much money and can indulge itself at will?
Since you asked, I think that is a tad harsh.
Yes – I guess you are right. Thanks.
Somehow it seemed doubly sad to me that people die doing something as ultimately pointless as indulging the whims of others.
Depends if they were taking undue risks I guess? Need someone with mountaineering knowledge to see if this was a typical hike, or a freak accident. Very sad nonetheless.
Our letter to Government today stating that our NZ Government must participate in this “first World Health air pollution conference this week in Geneva, in our interests to save our citizens health and wellbeing from health effects of all sources of air pollution.
Protecting our environment & health.
In association with other Community Groups, NHTCF and all Government Agencies since 2001.
• Health and wellbeing.
• East Coast Transport Project.
TO;
Hon Phil Twyford – Minister of Transport.
Hon’ Jacinda Ardern PM.
Hon Winston Peters. Deputy PM.
Hon’ Shane Jones. Minister of Regional Development.
Hon’ Grant Robertson. Minister of Finance.
Hon’ Stuart Nash. MP For Napier Wairoa/ Matawai regions.
Hon’ Megan Woods. Minister of Energy.
URGENT PRESS RELEASE; – ACTION NEEDED HERE BY – Transport Minister Twyford.
1st November 2018.
Dear Ministers, Local civic authorities & rail stakeholders,
Subject; http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/ First WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health, 30 October – 1 November 2018
What a “breath of fresh air WHO are as they finally take air pollution seriously” Bravo to World Health Organisation, (WHO).
WHO are also are focusing on the urban residents who are also health effected by “toxic heavy road traffic air pollution” too.
WHO are claiming that even schools and busy traffic routes be redesigned away from schools and suburban areas also.
We have written to you all multiple times since becoming our new Government requesting to restore our railway to Gisborne that was damaged after a storm in March 2012; – and caused by a lack of rail funding maintenance in 2011 on after funding was cut by Minister of transport Steven Joyce; – http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1302/S00183/kiwirail-admits-lack-of-maintenance-led-to-wash-out.htm
Rail services restoration will make a dramatic reduction of ‘road based freight’ now ruining our residential areas and the health of our urban communities.
Now World Health Organisation (WHO) are holding a ‘first’ conference over several days in Geneva on ‘urban air quality health effects to humans finally so we need to observe and act in our residential communities best interests for their health and wellbeing, and we advocate all rail services be restored to our cities around NZ and truck routes be realigned away from our current locations wrongly placed close to residential areas such as Napier’s controversial ‘HB Expressway’ which was originally designated as a “commuter road for Hastings residents to get to the new Napier Airport in 1963”.
Sadly the residents living alongside this road were not considered as to the effects to their health and wellbeing, but this road was pushed as a solution to become the principal truck freight route through Napier to the Port and the rest of NZ, without any resulting noise effects or air pollution mitigation was ever planned to be given the affected residents in the final stages of the HB Expressway’s development.
Gisborne has the same issues of loss of rail and using heavy truck fleets to run right through Gisborne city to the Eastland port and destroying the health and wellbeing of its residents too.
What a “breath of fresh air WHO are as they finally take air pollution seriously” Bravo to World Health Organisation, (WHO).
WHO are also are focusing on the urban residents who are also health effected by “toxic heavy road traffic air pollution” too.
WHO are claiming that even schools and busy traffic routes be redesigned away from schools and suburban areas also.
http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/
First WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health, 30 October – 1 November 2018
Improving air quality, combating climate change – saving lives
A schoolboy walks through smoke and fumes emitted from a waste dump in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt
Air Pollution is “the ‘new tobacco…” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director general
If you received an invitation to attend the conference and have not yet registered using the INDICO web portal, then please do so before as soon as possible. The link to the INDICO registration web portal can be found in the invitation email message.
The first two days of the conference will present evidence, identify gaps and solutions, and will be targeted at practitioners and other technical and political representatives from the health sector and other sectors relevant to the discourse. The third day will be a High-Level Action Day.
Conference provisional programme – updated 28 October
pdf, 799kb
Live webcast (active from 30 October 2018)
Conference overview agenda
pdf, 205kb
Your response to our call is requested please email
@cleangreen, the NZ taxpayers are subsidising public organisations that subcontract to corporates that do things such as change from trolley buses to diesel and increasing emissions to the public for the next 10 years…http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=113048
While in Auckland our taxes are there to escalate and provide for more polluting cruise ships, some of which apparently can release more emissions than 1million cars in emissions in one day.
So as yet, NZ, not interested in worrying about air pollution. Apart from ways to tax end consumers of course and get that little extra tax in the pocket while pretending it was all to save the planet.
The government and council treatment of corporate polluters and policy around that shows that air pollution is just not on the agenda and that the RMA is woefully inadequate to provide quality decisions, long term risk assessments, regulation , enforcement or penalty around environmental damage in this country.
This type of hypocrisy really does my head in…..
Re the war in Yemen….
US defence chief demands Yemen ceasefire; peace talks in 30 days
‘James Mattis says the US has watched the bloody conflict ‘long enough’ and he wants ‘dropping of bombs’ to stop.’
Meanwhile trump continues to sell weapons to the saudis so they can keep bombing Yemen.
WTF?
This type of hypocrisy really does my head in.
http://auckland.scoop.co.nz/2018/10/privatisation-of-public-land-a-broken-promise-by-government/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/108240059/Housing-New-Zealand-selling-super-block-of-Crown-land-in-Jacinda-Arderns-Mt-Albert-electorate
@BM shocking the government are selling off more state land and NZ assets. Of course that does not excuse the Natz who demolished the state houses on it in 2015. The people of NZ are punched from the left and punched from the right. They seem to share the same neoliberal Thatcher driven sell off state housing and land, policies on housing.
This government is Clarks 4th term.
That was Ponyboy wasn’t it BMmer.
The difference is the current government is naively and lazily benefiting neoliberal policy while the Natz engineered it further, post Clark.
Interesting conflation you have made there. I mean, I am sure your not deliberately diminishing the thousands who are being killed in Yemen by comparing it to local beltway politics. It sure does look that way though.
Did that action cause mass murder, genocide or starvation BM?
So, the story is that a block of land in Auckland had a series of State houses demolished in 2015 and part of that land is being developed with new state houses. Another portion is to be sold.
I quote the purpose as stated by the manager of the project from the the third of BM’s reference.
“Housing New Zealand asset development general manager Patrick Dougherty said the development was not part of the KiwiBuild programme but part of the Auckland Housing Programme (AHP).
The AHP started in June 2016 and will deliver 5200 new state homes and about 12,800 new affordable and market homes over 10 years.
The sale of the 20 market sites would enable Housing New Zealand to build more state houses in other high demand parts of Auckland, he said.”
Two things. First, the money goes towards providing more housing. It is after all houses that are required, not land.
Secondly, since it is a stated intention by the Minister that the types of housing should be indistinguishable from the outside, it makes sense to me that the housing provided be of a ‘mixed’ style to avoid the stigmatisation of being a State House tenant. The former ‘pepperpot’ strategy of earlier decades was also expected to help the problem of stigmatising and slums.
Well do I remember my school days of the Sixties when over the northern fence was “The Settlement”.
Aka Labour are selling off state land.
But they could be developing all the land itself and then using the state controlled rents to keep rents down while paying off the debt over time.
As in the UK examples, selling state housing and land to the private sector does not work, because the rising population demands more cheap rents and social housing to keep up with the population growth, and then the state rents start to rise because the state has less housing to work with to keep afloat and has to pay more to the private sector to rent the houses that they previously owned.
The Mt Albert decision was made by the previous National government. It was subject to considerable public consultation at the time. The number of HNZ dwellings is about the same, and the extra land sales will fund further HNZ properties. HNZ could not get the density they needed with the zoning in Mt Albert.
Patients are still begging for Ministry of Health funding for high dose vitamin C infusions.
Absolutely no doubt that vitamin C at the very least improves the quality of life for many cancer patients and research indicates that it can accentuate radiotherapy efficacy…so why not fund the stuff?
Its not as if its expensive or demands superskills to administer.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/northland/108205433/cancer-patients-call-for-vitamin-c-infusion-to-be-affordable
Or, could it be that our Beloved Misery is waiting for some enterprising start up to get their shit together and qualify for a license to profit….https://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=12152055
SSDD
And what is the evidence that you have no doubt about…?
https://www.otago.ac.nz/christchurch/research/vitamin-c/studies/
Plus….personal accounts from ordinary people who feel vitamin C (and other less mainstream medicinals) have improved their quality of life.
But of course those people don’t count….do they?
I had a quick look at the link provided and could not find a single RCT amongst the citations. One report involved a single patient. Most were reports that concluded bycalling for more clinical studies. “Personal accounts ” represent evidence of the very weakest kind.
One would need to do far better than this to gain public funding. Did you even read the reports that were linked?
“One would need to do far better than this to gain public funding.”
You jest? Surely?
Not at all, why would I be jesting?
I am wondering if you think it would be acceptable for health treatments that are not supported by any RCTs , but by ” personal accounts”, should be publicly funded ?
Have you heard of the placebo effect?
“I am wondering if you think it would be acceptable for health treatments that are not supported by any RCTs , but by ” personal accounts”, should be publicly funded ? ”
Hmmm…a conundrum indeed.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/105257599/cannabis-shows-no-benefit-for-chronic-pain-major-study-finds
yet…
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/regulation-health-and-disability-system/medicines-control/medicinal-cannabis/prescribing-cannabis-based-products
Science…eh?
Vitamin C was my secret ingredient for recovery from strength training, and especially after a real workout like we good for nothin’ poor folks are wont to do e.g. 12 hours loading trucks*…
I digress.
If you work/train like a lunatic, try Vitamin C straight after. Faster recovery. It’s good stuff.
*I so want to see the working class collectively go on strike. Haha the world stops, the lights go out. Watch the deluded rich tossers ‘run the place’ then.
@ WeTheBleeple (9.1.1.2) … what form of Vitamin C is best? Food … eg fruit, vegs, or liquid, tablet or powder?
Agree with the rest of your comments there comrade 🙂
Also high dose vit c three times a day at the first sign of a head cold.
Lessens the severity of the event and usually shortens it.
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/patient/vitamin-c-pdq
It was a mere nine years ago this day that I wrote my first post for the Standard. It contains one of the most polarising, but accurate lines I have ever written:
“To put it simply, you cannot be a socialist, a greenie or any kind of progressive and eat meat.”
Cheers to every Standarnista who skips the roast flesh today and big ups to Ed and others who occupy the moral high ground every day.
Oh, and then there’s this, which I’ll dedicate to first bloke Clarke Gayford, NZ’s most prominent fish torturer:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/30/are-we-wrong-to-assume-fish-cant-feel-pain
Better living, everyone!
Good to see you care about animals. So what’s your take on governments hounding, terrorizing and imprisoning journalists?
Like you, Moz, I’m all in favour. In my opinion, the best way to terrorize journalists is to write pointless and inaccurate transcripts of their shows and post them on the interwebs. That’ll show ’em.
Not a serious answer. No surprises there.
I note that you are overflowing in your praise of my transcripts and critiques whenever they align with your own thoughts.
By no conscious decision other than living with a vegetarian I have nearly weaned myself off this year.
Also getting rid of milk has helped get back to the weight I was at 30.
so true, what part of meat is to like really?
Animal cruelty towards sentient beings, slaughter, worker exploitation, gross desensitising conditions for meatworkers, life long health issues, inefficient land use and other negative environmental and climate effects…
…which for more and more people trump the fleeting pleasure some get from deadly chemical saturated processed meats, and charred slabs of “bogus bovis” beef which supermarkets are virtually giving away at the moment
forsaking meat–you and the planet are worth it!
Good one. And I sorta agree but after 38 years yege I’ve got a bit more bias and a bit less judgment.
Looking on that post I found this quote from me
“Time to walk the green walk not just talk the green talk.”
And today I wrote on the conference post
“Time to get serious labour – walk the walk not just talk about it please.”
Some things don’t change much…
Thank you.
It was an epiphany for me the day I discovered the amorality of eating animals.
Like Ad, stopping eating meat and dairy sawxme shed the kilos.
So it’s a decision for the sake of animals, for the sake of the environment and, as a side benefit, it’s good for your health !
“A self-administration of a death, which we’re calling ‘assisted dying.'”
RNZ National, Thursday 1 November 2018, 9:10 a.m.
This morning Kathryn Ryan employed her most serious, slow talking register, clearly enunciating every word to show how serious she is. One question she never asked was: Who’s going to “administer” this killing of the old and disabled and sick? The army? Will they bring back the institution of executioner?
Interesting question. I am sure they could get soldiers to do it. Perhaps just line them up and use them during weapons qualifying. Or… I know this is crazy but hear me out … it could be done by a doctor who is familiar with the patient and is aware of their needs.
Yes that doctor would possibly be aware of the financial needs (and greed) of the family of the ‘patient’, ‘client’, ‘victim’…
done by a doctor…
?????
Doctors can’t kill their patients.
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html
I didn’t realise Dr’s were still making the oath to Greek gods.
There is a modern version https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/hippocratic-oath-today/.
I note from the article only 14% of modern oaths prevent Euthanasia. The argument could be made that by swearing to do no harm a Dr would be required to meet a patients wishes to end suffering.
I agree there are concerns around introduction of Euthanasia. The risk for abuse may mean that it really can’t be viably legalised. I of course wouldn’t make some ridiculous argument about having to get the military or executioners to carry out suicide assistance. Feel free to make a reasoned argument against though. I am always keen to learn.
Full kudos to Iain Lees-Gallaway for recognising and openly stating, that he may have made an unsound decision over the Czech guy and is now proceeding to put it right.
As opposed to the b.s. and bluster we’re hearing from Slimon Bridges.
Why was a criminal drug dealer currently in prison even considered eligible for permanent residency?
There’s something super smelly about this.
Who knew Woodlouse and Lazy Galloway share a love of the noble art of kickboxdrugdealing BMmer?
They need to deport the drug lord asap. Also begs the question why the government granted the drug lord residency in NZ, when he had previously taken trips back to the EU?
Will anybody be held to account, aka the person that compelled the report aka probably his lawyer missing out the pertinent facts??? Also the naivety of our government that falls for a sob story from known liars every time… while being hard of heart to their own people in tents or working 3 jobs to keep these drug lords in prison and the results of their crimes…
Weak. Stone him he is filth. Stone the filthy drug dealing out of him. Stone the drug lord but only after I’ve had a beer and some chaser preloads cos I throw straighter after a few – just ask my pets he he ha ha burp.
//sarc
Weird, you are the only ones talking about stoning him. The Druglord can have lovely life back in the EU and NZ are well rid of him and hopefully the government can make sure he doesn’t come back under another false passport.
Also he is just as likely, if not more, to be in danger from his drug mates in NZ for narking,( if that is how he managed to help grease his residency application here). Win win to get rid of him where he can be anonymous in the EU unlike in NZ where he is now very well known.
you are the only ones talking about stoning him.
Do you think Marty has a dissociative personality disorder?
Nope, do you? Save us from pop psychologists or people who have attended too much therapy and therefore feel the need to throw conditions around as insults instead of taking mental health seriously.
I was not insulting Marty or suggesting he had such a condition or making any judgement on those who do but rather making a statement about your incoherent language. Thought that would have been obvious.
I got it.
I’m using humour to show the frothy nature of your responses. The stoners are more stoned than the stonee being stoned for being stoned.
“narking,( if that is how he managed to help grease his residency application here)”
Could be.
Lol
That is impressive
Try to down play a complete balls up by Labour. While also making a dismal attempt to divert from the topic and criticise the opposition
When did the offending occur christy? When did he fly home for a visit?
Slick Bodges is outraged at discovering the turd he deposited on the doorstep. Why hasn’t that been cleared up? It’s outrageous.
It’s almost like officials didn’t give Ian all the info at the time.
Something feels off about this whole situation, feels like a set up by the nats.
Why are the nats targeting this particular individual/case/situation?
Especially after we discover the nat’s were happy to let some sex offenders stay in the country when they were in power.
Yep, apparently Eugenie Sage, didn’t feel there was any options apart from grant the Chinese the offshore water permits…. then looked like a hypocrite and fool and untrustworthy for doing so. I’m not sure how Ian made such a botch up on the drug lord residency, but labour campaigned on cleaning up immigration only to be caught granting it to a convicted criminal drug lord who enjoys trips back to his mates in the EU ???
The message to politicians seems to be to WAKE up and do a bit of research themselves and stick to their guns, rather that look like untrustworthy hypocritical fools and rely on reports and advice that are not fit for purpose.
You have an error in your first sentence. It should read:
“To fools she looked like a hypocrite.”
@Solka, Greens campaign on not selling off overseas water rights then one of their MP’s signs off water rights once getting elected. I think you are the fool for not understanding what hypocrite means.
The Greens also campaigned and stand for good process. Changing laws under urgency is bad practice that the Greens were very vocal criticising National for. Passing retrospective legislation is extremely bad practice and contrary to the principles of natural justice.
They also need to work with their partners and at a pace that allows for competing legislative priorities.
AND, Eugenie did not take this action as a Green MP but as a Crown Minister who is obliged to follow the law.
As usual you just prattle on with your own bigoted view of things totally impervious to the actual details of the matter.
It is not the law to approve the application that is why it went to her. She approved it instead of stopping it. Its very simple.
Also after 1 year in office, where is the new laws on stopping practice, from the Greens?
The Minister’s job is to make the final decision based on the law. It really is that simple.
It’s not the law. It was her subjective position that got the consent through.
The whole point is that the Minister is supposed to be objective based on the law. The law as it stands does not allow for a subjective judgement.
subjective
adjective
1Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
‘his views are highly subjective’
Contrasted with objective
You’re the fool who doesn’t understand how the rule of law works.
I’m with solkta and well expressed that … solkta!
Really, SaveNZ? Eugenie, selling out at the first opportunity?
Hardly. Have you met the woman? Not a sell-out, by any stretch of (your) imagination.
I wonder if the official who didn’t disclose all the info, disclosed that fact to a slick bodger mate.
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about
What turd?
https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/l/f/i/z/s/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620×349.1lfi0o.png/1504501119377.jpg
Nats have played one of their get-out-of-jail-free cards.
First, they must pass “Go” and pay their street repairs bill.. There is also a small matter of the sale of the railway stations and the electric utilities!
Mrs Mac1 told me that Guyon Espiner on RNZ this morning really put Simon Bridges and his bluster firmly in place.
Along the lines of
Espiner-“Well, in your time in office you didn’t deport the man.”
Bridges- “Well, the Minister acted on the advice given.”
Espiner- “Well, what’s different, now?”
And the bit I heard at the end- again well-paraphrased.
Espiner-“You want the Minister to resign. Will Mr Woodhouse resign?”
Bridges- “But he’s not the Minister.”
Espiner-“Will he resign as the shadow Minister?”
Bridges-“Rant rant rant”
Bridges never ‘heard’ the Espiner call for Woodhouse’s resignation even though he made it twice.
Chris T, a dismal attempt to attack the government and divert criticism of his own time in power, in all its lacking.
Lets face it, the Natz helped with policy decisions to keep the drugs moving into NZ, created one of the highest immigration in the world for nearly a decade of low skilled people coming here to work in supermarkets, and bakeries and then created committees to put forward policy to evict tenants on Meth tests, and create the shock doctrine housing crisis….
… meanwhile Labour and Greens were blind to it and campaigned on higher taxes, middle class rental standards for people who can’t even afford rental with the above climate created by the Natz, and legalising drugs (Greens)… then they wonder why people can’t choose who to vote for????
People with your view make this country unsafe imo. Drugs are rife idiot. At every sector and height in society. That is why it is a health issue imo. You’d chuck people in jail and that EXPANDS the drug relationships with criminals. Wake up like your name says.
Actually I’m suggesting deport the drug lord, not have our taxes and judicial system spending hundreds of thousands on his prison stay and sentencing, and any further ones, based on his current crime record, it’s not going to be the last time Kiwi tax payers will support his arse in prison where as you say, the prison system “EXPANDS the drug relationships with criminals”.
Now they have the benefit of EU drug lords helping the expansion, yippee!
Well now a gnat has rolled I’m sure he’ll be on the first flight out. You must be so proud that you’ve saved us all from a baddie.
It’d be a win for NZ
A.
That Espiner/Bridges interview is a Must Listen, IMO.
It is the hardest I have ever seen Espiner go on Bridges and raised some excellent questions and points that need to be followed up.
Here is the link.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018669287/czech-criminal-s-case-did-not-come-before-national-minister-bridges
Am just listening to the midday news, and there is a lot still to go on this issue.
Question Time today has only one question on it from Woodhouse to Lees-Galloway. There are no questions from Bridges or Bennett to the PM or Deputy PM so it is probable that neither Bridges or Bennett will be in the House.
Thanks for the link, veutoviper. I’ll hear how close my paraphrased versions actually were………
Heh, Bridges might have thrown Woodhouse under a bus there. Jeez Guyon, that was bloody good.
Please can Bridges remain as National Party leader.
Yes mac1. I heard Bridges stammer and dodge. He had the gall to say, ” The Minister cannot become a detective and go out and detect.”
But says Guyon, “How is that different from the present case?”
Mumble, deflect mumble.
Very funny Simon.
I agree on the kudos to the minister.
However his reasoning made a mockery of Winston the day before at question time.
Winston made a lot out of Galloway making the decision himself, rather than relying/blaming officials.
Remember, gsays, that Peters made a lot of the Minjster’s decision making by comparing it to the previous government which after 2014 gave the responsibility away to the officials. In this case, Minister Lees-Galloway acted on advice given by officials who did not have for whatever reason the same information that became available to National. That the decision was made by Lees-Galloway was Peter’s point. The quality of advice is another issue and does not reflect at all upon Peters.
Fair enough.
Today’s mentioning of the officials as part of a ‘reconsideration’ jarred with the ‘vibe’ I picked up from ‘Winston’ at QT.
The PM and her deputy have been made to look like fools over this.
They both arrogantly and smuggly defended the decision on Tuesday. By Wednesday “new evidence” was discovered which reopened the case.
Tomorrow the decision will be reversed to get this out of the headlines next week.
What a monumental cluster fuck and embarrassing u turn.
It’s actually not that bad – you’re catastrophying it imo.
Not really
One of National’s attack lines since day 1 has been this government is soft on crime. Why feed into that narrative by giving them an example like this on a plate.
Australia exports criminals who have lived in Australia their whole lives. New Zealand imports lying fraudulent drug dealers. That is what the National trolls will be yelling as a result of this cock up.
That’s not a cock up. This is a cock up.
Yep good points.
Which is exactly why the nats abrogated responsibility to the ministry for several years.
You get the big pay packet, you make the hard call.
The only real problem is that the increased publicity seems to have uncovered the contradictory information, which in turn could well make it look like the minister caved under pressure rather than simply acting on information received.
At least there is hope they will u turn and make sure that the embarrassment goes away, rather than have him served up next election as the government being the reason he is one of our new residents.
No decent human being should ever defend an action as ‘maintaining the integrity of the process’ nuffy nuffy, be his/her arse ever so smooth.
Iain has made a complete idiot of himself. Would love a photo of him to appear hiding behind the pillar to avoid reporters.
The Czech needs to leave the country immediately.
Jimmy, so it’s wrong to change ones mind when presented with new information?
The “new info” will be the excuse for changing the decision. He has clearly not done due diligence in the first place (or made a very big error of judgement). Both National and Labour have been reluctant to send people packing IMO.
Maybe we will find out more soon?
‘Immigration NZ is investigating claims that contradict the reasons why Iain Lees-Galloway granted residency to convicted drug smuggler Karel Sroubek.’
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12152730
Jimmy is an ideologue.
No, not really. Just a practical person. Would you want the Czech living next door to you?
As for ILG, I think its hard to say he’s handled the situation well.
I’m not following the Kiwibuild story as too depressing, but someone told me that the couple in the media who got ballot for the house, are a final year doctor who stands to make a lot of money in the future and they got a 4 bedroom house, when they are just a couple.
Good luck to the people as it is very hard to get a house and they are probably riddled with student debts and being a doctor is of great benefit to society, but it does seem a bit sad that those 3 extra bedrooms will be empty when there are families with a lot more kids living in one bedroom emergency housing, that could have benefited from those extra bedrooms and a new secure house.
And I would have preferred my taxes spent on helping families renting and state housing and land still owned by the state for future generations, rather than helping better resourced people up the property ladder.
Even if the land was leasehold to the state, it would have been better. Maybe removing his student loans in return for staying in NZ for 10 years might also be of more benefit to the public than a house that they can sell in 3 years.
Surprise, KiwiBuy working the way everyone thought it would.
That lovely young couple were bragging on the news hub facebook page about making 50 k already.
People took offence to that and went on the attack, that’s why they deleted their social media accounts, nothing to do with Judith Collins.
Not that you’d ever read that on such unbiased media outlets like TVNZ and Radio Pravda.
Da, comrade BM – Radio Pravda?
“those 3 extra bedrooms will be empty” – doesn’t it seem way more likely they will have some boarders?
Excellent not only do this deserving couple get given 50 k by the taxpayer, but they can also rent out the other three rooms and get themselves some good extra income.
Certainly, help pay for all those overseas trips.
Oh I would rather see any 4 brm homes go to families. But then I don’t set the rules.
I doubt there would have been many families in the draw
99% of the people would have been childless young couples with high earning jobs or young people financed by Mum and Dad looking for quick capital gain.
Kiwi Buy is nothing more than a taxpayer subsidy for young New Zealanders who have come from the middle to upper classes.
You’d say anything to bad mouth the government – similar to your mate bridges in that.
More tribal rubbish from Mars.
You are fake – fake caring and fake tears – you’re full of it.
Off topic but deep breathes’ time – a couple of links at 15 you may be interested in. The second is re home schooling.
Another (genuine) laugh out loud BM comment – please keep ’em coming.
It is just envy. Your mob denied there was a even a problem lol. The problem is big. It will take multiple initiativess to sort. 1 year into this government and things are starting to happen on this one initiative. Somehow some people would prefer the gnats to still be there cos labour aren’t fixing things fast enough – more fool them I say.
They’re not fixing anything they’re actually making the housing situation a lot worse.
Croc tears cos you don’t care.
In 2007, honest John Key said NZ was facing an urgent housing crisis.
Is it too late to ask the now Right Honourable Sir John Key his advice on how to stop “making the housing situation a lot worse”? Or maybe the opposition National party has a productive contribution?
Or kids.
Well hey Sacha, with a few tweaks on the 4 bedroom house plan they could comfortably house a family with three kids.
https://mclennan.co.nz/mclennan-kiwibuild/
Be heaps more betterer than this…https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/107874921/bucket-toilet-for-garage-tenants-the-vulnerable-kiwis-reforms-wont-help …. they’d have a proper flush toilet and everything!!!!
“I’m not following the Kiwibuild story as too depressing”
With you there savenz. The argument for the cheerleading seems to be be, – well National created the mess…
Pretty low bar, and even that is not easily cleared, given the previous Clark government had the wheels in motion for the current house crisis.
Folk have really short memories Molly.
I’ve yet to see compelling evidence that this current manifestation of the New Zealand Labour Party is appreciably different.
Politics of envy, NZs talkback radio fav fodder, tall poppy syndrome etc… divide and conquer, one doesn’t dare stick ones head above the parapet, esp if one wins a KB raffle, how dare they!!! Nek minute, Collins claims innocent, well her fan proxies do…
@ I feel love, The point is, should tax payer money and state land be a raffle? Or should it be means tested and fairly apportioned based on need?
But there is no taxpayer money involved. The houses are sold at cost.
They are giving away free prime state house land as part of the deal. They could retain both the houses and land for the state and future generations. Instead they are doing financial engineering and doublespeak which clearly fools quite a few so called leftie supporters of the Thatcher based scheme, but not all.
They are not giving anything away. It doesn’t cost $650,000 to build one of those houses.
The site is ex-defense force and has never been state housing.
when it suits the right wingers and woke lefties house prices are so high because of the cost of the land, (not lazy immigration in fact we need more immigration because who is going to build the houses cheaply the, the Kiwis are drugged out hopeless types) , however it seems to suit woke lefties to now say that state land is not needed for state housing and rightfully given away in return for middle class housing with all the mod cons… a percentage sold off raffle style to those on $180k and without children in a 4 bedroom house.
Clearly logic was at work. I understand the right wingers being on board with the privatisation of state land, but the woke lefties seem just as eager.
And they say, the voters are stupid….
rightfully given away
Nothing has been given away. Spinning yourself around in circles won’t change that fact.
Approx 2/3 of the land is no longer owned by the public and according to the woke lefties and righties once upon a time, they said it was the land that was worth all the money. Now suddenly the land is not worth much and they will swap it for building 1/3 houses.
Confused. Well I guess that’s he point but it all end up as state assets sell offs, disguised.
Now somehow the state no longer owns 2/3 of it’s valuable land because it has been non transparently taken through third parties and the state is left with approx 1/3 of the land it once had often with a similar amount of state houses it once had.
And the houses built are only affordable for the top 40% of people who would have got a house anyway.
Yes i think you are confused. I can’t make sense of any of that.
Wokey savey? That a Star Wars thingy?
Just some grammatical incoherence.
+1 Molly
Thinking about the new 4 bedroom house that will not house a family in need, I wonder what happened to that poor homeless family and little girl who narrowly missed out on a scholarship at St Cuthbert’s. That was a heart wrenching story.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11653678
Sorry I can only find the Granny link, but John Campbell lead the story for TV3 or radio NZ
“Over the next 10 years, 100,000 “affordable” homes will be built around the country.
But they’re not for low-income people, they’re not a gift from taxpayers and – in the end, anyway – the price the houses sell for is not the most important aspect of the scheme.
Here are five common myths about KiwiBuild.” ;
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/108210155/Five-myths-about-KiwiBuild-and-who-its-meant-to-help
This piece may go someway to cover a few misconceptions ….
JC: “But they’re not for low-income people, they’re not a gift from taxpayers and – in the end, anyway – the price the houses sell for is not the most important aspect of the scheme.”
The Kiwibuild could never help people under say $40,000. Never intended to. The rebuilding of State houses are the best option for the working poor.
Imagine if Donald Trump was a rock star
He’d be named Gene, and he’d be even worse than he is now….
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2017/12/general_debate_23_december_2017.html/comment-page-1#comment-2105352
I’d hate to be a musician in his band. The lead singer (what else?) wouldn’t listen to the band, he’d have a different drummer in his head, and the songs (who else would be permitted to write them?) would be disassociated ramblings full of the first person singular.
Wonder what the band would be called? Probably none. Full billing to the lead singer only. No lead breaks for the guitarist and as for the vocal chorus, we won’t go there.
How many members of the family would be involved? What style of music? A little mix of punk, country, and hillbilly, but no blues, Mex or reggae for sure.
And guess who’d own the venues he played at?
He’d be something like THIS godawful singer….
EDUCATION
On RNZ Nine to Noon there were two very interesting interviews on education.
The first was with Hamish Brewer, a NZer who “now calls Virginia home where his mission is to turn around ailing schools. He is tattooed, he skateboards and he tells the students he loves them, in case no one else in their lives is telling them that. Hamish has won many awards and given speeches about his work.”
This guy was compelling in a “Ted Talks” way – which I don’t usually connect with. We really should be getting him back here, even if just temporarily, for some good ‘out of the box’ thinking. He was actually very supportive of the education he received here and the NZ system overall, but he certainly could give some educators here a bit of a shake-up.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018669306/hamish-brewer-disrupting-education-with-love
Calling marty mars and other home schoolers (or those interested in home schooling) in relation to the second interview.
I recommend listening to it if you didn’t hear it. It was with Natalie Donaldson and Siobhan Porter, both part of Auckland Home Educators, a support and advocacy group for parent educators. They have five children each and have home-schooled them all.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018669313/home-schooling-pros-and-cons
{As an aside but also in relation to this morning’s Nine to Noon, the description of the interview with Jessica Young, University of Otago, at 11 above on attitudes to assisted dying earlier on in the programme was well off the mark. The interview did cover the restrictions etc on who could carry out or assist in an assisted death in detail – the person themself or a doctor, but not family members. ]
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018669299/majority-support-some-form-of-euthanasia
Ta. Forwarding
A.
I assume one “veutoviper” is referring to my contribution at 9:25 am when he/she writes:
As an aside but also in relation to this morning’s Nine to Noon, the description of the interview with Jessica Young, University of Otago, at 11 above on attitudes to assisted dying earlier on in the programme was well off the mark.
How was I “off the mark” in pointing out the deceitful, anodyne language used (“self-administration of a death”) and the fact that Kathryn Ryan had failed to ask the obvious question, viz., Who is going to kill these people?
The interview did cover the restrictions etc on who could carry out or assist in an assisted death in detail – the person themself [sic] or a doctor, but not family members.
Doctors take an oath to look after people. “Look after” is not a synonym for “kill”.
She DID ask the question you claim she didn’t raise. As I said above, the answer was that the only people who would legally be allowed to carry out or assist in an assisted death would be the person themselves and/or a doctor; no-one else including family members would be allowed to.
But par for the course for you. Perhaps we (and Kiwiblog) should set up a Give A Little page for hearing aids for you.
the answer was that the only people who would legally be allowed to carry out or assist in an assisted death
To “carry out an assisted death” is a deceitful, euphemistic way of saying “to kill a dying person.” I am correct when I state that Ms. Ryan accepted this distortion of plain language, and failed to ask the pertinent question.
would be the person themselves [sic] and/or a doctor
Doctors take an oath to look after their patients. Palliative care, as in a hospice is assisting the dying; it is a world away from putting someone to death.
I’ll skip your witless little sortie into personal abuse.
Leaving someone in agony for the sake of it is not a caring thing.
And killing that person is?
That option is refuted by palliative care doctors and nurses.
When i see a bird dying in my garden i put a spade through its neck. When my old dog was so close to death that he was just suffering i took him for a final visit to the vet. These things to most people seem humane and sensible. When i do these things i feel like i am caring.
Human beings are not like stray birds. Leading humanitarian philosophers like Michael Laws and David Seymour would no doubt appreciate your analogy though.
My dog on the other hand was the best natured person i have ever known.
I’ll be there for ya solka, you stay the fuck away from me though.
lol
Thanks
WOO HOO!
Letting fees are toast 😀
This will help the working poor amongst others AWW. Yay!
yei. excellent news.
Cracker read for aviation tragics and fearful fliers.
15:30:21 Capt got any ideas?
15:30:23 F/O actually not.
15:30:38 Capt we’re gonna brace.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/14/1577211/-The-A320-and-the-Hudson
Some Eco Maori Music For The Minute
This is hope fully a good out come for the common people of Yemen Peace and diplomacy is what is best for All Kia kaha
It has taken three years, 14 million people on the brink of starving to death and 10,000 dead civilians before the US finally asked for the chaos in Yemen to stop.
But it may be too late for the impoverished Arab nation, which borders Saudi Arabia, as it faces effectively being wiped off the Earth as more than half its population starve due to a sickening Saudi war tactic.
It was already one of the world’s poorest countries before a brutal civil war began in 2015 when rebel Houthi fighters seized the presidential compound in the country’s capital Sana’a and overthrew the government. Ka kite ano Link is below.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12152869
New Neighbour the last lot were sandflys contracted Actors and now it looks like a single wahine is moving in she will be a sandfly payed actor trying to set me up I know they are listening to everything in the house the perverts . So if anything happen its a sandfly set up. The muppets will try anything Ka kite ano
Eco Maori Give A ka pai to the Google employees who have made a stand to back up there wahine employees Equality is what the new generation wants and need.
We not stupid Equality for all and environmentally friendly.Hundreds of Google engineers and other workers around the world walked off the job Thursday (Friday NZ time) to protest the internet company’s lenient treatment of executives accused of sexual misconduct.Kia kaha people ka kite ano link is below.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/108297125/google-employees-walk-out-to-protest-treatment-of-women
Eco Maori did warn MP that there staff could be pro national and set them up and the immigration issue that Labour is having at the minute sure looks like a SET UP JOB.
‘ looking like the Government has made an embarrassing stuff-up over the controversial decision to allow a Czech criminal to stay in the country after he finishes his prison sentence. SET UP Ka kite ano link is below. P.S I will give the turned lefty a bit of a ——–
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12153476
I say trump and the gop are going to need a huge box of tissue in about 5 days
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/31/trump-abandoned-civility-republican-party
Kia ora Te Kaea the water isuses I say we need to audit all country’s council and legerslate to make them clean up our water.
That was awesome that the sights of the Southern right whale off Ohope Bay of plenty.
The Maori All Blacks will have a good team playing in Chicago this weekend.
Ka kite ano P.S Maori does some thing wrong no name suppression it’s gets plastered in the media???????.