TS could have a section ‘what you won’t see covered in the MSM’
Read a superb analysis on how our economy is being impacted by milk commodity global pricing and fonterras payout trends, sobering read. Thanks Crikey, thanks for nothing NZ MSM.
The rock star economy is having second album syndrome and the lead singer has been found to be miming others lyrics.
behind the paywall from Glenn dyer apologies but no can link.
‘Not so golden dairy anymore. While the Kiwis bask in the reflected glory of a World Cricket Cup final (and a great game last night), for another Kiwi success story — dairying — the golden, winning glow has well and truly gone. This morning, Fonterra, the country’s dairy monopoly, cut its distribution/dividend guidance after net first half profit fell 16% to NZ$183 million (it was NZ$459 million for the first half of 2012-13). Revenue dropped 14% to NZ$9.7 thanks to a slump in global dairy prices up to the end of December, when they hit a five-year low. Prices rose from January onwards until that anonymous poisoning scare earlier this month caused prices in last week’s auction to drop 8.8%. Fonterra held its forecast farmgate return for the current season at NZ$4.70 per kilogram of milk solids, but cut its forecast dividend to 20-30 NZ cents a share. ‘
the commodity boom is well over …countries need a weaker cross rate currency to boost exports, NZ $ is going the wrong way because interest rates are high comparitive to other stable’ democracys.John Spy has turned into Jonah ,when the AB’s fail to retain the WC ,its all over for the Natz Party.
I see this morning that John Key has come clean on Mike Sabin, environmental reporting, is going to outline the TPPA to the people of NZ, and has registered for New Zealand history lessons at the local primary school.
lprent has conceded that abuse and mob attacks have not been conducive to a vibrant forum for discussion. And he recognises the contribution I’ve made to improving the Standard stats at a time that other left wing blogs have been in decline.
He went as far as asking if I’d become an author here, to give more diversity to content and reach out more to the middle, which would improve Labour’s chances of leading a change government in 2017.
I haven’t decided yet. Are there any suggestions about what sort of different topics and alternate approach that anyone would be interested in?
I thought the beige one had a sense of humour there for a minute – maybe that was the joke. He’s already arguing the validity of a comment that he asked for.
Scares me off vto. But maybe his presence today is an April’s fool joke after all.
During those times when PG is in town the quality of craic drops like a stone in a well. More often than not I’m just reading author posts and comments, rather than commenting myself but when I see PG on the thread I just leave.
Opinion
Seeing George’s name appearing on OpenMike I know it will ruin the discussion, and frankly cannot be bothered scrolling down to see what other people want to discuss. Sad but true and have a feeling it has the same affect on many other readers of this site. Pete is as relevant to public discourse as Garth.
At Redline we just had our best month ever (we’ve been going since June 2011). And our 2015 first quarter is up 120% on our first quarter in 2012.
Of course, we have nothing like the stats of rightwing blogs like Slater but, frankly, we’re after a better class of reader and commenter.
And you won’t find people slinging around personal abuse or wishing that this or that person got imprisoned and raped in jail, the way you will find people making those kinds of comments on rightwing blogs like Farrar’s and Slater’s.
You might get a bit of a hard time on this blog, but it’s nothing at all like the virtual psychopaths who litter the comments section of those two rightwing blogs.
I’ve had a few robust discussions/disagreements on this blog – I’m not a Labour supporter – but I’ve never once felt abused and the general level of comments and debate here is a world above the cesspools that make up the comments section on kiwiblog and whaleblubber.
I suspect it is because you agree with the general thrust of the message being put forward. Right leaning people here are generally treated in a similar manner to how left leaning ones are treated on Right Blogs.
( I tend to be a speed reader and commenter ….which I fit in coming to the Standard with many other tasks in my life except when I get embroiled in something like the two Julian Assange posts/comments first by Bill and then changed into something else by TRP ….which were a real turn off for me …especially the accusations of “rape apologists” … imo Stephanie is not the whole or even the most important issue here…she was the last straw in an accumulation of gang attacks by some commenters that probably made MR leave and others join him)
I do think there is a case for an alternative to the Standard …based and run on a cooperate worker model rather than a privately and personally owned blog ….Lprent himself endorses other Left blogs….so I would be happy to endorse this…(however it would take the huge amount of skill and time that Lprent puts in)
…for me it is some of the regular and not so regular heavy weight thoughtful , experienced , specialist commenters that I get most from (like the Letters to the Editor in a newspaper)…that are often more interesting/ valuable than the once over lightly summary Posts…(other commenters I ignore for obvious reasons)
…that said the Standard has been, for a while for me at least, an enormously grassroots participatory educative experience ….and I have been put on to other media which i now look at regularly eg RT….so i am very thankful for this
I do think there is a case for an alternative to the Standard …based and run on a cooperate worker model rather than a privately and personally owned blog
Sounds like a plan.
I’m staying here and hope to see Murray back soon.
I don’t follow that. The standard isn’t a private and personally owned blog. In terms of legal structures I think there is a trust, and the running of the place is done cooperatively by the people who work here.
this from the About,
We’re a collective who saw a gap in the New Zealand political blogosphere and decided that we should have a go at filling it here at The Standard blog site. We write here in our personal capacities and the opinions that are expressed on the blog are individual unless expressly stated otherwise (see the policy). We do not write on behalf of any organization. Legally this website is owned by The Standard Trust, an entity set up by the authors to own The Standard’s url and handle any advertising revenue.
Just a thought ….. I wonder the wisdom of posters moderating their own threads – especially since there seems to be others online at the same time able to do so. However this is not my blog (and I won’t forget that goddamit!)
Well, I guess we pay more attention to our own posts, OWT, so from a practical point of view, that seems to work. But, like most authors, I’d prefer not having to moderate anything and it’s a credit to the regulars that the vast majority of comments posted here at TS don’t cross the line, but add to the quality of the discussion.
Just as an aside, for me, if I reply, (ie a comment with a blue background) I’m not actively moderating, but contributing to the debate. If it’s in bold black ink, that’s moderation. There’s no hard and fast rule about the difference, though, so other authors/mods might do it differently.
But to actually work, there needs to be ‘a great levelling’ in terms of skill sets, input etc. Then there is the structural limitations imposed by legislation…trusts and incorporated societies are required to have identifiable ‘head honchos’.
In terms of a web based enterprise, I reckon the transfer of Lynn’s skillset, well…
And then there’s the need to register the name, handle monies and because of potential legal actions being pursued….again, levelling becomes hugely problematic.
For what it’s worth, I reckon the author side of things works pretty well and is essentially levelled. I write what I want , when I want, as do other authors. I moderate my posts as I see fit and others do likewise. It’s not perfect and I’m sure I’ve handed down bans for stuff that others wouldn’t have banned for, and visa versa.
The way I look at posts is that the particular author, if they are around, is the co-ordinator of that discussion…and if they’re ‘in a shitty’, then hey.
I baulk at moderating on others’ posts – although I have done it and will continue to do it…in fact, I’ll probably be doing it more than I have in the past.
There are about 44 MILLION Muslims in Europe. That’s a 0.009% take up rate. I think the real question should be why so few Muslims are off to fight in Syria and Iraq.
It’s almost like they have no interest in waging war in a sandy Hell hole on behalf of fundamentalist mad people.
🙂
Easy fixed …. there are other things in life. Why you could go for a walk thru’ the streets of Wellington and count the number of new faces begging on the street in this “Roskstar Economy” (and Mex is a d d d d DEE j j j JAY!)
….. or if that’s too depressing you could count the number of premises that once were occupied by small businiesses either gone under or getting out while the getting’s good
….. or you could take a stroll around Wellington Hospital and listen to a few stories of those left behind who frequent outpatients.
The possibilities are endless.
Or you could just drop a load of happy pills like half the population are these days (I think a few doctors even ADVERTISE their wares these days).
Welcome to the consequences of neo-liberalism and the actions of its early adoptees (the Douglases, the Wildes, the MSM …… )
Once was Tim. I continue to struggle with the ever increasing sight of beggars in Lambton Quay. Never before have we had this number. It is fucking heartbreaking.
Not for the first time in recent years have I felt ashamed to be an NZer, when I see men and women ranging in age from teens through to seniors sitting quietly looking down at the footpath waiting for the day to go by and for it all to happen again the next day.
They are are most visual casualties of John Keys’ New Zealand.
If there’s one thing that really triggers the very raw feeling of anger and sorrow at what our government has done to our country it is the sight of beggars.
Mee too! Utterly ashamed!
It’s one reason that as soon as I’m able (IF I’m able), I’ll transfer all I’ve earned over a lifetime to somewhere that still sees the importance of community and collective (as opposed to the cult of I I I and me me me). That’s likely to be somewhere in northern India.
I’m hoping tho’ that things may change – and we’ve just seen the first signs of that happening
(I don’t ekshully see a ‘happy population’ btw – I see a divided one. One where there is an underbelly who anaesthetise themselves; a muddle class who’re ‘content’ by feeding themselves on consumerism and plastic; and a 1% who’re exstatic in the vein hope they’re going to be able to take it all with them. Amongst the !% and a sizable proportion of the muddle – their legacy they’re leaving doesn’t even enter their minds on a day-to-day basis
This story is worth looking into in depth as it illustrates the problem our country has with intensive dairying.
Forget the poo protest and look at the circumstances.
This farm is on land which is entirely unsuitable for intensive livestock farming (i.e. dairying in its common current form). It has shallow aquifers and stony free-draining soils. In other words the cow shit etc leaches straight through the ground and into the aquifer. It is clearly not suitable.
The farmer concerned was on Nat Radio yesterday and his sole problem became very very clear through his constant repetition of it. That sole problem was the debt he clearly has taken on for the farm. He cried about “loss of equity” and “burning cash to pay the interest” countless times.
His problem is not the farm, or even the land which clearly has limits on what it can be used for sustainably, his problem is that he has borrowed millions of dollars from a bank.
I feel for the guy, I really do, but life is sometimes fucking hard and unfortunately he has got smacked hard by it. I see no out for the poor prick other than acknowledging that the land is no good for intensive use and acknowledging the very real limits of banks and their debt. He shows no such recognition of these realities.
The land is not suitable for what it is being used for.
The farmer has taken on massive debt.
Sound familiar? This is a sample example of the underlying problems in many many parts of the country.
hi vto, while i largely agree with where you are coming from;
(The land is not suitable for what it is being used for.
The farmer has taken on massive debt.)
there are a few quetions i have.
how long has the farmer been farming there?
generations or a recent (last 12 years) arrival?
also possibly to be filed under none of my business, but he bought it up..
the reason for the borrowing? to improve existing systems or to keep on biggering?
the answers only really ameliorate his situation a little.
i wish the northland council shown on a recent native affairs item about cows polluting waterways was as proactive.
the chairman of the council (a farmer) kept blandly talking about balancing the needs of the environment with what the community wants to happen.
Yes I wondered those things too i.e. the history of his farm. But in the end the problem remains and those historic circumstances are just that – historic.
This type of situation will only become more common as farmers are limited as to the amount of their waste they can dump in the public estate (we cant dump any of our business waste in the public estate, and for very good reason).
Wise farmers will be already responding to these circumstances and moving to accommodate. Foolish ones will do things like cry like a baby and dump poo on somebody elses doorstep. This particular farmers approach, as evidenced by his performance on te radio yesterday, is not a wise one. Probably just emotional. Too close to the action to see the truth.
and our over reliance on dairying is making us more reliant on dairying making our protectors more likely to stuff the environment and water quality to perpetuate a problem.
businesses fail. they over extend… cant meet their aspirations and do not get the kinds of compromises some farmers seek and get.
it does seem those farmers not over extended financially are able to plan to accomodate the demands of their councils to deal with nitrate etc over the next few years. many farmers are achieving that. this farmer seems to fit the 80/20 model.
Many people dont get to stay in a career of their choice.
Pretty much spot on, though one thing not mentioned is using buffer zones around water ways and changing pasture management techniques to better utilise nitrogen for pasture growth and limiting nitrogen pollution.
Those with even a passing interest in the issue could do worse than read Sacha’s link (thnkas Sacha)
“Endlessly citing the familiar litany of dairy pollution, though, doesn’t get us any closer to a solution. We need to understand the position some farmers have found themselves in. The Government has saddled them – dairy farmers in particular – with the responsibility for resuscitating a moribund economy (don’t confuse the cost of earthquake rebuilds for prosperity). Under the terms of the Primary Growth Partnership, ag minister Nathan Guy wants primary sector export receipts to double in value by 2025. Given that they have already wrung monumental production increases from their properties – an average 57 per cent per hectare between 1992 and 2012 – that demand in critical markets like China has flattened, exchange rates routinely swing against them, and international dairy prices tumbled more than 50 per cent last year, the only practical thing left for dairy farmers to do is to stock more cows.
That, of course, is precisely what regional councils don’t want them to do – and nor does the public. But farmers find themselves in a crossfire of signals. The Government, like some Harlem pusher, is doing everything it can to coax farmers into still more expansion. It has adopted fresh water quality standards so lax they would give the filthy, lifeless Yangtze a clean bill of health. It removed the obstacle of a democratically-elected regional council in Canterbury that was proceeding on water issues with a caution mandated by voters. Instead, it installed pro-irrigation, agri-business-friendly “commissioners.” It has devoted $35m of taxpayers’ money to facilitating irrigation schemes. It granted agriculture exemption from the Emissions Trading Scheme on what is unfolding as a perpetual basis.”
We have the same problem here in Hawkes Bay, only they want $300 Million of public money to build a dam to satisfy their dairying fetish on land not suited to it.
vto. It also pays to differentiate between those who owned their property or business before 2008 and those who bought after.
No-one who owned prior to 2008 can complain about paying interest. Well they can complain but they’d have no credibility. Their interest bill fell by some 40%, if they were surviving on their old interest rates then they’d be raking it in on the newer rates post 2008.
A person with a $300k mortgage balance pre-GFC received the equivalent of a $10k pay rise when interest rates were cut post GFC. No-one else was blessed thus.
Heh, in other words it’s land that would be good for cropping, with some soil improvement of course, or could be used for viticulture or fruit trees depending on sunshine levels.
Instead dumbarse is running dairy, probably with high stock levels, and on a feedstock of plain grass which causes cattle poop to be more liquid. Which by running high stock levels, combined with pasture management is preventing soil carbon build up, from plant root growth, that would alleviate some of the nutrient pollution issues.
And what’s to bet he stupidly assumed the high milk solids payout was going to continue, so thought getting in to significant debt to upgrade the farm was a good idea. Which is now nearly unserviceable unless he ignores parts of the resource consent and local legislation his farm operates under vis water quality.
Fuck, even at my most spare even I’d recognise the failure states and would have shifted my land use patterns to avoid the problems. With looking at different business plans that limited nutrient pollution runoff, but still allowed the farm to viable without getting into massive debts.
Case in point, he could go with mixed, slightly weedy pasture, which would provide more protein to the cows, thus higher milk solid levels, meaning you could run with lower stock levels. And it would reduce nutrient run off via increased root mass and increase drought resilience due to weedy plants being able to tap into the low lying aquifer, while the more fiber from them leads to more solid cow pats, which leach nutrients more slowly. Change over to organic and use it for cheeses etc and bang, you can potentially run at lower operating costs, tap into a growing market and still potentially make a decent profit. With room for expansion into other stuff depending on the farms soils etc.
We as a nation may have to look at a subsidy to help indebted farmers transition to more sustainable methods to meet the coming tide of regulation that is coming there way.
we got and continue to get nothing in our industry and we are constantly assailed by changing regulation. So much so it has become a deterrent and investment is leaving.
Nyet, the writing was on the walls over a decade ago on water quality issues, if they didn’t pay bloody attention to the longterm risks to their business plans from that direction then the problem lies with them.
Furthermore, much of the debt is their own damn fault for assuming the high payouts would continue and that droughts wouldn’t hit production and so took on loans that they knew they’d have issues with if payouts dropped. Although the banks also share some of the blame for offering the loans in the first place, knowing damn well that the boom wouldn’t last.
You’re right if they knew the new rules were coming but if they were farming to the rules at the time and then the rules are changed/tightened then I think there is a case to help farmers transition to lower production levels.
That doesn’t happen in any other industries b waghorn and everyone gets slammed constantly with regulation change.
Farming gets helped all the time over and above other sectors. Examples – being left out of ETS, being given donkeys years to get water issues right. There is plenty of transitioning ability provided to the farming sector. Always treated like a special child – spoiled
Case in point, he could go with mixed, slightly weedy pasture, which would provide more protein to the cows, thus higher milk solid levels, meaning you could run with lower stock levels. And it would reduce nutrient run off via increased root mass and increase drought resilience due to weedy plants being able to tap into the low lying aquifer, while the more fiber from them leads to more solid cow pats, which leach nutrients more slowly. Change over to organic and use it for cheeses etc and bang, you can potentially run at lower operating costs, tap into a growing market and still potentially make a decent profit. With room for expansion into other stuff depending on the farms soils etc.
I don’t think farms with high debt get to make choices like that.
An interesting employment case is going to be discussed on Radio NZ at 11.30 this morning. It involves a worker who was sacked from his job and charged by police for things he hadn’t actually done, then required to sign an agreement saying he’d been made redundant. After the charges were dropped, he made an online whistleblowing video explaining what he’d been through and his former employer has sprinted to the court to force him into silence.
Reading between the lines, the worker concerned was, ahem, ‘made redundant’ before the charges were dropped and now that he has been cleared of any wrong doing, he wants to be able to publicise what appears to be shabby treatment by his employer (a council?). However, there is a gagging clause that might prevent that, even though it was signed under the duress of having the criminal charges pending.
It possibly comes back to cost of legal representation (again). IF this employee could have afforded legal representation he/she may have chosen to not settle and go to a hearing by which all that was said and done at the hearing could be in the public arena. He/she would still have won their employment case, got some compensation and been able to speak publicly about it?
Yep, that’s my reading of it, too. I’m guessing the employer has deeper pockets than the worker. Plus the worker has to have been crushed by the thought of losing the job and being prosecuted for crimes not actually committed. A shitty place to be.
National Party campaign master stroker, Stephen Joyce attributes the loss by their candidate Mark Osborne to breeches of the Electoral Act. John Key backs up Joyce’s sentiments by saying prior to these front page ads “Winston Peters had zero chance.”
Do not rule out a petition to force a re-election.
“misread your last 2 words”
I have a choice of three options after that remark. Either –
1. You have a dirty mind or
2. I have a dirty mind or
3. We both have dirty minds.
Mine was a joke 🙂 but I think Claire is serious. Little surprised she never attached an online petition form.
I note the spin department of the National Party were prepared in advance for the loss by launching ‘proven policy winners.’
Their first home buyer kick start policy, animal welfare & the tried and true winner cracking the benefit bludgers. All designed to counter the slide in popularity when the pollsters do the next rounds.
It will be a nervous wait to see how bad a hit they suffered Nationally from the Northland routing.
Well really it’s a quick back up mocking of campaign master stroker Joyce, if the MSM had any clues, however they were asleep with the recent win that saw Martin Gayle copyright breach, why this wasn’t headlines like ‘Lookout National Your Next’ defies belief.
Collin’s will be gaming it to unstable Joyce. Legally they should be protected by the ‘fall guy’ 3rd party that they sourced the song from.
Place your bets now for the timing of the usual right wing media bash and press releases from whiny shop owners against GASP! shops closing for two days over Easter, followed by the predictable whiny customers who just about faint at this time of the year because their lust for consumerism is curtailed.
Will it be an editorial tomorrow morning in your local paper?
Will it be a nutty little known Nat list MP whose cabinet club palm greasers are no more than small business owners?
OR
Will it be Rimmer, who as the very lonely voice in the wind that he is, decides he better do something and stand up for small business and their deprived customers?
What’s the bet Todd Barclay on behalf of those business owners has a little bleat? Mind you the area he represents includes Queenstown, which I think, alongside, Rotorua,being tourist towns, have an exemption from Easter trading hours regulations
There’s a new political party emerging, as a response to the concerted effort of diverse parties overturning a ‘safe’ National seat in Northland over last weekend. It’s aim is to strategically embrace MMP in an effort to curb single party dominance of NZ politics. It’s called the ABACUS party, which stands for “Aotearoa’s Bold And Calculated United Stance”……(though I’m not sure if we have the numbers).
Interesting idea that Left wing revolutionary governments require strong charismatic leaders at the implementation stage. Has there ever been a Socialist State that didn’t have a charismatic strongman leading it?
Both left and right authoritarianism requires the charismatic or ‘big man’ shit. I’m failing to see the ‘interesting’ aspect.
There is one interesting aspect to Venezuela that ‘everyone’ prefers to overlook. Chavez tried to use the power vested in the state to peacefully undermine the state and set up viable demcratic alternatives to either private (market) or state power…a million miles away, in fact the opposite, from anything tried in the USSR under the heel of the Bolsheviks.
“…Socialism, Laclau and Mouffe argued, should no longer focus on class warfare. Instead, socialists should seek to unite discontented groups – such as feminists, gay people, environmentalists, the unemployed – against a clearly defined enemy, usually the establishment. One way of doing this was through a charismatic leader who would fight the powerful on behalf of the underdogs. Laclau and Mouffe encouraged this new left to appeal to voters with simple, emotionally engaging rhetoric. They argued that liberal elites decry such tactics as populism because they are scared of ordinary people becoming involved in politics.
“There is too much consensus and not enough dissent [in leftwing politics],” said Mouffe, an elegant 71-year-old, at her London apartment in February. To her, the rise of rightwing populists such as Marine Le Pen’s Front National in France or Nigel Farage’s Ukip in the UK is proof that the post-Thatcherite consensus – cemented by “third way” social democrats such as Tony Blair – has left a dangerous vacuum. “THE CHOICE TODAY IS BETWEEN RIGHTWING AND LEFTWING POPULISM,” Mouffe told Iglesias in a TV interview in February….” –
We often argue about the place and vying for primacy of liberal identity politics and class on the left, and how best to synthesise the foundations of Marxism with a new form of socialism for the 21st century. The ideological underpinnings of Podemos offer (to me at least) a really interesting study in an attempt to do exactly that, and to challenge the neo-ilberal hegemony. I am off to Spain next year for a year, I cannot wait to get there and get involved in this!
Come on Phil Goff Off, wakey wakey get your arse into gear and get hammering this anti Union scumbag Gibson. Your mates in Labour have given you the plum Auckland issues portfolio in order to strength your chances of the Mayoralty, now get cracking and earn your keep, and tap Tindal to pay for the by election campaign too, when ever that is? Oh and see you pay for it ‘ahead’ of your mayoral campaign.
I mean surely this is why ‘Transport spokesperson’ Phil twiddling Twyford has been invisible on the reclamation issue.
Trivial, but indicative slip by Key in his facetious response to Winston Peters in the TV3 video of Sit down…. there’s a good lad
At 8:26 during his evasive response to Peter’s supplementary:
“…… I look forward to the member working constructively in areas like the RMA reform – Mr Speaker – so we can see more investment going in to Auckland – Mr Speaker…”
Even when he is given lines to recite, his disdain for the concerns of Northland come through.
Peru just sacked there prime minister for using there spy agencies to spy on rivals ( on 1 news mid day.)
Be nice if our government had those sort of morals.
It’s not that our government should have morals but that we should have laws to enforce morals and ethical behaviour. IMO, a large part of the ‘deregulation’ that comes with neo-liberalism is the deconstruction of laws that enforced ethical behaviour.
The problem is that the people we elect don’t always have ethics and it’s almost impossible to determine that beforehand. Just expecting people to act ethically isn’t going to achieve anything except that the liars and psychopaths gain more power.
I agree. It would be nice to think that the kind of democracy we have could promote ethical politicians and weed out the powermongers and sociopaths, but it doesn’t. Better to have systems in place to protect us if they do get in.
the only way we can change it is to not re-elect people whose ethics are low. Why? Because who makes the laws in NZ? parliament made up of people with the ethics we are questioning. MPs egislating for their own ethical standards? I think you will find that is why it is in the cabinet manual (cos it is unenforceable)
We don’t teach ethical reasoning in schools.
We directly and indirectly by our behaviours teach youngsters that the law is the maximum standard of behaviour, and as I wrote to DTB, that is set very low indeed.
Most people never consider their own ethical foundation, most don’t realise how many ethic based decisions they are making each and every day, and so they dismiss it all with one of several self excusing statements including:
“it was legal”
“everyone does it”
“I deserve a break”
“no one got hurt”
“it’s a stupid law”
Labour got colonised and hijacked by neoliberal radicals in the 80s, and we’ve never recovered from that and not have too many generations who have no lived experience of what a fairer society is. If processes had been place wihtin Labor to prevent that, we’d be in a very different situation today. I agree we need to teach and model ethics, I’m just not sure how we would do that in a country in the state it is in now.
we get stuck cos we now rely on those who we might regard as unethical to see he value of teaching and modelling ethics in our schools.
I do think the recent outcry over bullying on a reality tv shows that teaching about bullying and how to stand up to it works. Same might be true of ethics…
kids pointing out their parents unethical positions puts parents on the spot… as it does with bullying, smoking programmes etc…
the only way we can change it is to not re-elect people whose ethics are low.
And National just got voted in three times in a row despite constantly lying and they’ve shifted more power to the corporates, themselves and sold out NZ. This is why relying upon people being good doesn’t work. We need processes in place that detect and then remove these people with no ethics from positions of power.
We directly and indirectly by our behaviours teach youngsters that the law is the maximum standard of behaviour, and as I wrote to DTB, that is set very low indeed.
Then we need to set high standards rather than low standards.
Most people never consider their own ethical foundation
Yep, we need to change our culture and sometimes that change needs to come from a rule change.
it can start with rule change but which MP will present the Bill and which will vote for it? Who do you think will do this? and vote for it?
I mean why is the Cabinet Manual unenforceable at law do you think?
47% of the voting population don’t care that national are liars and deceivers, and another percentage also wouldn’t care if their team are in Government. Those who claim to decry lack of ethics from one band of pollies will do a contortionist proud excusing their own band of pollies.
The answer is with each and every one of us frankly and how we choose to behave.
its what we do when they display a lack of them, starting with not re-electing them. Each time we bring in a new law to set minimum behaviour we are actually setting maximum behaviour… and we never set that high enough.
I’m going to assume when you mention sexual morality that you are excluding people that jump that fence like Brown ,Brash and Clinton from showing a lack of ethics .
Surely if someone can’t stay loyal to there partner it shows a lack of ethical behaviour, If you’ll cheat on the person closest to you then you are capable of all sorts.
I stated that to prevent the thread becoming a specific exchange on the morality or otherwise of sexual dalliance in hopes the focus could be on ethics broadly.
Morals are not black and white, as a rule, just because you think certain behavior is unethical doesn’t meant is factually so.
Ethical reasoning is also a process of approaching an ethical dilemma, how to deal with it from more than just a “I think that is wrong” standpoint.
There are a few different ethical theories which when applied to an ethical dilemma can produce several different options to resolve it.
Surely if someone can’t stay loyal to there partner it shows a lack of ethical behaviour,
Nope because having sex with someone else doesn’t mean that you’ve become disloyal to your partner. It just means that you’ve had sex with someone else.
“Obviously ethics are in the eye of the beholder because I can assure for some it shows the height of disloyalty”
Sure, and for some it’s not. Likewise, some people being unfaithful goes hand in hand with their general low ethics, but for other people that’s not true ie they can be unfaithful in one area of the lives and yet faithful and trustworthy in others. In the same way that some people can be trusted in some areas and not others.
Yeah na cheating is cheating
If I had two possible people to vote for I’d pick the one who could keep it in there pants.
I can see why Tracy wanted to avoid this part of the ethics debate .
Part of the problem is there is this moral taboo on having sex outside of marriage. So all people are expected to live up to a certain standard whether its realistic or not. For many people it’s not realistic, so we have this crazy situation where people are expected to death do us part and they’re probably just not capable of it, but they agree to it because it’s the only thing on offer.
This is not a cross cultural standard btw, it’s specific to ones like ours (my guess is it occurs in cultures with strong patriarchal dominance where controlling women and esp who they have offspring to is paramount). But if you let people do what they want, and teach them to be ethical within that, it’s a different story. For people like you, it’s very clear that whoever you are with needs to be faithful, and I completely support that (there’s always going to be a portion of the population who can do permanent marriage). But for others, once the moralising is gone, it’s actually less of a problem. For me personally, I value respect for my wellbeing more than fidelity.
Some of the nicest people have the weirdest, to me anyway, sex lives. So long as it suits them, they are consenting adults, and they “don’t frighten the horses”, it is their business.
If a person stands by their partner, helps them with their life and goals and sharing pretty much everything and doesn’t go behind their back about anything then how is having sex with someone else being disloyal?
It is disloyal by showing a lack of allegiance,
a lack of faithfulness,
a lack of fidelity,
a breaking of a bond (see the bloody dictionary synonyms above)
As I said to you before draco, your musings are useful in their purity as you keep very specific to particular points and take no interference, but when it comes to bringing that pure thought down to application on the ground it gets stuck in the mud and goes little distance.
I think this is what you are doing here. It is all well and good posing the question you have above but the problem is, I would surmise, most everyone reads the term “loyalty” in a partnership to include sole and exclusive sexual relations. Sure some don’t but they are in a small minority.
If its open and honest of course it’s not cheating but that would be a rear situation.
Actually, multiple sexual partners is more the natural state of humans. the problem comes because of some idiots enforcement of cultural norms against the normal state which causes people to hide having sex with other people.
It is disloyal by showing a lack of allegiance,
a lack of faithfulness,
a lack of fidelity,
a breaking of a bond (see the bloody dictionary synonyms above)
None of those things is broken in an open and honest relationship.
edit: plus you moved the goalposts with your last sentence, naughty …. “None of those things is broken in an open and honest relationship”. Those things are most definitely broken when there is disloyalty which is what the specific and particular subject was. Nothing to do with “open and honest”
what on earth are you talking about? you have even stated just now that it was about whether having sex with someone else is disloyal. You said it wasn’t. I showed how it was.
You then changed it to something about “open and honest”
Where is “open and honest” mentioned in “having sex with someone else doesn’t mean that you’ve become disloyal to your partner”?
I’m in a long-term monogamous relationship myself, but the relationship is the one we have defined for ourselves. And if other relationships define theirs in such a way that sexual fidelity is not a requirement, then why should anyone else have a say in that decision?
No you didn’t. You showed a list synonyms and I pointed out that a number of those synonyms wouldn’t necessarily apply thus making it so that having sex with someone else doesn’t mean that you’ve become disloyal to your partner.
CYF’s main issue has always been lack of resources and funding, with a side order of trying heavily to maintain contact with the biological parents/family, which admittedly does need an overhaul. Anyhow, since they’ve given the review to Paula Rebstock (wingnut welfare for the win) and it’s being classed as, I kid you not, a “business case” I fully expect them to try and defund CYF and shove it’s various roles off to private interests and already under resourced charities. Instead of giving CYF’s the funding it needs and ignore the body of academic studies out there on how best to deal with familial abuse and abused children etc.
Because why pay attention to empirical reality when you can cut costs and screw people in need of a helping hand over instead? Which is pretty much par the course for National over the last 2 terms…
Aye, it’s fucking disgusting the way we underfund the health service, particularly mental health.
The idiots up top like to forget it takes years to train people in the health sector, and the ability to replace them is limited by low pay rates and underfunding of other resources that help contribute to burnouts and lead to feedback from friends etc that dissuade people from going into health care in NZ.
If you’ve got an hour or so Bruce Schneier and a panel discuss data collection, business, and who’s controlling who.
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
With Berkman Fellow, Bruce Schneier. Moderated by Jonathan Zittrain with special guests, Yochai Benkler, Joe Nye, Sara Watson and Melissa Hathaway.
You are under surveillance right now.
Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you’re unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you’re thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it.
The powers that surveil us do more than simply store this information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we’re offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches.
Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we’ve gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He shows us exactly what we can do to reform our government surveillance programs and shake up surveillance-based business models, while also providing tips for you to protect your privacy every day. You’ll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.
I think a lot of the cooperation is because we are given few choices. I do small things like turning off certain functions on my phone by default and avoiding FB as much as possible, but it takes effort. I’ve tried running anti-tracking addons on my mac and it just creates too many problems. I use gmail, but I’d quite happily switch to something else if there was something else.
There are independentt tech developers out there trying to offer alternatives, but too few and far between at this stage and caught up in the geek ghetto so that non-geeks have trouble getting on board and supporting them. One of the best things that could happen at this stage is for people to help geeks make their ideas and actions and tech more accessible to the wider public.
There’s been some public resistance to the pay and wave thing. I think my bank was initially going to enforce it then backtracked and made it optional. Time will tell I guess.
yeah – the bank ad where they have the guy in a tinfoil hat is a clear indication they’re getting pushback from customers. They wouldn’t spend thousands on the ads if the ads weren’t needed.
All my rfid cards (except one door access card that also requires a PIN for anywhere fun) are in a metal holder, and all together (they can interfere with each other). I’m also going to see if sticking a holepunch through the corner of the card will work by breaking the antenna, but closer to the expiration date in case I kill the card entirely 🙂
At least phones you can turn off bluetooth etc. Saves battery life, too.
Basically, all the proximity cards (pay wave, not swipe) are rfid (a chip that’s powered by a foil antenna coil sandwiched between the sides of the card). The card would be active, but not sure whether the bank chooses to speak to it automatically. The emphasis they’re placing on it, you’d probably have to get the bank to stop speaking to the card. Easier to break the antenna, I reckon.
Ok, so it would be obvious which cards are rfid and which aren’t?
I found the Westpac ad. Pretty slimey, would love to know what they found out from their marketing research dept afterwards. Trust us because we tell you to trust us, yeah right. Nothing to fear, nothing to hide, blah blah.
I reckon all chip cards (insert, not swipe down the side of the terminal) would be rfid.
The chip cards are actually more secure than the magnetic swipe cards – one reason they take a bit longer when inserted than the old swipe cards is that they have an extra layer of encryption so that a rogue eftpos trader can’t match your PIN to specific card data. But then they bunged in the proximity bollocks to make life quicker (and it probably uses lower-strength encryption to make the transaction quicker).
I stopped using cash more than ten years ago because it is, quite simply, a PITA.
Get the cash and stick the folding in your pocket – makes you feel better too.
If it makes you feel better then you’ve been socialised to have cash in your pocket. It doesn’t actually make any difference to you.
A stash of cash takes up no more room than a few bank cards.
Actually, a stash of cash takes up huge amounts more room than the two cards I carry one of which is my debit card and the other my AT_HOP card. Mostly due to having to carry a bloody wallet.
People aren’t thinking on this issue I think
Getting rid of cash is one of the steps on the road to getting rid of money.
Your thinking DtB is often helpful due to its purity, but less so when the rubber meets the road.
For example, how would people get rid of money? Money meaning a means of facilitating an exchange. Humans have always exchanged, always. Methinks impossible. Completely impossible
well, as a thought experiment you could simply change what the magic numbers value or represent.
It used to be the gold standard, now it’s how much people want to own it as opposed to other currencies.
But that doesn’t require eftpos over notes/coins, other than that eftpos is more of an abstraction (no monarchs, signatures of bank directors, as easy to spend $1k as is is 10c, etc).
But we could replace the international value of the currency with a representation of “work hours” for example (or some other quantification of social worth), and give everybody a UBI of 30hrs per week.
“we could replace the international value of the currency with a representation of “work hours””
But money is already, in this sense, a representation of work hours. Such a representation would remain “a means of facilitating exchange” and as such still be “money”
No, money is a representation of capital. Whether we work or merely accrue those tokens through other capital is irrelevant to the fact we have an income.
That’s one of the questions facing the work-hour system. It’s an old tweak on socialism, which I suspect would be unworkable because people are dicks.
It was simply an example I picked as a transition from the means of exchange being based on conflict to the means of exchange being based on cooperation.
There are other methods of exchange and distribution.
Yes we are dicks there’s lots of great solutions to mankind’s problems but our feeble little ape minds still want all the goodies for ourselves.
Is it even possible for humankind to evolve past this obstacle?
“For example, how would people get rid of money? Money meaning a means of facilitating an exchange. Humans have always exchanged, always. Methinks impossible. Completely impossible”
But people haven’t always had money, so it’s technically possible to run exchanges without it.
Really? What do you mean? What did they do? Live in equality and harmony? …. surely not…. I didn’t think we were capable of that but then I have only been around for mumble years..
Economics essentially states that we started bartering and then we invented money to assist with trade. The problem is that such a barter economy hasn’t been found. This calls into question the idea that we’ve always traded.
The Nhunggabarra society was carefully balanced with checks and balances and reinforcing loops. Their economy was dominated by intangible production and consumption. The farming methods were built on intimate knowledge of the ecology of the land. Individual know-how was the decisive power factor; keeping a tight rein on men’s ego-drive spread leadership roles; building community also outside one’s own country kept peace and increased survival rates. Their spiritual belief was that ‘all are connected’, the core value ‘respect’ for all life, so care for the ecosystem was not only a matter of immediate survival, but also the purpose of humanity: to ‘keep all alive’.
Trading model:
The Aboriginal model (applied all over Australia) was to select items from their country that they had a surplus of and bring them to the trading place on the country border. There they placed a message stick and left. The neighbouring people would see the message stick and leave items of their choice at the trading place. Both trading parties had to accept all the items, even if they did not need them; to leave anything would have shown disrepect. What they did not need they would in their turn trade with people further away. In this way a vast trading network was maintained across all of Aboriginal Australia.
Their Aboriginal community to community trading model for tangible goods seems designed to minimise conflict. By leaving the goods in a neutral trading place they avoided arguments about the value and they also avoided entirely the risk inherent in warehousing goods. Instead of trade in tangible goods being risky and a potential source of conflict it became a trust building mechanism.
Well there aint no difference between the paper that forms money and the shells that form money. They are both inherently worthless so not sure what you mean there.
My point was that if you think you can change human behaviour by just removing cash from the system then you have a bigger brain then me….
Like banning alcohol or legal highs the problem just gets forced underground. Or like legalising marijuana to get rid of the gangs behaviours just squirts into another corner of our world.
Crime will not reduce by getting rid of cash – it will merely move to another location.
How would a tinny house operate without cash or Joe farm boy sell his crop ,these are not high tech crims and I’m sure most here push for loop holes to be closed for tax evaders so no cash in the system would kill the cashy over night.
The shells comment was just in case you’re anti anything new.
If I break into your house and steal your flat screen tv and there is no cash, why don’t I just give it to someone who then gives me my month’s supply of dak? The dealer then gives the tv to someone to repair his car. etc.
Criminals are enterprising, they’ll always find a way around if they need to.
Because the whole point of crime, just like capitalism really, is to accumulate wealth and you can’t do that bartering because everyone can see it.
Then there’s the fact that TVs have serial numbers. These numbers are recorded against monetary purchases. Cops get suspicious for one reason or another, walk in, scan the TV serial number and catch one and, from there, the rest of the network.
I’m sure that people are terrified of this idea. The ZOMG, my every purchase and sale is recorded reaction but it really can go a long way to eliminating crime especially tax dodging by the rich.
The ZOMG, my every purchase and sale is recorded reaction but it really can go a long way to eliminating crime especially tax dodging by the rich.
Q. Do you actually believe the owners and controllers of the digital ‘money system’ are going to allow it to be used against their ilk ?
Those who believe a cashless society would be a step forward disqualify themselves from such discussion on account of narrow band thought and inability to imagine the negative consequences
waghorn mentioned petty crime. It’s pretty easy to see how petty crime will continue if there is no money. When it’s not about acruing capital, but instead is about feeding oneself or other survival needs, of course it can work.
@weka I didn’t say it would get rid of crime but it would make it harder and for our more pariniod friends a cashless society will happen so the best thing we can do is to keep pushing for strong honest government.
I use eft-pos and online banking because it’s easier for me to budget that way, and I don’t run out of money unexpectedly. But it’s a consequence of the society we live in. Quite happy to go back to cash if all the electronica disappeared.
Wages Protection Act, as I understand it still requires you be paid in cash unless you and your employer reach a different agreement or you work for the gummint and prolly some other exceptions.
So it does Tracey. I thought that would have gone years ago.
Imagine getting paid monthly and having to worry about carrying $5,000 or $10,000 in CASH. Can’t say I would be very keen.
I remember, many, many years ago when I was a student and worked each summer in the wool stores. If we weren’t paid, in cash, before 5pm on Thursday, being the day before the late night closing day, we automatically went onto double-time rates until we were paid.
Got pretty close some weeks but never actually happened damn it.
I guess $10,000 is pushing it a bit. I can dream of course.
I suppose I was thinking of the back-bench list MPs and their swollen salaries.
Or perhaps the Government Departments that were in the news the other day where the average salary figure for the department was over $100,000/year.
Some, such as The Serious Fraud Office and The Crown Law Office, I can understand but what does the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs do to have average salaries that are that high?
My partner’s eftpos card expired the other day. Not a credit card or a chip card, just a bog-standard old school cashflow. One minute they have a means of exchange in their pocket, then nek minit the bank has switched it off.
Did you even know they could expire? There’s no date on them.
Usually when I take mine back to the bank for a replacement they treat me like a deviant for not making them last forever.
So yeah, that reminded me of one of the reasons I like cash. Another is that it’s actually no-one’s business who I’m trading with or what I’m buying and when.
Yeah, well it just means i have to make the trip to the bank to withdraw my cash rather than my employer… but imagine if you had a disagreement with a big employer and so everyone asked to be paid in cash each and every pay day…
I must admit I’ve never seen one without an expiry date. I just checked my current ones for two NZ Banks and one in Australia.
They all have expiry dates.
Incidentally did you know that they are not “your cards” anyway?
They are, and remain, the property of the bank and can be withdrawn at their discretion. When you say “My partner’s eftpos card expired” you mean “The card that the bank owns and that it has so kindly been allowing my partner to use has, at the whim of the bank, expired …….”.
Probably wasn’t that particular incident but maybe something similar, we’ve been busy so haven’t gotten around to finding out yet.
re- ownership of the cards, I suppose technically the banknotes aren’t really “mine” either, the reserve bank just lets me use them. Bit harder for them to change their mind though…
Schneier has a really good blog (link in the wikipedia article) that covers all aspects of security. Some of it you’d need an IT or advanced math degree to get, but a lot of it is also pretty simply put.
He has interesting discussions on things like the “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” argument, and how the US fucked up the airport security that Israel handles fine (the post-911 yanks for years had one perimeter to get through, the Israelis do tiered evaluations and interventions from the airport offramp to the departure lounge).
Interesting guy. Most security “experts” are either only known in their precise industry, or are publicity-hounds who aren’t as “expert” as their advertising suggests. Schneier has definitely done and is still doing the yards (I use a couple of products he was involved in developing), but also isn’t averse to publicity.
Anyone else notice in Parliament today, when Winston Peters raised a motion for the implementation of a nationwide register for sex offenders and paedophiles, when put to the House for agreement or objection, the Natsies objected?
Obviously a somewhat sensitive topic for Key’s mob! Bit too sensitive perhaps?
Not long ago there was a very good article in Jacobin about the importance of workers involved in the circulation of commodities (and thus commodity capital); we’ve struck it up at Redline because, while it’s about the US, it’s applicable right across the developed capitalist world.
I popped into see democracy in action, and wondered how anyone is supposed to hold this government to account when speaker treats anyone questioning the government as “Men behaving badly”?
Very worrying when perfectly cogent questions are dismissed by National as “wrong”, and when followed up, speaker tells questioner to sit down and shut up.
Lundy found guilty at retrial. Brace for another set of appeals to be exhausted over the remainder of his 20 year non-parole period…
If there was one good thing to come out of the whole process (and there were many bad things) it was Braunias’ coverage. Despite being irreverent it somehow worked, and was full of expertly-observed detail.
I not surprised though. I’ve found in my experience (7 jury trials – 2 High Court, 5 District) that juries are almost always predisposed towards the prosecution and the police (“no smoke without fire” etc. etc.). I thought the judge sent some pretty obvious coded messages to the jury in the summing up.
I would have convicted on what I saw reported (I wouldn’t have the 1st time either) but I wasn’t in the courtroom to hear all the evidence or watch the body language so who knows.
Easy to say from the sidelines, but you get no opportunity to truly assess the credibility of witnesses unless you’re in the courtroom with them. I don’t think the forensic evidence was a home run, but it ran pretty close.
Also, despite how it was reported, apparently there was a consensus among the newsroom media pack reporting on the trial (bar 1) that Lundy “did it”. Whether they would have convicted him if they were the jury is another matter.
Personally, although Lundy didn’t take the stand at the trial (wisely) every time he has opened his mouth about it (to police in the immediate aftermath, to his family and to his legal supporters) he has sounded less than convincing.
Not in evidence and completely extraneous to the trial, but you might enjoy this analysis of his letter to supporters on his website: http://www.verify.co.nz/case-marklundy.php
I though I made it clear that as I wasn’t in the courtroom to hear all the evidence that there was possibly elements I missed however based on what I saw reported I wouldn’t have convicted.
And I wouldn’t take anything the media pack says as worth anything of any particular value. 👿
That’s fair enough 🙂 The point about the media view was only to illustrate that, if their reporting conveyed the idea that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict, that wasn’t representative of their personal views.
Again, based on media reports only, I thought the defence did a pretty good job of impeaching the prosecution’s case (around motive, the rather imprecise measurements of distance driven/petrol used/etc).
The “CSI effect” does kinda boost the stock of forensic evidence though, and it appears to have swayed the jury.
You are pretty unlucky to have been called to jury duty so many times (assuming you weren’t counsel/the accused 😉 but I don’t think you’re wrong about the observations of jury bias. There are lots of articles/studies about how juries react to the accused too (too tired to fish out links sorry). But by the same token, you’d hope the Crown wouldn’t bring prosecutions if they didn’t think they had fairly good prospects of success.
I think the “coded messages” in Simon France J’s summary are in the eye of the beholder. Some would argue they trivialise the consequences of returning a guilty verdict, whereas I take it you read them as an impeachment of the evidence. I don’t think they were either (except, perhaps, his comments about the “snitch”!)
Summonsed for jury duty 13 times! Attended 10 times, selected 7 (never been challenged – must be something about my face I reckon!) First in 1986, last time 2010. The other 3 times I was excused – once because I was working with MoJ, once because I was actually living overseas and once because I was going on my honeymoon! (Court Registrar figured that was a good enough reason!).
My wife has never been summonsed, nor my parents or 4 siblings! I seem to be carrying the civic load for my whole family!
I’ve found in my experience (7 jury trials – 2 High Court, 5 District) that juries are almost always predisposed towards the prosecution and the police (“no smoke without fire” etc. etc.)
My thoughts too. I guessed from the start they would find him guilty on that basis alone.
Don’t profess to know whether he did it or not (didn’t follow the case) but what I can say: my one and only experience with the NZ police left me feeling I would never ever trust them again. That was 20 years ago and my opinion hasn’t changed!
I know you know, from your experience, that what a jury sees and hears is far more
than a media article can or does report.
The difficulty in any appeal as I see it is;
The brain tissue issue has now been traversed and all defence witnesses heard on it;
The jury as given a possible alternative to Lundy doing it and still found him guilty.
On a side note I bet the brother-in-law slept better last night.
The jury got it right IMO. Lundy made poor financial choices (ironically he looks like the kind of guy who would ring talkback and complain about those on benefits), and brought his family to the brink of destitution to fulfil his dream of owning a wine tasting emporium, and set himself up as this wine snob leading a hedonistic happy go lucky lifestyle.
The guy thought he could get away with the perfect murder. Go on a business trip, stay at a motel, sneak home in the middle of the night, do some ‘carpentry’ and then head back to the motel for breakfast — the perfect alibi, no one would ever suspect him, the cops would pin the blame on some drugged up homey, and he would have endless orgies at his wine tasting outfit in the Hawkes Bay. Hell, he could have even voted for Key in 08!.
Lundy was entitled to appear his conviction and take his case to the Privy Council, but just because you can appeal, doesnt mean that you are innocent.
And note: The Privy Council said his conviction was “unsafe”. That didnt mean they thought he was innocent.
That he’s a knob and a blow-hard and a spendthrift is not really a reason to convict though. The Prosecution couldn’t use any of those as reason for motive.
The fact the prosecution had to change substantial elements from their case from the first trial should cast grave and reasonable doubts. Could he have done it – of course yes – but I seriously question beyond a reasonable doubt. We should bear in mind the State can and does put enormous resource into achieving a prosecution (apparently $5 million for this one ) which is why we maintain innocent until proven guilty and require the state to prove the case.
I thought the judges summing up sent a pretty strong message to the jury which cleared the way for a “Not Guilty” verdict.
Key points:
* The jury has retired after the judge said there was no “rule” about how they should come to a verdict.
* Evidence of a jailhouse confession by Lundy should be treated by the jury with “great care”, the judge said.
* An expert’s evidence suggesting the stains on Mark Lundy’s shirt contained signs of human brain were not verified by any other witness but that did not mean they were incorrect, the judge said.
* Establishing the whether or not the stains on Mark Lundy’s shirt came from Christine Lundy’s was “very significant fact” the jury would have to give “careful consideration”, the judge said.
* Some alleged changes of evidence could be used to asses the police investigation, the judge said.
* It was up to the jury to decide if Lundy could have travelled more than 460km on one tank of fuel, the judge said.
* The Crown being unable to prove a motive did not mean Lundy did not kill his family, the judge said.
* The jury should should not ignore expert evidence because of its complexity, the judge said.
* Justice Simon France started by telling the jury to put aside any prejudice or disgust about the use of prostitutes or the injuries the victims suffered and focus on the evidence.
Like I said above, Greg, I think any inference you draw from Simon France J’s comments are in the eye of the beholder. Except the comment re: Witness X.
As to millsy’s comment, I don’t think it’s uncommon for small business owners to take on huge lines of credit from time-to-time. Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, the threat/shame of facing bankruptcy is not a reason for any sane/normally-functioning person to kill their wife/daughter. There was no evidence of a history of domestic violence or threatening behaviour by Lundy towards his family.
But who knows for sure, huh? Sadly only Amber and Christine (and probably Mark).
Long, very interesting conversation from some serious debaters on a book on how to raise children by abusing them and whether it should be in the Auckland Libray or not. It covers a lot of ground around censorship, book banning, the difference between books that are about something vs instruction manuals, the extent to which something being illegal is the issue etc.
Giovanni Tiso starts with his blogpost and then it carries on in the comments.
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New World Orders: The challenge facing Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins is how to keep their small and vulnerable nation safe and stable in a world whose economic and political climate the forty-seventh American president is changing so profoundly.IT IS, SURELY, the ultimate Millennial revenge fantasy. Calling senior Baby-Boomer and Gen-X ...
“This might surprise you, Laurie, but I reckon Trump’s putting on a bloody impressive performance.”“GOODNESS ME, HANNAH, just look at all those Valentine’s Day cards!”“Occupational hazard, Laurie, the more beer I serve, the more my customers declare their undying love!”“Crikey! I had no idea business was so good.” Laurie squinted ...
In 2005, Labour repealed the long-standing principle of birthright citizenship in Aotearoa. Why? As with everything else Labour does, it all came down to austerity: "foreign mothers" were supposedly "coming to this country to give birth", and this was "put[ting] pressure on hospitals". Then-Immigration Minister George Hawkins explicitly gave this ...
And I just hope that you can forgive usBut everything must goAnd if you need an explanation, nationThen everything must goSongwriters: James Dean Bradfield / Sean Anthony Moore / Nicholas Allen Jones.Today, I’d like to talk about a couple of things that happened over the weekend:Brian Tamaki’s Library Invasion and ...
New reporting highlights how Brooke van Velden refuses to meet with the CTU but is happy to meet with fringe Australian-based unions. Van Velden is pursuing reckless changes to undermine the personal grievance system against the advice of her own officials. Engineering New Zealand are saying that hundreds of engineers ...
The NZCTU strongly supports the Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill. This Bill represents a positive step towards addressing serious issues around unlawful disparities in pay by protecting workers’ rights to discuss their pay and conditions. This Bill also provides welcome support for helping tackle the prevalent gender and ...
Years of hard work finally paid off last week as the country’s biggest and most important transport project, the City Rail Link reached a major milestone with the first test train making its way slowly though the tunnels for the first time. This is a fantastic achievement and it is ...
Engineers are pleading for the Government to free up funds to restart stalled projects. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, February 17 are:Engineering New Zealand CEO Richard Templer said yesterday hundreds of ...
It’s one of New Zealand’s great sustaining myths: the spirit of ANZAC, our mates across the ditch, the spirit of Earl’s Court, Antipodeans united against the world. It is also a myth; it is not reality. That much was clear from a series of speakers, including a former Australian Prime ...
Many people have been unsatisfied for years that things have not improved for them, some as individuals, many more however because their families are clearly putting in more work, for less money – and certainly far less purchase on society. This general discontent has grown exponentially since the GFC. ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 9, 2025 thru Sat, February 15, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report shows worsening food poverty and housing shortages mean more than 400,000 people now need welfare support, the highest level since the 1990s. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and ...
You're just too too obscure for meOh you don't really get through to meAnd there's no need for you to talk that wayIs there any less pessimistic things to say?Songwriters: Graeme DownesToday, I thought we’d take a look at some of the most cringe-inducing moments from last week, but don’t ...
Please note: I’ve delayed my “What can we do?” article for this video.The video above shows Destiny Church members assaulting staff and librarians as they pushed through to a room of terrified parents and young children.It was posted to social media last night.But if you read Sinead Boucher’s Stuff, you ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is sea level rise exaggerated? Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, not stagnating or decreasing. Warming global temperatures cause land ice ...
Here is a scenario, but first a historical parallel. Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the ...
I’ve spent the last couple of days in Hamilton covering Waikato University’s annual NZ Economics Forum, where (arguably) three of the most influential people in our political economy right now laid out their thinking in major speeches about the size and role of Government, their views on for spending, tax ...
Simeon Brown’s Ideology BentSimeon Brown once told Kiwis he tries to represent his deep sense of faith by interacting “with integrity”.“It’s important that there’s Christians in Parliament…and from my perspective, it’s great to be a Christian in Parliament and to bring that perspective to [laws, conversations and policies].”And with ...
Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them?Every decade or so the international economy has a major financial crisis. We cannot predict exactly when or exactly how it will ...
Questions1. How did Old Mate Grabaseat describe his soon-to-be-Deputy-PM’s letter to police advocating for Philip Polkinghorne?a.Ill-advisedb.A perfect letterc.A letter that will live in infamyd.He had me at hello2. What did Seymour say in response?a.What’s ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff has called on OJI Fibre Solutions to work with the government, unions, and the community before closing the Kinleith Paper Mill. “OJI has today announced 230 job losses in what will be a devastating blow for the community. OJI needs to work with ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is sounding the alarm about the latest attack on workers from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden, who is ignoring her own officials to pursue reckless changes that would completely undermine the personal grievance system. “Brooke van Velden’s changes will ...
Hi,When I started writing Webworm in 2020, I wrote a lot about the conspiracy theories that were suddenly invading our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Four years ago a reader, John, left this feedback under one of my essays:It’s a never ending labyrinth of lunacy which, as you have pointed ...
And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
A ballot for a single member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Employment Relations (Collective Agreements in Triangular Relationships) Amendment Bill (Adrian Rurawhe) The bill would extend union rights to employees in triangular relationships, where they are (nominally) employed by one party, but ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
“The ACT Party can’t be bothered putting an MP on one of the Justice subcommittees hearing submissions on their own Treaty Principles Bill,” Labour Justice Spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
The Government’s newly announced funding for biodiversity and tourism of $30-million over three years is a small fraction of what is required for conservation in this country. ...
The Government's sudden cancellation of the tertiary education funding increase is a reckless move that risks widespread job losses and service reductions across New Zealand's universities. ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
Comment: Crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are making it easier for people to invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum without having to handle digital wallets or private keys. These allow investors to buy and sell cryptocurrency through their regular brokerage accounts.This has opened the door for billions of dollars ...
Two long-awaited reports into alleged personal data misuse, centred on census collection and Covid-19 vaccination efforts at Manurewa Marae, were released yesterday. Here’s what you need to know.“Very sobering reading” was how public service commissioner Sir Brian Roche described his organisation’s long-awaited report into the alleged misuse of census ...
Backbench MPs reached new levels of patsy questions in an extraordinarily dull question time on Tuesday. Echo Chamber is The Spinoff’s dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Wellington editor Joel MacManus. “MPs ask questions to explore key issues ...
The New Zealand Government says the Cook Islands must share more information about the deals it has signed with China, following the release of an ‘action plan’ in the face of protests in the Pacific nation’s capital.The Cook Islands government has also revealed plans to spend $3 million on a ...
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Comment: The recent attack by Destiny Church front groups on a Drag science show at Te Atatū library crossed a line. This wasn’t the first time that Brian Tamaki, the multimillionaire self-appointed ‘apostle’, has ordered acts of aggression against the queer community. Last year, Drag Story Time events were targeted, ...
Martina Salmon is well versed in the fast-paced action on a netball court, but even she was caught by surprise with the speed at which her career changed tack last year.Staying in the fast lane is only part of her drive this season.Fresh off a nine-day camp in Sydney with ...
Last night I may as well have been in Taihape. Or, closer to home, for me at least, somewhere in the Wairarapa. Or Tūrangi, even – which is near where we used to spend the summer when I was a child. For there was that same gorgeous small town feeling ...
Having Auckland’s food scraps dumped onto your rural backyard sounds scandalous, but in the North Island town of Reporoa there’s no fuss about the thousands of tonnes carted here every week.From the same site as one truck drops the waste, another truck picks up fertiliser to spread on local sheep ...
Negotiating rights over freshwater in Treaty settlement negotiations could have extended negotiations a decade, a Ngāi Tahu leader says.Tribal leaders, and its umbrella body, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, have taken the Attorney-General to court in a bid to have the Crown recognise its rangatiratanga (chiefly authority) over wai māori ...
Analysis: Poor safeguarding of New Zealanders’ data could be a widespread practice within the public service and certainly within the health system, according to the findings of an independent inquiry into allegations of misused census and Covid-19 vaccination information.The Public Service Commission’s review, led by consultant Pania Gray and former ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Stone, Principal Research Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock Having dense breasts is a clear risk factor for breast cancer. It can also make cancers hard to spot on mammograms. Yet you ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The National Anti-Corruption Commission will finally investigate whether six people referred to it by the royal commission into Robodebt engaged in corrupt conduct. This follows an independent reconsideration by former High Court judge Geoffrey ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University Last week in Europe, the United States sent some very strong messages it is prepared to upend the established global order. US Vice President JD Vance warned a stunned Munich ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Reserve Bank has delivered the expected modest rate cut of a quarter of a percentage point, and we’re set for the predictable frenzy of speculation about an April election. The cut is unlikely to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra The Reserve Bank cut official interest rates on Tuesday, the first decrease in four years, saying inflationary pressures are easing “a little more quickly than expected”. However, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Reserve Bank has delivered the expected modest rate cut of a quarter of a percentage point, and we’re set for the predictable frenzy of speculation about an April election. The cut is unlikely to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allan Fels, Professor Allan Fels, Professor of Law, Economics and Business at the University of Melbourne and Monash University., The University of Melbourne Australia is creeping towards adding a divestiture power to its Competition and Consumer Act. Under such a law, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arjen Vaartjes, PhD Student, Quantum Physics, UNSW Sydney Dmitriy Rybin / Shutterstock What makes something quantum? This question has kept a small but dedicated fraction of the world’s population – most of them quantum physicists – up at night for decades. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch University Australia’s minister for home affairs announced on Sunday that the federal government has struck a deal with Nauru to “resettle” three non-citizens from what’s come to be known as the “NZYQ cohort”. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University (From left to right): Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano before signing the Munich Agreement, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany.German Federal Archives/Wikimedia Commons Ukraine ...
The purpose was to establish the facts and provide an independent assessment of government agency activity in relation to allegations that personal data may have been misused during the 2023 General Election. ...
Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster said he is carefully reviewing the referrals raised in the two reports. That work will be done in the context the Privacy Act and the need to ensure individuals’ rights to privacy is protected and respected. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bhavna Middha, ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University The average Australian household size has decreased from 4.5 people per household in 1911 to 2.5 people in 2024. At the same time, the average house size has increased, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Page Jeffery, Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Sydney suriyachan/Shutterstock When the Australian government passed legislation in November last year banning young people under 16 from social media, it included exemptions for platforms “that are primarily for the purposes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leslie Roberson, Postdoctoral research fellow, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland If you’ve ever been stopped by quarantine officers at the airport, you might think Australia’s international border is locked down like a fortress. But when it comes ...
Duncan Sarkies’ latest novel, Star Gazers, is about the collapse of democracy in a society of alpaca breeders. Here are some things his intensive research revealed. 1 How greed works, psychologicallyYes, I guess I already understood greed, but I could never understand why people who already have everything they ...
The proposed cuts would see only two full time Telehealth data and digital roles, and one Planning, Funding and Outcomes (PFO) role remain, reduced from 17 Telehealth support roles (including vacant roles). Roles proposed to be cut include Telehealth ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling for Ministers to end funding for Te Kurahuna programmes and workshop grifters that have received millions in taxpayer funding, despite the Government’s supposed focus on cutting costs. ...
TS could have a section ‘what you won’t see covered in the MSM’
Read a superb analysis on how our economy is being impacted by milk commodity global pricing and fonterras payout trends, sobering read. Thanks Crikey, thanks for nothing NZ MSM.
The rock star economy is having second album syndrome and the lead singer has been found to be miming others lyrics.
Sounds interesting. Crikey link analysis please.
behind the paywall from Glenn dyer apologies but no can link.
‘Not so golden dairy anymore. While the Kiwis bask in the reflected glory of a World Cricket Cup final (and a great game last night), for another Kiwi success story — dairying — the golden, winning glow has well and truly gone. This morning, Fonterra, the country’s dairy monopoly, cut its distribution/dividend guidance after net first half profit fell 16% to NZ$183 million (it was NZ$459 million for the first half of 2012-13). Revenue dropped 14% to NZ$9.7 thanks to a slump in global dairy prices up to the end of December, when they hit a five-year low. Prices rose from January onwards until that anonymous poisoning scare earlier this month caused prices in last week’s auction to drop 8.8%. Fonterra held its forecast farmgate return for the current season at NZ$4.70 per kilogram of milk solids, but cut its forecast dividend to 20-30 NZ cents a share. ‘
This article?
Already New Zealand’s October trade figures revealed a 70% fall in dairy export income in October, and October’s trade deficit was at a six-year high.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/12/01/its-not-just-iron-ore-and-coal-tumbling-commodities-will-hurt-hockey/
StatsNZ;
Milk powder led the fall in exports to China, down $459 million (77 percent), with quantities down 67 percent.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/imports_and_exports/OverseasMerchandiseTrade_MROct14.aspx
the commodity boom is well over …countries need a weaker cross rate currency to boost exports, NZ $ is going the wrong way because interest rates are high comparitive to other stable’ democracys.John Spy has turned into Jonah ,when the AB’s fail to retain the WC ,its all over for the Natz Party.
I see this morning that John Key has come clean on Mike Sabin, environmental reporting, is going to outline the TPPA to the people of NZ, and has registered for New Zealand history lessons at the local primary school.
april fool
ha
ha
😀
lprent has conceded that abuse and mob attacks have not been conducive to a vibrant forum for discussion. And he recognises the contribution I’ve made to improving the Standard stats at a time that other left wing blogs have been in decline.
He went as far as asking if I’d become an author here, to give more diversity to content and reach out more to the middle, which would improve Labour’s chances of leading a change government in 2017.
I haven’t decided yet. Are there any suggestions about what sort of different topics and alternate approach that anyone would be interested in?
The fact that it’s April you could do a post on how key Fools people into voting for him.
Winston is more typical on that count.
please list winstons top 100 lies or misleading public statements.
the people with their eyes open thank you in advance.
1st April?
Do it Pete. At least then the usual unruly scrum that forms around you can heap itself on your post rather than clog up other threads.
First topic: How to sit on the fence for 3 score and 10
I thought the beige one had a sense of humour there for a minute – maybe that was the joke. He’s already arguing the validity of a comment that he asked for.
Haven’t missed this a bit. 🙄
Pete I think you have scared everybody off. No decent comments since tc’s at 6.50am, over two hours ago
Scares me off vto. But maybe his presence today is an April’s fool joke after all.
During those times when PG is in town the quality of craic drops like a stone in a well. More often than not I’m just reading author posts and comments, rather than commenting myself but when I see PG on the thread I just leave.
Opinion
Seeing George’s name appearing on OpenMike I know it will ruin the discussion, and frankly cannot be bothered scrolling down to see what other people want to discuss. Sad but true and have a feeling it has the same affect on many other readers of this site. Pete is as relevant to public discourse as Garth.
It has been a wonderful period in his absence.
Which left blogs are in decline?
At Redline we just had our best month ever (we’ve been going since June 2011). And our 2015 first quarter is up 120% on our first quarter in 2012.
Of course, we have nothing like the stats of rightwing blogs like Slater but, frankly, we’re after a better class of reader and commenter.
And you won’t find people slinging around personal abuse or wishing that this or that person got imprisoned and raped in jail, the way you will find people making those kinds of comments on rightwing blogs like Farrar’s and Slater’s.
You might get a bit of a hard time on this blog, but it’s nothing at all like the virtual psychopaths who litter the comments section of those two rightwing blogs.
I’ve had a few robust discussions/disagreements on this blog – I’m not a Labour supporter – but I’ve never once felt abused and the general level of comments and debate here is a world above the cesspools that make up the comments section on kiwiblog and whaleblubber.
Phil
I suspect it is because you agree with the general thrust of the message being put forward. Right leaning people here are generally treated in a similar manner to how left leaning ones are treated on Right Blogs.
IF author = not commenting on other posts,THEN nirvana, ELSE same old PG
Or in Rosie’s and my case
DO WHILE PG = not present
lol
I see the people of Nepal have had the same problem as the people of Northland….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/67571707/wild-rhino-chased-into-forest-after-deadly-rampage-in-nepal
11 days remaining till the return of the Rawshark 5:
Murray Rawshark
phillip ure
greywarshark
Colonial Rawshark
Macro
Another day on the picket line for me:
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30032015/#comment-993741
However, greywarshark may be back already; going by this comment that I missed yesterday (or that may have been a once-off clarification of position):
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-31032015/#comment-994097
+100 Pasupial…(yes I think greywarshark is back)…
i love the analogies in your first link which i hadnt read before:
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30032015/#comment-993741
( I tend to be a speed reader and commenter ….which I fit in coming to the Standard with many other tasks in my life except when I get embroiled in something like the two Julian Assange posts/comments first by Bill and then changed into something else by TRP ….which were a real turn off for me …especially the accusations of “rape apologists” … imo Stephanie is not the whole or even the most important issue here…she was the last straw in an accumulation of gang attacks by some commenters that probably made MR leave and others join him)
I do think there is a case for an alternative to the Standard …based and run on a cooperate worker model rather than a privately and personally owned blog ….Lprent himself endorses other Left blogs….so I would be happy to endorse this…(however it would take the huge amount of skill and time that Lprent puts in)
…for me it is some of the regular and not so regular heavy weight thoughtful , experienced , specialist commenters that I get most from (like the Letters to the Editor in a newspaper)…that are often more interesting/ valuable than the once over lightly summary Posts…(other commenters I ignore for obvious reasons)
…that said the Standard has been, for a while for me at least, an enormously grassroots participatory educative experience ….and I have been put on to other media which i now look at regularly eg RT….so i am very thankful for this
I do think there is a case for an alternative to the Standard …based and run on a cooperate worker model rather than a privately and personally owned blog
Sounds like a plan.
I’m staying here and hope to see Murray back soon.
I don’t follow that. The standard isn’t a private and personally owned blog. In terms of legal structures I think there is a trust, and the running of the place is done cooperatively by the people who work here.
this from the About,
We’re a collective who saw a gap in the New Zealand political blogosphere and decided that we should have a go at filling it here at The Standard blog site. We write here in our personal capacities and the opinions that are expressed on the blog are individual unless expressly stated otherwise (see the policy). We do not write on behalf of any organization. Legally this website is owned by The Standard Trust, an entity set up by the authors to own The Standard’s url and handle any advertising revenue.
http://thestandard.org.nz/about/
Just a thought ….. I wonder the wisdom of posters moderating their own threads – especially since there seems to be others online at the same time able to do so. However this is not my blog (and I won’t forget that goddamit!)
Well, I guess we pay more attention to our own posts, OWT, so from a practical point of view, that seems to work. But, like most authors, I’d prefer not having to moderate anything and it’s a credit to the regulars that the vast majority of comments posted here at TS don’t cross the line, but add to the quality of the discussion.
Just as an aside, for me, if I reply, (ie a comment with a blue background) I’m not actively moderating, but contributing to the debate. If it’s in bold black ink, that’s moderation. There’s no hard and fast rule about the difference, though, so other authors/mods might do it differently.
Collectives are a great idea.
But to actually work, there needs to be ‘a great levelling’ in terms of skill sets, input etc. Then there is the structural limitations imposed by legislation…trusts and incorporated societies are required to have identifiable ‘head honchos’.
In terms of a web based enterprise, I reckon the transfer of Lynn’s skillset, well…
And then there’s the need to register the name, handle monies and because of potential legal actions being pursued….again, levelling becomes hugely problematic.
For what it’s worth, I reckon the author side of things works pretty well and is essentially levelled. I write what I want , when I want, as do other authors. I moderate my posts as I see fit and others do likewise. It’s not perfect and I’m sure I’ve handed down bans for stuff that others wouldn’t have banned for, and visa versa.
The way I look at posts is that the particular author, if they are around, is the co-ordinator of that discussion…and if they’re ‘in a shitty’, then hey.
I baulk at moderating on others’ posts – although I have done it and will continue to do it…in fact, I’ll probably be doing it more than I have in the past.
🙄
I think the dictionary now has new definition of ‘futile’, ‘self-absorbed’ and ‘self-indulgent’.
For goodness’ sake, are you trying to make The Left look stupider than it has to?
It’s estimated there are possibly as many as 4,000 people from Europe who have joined jihadist groups in the Middle East.
Here’s a thoughtful, interesting piece by Kenan Malik on why young people in Europe, often from moderate Muslim or secular backgrounds, join the jihadis:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/why-are-young-people-in-european-joining-jihadi-groups/
Phil
There are about 44 MILLION Muslims in Europe. That’s a 0.009% take up rate. I think the real question should be why so few Muslims are off to fight in Syria and Iraq.
It’s almost like they have no interest in waging war in a sandy Hell hole on behalf of fundamentalist mad people.
It was such a beautiful morning, then I looked at Open Mike.
🙂
Easy fixed …. there are other things in life. Why you could go for a walk thru’ the streets of Wellington and count the number of new faces begging on the street in this “Roskstar Economy” (and Mex is a d d d d DEE j j j JAY!)
….. or if that’s too depressing you could count the number of premises that once were occupied by small businiesses either gone under or getting out while the getting’s good
….. or you could take a stroll around Wellington Hospital and listen to a few stories of those left behind who frequent outpatients.
The possibilities are endless.
Or you could just drop a load of happy pills like half the population are these days (I think a few doctors even ADVERTISE their wares these days).
Welcome to the consequences of neo-liberalism and the actions of its early adoptees (the Douglases, the Wildes, the MSM …… )
Once was Tim. I continue to struggle with the ever increasing sight of beggars in Lambton Quay. Never before have we had this number. It is fucking heartbreaking.
Not for the first time in recent years have I felt ashamed to be an NZer, when I see men and women ranging in age from teens through to seniors sitting quietly looking down at the footpath waiting for the day to go by and for it all to happen again the next day.
They are are most visual casualties of John Keys’ New Zealand.
If there’s one thing that really triggers the very raw feeling of anger and sorrow at what our government has done to our country it is the sight of beggars.
Mee too! Utterly ashamed!
It’s one reason that as soon as I’m able (IF I’m able), I’ll transfer all I’ve earned over a lifetime to somewhere that still sees the importance of community and collective (as opposed to the cult of I I I and me me me). That’s likely to be somewhere in northern India.
I’m hoping tho’ that things may change – and we’ve just seen the first signs of that happening
(I don’t ekshully see a ‘happy population’ btw – I see a divided one. One where there is an underbelly who anaesthetise themselves; a muddle class who’re ‘content’ by feeding themselves on consumerism and plastic; and a 1% who’re exstatic in the vein hope they’re going to be able to take it all with them. Amongst the !% and a sizable proportion of the muddle – their legacy they’re leaving doesn’t even enter their minds on a day-to-day basis
Totally agree.
It was one of the most shameful things to see in Queen Street on Saturday..
At least some countries have the reason of much lower GDP, per capita, than ours.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/67564608/farmer-dumps-poo-on-otago-regional-councils-doorstep
This story is worth looking into in depth as it illustrates the problem our country has with intensive dairying.
Forget the poo protest and look at the circumstances.
This farm is on land which is entirely unsuitable for intensive livestock farming (i.e. dairying in its common current form). It has shallow aquifers and stony free-draining soils. In other words the cow shit etc leaches straight through the ground and into the aquifer. It is clearly not suitable.
The farmer concerned was on Nat Radio yesterday and his sole problem became very very clear through his constant repetition of it. That sole problem was the debt he clearly has taken on for the farm. He cried about “loss of equity” and “burning cash to pay the interest” countless times.
His problem is not the farm, or even the land which clearly has limits on what it can be used for sustainably, his problem is that he has borrowed millions of dollars from a bank.
I feel for the guy, I really do, but life is sometimes fucking hard and unfortunately he has got smacked hard by it. I see no out for the poor prick other than acknowledging that the land is no good for intensive use and acknowledging the very real limits of banks and their debt. He shows no such recognition of these realities.
The land is not suitable for what it is being used for.
The farmer has taken on massive debt.
Sound familiar? This is a sample example of the underlying problems in many many parts of the country.
The chicken is coming home to roost
hi vto, while i largely agree with where you are coming from;
(The land is not suitable for what it is being used for.
The farmer has taken on massive debt.)
there are a few quetions i have.
how long has the farmer been farming there?
generations or a recent (last 12 years) arrival?
also possibly to be filed under none of my business, but he bought it up..
the reason for the borrowing? to improve existing systems or to keep on biggering?
the answers only really ameliorate his situation a little.
i wish the northland council shown on a recent native affairs item about cows polluting waterways was as proactive.
the chairman of the council (a farmer) kept blandly talking about balancing the needs of the environment with what the community wants to happen.
Yes I wondered those things too i.e. the history of his farm. But in the end the problem remains and those historic circumstances are just that – historic.
This type of situation will only become more common as farmers are limited as to the amount of their waste they can dump in the public estate (we cant dump any of our business waste in the public estate, and for very good reason).
Wise farmers will be already responding to these circumstances and moving to accommodate. Foolish ones will do things like cry like a baby and dump poo on somebody elses doorstep. This particular farmers approach, as evidenced by his performance on te radio yesterday, is not a wise one. Probably just emotional. Too close to the action to see the truth.
and our over reliance on dairying is making us more reliant on dairying making our protectors more likely to stuff the environment and water quality to perpetuate a problem.
businesses fail. they over extend… cant meet their aspirations and do not get the kinds of compromises some farmers seek and get.
it does seem those farmers not over extended financially are able to plan to accomodate the demands of their councils to deal with nitrate etc over the next few years. many farmers are achieving that. this farmer seems to fit the 80/20 model.
Many people dont get to stay in a career of their choice.
Well-informed guest post about this topic:
http://publicaddress.net/speaker/the-power-of-n-nutrient-caps-and-peak-dairy/
Oooh, thanks.
Pretty much spot on, though one thing not mentioned is using buffer zones around water ways and changing pasture management techniques to better utilise nitrogen for pasture growth and limiting nitrogen pollution.
Those with even a passing interest in the issue could do worse than read Sacha’s link (thnkas Sacha)
“Endlessly citing the familiar litany of dairy pollution, though, doesn’t get us any closer to a solution. We need to understand the position some farmers have found themselves in. The Government has saddled them – dairy farmers in particular – with the responsibility for resuscitating a moribund economy (don’t confuse the cost of earthquake rebuilds for prosperity). Under the terms of the Primary Growth Partnership, ag minister Nathan Guy wants primary sector export receipts to double in value by 2025. Given that they have already wrung monumental production increases from their properties – an average 57 per cent per hectare between 1992 and 2012 – that demand in critical markets like China has flattened, exchange rates routinely swing against them, and international dairy prices tumbled more than 50 per cent last year, the only practical thing left for dairy farmers to do is to stock more cows.
That, of course, is precisely what regional councils don’t want them to do – and nor does the public. But farmers find themselves in a crossfire of signals. The Government, like some Harlem pusher, is doing everything it can to coax farmers into still more expansion. It has adopted fresh water quality standards so lax they would give the filthy, lifeless Yangtze a clean bill of health. It removed the obstacle of a democratically-elected regional council in Canterbury that was proceeding on water issues with a caution mandated by voters. Instead, it installed pro-irrigation, agri-business-friendly “commissioners.” It has devoted $35m of taxpayers’ money to facilitating irrigation schemes. It granted agriculture exemption from the Emissions Trading Scheme on what is unfolding as a perpetual basis.”
We have the same problem here in Hawkes Bay, only they want $300 Million of public money to build a dam to satisfy their dairying fetish on land not suited to it.
vto. It also pays to differentiate between those who owned their property or business before 2008 and those who bought after.
No-one who owned prior to 2008 can complain about paying interest. Well they can complain but they’d have no credibility. Their interest bill fell by some 40%, if they were surviving on their old interest rates then they’d be raking it in on the newer rates post 2008.
A person with a $300k mortgage balance pre-GFC received the equivalent of a $10k pay rise when interest rates were cut post GFC. No-one else was blessed thus.
Heh, in other words it’s land that would be good for cropping, with some soil improvement of course, or could be used for viticulture or fruit trees depending on sunshine levels.
Instead dumbarse is running dairy, probably with high stock levels, and on a feedstock of plain grass which causes cattle poop to be more liquid. Which by running high stock levels, combined with pasture management is preventing soil carbon build up, from plant root growth, that would alleviate some of the nutrient pollution issues.
And what’s to bet he stupidly assumed the high milk solids payout was going to continue, so thought getting in to significant debt to upgrade the farm was a good idea. Which is now nearly unserviceable unless he ignores parts of the resource consent and local legislation his farm operates under vis water quality.
Fuck, even at my most spare even I’d recognise the failure states and would have shifted my land use patterns to avoid the problems. With looking at different business plans that limited nutrient pollution runoff, but still allowed the farm to viable without getting into massive debts.
Case in point, he could go with mixed, slightly weedy pasture, which would provide more protein to the cows, thus higher milk solid levels, meaning you could run with lower stock levels. And it would reduce nutrient run off via increased root mass and increase drought resilience due to weedy plants being able to tap into the low lying aquifer, while the more fiber from them leads to more solid cow pats, which leach nutrients more slowly. Change over to organic and use it for cheeses etc and bang, you can potentially run at lower operating costs, tap into a growing market and still potentially make a decent profit. With room for expansion into other stuff depending on the farms soils etc.
We as a nation may have to look at a subsidy to help indebted farmers transition to more sustainable methods to meet the coming tide of regulation that is coming there way.
get away with ya….
we got and continue to get nothing in our industry and we are constantly assailed by changing regulation. So much so it has become a deterrent and investment is leaving.
Nyet, the writing was on the walls over a decade ago on water quality issues, if they didn’t pay bloody attention to the longterm risks to their business plans from that direction then the problem lies with them.
Furthermore, much of the debt is their own damn fault for assuming the high payouts would continue and that droughts wouldn’t hit production and so took on loans that they knew they’d have issues with if payouts dropped. Although the banks also share some of the blame for offering the loans in the first place, knowing damn well that the boom wouldn’t last.
You’re right if they knew the new rules were coming but if they were farming to the rules at the time and then the rules are changed/tightened then I think there is a case to help farmers transition to lower production levels.
That doesn’t happen in any other industries b waghorn and everyone gets slammed constantly with regulation change.
Farming gets helped all the time over and above other sectors. Examples – being left out of ETS, being given donkeys years to get water issues right. There is plenty of transitioning ability provided to the farming sector. Always treated like a special child – spoiled
Case in point, he could go with mixed, slightly weedy pasture, which would provide more protein to the cows, thus higher milk solid levels, meaning you could run with lower stock levels. And it would reduce nutrient run off via increased root mass and increase drought resilience due to weedy plants being able to tap into the low lying aquifer, while the more fiber from them leads to more solid cow pats, which leach nutrients more slowly. Change over to organic and use it for cheeses etc and bang, you can potentially run at lower operating costs, tap into a growing market and still potentially make a decent profit. With room for expansion into other stuff depending on the farms soils etc.
I don’t think farms with high debt get to make choices like that.
Well, not after they get themselves in debt of course…
No, and the problem with the story today is we have no idea why this man is in the situation he is in.
An interesting employment case is going to be discussed on Radio NZ at 11.30 this morning. It involves a worker who was sacked from his job and charged by police for things he hadn’t actually done, then required to sign an agreement saying he’d been made redundant. After the charges were dropped, he made an online whistleblowing video explaining what he’d been through and his former employer has sprinted to the court to force him into silence.
can you post the link when it is up for those who cant hear it live?
Will do.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/20173253/employment-law-with-charles-mcguinness
Reading between the lines, the worker concerned was, ahem, ‘made redundant’ before the charges were dropped and now that he has been cleared of any wrong doing, he wants to be able to publicise what appears to be shabby treatment by his employer (a council?). However, there is a gagging clause that might prevent that, even though it was signed under the duress of having the criminal charges pending.
Thanks TRP. I had a listen.
It possibly comes back to cost of legal representation (again). IF this employee could have afforded legal representation he/she may have chosen to not settle and go to a hearing by which all that was said and done at the hearing could be in the public arena. He/she would still have won their employment case, got some compensation and been able to speak publicly about it?
Yep, that’s my reading of it, too. I’m guessing the employer has deeper pockets than the worker. Plus the worker has to have been crushed by the thought of losing the job and being prosecuted for crimes not actually committed. A shitty place to be.
If I was to go all 1930’s on this.
Was not the employee held to a good old fashioned Shake Down?
Seems to me calling the cops, and getting charges pressed was just another form of milking it.
I thought we had laws against coercing people.
Oh wait is it that old chest nut – of that our laws sort of work – because good people don’t need them – and bad people will just ignore them.
when did Key resign as minister of tourism and appointed Bridges
there’s a minister for appointed bridges?
lololol
National Party campaign master stroker, Stephen Joyce attributes the loss by their candidate Mark Osborne to breeches of the Electoral Act. John Key backs up Joyce’s sentiments by saying prior to these front page ads “Winston Peters had zero chance.”
Do not rule out a petition to force a re-election.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11426087
straws….clutching….desperation.
Go on petition a re-election, I dare ya in fact double dare ya.
It is April 1. Is this a Herald, JK,SJ cunning stunt?
when i read this i genuinely misread your last 2 words.
“misread your last 2 words”
I have a choice of three options after that remark. Either –
1. You have a dirty mind or
2. I have a dirty mind or
3. We both have dirty minds.
chuckle, I think it has to be 3.
Used to be an girl group many years ago. Unsurprisingly their singles never got much air play!
Mine was a joke 🙂 but I think Claire is serious. Little surprised she never attached an online petition form.
I note the spin department of the National Party were prepared in advance for the loss by launching ‘proven policy winners.’
Their first home buyer kick start policy, animal welfare & the tried and true winner cracking the benefit bludgers. All designed to counter the slide in popularity when the pollsters do the next rounds.
It will be a nervous wait to see how bad a hit they suffered Nationally from the Northland routing.
what happened in the eminem case ?
Probably not going to be heard until June (at the earliest)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/66433503/Eminem-v-National-put-off-for-months
That must be different then. At least in John and Steve’s co-joint mind. You know, cos they won.
Well really it’s a quick back up mocking of campaign master stroker Joyce, if the MSM had any clues, however they were asleep with the recent win that saw Martin Gayle copyright breach, why this wasn’t headlines like ‘Lookout National Your Next’ defies belief.
Collin’s will be gaming it to unstable Joyce. Legally they should be protected by the ‘fall guy’ 3rd party that they sourced the song from.
Knives are out in the Natz Club.
There are also rumours that a Nat MP has been a bit naughty. Save that for after this weekend for some more heat to be applied to hatch.
Isn’t Collins brand tainted now, in terms of reigniting a leadership challenge? Might be different for Mayoralty of Auckland (sadly)?
But Bennett seems to be the biggest beneficiary of the falls from grace over the last few months.
the old “cone of silence trick” eh 99; can be counterproductive as the filthy Nats found out in Northland
10.32am and no more PG. Seems safe to return.
Place your bets now for the timing of the usual right wing media bash and press releases from whiny shop owners against GASP! shops closing for two days over Easter, followed by the predictable whiny customers who just about faint at this time of the year because their lust for consumerism is curtailed.
Will it be an editorial tomorrow morning in your local paper?
Will it be a nutty little known Nat list MP whose cabinet club palm greasers are no more than small business owners?
OR
Will it be Rimmer, who as the very lonely voice in the wind that he is, decides he better do something and stand up for small business and their deprived customers?
The countdown commences………
Happy Easter break workers 🙂
It’ll be a pre-emptive strike by a business owner in a tourist town (how can they be expected to close?!!!).
What’s the bet Todd Barclay on behalf of those business owners has a little bleat? Mind you the area he represents includes Queenstown, which I think, alongside, Rotorua,being tourist towns, have an exemption from Easter trading hours regulations
There’s a new political party emerging, as a response to the concerted effort of diverse parties overturning a ‘safe’ National seat in Northland over last weekend. It’s aim is to strategically embrace MMP in an effort to curb single party dominance of NZ politics. It’s called the ABACUS party, which stands for “Aotearoa’s Bold And Calculated United Stance”……(though I’m not sure if we have the numbers).
ABACUS: The Only Party You Can Count On!
yes, but is it left or right, or does it keep changing its mind?
Lol 😀
Interesting idea that Left wing revolutionary governments require strong charismatic leaders at the implementation stage. Has there ever been a Socialist State that didn’t have a charismatic strongman leading it?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100260605/venezuela-the-lefts-favourite-socialist-paradise-is-sliding-into-poverty-and-dictatorship/
Both left and right authoritarianism requires the charismatic or ‘big man’ shit. I’m failing to see the ‘interesting’ aspect.
There is one interesting aspect to Venezuela that ‘everyone’ prefers to overlook. Chavez tried to use the power vested in the state to peacefully undermine the state and set up viable demcratic alternatives to either private (market) or state power…a million miles away, in fact the opposite, from anything tried in the USSR under the heel of the Bolsheviks.
Except he failed miserably and the power of the state has increased under the legacy he left.
Compared to, say, Columbia? Mexico?
Sweden?
Sixteen year old Amos Yee Pang Sang speaks truth to power. (nsfw language)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JqLm1kXqvo
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/31/singapore-teenager-amos-yee-pang-sang-charged-critical-lee-kuan-yew-video
“…Socialism, Laclau and Mouffe argued, should no longer focus on class warfare. Instead, socialists should seek to unite discontented groups – such as feminists, gay people, environmentalists, the unemployed – against a clearly defined enemy, usually the establishment. One way of doing this was through a charismatic leader who would fight the powerful on behalf of the underdogs. Laclau and Mouffe encouraged this new left to appeal to voters with simple, emotionally engaging rhetoric. They argued that liberal elites decry such tactics as populism because they are scared of ordinary people becoming involved in politics.
“There is too much consensus and not enough dissent [in leftwing politics],” said Mouffe, an elegant 71-year-old, at her London apartment in February. To her, the rise of rightwing populists such as Marine Le Pen’s Front National in France or Nigel Farage’s Ukip in the UK is proof that the post-Thatcherite consensus – cemented by “third way” social democrats such as Tony Blair – has left a dangerous vacuum. “THE CHOICE TODAY IS BETWEEN RIGHTWING AND LEFTWING POPULISM,” Mouffe told Iglesias in a TV interview in February….” –
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/31/podemos-revolution-radical-academics-changed-european-politics
We often argue about the place and vying for primacy of liberal identity politics and class on the left, and how best to synthesise the foundations of Marxism with a new form of socialism for the 21st century. The ideological underpinnings of Podemos offer (to me at least) a really interesting study in an attempt to do exactly that, and to challenge the neo-ilberal hegemony. I am off to Spain next year for a year, I cannot wait to get there and get involved in this!
Come on Phil Goff Off, wakey wakey get your arse into gear and get hammering this anti Union scumbag Gibson. Your mates in Labour have given you the plum Auckland issues portfolio in order to strength your chances of the Mayoralty, now get cracking and earn your keep, and tap Tindal to pay for the by election campaign too, when ever that is? Oh and see you pay for it ‘ahead’ of your mayoral campaign.
I mean surely this is why ‘Transport spokesperson’ Phil twiddling Twyford has been invisible on the reclamation issue.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11425422
Trivial, but indicative slip by Key in his facetious response to Winston Peters in the TV3 video of Sit down…. there’s a good lad
At 8:26 during his evasive response to Peter’s supplementary:
Even when he is given lines to recite, his disdain for the concerns of Northland come through.
I’m sure I’ve heard him make that same Freudian slip at least twice in the last couple of weeks.
Peru just sacked there prime minister for using there spy agencies to spy on rivals ( on 1 news mid day.)
Be nice if our government had those sort of morals.
It’s not that our government should have morals but that we should have laws to enforce morals and ethical behaviour. IMO, a large part of the ‘deregulation’ that comes with neo-liberalism is the deconstruction of laws that enforced ethical behaviour.
Yeah but none of that is necessary if the people we elect have ethics… and I am not talking about sexual morality.
The problem is that the people we elect don’t always have ethics and it’s almost impossible to determine that beforehand. Just expecting people to act ethically isn’t going to achieve anything except that the liars and psychopaths gain more power.
I agree. It would be nice to think that the kind of democracy we have could promote ethical politicians and weed out the powermongers and sociopaths, but it doesn’t. Better to have systems in place to protect us if they do get in.
the only way we can change it is to not re-elect people whose ethics are low. Why? Because who makes the laws in NZ? parliament made up of people with the ethics we are questioning. MPs egislating for their own ethical standards? I think you will find that is why it is in the cabinet manual (cos it is unenforceable)
We don’t teach ethical reasoning in schools.
We directly and indirectly by our behaviours teach youngsters that the law is the maximum standard of behaviour, and as I wrote to DTB, that is set very low indeed.
Most people never consider their own ethical foundation, most don’t realise how many ethic based decisions they are making each and every day, and so they dismiss it all with one of several self excusing statements including:
“it was legal”
“everyone does it”
“I deserve a break”
“no one got hurt”
“it’s a stupid law”
Labour got colonised and hijacked by neoliberal radicals in the 80s, and we’ve never recovered from that and not have too many generations who have no lived experience of what a fairer society is. If processes had been place wihtin Labor to prevent that, we’d be in a very different situation today. I agree we need to teach and model ethics, I’m just not sure how we would do that in a country in the state it is in now.
we get stuck cos we now rely on those who we might regard as unethical to see he value of teaching and modelling ethics in our schools.
I do think the recent outcry over bullying on a reality tv shows that teaching about bullying and how to stand up to it works. Same might be true of ethics…
kids pointing out their parents unethical positions puts parents on the spot… as it does with bullying, smoking programmes etc…
And National just got voted in three times in a row despite constantly lying and they’ve shifted more power to the corporates, themselves and sold out NZ. This is why relying upon people being good doesn’t work. We need processes in place that detect and then remove these people with no ethics from positions of power.
Then we need to set high standards rather than low standards.
Yep, we need to change our culture and sometimes that change needs to come from a rule change.
it can start with rule change but which MP will present the Bill and which will vote for it? Who do you think will do this? and vote for it?
I mean why is the Cabinet Manual unenforceable at law do you think?
47% of the voting population don’t care that national are liars and deceivers, and another percentage also wouldn’t care if their team are in Government. Those who claim to decry lack of ethics from one band of pollies will do a contortionist proud excusing their own band of pollies.
The answer is with each and every one of us frankly and how we choose to behave.
We’re a democracy. Stop waiting for unethical people to do it and start forcing them to do it.
its what we do when they display a lack of them, starting with not re-electing them. Each time we bring in a new law to set minimum behaviour we are actually setting maximum behaviour… and we never set that high enough.
I’m going to assume when you mention sexual morality that you are excluding people that jump that fence like Brown ,Brash and Clinton from showing a lack of ethics .
Surely if someone can’t stay loyal to there partner it shows a lack of ethical behaviour, If you’ll cheat on the person closest to you then you are capable of all sorts.
I stated that to prevent the thread becoming a specific exchange on the morality or otherwise of sexual dalliance in hopes the focus could be on ethics broadly.
Morals are not black and white, as a rule, just because you think certain behavior is unethical doesn’t meant is factually so.
Ethical reasoning is also a process of approaching an ethical dilemma, how to deal with it from more than just a “I think that is wrong” standpoint.
There are a few different ethical theories which when applied to an ethical dilemma can produce several different options to resolve it.
Nope because having sex with someone else doesn’t mean that you’ve become disloyal to your partner. It just means that you’ve had sex with someone else.
Obviously ethics are in the eye of the beholder because I can assure for some it shows the height of disloyalty .
That doesn’t make it so.
“Obviously ethics are in the eye of the beholder because I can assure for some it shows the height of disloyalty”
Sure, and for some it’s not. Likewise, some people being unfaithful goes hand in hand with their general low ethics, but for other people that’s not true ie they can be unfaithful in one area of the lives and yet faithful and trustworthy in others. In the same way that some people can be trusted in some areas and not others.
Yeah na cheating is cheating
If I had two possible people to vote for I’d pick the one who could keep it in there pants.
I can see why Tracy wanted to avoid this part of the ethics debate .
“If I had two possible people to vote for I’d pick the one who could keep it in there pants.”
Even if they were a liar, or beat their children?
I might just not vote if they were my options a liar and a cheater are the same thing IMO
I meant lying about politics.
Part of the problem is there is this moral taboo on having sex outside of marriage. So all people are expected to live up to a certain standard whether its realistic or not. For many people it’s not realistic, so we have this crazy situation where people are expected to death do us part and they’re probably just not capable of it, but they agree to it because it’s the only thing on offer.
This is not a cross cultural standard btw, it’s specific to ones like ours (my guess is it occurs in cultures with strong patriarchal dominance where controlling women and esp who they have offspring to is paramount). But if you let people do what they want, and teach them to be ethical within that, it’s a different story. For people like you, it’s very clear that whoever you are with needs to be faithful, and I completely support that (there’s always going to be a portion of the population who can do permanent marriage). But for others, once the moralising is gone, it’s actually less of a problem. For me personally, I value respect for my wellbeing more than fidelity.
There is?
I have never had sex within marriage. I am a serial monogamist interspersed with long celibate periods.
I was meaning common law marriage (where two people are committed for life/a long time irrespective of the state or church involvement).
Kennedy was a cheater.
Would you have picked Nixon for president, then?
Some of the nicest people have the weirdest, to me anyway, sex lives. So long as it suits them, they are consenting adults, and they “don’t frighten the horses”, it is their business.
That’s an out there one mr bastard – not sure how many you would get agree with you…
but nonetheless, if that is so then what would constitute disloyalty?
I suspect the question is more: What constitutes loyalty?
synonyms: allegiance, faithfulness, fidelity, obedience, fealty, adherence, homage, devotion, bond;
you must be a lightweight person to skate across this thin ice
If a person stands by their partner, helps them with their life and goals and sharing pretty much everything and doesn’t go behind their back about anything then how is having sex with someone else being disloyal?
If its open and honest of course it’s not cheating but that would be a rear situation.
Q. Does the partner know what is going on or is it behind their back ?
DtB you ask how that is being disloyal?
It is disloyal by showing a lack of allegiance,
a lack of faithfulness,
a lack of fidelity,
a breaking of a bond (see the bloody dictionary synonyms above)
As I said to you before draco, your musings are useful in their purity as you keep very specific to particular points and take no interference, but when it comes to bringing that pure thought down to application on the ground it gets stuck in the mud and goes little distance.
I think this is what you are doing here. It is all well and good posing the question you have above but the problem is, I would surmise, most everyone reads the term “loyalty” in a partnership to include sole and exclusive sexual relations. Sure some don’t but they are in a small minority.
thin ice fulla, thin ice
Actually, multiple sexual partners is more the natural state of humans. the problem comes because of some idiots enforcement of cultural norms against the normal state which causes people to hide having sex with other people.
None of those things is broken in an open and honest relationship.
You’re really one of these excessively friendly and peace-loving bonobo people aren’t you draco…
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01042015/#comment-994484
edit: plus you moved the goalposts with your last sentence, naughty …. “None of those things is broken in an open and honest relationship”. Those things are most definitely broken when there is disloyalty which is what the specific and particular subject was. Nothing to do with “open and honest”
No it wasn’t. The subject was: having sex with someone else doesn’t mean that you’ve become disloyal to your partner.
You’re the one moving the goal posts.
what on earth are you talking about? you have even stated just now that it was about whether having sex with someone else is disloyal. You said it wasn’t. I showed how it was.
You then changed it to something about “open and honest”
Where is “open and honest” mentioned in “having sex with someone else doesn’t mean that you’ve become disloyal to your partner”?
Agree with you there Draco.
I’m in a long-term monogamous relationship myself, but the relationship is the one we have defined for ourselves. And if other relationships define theirs in such a way that sexual fidelity is not a requirement, then why should anyone else have a say in that decision?
Sure that’s right molly however that is not what the issue was about, as explained.
VTO, it seems you need to learn to read.
No you didn’t. You showed a list synonyms and I pointed out that a number of those synonyms wouldn’t necessarily apply thus making it so that having sex with someone else doesn’t mean that you’ve become disloyal to your partner.
that doesn’t follow
bizar
u
ar
I’m not sure I’d use the term “Peruvian government” and “morals” in the same sentence.
I presume they can now look forward to the return of the esteemed Fujimori Dynasty. w00t?
Oh joy:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/child-youth-and-family-10-years-behind-in-thinking-tolley-6275304
CYF’s main issue has always been lack of resources and funding, with a side order of trying heavily to maintain contact with the biological parents/family, which admittedly does need an overhaul. Anyhow, since they’ve given the review to Paula Rebstock (wingnut welfare for the win) and it’s being classed as, I kid you not, a “business case” I fully expect them to try and defund CYF and shove it’s various roles off to private interests and already under resourced charities. Instead of giving CYF’s the funding it needs and ignore the body of academic studies out there on how best to deal with familial abuse and abused children etc.
Because why pay attention to empirical reality when you can cut costs and screw people in need of a helping hand over instead? Which is pretty much par the course for National over the last 2 terms…
I am involved in teaching tertiary students involved int he health sector. Out of my class of 18, one is male.
We overwork and underpay these people already and expect miracles.
Aye, it’s fucking disgusting the way we underfund the health service, particularly mental health.
The idiots up top like to forget it takes years to train people in the health sector, and the ability to replace them is limited by low pay rates and underfunding of other resources that help contribute to burnouts and lead to feedback from friends etc that dissuade people from going into health care in NZ.
/sigh
and pay off their student loans…
If you’ve got an hour or so Bruce Schneier and a panel discuss data collection, business, and who’s controlling who.
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
With Berkman Fellow, Bruce Schneier. Moderated by Jonathan Zittrain with special guests, Yochai Benkler, Joe Nye, Sara Watson and Melissa Hathaway.
You are under surveillance right now.
Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you’re unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you’re thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it.
The powers that surveil us do more than simply store this information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we’re offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches.
Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we’ve gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He shows us exactly what we can do to reform our government surveillance programs and shake up surveillance-based business models, while also providing tips for you to protect your privacy every day. You’ll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.
https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2015/03/Schneier
I think a lot of the cooperation is because we are given few choices. I do small things like turning off certain functions on my phone by default and avoiding FB as much as possible, but it takes effort. I’ve tried running anti-tracking addons on my mac and it just creates too many problems. I use gmail, but I’d quite happily switch to something else if there was something else.
There are independentt tech developers out there trying to offer alternatives, but too few and far between at this stage and caught up in the geek ghetto so that non-geeks have trouble getting on board and supporting them. One of the best things that could happen at this stage is for people to help geeks make their ideas and actions and tech more accessible to the wider public.
and now banks are teaming up with eftpos to make all our money transactions go through phones… nervous I am.
http://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/571601/semble-three-telcos-two-banks-one-nz-mobile-wallet/
There’s been some public resistance to the pay and wave thing. I think my bank was initially going to enforce it then backtracked and made it optional. Time will tell I guess.
yeah – the bank ad where they have the guy in a tinfoil hat is a clear indication they’re getting pushback from customers. They wouldn’t spend thousands on the ads if the ads weren’t needed.
All my rfid cards (except one door access card that also requires a PIN for anywhere fun) are in a metal holder, and all together (they can interfere with each other). I’m also going to see if sticking a holepunch through the corner of the card will work by breaking the antenna, but closer to the expiration date in case I kill the card entirely 🙂
At least phones you can turn off bluetooth etc. Saves battery life, too.
Haven’t seen the ad, what bank is it?
How do you now if a card has RFID? And are all such cards activated by default or do you have to do something when you get it to do that?
the ad was westpac I think.
Basically, all the proximity cards (pay wave, not swipe) are rfid (a chip that’s powered by a foil antenna coil sandwiched between the sides of the card). The card would be active, but not sure whether the bank chooses to speak to it automatically. The emphasis they’re placing on it, you’d probably have to get the bank to stop speaking to the card. Easier to break the antenna, I reckon.
Ok, so it would be obvious which cards are rfid and which aren’t?
I found the Westpac ad. Pretty slimey, would love to know what they found out from their marketing research dept afterwards. Trust us because we tell you to trust us, yeah right. Nothing to fear, nothing to hide, blah blah.
I reckon all chip cards (insert, not swipe down the side of the terminal) would be rfid.
The chip cards are actually more secure than the magnetic swipe cards – one reason they take a bit longer when inserted than the old swipe cards is that they have an extra layer of encryption so that a rogue eftpos trader can’t match your PIN to specific card data. But then they bunged in the proximity bollocks to make life quicker (and it probably uses lower-strength encryption to make the transaction quicker).
Why do you use eftpos? Its slower, less convenient and can be tracked.
Eftpos has no good use.
Get the cash and stick the folding in your pocket – makes you feel better too. A stash of cash takes up no more room than a few bank cards.
People aren’t thinking on this issue I think
I don’t use eftpos. I do use cash for a number of reasons and have for a very long time.
One advantage of cash, I find, is you can see it diminishing in your pocket/wallet and it helps me think harder about what I am about to spend on.
The real problem with cash is this:
It really is an incredibly insecure monetary system.
I stopped using cash more than ten years ago because it is, quite simply, a PITA.
If it makes you feel better then you’ve been socialised to have cash in your pocket. It doesn’t actually make any difference to you.
Actually, a stash of cash takes up huge amounts more room than the two cards I carry one of which is my debit card and the other my AT_HOP card. Mostly due to having to carry a bloody wallet.
Getting rid of cash is one of the steps on the road to getting rid of money.
Your thinking DtB is often helpful due to its purity, but less so when the rubber meets the road.
For example, how would people get rid of money? Money meaning a means of facilitating an exchange. Humans have always exchanged, always. Methinks impossible. Completely impossible
well, as a thought experiment you could simply change what the magic numbers value or represent.
It used to be the gold standard, now it’s how much people want to own it as opposed to other currencies.
But that doesn’t require eftpos over notes/coins, other than that eftpos is more of an abstraction (no monarchs, signatures of bank directors, as easy to spend $1k as is is 10c, etc).
But we could replace the international value of the currency with a representation of “work hours” for example (or some other quantification of social worth), and give everybody a UBI of 30hrs per week.
“we could replace the international value of the currency with a representation of “work hours””
But money is already, in this sense, a representation of work hours. Such a representation would remain “a means of facilitating exchange” and as such still be “money”
We wish. These days it’s more of a representation of how much profit the banks want to make through excessive lending.
No, money is a representation of capital. Whether we work or merely accrue those tokens through other capital is irrelevant to the fact we have an income.
Would a doctors work hours be of the same value as shepherds or a street cleaners.
That’s one of the questions facing the work-hour system. It’s an old tweak on socialism, which I suspect would be unworkable because people are dicks.
It was simply an example I picked as a transition from the means of exchange being based on conflict to the means of exchange being based on cooperation.
There are other methods of exchange and distribution.
Yes we are dicks there’s lots of great solutions to mankind’s problems but our feeble little ape minds still want all the goodies for ourselves.
Is it even possible for humankind to evolve past this obstacle?
that is the question absolutely
maybe john key would know the answer to this?
I would prefer the bonobo approach to social interaction, but we seem to be more like chimpanzees…
Looks like mr draco t bastard might be part of this bonobo clan…
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01042015/#comment-994406
“For example, how would people get rid of money? Money meaning a means of facilitating an exchange. Humans have always exchanged, always. Methinks impossible. Completely impossible”
But people haven’t always had money, so it’s technically possible to run exchanges without it.
Sure, there was likely no money when straight barter of ten potatoes for one phone was feasible between very low numbers in a community……
but clearly straight barter is impossible in todays world, is it not? As such a means of facilitating an exchange is required….
otherwise all the phone manufacturers would end up with excessive numbers of potatoes…
surely
thinking practicals here
And interesting point made in Debt: The first 5000 years is that the archaeologists have never found a true barter economy.
Really? What do you mean? What did they do? Live in equality and harmony? …. surely not…. I didn’t think we were capable of that but then I have only been around for mumble years..
I’m curious what that means too Draco.
Economics essentially states that we started bartering and then we invented money to assist with trade. The problem is that such a barter economy hasn’t been found. This calls into question the idea that we’ve always traded.
Ah, ok, I’m with you now. What are the definitions of barter and trade that the book uses?
The ones you’d expect if you read a bloody dictionary.
Funnily enough, I did look this up before I commented.
Barter: exchange (goods or services) for other goods or services without using money.
Trade: exchange (something) for something else, typically as a commercial transaction.
The book Treading Lightly by Karl Erik Sveiby & Tex Scuthorpe has an interesting information about the economic structure of the Nhunggabarra tribe in Australia.
A couple of quotes from the 16 page paper they have on their website (pdf):
On the structure:
Trading model:
Thanks Molly!
By ensuring that there is enough for all.
Just because we have always done so doesn’t mean that we will always have to do so. And there have been some cultures that didn’t.
Getting rid of cash would be a good way to get rid of petty crime and tax evasion as well
Really? That’s an out there one too
Why? It seems like a natural transition to me or should we still be using shells and beads for money.
Well there aint no difference between the paper that forms money and the shells that form money. They are both inherently worthless so not sure what you mean there.
My point was that if you think you can change human behaviour by just removing cash from the system then you have a bigger brain then me….
Like banning alcohol or legal highs the problem just gets forced underground. Or like legalising marijuana to get rid of the gangs behaviours just squirts into another corner of our world.
Crime will not reduce by getting rid of cash – it will merely move to another location.
Yes it will simply because, if it’s done correctly, it will be impossible to hide the criminal transaction.
How would a tinny house operate without cash or Joe farm boy sell his crop ,these are not high tech crims and I’m sure most here push for loop holes to be closed for tax evaders so no cash in the system would kill the cashy over night.
The shells comment was just in case you’re anti anything new.
If crims like those who sell tinnies for cash are unable to operate what do you think they will do instead? Get a real job?
Seriously?
It’s possible if you you take the easy cash trap away that they may indeed get a real job , of course it would help if there’s a real job to get .
If I break into your house and steal your flat screen tv and there is no cash, why don’t I just give it to someone who then gives me my month’s supply of dak? The dealer then gives the tv to someone to repair his car. etc.
Criminals are enterprising, they’ll always find a way around if they need to.
Because the whole point of crime, just like capitalism really, is to accumulate wealth and you can’t do that bartering because everyone can see it.
Then there’s the fact that TVs have serial numbers. These numbers are recorded against monetary purchases. Cops get suspicious for one reason or another, walk in, scan the TV serial number and catch one and, from there, the rest of the network.
I’m sure that people are terrified of this idea. The ZOMG, my every purchase and sale is recorded reaction but it really can go a long way to eliminating crime especially tax dodging by the rich.
The ZOMG, my every purchase and sale is recorded reaction but it really can go a long way to eliminating crime especially tax dodging by the rich.
Q. Do you actually believe the owners and controllers of the digital ‘money system’ are going to allow it to be used against their ilk ?
Those who believe a cashless society would be a step forward disqualify themselves from such discussion on account of narrow band thought and inability to imagine the negative consequences
waghorn mentioned petty crime. It’s pretty easy to see how petty crime will continue if there is no money. When it’s not about acruing capital, but instead is about feeding oneself or other survival needs, of course it can work.
@weka I didn’t say it would get rid of crime but it would make it harder and for our more pariniod friends a cashless society will happen so the best thing we can do is to keep pushing for strong honest government.
a cashless society will happen so the best thing we can do is to keep pushing for strong honest government
Q. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most naive) how naive are you ?
@ Murphy probably a 5 but working on it
Good on you bw
We must continually challenge and cross examine our inner thoughts beliefs and points of views
I use eft-pos and online banking because it’s easier for me to budget that way, and I don’t run out of money unexpectedly. But it’s a consequence of the society we live in. Quite happy to go back to cash if all the electronica disappeared.
Does anybody if it is true that you can still insist on being paid your wage in cash?
Wages Protection Act, as I understand it still requires you be paid in cash unless you and your employer reach a different agreement or you work for the gummint and prolly some other exceptions.
So it does Tracey. I thought that would have gone years ago.
Imagine getting paid monthly and having to worry about carrying $5,000 or $10,000 in CASH. Can’t say I would be very keen.
I remember, many, many years ago when I was a student and worked each summer in the wool stores. If we weren’t paid, in cash, before 5pm on Thursday, being the day before the late night closing day, we automatically went onto double-time rates until we were paid.
Got pretty close some weeks but never actually happened damn it.
Not too many people need to worry about carrying home $5000 – $10,000 a month http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/income-and-work/Income/NZIncomeSurvey_HOTPJun14qtr.aspx
I guess $10,000 is pushing it a bit. I can dream of course.
I suppose I was thinking of the back-bench list MPs and their swollen salaries.
Or perhaps the Government Departments that were in the news the other day where the average salary figure for the department was over $100,000/year.
Some, such as The Serious Fraud Office and The Crown Law Office, I can understand but what does the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs do to have average salaries that are that high?
Are those mean averages?
If so, it probably indicates pretty ordinary salaries for the people doing the work and a couple of executives creaming it.
e.g. 8 people on 50k + one person on 500k = an average of 100k.
ah but they are the first exception to the must be paid in cash rule alwyn…
If you work for government department you dont get cash…
I hear you…
I wouldn’t need to worry about having to collect 5-10,000 a month…
BUT I was thinking about it as workers ruse…
I recall it used to a be a wee brown envelope… There was something cool about getting it as cash.
I DO like the idea of it in some ways…
My partner’s eftpos card expired the other day. Not a credit card or a chip card, just a bog-standard old school cashflow. One minute they have a means of exchange in their pocket, then nek minit the bank has switched it off.
Did you even know they could expire? There’s no date on them.
Usually when I take mine back to the bank for a replacement they treat me like a deviant for not making them last forever.
So yeah, that reminded me of one of the reasons I like cash. Another is that it’s actually no-one’s business who I’m trading with or what I’m buying and when.
Yeah, well it just means i have to make the trip to the bank to withdraw my cash rather than my employer… but imagine if you had a disagreement with a big employer and so everyone asked to be paid in cash each and every pay day…
Legislation under urgency?
I must admit I’ve never seen one without an expiry date. I just checked my current ones for two NZ Banks and one in Australia.
They all have expiry dates.
Incidentally did you know that they are not “your cards” anyway?
They are, and remain, the property of the bank and can be withdrawn at their discretion. When you say “My partner’s eftpos card expired” you mean “The card that the bank owns and that it has so kindly been allowing my partner to use has, at the whim of the bank, expired …….”.
Your bank wasn’t hit with a skimming attack like this one by any chance was it?
http://www.sharechat.co.nz/article/dace2e52/kiwibank-cancels-eftpos-debit-cards-after-2-atms-hit-by-card-skimmers.html
This sort of thing would cause them to cancel cards. I am not meaning to imply by the way that this is unique, or common to KiwiBank. It was just the first example that Google showed me.
Probably wasn’t that particular incident but maybe something similar, we’ve been busy so haven’t gotten around to finding out yet.
re- ownership of the cards, I suppose technically the banknotes aren’t really “mine” either, the reserve bank just lets me use them. Bit harder for them to change their mind though…
Schneier has a really good blog (link in the wikipedia article) that covers all aspects of security. Some of it you’d need an IT or advanced math degree to get, but a lot of it is also pretty simply put.
He has interesting discussions on things like the “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” argument, and how the US fucked up the airport security that Israel handles fine (the post-911 yanks for years had one perimeter to get through, the Israelis do tiered evaluations and interventions from the airport offramp to the departure lounge).
Interesting guy. Most security “experts” are either only known in their precise industry, or are publicity-hounds who aren’t as “expert” as their advertising suggests. Schneier has definitely done and is still doing the yards (I use a couple of products he was involved in developing), but also isn’t averse to publicity.
Anyone else notice in Parliament today, when Winston Peters raised a motion for the implementation of a nationwide register for sex offenders and paedophiles, when put to the House for agreement or objection, the Natsies objected?
Obviously a somewhat sensitive topic for Key’s mob! Bit too sensitive perhaps?
Not long ago there was a very good article in Jacobin about the importance of workers involved in the circulation of commodities (and thus commodity capital); we’ve struck it up at Redline because, while it’s about the US, it’s applicable right across the developed capitalist world.
See: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/the-importance-of-circulation-workers-in-21st-century-capitalism/
Jacobin certainly has some excellent work in it.
Phil
and no one has to say why they object? Perhaps a good journo will follow up afterwards?
BUWAHAHAHAHA
I popped into see democracy in action, and wondered how anyone is supposed to hold this government to account when speaker treats anyone questioning the government as “Men behaving badly”?
Very worrying when perfectly cogent questions are dismissed by National as “wrong”, and when followed up, speaker tells questioner to sit down and shut up.
Lundy found guilty at retrial. Brace for another set of appeals to be exhausted over the remainder of his 20 year non-parole period…
If there was one good thing to come out of the whole process (and there were many bad things) it was Braunias’ coverage. Despite being irreverent it somehow worked, and was full of expertly-observed detail.
His piece on the “jailhouse snitch” is memorable: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11419476
I not surprised though. I’ve found in my experience (7 jury trials – 2 High Court, 5 District) that juries are almost always predisposed towards the prosecution and the police (“no smoke without fire” etc. etc.). I thought the judge sent some pretty obvious coded messages to the jury in the summing up.
I would have convicted on what I saw reported (I wouldn’t have the 1st time either) but I wasn’t in the courtroom to hear all the evidence or watch the body language so who knows.
I wouldn’t have convicted…
Easy to say from the sidelines, but you get no opportunity to truly assess the credibility of witnesses unless you’re in the courtroom with them. I don’t think the forensic evidence was a home run, but it ran pretty close.
Also, despite how it was reported, apparently there was a consensus among the newsroom media pack reporting on the trial (bar 1) that Lundy “did it”. Whether they would have convicted him if they were the jury is another matter.
Personally, although Lundy didn’t take the stand at the trial (wisely) every time he has opened his mouth about it (to police in the immediate aftermath, to his family and to his legal supporters) he has sounded less than convincing.
Not in evidence and completely extraneous to the trial, but you might enjoy this analysis of his letter to supporters on his website: http://www.verify.co.nz/case-marklundy.php
I though I made it clear that as I wasn’t in the courtroom to hear all the evidence that there was possibly elements I missed however based on what I saw reported I wouldn’t have convicted.
And I wouldn’t take anything the media pack says as worth anything of any particular value. 👿
That’s fair enough 🙂 The point about the media view was only to illustrate that, if their reporting conveyed the idea that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict, that wasn’t representative of their personal views.
Again, based on media reports only, I thought the defence did a pretty good job of impeaching the prosecution’s case (around motive, the rather imprecise measurements of distance driven/petrol used/etc).
The “CSI effect” does kinda boost the stock of forensic evidence though, and it appears to have swayed the jury.
You are pretty unlucky to have been called to jury duty so many times (assuming you weren’t counsel/the accused 😉 but I don’t think you’re wrong about the observations of jury bias. There are lots of articles/studies about how juries react to the accused too (too tired to fish out links sorry). But by the same token, you’d hope the Crown wouldn’t bring prosecutions if they didn’t think they had fairly good prospects of success.
I think the “coded messages” in Simon France J’s summary are in the eye of the beholder. Some would argue they trivialise the consequences of returning a guilty verdict, whereas I take it you read them as an impeachment of the evidence. I don’t think they were either (except, perhaps, his comments about the “snitch”!)
Fair points.
Summonsed for jury duty 13 times! Attended 10 times, selected 7 (never been challenged – must be something about my face I reckon!) First in 1986, last time 2010. The other 3 times I was excused – once because I was working with MoJ, once because I was actually living overseas and once because I was going on my honeymoon! (Court Registrar figured that was a good enough reason!).
My wife has never been summonsed, nor my parents or 4 siblings! I seem to be carrying the civic load for my whole family!
My thoughts too. I guessed from the start they would find him guilty on that basis alone.
Don’t profess to know whether he did it or not (didn’t follow the case) but what I can say: my one and only experience with the NZ police left me feeling I would never ever trust them again. That was 20 years ago and my opinion hasn’t changed!
The “jail house” snitch seems to appear when they haven’t got sufficient evidence.
I know you know, from your experience, that what a jury sees and hears is far more
than a media article can or does report.
The difficulty in any appeal as I see it is;
The brain tissue issue has now been traversed and all defence witnesses heard on it;
The jury as given a possible alternative to Lundy doing it and still found him guilty.
On a side note I bet the brother-in-law slept better last night.
The jury got it right IMO. Lundy made poor financial choices (ironically he looks like the kind of guy who would ring talkback and complain about those on benefits), and brought his family to the brink of destitution to fulfil his dream of owning a wine tasting emporium, and set himself up as this wine snob leading a hedonistic happy go lucky lifestyle.
The guy thought he could get away with the perfect murder. Go on a business trip, stay at a motel, sneak home in the middle of the night, do some ‘carpentry’ and then head back to the motel for breakfast — the perfect alibi, no one would ever suspect him, the cops would pin the blame on some drugged up homey, and he would have endless orgies at his wine tasting outfit in the Hawkes Bay. Hell, he could have even voted for Key in 08!.
Lundy was entitled to appear his conviction and take his case to the Privy Council, but just because you can appeal, doesnt mean that you are innocent.
And note: The Privy Council said his conviction was “unsafe”. That didnt mean they thought he was innocent.
That he’s a knob and a blow-hard and a spendthrift is not really a reason to convict though. The Prosecution couldn’t use any of those as reason for motive.
The fact the prosecution had to change substantial elements from their case from the first trial should cast grave and reasonable doubts. Could he have done it – of course yes – but I seriously question beyond a reasonable doubt. We should bear in mind the State can and does put enormous resource into achieving a prosecution (apparently $5 million for this one ) which is why we maintain innocent until proven guilty and require the state to prove the case.
I thought the judges summing up sent a pretty strong message to the jury which cleared the way for a “Not Guilty” verdict.
Key points:
* The jury has retired after the judge said there was no “rule” about how they should come to a verdict.
* Evidence of a jailhouse confession by Lundy should be treated by the jury with “great care”, the judge said.
* An expert’s evidence suggesting the stains on Mark Lundy’s shirt contained signs of human brain were not verified by any other witness but that did not mean they were incorrect, the judge said.
* Establishing the whether or not the stains on Mark Lundy’s shirt came from Christine Lundy’s was “very significant fact” the jury would have to give “careful consideration”, the judge said.
* Some alleged changes of evidence could be used to asses the police investigation, the judge said.
* It was up to the jury to decide if Lundy could have travelled more than 460km on one tank of fuel, the judge said.
* The Crown being unable to prove a motive did not mean Lundy did not kill his family, the judge said.
* The jury should should not ignore expert evidence because of its complexity, the judge said.
* Justice Simon France started by telling the jury to put aside any prejudice or disgust about the use of prostitutes or the injuries the victims suffered and focus on the evidence.
Like I said above, Greg, I think any inference you draw from Simon France J’s comments are in the eye of the beholder. Except the comment re: Witness X.
As to millsy’s comment, I don’t think it’s uncommon for small business owners to take on huge lines of credit from time-to-time. Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, the threat/shame of facing bankruptcy is not a reason for any sane/normally-functioning person to kill their wife/daughter. There was no evidence of a history of domestic violence or threatening behaviour by Lundy towards his family.
But who knows for sure, huh? Sadly only Amber and Christine (and probably Mark).
Aye, sadly true.
and if Mark didnt do it, another person knows.
Interesting poll this one. About possible Mayoral candidates in Auckland.
http://www.horizonpoll.co.nz/page/397/brown-down-g?gtid=7629406811827NCH
TY Adam. What a terrible mess that is. Of all the righties pondering a tilt, Banks leads? Christ almighty..
If Banks got it – I think howitzers on Avondale ridge would be a real possibility.
A sad state of affairs in that part of the world.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/67581341/syrian-girl-surrenders-the-story-of-the-child-who-mistook-a-camera-for-a-gun
Long, very interesting conversation from some serious debaters on a book on how to raise children by abusing them and whether it should be in the Auckland Libray or not. It covers a lot of ground around censorship, book banning, the difference between books that are about something vs instruction manuals, the extent to which something being illegal is the issue etc.
Giovanni Tiso starts with his blogpost and then it carries on in the comments.
http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/suffer-little-children.html