I for one am a bit tired of 'feelings' being ascribed to the rule breakers from a middle class background…….Dr Bloomfield has said several times that he 'imagines', or words to that effect, that those who did not self isolate would be feeling remorseful.
'When asked about Case M – the 21-year old-MIT student who visited several locations while symptomatic – Dr Bloomfield said: "I imagine he is extremely remorseful".'
I have advocated 'someone' getting alongside the rule breakers to talk them through what happened and more importantly to find out their views on what can be done to prevent future breaches. Unless Dr Bloomfield knows, from personal conversation or through reading feedback from a health professional who has had a personal conversation that they are remorseful, he should refrain from commenting. The actions in breaking self isolation speak louder than ascribed feelings, right from the mothers' meeting to the tripping round by Case M.
The question is why, seemingly, did things like self isolation not matter in these particular families? Until we know we cannot do anything much to improve things.
In the meantime we cannot go round ascribing to others how they may be feeling.
On a personal level I am always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt but ascribing feelings that are not borne out by actions is pushing hard against our willingness and to me is a bit of fakery.
did anybody else notice the irony of an old, stale, out of date, media telling us this message. in the battle to remain relevant, our media need to constantly keep reminding themselves, that, they need to be more pro-active when it comes to reaching a younger audience. however, after a year of covid, there is NO excuse for any ignorance over staying home when sick, and as for going to the gym after a covid test, words fail me as to the stupidity of some. Do gyms have the stay home if sick message on their walls? it comes down to personal responsibility, and thats why cretins like seymour are dancing on the head of a pin, while going on about extra gov bed checks, and more gov intervention.. the associates of this particular family that has caused so much harm, must be aware of the family, and are probably giving them the cold shoulder.(?)
the associates of this particular family that has caused so much harm, must be aware of the family, and are probably giving them the cold shoulder.(?)
I don't think we can be sure of this at all and you are right to question it. Messages are being missed or people don't care, why? We need to find out from the rule breakers themselves – are they being influenced to disobey by their churches, because they do not know how to access support, because the messages are from 'da man' or 'old whitey' and should be automatically disregarded? Or……, or……..
There are as many excuses as anybody can master, how on earth could people by now not know what it means to be infected? I mean this was just the major news over a year now.
If I understand this correctly, the spreaders were in Managed Isolation. I sure as hell hope they have paid their bill. And to say that they didn't understand …pleeeeeese pull another one.
Your comment is valid and I agree with it. However, when you say they [“the spreaders”, plural] “were” in MIQ, it has a completely different meaning compared to the correct and accurate fact that they [Case M, singular, neutral] “had been” in/through MIQ.
It was particularly amusing on RNZ this morning to hear Patrick Strange the Chair of Ports of Auckland complaining that the government has no post-Covid strategy.
Lat year his company rolled out one of the largest failed strategies we've seen in recent NZ commercial life, and its commercial damage is still being felt across New Zealand.
One of the few good things about the pandemic is how the business establishment (the talking heads, not the people actually doing the work) have discredited themselves. Rather than the thrusting, agile, innovative, brilliant, independent wealth-creators of popular myth, they look and sound like third-rate, intellectually and morally vacuous scroungers looking for an impossible 'certainty'. Once we are out of the pandemic, it will be important to sustain our disdain for them, and not let them creep back into positions of undue influence
The general populace can but be beholden to government in this crisis, because they are both regulated to do so by public health edict and because they are utterly subsidised. So we allow state dependence for the general population.
But we don't allow that same state dependence for business.
And yet business and the population are as dependent on the state as the other.
We haven't had a state as interventionist as this since 1934. People are beginning to notice that the Ardern government doesn't know what to do with that once the crisis lessens back to level 1 in a few days.
The reasonable question is: is this really all a Team Of Five Million can do together?
Casual contact, casual plus contact, close contact or close plus contact?
Had a family bubble happened at the casual plus contact level a positive case would be more likely to have been contained.
The settings for the contact classifications, the testing and isolation need to be relooked at especially when it comes to not having a family bubble at a casual plus contact stage.
I do believe people when they say my family member is a casual plus contact and I was told not to isolate.
I am sick and tired of the fake headlines and moaning in the media and it's stuffed shirt talking heads. That piece in Stuff basically just allows their ghastly white guilt to be assuaged by letting the Maori party grandstand on their identity politics of victimhood and quotes exact one teenager – a Maori kid in Hawera – who doesn't even say what the headline claims. So who is saying what the headline claims, beyond politcially partisan people with a whole shedload of resentment axes to grind?
Luke Malpass has another "analysis" piece today in Stuff which isn't worth shit. He is a neoliberal horse race analyst who is based in Wellington. He knows fuck all about Auckland and even less than that about South Auckland. He his literally reflecting the opinion of his typewriter and some sort of received wisdom in the press gallery. I get sick and tired of the pompous pronouncements of blowhard journalists masquerading as analysis.
I get it that the media thrive on conflict and rarking people up for conflict. Like everyone else I saw how the sausage gets made with their pathetic gotcha lines of questioning last year, and it made me want to puke. Dogged stupidity is still stupidity. They've learnt nothing because they are arrogant sons of bitches who hold the public in distain. They desperately want to want to get back to playing court banter politics as imagined viziers to the public. I just don't want anymore of their bullshit. I got sick of it last year and nothing has changed.
So, you’re blowing your lid because of some headline somewhere in Stuff? Wow!
Have a lie down and a cup of tea.
As for the other unlinked piece in Stuff by Malpass, you flipped your lid again but nobody has a clue what the piece is/was about nor on what grounds you disagree with Mr Malpass other than he has the ‘wrong’ bumper sticker.
Sanctuary has what some might interpret as an inflammatory style of writing, but the basis of his complaint is correct. I, too am getting sick and tired of reading or listening to bullshit from tabloid journos who misquote, misjudge, misinterpret and generally screw up facts simply because they can… and get away with it under the guise of a supposed nuanced analysis.
I started to read one of HDPA's diatribes the other day and it was so full of conspiratorial nonsense I gave up in disgust. But its not just her… there's an industry of knee-jerk journalism growing up around the pandemic responses in particular. By all means be critical if there are grounds for it, but going troppo at every twist and turn is not only annoying… it creates more confusion.
Yes, there is some excellent and accurate journalism around but unfortunately they are not the ones who get the most publicity. It's the shock jocks and its time they were reined in.
A note on newspapers/news sites: Those who write the article do not write the headline. Headlines, subheads and captions are all written by subeditors not the journalists. This is why they can be sensationalistic/inaccurate.
What gets me is the amount of unsubstantiated reckons that pass as news – RNZ did a terrible job this morning with some bozo reporter perched above a South Auckland motorway interchange which he has probably never visited at that time of day before in his life saying there was "more traffic" on the road – and therefore implying widespread ignoring of level three restrictions, which then fed a preconceived attack line on the minister who was interviewed next and was supposed to rebut unsubstantiated nonsense.
Where I live the traffic was way down to almost level 4 amounts on St. Lukes road at times today – I could just as easily get on air and spout a bullshit reckon based on my unscientific, localised anecdotal observations and marvel at how strong Aucklanders are. Now, if that RNZ Bozo had traffic data or some facts to back up his view that people are disobeying the lockdown then please, please tell us. This the media has decided the narrative crap is downright fake news.
We have daily a 9am meeting for everyone in the team to briefly say what they are doing that day. In the office it takes 10 minutes to work around the team.
On Teams it takes twice as long, as you have to remind most people that they are on mute, someone drops out with a bad connection at home, or people talk over each other so you can hear anyone.
Unbiased and fair reporting from BBC, Reuters? Looking into these leaks (which unsurprisingly are receiving NO coverage from western MSM whatsoever ) it becomes apparent that both of those news organizations are toughly compromised and cannot be trusted with any news or reporting on Russia..which of course makes everything else they report suspect, as this has obviously put a big question mark around their journalistic integrity generally.
Both BBC and Reuters along with Bellingcat were actually bidding for lucrative contracts with the British UK FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) to conduct covert programs of disinformation and also train Russian journalists in the art of spreading discontent inside Russia, the leaked documents reveal.
Interesting how after five years of investigation by the most well-funded investigators in the world come up with so little proof that Russia was involved in a large scale programme to undermine the US elections in 2016 that MSM won’t even allow a counter narrative EVER for fear of having their flimsy allegations fall apart live on air…yet here we are, presented with actual proof of that very thing happening against another country…wonder if there will be a flood of media outrage that two of their own have been proved to be so shamefully compromised?
Someone's done a Bellingcat type open source on Navalny
Turns out he was holidaying in Switzerland , working on the US funded Putin's Palace in the Black Forest , and according to a German report, holidaying in the Canary Islands .
All this while "recovering " or "in a coma"and thus unable to present in Russia in accordance with his suspended sentence
He just couldn't resist posting those Instagram photos
Bellingcat is open source, unlike the RT efforts, you can check yourself whether what they produce is real. You can even collect data for them.
RT has a massive hatefest on for Bellingcat after they proved Russia shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over the Ukraine, even discovering the Russian unit and operators responsible.
Russian journalism has had to contend with being obliged to print outright fabrications since the revolution. Under Putin the practice has been revived, and with the advent of the internet, extended.
I think its about the age of 3 to 5 that kids understand other people have an independent consciousness. So I have no idea what you heard on RT at the time of the Skripal poisoning.
Not to mention the airliner shot down over the Ukraine and the "satellite photos" suggesting it was aircraft that did it. But then RT also asserted numerous other explanations for how an airliner blew up in midair.
The objective of Maskrovka is to muddy the waters, not provide a plausible denial.
"circulating and repeating these carefully crafted pieces of disinformation is a public disservice on a par with repeating the broadcasts of Tokyo Rose or Lord Hawhaw"
You guys really have no problem getting into bed with all the enemies of the Left and their organizations to pursue your cold war Russian narrative… the FBI, the CIA, the most despicable US war hawks, war criminals ….and keep in mind I am not and have never defended Putin or his govt, no, I am just questioning the motives and truths that lay behind what is quite obviously a western elite power play against one particular segment of the Russian power structure over another (the 'other' it seems is more open to western participation in Russia)…something that maybe you guys might want to think about doing sometime.
The Bellingcat research collective: War propaganda masquerading as “citizen journalism”
"The Bellingcat “research collective” is a web site established in July 2014 by Eliot Higgins. Originally from Leicester in the UK, Higgins is, as of February, a senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and Future Europe Initiative."
The Ukrainian oligarch run Burisma Holdings donated $100,000 per year for three years to the Atlantic Council starting in 2016. The full list of financial sponsors includes many military, financial, and corporate concerns. The leading donors in 2018 were Facebook and the British government.
Yes, that would be the Belling-shat that appears to weigh in on all sorts of highly contentious, highly political, geopolitical events for the public good?? Can anyone say Syria chemical attack?
I guess they have no shame in using any source they can to prove Russia is bad…
You really have bought the whole bill of goods, haven't you?
Bellingcat are a perfectly ordinary and truthful, organisation. As such they are an existential threat to chronic liars and disinformation peddlers like the Putin kleptocracy.
People less susceptible to fake news, like the air accident inspectors that investigated MH17, found that Bellingcat had been entirely truthful. The same could not be said of Russian sources, who went so far as to produce and present fake video of an attacking Ukrainian fighter as their official explanation. As the investigator noted, the wreckage of an airliner shot down by a fighter would be full of bullet holes, which the wreckage lacked.
I wonder at your motivations, frankly, for constantly trying to make Putin's lies the leading narrative.
Pootsie has already killed him via personally injecting novichok into his toothpaste , or was it the elastic of his underpants , or was it the airport cup of tea, or hang on , it was the evening cocktail, Navalny said it did taste funny, no, thats right ,it was the water bottle
There's been a big coverup, and RT is just pretending he's been sent to a penal colony
Also, China is refusing to let the 737-max become operational in its airspace again. Such things are often diplomatic petulance – mate of mine who works logistics has stories about the US turning away produce imports on the basis of stickers being slightly out of alignment for "safety" grounds (read "import protections in a supposedly low-protection relationship") – but in this case, toss a coin. It might be that the problems have been fixed and the plane is good to go, like the "Comet" was after the fatigue problem was sorted. But equally, the software fix for the 737-max is a bodge to fix the bodge to fix the original fundamental design problem.
Or China recognises the perils of bean counters running the engineering.
The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course
A company once driven by engineers became driven by finance.
[…]
The isolation was deliberate. “When the headquarters is located in proximity to a principal business—as ours was in Seattle—the corporate center is inevitably drawn into day-to-day business operations,” Condit explained at the time. And that statement, more than anything, captures a cardinal truth about the aerospace giant. The present 737 Max disaster can be traced back two decades—to the moment Boeing’s leadership decided to divorce itself from the firm’s own culture.
For about 80 years, Boeing basically functioned as an association of engineers. Its executives held patents, designed wings, spoke the language of engineering and safety as a mother tongue. Finance wasn’t a primary language. Even Boeing’s bean counters didn’t act the part. As late as the mid-’90s, the company’s chief financial officer had minimal contact with Wall Street and answered colleagues’ requests for basic financial data with a curt “Tell them not to worry.”
It's no wonder they're called pigs because that's what they've been for decades.
We need good people in the police, and the only way that can happen is to have extremely tight recruitment rules. Anyone with even a sniff of a jock mentality are told no. Only the truly wholesome should be let in.
It's pretty weird to realise that in no alternative universe can I imagine either our Prime Minister or Minister of Finance coming out so explicitly about the necessity of union membership and fighting against corporations as Biden does here.
All mainstream media, and the AFL-CIO, and all the business journals fully get what Biden just did. In reality that collected perspective is more valid than what you posted.
You'll probably be able to point to another President that has explicitly supported the right of workers to unionise. You have to go a fair way back.
In the US political context this is the left's equivalent of Trump telling the racists to "stand back and stand by".
We have made great strides toward the objectives of the National Industrial Recovery Act, for not only have several millions of our unemployed been restored to work, but industry is organizing itself with a greater understanding that reasonable profits can be earned while at the same time protection can be assured to guarantee to labor adequate pay and proper conditions of work. Child labor is abolished. Uniform standards of hours and wages apply today to 95 percent of industrial employment within the field of the National Industrial Recovery Act. We seek the definite end of preventing combinations in furtherance of monopoly and in restraint of trade, while at the same time we seek to prevent ruinous rivalries within industrial groups which in many cases resemble the gang wars of the underworld and in which the real victim in every case is the public itself.
Under the authority of this Congress, we have brought the component parts of each industry together around a common table, just as we have brought problems affecting labor to a common meeting ground. Though the machinery, hurriedly devised, may need readjustment from time to time, nevertheless I think you will agree with me that we have created a permanent feature of our modernized industrial structure and that it will continue under the supervision but not the arbitrary dictation of Government itself.
The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration. In 1954, 1955 and again in 1956, President Eisenhower recommended constructive amendments to this Act.
Joe Biden’s comments were more than I expected when taken in context of Presidents that were either openly anti union (ex union member Reagan), or pretty much silent on US workers organising i.e. most of the rest that I can recall, there was an approving speech on Union membership one time from DW. Eisenhower also.
But then, there are unions, and there are bent unions in the USA. So it pays not to generalise too much. The AFL-CIO has a mixed record too. But a member led unionised site within Amazon would be a mighty advance for workers everywhere regardless of all that. Logistics workers serving the online economy in supposedly liberal Europe get a hard time too, and have to battle for basic rights like breaks these days.
Amazon workers will be voting till the end of March and need 6000 YES votes. They had to fight and appeal even to be able to use postal voting too!–in the middle of a pandemic. The company sent out letters advising each employee to vote NO and do it now! A UPS mail box had mysteriously appeared on site at the Bessemer Alabama giant warehouse.
So yes, Biden’s remarks were not red hot, but they will be clearly understood by other employers too, and might just help tip the balance and start an Amazon wide union drive.
Yeah, Bidens all about the workers and their struggles…seriously though…the pro union headlines are a great way to distract from what is actually happening to workers in America ..and unfortunately some of the Unions are more interested in being self serving than helping the American worker.
Twitter (and Facebook/YouTube) become more and more an unaccountable censors of public discourse….silence from our media.
Glenn Greenwald: It took [twitter] only two years to go from disappearing Milo and Alex Jones to banning content said to "amplify narratives that undermine faith in NATO." Imagine where the line will be two years from now.
The narratives that were being artificially amplified had an objective of "undermining faith in NATO", but it was the amplifying that incurred the ban, not the objective:
You can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts or by coordinating with others to violate the Twitter Rules. This includes:
overlapping accounts – operating multiple accounts with overlapping use cases, such as identical or similar personas or substantially similar content;
mutually interacting accounts – operating multiple accounts that interact with one another in order to inflate or manipulate the prominence of specific Tweets or accounts; and
coordination – creating multiple accounts to post duplicative content or create fake engagement, including:
posting identical or substantially similar Tweets or hashtags from multiple accounts you operate;
engaging (Retweets, Likes, mentions, Twitter Poll votes) repeatedly with the same Tweets or accounts from multiple accounts that you operate;
coordinating with or compensating others to engage in artificial engagement or amplification, even if the people involved use only one account; and
coordinating with others to engage in or promote violations of the Twitter Rules, including violations of our abusive behavior policy.
Going down the link hole from the original comment:
“The 373 associated accounts across the four networks were permanently suspended from Twitter for violations of our platform manipulation policies,” the company said in a blog post.
"We could undo the global economic arrangements that systematically and intentionally funnel wealth to some countries while intensifying poverty in others."
Which country has poverty intensified as a result of wealth being funneled to another country?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
NZ's terms of trade has generally been positive and our current account balance has been relatively consistent for much of our recent history. Outside the issues with housing affordability poverty has been static or even falling for the past 25 years.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Sam Stubbs, founder of KiwiSaver provider Simplicity, said banks were taking advantage of their dominant market position to extract unreasonable profits.
"The ANZ will make more profit this year than Fonterra, Spark, Fletcher Building, Warehouse, Air NZ and all the supermarkets combined did last year. It's one bank, yet its profits are almost twice that of the top seven power companies combined. And it all goes back to Aussie."
Following your logic NZ is poorer today than it was in 1840. Please explain how that is possible?
The fact is it is not poorer. It is very much richer. The reason is because the capital that these foreign owned banks brought in to the county enabled many people to develop profitable businesses that would not have been possible otherwise.
And Offshore banks have only been in the domestic market for less than 40 years.
False – offshore banks started operating in NZ not long after european settlers arrived. The Bank of New South Wales was effectively NZ's central bank by the 1860's.
Strictly speaking not….the offshore financial institutions (not necessarily retail banks) had a very small proportion of NZs market pre 1980s reforms
"Prior to the rapid deregulation in the mid-1980s, the variety of different types of financial institutions largely reflected the restrictions placed by statute or regulation on the types of business each institution could undertake. These constraints and protected niches all quickly disappeared, and over the next few years savings banks and building societies were progressively absorbed into or taken over by big commercial banks. As a result, many institutions were purchased by foreign entities. ANZ purchased the privatised Postbank. Commonwealth Bank of Australia purchased ASB Bank (one of the trustee savings banks). More recently, WestpacTrust took over Trustbank, formed from all the other trustee savings banks (with the exception of TSB Bank, which remains an independent entity). Private savings banks, which had previously been set up by parents to undertake certain types of lending, were wound back into the parent. The BNZ itself was fully privatised and sold to National Australia Bank in the early 1990s and Countrywide Bank, formed from several building societies, was taken over by National Bank later in the decade. It was during this time that the share of foreignowned banks began to increase to the high levels seen today"
"The government’s ownership of the BNZ, and use of it as its banker, allowed it to become the largest trading bank. It was fully nationalised in 1945.
An 1865 law which established the Post Office Savings Bank also curbed the rights of other savings banks and enabled it to absorb competitors. By the mid-1950s the Post Office Savings Bank controlled around 80% of the personal savings market."
Interesting data point in your link (which is from 2017):
…handled by the Banking Ombudsman, which dealt with 2704 cases and complaints. About 77 percent of those cases related to the Australian banks.
Australian-owned banks make up roughly 85% of the banking market. That means they're actually a bit better at resolving issues and not driving customers into the complaint process as often as the (mostly NZ-owned) other banks.
Most of the satisfaction with NZ owned banks is perception not reality. Most people will say they prefer NZ owned banks even if the service provided is of a lower quality.
You're probably right Phil – nevertheless from time-to-time NZ Consumer and other organisations survey bank customers, and NZ-owned banks always top the customer satisfaction rankings.
But then I’ve been a happy TSB customer for some 20 years (after ditching Westpac), so of course I would say that.
from time-to-time NZ Consumer and other organisations survey bank customers, and NZ-owned banks always top the customer satisfaction rankings.
Yeah, I don't dispute that the NZ banks produce higher customer satisfaction ratings in those surveys, but the glaringly obvious fact is that the revealed preference of the vast majority of NZ'ers (85-ish percent of us) is that we're entirely comfortable banking with one or more of the aussie owned big-4.
Yeah, I don't dispute that the majority of NZers bank with Aussie-owned banks. Just not sure if "entirely comfortable" accurately captures the feelings of all NZ customers of Aussie-owned banks. But if it does, then presumably (based on customer satisfaction surveys), it would be fair to describe customers of NZ-owned banks as being 'more than entirely comfortable' with the service(s) provided.
Personally, after 20 years as a satisfied TSB customer, I can't imagine what might cause me to switch back to Westpac.
The issue is greater than that….consider the similarity and interconnectivity of the NZ and Australian economies….we are almost a single market that is exposed to the same threats, if their banks fall over so do ours and vice versa
Perhaps a better way to put it would be that the vast majority of New Zealanders are sufficiently satisfied with their Aus-owned banks that they don't feel a need to shift to a different institution. 🙂
Banking with Aussie-owned banks is unquestionably the most popular choice for New Zealanders, just as it's crystal clear that customers of NZ-owned banks are on average more satisfied with bank service(s).
It would be interesting to tease out why banking with a NZ-owned bank not a popular choice in NZ, given that their customers apparently enjoy a greater degree of satisfaction.
Perhaps there's a perception that switching banks is a hassle, particularly if you've got a mortgage or other debt.
Switching banks is safe, easy and fast. Your new bank can take care of everything in five working days. It’s the fastest switching in the world.
This process also links recurring payments, such as direct debits and automatic payments, to your new bank account number. Your new bank can do all that for you, through a single form.
Kiwibank does not have the infrastructure in place to support business banking in any meaningful way. Their IT systems are limiting their growth and they have failed a number of times to upgrade them.
The ANZ will make more profit this year than Fonterra, Spark, Fletcher Building, Warehouse, Air NZ and all the supermarkets combined did last year. It's one bank, yet its profits are almost twice that of the top seven power companies combined.
ANZ's NZ balance sheet is $179 billion dollars. Fonterra's is, conveniently for this analysis, $17.9b, so ANZ is 10 times as large as Fonterra.
In 2020 ANZ made just under $1.4b in profit, while Fonterra made $830m.
Ten times larger, but only making (slightly less than) twice the profits. Huh, it's almost like people will take every opportunity to bash the Australian owned banks without putting in any thought or effort.
Either amount, the profit still leaves the local economy, this is funneling wealth to out of the country leaving us poorer, which was the point. That it is not as much in 2020 compared to 2018 is irrelevant.
I’m not sure this counts as ‘bashing’ but I’m sure ANZ are glad you’re here to support them.
Some of the profit MAY leave the economy. Not all of it does. Regardless the capital that ANZ provides to the NZ economy provides the basis for investments in the productive areas of the economy which leads to economic growth.
You were asking about wealth funnelling and you think that this has something to do with our current account balance!? Are you for real? They are completely different things. You’re so ignorant that there is clearly no point discussing this with you.
Oh, yes, besides that pesky little housing ‘crisis’ all is well in Aotearoa.
You’re simply trolling here and you’ve already been moved to OM, twice. I think you should go for the trifecta.
Well as you are a known stanch defender of the Liberal Free Market status quo, obviously not you….but people who advocate for actual progressive change around the world will be getting very concerned.
there are a few billion people on this planet that don't have twitter, don't go on twitter, and could not be bothered.
As for GG, has he mentioned Reality Winner lately? Or is that unpolite. I hear she was cancelled, err locked up for leaking information to he Intercept and will be uncancelled in Nov 21 after 5 years in the slammer.
Oh that is not a cancellation that is important. Or maybe GG just has nothing to say about that cause it ain't sexy or something?
I dont' care about the liberal market any more then you do, but GG is a wanker and "twitter" is a private business that can do as it pleases. Anyone else can just abstain and not validate it.
Same as with FB, Gab, Parler, and any of the other social medias.
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Buzz from the Beehive Two ministerial press statements today draw attention to the Government’s incorporation of mātauranga Māori in its science policies and programmes. One of these announced the launch of the national space policy, which will oblige our space boffins to bring indigenous knowledge into their considerations. The ...
The Stations of the Cross, as all of us know from our devout and Godly ways, is a series of fourteen stations that depict the final hours in the story of Christ our Lord - appearing before Pilate, shouldering the wooden cross, whistling the Monty Python tune, so on and ...
The Stations of the Cross, as all of us know from our devout and Godly ways, is a series of fourteen stations that depict the final hours in the story of Christ our Lord - appearing before Pilate, shouldering the wooden cross, whistling the Monty Python tune, so on and ...
The Herald reports on a trivial but telling incident from Parliament: Labour Cabinet Minister Kiri Allan read the wrong speech at the third reading of a freedom camping bill in Parliament last night. She re-read almost word for word a speech given at the Self-contained Motor Vehicles Legislation bill’s ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Very well-intentioned politicians, judges and others have taken New Zealand down into a Treaty rabbit hole, from which few know how to exit without creating more social divisions. The modern interpretations of the Maori version of Treaty have set aside a common understanding of ...
It’s like deja-vu all over again. House prices are primed to surge 10-20% soon after any clear National-ACT win on October 14. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: There are increasing signs in economists’ forecasts, auction clearance rates, migration rates, divergent tax policies and house building rates that a clear ...
I did something yesterday that I hadn’t done in ages. Watch Oral Questions in parliament. I’m not sure what happened in all the episodes I missed, but nothing much seemed to have changed.For those unfamiliar, Question Time takes place in parliament at 2pm each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the ...
Slow Learner: Effective leaders develop a political “muscle memory” of their own. The National Party should get one.SPEAKING IN PUBLIC tops most people’s list of fearful situations. There are some careers, however, for which public fluency is a non-negotiable pre-requisite. There’s little point in pursuing an acting career, for example, ...
Reality appears to be about to shatter Jacinda Ardern’s dream that New Zealand could lead the world in showing how to deal with farm emissions. The Government is facing a breakdown in negotiations over its much-vaunted He Waka Eke Noa deal with farmers to price greenhouse gas emissions and ...
Hi,Webworm won a Voyager media award over the weekend for “Best Team Investigation”! This would not have been possible without readers. Without you. Thank you.Also, there’s a new Flightless Bird out today, where I look at drug rehab clinics in Florida. I talk to three former addicts, and their stories ...
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 ...
Buzz from the Beehive The Government is coy about some aspects of its relationship with China – and with the United States. Earlier this month, the PM spent a hectic 23 hours in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, where he responded to the superpower security deal just ...
What do Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and your daily newspaper all have in common? They all tell tales of imaginary worlds.In Game of Thrones the honourable Stark family find themselves in deadly conflict with the ruthless House of Lannister.In the NZ Herald the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins finds himself ...
What do Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and your daily newspaper all have in common? They all tell tales of imaginary worlds.In Game of Thrones the honourable Stark family find themselves in deadly conflict with the ruthless House of Lannister.In the NZ Herald the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins finds himself ...
In 2022 the government announced a periodic review of the Intelligence and Security Act, the legislation governing New Zealand's spies. Yesterday the review presented its report, Taumaru: Protecting Aotearoa New Zealand as a Free, Open and Democratic Society. Its a chunky read, and I'm not finished yet, but from the ...
The Charities Services decision to require the Waipareira Trust to claw back $385,000 of interest-free loans from John Tamihere brings renewed attention to the links between Whānau Ora and the Trust.Thomas Cranmer writes – Revelations earlier this month in the Herald that the social services charity Waipareira ...
National has developed a novel election strategy. It involves being both for and against almost every issue that comes down the pike. The use of te reo on public signage? Recently National Party leader Christopher Luxon came out against the bi-lingual use of te reo in the naming of government ...
Anti-densification residents’ and ratepayers’ groups are cock-a-hoop over National’s partial backflip on MDRS over the weekend and have ramped up their campaigns to stop densification in their areas. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: NIMBY groups are cock-a-hoop this morning, calling on councils and the Government to completely abandon the MDRS housing ...
It’s been two months but today the Auckland Transport board meet for again. There’s a lot on the agenda so I can’t cover it all in this post but here are some of the highlights from their regular board papers. The open session starts at 9am and can be watched on ...
This story by Aaron Cantú was originally published in Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Monic Uriarte was thrilled to get approved for an affordable apartment in Los Angeles’ University Park, close to USC. But soon after she and her ...
This incomplete picture speaks of everything we love most about a summer holiday in Aotearoa: The bach, the beach, the barbecue, the sand, the christmas ham sandwiches, the serenity.We love it, don’t we, Aotearoa? Getting away to somewhere warm and quiet with a high tide and a hammock. And if ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers who took time out from the Labour Party congress to attend to portfolio duties were focused largely on promoting the country’s interests overseas. The statements with the widest implications dealt with: Trade – Damien O’Connor joined ministerial representatives at a meeting in Detroit, USA, ...
In the last year of a second term in government. the election outcome shouldn’t even be close. All that’s required for a competent Opposition to be streets ahead in the polls, is an ability to look like a credible government-in-waiting. Instead, we’ve got a very tight contest. There’s a reason ...
The Herald reports that WINZ debt has reached the staggering total of $2.4 billion, with the usual racism and sexism in who owes and how much they pay: Anti-poverty groups say the poorest Kiwis are caught in a debt trap as the total amount of money owed to the ...
There was a poll last week which asked if now was the right time for a tax cut. Which is quite an odd thing to ask really, don’t you think?We’ve got to pay back the money used to keep paying people and stop businesses going under during the pandemic. Our ...
The Treasury released its budget economic forecasts. What do they say about the economy over the next four months?Brian Easton writes – Let me begin me with an irritation. One post-budget headline was ‘Treasury optimistic over recession risk in Budget 2023‘. Treasury being optimistic is almost an ...
As a politician swallowing a rat under a very public spotlight, Chris Bishop gave a spirited and relatively smooth account of himself yesterday. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Chris Bishop has detailed National’s new housing policy for Election 2023 that confirms a National Government would not force councils ...
After signalling it a week ago, yesterday National launched their new housing policy which abandons their support for the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) that they had worked with the government to deliver back in 2021 and shifts the focus to more sprawl. Overall there are three key areas National ...
The audacity of National’s “u-turn” over housing intensification is an extraordinary slap in the face for Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis. If it does nothing else, it raises questions about their political judgement, not for the first time.. Some in the Caucus have still not forgiven them for their ...
As the general election approaches, the Association of Former Members of the Parliament of New Zealand has organised an essay competition to to foster democracy. Secondary school students are being challenged to identify the important elements of a successful democracy, explain their value and consider whether they can be improved ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: For paying subscribers, here's my pick of the week’s top six news developments, quotes and charts of the week with my personal reflections, plus my suggestions for Sunday reading and listening. There’s also one fun thing. In summary this week, my six takeaways were:Christopher ...
With Open Arms: Is it at all reasonable to suppose that a colonial society in which whites traditionally occupied all the upper rungs of the ethnic hierarchy, and where the colonised were relegated to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, will respond positively to a concerted indigenous push from below, ...
Hi,Just a quick online-only update that Webworm won “Best Team Investigation” last night at the Voyagers.This means a lot, especially considering we were up against giant newsrooms like Stuff and TVNZ:WINNER: David Farrier and Hayden Donnell | Webworm – The Downward Spiral of Arise ChurchJUDGES: Alan Sunderland and Ali Ikram“This ...
May 28, 2025.Ladies and gentlemen. It’s a beautiful clear morning here in Auckland City. We’re heading for a maximum temperature of 14 degrees, and the local time is now 10:30am. Please remain seated if you’d like to, or get up and walk around the plane if you prefer. New regulations ...
Somebody has made a new survey and it tells us this little waterlogged nation of ours is rocketing up the misery charts. Maybe they took it before the sun came back out.Or maybe they took it any time in the last two years. Because negativity is quite surely the new ...
The appointment of Elizabeth Longworth as Chair of the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO was one of just two press statements on the government’s official website today. Perhaps that’s because ministers have been busy preparing speeches for the Labour Party faithful who have gathered in Wellington for the party’s ...
Alarm bells have been rung by the department after its Deputy Director-General for Operations warns, ‘the initial view shows that we do not have sufficient funding to cover our basic running costs’.Thomas Cranmer writes – Following last week’s budget, alarm bells have been rung by the Department ...
Luxon went after the NIMBY vote, declaring National’s 2021 bipartisan deal with Labour to make it much easier to put three townhouses on a regular section ‘wrong’. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: The week’s news in Aotearoa’s political economy I covered via The Kākā for subscribers included:The Labour ...
Hello! This is the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the week.Here’s what you may have missed.Last Sunday’s column was about the budget A big chunk of this year’s budget coverage was brought to us by the words crass, gauche and venal. The big questions ...
Hi,Usually Webworms are quite focussed — this one is the opposite. No rhyme or reason. A bit like my brain: sometimes ultra-focussed, other times utterly unable to settle on a goddamn thing. And as we head into the weekend, there are a bunch of things buzzing around in my head ...
The Mainstream Media, and especially the New Zealand Herald, regularly carry misinformed columns on the causes of the country’s low-grade economic performance over recent years. One old codger, John Gascoigne, who describes himself as “a Cambridge-based economic commentator” (not the university, alas!) correctly told us early this week that New ...
The Treasury released its budget economic forecasts. What do they say about the economy over the next four months?Let me begin me with an irritation. One post-budget headline was ‘Treasury optimistic over recession risk in Budget 2023'. Treasury being optimistic is almost an oxymoron. They fire down the centre.It is ...
Photo by Ron Fung on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with special guests:5.00 pm ...
1. Who most likely gave LOTO Luxon the idea to pull the rug on the urban density policy?a. A leading thinker on affordable housing b. A leading thinker on 15 minute cities c. A leading thinker on sustainable urban planning d. National-Party-supporting property developers2 . With what was this illustration made?a. Artificial inseminationb. ...
Buzz from the BeehivePoint of Order tallied $314.4 million of spending in the latest ministerial statements posted on the government’s official website. This includes a lump of money to – yes, really – help identify businesses in tourism and hospitality which treat their staffs well and to fund the ...
It’s that time of the week for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session for paying subscribers about the week that was for an hour from midday (my apologies for the late start today), including:the Government’s payment of $130 million of Climate Emergency Fund money to NZ Steel to help it cut ...
National/ACT would have 62 seats in a 120 seat Parliament if the latest poll results were replicated in the October election, but micro-movements around the median and the size of Te Pāti Māori’s caucus will decide who governs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: National/ACT could govern alone after October ...
Welcome to Friday – again! Hard to believe we’re almost in June. Here’s our latest roundup of stories that caught our eye this week. The Week in Greater Auckland On Monday, Matt covered the transport highlights from this year’s Budget. On Tuesday, Matt asked if the end is ...
What should one make of the Reserve Bank Governor’s extraordinary donation of a hostage to fortune in forecasting an end to interest rate hikes? Conspiracy theorists will be scratching their tinfoil hats and mumbling about positioning for a whacking great payoff on being forced out by a new government. ...
Shocking The Pakeha: An entirely forgivable impulse, some might say, given how easily so many Pakeha are shocked. Merely to suggest that Te Tiriti o Waitangi should be taken seriously is sufficient to set some Pakeha off. Others are shocked by the inclusion of more than a word or two ...
During New Zealand First coalition negotiations our policy was to train and resource 1800 new frontline police. We secured this coalition policy win to ensure our streets had a police force that could tackle crime - after years of neglect. Remember those previous nine years of neglect saw a ‘tag ...
Katie Kenny from Stuff published an article today with a lazy attempt at so-called ‘fact checking’ my recent comments on the World Health Organisation’s concerning new regulations being developed. What is most surprising is that throughout this entire ‘fact checking’ process, Kenny never once rang me asking for my side ...
The National Party has released another confused and rushed policy that will only further worsen the inequality that is driven by unaffordable housing. ...
Welcome to sunny and calm Wellington, which I know those of you who are visiting would of course expect to be the case. It’s been a busy week since we put forward the 2023 Budget. Labour MPs have been out across the motu giving the good oil on the Budget. ...
Kia orana, Talofa lava, Mālo e lelei, Taloha ni, Fakaalofa lahi atu, Noa’ia e mauri, Ni sa bula vinaka, Kia ora, Tena Koutou Katoa. Labour Party President Jill Day, Prime Minister Hipkins, Party faithful, delegates and comrades, whānau and friends, it’s a privilege to be here today. I begin my ...
One of my kaumātua up North stood before the Waitangi Tribunal and said: ‘He aha kē ahau, te tangata kore hara i mua i te Atua, e tu nei kia whakawaatia e koe, te tangata tāhae, te tangata hara, te tangata kore tikanga?Ko koe kē te tika, kia tū ...
New Zealanders will be highly concerned that the World Health Organisation proposes to effectively take control of independent decision making away from sovereign countries and place control with the Director General. W.H.O International Health Regulations on future outbreaks of disease aim to give the Director General extraordinary and wide-sweeping powers. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take responsibility for reducing inflation by taxing wealth instead of leaving RBNZ to continue hiking the Official Cash Rate. ...
The Green Party has released its list of candidates for the 2023 election. With a mix of familiar faces, fresh new talent, and strong tangata whenua voices, this exceptional group of candidates are ready to set the direction of the next Government. ...
Thank you for your invitation to be here, after yesterday's budget, and for the opportunity to talk with you. In the economic and social turmoil following the arrival of COVID 19 in New Zealand many concerns emerged. How would we keep our economy going and maintain our exports which are ...
At the heart of Budget 2023 is a cost of living package, designed to ease the pressure on New Zealanders in the face of global inflation and the challenges of rebuilding from extreme weather events. It provides practical cost of living relief across some of the core expenses facing Kiwis ...
A long standing Green Party policy has been extended yet again in this year’s Budget. This will deliver warmer homes for thousands of people, lower power bills, and cut climate pollution. ...
The Green Party is fully on board with free bus and train travel for under 12s and half price travel for under 25s - next stop, free travel for all under 18s, students, and apprentices. ...
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister announced a billion dollar flood and cyclone recovery package as part of Budget 2023. This is about doing the basics - repairing and rebuilding what has been damaged and making smart investments, including $100 million of protection funding to ensure future events don’t cause ...
The Fuel Industry (Improving Fuel Resilience) Amendment Bill would: boost New Zealand’s fuel supply resilience and economic security enable the minimum stockholding obligation regulations to be adapted as the energy and transport environment evolves. “Last November, I announced a six-point plan to improve the resiliency of our fuel supply from ...
The Government is making sure those on low incomes will no longer have to wait five weeks to get the minimum weekly rate of ACC, and improving the data collected to make the system fairer, Minister for ACC Peeni Henare said today. The Accident Compensation (Access Reporting and Other Matters) ...
A compulsory code of conduct will ensure school board members are crystal clear on their responsibilities and expected standard of behaviour, Minister of Education Jan Tinetti said. It’s the first time a compulsory code of conduct has been published for state and state-integrated school boards and comes into effect on ...
Tena koutou katoa and thank you, Mayor Nadine Taylor, for your welcome to Marlborough. Thanks also Doug Saunders-Loder and all of you for inviting me to your annual conference. As you might know, I’m quite new to this job – and I’m particularly pleased that the first organisation I’m giving a ...
The Government will enter into a funding arrangement with councils in cyclone and flood affected regions to support them to offer a voluntary buyout for owners of Category 3 designated residential properties. It will also co-fund work needed to protect Category 2 designated properties. “From the beginning of this process ...
The Government has announced changes to strengthen requirements in venues with pokie (gambling) machines will come into effect from 15 June. “Pokies are one of the most harmful forms of gambling. They can have a detrimental impact on individuals, their friends, whānau and communities,” Internal Affairs Minister Barbara Edmonds said. ...
The total Police workforce is now the largest it has ever been. Police constabulary stands at 10,700 officers – an increase of 21% since 2017 Māori officers have increased 40%, Pasifika 83%, Asian 157%, Women 61% Every district has got more Police under this Government The Government has delivered on ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon Nanaia Mahuta met with Korea President Yoon, as well as Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna, during her recent visit to Korea. “It was an honour to represent Aotearoa New Zealand at the first Korea – Pacific Leaders’ Summit. We discussed Pacific ambitions under the ...
The Government’s Research and Development Tax Incentive has supported more than $2 billion of New Zealand business innovation – an increase of around $1 billion in less than nine months. "Research and innovation are essential in helping us meet the biggest challenges and seize opportunities facing New Zealand. It’s fantastic ...
The next ‘giant leap’ in New Zealand’s space journey has been taken today with the launch of the National Space Policy, Economic Development Minister Barbara Edmonds announced. “Our space sector is growing rapidly. Each year New Zealand is becoming a more and more attractive place for launches, manufacturing space-related technology ...
A new Year 7-13 designated character wharekura will be built in Pāpāmoa, Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis has announced. The wharekura will focus on science, mathematics and creative technologies while connecting ākonga to the whakapapa of the area. The decision follows an application by the Ngā Pōtiki ā Tamapahore ...
Protecting the environment by establishing a stronger, more consistent system for freedom camping Supporting councils to better manage freedom camping in their region and reduce the financial and social impacts on communities Ensuring that self-contained vehicle owners have time to prepare for the new system The Self-Contained Motor Vehicle ...
A new law passed last night could see up to 25 percent of Family Court judges’ workload freed up in order to reduce delays, Minister of Justice Kiri Allan said. The Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill will establish a new role known as the Family Court Associate. The ...
New Zealand businesses will begin reaping the rewards of our gold-standard free trade agreement with the United Kingdom (UK FTA) from today. “The New Zealand UK FTA enters into force from today, and is one of the seven new or upgraded Free Trade Agreements negotiated by Labour to date,” Prime ...
The Government will reform outdated surrogacy laws to improve the experiences of children, surrogates, and the growing number of families formed through surrogacy, by adopting Labour MP Tāmati Coffey’s Member’s Bill as a Government Bill, Minister Kiri Allan has announced. “Surrogacy has become an established method of forming a family ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little departs for Singapore tomorrow to attend the 20th annual Shangri-La Dialogue for Defence Ministers from the Indo-Pacific region. “Shangri-La brings together many countries to speak frankly and express views about defence issues that could affect us all,” Andrew Little said. “New Zealand is a long-standing participant ...
Research, Science and Innovation Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall and the Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang met in Wellington today and affirmed the two countries’ long-standing science relationship. Minister Wang was in New Zealand for the 6th New Zealand-China Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation. Following ...
5 percent uplift clearer and simpler to navigate Domestic productions can access more funding sources 20 percent rebate confirmed for post-production, digital and visual effects Qualifying expenditure for post-production, digital and visual effects rebate dropped to $250,000 to encourage more smaller productions The Government is making it easier for the ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs (Pacific Region) Carmel Sepuloni will represent New Zealand at Samoa’s 61st Anniversary of Independence commemorations in Apia. “Aotearoa New Zealand is pleased to share in this significant occasion, alongside other invited Pacific leaders, and congratulates Samoa on the milestone of 61 ...
The Government is continuing to support retailers with additional funding for the highly popular Fog Cannon Subsidy Scheme, Police and Small Business Minister Ginny Andersen announced today. “The Government is committed to improving retailers’ safety,” Ginny Andersen said. “I’ve seen first-hand the difference fog cannons are making. Not only do ...
The Government has received the first independent review of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says. The review, considered by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, was presented to the House of Representatives today. “Ensuring the safety and security of New Zealanders is of the utmost ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has expressed condolences on behalf of New Zealand to the Kingdom of Tonga following the death of Her Royal Highness Princess Mele Siu’ilikutapu Kalaniuvalu Fotofili. “New Zealand sends it’s heartfelt condolences to the people of Tonga, and to His Majesty King Tupou VI at this time ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has expressed condolences on behalf of New Zealand to the Kingdom of Tonga following the death of Her Royal Highness Princess Mele Siu’ilikutapu Kalaniuvalu Fotofili. “New Zealand sends it’s heartfelt condolences to the people of Tonga, and to His Majesty King Tupou VI at this time ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little and Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta have today announced the extension of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) deployment to Solomon Islands, as part of the regionally-led Solomon Islands International Assistance Force (SIAF). “Aotearoa New Zealand has a long history of working alongside the Royal Solomon ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta will travel to the Republic of Korea today to attend the Korea–Pacific Leaders’ Summit in Seoul and Busan. “Korea is an important partner for Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific region. I am eager for the opportunity to meet and discuss issues that matter to our ...
Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O’Connor joined ministerial representatives at a meeting in Detroit, USA today to announce substantial conclusion of negotiations of a new regional supply chains agreement among 14 Indo-Pacific countries. The Supply Chains agreement is one of four pillars being negotiated within the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework ...
Our most spoken Pacific language is taking centre stage this week with Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa – Samoa Language Week kicking off around the country. “Understanding and using the Samoan language across our nation is vital to its survival,” Barbara Edmonds said. “The Samoan population in New Zealand are ...
Over 90 per cent of New Zealanders are expected to receive this year’s nationwide test of the Emergency Mobile Alert system tonight between 6-7pm. “Emergency Mobile Alert is a tool that can alert people when their life, health, or property, is in danger,” Kieran McAnulty said. “The annual nationwide test ...
ENGLISH: Whakatōhea and the Crown sign Deed of Settlement A Deed of Settlement has been signed between Whakatōhea and the Crown, 183 years to the day since Whakatōhea rangatira signed the Treaty of Waitangi, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little has announced. Whakatōhea is an iwi based in ...
Elizabeth Longworth has been appointed as the Chair of the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, Associate Minister of Education Jo Luxton announced today. UNESCO is the United Nations agency responsible for promoting cooperative action among member states in the areas of education, science, culture, social science (including peace and ...
Tourism and hospitality employer accreditation scheme to recognise quality employers Better education and career opportunities in tourism Cultural competency to create more diverse and inclusive workplaces Innovation and technology acceleration to drive satisfying, skilled jobs Strengthening our tourism workers and supporting them into good career pathways, pay and working conditions ...
Tourism and hospitality employer accreditation scheme to recognise quality employers Better education and career opportunities in tourism Cultural competency to create more diverse and inclusive workplaces Innovation and technology acceleration to drive satisfying, skilled jobs Strengthening our tourism workers and supporting them into good career pathways, pay and working conditions ...
Greater access to primary care, including 193 more front line clinical staff More hauora services and increased mental health support Boost for maternity and early years programmes Funding for cancers, HIV and longer term conditions Greater access to primary care, improved maternity care and mental health support are ...
Greater access to primary care, including 193 more front line clinical staff More hauora services and increased mental health support Boost for maternity and early years programmes Funding for cancers, HIV and longer term conditions Greater access to primary care, improved maternity care and mental health support are ...
The Government continues progress on the survivor-led independent redress system for historic abuse in care, with the announcement of the design and advisory group members today. “The main recommendation of the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s Abuse in Care interim redress report was for a survivor-led independent redress system, and the ...
Aotearoa New Zealand is providing NZ$7.75 million to respond to urgent humanitarian needs in the Horn of Africa, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The Horn of Africa is experiencing its most severe drought in decades, with five consecutive failed rainy seasons. At least 43.3 million people require lifesaving and ...
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall has opened two new state-of-the-art mental health facilities at the Christchurch Hillmorton Hospital campus, as the Government ramps up its efforts to build a modern fit for purpose mental health system. The buildings, costing $81.8 million, are one of 16 capital projects the Government has funded ...
The Government is continuing to invest in our regional economies by announcing another $24 million worth of investment into ten diverse projects, Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan says. “Our regions are the backbone of our economy and today’s announcement continues to build on the Government’s investment to boost regional economic ...
An $8 million boost to New Zealand Māori Tourism will help operators insulate themselves for the future. Spread over the next four years, the investment acknowledges the on-going challenges faced by the industry and the significant contribution Māori make to tourism in Aotearoa. It builds on the $15 million invested ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little has marked the arrival of the first 18 Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles for the New Zealand Army, alongside personnel at Trentham Military Camp today. “The arrival of the Bushmaster fleet represents a significant uplift in capability and protection for defence force personnel, and a milestone in ...
A new poem by Wellington poet Victoria Lewis. Carmine well – the cherries appeared quietly there on the kitchen bench as if to smile and say i love you,and you dared to forget those gleaming fruit form a prayer, a devotion bloody on the inside, taut on the out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra nitpicker/Shutterstock By coincidence, the furore around the consultancy firm PwC is raging just as the National Anti-Corruption Commission is gearing up for its start of business on July 1. The PwC scandal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ricardo Villegas, Senior Lecturer of Law, University of South Australia Today, Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko handed down his long-awaited judgment in the defamation case that Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living former SAS soldier, brought against the Age, the Sydney Morning ...
Wayne Brown has named and attempted to shame councillors who oppose the sale of the council's airport shares, but some are returning fire, saying he does not have the votes to pass his plan. ...
Some certainty has arrived for those impacted by severe weather events earlier this year but the bulk of the detail for a buyout scheme affecting at least 700 homes is a work in progress, writes political editor Jo Moir.Analysis: Cyclone Recovery Minister Grant Robertson has been determined since February ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Rolph, Professor of Law, University of Sydney At the heart of the spectacular defamation trial brought by decorated Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith were two key questions. Had the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times damaged his reputation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Bateson, Professor of Practice, University of Sydney Shutterstock Australians’ access to a range of contraceptive options depends on where they live and how wealthy they are. A recent parliamentary inquiry recommends ways to end this “postcode lottery” for people ...
Labour's campaign chair is standing by a social media post which likens National's prescriptions policy to dystopian TV show and novel The Handmaid's Tale. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Coalition’s decision to oppose the Voice to Parliament has put its moderate members in a jam. Some moderates are active yes advocates, while others are trying to keep low profiles. Bridget Archer, the outspoken ...
Greenpeace Aotearoa is calling out the agriculture industry’s "undue influence" over the Government’s agricultural emissions policy, saying that " predatory denial and delay " have stalled the development of plans to price and reduce ...
“The huge fire in South Auckland illustrates the serious human health risks of incinerating flock, the residual material left over from the scrap metal process. It is one reason we will be opposing the building of a waste incinerator in Te Awamutu ...
It’s reassuring to think that by paying for private treatment you’re ‘freeing up a bed’ in a public hospital. But the reality is private beds don’t free up public beds, they replace them. Ethicists argue that healthcare is special. Unlike other consumer goods, its availability and accessibility should be based ...
The office of mayor Wayne Brown has hit back at criticism journalists were “cherry-picked” for this morning’s budget announcement. A number of media outlets, including The Spinoff, Stuff, TVNZ and Newshub, were not invited to hear Brown’s budget address. Some, however, made it into the room after Brown had started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Klugman, Research Fellow, Institute for Health & Sport, member of the Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network, and Co-convenor of the Olympic Research Network, Victoria University Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains mention of the Stolen ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sudyumna Dahal, PhD Student, Australian National University Shutterstock The human costs of tobacco and smoking worldwide are huge. 1.3 billion people use tobacco, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. More than 8 million people die prematurely because of tobacco, at ...
Today, the Government released a discussion document: Safer Online Services and Media Platforms. It aims to reduce people’s exposure to harmful content, and create a system that is easier to navigate if people need to report harmful content. The ...
The Act Party’s compared a proposal to improve online safety to the government’s doomed hate speech laws, and pledged to “kill” it off as well. Consultation is set to begin on a Department of Internal Affairs proposal to change how online content is regulated in New Zealand. But David Seymour ...
A new report from the Auditor-General on four initiatives to improve outcomes for Māori has highlighted the importance of strong relationships between public organisations and Māori, and of taking the time needed to build these relationships. However, ...
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If you have had a covid test and are waiting on the result, surely you do not go out to the gym or the shops etc! How simpler can the message be?
Covid-19: Young people to Government – 'your message is too old, too stale and way too long' | Stuff.co.nz
Apparently it was the walk by adults which was the trigger. This journalist is being selective with his facts to support his political narrative.
I for one am a bit tired of 'feelings' being ascribed to the rule breakers from a middle class background…….Dr Bloomfield has said several times that he 'imagines', or words to that effect, that those who did not self isolate would be feeling remorseful.
'When asked about Case M – the 21-year old-MIT student who visited several locations while symptomatic – Dr Bloomfield said: "I imagine he is extremely remorseful".'
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/03/covid-19-live-updates-latest-on-auckland-community-outbreak-tuesday-march-2.html
I have advocated 'someone' getting alongside the rule breakers to talk them through what happened and more importantly to find out their views on what can be done to prevent future breaches. Unless Dr Bloomfield knows, from personal conversation or through reading feedback from a health professional who has had a personal conversation that they are remorseful, he should refrain from commenting. The actions in breaking self isolation speak louder than ascribed feelings, right from the mothers' meeting to the tripping round by Case M.
The question is why, seemingly, did things like self isolation not matter in these particular families? Until we know we cannot do anything much to improve things.
In the meantime we cannot go round ascribing to others how they may be feeling.
On a personal level I am always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt but ascribing feelings that are not borne out by actions is pushing hard against our willingness and to me is a bit of fakery.
did anybody else notice the irony of an old, stale, out of date, media telling us this message. in the battle to remain relevant, our media need to constantly keep reminding themselves, that, they need to be more pro-active when it comes to reaching a younger audience. however, after a year of covid, there is NO excuse for any ignorance over staying home when sick, and as for going to the gym after a covid test, words fail me as to the stupidity of some. Do gyms have the stay home if sick message on their walls? it comes down to personal responsibility, and thats why cretins like seymour are dancing on the head of a pin, while going on about extra gov bed checks, and more gov intervention.. the associates of this particular family that has caused so much harm, must be aware of the family, and are probably giving them the cold shoulder.(?)
I don't think we can be sure of this at all and you are right to question it. Messages are being missed or people don't care, why? We need to find out from the rule breakers themselves – are they being influenced to disobey by their churches, because they do not know how to access support, because the messages are from 'da man' or 'old whitey' and should be automatically disregarded? Or……, or……..
How about the simple message that the cost of a lockdown, if caused by you will be $250million. How soon would you be able to pay off the debt?
There are as many excuses as anybody can master, how on earth could people by now not know what it means to be infected? I mean this was just the major news over a year now.
If I understand this correctly, the spreaders were in Managed Isolation. I sure as hell hope they have paid their bill. And to say that they didn't understand …pleeeeeese pull another one.
When it comes to being infected it seems to be about the contact classifications falling into risk categories.
Low risk at casual contact level does not mean no risk.
Your comment is valid and I agree with it. However, when you say they [“the spreaders”, plural] “were” in MIQ, it has a completely different meaning compared to the correct and accurate fact that they [Case M, singular, neutral] “had been” in/through MIQ.
no, it means that they KNOW what to do, and what NOT to do. running around, splitting hairs to make a point is a sideshow.
Sigh
Yes, we know and I agreed. How many times do you want it repeated here and agreed upon? Do you want to be a parrot in an echo chamber?
After all that running around I had to have a cup of tea and a lie down but I’m good now, thanks.
What was the “point” I was making, according to you?
It was particularly amusing on RNZ this morning to hear Patrick Strange the Chair of Ports of Auckland complaining that the government has no post-Covid strategy.
Lat year his company rolled out one of the largest failed strategies we've seen in recent NZ commercial life, and its commercial damage is still being felt across New Zealand.
He should shut up.
Hah! I thought the same thing. Pompous ass.
Did he say when post covid starts?
One of the few good things about the pandemic is how the business establishment (the talking heads, not the people actually doing the work) have discredited themselves. Rather than the thrusting, agile, innovative, brilliant, independent wealth-creators of popular myth, they look and sound like third-rate, intellectually and morally vacuous scroungers looking for an impossible 'certainty'. Once we are out of the pandemic, it will be important to sustain our disdain for them, and not let them creep back into positions of undue influence
It's a bad double moment.
The general populace can but be beholden to government in this crisis, because they are both regulated to do so by public health edict and because they are utterly subsidised. So we allow state dependence for the general population.
But we don't allow that same state dependence for business.
And yet business and the population are as dependent on the state as the other.
We haven't had a state as interventionist as this since 1934. People are beginning to notice that the Ardern government doesn't know what to do with that once the crisis lessens back to level 1 in a few days.
The reasonable question is: is this really all a Team Of Five Million can do together?
So, you don’t like what he’s saying and/or him personally?
Work your way down the list and knock yourself out.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300242228/business-leaders-ask-whats-the-longterm-covid-strategy
At what point should a family bubble begin?
Casual contact, casual plus contact, close contact or close plus contact?
Had a family bubble happened at the casual plus contact level a positive case would be more likely to have been contained.
The settings for the contact classifications, the testing and isolation need to be relooked at especially when it comes to not having a family bubble at a casual plus contact stage.
I do believe people when they say my family member is a casual plus contact and I was told not to isolate.
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/guidance-for-casual-plus-contacts-25feb21.pdf
I am sick and tired of the fake headlines and moaning in the media and it's stuffed shirt talking heads. That piece in Stuff basically just allows their ghastly white guilt to be assuaged by letting the Maori party grandstand on their identity politics of victimhood and quotes exact one teenager – a Maori kid in Hawera – who doesn't even say what the headline claims. So who is saying what the headline claims, beyond politcially partisan people with a whole shedload of resentment axes to grind?
Luke Malpass has another "analysis" piece today in Stuff which isn't worth shit. He is a neoliberal horse race analyst who is based in Wellington. He knows fuck all about Auckland and even less than that about South Auckland. He his literally reflecting the opinion of his typewriter and some sort of received wisdom in the press gallery. I get sick and tired of the pompous pronouncements of blowhard journalists masquerading as analysis.
I get it that the media thrive on conflict and rarking people up for conflict. Like everyone else I saw how the sausage gets made with their pathetic gotcha lines of questioning last year, and it made me want to puke. Dogged stupidity is still stupidity. They've learnt nothing because they are arrogant sons of bitches who hold the public in distain. They desperately want to want to get back to playing court banter politics as imagined viziers to the public. I just don't want anymore of their bullshit. I got sick of it last year and nothing has changed.
So, you’re blowing your lid because of some headline somewhere in Stuff? Wow!
Have a lie down and a cup of tea.
As for the other unlinked piece in Stuff by Malpass, you flipped your lid again but nobody has a clue what the piece is/was about nor on what grounds you disagree with Mr Malpass other than he has the ‘wrong’ bumper sticker.
Have a lie down and a cup of tea.
Sanctuary has what some might interpret as an inflammatory style of writing, but the basis of his complaint is correct. I, too am getting sick and tired of reading or listening to bullshit from tabloid journos who misquote, misjudge, misinterpret and generally screw up facts simply because they can… and get away with it under the guise of a supposed nuanced analysis.
I started to read one of HDPA's diatribes the other day and it was so full of conspiratorial nonsense I gave up in disgust. But its not just her… there's an industry of knee-jerk journalism growing up around the pandemic responses in particular. By all means be critical if there are grounds for it, but going troppo at every twist and turn is not only annoying… it creates more confusion.
Yes, there is some excellent and accurate journalism around but unfortunately they are not the ones who get the most publicity. It's the shock jocks and its time they were reined in.
A note on newspapers/news sites: Those who write the article do not write the headline. Headlines, subheads and captions are all written by subeditors not the journalists. This is why they can be sensationalistic/inaccurate.
Yes that is true, but its the substance I'm talking about not the headlines.
Oh and btw Incognito, I’ve already had three cups of tea in the last hour. 😉
So we can take then that most subeditors are fully paid up members of the National Party then. Just a thought.
Outrage is a powerful motivator to click. Just saying.
+100 sanctuary
On average we write better posts than they do.
We could easily just replace the entire sports section of TV news with Social Impact news that's a whole bunch more penetrating than 7 Sharp.
In fact a daily scorecard of most popular non-MSM posts would be more useful than sports team scores.
What gets me is the amount of unsubstantiated reckons that pass as news – RNZ did a terrible job this morning with some bozo reporter perched above a South Auckland motorway interchange which he has probably never visited at that time of day before in his life saying there was "more traffic" on the road – and therefore implying widespread ignoring of level three restrictions, which then fed a preconceived attack line on the minister who was interviewed next and was supposed to rebut unsubstantiated nonsense.
Where I live the traffic was way down to almost level 4 amounts on St. Lukes road at times today – I could just as easily get on air and spout a bullshit reckon based on my unscientific, localised anecdotal observations and marvel at how strong Aucklanders are. Now, if that RNZ Bozo had traffic data or some facts to back up his view that people are disobeying the lockdown then please, please tell us. This the media has decided the narrative crap is downright fake news.
It's not like ANZ doesn't publish their truckometer data.
Y'all forget, the purpose of the 'news hour and a half' is to sell advertising.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Is anyone yet prepared to admit that we are far more efficient in meetings on Teams at home than we are at work in offices?
Absolutely not!
No way.
We have daily a 9am meeting for everyone in the team to briefly say what they are doing that day. In the office it takes 10 minutes to work around the team.
On Teams it takes twice as long, as you have to remind most people that they are on mute, someone drops out with a bad connection at home, or people talk over each other so you can hear anyone.
The office wins everytime for me.
Depends on what the meeting is for, but mostly yes as long as the attendees can observe Teams etiquette.
Unbiased and fair reporting from BBC, Reuters? Looking into these leaks (which unsurprisingly are receiving NO coverage from western MSM whatsoever ) it becomes apparent that both of those news organizations are toughly compromised and cannot be trusted with any news or reporting on Russia..which of course makes everything else they report suspect, as this has obviously put a big question mark around their journalistic integrity generally.
Both BBC and Reuters along with Bellingcat were actually bidding for lucrative contracts with the British UK FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) to conduct covert programs of disinformation and also train Russian journalists in the art of spreading discontent inside Russia, the leaked documents reveal.
Interesting how after five years of investigation by the most well-funded investigators in the world come up with so little proof that Russia was involved in a large scale programme to undermine the US elections in 2016 that MSM won’t even allow a counter narrative EVER for fear of having their flimsy allegations fall apart live on air…yet here we are, presented with actual proof of that very thing happening against another country…wonder if there will be a flood of media outrage that two of their own have been proved to be so shamefully compromised?
Leaked Docs Reveal UK Funded Reuters, BBC, Bellingcat For Covert Regime Change In Russia To Topple Putin
https://greatgameindia.com/bbc-regime-change-russia/
Reuters, BBC participated in UK FCO's project to weaken Russia: report
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-25/Reuters-BBC-participated-in-UK-FCO-s-project-to-weaken-Russia-report-Ya0X5PBHTq/index.html
Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-office-russian-media/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ8mycEVgGQ
Someone's done a Bellingcat type open source on Navalny
Turns out he was holidaying in Switzerland , working on the US funded Putin's Palace in the Black Forest , and according to a German report, holidaying in the Canary Islands .
All this while "recovering " or "in a coma"and thus unable to present in Russia in accordance with his suspended sentence
He just couldn't resist posting those Instagram photos
http://johnhelmer.net/alexei-navalnys-waldeinsamkeit-thats-german-for-spiritual-forest-walking-surrounded-by-100-german-secret-service-agents/#more-45946
done a Bellingcat
You really have swallowed the RT line without chewing haven't you.
So what is it Bellingcat does, if its not putting these kinds of reports together and releasing them, then?
Bellingcat is open source, unlike the RT efforts, you can check yourself whether what they produce is real. You can even collect data for them.
RT has a massive hatefest on for Bellingcat after they proved Russia shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over the Ukraine, even discovering the Russian unit and operators responsible.
Russian journalism has had to contend with being obliged to print outright fabrications since the revolution. Under Putin the practice has been revived, and with the advent of the internet, extended.
You can find some explanation here: Active Measures — inside the history of disinformation | Financial Times (ft.com) Of course, circulating and repeating these carefully crafted pieces of disinformation is a public disservice on a par with repeating the broadcasts of Tokyo Rose or Lord Hawhaw.
By gum your absolutely right, RT doesn't do anything like that.
Cast your mind back to their reporting of the Skripal poisonings.
None of RT's allegations or explanations have been borne out – they simply lied.
For they are Russian state media. "There's no truth in The News and no news in The Truth."
I think its about the age of 3 to 5 that kids understand other people have an independent consciousness. So I have no idea what you heard on RT at the time of the Skripal poisoning.
Salisbury novichok suspects say they were only visiting cathedral | UK news | The Guardian
for a start
Now hang on there, now your posting a Guardian article relaying that story second hand from RT. Just how deep does this disinformation network go?
Not to mention the airliner shot down over the Ukraine and the "satellite photos" suggesting it was aircraft that did it. But then RT also asserted numerous other explanations for how an airliner blew up in midair.
The objective of Maskrovka is to muddy the waters, not provide a plausible denial.
"Bellingcat is open source"
"circulating and repeating these carefully crafted pieces of disinformation is a public disservice on a par with repeating the broadcasts of Tokyo Rose or Lord Hawhaw"
fify
Poor child – you're too broken to fix anything.
You guys really have no problem getting into bed with all the enemies of the Left and their organizations to pursue your cold war Russian narrative… the FBI, the CIA, the most despicable US war hawks, war criminals ….and keep in mind I am not and have never defended Putin or his govt, no, I am just questioning the motives and truths that lay behind what is quite obviously a western elite power play against one particular segment of the Russian power structure over another (the 'other' it seems is more open to western participation in Russia)…something that maybe you guys might want to think about doing sometime.
The Bellingcat research collective: War propaganda masquerading as “citizen journalism”
"The Bellingcat “research collective” is a web site established in July 2014 by Eliot Higgins. Originally from Leicester in the UK, Higgins is, as of February, a senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and Future Europe Initiative."
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/13/bell-o13.html
Atlantic Council
The Ukrainian oligarch run Burisma Holdings donated $100,000 per year for three years to the Atlantic Council starting in 2016. The full list of financial sponsors includes many military, financial, and corporate concerns. The leading donors in 2018 were Facebook and the British government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Council#:~:text=The%20Ukrainian%20oligarch%20run%20Burisma,Facebook%20and%20the%20British%20govern
Think Tank Watch
http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2015/11/the-donors-of-atlantic-council.html
Yes, that would be the Belling-shat that appears to weigh in on all sorts of highly contentious, highly political, geopolitical events for the public good?? Can anyone say Syria chemical attack?
I guess they have no shame in using any source they can to prove Russia is bad…
https://mronline.org/2020/09/28/war-propaganda-firm-bellingcat-continues-lying-about-syria/
You really have bought the whole bill of goods, haven't you?
Bellingcat are a perfectly ordinary and truthful, organisation. As such they are an existential threat to chronic liars and disinformation peddlers like the Putin kleptocracy.
People less susceptible to fake news, like the air accident inspectors that investigated MH17, found that Bellingcat had been entirely truthful. The same could not be said of Russian sources, who went so far as to produce and present fake video of an attacking Ukrainian fighter as their official explanation. As the investigator noted, the wreckage of an airliner shot down by a fighter would be full of bullet holes, which the wreckage lacked.
I wonder at your motivations, frankly, for constantly trying to make Putin's lies the leading narrative.
well its all good tho, he is off to the work camp to atone for his sins.
Thats what you think Sabine
Pootsie has already killed him via personally injecting novichok into his toothpaste , or was it the elastic of his underpants , or was it the airport cup of tea, or hang on , it was the evening cocktail, Navalny said it did taste funny, no, thats right ,it was the water bottle
There's been a big coverup, and RT is just pretending he's been sent to a penal colony
Couple of items I found interesting on Stuff:
NZ cops have a bullying problem to the degree that even senior officers are afraid to speak up. Including the old faithful of officers not providing backup when requested. Be part of the "blue wall" or you're on your own out there is the lesson for anyone who doesn't like the police culture.
I'll be interested to see if anything changes.
Also, China is refusing to let the 737-max become operational in its airspace again. Such things are often diplomatic petulance – mate of mine who works logistics has stories about the US turning away produce imports on the basis of stickers being slightly out of alignment for "safety" grounds (read "import protections in a supposedly low-protection relationship") – but in this case, toss a coin. It might be that the problems have been fixed and the plane is good to go, like the "Comet" was after the fatigue problem was sorted. But equally, the software fix for the 737-max is a bodge to fix the bodge to fix the original fundamental design problem.
Or China recognises the perils of bean counters running the engineering.
The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course
A company once driven by engineers became driven by finance.
[…]
The isolation was deliberate. “When the headquarters is located in proximity to a principal business—as ours was in Seattle—the corporate center is inevitably drawn into day-to-day business operations,” Condit explained at the time. And that statement, more than anything, captures a cardinal truth about the aerospace giant. The present 737 Max disaster can be traced back two decades—to the moment Boeing’s leadership decided to divorce itself from the firm’s own culture.
For about 80 years, Boeing basically functioned as an association of engineers. Its executives held patents, designed wings, spoke the language of engineering and safety as a mother tongue. Finance wasn’t a primary language. Even Boeing’s bean counters didn’t act the part. As late as the mid-’90s, the company’s chief financial officer had minimal contact with Wall Street and answered colleagues’ requests for basic financial data with a curt “Tell them not to worry.”
https://archive.li/8ks2w (The Atlantic)
It's no wonder they're called pigs because that's what they've been for decades.
We need good people in the police, and the only way that can happen is to have extremely tight recruitment rules. Anyone with even a sniff of a jock mentality are told no. Only the truly wholesome should be let in.
Etna's have a moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4xzQ1Oa9KY&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2p8ynY3yTA&feature=youtu.be
Joe Biden goes strong for unions, and against Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-KApLDOY2U
It's pretty weird to realise that in no alternative universe can I imagine either our Prime Minister or Minister of Finance coming out so explicitly about the necessity of union membership and fighting against corporations as Biden does here.
Or seen from another perspective….
Biden Issues LUKEWARM Support For Amazon Union Workers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY03pqDuTUc
All mainstream media, and the AFL-CIO, and all the business journals fully get what Biden just did. In reality that collected perspective is more valid than what you posted.
You'll probably be able to point to another President that has explicitly supported the right of workers to unionise. You have to go a fair way back.
In the US political context this is the left's equivalent of Trump telling the racists to "stand back and stand by".
Yup!
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1934
Eisenhower, too.
The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration. In 1954, 1955 and again in 1956, President Eisenhower recommended constructive amendments to this Act.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956
So only 65 years as opposed to 87, haha. Still a fair way back.
Kennedy, LBJ and Nixon.
https://www.flra.gov/50th_Anniversary_EO10988
Joe and Arkie; exactly. 90+ and 70+ years respectively.
Joe Biden’s comments were more than I expected when taken in context of Presidents that were either openly anti union (ex union member Reagan), or pretty much silent on US workers organising i.e. most of the rest that I can recall, there was an approving speech on Union membership one time from DW. Eisenhower also.
But then, there are unions, and there are bent unions in the USA. So it pays not to generalise too much. The AFL-CIO has a mixed record too. But a member led unionised site within Amazon would be a mighty advance for workers everywhere regardless of all that. Logistics workers serving the online economy in supposedly liberal Europe get a hard time too, and have to battle for basic rights like breaks these days.
Amazon workers will be voting till the end of March and need 6000 YES votes. They had to fight and appeal even to be able to use postal voting too!–in the middle of a pandemic. The company sent out letters advising each employee to vote NO and do it now! A UPS mail box had mysteriously appeared on site at the Bessemer Alabama giant warehouse.
So yes, Biden’s remarks were not red hot, but they will be clearly understood by other employers too, and might just help tip the balance and start an Amazon wide union drive.
Yeah, Bidens all about the workers and their struggles…seriously though…the pro union headlines are a great way to distract from what is actually happening to workers in America ..and unfortunately some of the Unions are more interested in being self serving than helping the American worker.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/01/joe-biden-minimum-wage-democrats
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/02/joe-biden-is-no-friend-of-unions
That LBJ Medicare comparison is very apt.
Twitter (and Facebook/YouTube) become more and more an unaccountable censors of public discourse….silence from our media.
Glenn Greenwald: It took [twitter] only two years to go from disappearing Milo and Alex Jones to banning content said to "amplify narratives that undermine faith in NATO." Imagine where the line will be two years from now.
https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/lrjfce/glenn_greenwald_it_took_twitter_only_two_years_to/
Twitter bans state accounts for “undermining faith in NATO” and targeted the US and EU
https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-bans-state-accounts-for-undermining-faith-in-nato-and-targeted-the-us-and-eu/
poor thing.
who cares?
It's even more boring than that.
The narratives that were being artificially amplified had an objective of "undermining faith in NATO", but it was the amplifying that incurred the ban, not the objective:
Going down the link hole from the original comment:
"We could undo the global economic arrangements that systematically and intentionally funnel wealth to some countries while intensifying poverty in others."
Which country has poverty intensified as a result of wealth being funneled to another country?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
It is a tiny second-world country you probably have never heard of: Aotearoa.
NZ's terms of trade has generally been positive and our current account balance has been relatively consistent for much of our recent history. Outside the issues with housing affordability poverty has been static or even falling for the past 25 years.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/108241472/anz-makes-almost-2b-from-new-zealand-banking
How is a single largely overseas owned organisation's profit impacting our wealth and increasing poverty?
You don't care, you're here to derail.
No. I'm here to burst your self reinforcing confirmation bubble by asking difficult questions.
NZ's economy was built on foreign capital imported by foreign banks. The NZ Banking sector has been dominated by overseas owned entities since 1840.
And since then the profits (see wealth) leaves the local economy leaving us poorer (see poverty/growing inequality)
You aren't actually asking difficult questions, you're doing your usual JAQing off and changing your arguement with every 'question'.
It's bad faith, and not interesting.
Following your logic NZ is poorer today than it was in 1840. Please explain how that is possible?
The fact is it is not poorer. It is very much richer. The reason is because the capital that these foreign owned banks brought in to the county enabled many people to develop profitable businesses that would not have been possible otherwise.
Is NZ richer?…the water is poorer, the soil is poorer, our timber stocks are poorer in both quality and quantity….the list is long.
And Offshore banks have only been in the domestic market for less than 40 years.
Yeah it is. If you want to pretend NZ was wealthier in 1840 I can't help you.
I guess it depends on how you define wealth….is a stranded asset wealth? printed plastic? numbers on a screen?
And Offshore banks have only been in the domestic market for less than 40 years.
False – offshore banks started operating in NZ not long after european settlers arrived. The Bank of New South Wales was effectively NZ's central bank by the 1860's.
Strictly speaking not….the offshore financial institutions (not necessarily retail banks) had a very small proportion of NZs market pre 1980s reforms
"Prior to the rapid deregulation in the mid-1980s, the variety of different types of financial institutions largely reflected the restrictions placed by statute or regulation on the types of business each institution could undertake. These constraints and protected niches all quickly disappeared, and over the next few years savings banks and building societies were progressively absorbed into or taken over by big commercial banks. As a result, many institutions were purchased by foreign entities. ANZ purchased the privatised Postbank. Commonwealth Bank of Australia purchased ASB Bank (one of the trustee savings banks). More recently, WestpacTrust took over Trustbank, formed from all the other trustee savings banks (with the exception of TSB Bank, which remains an independent entity). Private savings banks, which had previously been set up by parents to undertake certain types of lending, were wound back into the parent. The BNZ itself was fully privatised and sold to National Australia Bank in the early 1990s and Countrywide Bank, formed from several building societies, was taken over by National Bank later in the decade. It was during this time that the share of foreignowned banks began to increase to the high levels seen today"
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/ReserveBank/Files/Publications/Discussion%20papers/2002/dp02-05.pdf?revision=6da1b297-321d-4e54-8644-443bafc281bd
"The government’s ownership of the BNZ, and use of it as its banker, allowed it to become the largest trading bank. It was fully nationalised in 1945.
An 1865 law which established the Post Office Savings Bank also curbed the rights of other savings banks and enabled it to absorb competitors. By the mid-1950s the Post Office Savings Bank controlled around 80% of the personal savings market."
https://teara.govt.nz/en/banking-and-finance/page-1
Nothing in what you said was related to the post. Stop derailing.
Wouldn't use an Aussie-owned bank if you paid me – there are NZ alternatives.
Interesting data point in your link (which is from 2017):
…handled by the Banking Ombudsman, which dealt with 2704 cases and complaints. About 77 percent of those cases related to the Australian banks.
Australian-owned banks make up roughly 85% of the banking market. That means they're actually a bit better at resolving issues and not driving customers into the complaint process as often as the (mostly NZ-owned) other banks.
Most of the satisfaction with NZ owned banks is perception not reality. Most people will say they prefer NZ owned banks even if the service provided is of a lower quality.
You're probably right Phil – nevertheless from time-to-time NZ Consumer and other organisations survey bank customers, and NZ-owned banks always top the customer satisfaction rankings.
But then I’ve been a happy TSB customer for some 20 years (after ditching Westpac), so of course I would say that.
https://www.canstar.co.nz/banking-satisfaction/
https://www.canstar.co.nz/star-rating-reports/msc-home-loans-provider-award/
from time-to-time NZ Consumer and other organisations survey bank customers, and NZ-owned banks always top the customer satisfaction rankings.
Yeah, I don't dispute that the NZ banks produce higher customer satisfaction ratings in those surveys, but the glaringly obvious fact is that the revealed preference of the vast majority of NZ'ers (85-ish percent of us) is that we're entirely comfortable banking with one or more of the aussie owned big-4.
Yeah, I don't dispute that the majority of NZers bank with Aussie-owned banks. Just not sure if "entirely comfortable" accurately captures the feelings of all NZ customers of Aussie-owned banks. But if it does, then presumably (based on customer satisfaction surveys), it would be fair to describe customers of NZ-owned banks as being 'more than entirely comfortable' with the service(s) provided.
Personally, after 20 years as a satisfied TSB customer, I can't imagine what might cause me to switch back to Westpac.
The issue is greater than that….consider the similarity and interconnectivity of the NZ and Australian economies….we are almost a single market that is exposed to the same threats, if their banks fall over so do ours and vice versa
Perhaps a better way to put it would be that the vast majority of New Zealanders are sufficiently satisfied with their Aus-owned banks that they don't feel a need to shift to a different institution. 🙂
Banking with Aussie-owned banks is unquestionably the most popular choice for New Zealanders, just as it's crystal clear that customers of NZ-owned banks are on average more satisfied with bank service(s).
It would be interesting to tease out why banking with a NZ-owned bank not a popular choice in NZ, given that their customers apparently enjoy a greater degree of satisfaction.
Perhaps there's a perception that switching banks is a hassle, particularly if you've got a mortgage or other debt.
Kiwibank does not have the infrastructure in place to support business banking in any meaningful way. Their IT systems are limiting their growth and they have failed a number of times to upgrade them.
Re: your 2018 link
The ANZ will make more profit this year than Fonterra, Spark, Fletcher Building, Warehouse, Air NZ and all the supermarkets combined did last year. It's one bank, yet its profits are almost twice that of the top seven power companies combined.
ANZ's NZ balance sheet is $179 billion dollars. Fonterra's is, conveniently for this analysis, $17.9b, so ANZ is 10 times as large as Fonterra.
In 2020 ANZ made just under $1.4b in profit, while Fonterra made $830m.
Ten times larger, but only making (slightly less than) twice the profits. Huh, it's almost like people will take every opportunity to bash the Australian owned banks without putting in any thought or effort.
Either amount, the profit still leaves the local economy, this is funneling wealth to out of the country leaving us poorer, which was the point. That it is not as much in 2020 compared to 2018 is irrelevant.
I’m not sure this counts as ‘bashing’ but I’m sure ANZ are glad you’re here to support them.
Some of the profit MAY leave the economy. Not all of it does. Regardless the capital that ANZ provides to the NZ economy provides the basis for investments in the productive areas of the economy which leads to economic growth.
You were asking about wealth funnelling and you think that this has something to do with our current account balance!? Are you for real? They are completely different things. You’re so ignorant that there is clearly no point discussing this with you.
Oh, yes, besides that pesky little housing ‘crisis’ all is well in Aotearoa.
You’re simply trolling here and you’ve already been moved to OM, twice. I think you should go for the trifecta.
Well as you are a known stanch defender of the Liberal Free Market status quo, obviously not you….but people who advocate for actual progressive change around the world will be getting very concerned.
there are a few billion people on this planet that don't have twitter, don't go on twitter, and could not be bothered.
As for GG, has he mentioned Reality Winner lately? Or is that unpolite. I hear she was cancelled, err locked up for leaking information to he Intercept and will be uncancelled in Nov 21 after 5 years in the slammer.
Oh that is not a cancellation that is important. Or maybe GG just has nothing to say about that cause it ain't sexy or something?
I dont' care about the liberal market any more then you do, but GG is a wanker and "twitter" is a private business that can do as it pleases. Anyone else can just abstain and not validate it.
Same as with FB, Gab, Parler, and any of the other social medias.