Honestly this is harming the police here if no-one is found responsible, because any fair minded person wants to see “justice” at work there as in every case because we meak 99% are being row beaten by “beaurocrats and the police” to “comply with the law” so should they enforce the same law there too.
“one law for all must apply.”
“Police has determined that there will be no criminal prosecution in relation to the collapse of the CTV building in Christchurch in February 2011.”
No, that’s not right. The Police have got this right, despite the fact that the CTV collapsed due to a series of human errors and negligence (not just Reay, but those that fiddled with the building structure some years later).
Grenfell Tower in London was third world. And that makes the whole world third world.
To the rest of New Zealand – your towns and cities building owners have been given plenty of time to get their buildings safe/r, yet they are not doing so. Tell the building owners in your towns to sort their buildings out quick-smart…
You will find most Christchurch people who went through the earthquakes walk around towns in the rest of New Zealand in fear – constantly looking up at the unsupported verandahs and facades. I do. I hate walking near old buildings everywhere except Christchurch now. Invercargill, Dunedin, Ranfurly, Taihape, Taupo, Whangarei, it just goes on and on… Those facades and verandahs in your towns are going to collapse and kill people. Sort it out. Harass the building owners.
I am from Napier and drive up north of Gisborne a lot.
We get spooked every time I go through gullies now with tall steep hilllsides, and see the cliffs above fracturing with big cracks going down there, so I become a dangerous driver & find i need to break the law and drive on the other side of the road now, further away from the steep hillside to save ourselves should the hillside slip occur and bury us and kill us now.
I know we could be fined for this but it is now becomming a threat to our very lives that count more.
So we asked the the roading engineers of three road companies, who conduct the road repairs and they all are now confirming to us now they suspect the larger, bigger heavier “over-weight” “HPMV” trucks that are causing large, stronger, road vibrations now, that they believe are responsible for the hillside fractures, as they have placed vibration monitoring devices on these hillisides, and are detecting heavier ground shacking vibrations occurring with the bigger, heavier HPMV trucks now.
So are the heavier truck operators now liable for legal costs if they damage people and/or property?
“so I become a dangerous driver & find i need to break the law and drive on the other side of the road now, further away from the steep hillside to save ourselves should the hillside slip occur and bury us and kill us now.”
Of course you are now more at risk of having a head on accident and killing yourselves and the poor sap who was innocently coming the other way.
Putting others lives at risk because you perceive it to be better for you.
I’ve lost friends on motorbikes because of people doing what you are doing. It’s a disgusting and selfish act.
If you end up having an accident I hope you don’t kill an innocent person.
Oh for fucksake! Somethings eventually going to get you, your only choice is to stay in bed and not do anything at all all the while remembering that the vast majority of people die in bed, but in your stupid case it’s most likely to be a truck coming the other way.
So are the heavier truck operators now liable for legal costs if they damage people and/or property?
Actually, I say that the ministers of the government that passed the legislation allowing the bigger trucks should held personally liable. This is an obvious consequence of doing so and they should have at lest asked the engineers about it.
cleangreen, your risk assessment seems a bit out of kilter so I’ll try to help you.
Failure to keep left is the fourth most common contributing cause to a fatal accident in the 2011 – 2016 period, cited as a factor in 191 fatal crashes, according to this government analysis.
The only road fatality attributable to landslide I can find any reference to is the 2014 double fatality in Westland where a tourist couple were apparently swept off the road into a river during an extreme weather event. Interestingly, landslides have caused a number of train accidents with numerous fatalities, but appear to be a negligible risk to road users.
So by crossing the centreline to keep away from cliffs, it certainly appears that you are choosing to create a very real hazard to yourself and other road users, in response to an imaginary threat.
not only what the others said, but the extra few metres will not give you time to dodge a darn thing. And where will you dodge to? Over the bank? Roads are often nowhere near the bottom of steep gullies, usually halfway up the darn hillside.
Sad to say that the police have been politicised.
Look at the Hager raids as one example of this.
And the Barclay shambles as a second exemplar of police conduct.
Roast Busters, TeaPot tapes etc we sort of only hear about the prominent ones.
Hagers book indicated the potential for alot more in exposing the behaviour of Collins which IMO should’ve triggered an inquiry into her activity across many portfolios.
This shows that under certain circumstances there is no backbone by the police to bring certain corporates to justice. It seems it is much easier to accuse and charge an ordinary person with average means than people who are well connected.
Remember the extraordinary involvement of police and management in TV presentation to the media, it was similar to a tag team, when the viewer is uncertain what the job of the police should be. Corruption in places is rife, always attempting to protect the corporation instead of siding with the innocent. Remember the planted cartridge, the disgraceful blame game in the Erebus disaster, or the very poor investigation in the Bain murders.
Anyone who thought anything as terrible as being held to account, being tried and going to jail might occur to professionals who are men of reputation and pillars of the establishment needed only look at at Pike River to know nothing was going to happen here.
If you want concerted outrage against a great injustice, you won’t find it in thundering newspaper editorials or middle aged white male shick jocks quaking in anger demanding justice for the 144 dead of the CTV building and Pike River.
However, true outrage still exists if you can can spitefully twist the truth and the target is a smart 32 year female lawyer from a refugee family.
Don’t forget National ‘realigned’ the SFO in a similar manner to the way it sorted out the commerce commission and anybody getting in the way of corporate cowboy antics.
She’s just giving the accepted spin to the reality that they neither have the resources or will to form a posse and chase the cowboys down as the evidence is available without a whistle blower.
I don’t agree with this decision by the NZPolice not to prosecute the designers of the CTV Building.
I perfectly understand why they went for internal legal and then Crown Law advice.
But they should publish all the advice.
If the Police had had an urge for justice, and Crown Law’s Deputy Solicitor was being more cautious, then Police should have insisted that the advice be escalated to the Solicitor General.
With a new government and Minister, I think the Solicitor General should also have had a chat with the Attourney General as Minister.
It should have gone to trial, at which Defence would put up a line that “It wasn’t just us, it was a systemic failure.”
At that point the judge could make a judgement on both the people, and the whole system.
A key point that mostly gets lost but would probably form a large part of the defence: the CTV building had already experienced its design event in the 2010 earthquake, and despite its serious design flaws it met its performance requirement that any occupants would have been able to safely leave.
It’s beyond me how to fairly apportion culpability between those who produced a seriously flawed design, those who approved the seriously flawed design, and those who allowed the re-occupation of a seriously flawed building after an extreme event that would be expected to produce serious structural damage.
Approval of a flawed building: Why hasn’t Alan Reay been taken to court for his part in the poor design and construction of the CTV building? He failed to do his job properly and unlawfully threatened the local council in order to have the building signed off as fit and proper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_Building
I agree Reay was seriously deficient in his lax oversight and rubberstamp approval of the work done by his firm. But he still has a pretty good defense that the building met the performance standard required of it in the 2010 quake.
And there are many other culpable parties. Yes, Reay appears to have applied inappropriate pressure to get approval of that building. But council officials are expected to wear big-boy pants – they also behaved inappropriately in caving to the pressure.
The approval process for re-occupation also appears to have been culpably flawed. ISTR reports that building occupants were uncomfortable with how much more building movement there seemed to be post-2010-quake than pre-quake.
Given how much other culpability seems to floating around this disaster, and how any of the many parties involved could plausibly have prevented the disaster by doing their jobs properly, the near exclusive focus on Reay really bothers me. Because if Reay is the sole scapegoat, then all those other failings won’t get addressed.
“I think the Solicitor General should also have had a chat with the Attourney General as Minister.”
Are you seriously suggesting that an MP, acting with the title of Attorney General but still just an MP, should have any say at all in deciding who should, or should not, face trial?
We have enough such countries in the world already. I don’t want NZ to become another one.
You want us to become like Turkey? Like Venezuela? Like The Philippines? Like Syria? No thanks.
Has anyone checked other buildings designed by those responsible for the CTV building ? I’ve heard rumours of a former commercial building in Auckland alledgedly designed by the CTV designers. This commercial building has recently been converted into very expensive apartments – most sold and waiting for sign off.
“Nothing to see here”. “Time to move on”.
You didn’t hear those lines used repeatedly and regularly during Key’s time as PM, Alwyn?
You must be as deaf as a post and unable to lip-read to boot!
What apology? The bit I saw has Shaw saying he made a mistake in his speech. That was only one of the many things thrown at Golriz and the Greens this week on the issue.
I have a theory about this issue-I think the Nats are really pissed off they didn’t carry out this nasty vicious hatchet job on Golriz before the election and so are sounding more bitter and twisted than ever.
They realise that this could have (unfairly) cost the Greens a percentage point or more and changed the election result…..epic fail Mr. Farrar.
Let’s open a discussion on the appalling behavior of Dr Nigel Murray and the path that led to his appointment.
He was appointed by Bob Murray who was, in turn, appointed by that smarmiest of National Cabinet Ministers’ one Tony Ryall, who on his retirement from his portfolio as Minister of Health, claimed to have left the department in wonderful shape and with morale on a high. I wonder how the good folk of Dunedin felt about that claim.
Murray was granted the post at the Waikato DHB in spite of grave concerns expressed by both Labour’s Shadow Minister of Health at the time, the wonderful Annette King who herself had been a superb Minister of Health, and the local MP Sue Maroney.
Below is a quote from the NZ Herald of 15th July 2014.
“Labour urged the DHB to hold off confirming Dr Murray’s Waikato appointment until this latest report had been released. It declined,” she said.
“I also sought information from the Ministry of Health and from Health Minister Tony Ryall as to the process around the appointment, but was given the brush-off.”
The “latest report” referred to the damming assessment of the performance of a Canadian Health Authority which had been in the charge of Murray.
This whole rotten episodes reeks of political cronyism. Sue Maroney has instigated the process for an official inquiry into the whole sordid affair.
This should be yet one more incident to expose the tawdriness of nine years of National misgovernment.
Derek Wright told Newstalk ZB host Mike Hosking this morning he was not concerned about the complaint
He said there were no red flags over Murray, who resigned in October amid an expenses scandal and after spending $218,000 of taxpayers money in his three years in the job.
HUH
No red flags
Wot about the Canadian report then?
The “latest report” referred to the damming assessment of the performance of a Canadian Health Authority which had been in the charge of Murray.
The problems we are getting because of the government’s welcome to private enterprise to come in and buy up the provision of services at a profit is going to compound.
I was thinking about the latest revelations around Waikato DHB.
Just having a new government which has some clues and wishes to be a government for the people, not business and not redcarpeting foreign business, is not enough to stop an insidious bleeding of NZ opportunities and provision of acceptable self-sufficiency and standards for us all.
1 Dec 2017
Purchase of HealthTap criticised, no value for money – Audit NZ
by Natalie Akoorie http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11951201 State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes announced today he has formally requested the Auditor-General conduct an inquiry into the Waikato District Health Board’s SmartHealth product and the procurement process from HealthTap…..
The news comes as the two-year contract with HealthTap, the American company that powers the DHB’s controversial SmartHealth app, has been revealed to have cost taxpayers almost $15 million….
Waikato DHB has kept the cost of HealthTap, which together with the cost to launch SmartHealth totals $18.8m, a closely guarded secret, citing commercial sensitivity and contract negotiations as reasons….
Auditors said the procurement raised a number of concerns including that:
• It should have been conducted through an open tendering process and that the US$10m trial was an amount well over any threshold for open tendering;…
Murray went on to champion the product, spending more than $45,000 flying internationally and domestically to learn about and promote SmartHealth, an app that uses smartphones and iPads to conduct online appointments between doctors and patients.
The app has flopped, not attracting the targeted number of users despite targets being lowered, and is now being independently reviewed ahead of the end of the trial.
Audit NZ says it’s been unable to establish the true extent of former Waikato DHB boss Nigel Murray’s excessive travel costs because of holes in the paper trail.
(I thought that holey punchcard technology had been replaced with better technology? Hanging chads anyone?)
I think there is an in-group with a secret handshake called the PPPP (Past Peter Principle Phoenixes.)
The executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Ian Powell, says the resignation of the Waikato DHB Chairman Bob Simcock follows a period of destabilisation at the DHB. He tells us there’s been a “complete denial of responsibility all the way through the process” and there are still “some urchins that need to move on”.
And the neolibs still in the Departments will probably go on running down our national health while putting little injections of cash into new smart methods of delivering health better and cheaper. They will try and save money by running things down so that we are reliant on these new ideas. to fill the gaps that occur. (Think Pharmac swopping over contraceptive pills and running out – just what people don’t need. )
It seems that it it is cowboy territory out there, and good systems might be dirtied by those which don’t stand up to clear-eyed scrutiny for service to the people who need it most.
Here is a story about clever new tech. Navilluso Medical is led by 2014 New Zealander of the year Lance O’Sullivan who also developed iMoko, a virtual medical service to help vulnerable children.
Dr O’Sullivan said he constantly heard about patients not having access to doctors in isolated locations.
“These people aren’t coming in with trivial problems, it just goes to show we need to redesign how we allow people to get access to health.”
I like Lance O’Sullivan but we shouldn’t be dependent on him and others like the Canterbury Charity Hospital Trust, POBox 20409, Bishopdale, Christchurch 8543 – (donations will be welcome). There is a desperate need for good basic health care, which surely can be identified easily as it has been talked about for ages. Let’s do this and the new systems can fine-tune the effects.
I really wish that the David Parker has been given the Finance port folio. Grant is a superb MP and has the capability to be a fantastic Minister. I just don’t think that should be in Finance.
I am far from convinced that he has the knowledge or skills to be able to effect real change in the economy.
“I really wish that the David Parker has been given the Finance port folio. Grant is a superb MP and has the capability to be a fantastic Minister. I just don’t think that should be in Finance.
I am far from convinced that he has the knowledge or skills to be able to effect real change in the economy.”
This highlights to me that Grant Robertson is little more than a Mandarin following the prescribed way of economic thinking of the day, while underscoring why nothing fundamental is going to change with this Government. Running surpluses is not going to fix this country. However, it will ingratiate him with the economic apparatchiks in Treasury and high-finance.
Oh, it’s far better (worse!) than just running a surplus (which might be okay if the economy was humming and needed ‘cooling’).
He’s saying (in the links you provided) that the economy will likely dip, meaning less government revenue coming in while trying to produce a surplus. And that’s austerity.
Indeed. Announcing the running of surpluses while also forecasting an economic dip is just… dumb. It’s like no thinking has been applied and he’s just reading a script that someone has prepared for him. Robertson should NOT be Minister of Finance.
Over the last few decades we’ve been trained to believe that a government runs like a business and that it should have ‘profits’ which it can then divvy out like dividends as tax cuts.
This is, of course, a load of bollocks but it helps to maintain the status quo of the rich getting richer at everyone else’s expense.
Yes Bill I couldn’t help noticing that – it’s the cliche background for austerity measures. Hasn’t anyone noticed this or are we all bums in the air in NZ, with our heads in the sand?
I wonder what comfy chair Robertson has got his eye on after Labour loses in an election or two. He’s got that fatcat look of complacency and certainty.
Well, I’ll punt the “guys plan” is basically to mollify some abstract sense of “middle class” by introducing kiwi-build for middle class first time house buyers.
And that’s it.
Oh. And some ‘nice to have stuff’ around parental leave etc.
A fair shot at the kiwi dream then – at least for those occupying some position in society that’s deemed as “deserving”.
He claims he’s not pursuing “business as usual” which is a bit like the guy throwing punches making claims to pacifism. When this austerity ends badly (and austerity is the only name for an economic policy that seeks surpluses during times of economic slow-down), the National Party will sway back in as the “natural” government of capitalism.
I wouldn’t put money on NZ Labour achieving a second term.
“….the idea that Roy Moore, someone who is so clearly a repeated child molester and pedophile, could be endorsed meaningfully by the White House—it makes your skin crawl. And I think the Republican Party has a reckoning that they have to do about their morality as they take away children’s healthcare, as they bankrupt our future and endorse a pedophile.”—HEATHER McGHEE, head of Demos. https://www.democracynow.org/2017/11/29/abuses_of_power_heather_mcghee_on
What are you doing Alabama?
You got the rest of the Union
To help you along
What’s going wrong?
“GROPERS” is presented by GroperWatch, a division of Daisycutter Sports Inc.
No.1 George Herbert Walker Bush; No. 2 Bill O’Reilly; No. 3 Al Franken; No. 4 Robin Brooke; No. 5 Lester Beck; No. 6 Arnold Schwarzenegger; No. 7 Joe Biden; No. 8 Rolf Harris; No. 9 Harold Bloom; No. 10 Sir Jimmy Savile; No. 11 Dr Morgan Fahey; No.12 Prince Harry; No. 13 Bill (“I feel your pain”) Clinton
Be assured, alwyn, the Kennedy clan is on the roster. In fact, No. 6 in the series, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was married to JFK’s niece—before she discovered he’d been JFKing around on her.
So farmers are into land speculation and making money that way and not productive agriculture as we might have been believing all this time. That would appear to be the National Party view through spokesperson on all things, Steven Joyce.
Opposition finance spokesperson Steven Joyce told Morning Report that farm buyers will be in favour of the change, but sellers may not be.”The changes could soften the farm sales market which is not necessarily a good thing,” Mr Joyce said.
Yep! National stands for looking after those who have – but those who have not; see things differently – Young farmers for instance welcomed the move saying stable farm prices would help to enable those seeking to buy their first farm.
I’m a bit sceptical about David Parker’s analysis though. He was of the opinion that overseas buyers only effected a small increase on the market. Having sold some rural land in the past 7 years, in my experience the price offered from overseas purchasers was always a significant margin over and above what NZ buyers could offer. Furthermore they were invariably “clean” offers – ie cash and not subject to finance, or the sale of another property.
Malcolm Turnbull and his gang could intimidate the previous N.Z. government, but Jimmy Barnes is having none of their nonsense….
Rock legend Jimmy Barnes has again taken aim at the Liberal government, demanding they stop using his name and songs to spruik their “shitty policies”.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and energy minister Josh Frydenberg went to the Bluescope steelworks in Port Kembla, south of Wollongong, on Monday to talk about energy policy, industry and jobs.
“More than 30 years ago Jimmy Barnes came to Port Kembla to make the film clip for Working Class Man. Today the Prime Minister has come to Port Kembla to create jobs for Australia’s working class men and women,” Frydenberg said proudly.
He was referencing Barnes’ famous hit and iconic video clip, which was filmed at the NSW steelmaking facility.
Early on Tuesday morning, Barnes fired back on Twitter.
Barnes is outspoken and unabashedly political on Twitter, sharing lots of support for progressive causes. He was a loud supporter of marriage equality during the recent postal survey, as well as criticising Australia’s current asylum seeker policy as it relates to offshore detention.
They [Greenwald and Snowden] challenged Key over his promise to resign if mass surveillance was taking place and disclosed details about Speargun’s ability to suck data out of our only internet connection to the world. But Key said they were wrong and that Speargun had been cancelled in March 2013 because he believed it was “too intrusive”. [my bold]
The Herald investigation found Key approved the use of a Speargun test probe by signing a warrant which would have allowed the GCSB to spike it into the Southern Cross Cable and access New Zealanders’ data. Rather than stopping the project in March 2013, work continued on Speargun for months, then Key was briefed in June 2013 that Snowden could have stolen details about it and funding was eventually pulled by Cabinet in September 2013.
So much for Key’s claim he acted on the principle of being “too intrusive”. The programme was cancelled because they suspected Snowden had the details.
What we can deduce is: had Snowden not done what he did… the GCSB and it’s off-shore mates would be conducting mass surveillance of NZ citizens and we would not know it.
It certainly did, Anne! I recommend you click on the links below, especially the second one, and follow the angry snarling, the aneurisms and the gnashings of teeth. They’re hurt, and VERY angry….
No mikes, I don’t believe they are. Certainly Andrew Little is quite sure they are not conducting mass surveillance and he is an astute and highly intelligent politician. Add to that his sharp, experienced lawyer mind, I doubt anyone would try to pull the wool over his eyes.
I see they have breach my privacy rights here in Auckland many thanks for more Mana boys I see even the boys in Auckland like there fireworks to and all there idiot lying contracted liars they tried a move with a old work m8 but no my sense of smell is to good for those idiots. Got the bot hopefully it will be over by Monday Kia Kaha
Many thanks to OUR new coalition Government for increasing our spending on research and development and having a 10 year plan to target 2% of GDP spent on research and development . Also increasing OUR border security to keep out invasive species which would wreck our primary sector of $38 billion ka pai.
I think that we should investigate the feasibility into industrial scale worm farming so instead of pouring nitrogen on our farm which degrades our topsoil we could pour worm casting on our farms this will reduce waste to the landfill and increase our topsoil this will reduce OUR imports cost ECT subsidizing second hand electric cars will reduce our export spend immensely .kIa kaha
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As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
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Rachel Stewart
‘This is when you realise that NZ is basically a third world country.’
http://www.police.govt.nz/news/release/outcome-investigation-collapse-ctv-building
Although I would disagree with her slightly.
We found this out when no-one got prosecuted for Pike River.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/pike-river-mine-blast/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503000&objectid=10899419
Honestly this is harming the police here if no-one is found responsible, because any fair minded person wants to see “justice” at work there as in every case because we meak 99% are being row beaten by “beaurocrats and the police” to “comply with the law” so should they enforce the same law there too.
“one law for all must apply.”
“Police has determined that there will be no criminal prosecution in relation to the collapse of the CTV building in Christchurch in February 2011.”
No, that’s not right. The Police have got this right, despite the fact that the CTV collapsed due to a series of human errors and negligence (not just Reay, but those that fiddled with the building structure some years later).
Grenfell Tower in London was third world. And that makes the whole world third world.
To the rest of New Zealand – your towns and cities building owners have been given plenty of time to get their buildings safe/r, yet they are not doing so. Tell the building owners in your towns to sort their buildings out quick-smart…
You will find most Christchurch people who went through the earthquakes walk around towns in the rest of New Zealand in fear – constantly looking up at the unsupported verandahs and facades. I do. I hate walking near old buildings everywhere except Christchurch now. Invercargill, Dunedin, Ranfurly, Taihape, Taupo, Whangarei, it just goes on and on… Those facades and verandahs in your towns are going to collapse and kill people. Sort it out. Harass the building owners.
Hey VTO;
I am from Napier and drive up north of Gisborne a lot.
We get spooked every time I go through gullies now with tall steep hilllsides, and see the cliffs above fracturing with big cracks going down there, so I become a dangerous driver & find i need to break the law and drive on the other side of the road now, further away from the steep hillside to save ourselves should the hillside slip occur and bury us and kill us now.
I know we could be fined for this but it is now becomming a threat to our very lives that count more.
So we asked the the roading engineers of three road companies, who conduct the road repairs and they all are now confirming to us now they suspect the larger, bigger heavier “over-weight” “HPMV” trucks that are causing large, stronger, road vibrations now, that they believe are responsible for the hillside fractures, as they have placed vibration monitoring devices on these hillisides, and are detecting heavier ground shacking vibrations occurring with the bigger, heavier HPMV trucks now.
So are the heavier truck operators now liable for legal costs if they damage people and/or property?
“so I become a dangerous driver & find i need to break the law and drive on the other side of the road now, further away from the steep hillside to save ourselves should the hillside slip occur and bury us and kill us now.”
Of course you are now more at risk of having a head on accident and killing yourselves and the poor sap who was innocently coming the other way.
Putting others lives at risk because you perceive it to be better for you.
I’ve lost friends on motorbikes because of people doing what you are doing. It’s a disgusting and selfish act.
If you end up having an accident I hope you don’t kill an innocent person.
Oh for fucksake! Somethings eventually going to get you, your only choice is to stay in bed and not do anything at all all the while remembering that the vast majority of people die in bed, but in your stupid case it’s most likely to be a truck coming the other way.
assuming they dont kill somebody else first
Actually, I say that the ministers of the government that passed the legislation allowing the bigger trucks should held personally liable. This is an obvious consequence of doing so and they should have at lest asked the engineers about it.
cleangreen, your risk assessment seems a bit out of kilter so I’ll try to help you.
Failure to keep left is the fourth most common contributing cause to a fatal accident in the 2011 – 2016 period, cited as a factor in 191 fatal crashes, according to this government analysis.
http://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Documents/Overseas-drivers2016.pdf
The only road fatality attributable to landslide I can find any reference to is the 2014 double fatality in Westland where a tourist couple were apparently swept off the road into a river during an extreme weather event. Interestingly, landslides have caused a number of train accidents with numerous fatalities, but appear to be a negligible risk to road users.
https://teara.govt.nz/files/d-8801-enz.pdf
So by crossing the centreline to keep away from cliffs, it certainly appears that you are choosing to create a very real hazard to yourself and other road users, in response to an imaginary threat.
not only what the others said, but the extra few metres will not give you time to dodge a darn thing. And where will you dodge to? Over the bank? Roads are often nowhere near the bottom of steep gullies, usually halfway up the darn hillside.
Sad to say that the police have been politicised.
Look at the Hager raids as one example of this.
And the Barclay shambles as a second exemplar of police conduct.
Roast Busters, TeaPot tapes etc we sort of only hear about the prominent ones.
Hagers book indicated the potential for alot more in exposing the behaviour of Collins which IMO should’ve triggered an inquiry into her activity across many portfolios.
Don’t forget Darren Hughes – or does that not count as he was labour.
That does not count as his case was reviewed by the Crown Solicitors’ Office
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5116263/No-charges-against-former-Labour-MP-Darren-Hughes
Perhaps you mean Dr. Richard Worth?
Well spotted Jeremy. But no doubt james will come back with some lie or half truth.
He can’t stand being proven the lying, spinner, gutter sycophant he so often is.
This shows that under certain circumstances there is no backbone by the police to bring certain corporates to justice. It seems it is much easier to accuse and charge an ordinary person with average means than people who are well connected.
Remember the extraordinary involvement of police and management in TV presentation to the media, it was similar to a tag team, when the viewer is uncertain what the job of the police should be. Corruption in places is rife, always attempting to protect the corporation instead of siding with the innocent. Remember the planted cartridge, the disgraceful blame game in the Erebus disaster, or the very poor investigation in the Bain murders.
Anyone who thought anything as terrible as being held to account, being tried and going to jail might occur to professionals who are men of reputation and pillars of the establishment needed only look at at Pike River to know nothing was going to happen here.
If you want concerted outrage against a great injustice, you won’t find it in thundering newspaper editorials or middle aged white male shick jocks quaking in anger demanding justice for the 144 dead of the CTV building and Pike River.
However, true outrage still exists if you can can spitefully twist the truth and the target is a smart 32 year female lawyer from a refugee family.
+1000% How fucking true Sanctuary.
Some people are above the law.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11870607
Yes Ed,
Money talks = truth walks.
And we have another classic example right here, fresh as……… Nigel Murray.
Seems the true extent of his theft may never be known and his enabler Bob Simcock finally fell on his sword when the SFO put their beak in.
Both these middle aged, privileged males should be in the dock facing charges of fraud/theft and being the accomplice of same.
Link is to a RNZ article of the latest as of 30/11/17 in this sorry saga
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/345079/murray-may-have-spent-more-than-officially-recorded-audit-nz
Big corporations pass on the cost of externalities.
Socialism for the rich.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aCGTD5Bn1m0
Don’t forget National ‘realigned’ the SFO in a similar manner to the way it sorted out the commerce commission and anybody getting in the way of corporate cowboy antics.
She’s just giving the accepted spin to the reality that they neither have the resources or will to form a posse and chase the cowboys down as the evidence is available without a whistle blower.
Cashless
Make it so that most financial crime will be detected automatically by computer.
I don’t agree with this decision by the NZPolice not to prosecute the designers of the CTV Building.
I perfectly understand why they went for internal legal and then Crown Law advice.
But they should publish all the advice.
If the Police had had an urge for justice, and Crown Law’s Deputy Solicitor was being more cautious, then Police should have insisted that the advice be escalated to the Solicitor General.
With a new government and Minister, I think the Solicitor General should also have had a chat with the Attourney General as Minister.
It should have gone to trial, at which Defence would put up a line that “It wasn’t just us, it was a systemic failure.”
At that point the judge could make a judgement on both the people, and the whole system.
This is not right, not just.
A key point that mostly gets lost but would probably form a large part of the defence: the CTV building had already experienced its design event in the 2010 earthquake, and despite its serious design flaws it met its performance requirement that any occupants would have been able to safely leave.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/7332804/CTV-building-damaged-by-earlier-quakes
It’s beyond me how to fairly apportion culpability between those who produced a seriously flawed design, those who approved the seriously flawed design, and those who allowed the re-occupation of a seriously flawed building after an extreme event that would be expected to produce serious structural damage.
Approval of a flawed building: Why hasn’t Alan Reay been taken to court for his part in the poor design and construction of the CTV building? He failed to do his job properly and unlawfully threatened the local council in order to have the building signed off as fit and proper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_Building
I agree Reay was seriously deficient in his lax oversight and rubberstamp approval of the work done by his firm. But he still has a pretty good defense that the building met the performance standard required of it in the 2010 quake.
And there are many other culpable parties. Yes, Reay appears to have applied inappropriate pressure to get approval of that building. But council officials are expected to wear big-boy pants – they also behaved inappropriately in caving to the pressure.
The approval process for re-occupation also appears to have been culpably flawed. ISTR reports that building occupants were uncomfortable with how much more building movement there seemed to be post-2010-quake than pre-quake.
Given how much other culpability seems to floating around this disaster, and how any of the many parties involved could plausibly have prevented the disaster by doing their jobs properly, the near exclusive focus on Reay really bothers me. Because if Reay is the sole scapegoat, then all those other failings won’t get addressed.
I agree it’s beyond me as well.
What gets me is that it should also be “beyond” the Deputy Solicitor General.
The best person in the country to make that call, including those calls about the layers of accountability , is a High Court Judge.
The families deserve their day in court to hold the system accountable.
Granted the designers aren’t like Whittle.
But those families deserve their day.
“I think the Solicitor General should also have had a chat with the Attourney General as Minister.”
Are you seriously suggesting that an MP, acting with the title of Attorney General but still just an MP, should have any say at all in deciding who should, or should not, face trial?
We have enough such countries in the world already. I don’t want NZ to become another one.
You want us to become like Turkey? Like Venezuela? Like The Philippines? Like Syria? No thanks.
Has anyone checked other buildings designed by those responsible for the CTV building ? I’ve heard rumours of a former commercial building in Auckland alledgedly designed by the CTV designers. This commercial building has recently been converted into very expensive apartments – most sold and waiting for sign off.
Geez Louise, I see Steve Bannon minime David Farrar is STILL banging on about Golriz.
The right have turned that non-story into their own little Benghazi.
Oh well, they can wallow about in irrelevance I suppose.
Looks like Shaw’s apology yesterday has lanced it.
The Greens are, again, fucking lucky to have him.
The experts – the people who really know, are saying quite clearly that Golriz has done absolutely nothing wrong. What are your credentials.
H2 has clearly been brought in.
She is trying the lines of the last Labour Government.
“Nothing to see here”. “Time to move on”.
“Nothing to see here”. “Time to move on”.
You didn’t hear those lines used repeatedly and regularly during Key’s time as PM, Alwyn?
You must be as deaf as a post and unable to lip-read to boot!
What apology? The bit I saw has Shaw saying he made a mistake in his speech. That was only one of the many things thrown at Golriz and the Greens this week on the issue.
@Sanctuary
I have a theory about this issue-I think the Nats are really pissed off they didn’t carry out this nasty vicious hatchet job on Golriz before the election and so are sounding more bitter and twisted than ever.
They realise that this could have (unfairly) cost the Greens a percentage point or more and changed the election result…..epic fail Mr. Farrar.
Let’s open a discussion on the appalling behavior of Dr Nigel Murray and the path that led to his appointment.
He was appointed by Bob Murray who was, in turn, appointed by that smarmiest of National Cabinet Ministers’ one Tony Ryall, who on his retirement from his portfolio as Minister of Health, claimed to have left the department in wonderful shape and with morale on a high. I wonder how the good folk of Dunedin felt about that claim.
Murray was granted the post at the Waikato DHB in spite of grave concerns expressed by both Labour’s Shadow Minister of Health at the time, the wonderful Annette King who herself had been a superb Minister of Health, and the local MP Sue Maroney.
Below is a quote from the NZ Herald of 15th July 2014.
“Labour urged the DHB to hold off confirming Dr Murray’s Waikato appointment until this latest report had been released. It declined,” she said.
“I also sought information from the Ministry of Health and from Health Minister Tony Ryall as to the process around the appointment, but was given the brush-off.”
The “latest report” referred to the damming assessment of the performance of a Canadian Health Authority which had been in the charge of Murray.
This whole rotten episodes reeks of political cronyism. Sue Maroney has instigated the process for an official inquiry into the whole sordid affair.
This should be yet one more incident to expose the tawdriness of nine years of National misgovernment.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11951081
The interim chief executive at Waikato District Health Board has welcomed a formal complaint to the Serious Fraud
Derek Wright told Newstalk ZB host Mike Hosking this morning he was not concerned about the complaint
He said there were no red flags over Murray, who resigned in October amid an expenses scandal and after spending $218,000 of taxpayers money in his three years in the job.
HUH
No red flags
Wot about the Canadian report then?
The problems we are getting because of the government’s welcome to private enterprise to come in and buy up the provision of services at a profit is going to compound.
I was thinking about the latest revelations around Waikato DHB.
Just having a new government which has some clues and wishes to be a government for the people, not business and not redcarpeting foreign business, is not enough to stop an insidious bleeding of NZ opportunities and provision of acceptable self-sufficiency and standards for us all.
1 Dec 2017
Purchase of HealthTap criticised, no value for money – Audit NZ
by Natalie Akoorie
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11951201
State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes announced today he has formally requested the Auditor-General conduct an inquiry into the Waikato District Health Board’s SmartHealth product and the procurement process from HealthTap…..
The news comes as the two-year contract with HealthTap, the American company that powers the DHB’s controversial SmartHealth app, has been revealed to have cost taxpayers almost $15 million….
Waikato DHB has kept the cost of HealthTap, which together with the cost to launch SmartHealth totals $18.8m, a closely guarded secret, citing commercial sensitivity and contract negotiations as reasons….
Auditors said the procurement raised a number of concerns including that:
• It should have been conducted through an open tendering process and that the US$10m trial was an amount well over any threshold for open tendering;…
Murray went on to champion the product, spending more than $45,000 flying internationally and domestically to learn about and promote SmartHealth, an app that uses smartphones and iPads to conduct online appointments between doctors and patients.
The app has flopped, not attracting the targeted number of users despite targets being lowered, and is now being independently reviewed ahead of the end of the trial.
health crime
30 Nov 2017
Neither Audit NZ or Waikato DHB have spoken to Nigel Murray
From Checkpoint, 5:25 pm on 30 November 2017
Listen duration 3′ :35″
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018623712/neither-audit-nz-or-waikato-dhb-have-spoken-to-nigel-murray
Audit NZ says it’s been unable to establish the true extent of former Waikato DHB boss Nigel Murray’s excessive travel costs because of holes in the paper trail.
(I thought that holey punchcard technology had been replaced with better technology? Hanging chads anyone?)
I think there is an in-group with a secret handshake called the PPPP (Past Peter Principle Phoenixes.)
money health
29 Nov 2017
Senior doctors welcome DHB chair’s resignation
From Morning Report, 8:11 am on 29 November 2017
Listen duration 3′ :41″
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018623443/senior-doctors-welcome-dhb-chair-s-resignation
The executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Ian Powell, says the resignation of the Waikato DHB Chairman Bob Simcock follows a period of destabilisation at the DHB. He tells us there’s been a “complete denial of responsibility all the way through the process” and there are still “some urchins that need to move on”.
And the neolibs still in the Departments will probably go on running down our national health while putting little injections of cash into new smart methods of delivering health better and cheaper. They will try and save money by running things down so that we are reliant on these new ideas. to fill the gaps that occur. (Think Pharmac swopping over contraceptive pills and running out – just what people don’t need. )
It seems that it it is cowboy territory out there, and good systems might be dirtied by those which don’t stand up to clear-eyed scrutiny for service to the people who need it most.
Here is a story about clever new tech.
Navilluso Medical is led by 2014 New Zealander of the year Lance O’Sullivan who also developed iMoko, a virtual medical service to help vulnerable children.
Dr O’Sullivan said he constantly heard about patients not having access to doctors in isolated locations.
“These people aren’t coming in with trivial problems, it just goes to show we need to redesign how we allow people to get access to health.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/345034/virtual-medical-clinic-gets-funding-boost
I like Lance O’Sullivan but we shouldn’t be dependent on him and others like the Canterbury Charity Hospital Trust, POBox 20409, Bishopdale, Christchurch 8543 – (donations will be welcome). There is a desperate need for good basic health care, which surely can be identified easily as it has been talked about for ages. Let’s do this and the new systems can fine-tune the effects.
Also http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/335802/virtual-medical-centre-seen-as-model-for-the-future
Grant Robertson is saying we will be waiting another 2 weeks for the half year fiscal update, which includes the latest Treasury forecasts.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1712/S00001/robertson-achieving-shared-prosperity.htm
Excuse me if I was underwhelmed by this first major statement by our Minister of Finance.
This guy is supposed to be at the ideological core of gaining and redistributing wealth for this country. Not a note of anything connected like that.
Could someone please tell me what this guy’s plan is, beyond anodyne abstract nouns about”fairness”?
Goodness, such impatience.
I really wish that the David Parker has been given the Finance port folio. Grant is a superb MP and has the capability to be a fantastic Minister. I just don’t think that should be in Finance.
I am far from convinced that he has the knowledge or skills to be able to effect real change in the economy.
“I really wish that the David Parker has been given the Finance port folio. Grant is a superb MP and has the capability to be a fantastic Minister. I just don’t think that should be in Finance.
I am far from convinced that he has the knowledge or skills to be able to effect real change in the economy.”
Tend to agree with this
If he told you, then people would just attack him for everything he plans to back track on.
He’s gonna run surpluses!!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/345153/robertson-unveils-govt-s-plan-for-the-economy
This highlights to me that Grant Robertson is little more than a Mandarin following the prescribed way of economic thinking of the day, while underscoring why nothing fundamental is going to change with this Government. Running surpluses is not going to fix this country. However, it will ingratiate him with the economic apparatchiks in Treasury and high-finance.
Oh, it’s far better (worse!) than just running a surplus (which might be okay if the economy was humming and needed ‘cooling’).
He’s saying (in the links you provided) that the economy will likely dip, meaning less government revenue coming in while trying to produce a surplus. And that’s austerity.
Indeed. Announcing the running of surpluses while also forecasting an economic dip is just… dumb. It’s like no thinking has been applied and he’s just reading a script that someone has prepared for him. Robertson should NOT be Minister of Finance.
The only loop hole could be if they expanded the tax take from the rich to compensate, but that seems unlikely.
Over the last few decades we’ve been trained to believe that a government runs like a business and that it should have ‘profits’ which it can then divvy out like dividends as tax cuts.
This is, of course, a load of bollocks but it helps to maintain the status quo of the rich getting richer at everyone else’s expense.
Straight from Theresa May’s copy book, unfortunately.
Yes Bill I couldn’t help noticing that – it’s the cliche background for austerity measures. Hasn’t anyone noticed this or are we all bums in the air in NZ, with our heads in the sand?
I wonder what comfy chair Robertson has got his eye on after Labour loses in an election or two. He’s got that fatcat look of complacency and certainty.
Whatever chair someone else is sitting in. That’s his nature.
We’re also being drip fed details of the tax working group which is slightly annoying. I would rather they make one big announcement on that.
@Ad give the man a chance….let’s see what he comes up with and judge it in 2020 not a month out from being elected.
For instance, Labour are still coming to terms with Joyce’s $32 billion health/defence spending hole.
9 fucking years to prepare.
No excuses.
Well, I’ll punt the “guys plan” is basically to mollify some abstract sense of “middle class” by introducing kiwi-build for middle class first time house buyers.
And that’s it.
Oh. And some ‘nice to have stuff’ around parental leave etc.
A fair shot at the kiwi dream then – at least for those occupying some position in society that’s deemed as “deserving”.
He claims he’s not pursuing “business as usual” which is a bit like the guy throwing punches making claims to pacifism. When this austerity ends badly (and austerity is the only name for an economic policy that seeks surpluses during times of economic slow-down), the National Party will sway back in as the “natural” government of capitalism.
I wouldn’t put money on NZ Labour achieving a second term.
GROPERS
No. 14: Judge Roy Moore
Some republicans have been leaping through incredibly convoluted hoops in their attempts to justify supporting Judge Roy Moore in the special Senate election in Alabama, in light of the revelations from at least five women claiming that Moore groped or sexually assaulted them when they were teenagers and he was in his thirties.
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/8053790/roy-moore-twitter-breitbart-editor-defends-ringo-starr-youre-sixteen
What are you doing Alabama?
You got the rest of the Union
To help you along
What’s going wrong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD3bGEFxGC0
“GROPERS” is presented by GroperWatch, a division of Daisycutter Sports Inc.
No.1 George Herbert Walker Bush; No. 2 Bill O’Reilly; No. 3 Al Franken; No. 4 Robin Brooke; No. 5 Lester Beck; No. 6 Arnold Schwarzenegger; No. 7 Joe Biden; No. 8 Rolf Harris; No. 9 Harold Bloom; No. 10 Sir Jimmy Savile; No. 11 Dr Morgan Fahey; No.12 Prince Harry; No. 13 Bill (“I feel your pain”) Clinton
Why don’t you go back into history and bring in John Kennedy.
Then we could be told about his little pals “Fiddle” and “Faddle”
Be assured, alwyn, the Kennedy clan is on the roster. In fact, No. 6 in the series, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was married to JFK’s niece—before she discovered he’d been JFKing around on her.
So farmers are into land speculation and making money that way and not productive agriculture as we might have been believing all this time. That would appear to be the National Party view through spokesperson on all things, Steven Joyce.
Opposition finance spokesperson Steven Joyce told Morning Report that farm buyers will be in favour of the change, but sellers may not be.”The changes could soften the farm sales market which is not necessarily a good thing,” Mr Joyce said.
Yep! National stands for looking after those who have – but those who have not; see things differently – Young farmers for instance welcomed the move saying stable farm prices would help to enable those seeking to buy their first farm.
I’m a bit sceptical about David Parker’s analysis though. He was of the opinion that overseas buyers only effected a small increase on the market. Having sold some rural land in the past 7 years, in my experience the price offered from overseas purchasers was always a significant margin over and above what NZ buyers could offer. Furthermore they were invariably “clean” offers – ie cash and not subject to finance, or the sale of another property.
Malcolm Turnbull and his gang could intimidate the previous N.Z. government, but Jimmy Barnes is having none of their nonsense….
Rock legend Jimmy Barnes has again taken aim at the Liberal government, demanding they stop using his name and songs to spruik their “shitty policies”.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and energy minister Josh Frydenberg went to the Bluescope steelworks in Port Kembla, south of Wollongong, on Monday to talk about energy policy, industry and jobs.
“More than 30 years ago Jimmy Barnes came to Port Kembla to make the film clip for Working Class Man. Today the Prime Minister has come to Port Kembla to create jobs for Australia’s working class men and women,” Frydenberg said proudly.
He was referencing Barnes’ famous hit and iconic video clip, which was filmed at the NSW steelmaking facility.
Early on Tuesday morning, Barnes fired back on Twitter.
Barnes is outspoken and unabashedly political on Twitter, sharing lots of support for progressive causes. He was a loud supporter of marriage equality during the recent postal survey, as well as criticising Australia’s current asylum seeker policy as it relates to offshore detention.
Read more…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/11/27/jimmy-barnes-tells-shitty-liberals-not-to-use-his-music_a_23289666/
So here you have it:
So much for Key’s claim he acted on the principle of being “too intrusive”. The programme was cancelled because they suspected Snowden had the details.
What we can deduce is: had Snowden not done what he did… the GCSB and it’s off-shore mates would be conducting mass surveillance of NZ citizens and we would not know it.
GCSB minister Andrew Little on mass surveillance and our spies obeying the law.
Anne, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve just reposted your excellent contribution over on David Farrar’s blog….
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2017/12/general_debate_1_december_2017.html/comment-page-1#comment-2089816
Hilarious Morrissey. That should stir a few Righties. 😀
It certainly did, Anne! I recommend you click on the links below, especially the second one, and follow the angry snarling, the aneurisms and the gnashings of teeth. They’re hurt, and VERY angry….
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2017/12/general_debate_1_december_2017.html/comment-page-1#comment-2089816
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2017/12/the_speargun_beatup.html/comment-page-1#comment-2090312
“the GCSB and it’s off-shore mates would be conducting mass surveillance of NZ citizens and we would not know it.”
swap out “would be” and “would not” for “probably are” (or just “are”) and “don’t”.
(And I’m more than happy to wear a tin foil hat, it seems to keep me awake)
No mikes, I don’t believe they are. Certainly Andrew Little is quite sure they are not conducting mass surveillance and he is an astute and highly intelligent politician. Add to that his sharp, experienced lawyer mind, I doubt anyone would try to pull the wool over his eyes.
Parker and Jones should induce Xero to syay NZX listed.
Worth it.
I see they have breach my privacy rights here in Auckland many thanks for more Mana boys I see even the boys in Auckland like there fireworks to and all there idiot lying contracted liars they tried a move with a old work m8 but no my sense of smell is to good for those idiots. Got the bot hopefully it will be over by Monday Kia Kaha
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is what it looks like when the right wing lose, they cheat.
Many thanks to OUR new coalition Government for increasing our spending on research and development and having a 10 year plan to target 2% of GDP spent on research and development . Also increasing OUR border security to keep out invasive species which would wreck our primary sector of $38 billion ka pai.
I think that we should investigate the feasibility into industrial scale worm farming so instead of pouring nitrogen on our farm which degrades our topsoil we could pour worm casting on our farms this will reduce waste to the landfill and increase our topsoil this will reduce OUR imports cost ECT subsidizing second hand electric cars will reduce our export spend immensely .kIa kaha