How long will the NZ Herald last as a print edition?
Yesterday's edition had about four ads in it, only one was a full pager (propaganda from the dairy industry). The real estate and travel advertising that underpins the print edition has collapsed. The trouble is the Herald is crippled with debt, loaded up with it in classic corporate raider behavior so it's got nothing in the bank for a rainy day.
Last night on Twitter I saw that David Cormack and David Slack have been axed, the sports desk is for the chop and I am sure the cuts are going to be way deeper than that. They'll be left as the print version of the ZB Taliban and the likes of Kerre McIvor, who genuinely seems to believe the collection of boomer losers who call her represent NZ.
A lot of people are posting about how tragic the demise of the Herald is, all the good journalists being let go yada yada yada – and they are right, up to a point. But when Shayne Currie's priority is to pay an obscene salary to Mike Hosking rather than keep on six beat reporters, you have to say what everyone seems to be studiously ignoring – that NZME have destroyed the Herald's brand, trashing it favour of short termist decision making and the need to keep pumping cash to the owners.
Lets be honest – it is actually now a shit newspaper with a few bright spots.
COVID-19 will probably claim the print edition of the Herald as amongst it's victims.
I have a close friend whose partner works at the Herald. They almost immediately laid off a number staff after the lockdown announcement. Like you, I think the outlook is not too good for the print edition.
"Lets be honest – it is actually now a shit newspaper with a few bright spots."
Ain't that the truth! They seem to have been in self-destruct mode for quite a while quite apart from the problems with generating advertising revenue that most commercial media faces
Maybe, just maybe, one of the changes when the dust settles is a return to truly local newspapers and radio stations. As opposed to these real estate publications fluffed up by some token items that are newsworthy.
For a while now, the three 'local' papers, The Feilding Herald, The Manawatu Standard and The Dominion are 50-80% same content.
I suppose this industry is facing huge pressure from the internet, but their race-to-the-bottom business model isn't serving them at all well.
NZME has been looking to merge (watch them go all out for it now) and overselling the quality of the current service.
It's run by an ex telco so no change in MO there. It's always been a soapbox that's made no bones about nailing blue colours to it's mast which has been independently verified by media observers in academia.
Best of luck with an approach that identifies with Mikey's audience rather than the more general business of actually informing people on a range of issues.
Yeah they do want to merge but, as somebody put it, instead of two supposedly struggling companies , we would have no competition and one struggling company.
Still NZME looks to some extent as if they are the authors of their own misfortune.
In the 2019 annual report they appear to have 1500 employees and an annual wages bill of $156m so $13m a month.
418 Employees on $100k+ and 6 directors take home $64m . So 28% of employees take home 41% of the payroll .
The remaining 1100 employees 72% take home 59% of the payroll.
Chop the top wages all back to $100k and that gives $23 mill slack so a couple of months wages.
The management will be trying to get some return on the NZME assets. They wanted to buy Fairfax and weren't allowed to because it would cut the competition and width of reporting. Will they have another go, saying they can't make it profitable as things now stand?
Will the authority see through their ploy and avoid allowing them to strip what's left of Fairfax, which had a good go by selling TradeMe and therefore the basic advertising that would have been their backbone, just on-line instead of on paper?
Is the ComCom the authority that decides for or against mergers ? I hope they have in their songbook Bracken's anthem for us – God Save NZ. With these predatory efficiency-hounds doing the business on us, we must look to a higher authority.
And that's not to mention those with skills we should have considered as desirable (such as people expert in things like preservation of wildlife, purity of water tables, Robert Guyton type land use practices, etc) for whom we've made it impossible to stay, OR things such as some of these folk:
Unconscious racial snobbery and Eurocentrism at it's finest. First, report on Europe. Then "The Americas" (the USA). next on the pecking order is Asia-pacific, you know, where we actually live. Bringing up the rear, as befitting lesser races, is the Middle East and Africa.
My daughter is currently considered an essential worker – working in a local glasshouse. She was planning to save for a year before studying. Her wage was increased yesterday, thanks to the minimum wage increase. While we were walking after she got back from work, I was thinking how very little we value those who are providing the necessities for all of us going through the lockdown.
Supermarket workers, waste management workers, cleaners, horticultural and agricultural workers, transport drivers, hospital support staff – a large proportion of these are on the minimum wage. But they are showing the worth of their labour, when all the excess has been stripped away.
For those that haven't read it. The New Economics Foundation 2009 report: A Bit Rich, is worth the time. NEF is an economic organisation that I actually enjoy reading.
(As you mention, the Number 8 wire approach seems to have emigrated to India. We could relearn a lot from their ingenuity)
Supermarket workers, waste management workers, cleaners, horticultural and agricultural workers, transport drivers, hospital support staff – a large proportion of these are on the minimum wage.
And you can tell a lot about a person's character by observing how they treat these people.
For those like me, who enjoy seeing the personification of the ranter in their head in the form of a British comedian – Tom Walker, an excerpt from Jonathan Pie on the value of our essential workers:
"…checkout girls, and shelf stackers, working for minimum wage helping the worst of humanity with their bagging errors – these people are the backbone of society…"
"…this sickness, this sense of entitlement. It's a sickness in our society, this narcissism. Nobody lives in the world anymore. You don't think the world applies to you. You fool yourself that you are not involved. With personal freedom comes personal responsibility. You can't have both. You have a responsibility to be part of society. You are part of society. You are part of a group. Whether you like it or not. It's time to act like it, and be part of society by locking your door and staying as far away from society as you possibly can…"
"Do you know who they're going to blame? They're going to blame you, Jonathan. They're going to blame you. It's all your fault. You're the one to blame…. You shouldn't have bought the pot plant!!". – the ranter, and the hypocrite that lives in most of us.
Immigration NZ use a combination of ANZSCO (Australia New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations) and pay rate (median wage or higher) to determine skill of a job for immigration purposes.
ANZSCO is maintained by Stats NZ and its Australian counterpart. Occupations are classified from skill levels 1 to 5 based on level of qualification/time taken to be competent in a role. Skill level 1 is degree level or 5 years. Skill levels 2 and 3 are post-secondary qualifications/3 years. Skill level 4 is secondary level qualifications (e.g. NCEA)/1 year. Skill level 5 is no qualification or experience required (maybe some on the job training).
The Immigration definition of skilled employment is skill level 1-3 ANZSCO and at least median wage, or 1.5 x median wage regardless of ANZSCO.
If there are issues with the skill level of the job, point the blame at the government (who decide what the criteria are, including the definition of skill for immigration purposes) or the departments responsible for ANZSCO.
Once again, you seem to be rather defensive about INZ.
I'm well aware of the way INZ does things. And if you're suggesting they, (and MBIE) as a whole have no part in setting policy – as is the case with most other government agencies, then there are a raft of people across the public service that are serving no useful purpose – Policy Analysts, some in middle and senior management, etc. And that is not the case.
ANZCO lists; IELTS levels, the demographic profiling/spreadsheets (that someone in-house came up with) et al, you'll be well aware of the Eurocentrism, and in some cases racism that people have experieinced INCLUDING former employees of the place
Now that employers cannot import, compliant, cheap, slave labour, on temporary visa's, or use back packers looking for pocket money, maybe Northlands thousands of unemployed, mostly Māori, youngsters, can get a look in?
Maybe even with wages at a level that enables them to afford to work?
Actually, one of the people/examples I referred to (above – to do with being well-equipped with green credentials, but who eventually just had to give up and leave) wanted nothing more than to train younger unemployed indigenous folk – hoping to set them and their families up for life.
Unfortunately, after being bashed a couple of times; had passport stolen with the inevitable hassle, AND COST over visas and passport replacements, with a NZ-born daughter and a wife that had been sexually abused by an overstayer, and having committed a decade of his life to contributing to "lil 'ole Nu Zull that punches above its weight" – he/they just had to give up.
And believe me, that's not the only example I could tell you about. And for each of those cases, 'under-resourcing' as an excuse just doesn't cut it. There have been quite a few absolute muppet policy decisions (some of "an operational" nature that have nothing to do with politicians – of any stripe).
We've known for a while that under pre-COVID, the pace of change was increasing, and yet we haven't had a government administrative (public service) response that could keep up.
Even now, MBIE cannot walk and suck eggs at the same time, and nor can quite a few other government departments.
One of the good things to come out of all this is probably the realisation that things can't continue as they have, and I'm pretty sure JA (and one or two others) is intelligent and astute enough to see where a lot of the roadblocks are/have been.
I've always maintained that reform was well overdue and probably was something the coalition should have tackled first. If you're interested – Efeso Collins as posted something on TDB, and the last two paragraphs seem pretty relevant to me :
"Interestingly, the panel of experts the government has asked to look over all the shovel-ready projects, is made up of four, white, men. In the midst of the greatest international crises of our time, the people who will oversee how we kickstart our construction industry and reboot our economy, just don’t reflect the society we are, or more importantly, will be."
He's referring to different government agencies but sure as shit its equally, if not more applicable to the Ministry for Everything
and……..
"……….. The other side [of this pandemic] needs to be diverse and dynamic; anchored on equity and focused on climate change. These will become the foundational pillars of the new NZ we’ll be in the next little while. ……….. "
Anyway, I'm starting to rave, but as we have been over the past few decades is not going to work in the decades to come
This guy is a lifestyle blogger; his track record is sane and middle of the road.
The content is all public domain information. Make of it what you will.
My partner and I know first hand personally of two identical incidents at ESR Kenepuru (Porirua), we know this sort of thing happens and gets covered up … even in NZ.
What in God's name is the actual point of all that?
How does it help us ?
Why is the Spanish flu still called the Spanish flu when we all by now know it was started in the US and effectively covered up .Are you still railing against the US for visiting the world's so far most killing pandemic upon our forebears …And lying about it
You have an almighty hate of (you call it the CCP, I suspect there's a racist element )and it's uncharacteristic of you to express that kind of unrelenting hate .
You are usually a person who wants to mend rifts, encouraging people to embrace the perceived other
I find finger pointing and blame in this instance to be a total waste of emotional energy
You make a good point and it deserves a straight answer.
My auntie is Chinese, we've lived with a Chinese family this past two years, my oldest friend's mother is Chinese, I have an adopted son who uses my family name who is Chinese.
It's from these people that I've picked up my loathing of the CCP as a deeply dangerous and vile entity. They have enslaved an entire people and then tell the rest of the world how wonderful they are.
There is a distinction between institutions and people. I will always give people the benefit of the doubt and treat them courteously as the context requires; I expect the best for them.
But dangerous ideologies and the institutions they spawn will get nothing from me.
Some of the most rascist, zenophobic arseholes, I know have Asian or Indian wives.
Being misogynists as well, those guys like "compliant" Asian women for wives.
Having Asian relatives is not proof of being non xenophobic. "I have a Black friend".
In my immediate family we have New Zealand Chinese, as well, who have been following events in China. They are no fans of the CCP, as the family escaped a few steps ahead of the chairman's death squads.
People repeating anti Chinese propaganda, basically exaggerated bull, from US, sources, makes life difficult for them and other Chinese here.
I find finger pointing and blame in this instance to be a total waste of emotional energy
It does serve a purpose as an outlet of negative emotions such as anger and fear. The risk is that it takes over and ‘a life of its own’ and leads to tar & feathers and lynch mobs. Underlying (or overt) racism is always simmering under the surface ready to erupt in violence. When this turns into social unrest and mass violence, we are screwed. And it can all start with pointing a finger.
The "point" of all that (and a lot of stuff in a similar vein that swilling around) is pretty much explained in the article I've linked to at Comment 3.5 below.
Funny innit, how well researched, intelligent articles don't get pushed with the same passion, or by similar numbers of organisations and useful idiots, as does the likes of the "laughably" xenophobic rubbish from the loawhy86's of the world.
The explanation for that is pretty much covered in the article too – it's the usual story of politically motivated and well funded (if fucking nutty) propaganda. But I digress, and must away to the neighbours and check the results of my 'door knob painting' skills…
The guys presentations are full of arm waving lies. Did you actually bother to check any of his claims, or did you just take him at his word? I provided comprehensive links that explain the background to much of the anti-China bullshit flying around that's being peddled by your loawhy86 as well as Bloomberg News, The Guardian and others. Did you read through the links provoded and check the veracity of what was being said there?
You understand that anti-China propaganda leads directly to Asians being targeted in the streets, yes? You okay with that are you? And to be clear. I'm not talking about factual criticism of China, or the Chinese government, but about the lies and bullshit being peddled by loaway86 and corporate mouthpieces of official western narratives.
Here's a wee example of what I'm alluding to, that was shoehorned into a Guardian article and that sticks out like dogs bollocks (and if you read the links I provided, you'll be in a place to understand the genesis and garbage basis of this precise example)
He [Trump] again questioned China’s reported numbers on the virus: “The numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side – and I am being nice when I say that – relative to what we witnessed and what was reported.”
The comments followed a Bloomberg news story that said a classified US intelligence report had concluded that China had under-reported the total cases and deaths it had suffered. On Wednesday – the last day of available figures – China reported 82,361 confirmed cases and 3,316 deaths.
You claimed he was xenophobic (which is just a polite word for racist) when you knew nothing about him and his background. You have no answer to that.
The guys presentations are full of arm waving lies.
He's been blogging for years and is a close friend of the very popular Serpentza (Winston) who both started out as lifestyle bloggers simply recording their daily life in China and their impressions living and working in a culture they were determined to understand and present to the wider world. In this they've built a large and appreciative audience over many years for making mainland Chinese society more accessible. It was my adopted son who first pointed me to them about five years ago.
It's only been the past few years under Xi Xinping that things have changed for them both. The CCP has become a lot more oppressive and especially hawkish toward foreigners in the past four years. This they've recorded and expressed their dismay over it’s impact on ordinary Chinese people.
In this particular video all of his information is public domain and widely scrutinised by his substantial audience fluent in the language. Understand that in a closed society with no journalism, no independent rule of law and no democratic accountablility … nothing can ever be 'proved' to a standard you would approve of.
So I followed the link to the somewhat dense lecture and found the relevant passage:
Secondly, you know that usually religions tell people how to conduct themselves. Science, meanwhile, also has [a system that] starts from elementary school and spans to high school and college. In religions there are priests, bishops, and other clergy. Yet this science is even more developed. It has its teachers, people with bachelors, masters, doctorates, and post-docs, and also advisors. The higher the degree someone possesses, the more scientific doctrines he’s mastered. The names and titles for its teachers and administrators are numerous. In this respect it’s well developed. Usually religions teach people to believe spiritually so as to achieve material transformation, whereas science tells people to perceive materially so as to elicit people’s spiritual trust and support. Science, however, is not something gods imparted to humans. Instead, it was passed down to humans by alien beings inside the Three Realms, and for the purpose of controlling humankind. People’s belief in it has surpassed everything. But I tell you that precisely because of its shallowness, this science has caused the degeneration of morality in human society. This is most terrifying. Because science isn’t able to perceive microscopic matter’s specific forms of existence, it doesn’t know that karma is generated when humans commit bad deeds or that this black substance brings disaster to humans. It doesn’t know that when people do good deeds they bring about the white substance, which brings them happiness, and brings them conditions and rewards that they’ll experience when they reincarnate in different dimensions. Moreover, science isn’t capable of proving the existence of heavenly paradises. So whenever you mention these things, those people who believe in science will say that you’re spreading “superstition”—“None of those exist. What I believe in is science.” Think about it, then: Isn’t science ruthlessly striking like a big club at the most vital thing that protects humanity—morality? This is extremely terrifying!
If you strip away the traditional idioms and allegories unfamiliar to the Western mind, the basic message is simple enough … that science on it's own is an insufficient basis for morality. This is an assertion I think is very true, as do millions of people who place an equal or greater weight on the spiritual domain.
Yet the author of the Grayzone piece strip mines this presentation for the most gaudy and contentious possible interpretation. A sure sign of a hostile and biased agenda.
You claimed he was xenophobic (which is just a polite word for racist) when you knew nothing about him and his background. You have no answer to that.
What the actual fuck are you on Red? The guy's videos are almost cut and paste propaganda of the sort explored in the Greyzone article. And that propaganda leverages off historical western racist attitudes towards Asians in the broad sense and Chinese in the narrower one.
I don't have to know jack-shit about the guy to understand the underlying nature of his argument or position.
On the specifics that he talks to, like I said before, there is a lot of arm waving (eg – conspiracy theory junk over a missing picture) and out-right lies (eg – the gap in timing between given events.)
As for the "item" you want to dissect by way of your second comment, well…the piece explicitly states that science was passed down to humans by alien beings. And that was the sole reason Ajit Singh provided the link in his Grayzone piece – to show that he wasn't just making shit up when he wrote on an aspect of the Falun Gong belief system.
I guess you're being serious when you call that basic journalistic practice a "sure sign of a hostile and bias agenda"….
The guy's videos are almost cut and paste propaganda of the sort explored in the Greyzone article.
And if I accused you of doing 'cut and paste' CCP propaganda it wouldn't fly for one simple reason … while you and I have never met, we have interacted here for almost a decade. We have a sense of each other's authenticity.
I don't have to know jack-shit about the guy to understand the underlying nature of his argument or position.
By contrast I do know more than jack-shit about the guy and have gained a sense of who he is over a period of some years now. (I just can't recall exactly when I first watched one of his videos. Typically the two of them would hop on their motorbikes and using wireless headsets, chat on random topics while driving around showing you the real country). The point is, him and Winston some of the relatively rare Westerners who have lived in mainland China for a decade or so, speak the language and have a strong social network into Chinese society. What is more they are reflecting very similar information that I am hearing from my own much more modest circle.
The Chinese people are not a vast hive mind; millions loath the CCP for much more intimate reasons than we understand.
the piece explicitly states that science was passed down to humans by alien beings.
And that's always the problem when scientific materialists read religious writings literally. Substitute the word 'angel' for 'alien' and you can find very similar ideas within many other religious works.
And if I accused you of doing 'cut and paste' CCP propaganda it wouldn't fly for one simple reason …
Hmm. I don't read any languages other than English and am not therefor subjected to much propaganda from non-English sources. "Your" wee fella on the other hand is outright parroting lines that have been debunked or found to have no underlying credible source and that, in addition, come from very specific and identifiable actors that have obvious political agendas to push.
You might also want to reflect that the lines he parrots do not correlate with what epidemiologists working through notionally independent bodies attached to the UN are saying. (I say "notionally" because many orgs affiliated to the UN are generally and quite reasonably regarded as projections of "western" power throughout much of the world).
One of the basic techniques for on-line propaganda is to build up audiences off the back of innocuous posts. So saying you "know" some online presence on the basis of previous non-political postings they've made, and spring-boarding from their non-political presence to assert that they're neutral or trustworthy, doesn't really mean very much when it comes down to discerning credibility.
See, I'll just stick my hand straight up and say that for me, a person who just 'all of a sudden' starts posting political content that's obviously deeply informed by a political ideology, is a big red flag indicating that a bit of digging or caution is in order, aye?
"Your" wee fella on the other hand is outright parroting lines that have been debunked or found to have no underlying credible source and that, in addition, come from very specific and identifiable actors that have obvious political agendas to push.
Ah no. Go back and actually watch the damn video. He's quoting official public domain sites for his core information.
One of the basic techniques for on-line propaganda is to build up audiences off the back of innocuous posts.
Ah not for six or more years … that's stretching it.
I'll just stick my hand straight up and say that for me, a person who just 'all of a sudden' starts posting political content
Again no. These two guys have been doing this for years now, and the transition to 'political' posts has been a natural consequence of real life events they've gone through.
You know, not everyone on the internet who is saying something you don't like is necessarily speaking in bad faith.
Why are you so keen to discredit two ordinary people on YT when we know the CCP has lied about so many other things? Their human rights record is appalling, they have no independent media or court system. Foreign journalists have either been expelled or intimidated. People who embarrass the Party are silenced, there is a massive firewall around their internet, everything in China is either censored or beholden to the CCP and it's dictates.
Yet for some weird reason their word is pure fucking gospel on this COVID debacle. /facepalm
Yet for some weird reason their [CCP] word is pure fucking gospel on this COVID debacle. /facepalm
Really? Because I don't think I've read or linked to a single source from the CCP. I've linked to investigative pieces that have been published by highly credible sites such as The Grayzone. And I've read what various epidemiologists from around the world who do not seem to have any political angle – (ie – they focus on their area of expertise) – reckon on the Chinese reaction to Covid.
And then I've read or watched the stuff that you and Tony and others have put up here, and it simply doesn't hold water. I've also read various corporate media pieces that shoehorn obvious propaganda into their pieces (When I say "obvious", I'm referring to stuff that has been investigated and debunked).
And again. (How often am I going to have to reiterate this?) I don't trust Chinese bureaucracy any more or any less than I trust bureaucracy embedded in any other political or ideological framework.
Funny you should post this cause I started watching this guy a couple of weeks back + Serpentza. The coverage today of what China is doing to foreigners will be interesting (ADV podcast channel).
This isn't a very useful indicator. Dual SIM phones are very common in China (especially Oppo which we use ourselves). In a major downturn like this it's highly likely millions of people simply let one of their SIM cards go.
Okay. Having done laughing my arse off at the level of stupid in this sub-thread, I thought people who stumble across this part of Open Mike and who have a modicum of common sense, might want to read a piece of journalism that essentially and efficiently rips to pieces the type of xenophobic tripe on display hereabouts
What was the name of the guy in 1984 everyone was meant to scream at when his image came up on screen? That guy. You guys who keep pushing these anti-Chinese conspiracies are like bulgy eyed members of that audience.
And no. I'm not an advocate for Chinese style governance and don't pick sides when it comes to different styles and levels of bureaucratic governance – it's all toxic.
Yes, there is [from China] very good data. The studies that have been done are excellent and so rapidly produced, but it is all about the context in infectious diseases. There will be some genetic differences in the way that we respond to diseases. That’s not unheard of. So I have a bit of wariness. The data that is coming out of here matters the most and Public Health England is looking at that.
That's certainly one way to combat xenophobic tosh…provide authoritative links/voices to the contrary. Personally, I prefer to simply unmask the peddlers of hate and their agenda. Plus, it short circuits idiots who might be tempted to play a numbers game based on a volume of sources… 😉
Well, I prefer to go with evidence-based info. I particularly liked that piece because it's clear and factual.
The other thing I found interesting in the interview was that the best way to respond to a pandemic is to stop people travelling, and tell them to stay at home.
Two different, though not entirely separate things on the go in this sub-thread. One is medically based info on a virus and how to combat its spread…the other is how to combat the spread of politically motivated narratives that 'bad actors' are constructing on the back of the virus.
A prime example of the adage. "An expert is a person who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows everything about nothing".
I respect his motives, but he sees everything through the lens of his narrow finance and economic studies.
Now he is saying don't put money, in the privatised super scheme, Kiwisaver. You know, the one he made millions out of. FIFY.
And. Isn’t using the “boomer” meme, getting a bit tired. It was never accurate in the first place. Following the lazy idea that it was a generation, and not class, that is screwing people.
"…And. Isn’t using the “boomer” meme, getting a bit tired…"
Actually, I think in Morgan's case here it is appropriate as he is clearly is a boomer still fighting the battles of the 1980s, mentioning Muldoon and dragging out tired think big tropes, before launching into a full blooded Rogernomics prescription complete with the worn out business jargon of the 80's and 90's .
Gareth makes the point that 'saving the economy' in the wake of the 1970's oil shocks was what Muldoon attempted … with very mixed results. Including the virtual bankruptcy of the nation, destabilising NZ and ushering in the conditions that made Rogernomics possible. Unintended consequences and all that …
Right now I support what Ardern's govt is doing to keep our business community treading water for a few months while we get this damned bug under control … but it's a strategy that does have it's risks.
As an aside has anyone noticed what Josh Frydenburg has just implemented an interesting measure that reduces the threshold for their Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) from $1.2b to zero … effectively giving him complete control over all foreign investment into Australia. Clearly the concern is that CCP run state owned entities will exploit the distressed state of Australian business assets to swoop in and buy up even more of Australia at firesale prices.
"Right now I support what Ardern's govt is doing to keep our business community treading water for a few months while we get this damned bug under control … but it's a strategy that does have it's risks."
An alternative view is exactly what Gareth is talking to. He's right in this … neither Australia nor NZ can afford to keep this level of wage subsidy up for more than a three months or so … otherwise we run the very real risk of losing what little economic sovereignty we have left.
Depends on whether they pay banks to expand the money supply, Muldoon biggest mistake, or, they use the means that took us out of the 30's depression.
Call it money printing, helicopter money or whatever you like, it worked, without leaving us hopelessly in debt.
Very doubtful it will lead to runaway inflation, when the economy is so deep in recession. And necessary to kickstart economic activity, to replace what we have lost.
The extra taxes, and increased capability, resulting, from increasing the velocity of turnover locally, paid for the recession, "money printing" just as it will, now. It needs a Government with the courage to say we have to increase the Government share of the economy. To work, money needs to go to the bottom end, who will spend it.
The alternative, the one pursued after Muldoon, did not work then, and it won't work, now.
That the Nation was “bankrupt” after Muldoon is an easily debunked myth. From those indulging in what Naomi Kline calls “disaster capitalism” to make themselves rich from the situation. Helped by a crop of deluded ideological fools in Government.
it is a mistake to view the NZ economy in isolation
"I asked him [Keynes] if he would borrow if he were in New Zealand in order to get through the crisis. Keynes replied, ‘Yes, certainly if I were you I would borrow if I could, but if you asked me as a lender I doubt whether I would lend to you.’
(Diary of the Minister of Finance Downie Stewart, 1932)
It is also a mistake to overestimate the necessary effects of overseas trades and cashflows on an economy.
As we have already discussed tourism, to take one example, having almost a net zero, or even negative effect on our foreign exchange balance. To keep those people in work, we need money circulating internally, so New Zealanders will take those bus tours and use that accommodation, for several years to come.
In New Zealand we are in the fortunate position of having enough resources to supply most necessities internally.
It is not going to help if we have hungry people, while there is food sitting unused on a farm. Just for lack of money to make the transfer.
Interesting from 1932. Because to a large extent they didn’t borrow. They “printed money” to use the unemployed planting forests, building and road making, utilising resources that didn’t need overseas money.
and as has already been explained NZ produces very little that is critical to the functioning of a first world economy so you cannot expect to replace foreign currency generating activity solely with domestic activity.
Don't you have faith in capitalism, to remedy that?
Losing activity, such as international tourism, where inbound activity was close to outbound activity, has little effect on our ability to buy imports.
The problem is those without work, in New Zealand.
while our ability to supply those needs has deteriorated since the 80s (and the complexity of those needs has increased)…it has always been the case in NZ since the beginning of colonial time…so do I have faith that capitalism will change that?….it hasnt in approaching 200 years
Yes. It has always been Government, at least here, which has grown our capability in the big things.
I do have faith in Kiwi ingenuity, in the small things.
Many times in my life, I've had to find workarounds and substitutes, simply because New Zealand's month long supply lines can't get me a part or a tool in reasonable time. We are used to it.
And. I suspect we are going to get many of our competent tradespeople back from Australia, if we start to value them, again.
"It needs a Government with the courage to say we have to increase the Government share of the economy." Too true.
Unfortunately I don't think Grant Robertson has such courage or perhaps that he even understand the consequences of the economy being left in the hands of private interests.
Stop fearmongering without basis. New Zealand and Australia can afford wage subsidies in 3 months time as will likely be necessary. New zealands economic sovereignty is the reason for that and not under threat.
The NZ dollar is not a reserve currency. The more we borrow the lower the value of our currency drops. Drop too far and our assets become available to overseas buyers at very low prices …
Whether it's three months or six I'm not sure anyone can tell; but logically borrowing to fund this cannot go on forever so there must be some upper limit. Any ideas?
Morgan misrepresents what is occurring….he makes the same misidentification as Rod Oram did the other day….the government largesse is not a stimulatory measure , it is life support ….and the business support is not a universal underwriting of business viability but will dispensed on the basis of future viability (as determined by the banks)…there will be a few exceptions deemed nationally critical such as Air NZ…Robertson has repeatedly explained this.
All of this is short term and temporary…..if it proves not to be then the debate can be had.
What Morgan appears to be calling for is some form controlled herd immunity so business may resume asap and let the chips fall where they will…..as a strategy its both mindless and heartless not to mention entirely impractical but it is a sure fire way to create the conditions that could see the implementation of martial law
I have just been looking at Susan Miller who is an astrology. She has a 2020 Corona virus outlook. The planets are certainly aligned and her prediction is based on astrology.
A mix of not being able to publish in hardcopy during the lockdown, as well as the drop in ad revenue from other businesses affected by the lockdown? I assume this is a pragmatic decision from the German owners around their own business survival post-pandemic.
Gareth Morgan should do something useful and buy the Listener then hand it over to someone else to run.
I hope so. It would be very cool if some of the progressive journos got together and formed a collective. No-one would do that before because of the financial risk, but now so many are losing their income 🙁
Time for a range of new non-corporate funding options to be explored. Won't solve the investigative journalism issue though, which I assume needs major infrastructure.
subscription service for corporations, government agencies, local councils, NGOs, and other premium clients, is based in Wellington.
Spinoff was founded initially by Lightbox, but now uses some funding from "partners", meaning some "brands", plus they get some government funding from NZ On Air, and Creative NZ.
Both use PressPatron for public donations.
I think you are on the right track to point to these publications, weka, because they look to be in a good position to pick up some of the slack left by Bauer's withdrawal from NZ.
I think it probably should be on the government's public service media agenda to support such publications as part of it's Covid-19 economic package.
Can't wait for the likes of Mike Hosking, his wife (whose name I can never remember), HDPA, Barry Soper and that doyen of the CC deniers, Leighton Smith go down in a heap of burning cinders.
They will have to sell their mansions, holiday homes (they don't have baches and cribs), their orchards and vineyards.
This is a media death-spire which is a permanent alteration to media.
Most if not all of those publications will not come back. Many more radio stations will die. Maybe a few of the hardy trade publications will get picked up.
We can list the sum total of the surviving media like so:
– TVNZ (in its digital form once merged with RNZ)
– Mediaworks including TV3 and the radio stations (but we know Oaktree will sell or just kill them off one by one)
– NZME/NZHerald
– Otago Daily Times. Family owned.
– Kiwiblog
– The Standard
– The Daily Blog
– Scoop (for those who just want to see the raw releases)
I think that's it now.
Can anyone think of a publication which can survive three monthly cycles with a 90% drop in advertising?
Its pretty ironic that mass deregulation only leads to less choice and diversity, as big players swallow up smaller players.
The US market is more regulated than ours, yet, it has way more media choices, especially in the likes of radio and suscriber TV.
For example, there is no way anywhere in the world that a pay TV operator would have been able to own a free to air channel (Prime), or single operators would be able to own multiple radio frequencies in the same area.
If the ComCom had any imagination, they would have waved through the Sky/Vodafone and StuffMe mergers on the condition that Sky sells Prime, and NZME sells some of its radio 'brands'.
The US is the biggest media market in the world so I can't see how the comparison is useful. It has more choices because it has 330 million people, and we have less than 5.
I'm not sure why you're complaining about lack of media diversity here but also supporting the mega-merger. As you can see today a merger of titles is no protection against total loss.
Sky is next on the data-watch list.
The media rules for everyone from the Prime Minister to the Commerce Commission to the Minister of Broadcasting to the remaining leaders and brands are getting re-written right this very day.
Oh it can and it will kill more, the advertising industry is all but dead for the foreseeable, retail shops will be decimated, pretty much everything travel related is toast, the list is huge and the flow on effects are going to be massive.
Watch Suicides increase dramatically in the next 12 months, everyone is fearing Covid right now but the really scary thing is how the country looks in 3-6 months.
Mortgage holidays just kick the can down the road, consumer debt will be left unpaid, Debt collectors will be busy…
But the fantasy is that the lockdown is the cause, and somehow NZ could escape the virus and the horrendous global consequences by doing … something that is never made specific.
The choices were Bad or Worse or Unthinkable. We've gone with Bad and that was the right choice.
Probably in the same media outlets that places Jacinda on the front page.
But given that the remaining media outlets are increasingly likely to be owned by the government only, Paula won't get a look in.You'll only have Jacinda to look forward to on a regular basis.
Today's news represents a major blow to the freedom of expression and the contest of ideas in New Zealand society.
Why, have they closed down Google and Facebook and Twitter and all the other outlets for media and social media? There are vastly more outlets for free speech than there ever were in the glory days of magazines.
Today's news is bad for many reasons, not least the people losing their jobs. But it has no lasting effect on "freedom of expression", and trying to crowbar it in is pretty low.
Yes but we had freedom to speak before the internet so that aspect of it really has nothing to do with access to twitface google, if we are talking about the state not controlling what people can say.
However they said freedom of expression, and also said, in the same sentence, the importance of contesting ideas, which I think speaks more to their concerns about the MSM. I'd prefer a broad and robust MSM. Not sure if today's closure threatens that or not.
The Bauer decision smacks of a bit of disaster capitalism, they've been looking to off load those mastheads for a while so why not do it now and blame the virus/govt.
Exactly. They’ve been in the shit for ages. Now they have a handy excuse to pull the pin and something to blame other than their own incompetence and irrelevance.
I haven’t read it for years either. Not since they disgracefully got rid of Lois Daish, one of the few really good food writers we’ve ever had in NZ. Coincidentally as I heard the news about Bauer on the radio today I was just putting Lois’s great Lemon Macaroon Cake in the oven.
It's is lifestyle and health magazine with some light opinion pieces, some of which can sometimes be a bit of light relief. Nothing more nothing less. Anything which engages the brain and leaves you asking for more has been absent many years now -even the TV guide is useless as the content isn't worth watching anyway. No tears from this writer.
*&ck the "media" The private media for profit and propaganda model was and is broken. My heartfelt plea to this government is to let them fall . and establish a proper independent state funded media.
The BauerMedia closure will be nothing short of disastrous if those iconic titles are allowed to disappear permanently. They're a NECESSITY for information, entertainment (most important in a time of severe lockdown), and morale generally.
The government will take a huge hit from this unless they change their tin-eared approach very, very quickly.
Only if people are dumb enough to believe "Jacinda dunnit". Or more likely, pretend to believe it for tiresome point-scoring.
The history of print media is littered with shutdowns and strikes and titles transforming. The Times of London was off the shelves for a year back in the pre-digital age. It's still around.
Global recession + internet = no advertising. Add in a conglomerate that cares little for NZ's "icons" and you have an inevitable result. Only the excuse has changed.
Don't think it will be that disastrous (apart from the people losing jobs) there are plenty of other news sources & people quickly adapt. In 6 months time they will probably be mostly forgotten.
Lol – just watching Parliament TV and the Natz trying to be seen as relevant by picking small holes in the government's response to the pandemic. And, incidentally, wasting the time of important people who should be dealing with important matters.
Just remember, if you want an indication of how Simon and the Natz would have handled this crisis, just look at what Trump, Johnson and Morrison have achieved.
They would have put the interests of the economy first, however much they are rabbiting on about quarantine and so on.
The NZ Police are now going to at least have a chance at becoming half-decent now that the crooked piece of filth Mike Bush has finally slung his hook.
With a bit of luck the old creepy way those from Bush'es era think, is gone from the Office of the Commissioner of Police. I have dealt with creepy top cops and unfortunately I might need to again.
I am looking forward to see what Andrew Coster does age 44 to modernise the NZ Police and to reduce certain behaviour.
I do have praise for frontline cops and know that they do good work.
Follow-up: Bauer have now admitted that they did NOT apply for the wage subsidy. Even though the government was willing to pay it.
So unless you think the government should have allowed all economic activity to continue, or spend up large on advertising in magazines, then I'd suggest looking elsewhere for a scapegoat.
Yeah I think they are just taking advantage of the shutdown – and from Germany this place would look like a far off nuisance.
However, I'd like to think that one of the state owned media would buy the titles for a $1 and put the journo's on the wage subsidy until this can be sorted through.. Also and this has happened with some of the newspapers – because they have been operating so long the back numbers photo's etc are covered by our various archive acts so they can't be dumped in the tip or transfered off shore. We lost a lot offshore when some other newspaper closed.
He/she can't give up teasing us with a carrot, and donkeys that we are, we go forward. You know the solution; send to Coventry.
The person sent to Coventry is considered as absent; no one must speak to or answer any question he asks, except relative to duty, under penalty of being also sent to the same place.
Maybe we should just nationalise the group and pay everyone the $575 k a week. Then sort through the mess and sue the directors for running something insolvent and claw back any excess distributions. Covid didn't do this.
'Maybe we should just nationalise the group and pay everyone the $575 k a week.'
I vote no, the government should not be buying or running the women's weekly and other similar publications. If the publications are in serious demand they should be purchased by a private company.
The NZ government has far more serious problems and issues to spend its (our) money on.
Sorry I didn't really go far enough. No I'm not suggesting the government run it but if they can put it in a holding pattern & let the employees sort through the value as a likely co-operative while on the $575 a week that might give enough breathing space. It could actually be temporarily housed under one of the government media companies.
Although I confess these are still maturing thoughts. Generally though it is harder to rebuild a business from scratch than extract value form an existing situation or see that value fall to overseas hands.
I agree. Ardern was asked about the Bauer exit in her press stand up this afternoon. She said the government had offered them money to help them keep going but Bauer would not take it. Ardern said Bauer didn't exit NZ because of Covid-19, but were probably going to leave anyway.
So if the government was willing to provide support to Bauer, why not give a similar amount of money to enable some Kiwis to take over, at least some of the publications – especially the Listener?
I have spent a good part of the day lobbying Fonterra directors to put a bid on the Womans Weekly .The dairy womens network could rebrand it to the Dairy Womens Weekly and educate the people on where their food comes from.
Hard to see how they would consider it bearing in mind their recent balance sheet write offs. I think that they have gone off the hopeless investment strategy.
Correct. Jacinda gave Bauer an easy out by not declaring them essential. Companies like Jucy Rentals were struggling big time before this governance disaster and Likely to get a golden parachute as well. The list goes on. This government is completely out of its depth and we are the meat in a shit sandwich.
We thought that this is a worthy way of helping out the poor and the hungry.
As the COVID-19 outbreak in New Zealand continues, we know that the most vulnerable in our communities are being greatly affected. Please donate to The Foodbank Project and support other Kiwis who are less fortunate during these uncertain times.
As industrial styles of land use diminish these habitats, and species (including humans) that were formerly separated are brought into closer proximity, scientists have long suggested that diseases (eg Sars, Ebola, Covid-19) are more likely to jump inter-species barriers.
There are good examples of bacterial and virus interaction with human antecedents such as australopithicus in Plagues progress (arno karlen) where arthritis caused one species to descend from the trees,and here we are now.
Na the main reason they jump is filthy, and inhumane practices around meat markets . Love or hate supermarkets nz style supply chains you wont be catching a whole new nasty from them .
It's time to strike – when your in a shitty job, being paid shitty wages, told your essential then it's time to use that essential tag they threw at you and go on strike.
Given the way our so called top business people are reacting to this crisis with yesterdays unworkable strategies then I think Grant needs to ask a few questions before handing out subsides.
Things like – have all employees and directors who are being paid over $100k been reduced to the annual equivalent of $100k for the next 3 years. For the avoidance of doubt of doubt directors should be considered as a .15FTE as many sit on multiple boards. (Have they been advised that they may not resign without a doctors certificate and have they undergone drug & alcohol tests. – not really)
Have all share buybacks been canned, are there worker reps appointed to the boards, Have plans been put in place to clawback excessive remuneration , dividends to overseas owners and other excessive payment arrangements.
Would you think it a good idea if a maximum salary of $100 k be set for anyone who is working in the State sector.
That would of course include all the MPs from the very top to the bottom. And we could remove all their perks. Do you agree? I'm sure Grant will implement it if you ask him nicely.
I wasn't actually claiming that State employees were necessarily on extremely high salaries.
However RedBaronCV seemed to regard $100 k as being a perfectly reasonable absolute maximum so I assume he will encourage Grant to apply the same rule to everyone employed by the taxpayer.
Trying for the distraction again by referencing public servants.
I have been discussing the private sector where top level salaries are huge compared to the average worker. We have been fed a diet for years about how these business leaders are so great etc etc that they deserve every cent. Well now there is trouble and if these businesses are to survive then they need to cut costs. Overall it is better for the economy if they do survive albeit for a time paying lower but more evenly spread wages. Once a business goes it's a lot harder to rebuild it from the ground up.
A disproportionate level of payroll is going to the upper end so that is any easy hack and the recipients should have the resilience to wear this given what they have earned in the past.. Many of these businesses are also going to use the government subsidy. Taxpayers fund that money and the national borrowing will have to be paid back and this will fall harder on younger taxpayers who have many more years to pay.
Frankly I am dammed if I can see why they should be lumped with the burden of supporting high end earners.
I also understand that you are likely to be mourning the loss of the " greed is good mantra" and extreme capitalism but this crisis has shown that it is a very hollow beast if it needs to be fed by the state. So sympathy but the rulles need to change.
“The fact is all the overpaid managers, greedy directors and parasitic shareholders could not even live, let alone have fortunes without the efforts of cleaners, technicians, plumbers, lath hands, secretaries and rubbish collectors”.
Do you really regard $100 k/year is huge, or upper end, or high end?
If so why does that as a limit not apply to everyone. If you don't really see it as the top of what anyone should earn why do you propose that no-one in a private firm should earn more?
Suggesting that the high wages could be repurposed to minimize drain on the taxpayer before govt handouts are given is not advocating a blanket level .
happy to drop to $50k but the $100k is the level above which disclosure is given in most annual reports so its useful to roughly calculate the skew or estimate the GINI .
But hey if these overpaid managerial staff were that great then they would be easily able to ride out a month shutdown by having sufficient reserves. When their only strategys are firing people and wanting a socialist bailout then they are not worth the money being paid to them.
However, I suspect that they will fight hard to remain part of the problem not part of the solution.
University of Auckland staff are working closely with the Auckland District Health Board to increase capacity for testing for the COVID-19 virus, including repurposing laboratory space and accredited laboratory staff volunteering to do the tests.
I had a great time out doors today trimming back the tall grass adjacent to where I live. I found a really good use for a 350mm Mitre 10 handsaw cost $6.28c. It was better to use than hedge clippers ( which I would have had to walk 30 mins to get and I might of been stopped and questioned) or secateurs which cause joints to swell. The handsaw cuts grass really well from the base. Can't wait to get out there tomorrow for another hour.
Also a handsaw is good to cut agapanthus. Ingenuity is a good thing.
Has anyone found a good use for something during the lockdown?
Yeah, I made a fadge holder for the wool fadges I use for holding weeds on the way to the compost heap.. A commercial mower man was next door with a fadge holder and I thought I could make one like his from the poles of a small and cheap unusable canopy, the ones with the plastic corners and joiners that fit 12mm pipe. So I made a very light but strong square pipe framed box with 900mm sides and height and use 20mm plastic pipe split lengthwise to hold the fadge onto the top pipe rail. Cost nothing. Very useful and holds far more than a wheel barrow and is so easy to fill.
Has anyone found a good use for something during the lockdown?
Tools.. yeah no problem..
I was getting frustrated with having to go through hoops to push data back from a linux box to the code repository server at work.
Problem was that the vpn able to access work was a windows only app due to compliance. But working at home I don't want to hook my monitor to the frigging laptop because it was setup for the TS server. So I code using the linux server and a bitlocked external SSD.
But this was awkward, and on monday I managed to trash the bitlocked partition after the usb link to the drive went down during the weekend – looks like that is something to avoid with fuse file systems. After I recovered it….
So I got the git tool to clone the repo on windows. Then got the git tool on linux to clone the code from the windows repo via the unreliable cifs over the bench network.
Going the other way, edited code is committed to the local git and pushed to the windows laptop. Finally at the end of the day I push the culmative changes to the repo server at work.
That saves me endless grief and still keeps those code mods safe and me not compromising my home setup.
Is that the type of tool use you were looking for?
Now to digress completely. The RSS feeds on the side – for a couple of them when the title of the article is clicked on I would normally expect to see the actual article. However Frank's has always given us a nice picture of Frank and now Pundit gives us the Photo attached to the article. Any chance of dazzling them with a bit of computorize so they can rehook up the trailer correctly to the car – so to speak.
Chris Martenson on his latest Covid-19 Peak Prosperity
[about 6.30 in]
posting discusses the blame game – Dr. Birx saying that China didn’t provide enough data/correct data so the USA didn’t take the epidemic seriously.
Apart from the fact that China lied, and everyone with half a brain knew that, he (Chris) pointed out that the American security services would have been listening to telephone/internet traffic in China throughout the developing days of the crisis. They (CIA or whoever) must have known how serious the problem was – but apparently they didn’t pass this information onto the White House, or Trump didn’t want to believe anything negative about his good friend Xi.
Which begs the question: if the USA security service knew about the crisis in Wuhan, why didn’t the other 5 Eyes partners also know? And if they knew, why didn’t our spooks warn our government?
It makes you wonder what the hell our GCSB or SIS or etc are doing, and whether they even remotely start to resemble value for money!
Dr. Birx saying that China didn’t provide enough data/correct data so the USA didn’t take the epidemic seriously.
Dr Birx is a lying little cunt of a man then – Tony Veitch (not etc) who has been provided with, and never challenged, the published timeline that shows up Dr Birx as a lying little cunt of a man … right?
Or are you so far gone that reason and common sense occupies a universe you're no longer a part of?
Look. Here's a repeat of a link I provided under another piece of your xenophobic bullshit that will helpfully explain where these narratives you push are coming from. For an even deeper understanding and insight of the people and orgs pushing this barrel you've put your shoulder to, click through the links that the article provides. (The fair.org articles are comprehensive and worth the while)
And when you've done reading, don't come back here posting any xenophobic bile and expect any kind of a free pass on the basis of your supposed ignorance.
You have just provided a great example of going off half-cocked without reading/watching the video – even though close direction was given to the relevant part.
Of course Dr. Birx was lying – but that doesn't mean the CCP haven't also lied.
You may say you're no apologist for the murdering repressive CCP regime, but . . .
On the one hand, there is your sickening Sinophobia, and on the other there is my recognition that all bureaucracies share distinct characteristics whether they are Chinese bureaucracies embedded within a state capitalist context or a NZ bureaucracy embedded within the context of a representative parliamentary democracy.
I've provided comprehensive links from trustworthy journalists and publications that demonstrate the falsehood of the narrative you keep pushing – a false narrative that puts people of Asian appearance in harms way.
Did you actually read the link and the embedded references?
The Wuhan authorities actively suppressed (ie lied) information about the human to human transmission of the virus. Perhaps that information could have been useful to other governments?
Li Wenliang warning other medical people about the emergence of a dangerous new virus and then was forced to admit to 'spreading false rumours' is not evidence of CCP lies/suppression?
Dial back on the emotive language ('sickening') if you want to have a mature debate, hey.
So hang on, you are saying the local bureaucrats lied, or that the medical profession lied? And what did they lie about? Covid wasn't identified in early December, and so any information about transmission of human to human (if there was any realisation on that front) would have been a notification about SARs or MERs – ie, incorrect "best guess" information. The very type of information that Dr Li, somewhat understandably, but utterly unethically released to his class mates…and that he was correctly reprimanded for. (Just as would have happened in NZ, Germany, the US or elsewhere)
I'm no medical expert, so I can only guess it takes as long as the identification of Covid took to identify a new virus. But sure, before the elimination of all other possibilities, it might be prudent to give authorities a heads up.
So..
Dr Zhang reports to the local Centre for Disease Control on Dec 27.
The Wuhan Health Commission alerts the National Health Commission, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and the WHO on Dec 31
Covid identified on Jan 7
Virus sequences shared on Jan 12.
Btw, this new piece you're throwing up (The Lancet study it relies on) flat stick contradicts those stupid videos you posted before. Y'know, the ones that claimed to have identified "patient zero" and the source of the outbreak?
Anyway…you mention "mature debate". So how about you get off the anti-China bandwagon that's stirring up animosity towards Asian looking people everywhere, and be aware there are identifiable actors in western circles who are furthering their own political agenda by creating and pushing the false anti-China lines you're posts have been running?
And I'll say this again. All bureaucracies, whether Chinese or Kiwi or whatever, tend to self protect. So major issues are routinely downplayed or ignored (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Christchurch asbestos, Mad Cows Disease….) while lower level bureaucrats learn to cover their arses and not be the messenger whose career trajectory will come to an abrupt halt.
Knowing that, beyond a broader analysis, shouldn't our attention be on the bureaucracies and the decisions that affect us – ie, the ones we might have some impact on? Though maybe you prefer to be a footsoldier for someone else's cause and to spend your time firing off in the direction they point you at. I dunno.
So how about you get off the anti-China bandwagon that's stirring up animosity towards Asian looking people everywhere
How about a lot of lefties getting off the anti-Trump bandwagon that stirs up animosity towards white looking people everywhere?
The logic of both statements being flawed …. but can you spot it?
Here is the simple logic of what we are talking about. For decades the CCP has routinely lied about almost everything, from Tianamen Square, to their economic data, to organ theft, to concentration camps in the north, and on and on.
Then they have no independent media. All foreign journalists are either expelled or intimidated. The have a vast firewall around their internet. And you ask us to trust them?
Where did I say that trust should be extended to a bureaucracy of any shape or form?
You think I question the stories coming from "our side" because I trust the word coming from some bureaucratic structure or other?!
And your comparison to establishment Democrats and their corporate media allies running crap lines against Trump (with all that entails) is a pretty poor comparison, but does give the lie to your implication that western media is 'independent' or free in any meaningful sense of the word (they "follow the script" aye?)
Dr. Birx saying that China didn’t provide enough data/correct data so the USA didn’t take the epidemic seriously.
Or Dr Birx is doing her level best to lay blame anywhere but where it belongs.
The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to help.
“It was heartbreaking to watch,” said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.”
We know for sure that the White House response was utterly inadequate and incompetent even given the things that were publicly known early on, and she has every reason to try to divert blame elsewhere.
But that isn't evidence for the accuracy or honesty of info coming out of China. I have yet to see any reason to be less skeptical of Chinese government statements than I am of White House statements.
We know for sure that the White House response was utterly inadequate and incompetent even given the things that were publicly known early on
However I think we can fairly sheet the blame for the train wreck of inaction and incompetence that has been the US response to this pandemic fairly and squarely on the nincompoop who currently occupies the Oval Office. She is really just following orders.
A Fireside Chat from POTUS in His Own Words
(courtesy of The Washington Post)
[Deleted long string of text with zillions of links in it. And where is the link to the quoted text?]
However I think we can fairly sheet the blame for the train wreck of inaction and incompetence that has been the US response to this pandemic fairly and squarely on the nincompoop who currently occupies the Oval Office.
We can also add that America has such a narrow, one eyed ideological view of the world… they never set up a state funded health system (call it what you like) because they thought it was "Communism". Such a health system – which Obama tried to set up but was knocked back – would have been better geared towards a swift and commonsense response throughout the country instead of the fragmentation and the blame game they are currently playing.
They have no-one to blame but themselves for their foolishness.
I'm all for quotes being kept small, and I'm grateful to mods that go to the effort of trimming oversized ones. But if it isn't any more work, any chance of leaving a paragraph or even just a couple of sentences of the quote to make it easier to find the original piece?
In this case, the title that was left behind after my mass cull was a strong enough clue, I thought. The onus is on the commenter to put in the link to avoid others (including Moderators) having to search for it.
We have been lenient lately, but this not-linking habit is getting worse and it will lead to ‘educational’ bans soon.
With the complete liquidation of over half of our country's remaining print editors, photographers, reporters, columnists, copywriters, ad buyers, printers, and distributers, it's probably a bit early to tell everyone to calm down just because you can see that the vultures have arrived.
Seriously I cannot get over the number of utterly heartless pricks here who just want a little giggle when multiple industries, careers, and families just got wrecked in a single day.
What you are really claiming is that an obsolete industry, and that is what the newspaper and hard copy magazines are, should be kept going, and that the taxpayer should pay for it.
Well I would rather pay for things that are useful, such as healthcare. If you have some spare cash available why don't we spend it on lovely things like the manufacture of horse drawn carriages? Why do we need cars, or even trains, when we can have the stage coaches like the ones Cobb and Co used?
Why do we need the internet when we can use telegrams. They were much more romantic things than e-mails and everyone should be required to use them. Think of how you had them for weddings and the Queen would send you one on your hundredth birthday.
We could even go back to using leeches in our medical practices. To hell with those new fangled things like antibiotics.
I can quite readily have sympathy for the people who are losing their jobs, and I am not sitting having a "little giggle". The solution for the people involved is not to preserve their industry if it is obsolete. The thing to do is to retrain them for a new occupation. That is where our efforts should go. Our efforts shouldn't be spent on keeping alive things that nobody really wants anymore.
Of course if you really think that the old must be preserved and used at any cost I assume you will stop using the Internet to communicate and get news. Limit your news to what you read in the daily paper and your commenting to writing letters to the Editor. Would you do that? I certainly wouldn't.
You are absolutely correct. I do still have log tables and a slide rule.
They are mine. I paid for them. I don't expect the taxpayer to supply me with new ones if I lose, or break, them. If I decide I still want them I will attempt to track down replacements and pay for them.
Do you see the difference? What I do is what I would ask you to do if you think an obsolete technology should be preserved. Pay for it yourself.
Bit of an esoteric thread for a company that refused government assistance to get through the period where it couldn't sell to customers, and promptly folded.
If they were obsolete businesses I would agree with you.
The NZ Women's Weekly had a readership of over 500,000.
Even the Listener still had a solid subscription base of 30,000.
Magazines are not necessarily obsolete.
You are confusing obsolescence with the massacre of half an industry through Bauer treating New Zealand as a single unit.
Yours is the same logic that enabled Roger Douglas to go through the entire country and kill whole industries within years. There was no need for the speed and force of that destruction in the late 1980s and there's no need for it now either.
That is what has made the Prime Minister react so vehemently.
To be really clear with you: there is no private sector industry in New Zealand outside of health that will not be devastated in the next year. So your sorry logic is just crap.
"The NZ Women's Weekly had a readership of over 500,000."
Really. Figures I have seen say that the circulation peaked at about 250,000 copies in the early 1980's. It had a circulation of about 82,000 in 2011. I don't now what the current numbers are but I understand it had continued to decline
According to Roy Morgan it had a readership of 140,000 in the year to June 2019. Thsi was a drop of 24,000 from the previous year.
Where does your 500,000 come from? That seems to be a lot of readers/copy and seems well out of line with the Roy Morgan numbers.
There’s going to be more tragedies and wrecked lives than you can poke a stick at in the coming weeks and months Ad. Most of us, however, won’t get a national platform like the media types do to bitch and complain about it. We’ll just have to get on and try and make the best of it.
Comparing "Australasia's largest independent contract newspaper printer” with a TS commenter is either utterly stupid or a troll move, which is utterly stupid too. Can you use your newly found calculator and work out what I’m telling you?
Whew. What a relief. Head MOH Honcho is going to look closely at the US CDC 's aggressive review of the Who Gets To Wear a Facemask policy.
Despite health professionals and care workers and those with lived experience of surviving in a virus soup all clamouring for the Ministry of Health to review its decree that only those who are symptomatic and those in contact with obviously sick people need to wear masks…Ashley Bloomfield (who will deservedly go down in history as yet another numpty MOH Boss) still refuses to change that advice until he gets the go ahead by the experts on SARs type pandemic management…our US overlords.
I feel you are being unreasonably harsh upon those working within the MoH (and DHBs)…yes the community care sector is and has been poorly resourced but are doing stirling work (some are exceptional) for scant financial reward but IMO the Gov response has been very good, perhaps given the starting point and timeframe , exceptional….that is not to say there are not shortcomings or improvements to be made but we would be hard pressed to find a more competent response anywhere else in the world.
After reading and seeing idiots not complying with separation, which has the potential to extend this level 4 shutdown, and that we don't have a plan B to isolate.
How will we know if what we have sacrificed was worth it, and the marginal cost should we extent this shut down ? especially as the personal cost (both financial and emotional) that we are all incurring increases.
If they show any symptoms or don't have an acceptable self-isolation plan they go into quarantine.
If they don't have symptoms and have an acceptable self-isolation plan, they are released to go into self-isolation and are supposed to be checked on in their self-isolation within 72 hours.
For the sake of trying to end the lockdown as soon as possible, for sure just toss 'em all into quarantine and be done with it.
On the other hand, that they are trying to avoid being unnecessarily draconian suggests civil liberties still play at least some role in their thinking.
It also strikes me as an easy solution to a problem that doesn't necessarily exist.
Sure, do audit checks to make sure homecomers are self-isolating and so on, but I wonder if the more frequent dangerous non-compliers are people who didn't go overseas and don't think they're at risk.
Simon Bridges said that!? The Leader of the Party whose dogma is personal responsibility? Or The Leader of the Party who is strong on Law & Order and that likes to pick on beneficiaries and others who’re already down? Give me a break, please! In the first meeting of ERC, he was asking repeatedly about over-reaching, etc. The guy is politicking, FFS.
Gotta say, there's definite silver linings to these unscheduled rapid creations of wildlife reserves. Even if the price includes a few years of three-eyed fish.
All good. Negative result. Today is 14 days after possible contact, so I'm free to…… stay at home, keep safe and plant leeks and onions. 70 year olds acknowledge their age and vulnerability, and stay in the bubble, at home with the bubbles, and toast life.
I once played in 'Fiddler on the Roof" the role of the butcher, Lazar Wolf, who sang a duet with Tevya- "L'chaim!" "To Life!"
Epidemiologists did predict a second wave. But this soon?
Henan province in central China has taken the drastic measure of putting a mid-sized county in total lockdown as authorities try to fend off a second coronavirus wave in the midst of a push to revive the economy.
Curfew-like measures came into effect on Tuesday in Jia county, near the city of Pingdingshan, with the area’s roughly 600,000 residents told to stay home, according to a notice on the country’s official microblog account.
Special approval was required for all movement outside the home, it said.
So the "Cheese Pizza Award for Dumb Melonfarmer" goes to the dude who tried to drive a train into a USNavy hospital ship in Los Angeles because he thought it was up to something other than basic relief in a pandemic. Apparently he would "wake people up".
Well that was a bit stupid of the health minister to drive to a deserted mountain bike trail when they are telling the public not to go hunting, swimming, surfing or basically anything. What was he thinking!
Considering all of the stupidity around in the world from anti-vaxers to conspiracy dreamers, from virus-proof youth to brain-proof world leaders, from media 'personalities' to foolish know-it-alls, from narcissistic sociopaths to the god-fearing righteous, probably he was seeking a moment's peace away from us all.
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
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 ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
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 ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
A Waitangi Tribunal inquiry report has warned government that a repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act could cause harm to children in care. ...
The Treasury has published today three new papers covering government consumption multipliers, automatic stabilisers and the impacts of global shocks on New Zealand’s economy. ...
Asia Pacific Report The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now. In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ferrie, A/Prof, UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research and ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Technology Sydney PsiQuantum The Australian government has announced a pledge of approximately A$940 million (US$617 million) to PsiQuantum, a quantum computing start-up company based in Silicon Valley. Half ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia Cameron Prins/Shutterstock If you spend a lot of time exploring fitness content online, you might have come across the concept of heart rate zones. Heart rate zone training has become more ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Eugene Doyle He is the most popular Palestinian leader alive today — and yet few people in the West even know his name. Absolutely no one in Gaza or the West Bank does not know him. That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Will McCallum, PhD Candidate – School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University Earlier this year, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of not supporting Operation Sovereign Borders – the military-led border security operation that has “closed Australia’s borders ...
By Melyne Baroi in Port Moresby A Papua New Guinea MP, Peter Isoaimo, who had been ousted by the National Court in an alleged bribery case, has been reinstated by the Supreme Court on appeal. A three-member Supreme Court bench found that the National Court had erred in finding that ...
Publisher Chris Holdaway reflects on the unique project of collecting the work of the late, terrific poet Schaeffer Lemalu. One of the nice things you can do as a truly independent publisher is to make the books that writers want to make, whatever they happen to be. That’s how I’ve ...
Those profiled in the stamp series served on overseas deployments from 1995 onwards, and all have been awarded theNew Zealand Operational Service Medal. ...
Last night’s dismal poll result for the coalition government shows the limits of trying to govern as an opposition, argues Joel MacManus. There’s a quote from the American political activist Barbara Deming: “Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people’s minds, the thought ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shireen Morris, Associate Professor and Director of the Radical Centre Reform Lab at Macquarie University Law School, Macquarie University Leonid Andronov/Shutterstock Foreign interference in Australian democracy poses a growing risk to our national sovereignty. It refers to coercive, corrupt or ...
A defendant charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has pleaded guilty to four charges of obtaining by deception in relation to a mortgage fraud scheme. Sentencing has been scheduled for 14 August 2024. ...
What to say when pesky journalists ask gotcha questions like ‘can you name a single book you’ve ever read?’ and ‘did you read it, or did you just see the movie?’This week, Act Party arts spokesperson Todd Stephenson foolishly agreed to an interview with Newsroom’s Steve Braunias regarding his ...
Explainer - What will a ban on cellphones in schools achieve? Can students use them during lunch breaks? And what happens if you need to contact your child? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney Jodi Rowley, CC BY-NC-ND In winter 2021, Australia’s frogs started dropping dead. People began posting images of dead frogs on social media. Unable to travel to investigate the deaths ...
In the year ended March 2024, 0.4 percent of home transfers were to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship or a resident visa, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wasay Majid, Research Assistant , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau New Zealand’s accommodation supplement scheme is facing scrutiny, with Social Development Minister Louise Upston recently saying “there is merit in considering whether the current settings are fair and sustainable long-term”. The ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor The first prime ministerial candidate has been announced in Solomon Islands and it is not Manasseh Sogavare. The man of the hour is Jeremiah Manele, the MP for Hograno/Kia/Havulei constituency in Isabel Province, who served as minister of foreign affairs in the last government. ...
Protesting the removal of bins by leaving piles of your dog’s shit for others to deal with doesn’t make you a hero – it’s precious and entitled behaviour. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve stood on the shoreline of Auckland’s Cheltenham beach, desperately trying to scoop increasingly liquid dog shit ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon will be alert to the factors driving the dire polling, but won't be waving the white flag just yet, RNZ political editor Jo Moir writes. ...
Writer, teacher and academic Vincent O’Sullivan died on Sunday 28 April. Here we gather tributes from friends, colleagues, and students who remember his extraordinary contributions. I went down to the garage tonight. There was a bird shrieking out in the bush, in the dark, maybe a kākā. Miraculously, through the ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a burnt-out corporate escapee explains how she gets by ‘working as little as possible’. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Female Age: 31 Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: Contractor in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Schmidt, Professor of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney Albert Russ / Shutterstock The icebreaker of many a barbeque conversation is something like “what do you do for a crust?” “I teach chemistry at university,” is what we usually reply. Then silence. Our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asher Flynn, Associate Professor of Criminology, Monash University Shutterstock Sexual harassment is often considered to be a person-to-person act, but new research shows Australians are also experiencing and perpetrating workplace harassment in large numbers through technology. Our latest study shows one ...
A petition signed by more than 16,500 people, demanding the government take stronger action to halt the genocide of Palestinians by the State of Israel, is being presented to the House of Representatives today by Hon Phil Twyford. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National University jenmartin/Shutterstock April has been a bad month for the Australian environment. The Great Barrier Reef was hit, yet again, by intense coral bleaching. And Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek delayed ...
Winston Peters might not give a ‘rat’s derriere’ about last night’s poll, but it revealed the unusual absence of a honeymoon period and little payoff for the government’s action plan approach, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marco de Jong, Lecturer, Law School, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Details released by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet under the Official Information Act reveal New Zealand officials have been considering involvement in AUKUS from the outset. ...
The government's treatment of Māori raised eyebrows, with countries saying New Zealand needed to do more to reduce health, education and justice inequities. ...
The age of criminal responsibility was one of numerous human rights issues raised during Aotearoa New Zealand’s UPR. Other key themes were racism and discrimination, the disproportionate representation of Māori in prison, and to uphold the UN Declaration ...
In a sitdown interview ahead of his final day at Parliament this week, the former Green Party co-leader tells RNZ about his lowest point during 2017's rough election campaign. ...
Is the fringe radio station really in a financial crisis, or is it just running a hyped-up donation drive? Fringe internet radio station Reality Check Radio was launched by the anti-vaccine mandates group Voices for Freedom in March 2023. For the next year, it undertook probably the most aggressive promotional ...
Above the Fold: On Monday, the biggest Māori screen production company faced down the biggest funder of Māori content at the High Court. It was an incredibly tense moment – then, just as quickly, it resolved. Duncan Greive breaks down a strange day in the screen sector.Yesterday morning, Māori ...
It’s a ride that’s lasted almost 30 years for mother and daughter BMX riders Nancy and Toni James, and the next stop is the World Championships in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Almost 27 years ago, Nancy and her husband Gerrard took their oldest child, Daniel, to the Waitākere BMX Club. ...
When it comes to talking about the Government’s controversial fast-track consenting process, political scientist Richard Shaw refers to the famous Chinese sci-fi novel Three-Body Problem, while RNZ’s In Depth journalist Farah Hancock talks about zombie projects. Shaw is referring to the three-party coalition Government and how the proposed legislation is ...
Opinion: The debate over single gender versus co-educational schooling has long been controversial. I went to a co-ed school and was inspired by a remarkable woman who was my maths teacher, and because of her deep knowledge and passion for the subject, I knew that maths was definitely an option ...
He won everything and he earned a knighthood and he was a senior literary figure to the point that he was a living monument to himself until his death in the weekend at 86, but there was something about Vincent O’Sullivan that flew under the radar, that was independent and ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia The rate of women killed by their partners in Australia grew by 28% from 2021–22 to 2022–23, according to new statistics released today by the Australian Institute of Criminology ...
Ministry of Disabled People employees were promised a permanent role, but were told to start packing three weeks before their fixed term contract finished, says a former employee. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Blakers, Professor of Engineering, Australian National University Clean Energy Council / Neoen As Australia’s rapid renewable energy rollout continues, so too does debate over land use. Nationals Leader David Littleproud, for example, claimed regional areas had reached “saturation point” and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan C. Walsh, Sessional Academic, The University of Queensland Arrest for witchcraft (1866) by John PettieNGV, CC BY-NC In recent decades, governments the world over have increasingly taken action to address the dark history of witch-hunting. In western Europe, memorials to ...
By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent The US Department of Justice is being urged to condemn and cease its reliance on the “Insular Cases” — a series of US Supreme Court opinions on US territories, which have been labelled racist. Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kara Dadswell, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Victoria University Ask your son or daughter, niece, or nephew to draw you a picture of a sport coach. They will most probably draw a man. Why? Our latest research published in the Psychology of Sport ...
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How long will the NZ Herald last as a print edition?
Yesterday's edition had about four ads in it, only one was a full pager (propaganda from the dairy industry). The real estate and travel advertising that underpins the print edition has collapsed. The trouble is the Herald is crippled with debt, loaded up with it in classic corporate raider behavior so it's got nothing in the bank for a rainy day.
Last night on Twitter I saw that David Cormack and David Slack have been axed, the sports desk is for the chop and I am sure the cuts are going to be way deeper than that. They'll be left as the print version of the ZB Taliban and the likes of Kerre McIvor, who genuinely seems to believe the collection of boomer losers who call her represent NZ.
A lot of people are posting about how tragic the demise of the Herald is, all the good journalists being let go yada yada yada – and they are right, up to a point. But when Shayne Currie's priority is to pay an obscene salary to Mike Hosking rather than keep on six beat reporters, you have to say what everyone seems to be studiously ignoring – that NZME have destroyed the Herald's brand, trashing it favour of short termist decision making and the need to keep pumping cash to the owners.
Lets be honest – it is actually now a shit newspaper with a few bright spots.
COVID-19 will probably claim the print edition of the Herald as amongst it's victims.
I have a close friend whose partner works at the Herald. They almost immediately laid off a number staff after the lockdown announcement. Like you, I think the outlook is not too good for the print edition.
"Lets be honest – it is actually now a shit newspaper with a few bright spots."
Ain't that the truth! They seem to have been in self-destruct mode for quite a while quite apart from the problems with generating advertising revenue that most commercial media faces
Maybe, just maybe, one of the changes when the dust settles is a return to truly local newspapers and radio stations. As opposed to these real estate publications fluffed up by some token items that are newsworthy.
For a while now, the three 'local' papers, The Feilding Herald, The Manawatu Standard and The Dominion are 50-80% same content.
I suppose this industry is facing huge pressure from the internet, but their race-to-the-bottom business model isn't serving them at all well.
They have to keep Mike Hoskings on, Everyone is waiting for him to get something right
They keep contacting me and offering it free for a couple of weeks….I don't bother as they just end up straight in the recycling bin.
NZME has been looking to merge (watch them go all out for it now) and overselling the quality of the current service.
It's run by an ex telco so no change in MO there. It's always been a soapbox that's made no bones about nailing blue colours to it's mast which has been independently verified by media observers in academia.
Best of luck with an approach that identifies with Mikey's audience rather than the more general business of actually informing people on a range of issues.
Yeah they do want to merge but, as somebody put it, instead of two supposedly struggling companies , we would have no competition and one struggling company.
Still NZME looks to some extent as if they are the authors of their own misfortune.
In the 2019 annual report they appear to have 1500 employees and an annual wages bill of $156m so $13m a month.
418 Employees on $100k+ and 6 directors take home $64m . So 28% of employees take home 41% of the payroll .
The remaining 1100 employees 72% take home 59% of the payroll.
Chop the top wages all back to $100k and that gives $23 mill slack so a couple of months wages.
The management will be trying to get some return on the NZME assets. They wanted to buy Fairfax and weren't allowed to because it would cut the competition and width of reporting. Will they have another go, saying they can't make it profitable as things now stand?
Will the authority see through their ploy and avoid allowing them to strip what's left of Fairfax, which had a good go by selling TradeMe and therefore the basic advertising that would have been their backbone, just on-line instead of on paper?
Is the ComCom the authority that decides for or against mergers ? I hope they have in their songbook Bracken's anthem for us – God Save NZ. With these predatory efficiency-hounds doing the business on us, we must look to a higher authority.
Not sure if anyone noticed this (haven't yet read yesterday's OM) but its an interesting observation on our immigration policies of the past:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/413177/unskilled-workers-now-keeping-new-zealand-going
The 'low skilled' now appear to be essential.
And that's not to mention those with skills we should have considered as desirable (such as people expert in things like preservation of wildlife, purity of water tables, Robert Guyton type land use practices, etc) for whom we've made it impossible to stay, OR things such as some of these folk:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52106565 who we have made it damn near impossible to come
Snobbishness and Eurocentric policies are not always going to be the things we'll need in the future
"…Snobbishness and Eurocentric policies are not always going to be the things we'll need in the future.."
Look at the RNZ news page this morning on COVID-19:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/413193/latest-on-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-around-the-world
Unconscious racial snobbery and Eurocentrism at it's finest. First, report on Europe. Then "The Americas" (the USA). next on the pecking order is Asia-pacific, you know, where we actually live. Bringing up the rear, as befitting lesser races, is the Middle East and Africa.
My daughter is currently considered an essential worker – working in a local glasshouse. She was planning to save for a year before studying. Her wage was increased yesterday, thanks to the minimum wage increase. While we were walking after she got back from work, I was thinking how very little we value those who are providing the necessities for all of us going through the lockdown.
Supermarket workers, waste management workers, cleaners, horticultural and agricultural workers, transport drivers, hospital support staff – a large proportion of these are on the minimum wage. But they are showing the worth of their labour, when all the excess has been stripped away.
For those that haven't read it. The New Economics Foundation 2009 report: A Bit Rich, is worth the time. NEF is an economic organisation that I actually enjoy reading.
(As you mention, the Number 8 wire approach seems to have emigrated to India. We could relearn a lot from their ingenuity)
Supermarket workers, waste management workers, cleaners, horticultural and agricultural workers, transport drivers, hospital support staff – a large proportion of these are on the minimum wage.
And you can tell a lot about a person's character by observing how they treat these people.
In many ways inequality is not measured solely in dollars or GINI coefficients. It's the snobbery, the carelessness and hardness of heart that it so easily engenders which is the real harm.
" And you can tell a lot about a person's character by observing how they treat these people. "
I think that is true of societies as well.
That interesting and painful irony is we pay those the least, that will be looking after us in our old age, it's quite short sighted really.
For those like me, who enjoy seeing the personification of the ranter in their head in the form of a British comedian – Tom Walker, an excerpt from Jonathan Pie on the value of our essential workers:
"…checkout girls, and shelf stackers, working for minimum wage helping the worst of humanity with their bagging errors – these people are the backbone of society…"
"…this sickness, this sense of entitlement. It's a sickness in our society, this narcissism. Nobody lives in the world anymore. You don't think the world applies to you. You fool yourself that you are not involved. With personal freedom comes personal responsibility. You can't have both. You have a responsibility to be part of society. You are part of society. You are part of a group. Whether you like it or not. It's time to act like it, and be part of society by locking your door and staying as far away from society as you possibly can…"
"Do you know who they're going to blame? They're going to blame you, Jonathan. They're going to blame you. It's all your fault. You're the one to blame…. You shouldn't have bought the pot plant!!". – the ranter, and the hypocrite that lives in most of us.
https://youtu.be/y6lhWKX_S0k
Immigration NZ use a combination of ANZSCO (Australia New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations) and pay rate (median wage or higher) to determine skill of a job for immigration purposes.
ANZSCO is maintained by Stats NZ and its Australian counterpart. Occupations are classified from skill levels 1 to 5 based on level of qualification/time taken to be competent in a role. Skill level 1 is degree level or 5 years. Skill levels 2 and 3 are post-secondary qualifications/3 years. Skill level 4 is secondary level qualifications (e.g. NCEA)/1 year. Skill level 5 is no qualification or experience required (maybe some on the job training).
The Immigration definition of skilled employment is skill level 1-3 ANZSCO and at least median wage, or 1.5 x median wage regardless of ANZSCO.
If there are issues with the skill level of the job, point the blame at the government (who decide what the criteria are, including the definition of skill for immigration purposes) or the departments responsible for ANZSCO.
Once again, you seem to be rather defensive about INZ.
I'm well aware of the way INZ does things. And if you're suggesting they, (and MBIE) as a whole have no part in setting policy – as is the case with most other government agencies, then there are a raft of people across the public service that are serving no useful purpose – Policy Analysts, some in middle and senior management, etc. And that is not the case.
ANZCO lists; IELTS levels, the demographic profiling/spreadsheets (that someone in-house came up with) et al, you'll be well aware of the Eurocentrism, and in some cases racism that people have experieinced INCLUDING former employees of the place
Now that employers cannot import, compliant, cheap, slave labour, on temporary visa's, or use back packers looking for pocket money, maybe Northlands thousands of unemployed, mostly Māori, youngsters, can get a look in?
Maybe even with wages at a level that enables them to afford to work?
Let's hope so.
Actually, one of the people/examples I referred to (above – to do with being well-equipped with green credentials, but who eventually just had to give up and leave) wanted nothing more than to train younger unemployed indigenous folk – hoping to set them and their families up for life.
Unfortunately, after being bashed a couple of times; had passport stolen with the inevitable hassle, AND COST over visas and passport replacements, with a NZ-born daughter and a wife that had been sexually abused by an overstayer, and having committed a decade of his life to contributing to "lil 'ole Nu Zull that punches above its weight" – he/they just had to give up.
And believe me, that's not the only example I could tell you about. And for each of those cases, 'under-resourcing' as an excuse just doesn't cut it. There have been quite a few absolute muppet policy decisions (some of "an operational" nature that have nothing to do with politicians – of any stripe).
We've known for a while that under pre-COVID, the pace of change was increasing, and yet we haven't had a government administrative (public service) response that could keep up.
Even now, MBIE cannot walk and suck eggs at the same time, and nor can quite a few other government departments.
One of the good things to come out of all this is probably the realisation that things can't continue as they have, and I'm pretty sure JA (and one or two others) is intelligent and astute enough to see where a lot of the roadblocks are/have been.
I've always maintained that reform was well overdue and probably was something the coalition should have tackled first. If you're interested – Efeso Collins as posted something on TDB, and the last two paragraphs seem pretty relevant to me :
"Interestingly, the panel of experts the government has asked to look over all the shovel-ready projects, is made up of four, white, men. In the midst of the greatest international crises of our time, the people who will oversee how we kickstart our construction industry and reboot our economy, just don’t reflect the society we are, or more importantly, will be."
He's referring to different government agencies but sure as shit its equally, if not more applicable to the Ministry for Everything
and……..
"……….. The other side [of this pandemic] needs to be diverse and dynamic; anchored on equity and focused on climate change. These will become the foundational pillars of the new NZ we’ll be in the next little while. ……….. "
Anyway, I'm starting to rave, but as we have been over the past few decades is not going to work in the decades to come
An interesting and highly plausible take on CV19.
This guy is a lifestyle blogger; his track record is sane and middle of the road.
The content is all public domain information. Make of it what you will.
My partner and I know first hand personally of two identical incidents at ESR Kenepuru (Porirua), we know this sort of thing happens and gets covered up … even in NZ.
What in God's name is the actual point of all that?
How does it help us ?
Why is the Spanish flu still called the Spanish flu when we all by now know it was started in the US and effectively covered up .Are you still railing against the US for visiting the world's so far most killing pandemic upon our forebears …And lying about it
You have an almighty hate of (you call it the CCP, I suspect there's a racist element )and it's uncharacteristic of you to express that kind of unrelenting hate .
You are usually a person who wants to mend rifts, encouraging people to embrace the perceived other
I find finger pointing and blame in this instance to be a total waste of emotional energy
That's just me anyway.
You make a good point and it deserves a straight answer.
My auntie is Chinese, we've lived with a Chinese family this past two years, my oldest friend's mother is Chinese, I have an adopted son who uses my family name who is Chinese.
It's from these people that I've picked up my loathing of the CCP as a deeply dangerous and vile entity. They have enslaved an entire people and then tell the rest of the world how wonderful they are.
There is a distinction between institutions and people. I will always give people the benefit of the doubt and treat them courteously as the context requires; I expect the best for them.
But dangerous ideologies and the institutions they spawn will get nothing from me.
Some of the most rascist, zenophobic arseholes, I know have Asian or Indian wives.
Being misogynists as well, those guys like "compliant" Asian women for wives.
Having Asian relatives is not proof of being non xenophobic. "I have a Black friend".
In my immediate family we have New Zealand Chinese, as well, who have been following events in China. They are no fans of the CCP, as the family escaped a few steps ahead of the chairman's death squads.
People repeating anti Chinese propaganda, basically exaggerated bull, from US, sources, makes life difficult for them and other Chinese here.
It does serve a purpose as an outlet of negative emotions such as anger and fear. The risk is that it takes over and ‘a life of its own’ and leads to tar & feathers and lynch mobs. Underlying (or overt) racism is always simmering under the surface ready to erupt in violence. When this turns into social unrest and mass violence, we are screwed. And it can all start with pointing a finger.
The "point" of all that (and a lot of stuff in a similar vein that swilling around) is pretty much explained in the article I've linked to at Comment 3.5 below.
Funny innit, how well researched, intelligent articles don't get pushed with the same passion, or by similar numbers of organisations and useful idiots, as does the likes of the "laughably" xenophobic rubbish from the loawhy86's of the world.
The explanation for that is pretty much covered in the article too – it's the usual story of politically motivated and well funded (if fucking nutty) propaganda. But I digress, and must away to the neighbours and check the results of my 'door knob painting' skills…
as does the likes of the "laughably" xenophobic rubbish from the loawhy86's of the world.
If so why did they guy live in China 10 years, learn the language fluently and marry locally?
This pathetic old gambit of conflating criticism with racism is what’s truly laughable here.
The guys presentations are full of arm waving lies. Did you actually bother to check any of his claims, or did you just take him at his word? I provided comprehensive links that explain the background to much of the anti-China bullshit flying around that's being peddled by your loawhy86 as well as Bloomberg News, The Guardian and others. Did you read through the links provoded and check the veracity of what was being said there?
You understand that anti-China propaganda leads directly to Asians being targeted in the streets, yes? You okay with that are you? And to be clear. I'm not talking about factual criticism of China, or the Chinese government, but about the lies and bullshit being peddled by loaway86 and corporate mouthpieces of official western narratives.
Here's a wee example of what I'm alluding to, that was shoehorned into a Guardian article and that sticks out like dogs bollocks (and if you read the links I provided, you'll be in a place to understand the genesis and garbage basis of this precise example)
He [Trump] again questioned China’s reported numbers on the virus: “The numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side – and I am being nice when I say that – relative to what we witnessed and what was reported.”
The comments followed a Bloomberg news story that said a classified US intelligence report had concluded that China had under-reported the total cases and deaths it had suffered. On Wednesday – the last day of available figures – China reported 82,361 confirmed cases and 3,316 deaths.
You claimed he was xenophobic (which is just a polite word for racist) when you knew nothing about him and his background. You have no answer to that.
The guys presentations are full of arm waving lies.
He's been blogging for years and is a close friend of the very popular Serpentza (Winston) who both started out as lifestyle bloggers simply recording their daily life in China and their impressions living and working in a culture they were determined to understand and present to the wider world. In this they've built a large and appreciative audience over many years for making mainland Chinese society more accessible. It was my adopted son who first pointed me to them about five years ago.
It's only been the past few years under Xi Xinping that things have changed for them both. The CCP has become a lot more oppressive and especially hawkish toward foreigners in the past four years. This they've recorded and expressed their dismay over it’s impact on ordinary Chinese people.
In this particular video all of his information is public domain and widely scrutinised by his substantial audience fluent in the language. Understand that in a closed society with no journalism, no independent rule of law and no democratic accountablility … nothing can ever be 'proved' to a standard you would approve of.
But the coinkidinkies are stacking up.
Did you read through the links provoded and check the veracity of what was being said there?
Yes I have. In one comment I'm not going to dissect the Grayzone article in full but one small item will have to suffice:
The group also believes that modern science was invented by aliens as part of a scheme to take over human bodies
So I followed the link to the somewhat dense lecture and found the relevant passage:
If you strip away the traditional idioms and allegories unfamiliar to the Western mind, the basic message is simple enough … that science on it's own is an insufficient basis for morality. This is an assertion I think is very true, as do millions of people who place an equal or greater weight on the spiritual domain.
Yet the author of the Grayzone piece strip mines this presentation for the most gaudy and contentious possible interpretation. A sure sign of a hostile and biased agenda.
You claimed he was xenophobic (which is just a polite word for racist) when you knew nothing about him and his background. You have no answer to that.
What the actual fuck are you on Red? The guy's videos are almost cut and paste propaganda of the sort explored in the Greyzone article. And that propaganda leverages off historical western racist attitudes towards Asians in the broad sense and Chinese in the narrower one.
I don't have to know jack-shit about the guy to understand the underlying nature of his argument or position.
On the specifics that he talks to, like I said before, there is a lot of arm waving (eg – conspiracy theory junk over a missing picture) and out-right lies (eg – the gap in timing between given events.)
As for the "item" you want to dissect by way of your second comment, well…the piece explicitly states that science was passed down to humans by alien beings. And that was the sole reason Ajit Singh provided the link in his Grayzone piece – to show that he wasn't just making shit up when he wrote on an aspect of the Falun Gong belief system.
I guess you're being serious when you call that basic journalistic practice a "sure sign of a hostile and bias agenda"….
The guy's videos are almost cut and paste propaganda of the sort explored in the Greyzone article.
And if I accused you of doing 'cut and paste' CCP propaganda it wouldn't fly for one simple reason … while you and I have never met, we have interacted here for almost a decade. We have a sense of each other's authenticity.
I don't have to know jack-shit about the guy to understand the underlying nature of his argument or position.
By contrast I do know more than jack-shit about the guy and have gained a sense of who he is over a period of some years now. (I just can't recall exactly when I first watched one of his videos. Typically the two of them would hop on their motorbikes and using wireless headsets, chat on random topics while driving around showing you the real country). The point is, him and Winston some of the relatively rare Westerners who have lived in mainland China for a decade or so, speak the language and have a strong social network into Chinese society. What is more they are reflecting very similar information that I am hearing from my own much more modest circle.
The Chinese people are not a vast hive mind; millions loath the CCP for much more intimate reasons than we understand.
the piece explicitly states that science was passed down to humans by alien beings.
And that's always the problem when scientific materialists read religious writings literally. Substitute the word 'angel' for 'alien' and you can find very similar ideas within many other religious works.
And if I accused you of doing 'cut and paste' CCP propaganda it wouldn't fly for one simple reason …
Hmm. I don't read any languages other than English and am not therefor subjected to much propaganda from non-English sources. "Your" wee fella on the other hand is outright parroting lines that have been debunked or found to have no underlying credible source and that, in addition, come from very specific and identifiable actors that have obvious political agendas to push.
You might also want to reflect that the lines he parrots do not correlate with what epidemiologists working through notionally independent bodies attached to the UN are saying. (I say "notionally" because many orgs affiliated to the UN are generally and quite reasonably regarded as projections of "western" power throughout much of the world).
One of the basic techniques for on-line propaganda is to build up audiences off the back of innocuous posts. So saying you "know" some online presence on the basis of previous non-political postings they've made, and spring-boarding from their non-political presence to assert that they're neutral or trustworthy, doesn't really mean very much when it comes down to discerning credibility.
See, I'll just stick my hand straight up and say that for me, a person who just 'all of a sudden' starts posting political content that's obviously deeply informed by a political ideology, is a big red flag indicating that a bit of digging or caution is in order, aye?
"Your" wee fella on the other hand is outright parroting lines that have been debunked or found to have no underlying credible source and that, in addition, come from very specific and identifiable actors that have obvious political agendas to push.
Ah no. Go back and actually watch the damn video. He's quoting official public domain sites for his core information.
One of the basic techniques for on-line propaganda is to build up audiences off the back of innocuous posts.
Ah not for six or more years … that's stretching it.
I'll just stick my hand straight up and say that for me, a person who just 'all of a sudden' starts posting political content
Again no. These two guys have been doing this for years now, and the transition to 'political' posts has been a natural consequence of real life events they've gone through.
You know, not everyone on the internet who is saying something you don't like is necessarily speaking in bad faith.
Why are you so keen to discredit two ordinary people on YT when we know the CCP has lied about so many other things? Their human rights record is appalling, they have no independent media or court system. Foreign journalists have either been expelled or intimidated. People who embarrass the Party are silenced, there is a massive firewall around their internet, everything in China is either censored or beholden to the CCP and it's dictates.
Yet for some weird reason their word is pure fucking gospel on this COVID debacle. /facepalm
Yet for some weird reason their [CCP] word is pure fucking gospel on this COVID debacle. /facepalm
Really? Because I don't think I've read or linked to a single source from the CCP. I've linked to investigative pieces that have been published by highly credible sites such as The Grayzone. And I've read what various epidemiologists from around the world who do not seem to have any political angle – (ie – they focus on their area of expertise) – reckon on the Chinese reaction to Covid.
And then I've read or watched the stuff that you and Tony and others have put up here, and it simply doesn't hold water. I've also read various corporate media pieces that shoehorn obvious propaganda into their pieces (When I say "obvious", I'm referring to stuff that has been investigated and debunked).
And again. (How often am I going to have to reiterate this?) I don't trust Chinese bureaucracy any more or any less than I trust bureaucracy embedded in any other political or ideological framework.
Highly plausible.
The 6 people tested who have antibodies (assuming they were infected with Covid-19) to the virus where the bats are, I found this to be interesting.
So why is there not an outbreak where the 6 people are?
Possibly there was an outbreak and it was covered up.
At some point corona virus was going to be a reality whether it came from a lab or a wet market.
No one likes a cover up. Even if the CCP admit it, this is not going to change or influence the impact of Covid -19.
Funny you should post this cause I started watching this guy a couple of weeks back + Serpentza. The coverage today of what China is doing to foreigners will be interesting (ADV podcast channel).
Yep, interesting.
Mortality figures far higher than the CCP admit – as much as 1 million?
The CCP has almost from the beginning lied to the world about the CCPvirus!
Falun Gong have always said the CCP lies.
This isn't a very useful indicator. Dual SIM phones are very common in China (especially Oppo which we use ourselves). In a major downturn like this it's highly likely millions of people simply let one of their SIM cards go.
Okay. Having done laughing my arse off at the level of stupid in this sub-thread, I thought people who stumble across this part of Open Mike and who have a modicum of common sense, might want to read a piece of journalism that essentially and efficiently rips to pieces the type of xenophobic tripe on display hereabouts
What was the name of the guy in 1984 everyone was meant to scream at when his image came up on screen? That guy. You guys who keep pushing these anti-Chinese conspiracies are like bulgy eyed members of that audience.
Here's the entire sub-header of the article…
A widely disseminated and highly dubious story asserting China concealed tens of thousands of deaths originated from a US government propaganda outlet and a veteran member of a right-wing anti-China cult.
And no. I'm not an advocate for Chinese style governance and don't pick sides when it comes to different styles and levels of bureaucratic governance – it's all toxic.
OTOH, this Cambridge Uni virologist says the data from China is reliable.
That's certainly one way to combat xenophobic tosh…provide authoritative links/voices to the contrary. Personally, I prefer to simply unmask the peddlers of hate and their agenda. Plus, it short circuits idiots who might be tempted to play a numbers game based on a volume of sources… 😉
Well, I prefer to go with evidence-based info. I particularly liked that piece because it's clear and factual.
The other thing I found interesting in the interview was that the best way to respond to a pandemic is to stop people travelling, and tell them to stay at home.
Two different, though not entirely separate things on the go in this sub-thread. One is medically based info on a virus and how to combat its spread…the other is how to combat the spread of politically motivated narratives that 'bad actors' are constructing on the back of the virus.
Horses for courses?
Lol shorter Gareth Morgan on RNZ just now – ancient boomer tilts at yesterdays windmills.
A prime example of the adage. "An expert is a person who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows everything about nothing".
I respect his motives, but he sees everything through the lens of his narrow finance and economic studies.
Now he is saying don't put money, in the privatised super scheme, Kiwisaver. You know, the one he made millions out of. FIFY.
And. Isn’t using the “boomer” meme, getting a bit tired. It was never accurate in the first place. Following the lazy idea that it was a generation, and not class, that is screwing people.
"…And. Isn’t using the “boomer” meme, getting a bit tired…"
Actually, I think in Morgan's case here it is appropriate as he is clearly is a boomer still fighting the battles of the 1980s, mentioning Muldoon and dragging out tired think big tropes, before launching into a full blooded Rogernomics prescription complete with the worn out business jargon of the 80's and 90's .
I'll happily concede that one.
As usual Gareth is not afraid to make himself unpopular Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Gareth got the memo about Homo rationalis, economicus, and closed his mind thereafter.
His redeeming feature though, is that he does have a heart.
Gareth makes the point that 'saving the economy' in the wake of the 1970's oil shocks was what Muldoon attempted … with very mixed results. Including the virtual bankruptcy of the nation, destabilising NZ and ushering in the conditions that made Rogernomics possible. Unintended consequences and all that …
Right now I support what Ardern's govt is doing to keep our business community treading water for a few months while we get this damned bug under control … but it's a strategy that does have it's risks.
As an aside has anyone noticed what Josh Frydenburg has just implemented an interesting measure that reduces the threshold for their Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) from $1.2b to zero … effectively giving him complete control over all foreign investment into Australia. Clearly the concern is that CCP run state owned entities will exploit the distressed state of Australian business assets to swoop in and buy up even more of Australia at firesale prices.
"Right now I support what Ardern's govt is doing to keep our business community treading water for a few months while we get this damned bug under control … but it's a strategy that does have it's risks."
….and TINA
?
An alternative view is exactly what Gareth is talking to. He's right in this … neither Australia nor NZ can afford to keep this level of wage subsidy up for more than a three months or so … otherwise we run the very real risk of losing what little economic sovereignty we have left.
There Is No Alternative….to the immediate actions the Gov is taking.
A crisis by its nature is immediate….the post crisis strategy is where the debate is.
Depends on whether they pay banks to expand the money supply, Muldoon biggest mistake, or, they use the means that took us out of the 30's depression.
Call it money printing, helicopter money or whatever you like, it worked, without leaving us hopelessly in debt.
Very doubtful it will lead to runaway inflation, when the economy is so deep in recession. And necessary to kickstart economic activity, to replace what we have lost.
The extra taxes, and increased capability, resulting, from increasing the velocity of turnover locally, paid for the recession, "money printing" just as it will, now. It needs a Government with the courage to say we have to increase the Government share of the economy. To work, money needs to go to the bottom end, who will spend it.
The alternative, the one pursued after Muldoon, did not work then, and it won't work, now.
That the Nation was “bankrupt” after Muldoon is an easily debunked myth. From those indulging in what Naomi Kline calls “disaster capitalism” to make themselves rich from the situation. Helped by a crop of deluded ideological fools in Government.
it is a mistake to view the NZ economy in isolation
"I asked him [Keynes] if he would borrow if he were in New Zealand in order to get through the crisis. Keynes replied, ‘Yes, certainly if I were you I would borrow if I could, but if you asked me as a lender I doubt whether I would lend to you.’
(Diary of the Minister of Finance Downie Stewart, 1932)
https://briefingpapers.co.nz/public-debt-how-low-should-it-go/
It is also a mistake to overestimate the necessary effects of overseas trades and cashflows on an economy.
As we have already discussed tourism, to take one example, having almost a net zero, or even negative effect on our foreign exchange balance. To keep those people in work, we need money circulating internally, so New Zealanders will take those bus tours and use that accommodation, for several years to come.
In New Zealand we are in the fortunate position of having enough resources to supply most necessities internally.
It is not going to help if we have hungry people, while there is food sitting unused on a farm. Just for lack of money to make the transfer.
Interesting from 1932. Because to a large extent they didn’t borrow. They “printed money” to use the unemployed planting forests, building and road making, utilising resources that didn’t need overseas money.
and as has already been explained NZ produces very little that is critical to the functioning of a first world economy so you cannot expect to replace foreign currency generating activity solely with domestic activity.
Yes. One of the biggest mistakes since the 80's.
Don't you have faith in capitalism, to remedy that?
Losing activity, such as international tourism, where inbound activity was close to outbound activity, has little effect on our ability to buy imports.
The problem is those without work, in New Zealand.
while our ability to supply those needs has deteriorated since the 80s (and the complexity of those needs has increased)…it has always been the case in NZ since the beginning of colonial time…so do I have faith that capitalism will change that?….it hasnt in approaching 200 years
Yes. It has always been Government, at least here, which has grown our capability in the big things.
I do have faith in Kiwi ingenuity, in the small things.
Many times in my life, I've had to find workarounds and substitutes, simply because New Zealand's month long supply lines can't get me a part or a tool in reasonable time. We are used to it.
And. I suspect we are going to get many of our competent tradespeople back from Australia, if we start to value them, again.
"It needs a Government with the courage to say we have to increase the Government share of the economy." Too true.
Unfortunately I don't think Grant Robertson has such courage or perhaps that he even understand the consequences of the economy being left in the hands of private interests.
It remains to be seen.
But, the fact he went ahead with the minimum wage rise and a rise to welfare, even if small, suggests he is not that much of an ideological neo-lib.
Stop fearmongering without basis. New Zealand and Australia can afford wage subsidies in 3 months time as will likely be necessary. New zealands economic sovereignty is the reason for that and not under threat.
The NZ dollar is not a reserve currency. The more we borrow the lower the value of our currency drops. Drop too far and our assets become available to overseas buyers at very low prices …
Whether it's three months or six I'm not sure anyone can tell; but logically borrowing to fund this cannot go on forever so there must be some upper limit. Any ideas?
"The more we borrow the lower the value of our currency drops. Drop too far and our assets become available to overseas buyers at very low prices …"
Your claim is not substantiated by any correlation between govt debt levels and the value of countries currencies however.
Yes, another superb commentary by Gareth. He would offer some sublime leadership and ideas in the Command economy we are heading into.
Morgan misrepresents what is occurring….he makes the same misidentification as Rod Oram did the other day….the government largesse is not a stimulatory measure , it is life support ….and the business support is not a universal underwriting of business viability but will dispensed on the basis of future viability (as determined by the banks)…there will be a few exceptions deemed nationally critical such as Air NZ…Robertson has repeatedly explained this.
All of this is short term and temporary…..if it proves not to be then the debate can be had.
What Morgan appears to be calling for is some form controlled herd immunity so business may resume asap and let the chips fall where they will…..as a strategy its both mindless and heartless not to mention entirely impractical but it is a sure fire way to create the conditions that could see the implementation of martial law
Didn't he say spend money on people, not failing businesses? You disagree with that?
Gareth's motives, are fine.
It is his reliance on the economic dogma that has been applied, and failed, that is questionable.
I have just been looking at Susan Miller who is an astrology. She has a 2020 Corona virus outlook. The planets are certainly aligned and her prediction is based on astrology.
Note: if not a believer, each to their own.
Astrology 🙄 Save me, Jebus.
😂
Astrology …. pfffft. But there's some neighbourhood chickens that should be worried. I feel the need to examine entrails.
"Note if not a believer, each to their own."
Bock bock bock.
I suppose I better look up what bock means in slang incase it means something you should not say. Too late I clicked publish.
I've never heard of someone who is an astrology, but if she is an astrologer then it's all irrelevant, they are just deluded snake oil salesmen.
Correction astrologer, as you have pointed this out.
The whole of Bauer Media just went under.
Listener, Woman's Weekly, Woman's Day, North and South.
Plus a whole swathe of trade publications.
Yeah I have been trying to write a media article about implications which was decidedly pessimistic. Looks like I was beaten to it.
Herald has to be in the gun too.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/02-04-2020/publisher-of-nz-listener-womans-weekly-north-south-to-shut-down/
A mix of not being able to publish in hardcopy during the lockdown, as well as the drop in ad revenue from other businesses affected by the lockdown? I assume this is a pragmatic decision from the German owners around their own business survival post-pandemic.
Gareth Morgan should do something useful and buy the Listener then hand it over to someone else to run.
Yes, it IS a German owned conglomerate.
In the short to medium term this is devastating for the NZ employees of the conglomerate.
But it might also be an opportunity to return media to NZ ownership, and possibly to break up the neoliberal conglomerates.
The financial basis for doing this is no doubt problematic. But it could lead to breaking the neoliberal ethos that dominates our news media.
I hope so. It would be very cool if some of the progressive journos got together and formed a collective. No-one would do that before because of the financial risk, but now so many are losing their income 🙁
Time for a range of new non-corporate funding options to be explored. Won't solve the investigative journalism issue though, which I assume needs major infrastructure.
I wonder how Newsroom and The Spinoff are doing.
The seem to use various funding sources, and don't seem to be dependent on advertising. Newsroom was initially set up by sponsorship from Auckland and Victoria Universities. Now they do use some corporate sponsorship as well as continuing tertiary funding. They also get some funds from their Newsroom Pro, which is a
Spinoff was founded initially by Lightbox, but now uses some funding from "partners", meaning some "brands", plus they get some government funding from NZ On Air, and Creative NZ.
Both use PressPatron for public donations.
I think you are on the right track to point to these publications, weka, because they look to be in a good position to pick up some of the slack left by Bauer's withdrawal from NZ.
I think it probably should be on the government's public service media agenda to support such publications as part of it's Covid-19 economic package.
Can't wait for the likes of Mike Hosking, his wife (whose name I can never remember), HDPA, Barry Soper and that doyen of the CC deniers, Leighton Smith go down in a heap of burning cinders.
They will have to sell their mansions, holiday homes (they don't have baches and cribs), their orchards and vineyards.
Poor things.
to whom will they sell? (should they be forced to)
Will not get much for his pants with stains on
This is a media death-spire which is a permanent alteration to media.
Most if not all of those publications will not come back. Many more radio stations will die. Maybe a few of the hardy trade publications will get picked up.
We can list the sum total of the surviving media like so:
– TVNZ (in its digital form once merged with RNZ)
– Mediaworks including TV3 and the radio stations (but we know Oaktree will sell or just kill them off one by one)
– NZME/NZHerald
– Otago Daily Times. Family owned.
– Kiwiblog
– The Standard
– The Daily Blog
– Scoop (for those who just want to see the raw releases)
I think that's it now.
Can anyone think of a publication which can survive three monthly cycles with a 90% drop in advertising?
But the ginormous winners are:
– Facebook
– Baidu
– Google
– FoxNews
And after that it really just
has Mediaworks already been sold then?
Oaktree Capital haven't had it for that long.
They are selling off their New North Road headquarters and retreating to Ponsonby Road.
The New Zealand media that survive are the ones that have state funding in very large lumps.
Even with that state funding it would be interesting to see if Maori TV survives.
Its pretty ironic that mass deregulation only leads to less choice and diversity, as big players swallow up smaller players.
The US market is more regulated than ours, yet, it has way more media choices, especially in the likes of radio and suscriber TV.
For example, there is no way anywhere in the world that a pay TV operator would have been able to own a free to air channel (Prime), or single operators would be able to own multiple radio frequencies in the same area.
If the ComCom had any imagination, they would have waved through the Sky/Vodafone and StuffMe mergers on the condition that Sky sells Prime, and NZME sells some of its radio 'brands'.
The US is the biggest media market in the world so I can't see how the comparison is useful. It has more choices because it has 330 million people, and we have less than 5.
I'm not sure why you're complaining about lack of media diversity here but also supporting the mega-merger. As you can see today a merger of titles is no protection against total loss.
Sky is next on the data-watch list.
The media rules for everyone from the Prime Minister to the Commerce Commission to the Minister of Broadcasting to the remaining leaders and brands are getting re-written right this very day.
"I'm not sure why you're complaining about lack of media diversity here but also supporting the mega-merger."
As I said before, the Commerce Commission could have asked Sky to sell Prime, and NZME some of its radio brands.
Very hard to know all the variations that were proposed through the multiple High Court challenges to the Commerce Commission double refusals.
All too late now anyway. No sport, so no Sky.
It's very sad news indeed.
But a four week shutdown with a big wage subsidy does not kill a successful business.
Oh it can and it will kill more, the advertising industry is all but dead for the foreseeable, retail shops will be decimated, pretty much everything travel related is toast, the list is huge and the flow on effects are going to be massive.
Watch Suicides increase dramatically in the next 12 months, everyone is fearing Covid right now but the really scary thing is how the country looks in 3-6 months.
Mortgage holidays just kick the can down the road, consumer debt will be left unpaid, Debt collectors will be busy…
Yes, the effects are massive. No argument.
But the fantasy is that the lockdown is the cause, and somehow NZ could escape the virus and the horrendous global consequences by doing … something that is never made specific.
The choices were Bad or Worse or Unthinkable. We've gone with Bad and that was the right choice.
Oh dear this is not good!
Its going to get rough.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120754944/publisher-of-metro-womans-day-closes-in-nz-amid-coronavirus-woes
Yeah, where will Paula get on a front page now.
The Allen
Probably in the same media outlets that places Jacinda on the front page.
But given that the remaining media outlets are increasingly likely to be owned by the government only, Paula won't get a look in.You'll only have Jacinda to look forward to on a regular basis.
Today's news represents a major blow to the freedom of expression and the contest of ideas in New Zealand society.
Why, have they closed down Google and Facebook and Twitter and all the other outlets for media and social media? There are vastly more outlets for free speech than there ever were in the glory days of magazines.
Today's news is bad for many reasons, not least the people losing their jobs. But it has no lasting effect on "freedom of expression", and trying to crowbar it in is pretty low.
investigative and indepth journalism in NZ was already struggling. More shutting down and leaving us with twitface google is actually really bad.
Shutting down journalism is really bad.
But the FreezePeach line is not about journalism. They don't care about that.
Our freedom to spew is unimpeded (the Listener didn't have to publish my letters, the internet does). Information is what we are losing.
Yes but we had freedom to speak before the internet so that aspect of it really has nothing to do with access to twitface google, if we are talking about the state not controlling what people can say.
However they said freedom of expression, and also said, in the same sentence, the importance of contesting ideas, which I think speaks more to their concerns about the MSM. I'd prefer a broad and robust MSM. Not sure if today's closure threatens that or not.
I note that when we had State owned media, they actually had much better journalism, and a greater diversity of opinion, than we've had recently.
My hope is that the unemployed, real, journalists, club together to give us something great.
If one organisation going under is a major blow to freedom of speech, speech wasn't that free in the first place.
Sucks for the staff, though.
we can hope it's only one organisation.
Sure, there's a wider issue about media in general, but I was particularly replying to the "today's news" bit,
Knew it wouldn't be long before a "but Jacinda" came along lol
I blame Coltheman and his campaign #turnardern.
OTOH, if they had announced it yesterday …
The Bauer decision smacks of a bit of disaster capitalism, they've been looking to off load those mastheads for a while so why not do it now and blame the virus/govt.
Exactly. They’ve been in the shit for ages. Now they have a handy excuse to pull the pin and something to blame other than their own incompetence and irrelevance.
Unfortunately, they probably wont be the last company to do this.
To; Mickey Savage – and To; Weka
It is a great Loss. The Listener – a truly brilliant weekly publication. Somehow, I feel the bones of the Listener wiil lay restless – but with Pride.
It will no doubt choose to fly a high Flag. Towering over the brilliance of little New Zealand.
The Listener used to be a brilliant publication, but has declined in recent years.
Ever since the listener started publishing unsigned "editorials" it was clear they were stuffed
You mean Joanne Black reckons?
I haven't read it for years since it shifted to the Right.
I haven’t read it for years either. Not since they disgracefully got rid of Lois Daish, one of the few really good food writers we’ve ever had in NZ. Coincidentally as I heard the news about Bauer on the radio today I was just putting Lois’s great Lemon Macaroon Cake in the oven.
It's is lifestyle and health magazine with some light opinion pieces, some of which can sometimes be a bit of light relief. Nothing more nothing less. Anything which engages the brain and leaves you asking for more has been absent many years now -even the TV guide is useless as the content isn't worth watching anyway. No tears from this writer.
*&ck the "media" The private media for profit and propaganda model was and is broken. My heartfelt plea to this government is to let them fall . and establish a proper independent state funded media.
100% agree, Xanthe
The BauerMedia closure will be nothing short of disastrous if those iconic titles are allowed to disappear permanently. They're a NECESSITY for information, entertainment (most important in a time of severe lockdown), and morale generally.
The government will take a huge hit from this unless they change their tin-eared approach very, very quickly.
Only if people are dumb enough to believe "Jacinda dunnit". Or more likely, pretend to believe it for tiresome point-scoring.
The history of print media is littered with shutdowns and strikes and titles transforming. The Times of London was off the shelves for a year back in the pre-digital age. It's still around.
Global recession + internet = no advertising. Add in a conglomerate that cares little for NZ's "icons" and you have an inevitable result. Only the excuse has changed.
Only if people are dumb enough to believe "Jacinda dunnit".
Quite a lot of dumb people around, me ol' fellow-Ob. (Cf USA, Brazil, etc.)
Don't think it will be that disastrous (apart from the people losing jobs) there are plenty of other news sources & people quickly adapt. In 6 months time they will probably be mostly forgotten.
Lol – just watching Parliament TV and the Natz trying to be seen as relevant by picking small holes in the government's response to the pandemic. And, incidentally, wasting the time of important people who should be dealing with important matters.
Just remember, if you want an indication of how Simon and the Natz would have handled this crisis, just look at what Trump, Johnson and Morrison have achieved.
They would have put the interests of the economy first, however much they are rabbiting on about quarantine and so on.
Vitaly Albatros; life's generally shit so C19 is the least of our concerns.
The NZ Police are now going to at least have a chance at becoming half-decent now that the crooked piece of filth Mike Bush has finally slung his hook.
With a bit of luck the old creepy way those from Bush'es era think, is gone from the Office of the Commissioner of Police. I have dealt with creepy top cops and unfortunately I might need to again.
I am looking forward to see what Andrew Coster does age 44 to modernise the NZ Police and to reduce certain behaviour.
I do have praise for frontline cops and know that they do good work.
Follow-up: Bauer have now admitted that they did NOT apply for the wage subsidy. Even though the government was willing to pay it.
So unless you think the government should have allowed all economic activity to continue, or spend up large on advertising in magazines, then I'd suggest looking elsewhere for a scapegoat.
(Bauer's CEO is worth $3 billion. Just saying).
Think it fairly safe to assume that the lock down merely advanced plans already in place
Yeah I think they are just taking advantage of the shutdown – and from Germany this place would look like a far off nuisance.
However, I'd like to think that one of the state owned media would buy the titles for a $1 and put the journo's on the wage subsidy until this can be sorted through.. Also and this has happened with some of the newspapers – because they have been operating so long the back numbers photo's etc are covered by our various archive acts so they can't be dumped in the tip or transfered off shore. We lost a lot offshore when some other newspaper closed.
Why should the State owned media buy them?
Why don't you make an offer with your own money if you think it is such a good idea?
The "broken record" strikes again.
With the abject failure of the "small Government, low tax, privatise everything ideal, which is now costing us billions.
You would think even the most committed ideolog,would have clicked, by now.
He/she can't give up teasing us with a carrot, and donkeys that we are, we go forward. You know the solution; send to Coventry.
The person sent to Coventry is considered as absent; no one must speak to or answer any question he asks, except relative to duty, under penalty of being also sent to the same place.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/sent-to-coventry.html
Stuff:
Bauer Media Group has confirmed it did not apply for a wage subsidy to keep it going through Covid-19 disruption.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120754944/publisher-of-metro-womans-day-closes-in-nz-amid-coronavirus-woes
Maybe we should just nationalise the group and pay everyone the $575 k a week. Then sort through the mess and sue the directors for running something insolvent and claw back any excess distributions. Covid didn't do this.
'Maybe we should just nationalise the group and pay everyone the $575 k a week.'
I vote no, the government should not be buying or running the women's weekly and other similar publications. If the publications are in serious demand they should be purchased by a private company.
The NZ government has far more serious problems and issues to spend its (our) money on.
I think some Government seed money, including maybe the "wage subsidy" to a group of journalists, wouldn't come amiss.
Though I consider print media pretty much overtaken by technology, we still need genuine, journalism.
Sorry I didn't really go far enough. No I'm not suggesting the government run it but if they can put it in a holding pattern & let the employees sort through the value as a likely co-operative while on the $575 a week that might give enough breathing space. It could actually be temporarily housed under one of the government media companies.
Although I confess these are still maturing thoughts. Generally though it is harder to rebuild a business from scratch than extract value form an existing situation or see that value fall to overseas hands.
I agree. Ardern was asked about the Bauer exit in her press stand up this afternoon. She said the government had offered them money to help them keep going but Bauer would not take it. Ardern said Bauer didn't exit NZ because of Covid-19, but were probably going to leave anyway.
So if the government was willing to provide support to Bauer, why not give a similar amount of money to enable some Kiwis to take over, at least some of the publications – especially the Listener?
I have spent a good part of the day lobbying Fonterra directors to put a bid on the Womans Weekly .The dairy womens network could rebrand it to the Dairy Womens Weekly and educate the people on where their food comes from.
"Educate the people" – that sounded kinda … Stalinist.
Hard to see how they would consider it bearing in mind their recent balance sheet write offs. I think that they have gone off the hopeless investment strategy.
Correct. Jacinda gave Bauer an easy out by not declaring them essential. Companies like Jucy Rentals were struggling big time before this governance disaster and Likely to get a golden parachute as well. The list goes on. This government is completely out of its depth and we are the meat in a shit sandwich.
We thought that this is a worthy way of helping out the poor and the hungry.
https://www.foodbank.org.nz/collections/zuru
With the debate on enhanced testing (to ascertain cv in the community) one of the better novel ideas is for sewage testing,
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.29.20045880v1
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29-03-2020/#comment-1695975
missed that,
I miss heaps …
Good piece by Anne Salmond.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120738955/dame-anne-salmond-a-better-way-to-kickstart-the-economy
There are good examples of bacterial and virus interaction with human antecedents such as australopithicus in Plagues progress (arno karlen) where arthritis caused one species to descend from the trees,and here we are now.
Yes, we can learn much from boring old science.
Now, it seems, a tiny little virus will make us head back to the caves.
Na the main reason they jump is filthy, and inhumane practices around meat markets . Love or hate supermarkets nz style supply chains you wont be catching a whole new nasty from them .
It's time to strike – when your in a shitty job, being paid shitty wages, told your essential then it's time to use that essential tag they threw at you and go on strike.
All right …. until it's decided that strikes in any essential industry will be deemed illegal. Then what?
It already is illegal to strike, for higher wages during the term of an employment contract.
One of the many restrictions on freedom, the supporters of "individual freedom" have legislated.
If you are deemed an "essential industry", grocery workers are not on that list yet, there are regulations about notice periods and continuation of "essential work".
https://www.employment.govt.nz/starting-employment/unions-and-bargaining/strikes-and-lockouts/
The essential workers have been given a 10% rise. National wants to do away with the general rise for the rest.
Got links for that? No one I know who is essential has got a raise.
Given the way our so called top business people are reacting to this crisis with yesterdays unworkable strategies then I think Grant needs to ask a few questions before handing out subsides.
Things like – have all employees and directors who are being paid over $100k been reduced to the annual equivalent of $100k for the next 3 years. For the avoidance of doubt of doubt directors should be considered as a .15FTE as many sit on multiple boards. (Have they been advised that they may not resign without a doctors certificate and have they undergone drug & alcohol tests. – not really)
Have all share buybacks been canned, are there worker reps appointed to the boards, Have plans been put in place to clawback excessive remuneration , dividends to overseas owners and other excessive payment arrangements.
Would you think it a good idea if a maximum salary of $100 k be set for anyone who is working in the State sector.
That would of course include all the MPs from the very top to the bottom. And we could remove all their perks. Do you agree? I'm sure Grant will implement it if you ask him nicely.
Something similar was the case in the State sector in the past.
Salaries were not high, but they had job security, and regular pay rises, and various perks, to compensate.
I haven't noticed extremely high salaries for some State employees, or even private ones for that matter, resulting in a lift in performance.
In fact, in the private sector, high salaries at the top, are a good predictor of a companies lack of longevity.
I wasn't actually claiming that State employees were necessarily on extremely high salaries.
However RedBaronCV seemed to regard $100 k as being a perfectly reasonable absolute maximum so I assume he will encourage Grant to apply the same rule to everyone employed by the taxpayer.
Trying for the distraction again by referencing public servants.
I have been discussing the private sector where top level salaries are huge compared to the average worker. We have been fed a diet for years about how these business leaders are so great etc etc that they deserve every cent. Well now there is trouble and if these businesses are to survive then they need to cut costs. Overall it is better for the economy if they do survive albeit for a time paying lower but more evenly spread wages. Once a business goes it's a lot harder to rebuild it from the ground up.
A disproportionate level of payroll is going to the upper end so that is any easy hack and the recipients should have the resilience to wear this given what they have earned in the past.. Many of these businesses are also going to use the government subsidy. Taxpayers fund that money and the national borrowing will have to be paid back and this will fall harder on younger taxpayers who have many more years to pay.
Frankly I am dammed if I can see why they should be lumped with the burden of supporting high end earners.
I also understand that you are likely to be mourning the loss of the " greed is good mantra" and extreme capitalism but this crisis has shown that it is a very hollow beast if it needs to be fed by the state. So sympathy but the rulles need to change.
You may appreciate this article.
http://kjt-kt.blogspot.com/2011/04/kia-ora-corporatism-and-neo-liberalism.html
“The fact is all the overpaid managers, greedy directors and parasitic shareholders could not even live, let alone have fortunes without the efforts of cleaners, technicians, plumbers, lath hands, secretaries and rubbish collectors”.
Do you really regard $100 k/year is huge, or upper end, or high end?
If so why does that as a limit not apply to everyone. If you don't really see it as the top of what anyone should earn why do you propose that no-one in a private firm should earn more?
Twisting things .
Suggesting that the high wages could be repurposed to minimize drain on the taxpayer before govt handouts are given is not advocating a blanket level .
happy to drop to $50k but the $100k is the level above which disclosure is given in most annual reports so its useful to roughly calculate the skew or estimate the GINI .
But hey if these overpaid managerial staff were that great then they would be easily able to ride out a month shutdown by having sufficient reserves. When their only strategys are firing people and wanting a socialist bailout then they are not worth the money being paid to them.
However, I suspect that they will fight hard to remain part of the problem not part of the solution.
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2020/04/01/lab-staff-put-to-the-tests.html
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/list.html?tag=news:coronavirus
I had a great time out doors today trimming back the tall grass adjacent to where I live. I found a really good use for a 350mm Mitre 10 handsaw cost $6.28c. It was better to use than hedge clippers ( which I would have had to walk 30 mins to get and I might of been stopped and questioned) or secateurs which cause joints to swell. The handsaw cuts grass really well from the base. Can't wait to get out there tomorrow for another hour.
Also a handsaw is good to cut agapanthus. Ingenuity is a good thing.
Has anyone found a good use for something during the lockdown?
Yeah, I made a fadge holder for the wool fadges I use for holding weeds on the way to the compost heap.. A commercial mower man was next door with a fadge holder and I thought I could make one like his from the poles of a small and cheap unusable canopy, the ones with the plastic corners and joiners that fit 12mm pipe. So I made a very light but strong square pipe framed box with 900mm sides and height and use 20mm plastic pipe split lengthwise to hold the fadge onto the top pipe rail. Cost nothing. Very useful and holds far more than a wheel barrow and is so easy to fill.
Sounds great.
Tools.. yeah no problem..
I was getting frustrated with having to go through hoops to push data back from a linux box to the code repository server at work.
Problem was that the vpn able to access work was a windows only app due to compliance. But working at home I don't want to hook my monitor to the frigging laptop because it was setup for the TS server. So I code using the linux server and a bitlocked external SSD.
But this was awkward, and on monday I managed to trash the bitlocked partition after the usb link to the drive went down during the weekend – looks like that is something to avoid with fuse file systems. After I recovered it….
So I got the git tool to clone the repo on windows. Then got the git tool on linux to clone the code from the windows repo via the unreliable cifs over the bench network.
Going the other way, edited code is committed to the local git and pushed to the windows laptop. Finally at the end of the day I push the culmative changes to the repo server at work.
That saves me endless grief and still keeps those code mods safe and me not compromising my home setup.
Is that the type of tool use you were looking for?
😈
Nah – sorry to disappoint.
Now to digress completely. The RSS feeds on the side – for a couple of them when the title of the article is clicked on I would normally expect to see the actual article. However Frank's has always given us a nice picture of Frank and now Pundit gives us the Photo attached to the article. Any chance of dazzling them with a bit of computorize so they can rehook up the trailer correctly to the car – so to speak.
Much thanks
"Is that the type of tool use you were looking for?"
Yes (even though I do not understand what you describe) and it does not need to be limited to the use of tools.
Chris Martenson on his latest Covid-19 Peak Prosperity
[about 6.30 in]
posting discusses the blame game – Dr. Birx saying that China didn’t provide enough data/correct data so the USA didn’t take the epidemic seriously.
Apart from the fact that China lied, and everyone with half a brain knew that, he (Chris) pointed out that the American security services would have been listening to telephone/internet traffic in China throughout the developing days of the crisis. They (CIA or whoever) must have known how serious the problem was – but apparently they didn’t pass this information onto the White House, or Trump didn’t want to believe anything negative about his good friend Xi.
Which begs the question: if the USA security service knew about the crisis in Wuhan, why didn’t the other 5 Eyes partners also know? And if they knew, why didn’t our spooks warn our government?
It makes you wonder what the hell our GCSB or SIS or etc are doing, and whether they even remotely start to resemble value for money!
Spys are not scientists. Maybe Governments thought that they were prepared.
Dr. Birx saying that China didn’t provide enough data/correct data so the USA didn’t take the epidemic seriously.
Dr Birx is a lying little cunt of a man then – Tony Veitch (not etc) who has been provided with, and never challenged, the published timeline that shows up Dr Birx as a lying little cunt of a man … right?
Or are you so far gone that reason and common sense occupies a universe you're no longer a part of?
Look. Here's a repeat of a link I provided under another piece of your xenophobic bullshit that will helpfully explain where these narratives you push are coming from. For an even deeper understanding and insight of the people and orgs pushing this barrel you've put your shoulder to, click through the links that the article provides. (The fair.org articles are comprehensive and worth the while)
And when you've done reading, don't come back here posting any xenophobic bile and expect any kind of a free pass on the basis of your supposed ignorance.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/04/01/us-conspiracy-theory-on-china-coronavirus-trump/#more-22821
Except Dr Deborah Brix is not a man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Birx
lol Gotme!
I admit I couldn't get the vid to play first time around and assumed the vids front picture….
Anyway. My bad.
You have just provided a great example of going off half-cocked without reading/watching the video – even though close direction was given to the relevant part.
Of course Dr. Birx was lying – but that doesn't mean the CCP haven't also lied.
You may say you're no apologist for the murdering repressive CCP regime, but . . .
Try reading this link before commenting!
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/chinas-devastating-lies/
On the one hand, there is your sickening Sinophobia, and on the other there is my recognition that all bureaucracies share distinct characteristics whether they are Chinese bureaucracies embedded within a state capitalist context or a NZ bureaucracy embedded within the context of a representative parliamentary democracy.
I've provided comprehensive links from trustworthy journalists and publications that demonstrate the falsehood of the narrative you keep pushing – a false narrative that puts people of Asian appearance in harms way.
Did you actually read the link and the embedded references?
The Wuhan authorities actively suppressed (ie lied) information about the human to human transmission of the virus. Perhaps that information could have been useful to other governments?
Li Wenliang warning other medical people about the emergence of a dangerous new virus and then was forced to admit to 'spreading false rumours' is not evidence of CCP lies/suppression?
Dial back on the emotive language ('sickening') if you want to have a mature debate, hey.
So hang on, you are saying the local bureaucrats lied, or that the medical profession lied? And what did they lie about? Covid wasn't identified in early December, and so any information about transmission of human to human (if there was any realisation on that front) would have been a notification about SARs or MERs – ie, incorrect "best guess" information. The very type of information that Dr Li, somewhat understandably, but utterly unethically released to his class mates…and that he was correctly reprimanded for. (Just as would have happened in NZ, Germany, the US or elsewhere)
I'm no medical expert, so I can only guess it takes as long as the identification of Covid took to identify a new virus. But sure, before the elimination of all other possibilities, it might be prudent to give authorities a heads up.
So..
Dr Zhang reports to the local Centre for Disease Control on Dec 27.
The Wuhan Health Commission alerts the National Health Commission, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and the WHO on Dec 31
Covid identified on Jan 7
Virus sequences shared on Jan 12.
Btw, this new piece you're throwing up (The Lancet study it relies on) flat stick contradicts those stupid videos you posted before. Y'know, the ones that claimed to have identified "patient zero" and the source of the outbreak?
Anyway…you mention "mature debate". So how about you get off the anti-China bandwagon that's stirring up animosity towards Asian looking people everywhere, and be aware there are identifiable actors in western circles who are furthering their own political agenda by creating and pushing the false anti-China lines you're posts have been running?
And I'll say this again. All bureaucracies, whether Chinese or Kiwi or whatever, tend to self protect. So major issues are routinely downplayed or ignored (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Christchurch asbestos, Mad Cows Disease….) while lower level bureaucrats learn to cover their arses and not be the messenger whose career trajectory will come to an abrupt halt.
Knowing that, beyond a broader analysis, shouldn't our attention be on the bureaucracies and the decisions that affect us – ie, the ones we might have some impact on? Though maybe you prefer to be a footsoldier for someone else's cause and to spend your time firing off in the direction they point you at. I dunno.
So how about you get off the anti-China bandwagon that's stirring up animosity towards Asian looking people everywhere
How about a lot of lefties getting off the anti-Trump bandwagon that stirs up animosity towards white looking people everywhere?
The logic of both statements being flawed …. but can you spot it?
Here is the simple logic of what we are talking about. For decades the CCP has routinely lied about almost everything, from Tianamen Square, to their economic data, to organ theft, to concentration camps in the north, and on and on.
Then they have no independent media. All foreign journalists are either expelled or intimidated. The have a vast firewall around their internet. And you ask us to trust them?
Where did I say that trust should be extended to a bureaucracy of any shape or form?
You think I question the stories coming from "our side" because I trust the word coming from some bureaucratic structure or other?!
And your comparison to establishment Democrats and their corporate media allies running crap lines against Trump (with all that entails) is a pretty poor comparison, but does give the lie to your implication that western media is 'independent' or free in any meaningful sense of the word (they "follow the script" aye?)
Or Dr Birx is doing her level best to lay blame anywhere but where it belongs.
The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to help.
“It was heartbreaking to watch,” said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S
Both those things could be true.
We know for sure that the White House response was utterly inadequate and incompetent even given the things that were publicly known early on, and she has every reason to try to divert blame elsewhere.
But that isn't evidence for the accuracy or honesty of info coming out of China. I have yet to see any reason to be less skeptical of Chinese government statements than I am of White House statements.
However I think we can fairly sheet the blame for the train wreck of inaction and incompetence that has been the US response to this pandemic fairly and squarely on the nincompoop who currently occupies the Oval Office. She is really just following orders.
[Deleted long string of text with zillions of links in it. And where is the link to the quoted text?]
We can also add that America has such a narrow, one eyed ideological view of the world… they never set up a state funded health system (call it what you like) because they thought it was "Communism". Such a health system – which Obama tried to set up but was knocked back – would have been better geared towards a swift and commonsense response throughout the country instead of the fragmentation and the blame game they are currently playing.
They have no-one to blame but themselves for their foolishness.
Link is here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/31/fireside-chat-trump-should-deliver/?outputType=amp
Ta
I'm all for quotes being kept small, and I'm grateful to mods that go to the effort of trimming oversized ones. But if it isn't any more work, any chance of leaving a paragraph or even just a couple of sentences of the quote to make it easier to find the original piece?
In this case, the title that was left behind after my mass cull was a strong enough clue, I thought. The onus is on the commenter to put in the link to avoid others (including Moderators) having to search for it.
We have been lenient lately, but this not-linking habit is getting worse and it will lead to ‘educational’ bans soon.
We have a possible buyer already for Bauer's titles:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12322014
People need to calm down, and realize that the closure of a couple of magzine titles is not going to somehow lead to Stalinist Russia.
With the complete liquidation of over half of our country's remaining print editors, photographers, reporters, columnists, copywriters, ad buyers, printers, and distributers, it's probably a bit early to tell everyone to calm down just because you can see that the vultures have arrived.
Are you going to make an offer yourself if you think they are such a bargain?
It's not a bargain, it's a tragedy.
Seriously I cannot get over the number of utterly heartless pricks here who just want a little giggle when multiple industries, careers, and families just got wrecked in a single day.
What you are really claiming is that an obsolete industry, and that is what the newspaper and hard copy magazines are, should be kept going, and that the taxpayer should pay for it.
Well I would rather pay for things that are useful, such as healthcare. If you have some spare cash available why don't we spend it on lovely things like the manufacture of horse drawn carriages? Why do we need cars, or even trains, when we can have the stage coaches like the ones Cobb and Co used?
Why do we need the internet when we can use telegrams. They were much more romantic things than e-mails and everyone should be required to use them. Think of how you had them for weddings and the Queen would send you one on your hundredth birthday.
We could even go back to using leeches in our medical practices. To hell with those new fangled things like antibiotics.
I can quite readily have sympathy for the people who are losing their jobs, and I am not sitting having a "little giggle". The solution for the people involved is not to preserve their industry if it is obsolete. The thing to do is to retrain them for a new occupation. That is where our efforts should go. Our efforts shouldn't be spent on keeping alive things that nobody really wants anymore.
Of course if you really think that the old must be preserved and used at any cost I assume you will stop using the Internet to communicate and get news. Limit your news to what you read in the daily paper and your commenting to writing letters to the Editor. Would you do that? I certainly wouldn't.
… sez the man who just a day or two ago was waxing poetic about his use of a slide rule and log tables.
You are absolutely correct. I do still have log tables and a slide rule.
They are mine. I paid for them. I don't expect the taxpayer to supply me with new ones if I lose, or break, them. If I decide I still want them I will attempt to track down replacements and pay for them.
Do you see the difference? What I do is what I would ask you to do if you think an obsolete technology should be preserved. Pay for it yourself.
Bit of an esoteric thread for a company that refused government assistance to get through the period where it couldn't sell to customers, and promptly folded.
If they were obsolete businesses I would agree with you.
The NZ Women's Weekly had a readership of over 500,000.
Even the Listener still had a solid subscription base of 30,000.
Magazines are not necessarily obsolete.
You are confusing obsolescence with the massacre of half an industry through Bauer treating New Zealand as a single unit.
Yours is the same logic that enabled Roger Douglas to go through the entire country and kill whole industries within years. There was no need for the speed and force of that destruction in the late 1980s and there's no need for it now either.
That is what has made the Prime Minister react so vehemently.
To be really clear with you: there is no private sector industry in New Zealand outside of health that will not be devastated in the next year. So your sorry logic is just crap.
"The NZ Women's Weekly had a readership of over 500,000."
Really. Figures I have seen say that the circulation peaked at about 250,000 copies in the early 1980's. It had a circulation of about 82,000 in 2011. I don't now what the current numbers are but I understand it had continued to decline
According to Roy Morgan it had a readership of 140,000 in the year to June 2019. Thsi was a drop of 24,000 from the previous year.
Where does your 500,000 come from? That seems to be a lot of readers/copy and seems well out of line with the Roy Morgan numbers.
Circulation in 1980's and 2011
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Woman%27s_Weekly
Readership June 2019
http://www.roymorgan.com/industries/media/readership/readership-new-zealand
There’s going to be more tragedies and wrecked lives than you can poke a stick at in the coming weeks and months Ad. Most of us, however, won’t get a national platform like the media types do to bitch and complain about it. We’ll just have to get on and try and make the best of it.
Can you please stop with the trolling?
Comparing "Australasia's largest independent contract newspaper printer” with a TS commenter is either utterly stupid or a troll move, which is utterly stupid too. Can you use your newly found calculator and work out what I’m telling you?
https://twitter.com/K_IngalaSmith/status/1245425346717114373
lol…wheres that from?…as in what country?
UK, I suspect?
Thatcher was admiringly referred to, by her followers, as "The Iron lady, not for turning.
so i believe….the rust reference is particularly entertaining
Yep, UK.
North East London, Lived there for a few years.
Yes. Me too. Walthamstow.
Whew. What a relief. Head MOH Honcho is going to look closely at the US CDC 's aggressive review of the Who Gets To Wear a Facemask policy.
Despite health professionals and care workers and those with lived experience of surviving in a virus soup all clamouring for the Ministry of Health to review its decree that only those who are symptomatic and those in contact with obviously sick people need to wear masks…Ashley Bloomfield (who will deservedly go down in history as yet another numpty MOH Boss) still refuses to change that advice until he gets the go ahead by the experts on SARs type pandemic management…our US overlords.
RNZ has the piece.
Read it and weep.
We are very possibly doomed.
The clowns are running the circus.
I feel you are being unreasonably harsh upon those working within the MoH (and DHBs)…yes the community care sector is and has been poorly resourced but are doing stirling work (some are exceptional) for scant financial reward but IMO the Gov response has been very good, perhaps given the starting point and timeframe , exceptional….that is not to say there are not shortcomings or improvements to be made but we would be hard pressed to find a more competent response anywhere else in the world.
Competent?
You are joking right?
Because there are health professionals out here who disagree.
Like doctors and nurses and epidemiologists and other academics who don't require gimmicky hairdos to boost their profile.
Still persisting in the message that asymptomatic people are not a risk to others….sigh.
no..i am not joking. have a look at whats happening around the world
After reading and seeing idiots not complying with separation, which has the potential to extend this level 4 shutdown, and that we don't have a plan B to isolate.
How will we know if what we have sacrificed was worth it, and the marginal cost should we extent this shut down ? especially as the personal cost (both financial and emotional) that we are all incurring increases.
We'll know if we're using ice rinks as morgues and using the army to transport truckloads of corpses by the end of it.
Refrigerated trucks are being used in NY, let's keep trying to keep that at bay huh?
that sort of thing, yeah.
My god I have to agree with bridges on something.
All returning kiwis must go into compulsory 14 day quarantine.!!!
Don't they already?
Or is he after internment camps?
No most still get to toddle off home on an honesty system .
Not good enough .
Which even our health minister points out is very different to being quarantined.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120780372/health-minister-drives-to-local-park-to-ride-his-mountain-bike-amid-coronavirus-lockdown
If they show any symptoms or don't have an acceptable self-isolation plan they go into quarantine.
If they don't have symptoms and have an acceptable self-isolation plan, they are released to go into self-isolation and are supposed to be checked on in their self-isolation within 72 hours.
https://www.customs.govt.nz/about-us/news/media-releases/coronavirus-update/
Yeah na still not good enough
How would the state quarantine 4,000 people over a number of weeks? I'm curious for someone to answer this.
Lots of empty motels
and?
I'm of two minds.
For the sake of trying to end the lockdown as soon as possible, for sure just toss 'em all into quarantine and be done with it.
On the other hand, that they are trying to avoid being unnecessarily draconian suggests civil liberties still play at least some role in their thinking.
It also strikes me as an easy solution to a problem that doesn't necessarily exist.
Sure, do audit checks to make sure homecomers are self-isolating and so on, but I wonder if the more frequent dangerous non-compliers are people who didn't go overseas and don't think they're at risk.
The young locals that hung out and worked at places backpackers jammed into …
The "party of individual responsibility" doesn't trust people to use "individual responsibility"!
Note that, those who are untrustworthy themselves, tend to be the ones that don't trust other people.
Just saw your comment, a min after posting mine 😉
It's not about trust it's about stamping this fucking bug out.
2 weeks in a motel isnt much to ask . The only ones who would bitch will be the ones who had no intention of self isolating.
Simon Bridges said that!? The Leader of the Party whose dogma is personal responsibility? Or The Leader of the Party who is strong on Law & Order and that likes to pick on beneficiaries and others who’re already down? Give me a break, please! In the first meeting of ERC, he was asking repeatedly about over-reaching, etc. The guy is politicking, FFS.
The world is being run by idiots.
https://twitter.com/axios/status/1245457959829864448
We won't be missed.
https://twitter.com/billybragg/status/1245357272726937600
Someone might eat them if they get hungry enough.
Animals Rule Chernobyl Three Decades After Nuclear Disaster
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/
Fukushima same.
Gotta say, there's definite silver linings to these unscheduled rapid creations of wildlife reserves. Even if the price includes a few years of three-eyed fish.
What she said.
https://twitter.com/DrPeckPNP/status/1244062665535864832
Yep, didn't half make me want to sneeze!
All good. Negative result. Today is 14 days after possible contact, so I'm free to…… stay at home, keep safe and plant leeks and onions. 70 year olds acknowledge their age and vulnerability, and stay in the bubble, at home with the bubbles, and toast life.
I once played in 'Fiddler on the Roof" the role of the butcher, Lazar Wolf, who sang a duet with Tevya- "L'chaim!" "To Life!"
'L'chaim, everybody, l'chaim".
Epidemiologists did predict a second wave. But this soon?
Henan province in central China has taken the drastic measure of putting a mid-sized county in total lockdown as authorities try to fend off a second coronavirus wave in the midst of a push to revive the economy.
Curfew-like measures came into effect on Tuesday in Jia county, near the city of Pingdingshan, with the area’s roughly 600,000 residents told to stay home, according to a notice on the country’s official microblog account.
Special approval was required for all movement outside the home, it said.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3078010/chinese-county-goes-coronavirus-lockdown-country-tries-get-back
So the "Cheese Pizza Award for Dumb M
elonfarmer" goes to the dude who tried to drive a train into a USNavy hospital ship in Los Angeles because he thought it was up to something other than basic relief in a pandemic. Apparently he would "wake people up".Stupid never dies, I guess.
Might be mental health issues.
The US has a charge of train wrecking, of course they do.
Well that was a bit stupid of the health minister to drive to a deserted mountain bike trail when they are telling the public not to go hunting, swimming, surfing or basically anything. What was he thinking!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120780372/health-minister-drives-to-local-park-to-ride-his-mountain-bike-amid-coronavirus-lockdown
Considering all of the stupidity around in the world from anti-vaxers to conspiracy dreamers, from virus-proof youth to brain-proof world leaders, from media 'personalities' to foolish know-it-alls, from narcissistic sociopaths to the god-fearing righteous, probably he was seeking a moment's peace away from us all.
Worried about the economy?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/theyre-leaving-us-to-die-ecuadorians-plead-for-help-as-virus-blazes-deadly-trail