“No business owner would ever wish this upon anybody in their workplace.”
Actually, some business owners wish it upon the workers all the time. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be complaining about increasing health and safety rules.
Some things in that item that stand out. The worker was 60 not 16.
Corboy Earthmovers had been in business for a number of decades, Mr Baxter said, but was now under new ownership after the original founder – Craig “Cactus” Corboy – died in a digger accident about three years ago….
The workplace fatality was November’s third. John Douglas Howe died last Wednesday when he was hit by a truck at a Mangere freight yard, and Mario Lelina was killed using machinery at a Southland gold mine on November 5.
I remember a politician, may have been David Lange, commenting that ACC was needed by workers particularly – he had never heard of a solicitor falling off a chair and breaking anything.
‘The release of a critical report on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ decision to grant immunity to a Malaysian diplomat will be put off at least until he is sentenced.’
‘Growing numbers of Kiwis risk becoming homeless in old age because of falling home ownership rates, rising rents and static housing subsidies, the Salvation Army says.
Homeless Baby Boomers, a hard-hitting report by the army’s social policy unit, says superannuitants in private rentals will jump almost four-fold from 61,000 in 2013 to 237,000 by 2030, as those owning their own homes drop from 73 per cent of the age group to 63 per cent.
It says rents have risen 4 per cent a year over the past five years, while the accommodation supplement has not changed since 2007, making it harder for many elderly renters to survive.’
This article by Chris Hedges shows how the USA has progressed under neo-liberalism.
The liberal class failed for decades to decry neoliberalism’s assault on the poor and on workingmen and -women. It busied itself with a boutique activism. It is not that cultural diversity is bad. It isn’t. It is that cultural diversity when divorced from economic and political justice, from the empowerment of the oppressed, is elitist. And this is why these liberal values are being rejected by a disenfranchised white underclass. They are seen as serving the elites, and marginalized groups, at the expense of that underclass.
Inequality doesn’t create every problem we face. Inequality just makes every problem we face much harder to solve. The latest case in point: the current four-year drought in California.
This drought — the worst in recorded state history — has average Californians skipping showers and still paying fines for using too much water. Meanwhile, in the state’s poshest neighborhoods, the owners of manses are keeping multiple swimming pools full.
In Los Angeles, investigators have revealed, one exceedingly wealthy “wet prince” went through 11.8 million gallons of water over a year’s time, enough for 90 families, and paid not one penny in penalty. Says his angry neighbor: “Someone has to say, ‘You can’t have five pools — you can have one pool.’”
One pool per plutocrat? We have to start somewhere. Lots more on our inequality and the struggle for much less of it in this month’s Too Much.
And the US has been neo-liberal for longer than NZ. The worship of the rich that we’ve had for the last thirty years causes huge problems for the poor and society in general.
That story is only a look at a very minor symptom and kind of irrelevant in the greater scheme. The real issue is agricultural usage – more than 80% of water usage – growing high water usage crops in an arid region. Think the recent law about offering restaurant diners water without a request matters versus intensive almond and rice cropping? California even produces hay for export using irrigation.
Actually, it’s a major symptom as it’s indicative of how the unsustainable agriculture in California is treated. Those rich and powerful get to do whatever they like no matter how much damage it does.
This kowtowing to the rich happens across the world and it causes all sorts of grief.
imo we need to retain a universal super … and we need to progress it further into a to a Universal Basic Income…universal super is the first step along the way to a UBI.
“She’s already kicked the guy’s arse once and it’s good to see her being saved the bother of doing it again – because she totally kicked his arse. It was amazing,” Tania Billingsley rulz!
Also the report into why & how he was able to leave the country & Tolleys & Mcullys actions was completed last December has been delayed release again….nothing to hide nothing to fear is one of the right wings mantra innit? Bollocks!
Everywhere you look this toxic regime has been busy robbing kiwis of liberties, justice, resources and any ability to use the ‘independant’ bodies to bring them to account by gutting them of funds and placing their poodles in charge.
Link for Weka – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPH_mnWdmho @26 min –
“Yes, flocks of chickens, herds of cows, and thousands of swine contribute to more green house gas emissions than all the worlds cars, lorries, buses, trains, ships and planes combined.
Yep http://www.vhemt.org
But even if the population went to 10 billion tomorrow, it wouldn’t change what is already locked in for the next 10 – 15 years.
And if we all became walking vegans, the locked in shit will still get us, that is what 700ppm CO2/CO2e looks like 🙂 (happy face for Rosie)
not sure what your point is Robert. I agree that agribusiness is a huge contributor to GHG emissions. I just don’t think that making the world vegan will solve that. The solution to those GHG emissions is to eat local. That will do multiple things. It will reduce meat consumption. It will create better local economies and real CC age jobs for people. It will undercut agribusiness. It will support organics, regenag etc and shift us to sustainable land use. Win, win, win, win.
What going vegan will do is shift the profits from dairy and feedlot cow growers to corn and soy growers. It won’t undermine agribusiness at all, they will just carry on regardless. It will also create a bunch of malnourished humans (there’s very good reasons why we don’t have vegan cultures on planet earth, it’s not sustainable).
My point is, you were giving me shit over http://www.cowspiracy.com/ , as if they were lying or something ?????, so just pointing out RT are saying the fing same thing.
They’re not saying the same thing, and Cowspiracy does appear to be lying.
All I saw in the vid were some random figures about agribusines out of context that appeared to be saying that agribusiness is a huge contributor to GHG emissions levels.
Cowspiracy is vegan propaganda, it has manipulated statistics to suit its proselytising agenda to turn the world vegan, it misleads the public because of that, and it has attempted to ruin people’s reputations in the process (see the shit it tried to pull on Greenpeace).
So, yeah, I will continue to give you shit about using Cowspiracy as a source of valid data or commentary on climate change and what we should be doing. Especially when you ignore the counter arguments.
The solution to those GHG emissions is to eat local. That will do multiple things. It will reduce meat consumption. It will create better local economies and real CC age jobs for people. It will undercut agribusiness. It will support organics, regenag etc and shift us to sustainable land use. Win, win, win, win.
No it won’t. All it would do is make it so that all the animals are grown locally. The problem is raising animals to eat – both as dairy and as meat. We need to decrease the number of cows in the world and we’d do that by eating less meat/dairy. In a market environment that means increasing the price of meat which would boost profits and so increase the amount of meat being produced.
Basically, the market can’t do it. In fact, the market simply can’t do anything that we need to do to save ourselves. It is, in fact, what’s killing us.
Most meat and dairy farms in NZ exist because of exports. That’s a completely different issue than NZers eating locally, and NZers eating less meat and dairy won’t primarily affect the export markets. I agree there are huge issues with organising ourselves around the corporate market structure. Eating local undermines that because it connects people who eat directly with people who grow food. The ability to influence how food is grown increases exponentially. It also gives farmers a way out of the global economy export structure that most are caught in. Those are the farmers that are and will lead the way on sustainable agriculture.
I think what you are describing is that the markets adapt to selling locally, which isn’t what I was meaning at all. Eating local is a highly political act because of the ways that it undermines the global economy. It has a culture of its own that precludes what you describe, although I do think it is open to corporate capture in similar ways to how organics has been.
I agree that NZers could do with eating less dairy and meat, but it has to be done in a thoughtful and evidence based way, not in a ‘we should all be vegan because the global economy says eating industrial meat is worse for GHG emissions than eating industrial soy’. Swapping out soy for meat is daft, esp in NZ where most of our soy is imported from monocropped, Monsantoed farms in the US and China. Better to eat a range of locally produced protein and that includes meat/dairy for those that want to eat meat/dairy.
What do dysfunctional and troubled societies do?
They self-medicate.
Just another consequence of 30 years of neo-liberalism.
I don’t expect the msm to join the dots as it’s job is to prevent people seeing the big picture.
However when will NZers make the connection.
What’s new?
Nothing. This is the line up when Shearer announced his “team”.
Robertson is pulling the strings today, just like he was when he put Shearer into the saddle three years ago.
Dalziel dropped from Labour’s top 20
ANDREA VANCE
25/02/2013. From STUFF
“Annette King, Phil Twyford and David Clark have been promoted to Labour’s front bench in a party reshuffle unveiled today.
Shane Jones will remain on the front bench pending the Auditor-General’s report into the Bill Liu case. Among the big losers were Trevor Mallard who was bumped off the front bench.
Labour leader David Shearer unveiled his new line-up this morning. He said it was a mix of “new talent and experienced hands”.
King returns to the front bench after some time in the middle benches following her demotion as deputy leader. She will take up the health protfolio. Dunedin North MP David Clark has flown up the ranks and will take on the economic development portfolio. Chris Hipkins will take on education, Andrew Little justice and Phil Twyford housing.
Leadership contender David Cunliffe and Christchurch East MP Lianne Dalziel have been bumped from the top 20-ranked Labour MPs.
Shearer said Clark was a “rising star” with the economic grunt needed for his new portfolio. He will work alongside David Parker who retains the finance portfolio. King was passionate and formidable, Shearer said.
Twyford was “one of our top performers”.
Wigram MP Megan Woods will pick up tertiary education and Sue Moroney has returned to the top 20.
Those outside the top 20 MPs are not ranked.
Iain Lees-Galloway and Kris Faafoi have also picked up new portfolios although they remain on the backbenches.
………
Deputy leader Grant Robertson remains in the number two spot and picks up responsibility for jobs.”
Thanks for that reminder Northsider. I am not close enough to the centre of the action to know exactly who is calling the shots, but I do see the continuous rearrangement of the same dwindling group of people. Sigh.
Nope. The simple fact is that the Labour party caucus did not get serious refreshment at the last election, so the talent pool remains pretty much the same. Little has played the cards he has been dealt and done a pretty positive job of it by promoting where he could.
That does not explain electorate-winning MP’s being pushed out into unranked spots. On morning report, people were expressing anger at the demotion of Mahuta, given her contribution to bringing the Maori seats back to Labour.
Yeah, Tuku Morgan was expressing outrage. You know, National supporting Tuku Morgan of underpants fame. Yawn.
What difference does it make if MP’s hold electorates? They’re all part of the same caucus and it’s their work between elections that gets them higher rankings.
Winning a seat does evidence the ability to garner active support within the broader community, which is where elections are won and lost. It is not everything, but it does give concrete proof that at least some people see you as up to representing them.
…another reason for the Cunliffites and Labour membership ( which has been ignored and spurned ) to be jumping ship and help in the forming of a new and dynamic activist grassroots New Zealand Labour Party incorporating Mana and the Internet Party
I do not think that we need a new party, but we desperately need an economically left wing activist movement, along the lines of the People’s Assembly in Britain. It is not hard to see why purportedly left wing MP’s end up representing the political establishment itself rather than a left wing constituency – the power of our historic institutional bases is too eroded to put anyone under real pressure, while the threat of being persona non grata in political/media/donor circles still has force. One by one the bases have been lost – job/income security, state benefits, housing – once a line of defense has fallen, the next is easier to take. We need to make up for our lack of institutional power with people power. Until we are able to muster such power, those meant to represent us will continue to largely dismiss us.
As I have said, she played a large part in winning back the Maori seats. She does do stuff, although she does not have a high profile. The ability to win people’s trust, however, in a party with Labour’s recent history, is not something to be sneezed at, whether or not one’s accomplishments are heralded with trumpets and drums.
I note that tanning beds need to be regulated. For the health and saefty of the pubic… but no sign of regulating junk food and beverages which also impact (in much higher numbers) on the health and saftey of NZers. Strange huh?
“Jeremy Corbyn is to offer a free vote to MPs on David Cameron’s proposals for UK to bomb Isis in Syria but will make it clear that Labour party policy is to oppose airstrikes.
The Labour leader will also press Cameron to delay the vote until Labour’s concerns about the justification for the bombing are addressed, as part of a deal he has thrashed out with the deputy leader, Tom Watson, and other senior members of the shadow cabinet over the weekend.
His decision averts the threat of a mass shadow cabinet walkout, while making it clear that his own firmly held opposition to airstrikes is official Labour party policy, backed by the membership.”
MIKE IN AUCKLAND says:
DECEMBER 1, 2015 AT 1:26 AM
Hey, Mr Little, was David Cunliffe not once voted for by the majority of the Labour Party membership? It was only too many in caucus that opposed him as leader before the last election. And as I hear it, there is still a fair level of support and sympathy that goes out to David Cunliffe.
Maybe he disappointed some that once supported him, with his talk about being “ashamed to be a man”, and not answering one or another question well during a pre-election debate on TV.
Cunliffe was already stabbed in the back, or at least undermined, while the election campaign was still in preparation last year, then when some polls did not seem to deliver, and when the MSM turned nasty at him and Labour, the rest of the stab in the back was dealt out by those in caucus that disliked him. Some in caucus got nervous or even panicked, and then turned at Cunliffe, I remember it well, it was revealed in comments after the election loss was announced.
David hesitated accepting defeat on election night, but had to see the sombre reality afterwards. So after some reflecting he stepped down.
Many still respect him for his skills and experience, and for his passion, expressed well and in oratory skill in his speeches. So some of us had hoped he may be back in a better role, ranked higher as he had been until yesterday.
But why the hell did you rank him down to number 28 out 0f 32 (or is it 34?). That is an insult, a slap in the face of the man. Did he signal not standing again in 2017, or did some breathe down heavily on your neck, Mr Little?
Have the ABC “gangsters” been putting on the pressure, or been pulling some strings behind the scenes? Did some of your caucus dare bully you? I cannot believe you, but your decision yesterday raises many, many questions.
It does not make sense what I see, some like Stuart Nash now moving up, and Jacinda Ardern ranked higher than many can see as being justified. Annette King must be transitioning into retirement over the coming years, so why is she still right next to you, in the front line and co driver’s seat?
Andrew Little, you have certainly disappointed me, if you would have appreciated and had been able to recognise talent and also fairness, you would have treated David Cunliffe differently, and given him a spokesperson role and ranking further up. That would have mended some divisions that still may well exist within the party.
It appears that caucus considers itself as the dominant professional elite within your party, ignoring the input someone like David Cunliffe can still offer, by marginalising him.
You only became leader with a rather marginal majority, so how does that feel? Are you having second thoughts now to hold the balance in the party, and have you given in to some others, who seem to be setting the agenda now?
For me Labour has now become unvotable, I will not even vote for the electorate seat candidate anymore. My trust is gone, after seen what has been dealt out to the MP for New Lynn, David Cunliffe, that is NOT an olive branch for someone who could perhaps contribute so much for Labour in future.
Good luck with your future as leader, and your campaign in 2017, you will certainly need it.
– See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/11/30/puppet-on-a-string-has-andrew-little-become-the-plaything-of-labours-dominant-factions/#.dpuf
Not Guilty, but the crap hasn’t ended. Chris Cairns will be
thinking: God save me from my ex-friends and coaches.
RNZ National, Tuesday 1 December 2015, 8:11 a.m.
Chris Cairns may have got off free in his London court case, but nothing will save him from people like his former coach Glenn Turner.
This morning on RNZ National, Glenn Turner told Susie Ferguson: “Sadly, there’s a lot goes on in the background today that the spin-doctors seem to be employed to conceal or fudge.”
Not every listener will have got Turner’s witty allusion. In 1998, Chris Cairns and his father Lance started Cairns Fudge. Unwisely, he came onto TV3 to be interviewed by Pam Corkery about it. After he had spent a few minutes discoursing on the subtleties involved in producing Russian and chocolate fudge, Corkery delivered her coup de grâce: “Chris Cairns,” she cackled, “fudge-packer! Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh!”
Chris Cairns did not laugh, much to her annoyance.
How ISIS squeezes every last dollar, dinar and pound out of the people it rules.
.
Across wide expanses of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State, with the goal of building a credible government, has set up a predatory and violent bureaucracy that wrings every last American dollar, Iraqi dinar and Syrian pound it can from those who live under its control or pass through its territory.
Interviews with more than a dozen people living inside or recently escaped from the Islamic State-controlled territory, and Western and Middle Eastern officials who track the militants’ finances, describe the group as exacting tolls and traffic tickets; rent for government buildings; utility bills for water and electricity; taxes on income, crops and cattle; and fines for smoking or wearing the wrong clothes.
[…]
In the short term, American and European officials are struggling to cut the group’s revenues. But the old strategy for stopping the flow of money to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, which was largely based on cutting them off from donors in the Persian Gulf upon which they depend, does not apply to the Islamic State.
“They derive so much of their resources internally, that more traditional counterterror finance tools we would apply, say in the case of Al Qaeda, to cut off a terror organization from its income sources are not applicable in this case,” said Daniel L. Glaser, the assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing. “They don’t rely on donors.”
The smuggling networks are old, and tribal. It’s not just a metter of ISIS having taken the fields and selling the oil on a black market. They repaired the firleds, if you like, and allow the local smuggelrs to operate in return for a massive cut. It’s more like a mafia economy, or warlordism. They set up favorites with power, and then take their cut. Same as it ever was.
So when you hit those networks, you are not just hitting ISIS, you are hitting the local tribes and economy.
The Kurds in that peice, talking to wetsern journos, talk about ‘oh we do what we can about kurdish smugglers, but the big fish always escape,’ and frame it as ‘corruption’ but in reality it’s just how an economy works in a civil war.
Bilal Erdogan (son of the Turkish PM) – a key middle man in the sale of ISIS oil:
And while we patiently dig to find who the on and offshore “commodity trading” middleman are, who cart away ISIS oil to European and other international markets in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars, one name keeps popping up as the primary culprit of regional demand for the Islamic State’s “terrorist oil” – that of Turkish president Recep Erdogan’s son: Bilal Erdogan.
ISIS uses thousands of oil tanker trucks to move their product. These trucks form queues at the Turkish border many kilometres long – easily observable from the air or space. The Russians and now the US have started destroying hundreds of these vehicles.
Yeah. That’s known, it’s all the old smuggling routes, not really new. Everyone is involved.
While you’re here though, why do you think Assad released all those hard core Islamist terrorists from prison when the rebellion was kicking off?
Why do you think he put them in with captured university students and Marxists first CV? What do you think he was up to there?
Was that all part of the CIA plot too was it?
And why doesn’t Putin do more to stop the flow of militants from Russia, where he has his state security people coming down on Muslims, to Syria? Why are these things happening CV? Mystery eh, probably the Saudis making them do it I guess.
Not sure why Assad emptied out the prisons. I suspect many reasons behind such a general amnesty.
And why doesn’t Putin do more to stop the flow of militants from Russia, where he has his state security people coming down on Muslims, to Syria?
Yes, several thousand militants have come from Russia to help ISIS. But have you seen how large Russia’s borders are? And Putin is currently incinerating said militants from Chechnya and the Caucuses.
Per capita however, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden contribute notably more fighters to ISIS than Russia does.
It wasn’t really a general amnestry though. many were not released. many bloggers, poets, civil servants, artists who opposed the regime were not released.
He released the hardest jihadis though, veterans of the Iraq insurgency with links to Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Come on CV, what is the obvious reason for doing that.
And given I know your deep concern about war crimes, what are your thoughts on the torture he is using? And how do you feel about cluster munitions?
Are they ok when Assad or Russia does it?
And the point about Russia is that they are doing very little to stop militants from travelling, (it’s not the length of the borders, they aren’t even trying) while they are doing things that radicalise them to go. Do you think Putin is unaware of this dynamic, given his history?
Why can’t you offer the slightest criticisms toward Russia or Assad for doing things you would condemn the West for?
I know you have seen me condemn the west for doing the things I criticise them for, so what is your problem?
it’s the elites turning a convenient blind eye to the corruption and malfeasance of other elites.
It wasn’t really a general amnestry though. many were not released. many bloggers, poets, civil servants, artists who opposed the regime were not released.
He released the hardest jihadis though, veterans of the Iraq insurgency with links to Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Come on CV, what is the obvious reason for doing that.
And given I know your deep concern about war crimes, what are your thoughts on the torture he is using? And how do you feel about cluster munitions?
Frankly, if he released highly trained militant jihadis back into the general populace, he harmed his own government stability and military control to a great extent.
Yes, the US did use Syria as one of their CIA torture black sites after 9/11. That’s kind of place Syria is. Like Egypt is. Like US supervised Iraq was.
And cluster munitions, like AP mines, are commonly used in war nowadays.
Assad has by now lost 100,000 or more men from his army to overseas funded foreign fighters. He’s not going to be holding back.
“Syrian government officials could face war crimes charges in the light of a huge cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the “systematic killing” of about 11,000 detainees, according to three eminent international lawyers.
The three, former prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, examined thousands of Syrian government photographs and files recording deaths in the custody of regime security forces from March 2011 to last August.”
That’s the first 6 months of the uprising, he took the gloves off early.
I strongly recommend people read that link to see what CV is minimising, and refusing to condemn.
The rest of his comment where he justifies the use of cluster munitions, and I assume everything else Assad has been using (white phosphorous etc) speaks for itself.
For the record, the obvious reason to release the jihadis was sp that they would join the rebellion, and use their skills to take it over, justifying the claims that he is fighting terrorists.
This is what CV supports, and has been given ample and repeated oppurtunity to condemn. Not a peep. You can imagine what he would be saying if it was the US being accused of these things with the exact same evidence.
Like I said, it speaks for itself what he has become.
PB you are a blind man. Assad, Hussein, Gaddafi, were all bad men. They all killed their own people. Yet the Western Cure to the Arab Strong Man disease has always proven one hundred times more deadly and tragic than the original ailment itself.
Look at Afghanistan. Look at Iraq. Look at Libya. Look at Syria. Look at Yemen. Now all failed states or states on the verge of failure.
PB, the West has caused the death of 2M-3M or more Arabs and Muslims since Gulf War 1. And the western Empire of Chaos is still rampaging through the Middle East. But all in a good (anglo-american) cause, right?
And the US were more than happy to use Saddam Hussein and Assad to get the dirty work done when it suited them.
you want Assad gone PB? Fine, say that Assad’s government collapsed tomorrow and Assad and his family are hunted down and killed in the street by western supported Islamists like Gaddafi was.
And just like in Libya, Syria will have a dozen or two dozen heavily armed Jihadist militias left fighting it out to fill the power vacuum as Syrian civil society and social services collapse, just like Libya. The death toll, bad as it has been will climb exponentially as the likes of ISIS and Al Nusra finish off the minority Christians, Druze, Alawites and Shia in the country, and enslave the women.
Wake up and realise what you are advocating for. The west and NATO countries have allowed many tens of thousands of Islamist fighters to enter Syria to take out Assad. US intelligence reports give this strategy the thumbs up as a good way to finish off Assad. This is utterly illegal regime change by Western nations who still see themselves as the rightful colonial masters of the Levant.
PB you are nothing but an advocate for the western Chaos strategy that has plunged country after country in the Middle East into jihadist militant hell.
And then have the nerve to pretend to be morally superior. God the western colonial mindset are such pitiful slow learners. You keep making failed states as easily as bad batches of scones.
As for Putin. Not only has he had enough of the West using Islamic jihadists to institute regime change – a CIA strategy from the days of Soviet Afghanistan and before – but he has actually been legally invited by the sovereign Damascus government to put an end to it.
No wonder the western colonialists are bitching and moaning. Imagine a sovereign state having the nerve to declare independence from western interference. How unacceptable.
And there we have it, instead of codemning torture and war crimes, the targeting of civilians, and hospitals and bread factories etc, CV choosese to make up shit about what I support. Classic mixes of There Is No Alternative and You Did It Too.
In support of torture. 50 People a day tortured to death. The Regime deliberately releasing jihadists and CV is fine with it because it’s not western. In fact he just ignores it and claims all the jihadists are actually there because of the CIA because of one briefing paper that mentioned they exist.
I’m on the record all over this blog opposing western policies in the ME, opposing torture and all CV can do is lie about me and claim that all of a sudden he is some sort of hard man realist and make arguments that are the perfect mirror image of those used by neocons.
So much for all the arguments CV has made about western torture, turns out it isn’t the torture part he actually opposes.
Good luck with your new left venture CV, you stalinist fuck.
PB, for starters fuck off with your “unless you condemn this to my satisfaction, you’re an evil prick” bullshit. Newsflash – you’re not a moral authority.
In support of torture. 50 People a day tortured to death.
That’s a convenient round figure. Works out to just over 18,000 per year under Assad’s rule. Which is BS considering (as you said) he kept people alive in prisons overflowing with military, religious and political enemies. So he was hardly mowing them all down.
Make up your mind eh.
Yet with the West’s facilitated colour revolution and sponsored Jihadi campaign against Assad, we are getting 70,000 deaths a year and maybe 4M people displaced or homeless.
Guess what, I think the West’s Empire of Chaos strategy is far far worse than Assad ever was. Mind you, the West didn’t mind using Assad to get their dirty work done when it suited them, eh?
So PB, you want to see Assad and his government gone?
And which of the Jihadist groups (or “moderate terrorists”) would you prefer to make that happen, and to take Damascus? Do you really think they will improve governance in comparison to Assad?
Will your moderate Jihadis have women and minorities in universities and as government ministers, like Assad does, for instance?
Of course, like the current crop of western leaders you can’t think more than one step ahead of your own self proclaimed moral righteousness.
Good luck with your new left venture CV, you stalinist fuck.
You clearly have no idea. European and American leadership were more than happy to facilitate the illegal and permanent disappearing of people picked arbitrarily into torture black sites like Syria and Egypt whenever it suited them. As well as innocent taxi drivers and shop keepers caged up and tortured in Guantanamo Bay. Thousands of innocent bystanders droned and bodies left where they fall.
These same leaders have waged a campaign which since Gulf War 1 has killed 2M-3M Muslims and Arabs, perhaps more.
That’s “Stalinism” mate. A body count so high it makes Assad’s bad deeds look like a rounding error.
These same “leaders” want to turn Syria into yet another failed state, and have already halfway succeeded. Israel and Saudi Arabia and Qatar would love to see Syria fall into chaos to fuck both Hezbollah and Iran in one foul swoop.
And idiots like you are willing to ignore how disastrously the same playbook has worked out in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, while giving them morality cover to justify their plan.
No wonder Putin decided to throw a spanner into this western scheme by intervening directly.
I think Assad needs to transition out of power. Even Putin thinks so. That’s what Vienna was about. But no way should the sovereign government of Syria be permitted to collapse and be taken over by the Islamists supported by the west and western Gulf allies.
Why do you keep saying I support things I have repeatedly said I do not support?
And the point isn’t that you haven’t condemned things to my satisfaction, it’s that you refuse to condemn them at all, you justify them.
You suggest I’m riding a moral high horse, but I’m not. I’m just condemning torture and other massive war crimes. You don’t need a high horse for that.
You were condemning the shooting of a pilot, yet you ignore worse crimes. That’s all I’m saying.
And your ranting about western this and that is shown to be hollow becaus eyou are supporting more of the same behaviour from Assad and Putin. That’s all I’m saying, that it is legitimate to say:
“fuck this noise, and fuck that noise too”
You don’t have to support Putin and Assad in order to oppose current or historic western policy. That is a choice you are making. And you are allowed to, but stop acting like I’m being mean for calling it what it is.
At first I thought he needed a speech therapist. When it didn’t improve over time, I figured he must be a drunk. Now I think it’s deliberate.
From a 2008 article ‘Who is John Key’:
‘The only tangible sense in which Key asserted a persona of his own was in his accent. “We sometimes felt he would lay on his Kiwi accent so thick in meetings that none of us could understand what he was saying, it was kind of deliberate,” says Kelly.’
lolz, I was looking for that too. I couldn’t find the results of any of their polls, so presumably you have to actually watch the dipstick to find out. Ain’t gonna happen, so I didn’t vote.
Besides, whether DC wants to resign or not is his business. I’m willing to be there are aspects to consider that aren’t in the public domain.
An impossible question to answer as I’m not DC. Considering his principles that he has shown he probably should resign from the Labour Party and join either the Alliance, The Greens or Internet Party.
Cunliffe’s NO vote seems to be winning at nearly 2:1
Would you resign if you were David Cunliffe?
64% are saying Cunliffe should stay and fight on.
36% are saying they would leave a party that behaved in such a bastardly manner.
100% are saying See You Next Tuesday Grant Robertson.
In an ad break during their 6pm news the other night, it cut first to an ad about tv3 programmes (as they do), namely Paul Henry’s awful breakfast show…..
….. the ad involved Paul Henry talking about how if some person bent over naked the asshole would change from the appearance of a bud to a flower.
I kid you not
child toilet humour
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
I don’t know if it reflects on society or on tv3 (it most definitely reflects on Henry tho)
Manuka AOR @20.1
I think you will find the raid on Du Plessus-Allan was carried out as a warning to all journalists and reporters – DON’T MESS WITH US OR ELSE.
Something very strange about the timing of the raid – So soon after we’ve been told to (in effect) “be afraid, be very afraid” of radical extremist thuggos planning an attack, possibly a gun-fuelled Paris-style attack .
… They want the guns to be easily accessible by these attack plotters?
They called and made an appointment. They went at a time suitable with the occupants.
Kim Dotcom – that was a raid. This was just a search warrant. Good try using the language trying to make it worse than it is.
“Asked how du Plessis-Allan had reacted to the police search, he said: “It’s always worrying, these things. But the fact is that the story was done in the full knowledge that there could have been repercussions.”
“The police have been caught napping and publicity was given to it, they don’t like the fact that they’ve been seen as perhaps not doing their job as well as they could have, so this is a way…because its a high public profile case now and its a way that the police can get back at those who made them I guess look a bit foolish and it would seem that there’s nothing more to it than this.” – Barry Soper.
The whole thing is pointless, though. If it ever gets in front of a judge, it’ll be pleading guilty and discharge without conviction.
1. She’s a journalist, it’s her job
2. They didn’t make any sort of secret of it
3. There was legitimate public interest, and the police closed the loophole after it was reported (having previously done nothing about it)
4. If she gets a conviction from this, it would harm her ability to enter foreign countries to do her job
There’s a lot about this that bothers me…not the least of which is that they raided their Welly home and they kinda phoned to make an appointment to do so.
So, just finished my study year living on the Student loan. Applied for Hardship over summer and found out that that has a one week stand down on it as well.
This government is cutting everything it can to save money but, of course, they only apply it to the people who need it most. Rio Tinto and SkyCity still get the millions of dollars subsidy. Meanwhile, people are going hungry because of Nationals ongoing attack on the poor.
I love how it’s ok for the Speaker to be “incompetent, bias, doesn’t like the job, lazy, sexist and doesn’t give a toss”, but pointing this out is a serious undermining of the integrity of the House.
Fuck, the only thing Carter has contributed to the integrity of the House is its structural integrity – propping up the back of the Speaker’s chair as he slouches his way through another abuse of power.
I attended a question time a fortnight ago, and then the Speaker said that the public could judge whether members were right or wrong………………… you should have seen the rolling of eyes around the public gallery at the Speaker’s ruling that day! This member of the public adjudged the Speaker to be incompetent and ineffectual.
The King of Contra claims that Hans Kriek is “bordering on espionage.”
Even for Mike Hosking, this was a particularly braindead performance. Seven Sharp, Television One, Tuesday 1 December 2015, 7:17 p.m.
I’ve just watched what was possibly the most ridiculous television interview of the year. In his typically bumptious manner, Mike “King of Contra” Hosking accused SAFE’s Hans Kriek of endangering our international reputation by releasing secretly filmed video of bobby calves being tortured and killed on Waikato dairy farms. They should have “had a quiet word” with Fonterra instead of “going international” like they have.
“It’s bordering on espionage,” he fumed.
In response, Hans Kriek simply laughed.
What other reaction is possible in the face of such militant ignorance?
Labour says it will back the legislation through it’s first reading. I presume it then goes to a select committee and they will wait and see what comes out of that committee before making a final decision whether to vote for or against the ‘amended’ RMA.
Parker says it’s a step in the right direction, seeing it as a surrender by National because they know “gutting the Act is not the solution”.
Yet, Eugenie Sage said National has wasted its opportunity to strengthen the RMA, stating many of the changes proposed to the Act weaken rather than improve the protection of the environment and reduce the opportunities for public participation.
Of no significance to anybody but I will not be renewing LP membership due to the relegation of David Cunliffe. Nothing ideological or personal but he is simply one of the most obviously competent.
Andrew – what were you thinking?
MONDAY JULY 6Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said Salon.TUESDAY JULY 7The ABC Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Sarah Phelps has done incredible things with ...
I think we can all agree that the mainstream media in New Zealand has a very different set of rules for the right wing compared to the left. While Labour and Green Party politicians don’t seem to be able to fart without it becoming a sackable offence, National and Act ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020Editor's Choice'2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentaryA timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...
Racist National MP Hamish WalkerEven before Todd Muller's coup ousted Simon Bridges by a single vote, it was patently obvious that the National Party promotes and stands for white privilege. In fact they’ve always worked to ensure the discriminatory status quo in New Zealand doesn’t change.So it’s no surprise that ...
Dave HeatleyZero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a newloca branch of the American prohibitionist organisation SAM.It turns out Family First aren't the only ones helping ...
Nik GreenMuch of the public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused on the extent to which government regulations have restricted personal and business activity.Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government Here in New Zealand, the question of when to change Alert Levels dominated the ...
Raising The Bar: Would that the Prime Minister and her colleagues would listen as intently to what the people – as opposed to the power elites – are saying as the Greens. Were they so disposed, the popular clamour for a transformational post-Covid reset would be loud in their ears. ...
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A bit like a letter home. I have now been full-time at the University of Melbourne since 2019. Before that, I was 20 years at the University of Otago, Wellington. Indeed, I set up this very Public Health Expert Blog with Nick Wilson ten years ago. Now I am your ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections House Democrats have released a comprehensive report showing how – if they control the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives – they might move forward on climate change. Their “Climate Crisis Action Plan,” released June 30 by the ...
Not Ready: Todd Muller’s lack-lustre and self-contradictory performances offer conclusive proof that a political leader cannot be managed into competence. National’s new boss has Janet Wilson handling his media and Matthew Hooton writing his speeches. Both are highly professional political and public relations specialists, and Muller is lucky to have ...
Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...
It started as a family story, about a step-father who went out one night to break into an embassy in Wadestown, Wellington. John Daniell wanted to understand what his family had been part of when his mother and then step-father work for New Zealand’s Security Intelligence. He wanted to know ...
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could ...
My house is currently supplied electricity by Meridian. As soon as I can change I will because Meridian spilled water to hike electricity prices. They got consumers to spend an extra $80 million on power unnecessarily. Clever them. The Electricity Authority has called their behaviour an “undesirable trading situation”, or ...
When Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly became the Labour Party leader shortly before the 2017 general election, she promised to lead a government of transformation. After nearly three years occupying the Treasury benches, health professionals working in public hospitals have been keenly waiting for transformational progress, including in the capacity and quality ...
Last night, One News ran a follow-up story to its Colmar Brunton poll results on the cannabis referendum, headed here as Government accuses big American anti-cannabis group of interfering in NZ politics.In truth it wasn't just the government: Justice minister Andrew Little, National's Shane Reti and the Greens' Chloe Swarbrick ...
When the government refused to put cameras on fishing boats to ensure fishers obeyed the law, Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash claimed that coalition partner NZ First (which has received large donations from the fishing industry) was not responsible for the decision. He has repeated that claim repeatedly since then. But ...
Heroic Evasions: Labour needs to be unequivocal in its communications with the electorate. Either it has a plan to prevent their fellow New Zealanders from falling off the economic cliff, or it doesn’t. Either it has a fiscal policy equal to the task of funding that plan, or it hasn’t. ...
Prof John Potter*Elimination has been an effective strategy for New Zealand in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic virus (SARS-CoV-2). Most other countries have not pursued this goal and are ignoring the opportunity even now. SARS-CoV-2 is not manageable by the influenza playbook; its longer incubation period makes tracing ...
This is a re-post from Weather Underground by Bob HensonAbove: This rainbow appears unusually low in the sky because it has formed early in the afternoon, rather than toward sunset. For a rainbow to form, water droplets must be present in the air in front of an observer ...
On Monday, Todd Muller gave an important speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, He spoke firmly about his belief in the need for foreign investment, for the public sector to partner with the private sector rather than boss it around and, crucially, demanded the government deliver a clear strategy ...
Todd Muller's first act on become party leader was to appoint an all-white front bench. This understandably raised eyebrows, so he is now apparently reconsidering caucus and list rankings. Which is obviously necessary, but there's still the underlying problem: National doesn't have a lot of Māori MP's. And the reason ...
Meridian energy has been caught manipulating the electricity market for fun and profit: Meridian Energy pushed up power prices by unnecessary spilling water from its south dams in December that could have been used for generation, the Electricity Authority has ruled in a preliminary decision. The authority said the ...
When the Christchurch murderer pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder and a number of other violent assault charges a few months ago, he effectively closed the door on what the public will know about the lead up to and commission of the event. His plea means that no evidence ...
Daphna Whitmore The Philippines is enduring one of the longest lockdowns in the world. For President Duterte the lockdown provides an opportunity to garner more powers and to push through a brazen assault on human rights. A new law called the Anti-Terror Bill has been passed under urgency and it ...
Hearing the Prime Minister castigate the Warehouse for laying off 1,000 workers after receiving $52 million in wage subsidies reminds me of the fabled frog who agreed to carry a scorpion across a river. The scorpion stings the frog halfway across, dooming both to drown. The frog cries “Why on ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig, Prof Michael BakerCompared with other OECD countries NZ is a stand-out success story by ending community transmission of COVID-19. While there have been some well-publicised recent deficiencies (eg, quarantine organisation), there has still been no evidence of community transmission for many weeks. Nevertheless, ...
It’s June 30th, marked as Asteroid Day by many people of an astronomical bent around the globe. On this date in 1908, early in the morning in a remote part of central Siberia, the sky fell in. Well, not literally. What happened is a substantially-sized lump of cosmic detritus ...
There really is not much about Paula Bennett concerning her career trajectory, the policies she promoted, and most importantly, the socio-economic effect this had upon New Zealand (and particularly the most vulnerable in this, our oft-cited “egalitarian” society of this country) that can be said now that hasn’t already been ...
Don Franks Poverty, inequality – really – aren’t politicians paid to sort that stuff ? Why can’t they just get it together and come up with something fair and sensible? A cold rainy 2020 morning, a headline showed promise. “Green Party’s $8b plan would guarantee an income of $325 a ...
A guest repost by Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) staff attorney Augusta Wilson. Fundraising is not the objective of this article but readers may wish to know that CSLDF is currently conducting a summer fundraiser to support defense of research scientists and research integrity from anti-science interference by politicians and industrial interests. The COVID-19 pandemic ...
Helloy… My name is Todd Muller and I am the leader of the National Party of New Zealand. Many people come up to me on the street and ask me who I am. I’m often walking through Tauranga, or in a mall in suburban Auckland, or maybe even a farmers’ ...
The US state of Mississippi has finally voted to remove the Confederate emblem from its state flag. Good. Its appalling that it was put there in the first place, but even more appalling that it took so long to remove it. Its basicly as if a German Länder still had ...
No one could have predicted when David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill was passed by Parliament last November that the referendum required to bring the legislation into force would be held against the backdrop of a deadly global pandemic. Since then, the mounting tally of casualties around the world ...
Paul GoldsmithYou can often tell just how effective a progressive policy proposal will be by how much the right wing criticise it. The more socially beneficial, the more vitriolic and unhinged they seem to become.That was the case when the Green Party announced their Poverty Action Plan yesterday. The response ...
Back at the beginning of April, when we had much else on our minds, I wrote this post urging some caution in interpreting the results of the latest Horizon poll, conducted in February, on voting intentions in this year's cannabis referendum, which was paid for by Helius Therapeutics.I wrote that ...
Over the weekend the Greens made their first election policy announcement, and promised transformational change: a more progressive tax system, with new rates applying to incomes of $100,000 and $150,000; a new wealth tax on net wealth over $1 million; and a guaranteed minimum income to eliminate poverty. Its bold, ...
Story of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Global Warming Is Melting Our Sense of Time Satellite image of smoke from active fires burning near the ...
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Tertiary fees in New Zealand versus Australia: Fees Are Important, but not as Important as Financing In Australia, the Education Minister Dan Tehan has proposed an overhaul of the existing higher education funding system to offer 39,000 additional study places by 2023 and 100,000 by 2030. The proposal has been ...
The latest opinion poll forecasts a landslide win by Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party, but when taken alongside other polling, it illustrates New Zealand politics remains volatile and the contest is still very open. According to the Colmar Brunton poll published by TVNZ last night, Labour would easily romp back ...
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The images and reports delivered to us by the world’s media leave us in no doubt that the rest of the world is still in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of slackening, but is actually uncontrolled and picking up pace in many countries; and even ...
Minister of Health - David ClarkIf you follow politics at all in New Zealand, David Clark is likely a name you’re a bit familiar with. The current Minister of Health is perhaps the most disliked Member of Parliament at the moment, which amongst very stiff competition is really saying something. ...
SATURDAY JUNE 27Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art (Sky Arts, Sky 017, 8.00pm). There was graffiti before Banksy, but perhaps his pungent political messages hit home a bit harder. Anyways, a doco about his influence on street art featuring a bunch of cool people.SUNDAY JUNE 28Beat the Chasers (TVNZ 1, ...
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters A massive dust storm formed over the Sahara Desert last week and invaded the Caribbean over the June 20-21 weekend, bringing dangerous levels of air pollution and low visibility to the islands. The dust is accompanied by a large amount ...
Will the Covid Crisis lead to a dramatic redirection for New Zealand and the World? A hinge in history occurs where the past and present are connected but they point in different directions. Big hinges are rare but crucial in the development of humankind. Not in Narrow Seas identifies six. ...
RNZ reports that Refining NZ is considering shutting down Marsden Point and effectively turning itself into a fuel distribution service. The problem they're immediately trying to address is that running a refinery is expensive, and it is cheaper just to import processed fuel. But there's a longer-term problem too: climate ...
We all know that the COVID-19 virus is a terrible infectious disease that has already caused untold misery and numerous deaths around the world. Nearly half a million people have already died, and those are just the cases we know about.But how bad could things actually get exactly?Today, the NZ ...
This essay by Alex Hochuli examines the global phenomena of BLM protests . He is a freelance writer and research consultant based in São Paulo, Brazil. He is the co-host of the global politics podcast, Aufhebunga Bunga, and co-author of the forthcoming Politics at the End of the End of History (Zero ...
Are You Still Here? Just like his colleague, Phil Twyford – of KiwiBuild fame – David Clark juts out his chin and shamelessly apportions blame to everybody but himself. Even worse, he has turned viciously on Ashley Bloomfield, the nearest approximation to a competent, decent, humble and accountable public servant ...
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Willing Victims: What would all those Americans in MAGA hats be left with if they abandoned Trump? Just the sick feeling of having been cheated. Just the knowledge that the man in the White House is nothing more than a shape-shifting New York grifter; and that they have always been ...
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Jordan WilliamsIt’s pretty obvious to all and sundry that the Taxpayers Union, run by Jordan Williams, isn’t really a union at all. Instead it’s a small lobby group for privileged white folk, namely the old fools behind the scenes of the corrupt and largely defunct Act Party.With an incorrectly attributed ...
Last year, I highlighted a secrecy problem with the government's Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill. The Bill would establish a new class of public entity, "special purpose vehicles", to hide debt from local government balance sheets fund infrastructure such as roads and sewers in "high-growth" councils. The SPVs would collect ...
Both the leader of the opposition Todd Muller and University of Auckland Professor Des Gorman have gone on the record as saying they suspect Covid-19 is spreading in the community in New Zealand once again. Let me explain why I don’t agree with them. As best I can tell there ...
By Geoffrey Miller A former MP and Associate Minister of Defence says that New Zealand’s Covid-19 border and quarantine issues illustrate why a new dedicated national security agency is needed. Heather Roy, a former deputy leader of the Act Party who held the associate defence portfolio from 2008-10, told the ...
Annual fishing report It's been about a year since we swapped out the Research News deckhand. It seems longer— particularly the past 4 months— and not because of this particular work. Over the course of the year somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,500 articles have been caught in our net, ...
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...
This week we moved into the second half of 2020 - and our Government delivered another week of big changes and major progress for New Zealanders. Read below for a wrap of the key things moments from the week - from extending paid parental leave, to making major investments in ...
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...
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Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson is calling for the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and prevent more families entering into further debt with the Ministry of Social Development. ...
There has been renewed focus on New Zealand First acting as a handbrake on the Government after our decision to not support Auckland light rail. We are a handbrake for bad ideas, that istrue, but our track record since 2017 has seen New Zealand First constructively also serve as an ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP New Zealand First’s Fair Residency for Superannuation Bill passed its First Reading in Parliament today. The Bill makes a significant change to NZ Super by raising the minimum residency requirement from 10 to 20 years, after age 20. “Currently, a migrant of ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball introducing a six-month minimum prison sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its second reading in Parliament. The new offence of "injuring a first responder or corrections officer with ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Deputy Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the launch of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, gifted with the name from Waikato-Tainui - Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, announced in Hamilton today by Justice Minister Andrew Little. “New Zealand First has long believed in and ...
The Green Party is celebrating over $800m in new funding for green projects, which will get people into jobs while solving New Zealand’s long-term challenges. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
We wrapped up the first half of 2020 with a busy month, taking additional steps to support New Zealanders as we continue with our economic recovery. We rolled out targeted packages to support key industries like tourism and construction, helped create jobs in the environmental and agriculture sectors, and set ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
The Green Party has today put forward an amendment to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to ensure all people in prisons can vote in general elections. ...
The Green Party welcomes the decision to not proceed with Public Public Investment (PPI) delivery of Auckland’s light rail project and to instead run the process through the public service. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Hon Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises A new ‘super depot’ to be built for NZ Post in Wellington will create around 350 jobs during construction, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises Shane Jones says. Shane Jones today attended a ground-breaking and blessing ceremony for the parcel-processing depot ...
Our strong economic management prior to COVID-19 - with surpluses, low debt and near-record-low unemployment - put us in a good position to weather the impact of the virus and start to rebuild our economy much earlier than many other countries.Now we're putting our plan to recover and rebuild ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order Recently released Police fleeing driver statistics have shown yet another increase in incidents with another record-high in the latest quarter. “This new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014. The data shows incidents ...
New Zealand First MP Fletcher Tabuteau is pleased to be confirmed today as the party’s candidate for the Rotorua electorate. Speaking at the Rotorua AGM for New Zealand First, Mr Tabuteau said this is an election that is incredibly important for the people of Rotorua. “The founding principles of New ...
The Human Rights Commission’s PRISM report on the issues impacting people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) provides an excellent programme of work for future governments to follow, say the Greens. ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the trans-Tasman bubble had not been jeopardised after aborder botch-upresulted in New Zealand having two active cases of COVID-19. On Friday, Mr Peters told RNZ's Morning Report he had heard from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that borders for trans-Tasman travel would open by ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said today he was pleased the army was now running the quarantine and isolation process - up until now it has been the Ministry of Health. Peters told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking that the army knew how to introduce and follow protocols and instil discipline. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First MP and Minister for Defence and Veteran’s Affairs Ron Mark has confirmed his bid for the Wairarapa seat.“The Coalition Government has done a lot of good work throughout the Wairarapa, but many constituents have told ...
New Zealand First is pleased to release the names of its next tranche of candidates for the 2020 election. We’re proud to announce these hardworking New Zealanders that have put their hand up to fight for a commonsense and resilient future.Jamie Arbuckle – Kaikoura Mark Arneil – Christchurch Central Jackie ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence A massive joint effort between New Zealand Government agencies, employers, and the Vanuatu Government is underway to repatriate over 1000 Vanuatu nationals stranded in New Zealand, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing more than $7.5 million in Northland ventures to combat the economic impact of the COVID-19 virus, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment is going to the Northern Adventure Experience and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris Hipkins today announced significant funding for Auckland’s Northcote College as part of the first wave of a new nationwide school redevelopment programme to upgrade schools over the next 10 years. The $48.5 million project brings the total investment in Northcote College to ...
The Government has opened an urgent response fund to support schools and early learning services to get children and young people back on track after the Covid-19 lockdown. “While we are seeing improvements in attendance under Alert Level 1 Ministry of Education data shows that attendance rates in our schools ...
The law to boost the economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19 by speeding up resource consenting on selected projects has passed its second and third readings in the House today. “Accelerating nationwide projects and activities by government, iwi and the private sector will help deliver faster economic recovery and ...
Five port-related projects in Whanganui will receive a $26.75 million Provincial Growth Fund investment to support local economic recovery and create new opportunities for growth, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This is a significant investment that will support the redevelopment of the Whanganui Port, a project governed ...
Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery will receive an investment of up to $12 million administered by the Provincial Growth Fund to support its redevelopment, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. The project is included in a $3 billion infrastructure pipeline announced by Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Shane Jones yesterday. ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing nearly $2.5 million into three Te Ara Mahi programmes to support Manawatū-Whanganui jobseekers and employees to quickly train and upskill, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Up to 154 local people will be supported into employment within the first year by these ...
This morning I have formally tendered my resignation as Minister of Health, which was accepted by the Prime Minister. Serving as Minister of Health has been an absolute privilege – particularly through these extraordinary last few months. It’s no secret that Health is a challenging portfolio. I have given ...
Scholarships for 57 early-career agricultural emissions scientists from 20 developing countries is another example of New Zealand’s international leadership in primary sector sustainability, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. Mr O’Connor, announcing the scholarships today, says hundreds of applications were received for this fourth round of the CLIFF-GRADS programme (Climate, Food ...
A project to help rejuvenate the Horowhenua town of Foxton will receive a Provincial Growth Fund investment of $3.86 million, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This funding for the Foxton Regeneration project will be used to make the well-known holiday town even more attractive for visitors and ...
Moa bones and other sub-fossil remains of extinct species are set to have improved protection with proposals to prevent the trade in extinct species announced the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “We have lost too many of our native species, but these lost species, such as moa, remain an ...
The Government’s free and healthy school lunches programme moves south for the first time creating jobs for around 30 people in Otago and Southland. “Eighteen schools with 3000 students are joining the programme – 11 have already begun serving lunches, and seven are preparing to start during Term 3. This is ...
Thousands of Kiwi jobs and investment in New Zealand productions will be protected through a screen sector support package announced today by Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford and Minister for Broadcasting Kris Faafoi. The package also includes investment in broadcasting ...
The Government has established a new $10 million fund for the domestic events sector to help save jobs and protect incomes as it recovers from the impacts of COVID-19, Minister of Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. This funding from Budget 2020 follows talks with the event sector designed to ...
The Government has taken another step in its commitment to making sure New Zealanders get a fairer deal at the petrol pump with the introduction of legislation to improve competition in the retail fuel market, says Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods. “The fuel market study that this Government ordered ...
New Zealand has joined a global initiative that aims to enable all countries to access a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. The COVAX Facility was recently launched by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The Alliance includes the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank ...
From today new legislation takes effect to both restore the right to legal representation at the start of a Care of Children (CoCA) dispute in the Family Court, and allow parties to those proceedings to access legal aid where eligible. During a visit to the Family Court in Auckland today, ...
Home-based early childhood education (ECE) subsidised by the government will transition to a fully qualified workforce by 2025 to ensure better and more consistent quality, Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced today. “Quality early learning helps provide children with a strong foundation for their future,” Chris Hipkins said. From 1 January ...
The new Criminal Cases Review Commission | Te Kāhui Tātari Ture (CCRC) has started work and can now independently investigate claimed miscarriages of justice. “Even though we have appeal rights and safeguards against unsafe convictions, from time to time our justice system does get things wrong. The design of the ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha, tēnā koutou Ki a koutou Te Āti Awa, Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, ngā mana whenua o te rohe nei, tēnā koutou Ko Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa ki ngā take o te Ao (NZIIA), Ko te Rōpū Tohu Tono ...
The Government’s increase to paid parental leave kicks in today with another 4 weeks taking New Zealand up to a full 6 months (26 weeks, up from 22 weeks) leave for new parents, and the maximum weekly payment will increase by $20pw, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. ...
A new package of infrastructure investments will help kick-start the post-COVID rebuild by creating more than 20,000 jobs and unlocking more than $5 billion of projects up and down New Zealand. Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones today outlined how the $3 billion infrastructure fund in the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today expressed the New Zealand Government’s deep disappointment at the passage by China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee of a national security law for Hong Kong. “New Zealand has consistently emphasised its serious concern about the imposition of this legislation on Hong Kong without inclusive ...
More jobs and more family time with newborns are the centrepiece of a suite of Government initiatives coming into effect today. July 1 is a milestone day for the Government as a host of key policies take effect, demonstrating the critical areas where progress has been made. “The Coalition Government ...
Environment Minister David Parker has today “called in” Auckland’s application to the Waikato Regional Council to take an extra 200 million litres of water a day from the lower reaches of the Waikato River for Auckland drinking water and other municipal uses. The call-in means the application has been referred ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker announced today that New Zealand’s hosting of APEC in 2021 will go ahead using virtual digital platforms. Mr Peters said the global disruption caused by COVID-19, including resultant border restrictions, had been the major factor in the ...
The start of construction on a new link road between Matakana Road and State Highway 1 will create jobs and support the significant population growth expected in the Warkworth area, Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Mayor Phil Goff announced today. Transport Minister Phil Twyford said construction of the Matakana Link ...
The Government is prioritising its latest investment in PPE for frontline health workers, including staff at managed isolation and quarantine facilities, Health Minister David Clark says. “With no community transmission of COVID-19 our response now has a firm focus on keeping our border safe and secure. “We must ensure that ...
The Parihaka Papakāinga Trust in Taranaki will receive up to $14 million for a new visitor centre and other improvements at the historic settlement that will boost the local economy and provide much-needed jobs, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little have ...
Protections for workers who are employees of one employer but working under the direction of another business or organisation have come into force, closing a gap in legislation that made the personal grievance process inaccessible for some workers, says Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “This Government is working hard to ...
A range of improvements are already underway to address issues identified in the rapid review of the Managed Isolation and Quarantine system released today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. The review was commissioned just over a week ago to identify and understand current and emerging risks to ensure the end-to-end ...
The important brown kiwi habitat around Whakatāne will receive added protection through an Iwi-led predator free project announced by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. “The Government is investing nearly $5 million into Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa’s environmental projects with $2.5 ...
An extra 4,000 tonnes of offcuts and scraps of untreated wood per year will soon be able to be recycled into useful products such as horticultural and garden mulch, playground safety surfacing and animal bedding as a result of a $660,000 investment from the Waste Minimisation Fund, Associate Environment Minister ...
The Governor-General has referred Scott Watson’s convictions for murder back to the Court of Appeal, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. Mr Watson was convicted in 1999 of the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. His appeal to the Court of Appeal in 2000 was unsuccessful, as was his ...
A new five-year funding agreement for the Reserve Bank will mean it can boost its work to protect New Zealanders’ finances, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. “New Zealand has a strong and stable financial system. Financial stability is an area that we are not prepared to cut corners for, particularly ...
A law change has been introduced to make it easier for forgotten funds in institutional accounts to be returned more easily to their rightful owners. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash has introduced an amendment to the Unclaimed Money Act 1971. It will update the rules controlling forgotten sums of money held ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Days after President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Philippines Anti-Terrorism Law, Vice-President Leni Robredo has pushed for safeguards so that the controversial measure would not be abused, reports Rappler. In her weekly radio show with co-host Ely Saludar, Robredo noted that she does not oppose the law ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Developments in Melbourne on Saturday are more important, and certainly of more interest to the public, than what has happened in Eden-Monaro. Anthony Albanese is set to struggle over the line in the Labor seat, ...
The campaign to stop the Department of Conservation exterminating tahr in national parks is gathering increasing public support, with nearly 40,000 people signing the petition calling for a halt to DOC’s plans. The Change.org petition was started ...
DATE: Sunday, 5th July 2020 TIME: 15:00 LOCATION: Taylor Preston's, Centennial Highway, Wellington On Sunday, Wellington Animal Save will be bearing witness to animals on their way to slaughter, outside Taylor Preston's slaughterhouse. ...
Local Government’s Regional Sector are welcoming an announcement today of over $162 million in central government funding for 22 regional and unitary council Jobs for Nature projects, saying the strong support is an endorsement of the return on ...
Political editor Justin Giovannatti reports from Te Papa, where the prime minister today addressed Labour’s 2020 Congress.Jacinda Ardern looked to slap a Labour sticker on the team of five million with the launch today of the party’s Covid-19 recovery plan, at an event which serves as the unofficial kickoff to ...
Kelvin Davis stole the show at Labour’s 2019 conference with a hilarious speech about the formation of the coalition government. The party’s oft-underestimated deputy leader was again in the spotlight this year, but with a more solemn yet at times impassioned address outlining the country’s Covid-19 sacrifices. Here is the text: Anne Guenole. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Russo, Associate Professor, Director Cabrini Monash University Department of Nursing Research, Monash University The Victorian government’s decision to “close and contain” nine public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne represents a significant escalation in the fight against COVID-19. Under the ...
By Grace Auka-Salmang in Port Moresby Key findings from the 2016 to 2018 Papua New Guinea Demographic and Health Survey reveals that 56 percent of women aged 15 to 49 in PNG have experienced physical violence around the age of 15. And 28 percent have experienced sexual violence. Also 18 ...
The New Zealand Herald recently published a column which criticises its own record on race. Teuila Fuatai explains why she felt she had to call out the paper that commissioned her. In the column, freelance journalist Teuila Fuatai detailed her concerns about the Herald’s record on race and her efforts to ...
Dunedin writer Victor Billot farewells retiring National MP Paula Bennett.Working Class Hero I came up the hard way in Taupo, you see, surviving off Weetbix (just occasionally.) I waited tables then knocked off a degree, perhaps with the help of a state subsidy. Then a man with a ...
Three of the country's biggest seafood companies have broken ranks with the rest of the sector and declared their support for cameras on fishing boats. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne This article was updated July 5. With 77% of enrolled voters counted at Saturday’s Eden-Monaro byelection, Labor’s Kristy McBain currently leads the Liberals’ Fiona Kotvojs by a 50.8-49.2 projected ...
The family of pioneering New Zealand suffragist Kate Sheppard kept an important secret – one that possibly explains a lot about her life, her beliefs and her motivation.Kate Sheppard’s secret involved her father, Andrew Wilson Malcolm, and what happened to him after she was born. An extensive and painstaking quest ...
Covid-19 or not, renewable energy is the future. That’s why one grassroots business is taking a leap of faith and trusting that the current downturn will eventually yield to an ecotourism boom.To launch an ecotourism business in rural Otago right now, you’d need to be either a visionary or just ...
Sam Brooks reviews Auckland writer Lil O’Brien’s memoir Not That I’d Kiss A Girl, and finds it a valuable yet unclear story of the author’s struggle with her own acceptance.As queer people, we can be unnecessarily harsh on media that is about us, and by us. I think of the ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
In the wake of lockdown, Volunteering New Zealand is calling on people to reshape the way they think about volunteering. To unite with whānau, friends and workmates to make a group commitment to a community or cause that matters to them. Covid-19 ...
Mahesh Bindra has been a loyal member of NZ First for almost 15 years. But as an Indian-New Zealander, what does he make of members of his party attacking his community? Multicultural Times editor Gaurav Sharma reports.Winston Peters, deputy prime minister and leader of New Zealand First, likes to say ...
As Auckland suffers its worst drought in 27 years, many of the city’s self-service car washes are doing a roaring trade. Michael Andrew finds out how these businesses are getting around the strict water restrictions.Car washing may seem like a wasteful luxury in the middle of a drought, but take ...
Call it last, call it the foundation: Georgie Dansey is 84th on the Labour Party list for the 2020 election. Here she explains how she got there.What does it take to come last on the Labour list? It’s a bit of a story, so if you’re feeling tl;dr then just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne At Saturday’s Eden-Monaro byelection, Labor’s Kristy McBain currently leads the Liberals’ Fiona Kotvojs by a 50.7-49.3 projected margin in The Poll Bludger’s Eden-Monaro election page. This page has all the ...
The controversial MP says his former party put a target on the minister’s back, but Melissa Lee insists there was no concerted campaign.The MP who exited the National Party in a tailspin attack on former leader Simon Bridges has publicly apologised to Clare Curran for his role in the treatment ...
By Jane Patterson, political editor of RNZ News The State Services Minister says the government will do everything it can to track down who is responsible for a massive privacy breach relating to New Zealand’s active covid cases, and is not ruling out pursuing criminal charges. An investigation has been ...
The National editorial Hundreds walked the Sir John Guise drive on Thursday calling for justice for the brutal death of 19-year-old mother-of-two – Jenelyn Kennedy last week. Jenelyn’s battered lifeless body was taken into the Port Moresby General Hospital last Tuesday by four men (one believed to be the father ...
*Watch the full video in the player below*In the first 48 hours of life, blood from newborn New Zealand babies is taken and tested. Most parents will never hear back. For others, it’s life-changing, and life-saving. Frank Film investigates. Performed 48 hours after birth, it’s a medical procedure ...
Latest from the Beehive Shane Jones, the Minister of Munificence, in a joint statement with fellow Northlander and Deputy PM Winston Peters, wrapped up a week of handout investment announcements with news of more millions for the people of his patch in the Far North. This time it was a ...
By Rebecca Kuku in Port Moresby A passionate plea by men, women and children has echoed around the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby – that it is time to turn the corner on addressing gender-based violence in the country. Gatherings, a peaceful march and a vigil were staged ...
Former Race Relations Commissioner Gregory Fortuin has called out National MP Hamish Walker for his racist comments towards people of colour. This follows Walker's press release objecting to people from Pakistan, India and Korea potentially being quarantined ...
Khruangbin have established their live reputation with spacious instrumentals, but the band’s third album, Mordechai, features prominent vocals and disco-funk jams. Andrew Drever interviews the Texas-based trio upon its release.While the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage in the US, the situation has actually been a blessing in disguise for Khruangbin ...
The State Services Minister says the government will do everything it can to track down who is responsible for a massive privacy breach relating to New Zealand's active Covid cases, and is not ruling out pursuing criminal charges. ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
With the collapse of Bauer NZ resulting in Australian magazines flooding our shelves, Wendyl Nissen looks back at her battle to get homegrown content given the star billing it deserved.Thanks to some hard-fought battles 30 years ago, New Zealand women have been enjoying their own version of Woman’s Day and ...
Extending the franchise to prisoners is the latest in a series of contentious electoral reforms enacted by this government, but history suggests the ‘convention’ for consensual election reform is more imagined than real.The Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act, passed last week and corrected this week, extends the franchise ...
Since publication of Newsroom’s extensive investigation into serious issues at Oranga Tamariki, our inbox has been flooded with stories from more current and former employees. In less than 48 hours after Newsroom’s in-depth inquiry into the children's ministry was published we received a high volume of correspondence from current and former ...
“She’d come into town on the bus. The photographer, so her mother had told her, was famous”: a short story by Wellington writer Elspeth Sandys. It was to be a present for her father who was dying. A photograph of her in her first ball gown. When she reached for ...
Those who can’t afford to travel will “attend” the terror sentencing via video link, the Immigration Minister says. David Williams reports The Immigration Minister is demanding officials give urgent help to overseas victims of the Christchurch terror attack and their families. Yesterday, High Court Justice Cameron Mander announced the terrorist, ...
Controversy over Wellington's Shelly Bay has ensnared iwi, the council and politicians for years. Investigative journalist Nicky Hager uses official documents to lay out the roles of money, power and wheels-within-wheels on this most contentious of developments. Any time I am asked whether we have corruption in New Zealand, I ...
Is the answer to saving New Zealand's professional sports teams creating super-franchises? The Extra Time podcast asks sports leaders. Professional sport is slowly emerging from the grip of the pandemic but its financial future is far from certain. Covid-19 highlighted a weakness in the structure of professional sport in New ...
Before Covid-19, it’d take a long flight and half a grand to see Hamilton in the flesh. Now, the biggest musical of the past two decades is available to watch on Disney+. Sam Brooks takes stock of this extraordinary move. Right now, Broadway is a sleeping dragon. New York theatres ...
Sacked cabinet minister Clare Curran speaks for the first time about the brutal end to her political career – and what she calls the toxicity and bullying that marked her years in parliament. By Donna Chisholm.Of all the humiliations – often self-inflicted – that Clare Curran endured during her 12-year ...
On 03 July Children’s Commissioner was given additional responsibility by the Minister of Justice which extended its role as the independent monitor of the conditions and treatment of children and young people in secure detention centres. The Children’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, ARC Future Fellow, UNSW The term “heatwave” is no stranger to Australians. Defined as when conditions are excessively hot for at least three days in a row, these extreme temperature events have always punctuated our climate. With many of us ...
Pacific Media Watch A senior Indonesian government official and a New Zealand journalism professor have clashed over differing perspectives on access for journalists and media to the West Papua region. Speaking on a webinar organised by the Jubi newspaper in Jayapura, Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ director of the European affairs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Mintzes, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney To beat the coronavirus pandemic, countries need to collaborate. We need the best possible science to develop vaccines and drugs, and to test, track and contain the virus. If we’ve learned anything ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Let’s turn back the hands of time. Before extinction knocked dinosaurs off their pillar, before the “Great Dying” extinction wiped out 95% of all organisms – we had the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Williams, Researcher at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine (VELiM), University of Sydney Last week, outgoing chief medical officer Brendan Murphy announced all returned travellers would be tested for COVID-19 before and after quarantine. Some were surprised ...
A new package to help foreign nationals stuck in New Zealand due to Covid-19 is inadequate and needs to be supplemented with the emergency benefit, say Community Law Centres O Aotearoa (CLCA) and the Human Rights Commission (HRC). The assistance ...
With Shortland Street’s 7,000th episode screening tonight, Tara Ward salutes the soap for keeping calm and carrying on through level three lockdown. It’s been one heck of a week on Shortland Street. Leanne lost her winning $8 million Lotto ticket, Louis slipped over in a pile of vomit, and Desi tried ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Clift, Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate, University of Melbourne In recent days, the prime ministers of the UK and Australia each declared they are working toward providing safe haven visas for Hong Kong residents. In the US, lawmakers passed a bill ...
How two multi-millionaires, two pandemic futurists, Air NZ’s former boss, a dairy executive on a break, a retired anaesthetist (and a few others) nearly saved NZ. ...
A commitment from Labour to protect productive farmland from blanket afforestation if re-elected is a step in the right direction, Federated Farmers Meat & Wool Chairperson William Beetham says. "We’re really pleased there is now ...
Tomorrow, 4 July, will see protests in at least nine centres around New Zealand against Israeli plans to steal more Palestinian land (Details are at the end of this media release) “Virtually the entire international community is standing together ...
Pacific Media Watch Australia’s ABC has revealed the Australian Federal Police (AFP) recommendation regarding the Afghan Files investigative journalism report is for the Commonwealth DPP to consider charging journalist Dan Oakes for his role in the leak. The revelation has prompted a renewed call by the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom ...
While we’re growing in confidence that we are in the enviable position of basically eliminating Covid-19, our trading nation at the bottom of the world is also in the unenviable position of locking off our economy to the world. “No is not an answer ...
Netflix’s new adaptations of The Baby-Sitters Club makes long-time fan Tara Ward fall in love with the series all over again. When I was 12 years old, my class had to write a letter to a famous person. Some of my classmates wrote to an All Black, Tom Cruise or ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning the scale and value of the Government’s $230m screen industry recovery package. Union spokesperson Jordan Williams says: “The official justification for this ‘recovery package’ is the impact of COVID-19 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Former Ambassador and Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland Chinese activity in Papua New Guinea was not the only factor behind Australia’s Pacific “Step-Up”. As a former high commissioner to PNG, I know it ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk A Papuan church leader and advocate for social justice has penned an open letter to the Indonesian government calling for justice and an end to racism to enable a genuine self-determination process for the Melanesian region. “The problem of Papua has become increasingly complex and severe ...
Latest from the Beehive – Nine press releases (when we checked this morning) had flowed from the Beehive since we last reported. Eight of them brayed about the money Ministers have been spending and (as they prefer to put it) investing. The sole exception came from Environment Minister David ...
CEAC pre-election review of National Party ‘climate change policy’, is lacking in substance without any clear policy, that will leave voters with no idea of what National Party plans for saving our climate, and glancing at their ‘Transport plans’, ...
Film crews can get exemptions to enter New Zealand, so why not the families and supporters of terror victims, David Williams asks. OPINION: If the public needs a sign last year’s terrorist attack has slipped off the Government’s radar, this is it. A sentencing date has been set for the ...
A new poem by Michaela Keeble.Only the ocean only the oceanturns me overlike this only the oceanturns meon like this only the oceangives warning: what will changeand when so it doesn’t comeacrosslike violence white capsdrift inon the rising tide i feel likeopening my legs i don’t wantto do anything elsetoday i don’t wantto goto work i want to lie downwith ...
As the Covid-19 pandemic rages round the world, New Zealanders are re-discovering food production is the fundamental engine of the economy. And farming is not a sunset industry. Instead of being rubbished by lobby groups for so-called “dirty dairying”, the country’s core export industry has the chance to transform itself ...
Open mike 01/12/2015 
Open mike is your post.
MONDAY JULY 6Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said Salon.TUESDAY JULY 7The ABC Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Sarah Phelps has done incredible things with ...9 hours ago
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A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020 Editor's Choice '2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentary A timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...21 hours ago
Dave Heatley Zero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...2 days ago
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...2 days ago
Three years ago the ABC used leaked information to expose war crimes by Australian troops in Afghanistan. Since then the chief of Australia's special forces has admitted that his troops committed war crimes. But guess who the Australian government is prosecuting? Police have referred allegations against an ABC journalist relating ...3 days ago
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Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...4 days ago
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could ...4 days ago
When the Christchurch murderer pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder and a number of other violent assault charges a few months ago, he effectively closed the door on what the public will know about the lead up to and commission of the event. His plea means that no evidence ...6 days ago
Daphna Whitmore The Philippines is enduring one of the longest lockdowns in the world. For President Duterte the lockdown provides an opportunity to garner more powers and to push through a brazen assault on human rights. A new law called the Anti-Terror Bill has been passed under urgency and it ...6 days ago
There really is not much about Paula Bennett concerning her career trajectory, the policies she promoted, and most importantly, the socio-economic effect this had upon New Zealand (and particularly the most vulnerable in this, our oft-cited “egalitarian” society of this country) that can be said now that hasn’t already been ...6 days ago
Helloy… My name is Todd Muller and I am the leader of the National Party of New Zealand. Many people come up to me on the street and ask me who I am. I’m often walking through Tauranga, or in a mall in suburban Auckland, or maybe even a farmers’ ...6 days ago
. . Plague town? There are two things right now in Aotearoa New Zealand that are guaranteed to piss people off. Firstly, it’s National playing silly-bugger politics with the covid-19 pandemic. This cost Simon Bridges his job as National’s Leader. Lately, Michael Woodhouse has been playing fast and loose with ...7 days ago
Tertiary fees in New Zealand versus Australia: Fees Are Important, but not as Important as Financing In Australia, the Education Minister Dan Tehan has proposed an overhaul of the existing higher education funding system to offer 39,000 additional study places by 2023 and 100,000 by 2030. The proposal has been ...7 days ago
The images and reports delivered to us by the world’s media leave us in no doubt that the rest of the world is still in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of slackening, but is actually uncontrolled and picking up pace in many countries; and even ...1 week ago
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NZRS killed by Islamic terrorists in November = 0
NZRS killed by their workplace in November = 3
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11553651
Teenage worker covered in bitumen, burned alive, the boss is sad.
Quoting article:
Actually, some business owners wish it upon the workers all the time. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be complaining about increasing health and safety rules.
Some things in that item that stand out. The worker was 60 not 16.
Corboy Earthmovers had been in business for a number of decades, Mr Baxter said, but was now under new ownership after the original founder – Craig “Cactus” Corboy – died in a digger accident about three years ago….
The workplace fatality was November’s third. John Douglas Howe died last Wednesday when he was hit by a truck at a Mangere freight yard, and Mario Lelina was killed using machinery at a Southland gold mine on November 5.
I remember a politician, may have been David Lange, commenting that ACC was needed by workers particularly – he had never heard of a solicitor falling off a chair and breaking anything.
‘The release of a critical report on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ decision to grant immunity to a Malaysian diplomat will be put off at least until he is sentenced.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11553593
More Kiwis face homeless old age
‘Growing numbers of Kiwis risk becoming homeless in old age because of falling home ownership rates, rising rents and static housing subsidies, the Salvation Army says.
Homeless Baby Boomers, a hard-hitting report by the army’s social policy unit, says superannuitants in private rentals will jump almost four-fold from 61,000 in 2013 to 237,000 by 2030, as those owning their own homes drop from 73 per cent of the age group to 63 per cent.
It says rents have risen 4 per cent a year over the past five years, while the accommodation supplement has not changed since 2007, making it harder for many elderly renters to survive.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11553671
sad and shameful
we should be ashamed of ourselves for what we have done to our society
This is the result of 30 years’ neo-liberalism.
This article by Chris Hedges shows how the USA has progressed under neo-liberalism.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/30/age-demagogues
And a leaked Congress document shows that Obama can only talk hot air at the Climate Conference cos they aint gonna sign nothin.
Even our own Media focused its coverage this morning, firstly on statements/actions against terrorism… not Climate, that came later
December’s Too Much
And the US has been neo-liberal for longer than NZ. The worship of the rich that we’ve had for the last thirty years causes huge problems for the poor and society in general.
That story is only a look at a very minor symptom and kind of irrelevant in the greater scheme. The real issue is agricultural usage – more than 80% of water usage – growing high water usage crops in an arid region. Think the recent law about offering restaurant diners water without a request matters versus intensive almond and rice cropping? California even produces hay for export using irrigation.
Actually, it’s a major symptom as it’s indicative of how the unsustainable agriculture in California is treated. Those rich and powerful get to do whatever they like no matter how much damage it does.
This kowtowing to the rich happens across the world and it causes all sorts of grief.
From Morning Report on this issue …quite comprehensive and thought provoking. It is not just young New Zealanders who are the new poor.
‘Looming homeless’
A Salvation Army report published today warns hundreds of thousands of baby boomers could be left homeless in retirement.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201780869/looming-homeless
imo we need to retain a universal super … and we need to progress it further into a to a Universal Basic Income…universal super is the first step along the way to a UBI.
So how do we go about doing this?
“She’s already kicked the guy’s arse once and it’s good to see her being saved the bother of doing it again – because she totally kicked his arse. It was amazing,” Tania Billingsley rulz!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11553665
Also the report into why & how he was able to leave the country & Tolleys & Mcullys actions was completed last December has been delayed release again….nothing to hide nothing to fear is one of the right wings mantra innit? Bollocks!
Everywhere you look this toxic regime has been busy robbing kiwis of liberties, justice, resources and any ability to use the ‘independant’ bodies to bring them to account by gutting them of funds and placing their poodles in charge.
+100 …”Tania Billingsley rulz!”
Tania Billingsley and her courage is a role model for all facing and dealing with sexual assault!
TV3 got it wrong in their coverage. Didn’t put in the bit about where she revealled her identity to get the apology the PM had promised,
courage + courage
Christian with massive conflict of interest resigns, bad smell lingers.
Could there possibly be a cultural link between the Salem Witch trials, Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, McCarthyism, and Islamic State ?
Link for Weka – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPH_mnWdmho @26 min –
“Yes, flocks of chickens, herds of cows, and thousands of swine contribute to more green house gas emissions than all the worlds cars, lorries, buses, trains, ships and planes combined.
We must stop using cars and we should stop eating meat.
…and then we can get down on all fours and eat the grass and veges and create our own personal green house emissions
population control is a better solution…there are far too many humans on this planet
Do you have a list, chooky?
i could work on it…but it might bring unfavourable comparisons…better for humans not to be born at all at this stage
….and for us to all hunker down and live frugally…this means overturning laissaz faire corporate controlled capitalism…and the Labour Party
Yep http://www.vhemt.org
But even if the population went to 10 billion tomorrow, it wouldn’t change what is already locked in for the next 10 – 15 years.
And if we all became walking vegans, the locked in shit will still get us, that is what 700ppm CO2/CO2e looks like 🙂 (happy face for Rosie)
not sure what your point is Robert. I agree that agribusiness is a huge contributor to GHG emissions. I just don’t think that making the world vegan will solve that. The solution to those GHG emissions is to eat local. That will do multiple things. It will reduce meat consumption. It will create better local economies and real CC age jobs for people. It will undercut agribusiness. It will support organics, regenag etc and shift us to sustainable land use. Win, win, win, win.
What going vegan will do is shift the profits from dairy and feedlot cow growers to corn and soy growers. It won’t undermine agribusiness at all, they will just carry on regardless. It will also create a bunch of malnourished humans (there’s very good reasons why we don’t have vegan cultures on planet earth, it’s not sustainable).
My point is, you were giving me shit over http://www.cowspiracy.com/ , as if they were lying or something ?????, so just pointing out RT are saying the fing same thing.
They’re not saying the same thing, and Cowspiracy does appear to be lying.
All I saw in the vid were some random figures about agribusines out of context that appeared to be saying that agribusiness is a huge contributor to GHG emissions levels.
Cowspiracy is vegan propaganda, it has manipulated statistics to suit its proselytising agenda to turn the world vegan, it misleads the public because of that, and it has attempted to ruin people’s reputations in the process (see the shit it tried to pull on Greenpeace).
So, yeah, I will continue to give you shit about using Cowspiracy as a source of valid data or commentary on climate change and what we should be doing. Especially when you ignore the counter arguments.
Cowspiracy is lying.
No it won’t. All it would do is make it so that all the animals are grown locally. The problem is raising animals to eat – both as dairy and as meat. We need to decrease the number of cows in the world and we’d do that by eating less meat/dairy. In a market environment that means increasing the price of meat which would boost profits and so increase the amount of meat being produced.
Basically, the market can’t do it. In fact, the market simply can’t do anything that we need to do to save ourselves. It is, in fact, what’s killing us.
Most meat and dairy farms in NZ exist because of exports. That’s a completely different issue than NZers eating locally, and NZers eating less meat and dairy won’t primarily affect the export markets. I agree there are huge issues with organising ourselves around the corporate market structure. Eating local undermines that because it connects people who eat directly with people who grow food. The ability to influence how food is grown increases exponentially. It also gives farmers a way out of the global economy export structure that most are caught in. Those are the farmers that are and will lead the way on sustainable agriculture.
I think what you are describing is that the markets adapt to selling locally, which isn’t what I was meaning at all. Eating local is a highly political act because of the ways that it undermines the global economy. It has a culture of its own that precludes what you describe, although I do think it is open to corporate capture in similar ways to how organics has been.
I agree that NZers could do with eating less dairy and meat, but it has to be done in a thoughtful and evidence based way, not in a ‘we should all be vegan because the global economy says eating industrial meat is worse for GHG emissions than eating industrial soy’. Swapping out soy for meat is daft, esp in NZ where most of our soy is imported from monocropped, Monsantoed farms in the US and China. Better to eat a range of locally produced protein and that includes meat/dairy for those that want to eat meat/dairy.
This might help the debate ?
https://www.farmmachinerylocator.co.uk/impact-of-our-consumption/
The link wasn’t working this morning? but is up again now.
yeah, we know, agribusiness is a problem. I think that’s already been established.
What do dysfunctional and troubled societies do?
They self-medicate.
Just another consequence of 30 years of neo-liberalism.
I don’t expect the msm to join the dots as it’s job is to prevent people seeing the big picture.
However when will NZers make the connection.
Neo-liberalism kills societies.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11553764
What’s new?
Nothing. This is the line up when Shearer announced his “team”.
Robertson is pulling the strings today, just like he was when he put Shearer into the saddle three years ago.
Dalziel dropped from Labour’s top 20
ANDREA VANCE
25/02/2013. From STUFF
“Annette King, Phil Twyford and David Clark have been promoted to Labour’s front bench in a party reshuffle unveiled today.
Shane Jones will remain on the front bench pending the Auditor-General’s report into the Bill Liu case. Among the big losers were Trevor Mallard who was bumped off the front bench.
Labour leader David Shearer unveiled his new line-up this morning. He said it was a mix of “new talent and experienced hands”.
King returns to the front bench after some time in the middle benches following her demotion as deputy leader. She will take up the health protfolio. Dunedin North MP David Clark has flown up the ranks and will take on the economic development portfolio. Chris Hipkins will take on education, Andrew Little justice and Phil Twyford housing.
Leadership contender David Cunliffe and Christchurch East MP Lianne Dalziel have been bumped from the top 20-ranked Labour MPs.
Shearer said Clark was a “rising star” with the economic grunt needed for his new portfolio. He will work alongside David Parker who retains the finance portfolio. King was passionate and formidable, Shearer said.
Twyford was “one of our top performers”.
Wigram MP Megan Woods will pick up tertiary education and Sue Moroney has returned to the top 20.
Those outside the top 20 MPs are not ranked.
Iain Lees-Galloway and Kris Faafoi have also picked up new portfolios although they remain on the backbenches.
………
Deputy leader Grant Robertson remains in the number two spot and picks up responsibility for jobs.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/8348590/Dalziel-dropped-from-Labours-top-20
Thanks for that reminder Northsider. I am not close enough to the centre of the action to know exactly who is calling the shots, but I do see the continuous rearrangement of the same dwindling group of people. Sigh.
makes you wonder if there is a fifth column which has kidnapped the Labour Party
same old cabal at work….and NOT the Labour Party memberships’ choice
…and as CV pointed out yesterday “shitloads of electorate MPs got pushed out into unranked spots.”
This is not grassroots democracy operating in the NZLP…it is a cabal…cabalism…cannibalism…Eat your own Best…baked Cunliffe for dinner
Nope. The simple fact is that the Labour party caucus did not get serious refreshment at the last election, so the talent pool remains pretty much the same. Little has played the cards he has been dealt and done a pretty positive job of it by promoting where he could.
That does not explain electorate-winning MP’s being pushed out into unranked spots. On morning report, people were expressing anger at the demotion of Mahuta, given her contribution to bringing the Maori seats back to Labour.
Yeah, Tuku Morgan was expressing outrage. You know, National supporting Tuku Morgan of underpants fame. Yawn.
What difference does it make if MP’s hold electorates? They’re all part of the same caucus and it’s their work between elections that gets them higher rankings.
Winning a seat does evidence the ability to garner active support within the broader community, which is where elections are won and lost. It is not everything, but it does give concrete proof that at least some people see you as up to representing them.
yes Mahuta helped Labour win back the Maori seats…this ingratitude and insult wont be forgotten by Maori
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/temanukorihi/audio/201780892/labour-reshuffle-ruffles-feathers-amongst-maori
…another reason for the Cunliffites and Labour membership ( which has been ignored and spurned ) to be jumping ship and help in the forming of a new and dynamic activist grassroots New Zealand Labour Party incorporating Mana and the Internet Party
I do not think that we need a new party, but we desperately need an economically left wing activist movement, along the lines of the People’s Assembly in Britain. It is not hard to see why purportedly left wing MP’s end up representing the political establishment itself rather than a left wing constituency – the power of our historic institutional bases is too eroded to put anyone under real pressure, while the threat of being persona non grata in political/media/donor circles still has force. One by one the bases have been lost – job/income security, state benefits, housing – once a line of defense has fallen, the next is easier to take. We need to make up for our lack of institutional power with people power. Until we are able to muster such power, those meant to represent us will continue to largely dismiss us.
There is definitely a need to replace Labour, but where would a new left wing party find the fiscal support required to win an election?
If Mahuta wants a high rank in the party, she needs to actually do something.
As I have said, she played a large part in winning back the Maori seats. She does do stuff, although she does not have a high profile. The ability to win people’s trust, however, in a party with Labour’s recent history, is not something to be sneezed at, whether or not one’s accomplishments are heralded with trumpets and drums.
+100
+100 Olwyn …Mahuta, friend of David Cunliffe, works quietly and effectively behind the scene and brings in the Labour Party the Maori seats
…what is her reward?…demotion by the WASPs…Little’s neo Liberal Party does not deserve Mahuta or Cunliffe
…. if I were her I would be jumping ship and taking the Maori seats to a new Labour Mana/Internet Party
Hear hear Olwyn !
And Charles Chauvel got it too.
His plea for right wing to fly with left wing in his valedictory speech has been ignored.
I note that tanning beds need to be regulated. For the health and saefty of the pubic… but no sign of regulating junk food and beverages which also impact (in much higher numbers) on the health and saftey of NZers. Strange huh?
… For the health and saefty of the pubic…
Actually, probably for the whole body 🙂
That was incredibly funny.
As predicted in The Standard last week:
“Jeremy Corbyn is to offer a free vote to MPs on David Cameron’s proposals for UK to bomb Isis in Syria but will make it clear that Labour party policy is to oppose airstrikes.
The Labour leader will also press Cameron to delay the vote until Labour’s concerns about the justification for the bombing are addressed, as part of a deal he has thrashed out with the deputy leader, Tom Watson, and other senior members of the shadow cabinet over the weekend.
His decision averts the threat of a mass shadow cabinet walkout, while making it clear that his own firmly held opposition to airstrikes is official Labour party policy, backed by the membership.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/30/syria-airstrikes-jeremy-corbyn-gives-labour-mps-free-vote
A post from The Daily Blog
MIKE IN AUCKLAND says:
DECEMBER 1, 2015 AT 1:26 AM
Hey, Mr Little, was David Cunliffe not once voted for by the majority of the Labour Party membership? It was only too many in caucus that opposed him as leader before the last election. And as I hear it, there is still a fair level of support and sympathy that goes out to David Cunliffe.
Maybe he disappointed some that once supported him, with his talk about being “ashamed to be a man”, and not answering one or another question well during a pre-election debate on TV.
Cunliffe was already stabbed in the back, or at least undermined, while the election campaign was still in preparation last year, then when some polls did not seem to deliver, and when the MSM turned nasty at him and Labour, the rest of the stab in the back was dealt out by those in caucus that disliked him. Some in caucus got nervous or even panicked, and then turned at Cunliffe, I remember it well, it was revealed in comments after the election loss was announced.
David hesitated accepting defeat on election night, but had to see the sombre reality afterwards. So after some reflecting he stepped down.
Many still respect him for his skills and experience, and for his passion, expressed well and in oratory skill in his speeches. So some of us had hoped he may be back in a better role, ranked higher as he had been until yesterday.
But why the hell did you rank him down to number 28 out 0f 32 (or is it 34?). That is an insult, a slap in the face of the man. Did he signal not standing again in 2017, or did some breathe down heavily on your neck, Mr Little?
Have the ABC “gangsters” been putting on the pressure, or been pulling some strings behind the scenes? Did some of your caucus dare bully you? I cannot believe you, but your decision yesterday raises many, many questions.
It does not make sense what I see, some like Stuart Nash now moving up, and Jacinda Ardern ranked higher than many can see as being justified. Annette King must be transitioning into retirement over the coming years, so why is she still right next to you, in the front line and co driver’s seat?
Andrew Little, you have certainly disappointed me, if you would have appreciated and had been able to recognise talent and also fairness, you would have treated David Cunliffe differently, and given him a spokesperson role and ranking further up. That would have mended some divisions that still may well exist within the party.
It appears that caucus considers itself as the dominant professional elite within your party, ignoring the input someone like David Cunliffe can still offer, by marginalising him.
You only became leader with a rather marginal majority, so how does that feel? Are you having second thoughts now to hold the balance in the party, and have you given in to some others, who seem to be setting the agenda now?
For me Labour has now become unvotable, I will not even vote for the electorate seat candidate anymore. My trust is gone, after seen what has been dealt out to the MP for New Lynn, David Cunliffe, that is NOT an olive branch for someone who could perhaps contribute so much for Labour in future.
Good luck with your future as leader, and your campaign in 2017, you will certainly need it.
– See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/11/30/puppet-on-a-string-has-andrew-little-become-the-plaything-of-labours-dominant-factions/#.dpuf
+100…very well said!
I imagine many are thinking the same way right now.
Not Guilty, but the crap hasn’t ended. Chris Cairns will be
thinking: God save me from my ex-friends and coaches.
RNZ National, Tuesday 1 December 2015, 8:11 a.m.
Chris Cairns may have got off free in his London court case, but nothing will save him from people like his former coach Glenn Turner.
This morning on RNZ National, Glenn Turner told Susie Ferguson: “Sadly, there’s a lot goes on in the background today that the spin-doctors seem to be employed to conceal or fudge.”
Not every listener will have got Turner’s witty allusion. In 1998, Chris Cairns and his father Lance started Cairns Fudge. Unwisely, he came onto TV3 to be interviewed by Pam Corkery about it. After he had spent a few minutes discoursing on the subtleties involved in producing Russian and chocolate fudge, Corkery delivered her coup de grâce: “Chris Cairns,” she cackled, “fudge-packer! Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh!”
Chris Cairns did not laugh, much to her annoyance.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10418848
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/4071850/From-cricket-star-to-Dubai-diamond-dealer
‘
LEAKED!!
The New Zealand Police new contract for academic researchers seeking access to data.
🙂
How ISIS squeezes every last dollar, dinar and pound out of the people it rules.
.
Across wide expanses of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State, with the goal of building a credible government, has set up a predatory and violent bureaucracy that wrings every last American dollar, Iraqi dinar and Syrian pound it can from those who live under its control or pass through its territory.
Interviews with more than a dozen people living inside or recently escaped from the Islamic State-controlled territory, and Western and Middle Eastern officials who track the militants’ finances, describe the group as exacting tolls and traffic tickets; rent for government buildings; utility bills for water and electricity; taxes on income, crops and cattle; and fines for smoking or wearing the wrong clothes.
[…]
In the short term, American and European officials are struggling to cut the group’s revenues. But the old strategy for stopping the flow of money to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, which was largely based on cutting them off from donors in the Persian Gulf upon which they depend, does not apply to the Islamic State.
“They derive so much of their resources internally, that more traditional counterterror finance tools we would apply, say in the case of Al Qaeda, to cut off a terror organization from its income sources are not applicable in this case,” said Daniel L. Glaser, the assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing. “They don’t rely on donors.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/world/middleeast/predatory-islamic-state-wrings-money-from-those-it-rules.html?
They are selling oil. There must be a way of stopping that?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/19/-sp-islamic-state-oil-empire-iraq-isis
It’s not as simple as you’d think.
The smuggling networks are old, and tribal. It’s not just a metter of ISIS having taken the fields and selling the oil on a black market. They repaired the firleds, if you like, and allow the local smuggelrs to operate in return for a massive cut. It’s more like a mafia economy, or warlordism. They set up favorites with power, and then take their cut. Same as it ever was.
So when you hit those networks, you are not just hitting ISIS, you are hitting the local tribes and economy.
The Kurds in that peice, talking to wetsern journos, talk about ‘oh we do what we can about kurdish smugglers, but the big fish always escape,’ and frame it as ‘corruption’ but in reality it’s just how an economy works in a civil war.
And the other hard questions need to be faced, you can’t have a market without willing buyers
View at Medium.com
Sure, it is no secret that there is a strong demand for oil, and people will do all sorts of awful shit to get their hands on some.
Bilal Erdogan (son of the Turkish PM) – a key middle man in the sale of ISIS oil:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-25/meet-man-who-funds-isis-bilal-erdogan-son-turkeys-president
ISIS uses thousands of oil tanker trucks to move their product. These trucks form queues at the Turkish border many kilometres long – easily observable from the air or space. The Russians and now the US have started destroying hundreds of these vehicles.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-19/caught-tape-russian-air-force-destroys-dozens-isis-oil-trucks
“Raqqa’s Rockefellers”
How Turkey and others handle “illegal” Kurdish (and ISIS) oil for profit.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-28/isis-oil-trade-full-frontal-raqqas-rockefellers-bilal-erdogan-krg-crude-and-israel-c
Bear in mind that lab tests will easily show which specific oil field a particular lot of crude has come from.
Yeah. That’s known, it’s all the old smuggling routes, not really new. Everyone is involved.
While you’re here though, why do you think Assad released all those hard core Islamist terrorists from prison when the rebellion was kicking off?
Why do you think he put them in with captured university students and Marxists first CV? What do you think he was up to there?
Was that all part of the CIA plot too was it?
And why doesn’t Putin do more to stop the flow of militants from Russia, where he has his state security people coming down on Muslims, to Syria? Why are these things happening CV? Mystery eh, probably the Saudis making them do it I guess.
Not sure why Assad emptied out the prisons. I suspect many reasons behind such a general amnesty.
Yes, several thousand militants have come from Russia to help ISIS. But have you seen how large Russia’s borders are? And Putin is currently incinerating said militants from Chechnya and the Caucuses.
Per capita however, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden contribute notably more fighters to ISIS than Russia does.
http://www.rferl.org/contentinfographics/foreign-fighters-syria-iraq-is-isis-isil-infographic/26584940.html
It wasn’t really a general amnestry though. many were not released. many bloggers, poets, civil servants, artists who opposed the regime were not released.
He released the hardest jihadis though, veterans of the Iraq insurgency with links to Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Come on CV, what is the obvious reason for doing that.
And given I know your deep concern about war crimes, what are your thoughts on the torture he is using? And how do you feel about cluster munitions?
Are they ok when Assad or Russia does it?
And the point about Russia is that they are doing very little to stop militants from travelling, (it’s not the length of the borders, they aren’t even trying) while they are doing things that radicalise them to go. Do you think Putin is unaware of this dynamic, given his history?
Why can’t you offer the slightest criticisms toward Russia or Assad for doing things you would condemn the West for?
I know you have seen me condemn the west for doing the things I criticise them for, so what is your problem?
it’s the elites turning a convenient blind eye to the corruption and malfeasance of other elites.
what of your blind eye CV? Is Putin not an elite?
Take a long read, with the type of mind you would use to read if it was about US or Saudi or Turkish* detainees:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/20/evidence-industrial-scale-killing-syria-war-crimes?view=desktop
and just think about what you are supporting.
*I’d add Egyptian here too, obviously, but god knows what you think of them at the moment
Frankly, if he released highly trained militant jihadis back into the general populace, he harmed his own government stability and military control to a great extent.
Yes, the US did use Syria as one of their CIA torture black sites after 9/11. That’s kind of place Syria is. Like Egypt is. Like US supervised Iraq was.
And cluster munitions, like AP mines, are commonly used in war nowadays.
Assad has by now lost 100,000 or more men from his army to overseas funded foreign fighters. He’s not going to be holding back.
“Syrian government officials could face war crimes charges in the light of a huge cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the “systematic killing” of about 11,000 detainees, according to three eminent international lawyers.
The three, former prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, examined thousands of Syrian government photographs and files recording deaths in the custody of regime security forces from March 2011 to last August.”
That’s the first 6 months of the uprising, he took the gloves off early.
I strongly recommend people read that link to see what CV is minimising, and refusing to condemn.
The rest of his comment where he justifies the use of cluster munitions, and I assume everything else Assad has been using (white phosphorous etc) speaks for itself.
For the record, the obvious reason to release the jihadis was sp that they would join the rebellion, and use their skills to take it over, justifying the claims that he is fighting terrorists.
This is what CV supports, and has been given ample and repeated oppurtunity to condemn. Not a peep. You can imagine what he would be saying if it was the US being accused of these things with the exact same evidence.
Like I said, it speaks for itself what he has become.
I’m done here.
PB you are a blind man. Assad, Hussein, Gaddafi, were all bad men. They all killed their own people. Yet the Western Cure to the Arab Strong Man disease has always proven one hundred times more deadly and tragic than the original ailment itself.
Look at Afghanistan. Look at Iraq. Look at Libya. Look at Syria. Look at Yemen. Now all failed states or states on the verge of failure.
PB, the West has caused the death of 2M-3M or more Arabs and Muslims since Gulf War 1. And the western Empire of Chaos is still rampaging through the Middle East. But all in a good (anglo-american) cause, right?
And the US were more than happy to use Saddam Hussein and Assad to get the dirty work done when it suited them.
Don’t get all moralistic and uppity about it now.
you want Assad gone PB? Fine, say that Assad’s government collapsed tomorrow and Assad and his family are hunted down and killed in the street by western supported Islamists like Gaddafi was.
And just like in Libya, Syria will have a dozen or two dozen heavily armed Jihadist militias left fighting it out to fill the power vacuum as Syrian civil society and social services collapse, just like Libya. The death toll, bad as it has been will climb exponentially as the likes of ISIS and Al Nusra finish off the minority Christians, Druze, Alawites and Shia in the country, and enslave the women.
Wake up and realise what you are advocating for. The west and NATO countries have allowed many tens of thousands of Islamist fighters to enter Syria to take out Assad. US intelligence reports give this strategy the thumbs up as a good way to finish off Assad. This is utterly illegal regime change by Western nations who still see themselves as the rightful colonial masters of the Levant.
PB you are nothing but an advocate for the western Chaos strategy that has plunged country after country in the Middle East into jihadist militant hell.
And then have the nerve to pretend to be morally superior. God the western colonial mindset are such pitiful slow learners. You keep making failed states as easily as bad batches of scones.
As for Putin. Not only has he had enough of the West using Islamic jihadists to institute regime change – a CIA strategy from the days of Soviet Afghanistan and before – but he has actually been legally invited by the sovereign Damascus government to put an end to it.
No wonder the western colonialists are bitching and moaning. Imagine a sovereign state having the nerve to declare independence from western interference. How unacceptable.
And there we have it, instead of codemning torture and war crimes, the targeting of civilians, and hospitals and bread factories etc, CV choosese to make up shit about what I support. Classic mixes of There Is No Alternative and You Did It Too.
In support of torture. 50 People a day tortured to death. The Regime deliberately releasing jihadists and CV is fine with it because it’s not western. In fact he just ignores it and claims all the jihadists are actually there because of the CIA because of one briefing paper that mentioned they exist.
I’m on the record all over this blog opposing western policies in the ME, opposing torture and all CV can do is lie about me and claim that all of a sudden he is some sort of hard man realist and make arguments that are the perfect mirror image of those used by neocons.
So much for all the arguments CV has made about western torture, turns out it isn’t the torture part he actually opposes.
Good luck with your new left venture CV, you stalinist fuck.
PB, for starters fuck off with your “unless you condemn this to my satisfaction, you’re an evil prick” bullshit. Newsflash – you’re not a moral authority.
That’s a convenient round figure. Works out to just over 18,000 per year under Assad’s rule. Which is BS considering (as you said) he kept people alive in prisons overflowing with military, religious and political enemies. So he was hardly mowing them all down.
Make up your mind eh.
Yet with the West’s facilitated colour revolution and sponsored Jihadi campaign against Assad, we are getting 70,000 deaths a year and maybe 4M people displaced or homeless.
Guess what, I think the West’s Empire of Chaos strategy is far far worse than Assad ever was. Mind you, the West didn’t mind using Assad to get their dirty work done when it suited them, eh?
So PB, you want to see Assad and his government gone?
And which of the Jihadist groups (or “moderate terrorists”) would you prefer to make that happen, and to take Damascus? Do you really think they will improve governance in comparison to Assad?
Will your moderate Jihadis have women and minorities in universities and as government ministers, like Assad does, for instance?
Of course, like the current crop of western leaders you can’t think more than one step ahead of your own self proclaimed moral righteousness.
You clearly have no idea. European and American leadership were more than happy to facilitate the illegal and permanent disappearing of people picked arbitrarily into torture black sites like Syria and Egypt whenever it suited them. As well as innocent taxi drivers and shop keepers caged up and tortured in Guantanamo Bay. Thousands of innocent bystanders droned and bodies left where they fall.
These same leaders have waged a campaign which since Gulf War 1 has killed 2M-3M Muslims and Arabs, perhaps more.
That’s “Stalinism” mate. A body count so high it makes Assad’s bad deeds look like a rounding error.
These same “leaders” want to turn Syria into yet another failed state, and have already halfway succeeded. Israel and Saudi Arabia and Qatar would love to see Syria fall into chaos to fuck both Hezbollah and Iran in one foul swoop.
And idiots like you are willing to ignore how disastrously the same playbook has worked out in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, while giving them morality cover to justify their plan.
No wonder Putin decided to throw a spanner into this western scheme by intervening directly.
I think Assad needs to transition out of power. Even Putin thinks so. That’s what Vienna was about. But no way should the sovereign government of Syria be permitted to collapse and be taken over by the Islamists supported by the west and western Gulf allies.
Why do you keep saying I support things I have repeatedly said I do not support?
And the point isn’t that you haven’t condemned things to my satisfaction, it’s that you refuse to condemn them at all, you justify them.
You suggest I’m riding a moral high horse, but I’m not. I’m just condemning torture and other massive war crimes. You don’t need a high horse for that.
You were condemning the shooting of a pilot, yet you ignore worse crimes. That’s all I’m saying.
And your ranting about western this and that is shown to be hollow becaus eyou are supporting more of the same behaviour from Assad and Putin. That’s all I’m saying, that it is legitimate to say:
“fuck this noise, and fuck that noise too”
You don’t have to support Putin and Assad in order to oppose current or historic western policy. That is a choice you are making. And you are allowed to, but stop acting like I’m being mean for calling it what it is.
And stop lying about what I support.
the 50 a day stat comes from here:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/jan/20/torture-of-persons-under-current-syrian-regime-report
and it isn’t for the whole of Assad’s reign, but from a Syrian whistleblower type who smuggled docs from the first 6 months of the rebellion.
If you listen to John in http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/close-up-big-dealers-john-key-1987 the way he talks is so different to now makes me think that his swallowed vowels and mooshing of the language is a deliberate ploy to appeal to middle New Zeland
I figure he rushes his words to obscure their meaning – Key, or his advisers, is/are very good at constructing ambiguous statements.
At first I thought he needed a speech therapist. When it didn’t improve over time, I figured he must be a drunk. Now I think it’s deliberate.
From a 2008 article ‘Who is John Key’:
‘The only tangible sense in which Key asserted a persona of his own was in his accent. “We sometimes felt he would lay on his Kiwi accent so thick in meetings that none of us could understand what he was saying, it was kind of deliberate,” says Kelly.’
http://i.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/249633/Who-is-John-Key
Paul Henry is running a poll on whether or not David Cunliffe should resign.
Go ahead and have your say!
http://www.3news.co.nz/TVShows/PaulHenry/Poll
I’ve voted for him to stay. Don’t let the Right’s agenda win. Don’t let Paul Henry win.
henry was at his worst this morning ,doing a complete hatchet job on Cunnliffe.
It’s a useless poll. There’s no Up Yours Paul Henry option.
lolz, I was looking for that too. I couldn’t find the results of any of their polls, so presumably you have to actually watch the dipstick to find out. Ain’t gonna happen, so I didn’t vote.
Besides, whether DC wants to resign or not is his business. I’m willing to be there are aspects to consider that aren’t in the public domain.
An impossible question to answer as I’m not DC. Considering his principles that he has shown he probably should resign from the Labour Party and join either the Alliance, The Greens or Internet Party.
“Paul Henry is running a poll on whether or not David Cunliffe should resign.”
Who gives a shit what that prat does
Lol. Well, Paul Henry for one doesn’t give a shit, that much is clear.
Cunliffe’s NO vote seems to be winning at nearly 2:1
Would you resign if you were David Cunliffe?
64% are saying Cunliffe should stay and fight on.
36% are saying they would leave a party that behaved in such a bastardly manner.
100% are saying See You Next Tuesday Grant Robertson.
Has tv3 lost the plot completely?
In an ad break during their 6pm news the other night, it cut first to an ad about tv3 programmes (as they do), namely Paul Henry’s awful breakfast show…..
….. the ad involved Paul Henry talking about how if some person bent over naked the asshole would change from the appearance of a bud to a flower.
I kid you not
child toilet humour
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
I don’t know if it reflects on society or on tv3 (it most definitely reflects on Henry tho)
unbelievable
TV lowers your IQ. Avoid
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11553915
Du Plessis -Allan home raided by cops.
New standard of journalistic cred?
What is it that police have against journos in NZ?
Ummm, because there’s a War on Truth?
Or perhaps she broke the law.
Manuka AOR @20.1
I think you will find the raid on Du Plessus-Allan was carried out as a warning to all journalists and reporters – DON’T MESS WITH US OR ELSE.
In other words authoritarian intimidation.
Something very strange about the timing of the raid – So soon after we’ve been told to (in effect) “be afraid, be very afraid” of radical extremist thuggos planning an attack, possibly a gun-fuelled Paris-style attack .
… They want the guns to be easily accessible by these attack plotters?
How the hell is this a raid?
They called and made an appointment. They went at a time suitable with the occupants.
Kim Dotcom – that was a raid. This was just a search warrant. Good try using the language trying to make it worse than it is.
“Asked how du Plessis-Allan had reacted to the police search, he said: “It’s always worrying, these things. But the fact is that the story was done in the full knowledge that there could have been repercussions.”
And repercussions she deserves.
My turn to feed the troll!
James…have you ever been subject to a Search Warrant?
Given one has no choice in the matter…and the definition of “raid”
surprise attack, hit-and-run raid, tip-and-run raid, assault, descent, blitz, incursion, foray, sortie
this was a raid.
It is an invasion of your home, your safe place, by those who you were idling under the illusion were charged with protecting.
And no, there can be smoke without fire….just to save you having to make another comment.
Enjoy your snack.
“The police have been caught napping and publicity was given to it, they don’t like the fact that they’ve been seen as perhaps not doing their job as well as they could have, so this is a way…because its a high public profile case now and its a way that the police can get back at those who made them I guess look a bit foolish and it would seem that there’s nothing more to it than this.” – Barry Soper.
The whole thing is pointless, though. If it ever gets in front of a judge, it’ll be pleading guilty and discharge without conviction.
1. She’s a journalist, it’s her job
2. They didn’t make any sort of secret of it
3. There was legitimate public interest, and the police closed the loophole after it was reported (having previously done nothing about it)
4. If she gets a conviction from this, it would harm her ability to enter foreign countries to do her job
With any luck, she’ll plead Not Guilty and there will be a hearing and she will have the charge dismissed.
Methinks this is a bit of staged willy waving from the plod.
That gun peddler sounds like a right charmer.
There’s a lot about this that bothers me…not the least of which is that they raided their Welly home and they kinda phoned to make an appointment to do so.
Weird…were the cameras there by any chance?
All very confusing. I’m off to polish my hat….
So, just finished my study year living on the Student loan. Applied for Hardship over summer and found out that that has a one week stand down on it as well.
This government is cutting everything it can to save money but, of course, they only apply it to the people who need it most. Rio Tinto and SkyCity still get the millions of dollars subsidy. Meanwhile, people are going hungry because of Nationals ongoing attack on the poor.
Nats protect their hopeless Speaker: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/291024/senior-labour-mp-challenged-over-tweet
You’d think, perhaps, that under the circumstances they’d simply let the matter drop….?
Reckon. He will be out of there soon anyway.
lol
I love how it’s ok for the Speaker to be “incompetent, bias, doesn’t like the job, lazy, sexist and doesn’t give a toss”, but pointing this out is a serious undermining of the integrity of the House.
Fuck, the only thing Carter has contributed to the integrity of the House is its structural integrity – propping up the back of the Speaker’s chair as he slouches his way through another abuse of power.
I attended a question time a fortnight ago, and then the Speaker said that the public could judge whether members were right or wrong………………… you should have seen the rolling of eyes around the public gallery at the Speaker’s ruling that day! This member of the public adjudged the Speaker to be incompetent and ineffectual.
And good on you , Ruth!
The contempt must be even more obvious to behold in person.
The King of Contra claims that Hans Kriek is “bordering on espionage.”
Even for Mike Hosking, this was a particularly braindead performance.
Seven Sharp, Television One, Tuesday 1 December 2015, 7:17 p.m.
I’ve just watched what was possibly the most ridiculous television interview of the year. In his typically bumptious manner, Mike “King of Contra” Hosking accused SAFE’s Hans Kriek of endangering our international reputation by releasing secretly filmed video of bobby calves being tortured and killed on Waikato dairy farms. They should have “had a quiet word” with Fonterra instead of “going international” like they have.
“It’s bordering on espionage,” he fumed.
In response, Hans Kriek simply laughed.
What other reaction is possible in the face of such militant ignorance?
Hosking, like Key, and Joyce would rather bury all our dirty business.
They do it all the time in the massaging of stats to show “improved outcomes”.
Green Party to vote against National’s RMA changes.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1512/S00028/green-party-to-vote-against-nationals-rma-changes.htm
Labour says it will back National’s proposed changes to the Resource Management Act.
http://www.3news.co.nz/politics/rma-reform-no-magic-solution-but-labour-will-back-it-2015120114#axzz3t3747odE
Thoughts?
Anybody know which way NZ First will vote on the RMA?
Thoughts? Pretty obvious choice for left voters. And probably won’t make the slightest difference.
Labour says it will back the legislation through it’s first reading. I presume it then goes to a select committee and they will wait and see what comes out of that committee before making a final decision whether to vote for or against the ‘amended’ RMA.
Parker says it’s a step in the right direction, seeing it as a surrender by National because they know “gutting the Act is not the solution”.
Yet, Eugenie Sage said National has wasted its opportunity to strengthen the RMA, stating many of the changes proposed to the Act weaken rather than improve the protection of the environment and reduce the opportunities for public participation.
A rather stark contrast in their positions.
It seems the RMA will be another example of Labour aligning with National while further distancing themselves from their potential coalition partner.
Reinforcing the annihilating perception of the opposition rowing in different directions.
For those that are interested
Bumps post for commentators that may be interested (doco above) but missed it.
Of no significance to anybody but I will not be renewing LP membership due to the relegation of David Cunliffe. Nothing ideological or personal but he is simply one of the most obviously competent.
Andrew – what were you thinking?
the dominant factions in caucus are doing the thinking for him.