“But what cannot be dismissed is that there have been two major grassroots movements in the last 20 years in the UK that managed to put more than half a million people on the streets of London, and there is a distinct danger that Labour will be on the wrong side of both of them.”
Raises the interesting question of the relation between grass-roots protest and democracy. The Greens have always been big on this. Eventually I detected a flawed assumption: that the former indicates the latter. Seems true, but the evidence (election results) continually proves it wrong. At the risk of over-simplifying, what you get is leftist greenies thinking numbers on street protests equates to a groundswell of opinion amongst the populace.
Simon Wren-Lewis is Professor of Economic Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. He writes “I have to be doubly careful in posts like these because I am what one Corbyn loyalist described as an “arch-Remainer”. The emotions I ascribe to many of those who campaign for Remain are also my own. Like many of the other economists who made up Labour’s Economic Advisory Council I resigned because I saw the current leadership as too content with the referendum result. As a result I am not an impartial observer, so I need to be especially careful that what I write about Remainers as a whole is factually based.”
Too content with the referendum result?? Corbyn et al are the target of Labour remainers because they chose to accept the will of the people? “Once you let a campaign of the right won by illegal means triumph, you open the doors to more of the same.” Ah, so he thinks Brexit is illegal. You’d think a professor would know to validate such a claim with evidence, eh? He doesn’t even try. He’s busy trying to create the impression in the minds of his readers that remainers are a bunch of puerile retards, and isn’t even self-aware enough to realise that!
Thanks for validating the link Dennis. I tend to part ways with you however
“That Brexit is more than just another issue or a passing fad seems clear. After the 2016 vote, around half the Remain vote was prepared to accept the result, but the other half was not. Through two years when the two major parties and the BBC regarded the decision as made and irreversible, Remainers built various organisations with the aim of reversing the vote. They held protest marches around the UK that gradually grew in size, culminating in the biggest march in London since the Iraq war protest. Polls now suggest the Remain vote is more committed than the Leave vote, with a majority over either May’s deal or no-deal bigger than Leave’s margin in 2016.
Where does this passion and energy come from? It is obviously a big issue, but would the kind of Brexit favoured by Corbyn and some Labour and Tory MPs (close to Brexit In Name Only – BINO) really be such a big deal compared to staying in the EU? On an emotional level I think there are three reasons why it would be. First and foremost is the question of identity. Many people in the UK regard themselves as also European, and any form of Brexit is clearly a way of cutting the UK off from the rest of Europe. Second, I think there is a strong feeling that leaving the EU represents the triumph of ideological over rational argument. Once you let a campaign of the right won by illegal means triumph, you open the doors to more of the same. A third factor is empathy for the position of European migrants in the UK, who are often friends, neighbours or colleagues.
If a sceptical Labour leadership want to know what would happen if they enabled Brexit, the best comparison I can suggest is how they felt after parliament voted to put UK troops alongside US troops in the Iraq invasion.
If you put these points to Corbyn loyalists you get a variety of responses that go from the misguided to downright depressing. ..”
Brexit in the context of the upcoming European elections is going to resound with the issue eradicating centre rifht, centre left and hard left parties:
immigration.
its the fat rock in the river, and they need viable policy solutions different to Merkel’s “all in” career killer.
The Brexit decision is so deeply flawed that i am amazed that any rational person can find an argument for it. Saying it was the will of the people is so specious it makes me gag. If a football crowd goes on a binge and a bash-up and break-up of everything they see, that is not acceptable, it is showing irresponsibility and actual damage to others.
Brexit vote showed similar emotionality. It is understandable with the turmoil over past years, the scandal of the brothels set up in a northern city by young Pakistanis I believe, that the police were wary of investigating because of racism claims. So racist, assimilation problems, growing with refugees both landless and economic, and the depressing state of UK standards of living and standards of responsibility in the gilded pollies and wealthy power brokers.
It was a hair’s breadth majority, totally unsuitable to regard as the large majority wanting to use it as a driver to break the UK apart. It could be compared more to the troubled person who has a go at suicide because everything is going wrong for them, and there is diminishing hope of improvement.
Yet the Party in power, and apparently Labour, believe that this virtual protest by the silent majority should replace all reasoned, informed policy. They no doubt have visions that it will make them a great country again! Not when the wealthy are willing to walk on the poor to get upwards – the UK is becoming a nationwide version of the football Hillsborough tragedy.
After that tragedy with 96 dead and 766 injured, English teams were banned from playing in Europe. If the English parliament think that they will be stronger and better largely banning themselves from Europe, they are suffering terminal delusions.
It resulted in all English football clubs being banned from playing in Europe for five years. Fourteen Liverpool fans were found guilty of manslaughter and each jailed for three years.May 29, 2015
Heysel disaster: English football’s forgotten tragedy? – BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-32898612
And Yorick you write very persuasively but please do not let your rhetoric interfere with the facts. “Once you let a campaign of the right won by illegal means triumph…”
The word illegal is quite wrong. But here is a choice from google. You should be able to find something appropriate. cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics.
“a whole range of outrageous Machiavellian manoeuvres”
synonyms: devious, cunning, crafty, artful, wily, sly, scheming, designing, conniving, opportunistic, insidious, treacherous, perfidious, two-faced, Janus-faced, tricky, double-dealing, unscrupulous, deceitful, dishonest; informal foxy
Glad to help though with that great collection of put-downs for the rather grimy in society. What a lovely collection of mud balls to throw, if the spirit moves you.
“that tragedy with 96 dead and 766 injured, English teams were banned from playing in Europe.”
1. Your analogy is deeply offensive to anyone associated with the Hillsborough tragedy.
2. Your claim about the European ban confuses two separate events, Hillsborough and Heysel. There was no ban of English clubs from Europe after Hillsborough.
The survivors and relatives of the victims of Hillsborough have suffered enough from official incompetence and the extent of Police cover-up. And that includes the pathetic (Labour Government) Stuart-Smith review.
96 supporters were crushed to death on April 5, 1989. A least have the respect to get your basic facts correct before using those deaths to make a cheap political point.
The Brexit result is not illegal. Neither was it a hairbreadth result. It was close, but 52 to 48 is a clear result. In NZ parliamentary electorate terms it would be a 1500 majority. Some campaigners may have broken spending limits, but that does not invalidate the result. It is not the same as a specific candidate breaching spending rules in their own favour. Campaigners, either for remain or leave, were too diffuse for such a conclusion.
In any event, it looks like the second referendum idea has run out of steam, probably because too many proponents for a second referendum said the first one was illegal, or that those who voted to leave were stupid. Both these approaches have discredited the idea of a second referendum.
It now seems to be “Leave on May’s terms” or a “No deal Brexit.” We will know in about two weeks.
Walking along Quay Street at Britomart in Auckland the other day. Traffic was light. There were AT Metro double deckers as well as cars (and quite a few limes and cycles) but no trucks.
You could smell the briny tang of the sea rather than the usual whiff of diesel. The end of the holidays will obviously be the big test but so far, so good.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if the last minute threat of legal action to halt the project by residents of Princes Wharf was quietly shelved.
“You could smell the briny tang of the sea rather than the usual whiff of diesel.”
Yep. that is what it was like when I was a kid. A taste of what was to come when travelling on the old “Baroona” to our dream holidays at Onetangi, Waiheke.
This Draco.
Though just because Anne Gibson chooses to describe them as a ‘powerful group of waterfront residents and businesses’ doesn’t meant they really are.
And I can’t say that I’m surprised by such a bunch of bludgers complaining that the council is making things better.
Auckland Transport’s plan is to rework the waterfront street, creating wider footpaths and easier navigation, designed for a 30km/h speed. The area will also feature street furniture, trees and various opportunities for business and events. These changes will, however, necessitate a reduction of the number of lanes.
Once there are actually more people strolling past their business instead of driving and they get more customers I wonder if they’ll be declaring loudly that they tried to stop it?
They’re a funny lot though Draco, set in their ways. There’s been a few retailers who have stymied plans to get cars out of High St for years. They’re adamant that if people can’t park right outside their shops they’ll lose business. Even though common sense should tell you that the number of car parks in that street couldn’t possibly support all the businesses there. And they have the example of O’Connell St right next door which is doing really well without cars parked along it all day long.
Ferreting around down the twitter rabbit hole as you do, and this wee charmer leapt out at me.
Tomorrow I'll tell you how cannibalism was just a normal thing for Victorian sailors & how it was only in 1884 that it was made clear to everyone that it wasn't legal to kill and eat people no matter what the circumstances, and how the Victorian public were Very Angry about that.— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) December 23, 2018
So when sailors were mustered on deck to witness the Captain saying a few words on the body to be launched over the ship’s side, the covering on the body was hiding the fact there were a few missing body parts?
Thinking about air travel, and whether we might have to give up some of our cherished machinery, I thought of Richard Pearse at the beginning of the 19th century working on his designs and trying them. And I thought of the author John Christopher who wrote about a man wanting to enter a semi-industrial age in The Sword of the Spirits trilogy, first book being The Prince in Waiting.
The Prince had his life upturned, tried to recapture it, looked at an alternative way of living, and settled for a life a little isolated from his fellows where he could carry out his ideas for technical advance. The Prince had wanted to introduce machines and new ideas and they had been rejected in his original land and he had abandoned his country. Once the curiosity is aroused and the ability to make something original and useful and apparently better takes hold, you end up being possessed by the idea.
Our NZ inventor of a plane, Richard Pearse, was a sort of Prince in Waiting.
He carried on with different designs but in the end he thought if he did succeed somebody or organisation would steal it. There was disagreement about the date of his first flight, about 1903-4. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Pearse continued to work on constructing a tilt-rotor flying-machine for personal use – sometimes described as a cross between a windmill and a rubbish-cart. His design resembled an autogyro or helicopter, but involved a tilting propeller/rotor and monoplane wings, which, along with the tail, could fold to allow storage in a conventional garage. He intended the vehicle for driving on the road (like a car) as well for flying.
However he became reclusive and paranoid that foreign spies would discover his work. Committed to Sunnyside Mental Hospital in Christchurch in 1951, Pearse died there two years later. Researchers believe that many of his papers were destroyed at that time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse
And so, Jair Bolosinaro is sworn in as Brazilian president, rounding off a slow motion coup that has been going on for the last 2 years.
Those fancy helicopters of the armed forces are going to get worked to the limited over the next few years, as gays, environmtalists, trade unionists, “Marxists”, feminists, and ‘non traditional family units’ are thrown out of them over the Atlantic.
Bolosinaro is a hard right reactionary. He is way more right wing and reactionary than you ever hope to be, Wayne. He would probably have you jailed for being a “Marxist” or whatever.
And I was thinking more of Pinochet/Franco than the Argentine mob.
For 24-year-old Cinthia Souza, from Bahia state, today is the new Independence Day of Brazil. “An independence from corruption,” she says. pic.twitter.com/LiDGcGhWZ3— The Brazilian Report (@BrazilianReport) January 1, 2019
Bolsonaro, who spent nearly 30 years in Congress, takes office on Jan. 1 after an electoral win that gave him a mandate to hobble violent drug gangs, cut through red tape to kick-start Brazil’s economy and go after the corrupt political class.
But a regulator’s questions about a bank account of the former driver of his son, Rio de Janeiro state lawmaker and Senator-elect Flavio Bolsonaro, has clouded his big day, leading critics to doubt the president-elect’s graft-busting credentials and his ability to deliver a new type of politics.
[…]
The scandal arose after Brazil’s Council for Financial Activities Control (COAF) identified 1.2 million reais ($305,033) that in 2016-17 flowed through the bank account of Queiroz, who for years was on Flavio Bolsonaro’s payroll as a driver and adviser. Some payments were made to the president-elect’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro.
Good to see Jacinda finally acknowledging (on her facebook page re video at city mission) Labour’s family package and energy payments aren’t doing enough to meet growing poverty.
The questions now are what is she and her coalition government going to about it and when are they going to do it?
Will they increase core benefit rates? Will they increase and extend out energy payments? Will they fast forward minimum wage increases?
The Chairman, so you are saying “Not enough is being done” even though it is far more than under JK. Your comments make Jacinda sound as though she begrudges the help. That is far from the truth. Write directly on her facebook page.
Unlike the last PM she reads and replies to the posts. She also actually cares.
“The bullet that killed her..was fired by an Israeli sniper into a crowd that included white-coated medics in plain view..[None] posed any apparent threat of violence..[T]he shooting [was] reckless at best & possibly a war crime.” No one has been punished. https://t.co/lRc8Iw8Pdd— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) December 30, 2018
On June 1, an Israeli soldier shot into a crowd, killing a volunteer medic named Rouzan al-Najjar. Israeli officials say soldiers only use live fire as a last resort. Our investigation shows otherwise. We analyzed over 1,000 photos and videos, froze the fatal moment in a 3-D model of the protest, and interviewed more than 30 witnesses and I.D.F. commanders to reveal how Rouzan was killed.
Of course, the Israeli’s are crying foul and doing their DARVO thing.
The New York Times’ 4700-word story on the death of a young Gazan woman in June 2018 during border riots is a powerful reminder of the depth and breadth of bias at the paper. (“A Day, a Life: When a Medic Was Killed in Gaza, Was It an Accident?”)
The hagiographic December 30th account spans a remarkable three and a half full pages of the paper, tracing Rouzan al-Najjar’s personal life and sad end. Yet it manages, in all the words and images (and online videos), not to report the nature of the violence in which she was entangled nor the murderous and implacable hatred of Israel fueling it.
BREAKING: Israeli PM Netanyahu's lawyers respond: Announcing the intent to indict me before elections would be an injustice and harm to the rights of voters and to the democratic process.— Yonah Jeremy Bob (@jeremybob1) January 1, 2019
Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit will publicize his leaning to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for public corruption by February despite election season, Channel 10 reported Wednesday night.
Channel 10 also confirmed previous Jerusalem Post reports that Case 4000 (the “Bezeq-Walla Affair”) is the strongest case; that Mandelblit will likely go after Netanyahu for breach of trust, but not bribery, in Case 1000 (the “Illegal Gifts Affair”); and that Case 2000 (the “Yediot Ahronot-Israel Hayom Affair”) may still be closed entirely.
Could a national legal case be mounted by the Brexit protesters against the UK parliament on the basis of contra proferentem.
Contra proferentem – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem
Contra proferentem (Latin: “against [the] offeror”), also known as “interpretation against the draftsman”, is a doctrine of contractual interpretation providing that, where a promise, agreement or term is ambiguous, the preferred meaning should be the one that works against the interests of the party who provided the …
Contra Proferentem Rule – Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com › Investing › Financial Analysis
Feb 20, 2018 – The contra proferentem rule is a rule in contract law which states that any clause considered to be ambiguous should be interpreted against the interests of the party that requested that the clause is included. Contra proferentem rules guide the legal interpretation of contracts …
Stock markets in Asia Pacific made a cautious start to 2019 after figures showing that China’s manufacturing sector contracted for the first time in 19 months in December.
Equities across the region were broadly lower, after the worst year for global stock markets since the financial crisis in 2018 in the face of concerns over a slowing global economy, tightening monetary policy and trade tensions.
Despite gaining 0.9 per cent in the last trading session of 2018 on the heels of a phone call between the US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, which Mr Trump described as “long and very good”, the S&P 500 ended down 6.2 per cent for the year, while the FTSE All World Index shed 11.5 per cent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was the worst performer in the region on the first trading day of the new year on Wednesday, sliding 2.3 per cent with the financial and technology sectors falling 1.9 per cent and 2.1 per cent, respectively. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index of Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies fell 2.7 per cent.
This, boys and girls, is called speculation. It’s done, not on the hope that the business will succeed, but on the hopes of being able to sell the shares at a higher monetary value.
Such a transaction causes no value to be produced and thus is just another syphon employed by the rich upon on the productivity of the poor.
It’s called bludging.
PS. I seem to be having trouble verifying the address.
We need to stop havesting our forest all over the world Papatuanuku to save our world for the grandchildren I posted a story yestesday to show how the oo.1 % control the world power is all about the people beleving in the storys told be it fact or FICTION the 00.1% use fiction to CON us . Its fact we are part of mothernatures creatures and if we let them kill them off our mokopunas will be the ones to suffer.
Australia is among one of the world’s wealthiest nations; yet, its relatively small human population (22.5 million) has been responsible for extensive deforestation and forest degradation since European settlement in the late 18th century. Despite most (∼75%) of Australia’s 7.6 million-km2 area being covered in inhospitable deserts or arid lands generally unsuitable to forest growth, the coastal periphery has witnessed a rapid decline in forest cover and quality, especially over the last 60 years. Here I document the rates of forest loss and degradation in Australia based on a thorough review of existing literature and unpublished data.Overall, Australia has lost nearly 40% of its forests, but much of the remaining native vegetation is highly fragmented. As European colonists expanded in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries, deforestation occurred mainly on the most fertile soils nearest to the coast. In the 1950s, southwestern Western Australia was largely cleared for wheat production, subsequently leading to its designation as a Global Biodiversity Hotspot given its high number of endemic plant species and rapid clearing rates. Since the 1970s, the greatest rates of forest clearance have been in southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales, although Victoria is the most cleared state. Today, degradation is occurring in the largely forested tropical north due to rapidly expanding invasive weed species and altered fire regimes. Without clear policies to regenerate degraded forests and protect existing tracts at a massive scale, Australia stands to lose a large proportion of its remaining endemic biodiversity. The most important implications of the degree to which Australian forests have disappeared or been degraded are that management must emphasize the maintenance of existing primary forest patches, as well as focus on the regeneration of matrix areas between fragments to increase native habitat area, connectivity and ecosystem functions. Ka kite ano links below
Its good to see that our Aotearoa law schools value our Young Wahine like they deserve to be valued as Equal people in Aotearoa society Mana Wahine
All six law schools cut ties with Russell McVeagh All six of the country’s university law faculties have now rejected ties with the troubled law firm Russell McVeagh while it conducts an independent review into incidents of sexual misconduct and its culture.
The University of Auckland joined the fray in a powerfully-worded statement saying it had put its relationship with Russell McVeagh on hold for the rest of the year, and that there should have been a strong apology from the firm.
Otago, Canterbury, Waikato, AUT and Victoria universities had already announced they were rejecting any recruitment branding, and Russell McVeagh-related events on their campuses.
Auckland’s Dean of Law, Professor Andrew Stockley, told staff and students today that students “invited to an event or employed in any capacity should expect appropriate and professional behaviour at all times, and that the school would not accept any student being subjected to inappropriate behaviour, pressure, or sexual harassment”.“Our caution in part relates to the on-going allegations of prior alcohol-fuelled sexual impropriety between senior staff and students on the firm’s premises but also the firm’s recent description of such events as ‘consensual’. This description suggests the culture that fostered these behaviours may very well remain well ingrained in the firm. Ka kite ano Links below
Kia ora Te Kaea it cool seeing the Pa wars of Ngati-porou 21 pa competeing Ka pai . Taro Black looks like we might have a new Wahine tennis star good to see Venus Williams at the event to.
Looks like the Waka ama sprint is going strong Ka kite ano P.S te Mokopunas just turned up
Kia ora Newshub Milisa Ruaumoko has been doing a Haka in Tamaki makaurau and North land.That boy who has blocked the tunnel in Auckland must be high on Pee.
There is nothing wrong with freed camping the Aotearoa needs to be good host and prove for them quite a good phylosophy that our tipuna have.
trump should be spending money on the people who have no fix abode in Calafornia whom were affected by the Campfire.
I have had a few events of the sandflys playing silly buggers on the roads every time I go on a journey??????????????.
Is that a phenomenon the fright train in Denmark losing crates of beer and causing a accident on a passenger train.
Space travel is the future and the more Nasa can learn about space from the Horizon space probe the faster we will inhabit Mars. Oliver Newton John All the best Grease was a big hit when the nehio were short.
The wool serf boards is a very good invention that could turn into a billion dollar industry Make sure you patient your invention someone will steal it from under your nose.
The magpie is so qute playing with the cat is the magpie missing hope it comes.
The sports looks good Niki. Ingrid I see the weather radar picked up a swam of insect moving from the south island to the north. Ka kite ano P.S te Mokopunas are here
Happy New Year Eco Maori.
I’ts a bit late for some of this but it’s using te reo which I should be doing more of;
Meri Kirihimete me ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa.
Mauri ora to you.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
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Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
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The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
It will be interesting to see what sort of post-imperial Britain emerges from Brexit.
That’s if it ever happens. I’m picking it will be delayed a year. Then after that, delayed again, and so on.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/12/labour-s-refusal-oppose-brexit-becoming-historic
Your kink is broken.
Kink ? Que pasa senior ?
You could try
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/12/labour-s-refusal-oppose-brexit-becoming-historic-error
It works for me.
Actually the link gives a robot holding a warning sign that is cleverly put but seems to indicate that the site isn’t for the hoi polloi.
His second link works. The first one has a word missing off the end.
“But what cannot be dismissed is that there have been two major grassroots movements in the last 20 years in the UK that managed to put more than half a million people on the streets of London, and there is a distinct danger that Labour will be on the wrong side of both of them.”
Raises the interesting question of the relation between grass-roots protest and democracy. The Greens have always been big on this. Eventually I detected a flawed assumption: that the former indicates the latter. Seems true, but the evidence (election results) continually proves it wrong. At the risk of over-simplifying, what you get is leftist greenies thinking numbers on street protests equates to a groundswell of opinion amongst the populace.
Simon Wren-Lewis is Professor of Economic Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. He writes “I have to be doubly careful in posts like these because I am what one Corbyn loyalist described as an “arch-Remainer”. The emotions I ascribe to many of those who campaign for Remain are also my own. Like many of the other economists who made up Labour’s Economic Advisory Council I resigned because I saw the current leadership as too content with the referendum result. As a result I am not an impartial observer, so I need to be especially careful that what I write about Remainers as a whole is factually based.”
Too content with the referendum result?? Corbyn et al are the target of Labour remainers because they chose to accept the will of the people? “Once you let a campaign of the right won by illegal means triumph, you open the doors to more of the same.” Ah, so he thinks Brexit is illegal. You’d think a professor would know to validate such a claim with evidence, eh? He doesn’t even try. He’s busy trying to create the impression in the minds of his readers that remainers are a bunch of puerile retards, and isn’t even self-aware enough to realise that!
Thanks for validating the link Dennis. I tend to part ways with you however
“That Brexit is more than just another issue or a passing fad seems clear. After the 2016 vote, around half the Remain vote was prepared to accept the result, but the other half was not. Through two years when the two major parties and the BBC regarded the decision as made and irreversible, Remainers built various organisations with the aim of reversing the vote. They held protest marches around the UK that gradually grew in size, culminating in the biggest march in London since the Iraq war protest. Polls now suggest the Remain vote is more committed than the Leave vote, with a majority over either May’s deal or no-deal bigger than Leave’s margin in 2016.
Where does this passion and energy come from? It is obviously a big issue, but would the kind of Brexit favoured by Corbyn and some Labour and Tory MPs (close to Brexit In Name Only – BINO) really be such a big deal compared to staying in the EU? On an emotional level I think there are three reasons why it would be. First and foremost is the question of identity. Many people in the UK regard themselves as also European, and any form of Brexit is clearly a way of cutting the UK off from the rest of Europe. Second, I think there is a strong feeling that leaving the EU represents the triumph of ideological over rational argument. Once you let a campaign of the right won by illegal means triumph, you open the doors to more of the same. A third factor is empathy for the position of European migrants in the UK, who are often friends, neighbours or colleagues.
If a sceptical Labour leadership want to know what would happen if they enabled Brexit, the best comparison I can suggest is how they felt after parliament voted to put UK troops alongside US troops in the Iraq invasion.
If you put these points to Corbyn loyalists you get a variety of responses that go from the misguided to downright depressing. ..”
Brexit in the context of the upcoming European elections is going to resound with the issue eradicating centre rifht, centre left and hard left parties:
immigration.
its the fat rock in the river, and they need viable policy solutions different to Merkel’s “all in” career killer.
The Brexit decision is so deeply flawed that i am amazed that any rational person can find an argument for it. Saying it was the will of the people is so specious it makes me gag. If a football crowd goes on a binge and a bash-up and break-up of everything they see, that is not acceptable, it is showing irresponsibility and actual damage to others.
Brexit vote showed similar emotionality. It is understandable with the turmoil over past years, the scandal of the brothels set up in a northern city by young Pakistanis I believe, that the police were wary of investigating because of racism claims. So racist, assimilation problems, growing with refugees both landless and economic, and the depressing state of UK standards of living and standards of responsibility in the gilded pollies and wealthy power brokers.
It was a hair’s breadth majority, totally unsuitable to regard as the large majority wanting to use it as a driver to break the UK apart. It could be compared more to the troubled person who has a go at suicide because everything is going wrong for them, and there is diminishing hope of improvement.
Yet the Party in power, and apparently Labour, believe that this virtual protest by the silent majority should replace all reasoned, informed policy. They no doubt have visions that it will make them a great country again! Not when the wealthy are willing to walk on the poor to get upwards – the UK is becoming a nationwide version of the football Hillsborough tragedy.
After that tragedy with 96 dead and 766 injured, English teams were banned from playing in Europe. If the English parliament think that they will be stronger and better largely banning themselves from Europe, they are suffering terminal delusions.
It resulted in all English football clubs being banned from playing in Europe for five years. Fourteen Liverpool fans were found guilty of manslaughter and each jailed for three years.May 29, 2015
Heysel disaster: English football’s forgotten tragedy? – BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-32898612
And Yorick you write very persuasively but please do not let your rhetoric interfere with the facts.
“Once you let a campaign of the right won by illegal means triumph…”
The word illegal is quite wrong. But here is a choice from google. You should be able to find something appropriate.
cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics.
“a whole range of outrageous Machiavellian manoeuvres”
synonyms: devious, cunning, crafty, artful, wily, sly, scheming, designing, conniving, opportunistic, insidious, treacherous, perfidious, two-faced, Janus-faced, tricky, double-dealing, unscrupulous, deceitful, dishonest; informal foxy
Reading the large paragraphs through I find I was confused. Some of it is quotes from the original link which was to a New Statesman America article.
Yep, no problems. Cheers ..
Glad to help though with that great collection of put-downs for the rather grimy in society. What a lovely collection of mud balls to throw, if the spirit moves you.
“that tragedy with 96 dead and 766 injured, English teams were banned from playing in Europe.”
1. Your analogy is deeply offensive to anyone associated with the Hillsborough tragedy.
2. Your claim about the European ban confuses two separate events, Hillsborough and Heysel. There was no ban of English clubs from Europe after Hillsborough.
The survivors and relatives of the victims of Hillsborough have suffered enough from official incompetence and the extent of Police cover-up. And that includes the pathetic (Labour Government) Stuart-Smith review.
96 supporters were crushed to death on April 5, 1989. A least have the respect to get your basic facts correct before using those deaths to make a cheap political point.
The Brexit result is not illegal. Neither was it a hairbreadth result. It was close, but 52 to 48 is a clear result. In NZ parliamentary electorate terms it would be a 1500 majority. Some campaigners may have broken spending limits, but that does not invalidate the result. It is not the same as a specific candidate breaching spending rules in their own favour. Campaigners, either for remain or leave, were too diffuse for such a conclusion.
In any event, it looks like the second referendum idea has run out of steam, probably because too many proponents for a second referendum said the first one was illegal, or that those who voted to leave were stupid. Both these approaches have discredited the idea of a second referendum.
It now seems to be “Leave on May’s terms” or a “No deal Brexit.” We will know in about two weeks.
Walking along Quay Street at Britomart in Auckland the other day. Traffic was light. There were AT Metro double deckers as well as cars (and quite a few limes and cycles) but no trucks.
You could smell the briny tang of the sea rather than the usual whiff of diesel. The end of the holidays will obviously be the big test but so far, so good.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if the last minute threat of legal action to halt the project by residents of Princes Wharf was quietly shelved.
“You could smell the briny tang of the sea rather than the usual whiff of diesel.”
A taste of the future for that whole part of town when cross-traffic is reduced and only electric buses and trams remain.
“You could smell the briny tang of the sea rather than the usual whiff of diesel.”
Yep. that is what it was like when I was a kid. A taste of what was to come when travelling on the old “Baroona” to our dream holidays at Onetangi, Waiheke.
plenty of consultation on the record.
any High Court judicial review will be thrown out
we have a city to liberate.
Agreed Ad. I doubt if it will even get in front of the High Court.
Um, what?
This Draco.
Though just because Anne Gibson chooses to describe them as a ‘powerful group of waterfront residents and businesses’ doesn’t meant they really are.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/business/auckland-businesses-plan-legal-action-over-quay-street-roadworks/
I assume in this case ‘powerful’ = rich.
And I can’t say that I’m surprised by such a bunch of bludgers complaining that the council is making things better.
Once there are actually more people strolling past their business instead of driving and they get more customers I wonder if they’ll be declaring loudly that they tried to stop it?
They’re a funny lot though Draco, set in their ways. There’s been a few retailers who have stymied plans to get cars out of High St for years. They’re adamant that if people can’t park right outside their shops they’ll lose business. Even though common sense should tell you that the number of car parks in that street couldn’t possibly support all the businesses there. And they have the example of O’Connell St right next door which is doing really well without cars parked along it all day long.
Looks like limes are set to stay around too, at least for a bit.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/01/lime-scooters-set-to-stay-longer-as-auckland-council-extends-trial.html
Ferreting around down the twitter rabbit hole as you do, and this wee charmer leapt out at me.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1076799054066135043.html
(h/t, Adele)
Joe90,
So when sailors were mustered on deck to witness the Captain saying a few words on the body to be launched over the ship’s side, the covering on the body was hiding the fact there were a few missing body parts?
Won’t be needing a gluteus maximus where he’s going, cap’n
Spoilers: Richard Parker
Thinking about air travel, and whether we might have to give up some of our cherished machinery, I thought of Richard Pearse at the beginning of the 19th century working on his designs and trying them. And I thought of the author John Christopher who wrote about a man wanting to enter a semi-industrial age in The Sword of the Spirits trilogy, first book being The Prince in Waiting.
The Prince had his life upturned, tried to recapture it, looked at an alternative way of living, and settled for a life a little isolated from his fellows where he could carry out his ideas for technical advance. The Prince had wanted to introduce machines and new ideas and they had been rejected in his original land and he had abandoned his country. Once the curiosity is aroused and the ability to make something original and useful and apparently better takes hold, you end up being possessed by the idea.
Our NZ inventor of a plane, Richard Pearse, was a sort of Prince in Waiting.
He carried on with different designs but in the end he thought if he did succeed somebody or organisation would steal it. There was disagreement about the date of his first flight, about 1903-4.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Pearse continued to work on constructing a tilt-rotor flying-machine for personal use – sometimes described as a cross between a windmill and a rubbish-cart. His design resembled an autogyro or helicopter, but involved a tilting propeller/rotor and monoplane wings, which, along with the tail, could fold to allow storage in a conventional garage. He intended the vehicle for driving on the road (like a car) as well for flying.
However he became reclusive and paranoid that foreign spies would discover his work. Committed to Sunnyside Mental Hospital in Christchurch in 1951, Pearse died there two years later. Researchers believe that many of his papers were destroyed at that time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse
And so, Jair Bolosinaro is sworn in as Brazilian president, rounding off a slow motion coup that has been going on for the last 2 years.
Those fancy helicopters of the armed forces are going to get worked to the limited over the next few years, as gays, environmtalists, trade unionists, “Marxists”, feminists, and ‘non traditional family units’ are thrown out of them over the Atlantic.
Not likely. While Bolosinaro may be a populist, he is not in the same zone as the Argentinian generals.
Bolosinaro is a hard right reactionary. He is way more right wing and reactionary than you ever hope to be, Wayne. He would probably have you jailed for being a “Marxist” or whatever.
And I was thinking more of Pinochet/Franco than the Argentine mob.
He’s off to a flyer.
Bolsonaro, who spent nearly 30 years in Congress, takes office on Jan. 1 after an electoral win that gave him a mandate to hobble violent drug gangs, cut through red tape to kick-start Brazil’s economy and go after the corrupt political class.
But a regulator’s questions about a bank account of the former driver of his son, Rio de Janeiro state lawmaker and Senator-elect Flavio Bolsonaro, has clouded his big day, leading critics to doubt the president-elect’s graft-busting credentials and his ability to deliver a new type of politics.
[…]
The scandal arose after Brazil’s Council for Financial Activities Control (COAF) identified 1.2 million reais ($305,033) that in 2016-17 flowed through the bank account of Queiroz, who for years was on Flavio Bolsonaro’s payroll as a driver and adviser. Some payments were made to the president-elect’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/scandal-involving-brazil-president-elects-son-clouds-inauguration-idUSKCN1OQ158
Good to see Jacinda finally acknowledging (on her facebook page re video at city mission) Labour’s family package and energy payments aren’t doing enough to meet growing poverty.
The questions now are what is she and her coalition government going to about it and when are they going to do it?
Will they increase core benefit rates? Will they increase and extend out energy payments? Will they fast forward minimum wage increases?
Susan St John of the Child Poverty Action Group assesses the government’s impact on the lives of the most deprived children after its first full year.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/30-12-2018/grading-the-governments-first-year-for-children-in-poverty/
Sign in if you would like to see the Government do more now to address poverty.
And if you have any suggestions on what you would like to see done, feel free to share.
If enough sign in, perhaps Jacinda will take note. We could post a link to her facebook page.
Democracy is more than just voting at elections.
The Chairman, so you are saying “Not enough is being done” even though it is far more than under JK. Your comments make Jacinda sound as though she begrudges the help. That is far from the truth. Write directly on her facebook page.
Unlike the last PM she reads and replies to the posts. She also actually cares.
Indeed, patricia. Moreover, the PM acknowledges this.
While they may have done more than Key, in this crisis they haven’t acted with the urgency required and evidently, haven’t done enough.
I hope she cares enough to do more sooner rather than later.
“Will they increase core benefit rates?”
Do that in the current climate, and watch rents climb even further up.
I think you will find private rents will go up regardless.
Unlike rates and insurance, peoples income isn’t a cost landlords incur.
Moreover, the largest landlord in the country is the state.
Fucker’s are killing with impunity.
On June 1, an Israeli soldier shot into a crowd, killing a volunteer medic named Rouzan al-Najjar. Israeli officials say soldiers only use live fire as a last resort. Our investigation shows otherwise. We analyzed over 1,000 photos and videos, froze the fatal moment in a 3-D model of the protest, and interviewed more than 30 witnesses and I.D.F. commanders to reveal how Rouzan was killed.
http://archive.li/zYiCV
Of course, the Israeli’s are crying foul and doing their DARVO thing.
The New York Times’ 4700-word story on the death of a young Gazan woman in June 2018 during border riots is a powerful reminder of the depth and breadth of bias at the paper. (“A Day, a Life: When a Medic Was Killed in Gaza, Was It an Accident?”)
The hagiographic December 30th account spans a remarkable three and a half full pages of the paper, tracing Rouzan al-Najjar’s personal life and sad end. Yet it manages, in all the words and images (and online videos), not to report the nature of the violence in which she was entangled nor the murderous and implacable hatred of Israel fueling it.
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/ny-times-end-of-year-epic-smear/2019/01/02/
and a much stronger chance Netanyahu will get re-elected in the upcoming contest with the left parties no longer speaking.
If he can survive until the election.
Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit will publicize his leaning to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for public corruption by February despite election season, Channel 10 reported Wednesday night.
Channel 10 also confirmed previous Jerusalem Post reports that Case 4000 (the “Bezeq-Walla Affair”) is the strongest case; that Mandelblit will likely go after Netanyahu for breach of trust, but not bribery, in Case 1000 (the “Illegal Gifts Affair”); and that Case 2000 (the “Yediot Ahronot-Israel Hayom Affair”) may still be closed entirely.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/AG-to-decide-on-PM-indictment-announcement-before-April-elections-576052
Israel itself is a war crime as laid out by the founding charter of the UN.
Could a national legal case be mounted by the Brexit protesters against the UK parliament on the basis of contra proferentem.
Contra proferentem – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem
Contra proferentem (Latin: “against [the] offeror”), also known as “interpretation against the draftsman”, is a doctrine of contractual interpretation providing that, where a promise, agreement or term is ambiguous, the preferred meaning should be the one that works against the interests of the party who provided the …
Contra Proferentem Rule – Investopedia
https://www.investopedia.com › Investing › Financial Analysis
Feb 20, 2018 – The contra proferentem rule is a rule in contract law which states that any clause considered to be ambiguous should be interpreted against the interests of the party that requested that the clause is included. Contra proferentem rules guide the legal interpretation of contracts …
More delusional BS coming at you from the world of shares:
This, boys and girls, is called speculation. It’s done, not on the hope that the business will succeed, but on the hopes of being able to sell the shares at a higher monetary value.
Such a transaction causes no value to be produced and thus is just another syphon employed by the rich upon on the productivity of the poor.
It’s called bludging.
PS. I seem to be having trouble verifying the address.
We need to stop havesting our forest all over the world Papatuanuku to save our world for the grandchildren I posted a story yestesday to show how the oo.1 % control the world power is all about the people beleving in the storys told be it fact or FICTION the 00.1% use fiction to CON us . Its fact we are part of mothernatures creatures and if we let them kill them off our mokopunas will be the ones to suffer.
Australia is among one of the world’s wealthiest nations; yet, its relatively small human population (22.5 million) has been responsible for extensive deforestation and forest degradation since European settlement in the late 18th century. Despite most (∼75%) of Australia’s 7.6 million-km2 area being covered in inhospitable deserts or arid lands generally unsuitable to forest growth, the coastal periphery has witnessed a rapid decline in forest cover and quality, especially over the last 60 years. Here I document the rates of forest loss and degradation in Australia based on a thorough review of existing literature and unpublished data.Overall, Australia has lost nearly 40% of its forests, but much of the remaining native vegetation is highly fragmented. As European colonists expanded in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries, deforestation occurred mainly on the most fertile soils nearest to the coast. In the 1950s, southwestern Western Australia was largely cleared for wheat production, subsequently leading to its designation as a Global Biodiversity Hotspot given its high number of endemic plant species and rapid clearing rates. Since the 1970s, the greatest rates of forest clearance have been in southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales, although Victoria is the most cleared state. Today, degradation is occurring in the largely forested tropical north due to rapidly expanding invasive weed species and altered fire regimes. Without clear policies to regenerate degraded forests and protect existing tracts at a massive scale, Australia stands to lose a large proportion of its remaining endemic biodiversity. The most important implications of the degree to which Australian forests have disappeared or been degraded are that management must emphasize the maintenance of existing primary forest patches, as well as focus on the regeneration of matrix areas between fragments to increase native habitat area, connectivity and ecosystem functions. Ka kite ano links below
https://academic.oup.com/jpe/article/5/1/109/1294916
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3pH46uq5cQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcKgkDcb-IY
Its good to see that our Aotearoa law schools value our Young Wahine like they deserve to be valued as Equal people in Aotearoa society Mana Wahine
All six law schools cut ties with Russell McVeagh All six of the country’s university law faculties have now rejected ties with the troubled law firm Russell McVeagh while it conducts an independent review into incidents of sexual misconduct and its culture.
The University of Auckland joined the fray in a powerfully-worded statement saying it had put its relationship with Russell McVeagh on hold for the rest of the year, and that there should have been a strong apology from the firm.
Otago, Canterbury, Waikato, AUT and Victoria universities had already announced they were rejecting any recruitment branding, and Russell McVeagh-related events on their campuses.
Auckland’s Dean of Law, Professor Andrew Stockley, told staff and students today that students “invited to an event or employed in any capacity should expect appropriate and professional behaviour at all times, and that the school would not accept any student being subjected to inappropriate behaviour, pressure, or sexual harassment”.“Our caution in part relates to the on-going allegations of prior alcohol-fuelled sexual impropriety between senior staff and students on the firm’s premises but also the firm’s recent description of such events as ‘consensual’. This description suggests the culture that fostered these behaviours may very well remain well ingrained in the firm. Ka kite ano Links below
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/01/02/93125/hold-law-schools-slash-ties-with-russell-mcveagh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGc7KfQ3uWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1_o8HjZTAY
Kia ora Te Kaea it cool seeing the Pa wars of Ngati-porou 21 pa competeing Ka pai . Taro Black looks like we might have a new Wahine tennis star good to see Venus Williams at the event to.
Looks like the Waka ama sprint is going strong Ka kite ano P.S te Mokopunas just turned up
Kia ora Newshub Milisa Ruaumoko has been doing a Haka in Tamaki makaurau and North land.That boy who has blocked the tunnel in Auckland must be high on Pee.
There is nothing wrong with freed camping the Aotearoa needs to be good host and prove for them quite a good phylosophy that our tipuna have.
trump should be spending money on the people who have no fix abode in Calafornia whom were affected by the Campfire.
I have had a few events of the sandflys playing silly buggers on the roads every time I go on a journey??????????????.
Is that a phenomenon the fright train in Denmark losing crates of beer and causing a accident on a passenger train.
Space travel is the future and the more Nasa can learn about space from the Horizon space probe the faster we will inhabit Mars. Oliver Newton John All the best Grease was a big hit when the nehio were short.
The wool serf boards is a very good invention that could turn into a billion dollar industry Make sure you patient your invention someone will steal it from under your nose.
The magpie is so qute playing with the cat is the magpie missing hope it comes.
The sports looks good Niki. Ingrid I see the weather radar picked up a swam of insect moving from the south island to the north. Ka kite ano P.S te Mokopunas are here
Happy New Year Eco Maori.
I’ts a bit late for some of this but it’s using te reo which I should be doing more of;
Meri Kirihimete me ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa.
Mauri ora to you.