Seamus is small, sleek, & black all over, apart from some white plumage on the front of the throat & his chin. He’s a Little Shag, according to NZ Birds Online.
We have a "mythical" cat according to friends who have never seen Mia, but observe her bed toys and bowl!!
An orchard born year old nervous native when she came to us, she disappears at extra people machinery or strange vehicles.
She is clean loving and plays like she always did, leaping and rolling in gay abandon even at 10 years. We enjoy your videos very much, keep them coming Cheers.
Thank you very much, Patricia. It’s lovely having all this free entertainment just over my back fence.
I recommend you call your cat the Invisible Cat. I can well imagine what she is like. My brother had one (of their three cats) who was invisible. She just didn’t like visitors & would also disappear. If you were lucky you see the tip of her tabby tail disappearing around a corner or into the bushes.
Spotted a very unusual bird in the stream this morning, but didn’t have my smartphone on me. By the time I got back to the fence it had moved upstream, foraging.
At least twice the size of some nearby mallard & mallard/grey hybrid drakes. Black feathers, with some flashes of white, & a very red thick beak (not a “bill”, like the ducks’). Wonder if it might be a black goose? Never seen one here before.
I have a couple of video clips of it some distance away. I’ll either run it through the zoom option of my movie-making program on my older laptop, or take a still frame or two & crop & enlarge them online. That should confirm it.
New Covid-19 modelling suggested that New Zealand could see up to 7000 Covid-19 deaths a year, even with a high proportion of the population jabbed. Explainer Editor Keith Lynch digs beneath the surface of those extremely worrying – and controversial – numbers.
and the person was allocated some 4-5 odd minutes, Person Russel, Other Person, and Male Human, are simply not a. paying attention, b. paying a modicum of respect, and
for what its worth, it appears that murderers and rapists in NZ – men who have committed crimes as men – are now in prision in NZ as Non Males.
These people are on the Government tit, have been for the most of their lifes on the government tit, for shame.
This is the Labour Party, and the Green Party, in its truest form.
That clip shows the true face of the parties involved in this removal of rigths from human beings that used to be known as 'women'. Btw, to any bloke who says this does not affect you? Do you have one of these humans at home? They might be your birthing partent, they might be your spouse, they might be your offspring, let me assure you in no uncertain terms this does affect you.
And btw, rest assured that there is nothing in my case that the Non Male Leader of the Labour Party could ever say in regards to this bill that would ever re-assure me or would sound even the slightest bit 'believable'. Ditto for the Non Male Co Leader of the Green Party.
Let's hope all, that we get the chance to vote in 2023, and let me assure you that my vote will go to whomever opposes this bullshit.
Start around 3:53 to hear the attempts to interrupt begin before he says at 4:00 "You've had your five minutes."
As for Deborah Russell MP:
Leave the camera on. We've all seen women stretch before, it's not a big deal. (Alternatively, tell the truth – Rex Landy rightfully identified your behaviour.)
she was the one that called small business owners 'losers' last year in April during he first lockdown. I did not think that that person could show herself even more callous than that, but good grief, this is a supposed MP of the Country. And this person lives of our taxes and hard work.
For shame Labour. For fucking shame.
I have a bottle of whiskey that i auctioned off the Non Male PM of this country many years ago, when Andrew Little was polling at 5% for preferred Leader of this country, and i am honestly thinking that the best to do with it is to flush it down the drains. As the Labour party should be flushed down the drain.
I will always vote on the left, and as a strategic voter, I will vote Labour or teh GP to keep National out of power. But the left is in for a big wake up call come the next election. Just like Māori, women have their own political perspectives, needs and positions that don't always align with the mainstream political left, this is true even for left wing women. If the NZ left wing parties aren't watching what is happening to Labour, the GP and the Libdems in the UK over this (and they're probably not except through an ID pol lens), then they deserve what they get.
Same, since the Values Party I've always voted for the planet and a fair deal, but seeing this and getting some idea of what its all about, unless they bring back the McGillicuddys I'll be refraining in future.
It is as if the inmates have taken over the asylum, Andrew Little with his steadfast adherence to reefer madness was already becoming impossible to support and in this clip he demonstrates why for a rational future its become necessary to vote Andrew out.
Women in prisons are being raped and inseminated – aka rendered pregnant – being offered abortions in prisons, because men who raped and killed can identify out of a male prison into a female prison and be given access to vulnerable persons who have no recourse, and have no right to privacy, bodily autonomy and safety.
LoL they are men. Forever. Can never erase that Y.
The only way to be a woman is to have been born a girl. And no, we are not clownfish/seahorses/plants. Intersex want nothing to do with your claims about identity of men in dresses. Intersex is not an identity.
I'm hoping what they deserve is to be seriously challenged on what they are doing, but still win the election. I would never wish National on this country especially in the form they are in now. There's no evidence that National will roll back any of the gender ID legislation anyway.
No, there is no way any of these people will get my vote. I might lose any right to bodily autonomy (and that is what this bill is imo), any right to even just go to a toilet and in peace urinate or defecate, lose my right to a 'born female' to touch my body after a rape, and so on and so forth,
but i will be damned if i vote for my subjugation, and put myself on the urinary leash all by myself.
This video demonstrates the absolute disregards these persons form the so called 'left' aka Labour/Green have for the concerns of presons/peoples/others/karens (karens of all colors and creeds).
If the left abandons what it stands for, is it then still the left?
I have asked this before, how can anyone on the left condone the doings of Labour and the Greens if the same thing would be abhorrent to them under a National and Act government. And how can anyone vote for this, and pretend that National Act could be worse.
And last but least, there are other alternatives to put a vote for then the FFP system that seems to still linger.
NACT would be worse because on top of this there would be all the other stuff NACT do – cut benefits, fuck with employment legislation, more dairy farms, much slower climate action and so on (pretty long list).
I'm not seeing any evidence that NACT will reverse or amend the gender ID laws.
if you have no more sex – and with that no more sex based rights, how would that affect
a. benefits for 'women' if they are sex based?
b. can a person with a functioning cervix/uterus be compelled by Winz to breed children for money as a career choice (Tamati Coffey atm is pushing for the commercialization of 'surrogacy')
c. can transmen be drafted should there be a requirement
d. can any case of 'sexual discrimination' be dismissed on the grounds of gender?
e. transwomen be 'women' and thus diversity in businesses/parties be achieved (two entire male transwomen in Germany got elected on the Womens Roll if the German Green Party, thus before the persons of Germany ever achieved parity in that Party)
f. can lactating persons be compelled to sell their human milk for money by Winz?
g. can people be compelled into sex work (a career choice to some prostitution positive genderists) by Winz
g. the climate is fucked and we need a better Green Party to change anything, at the moment the Green Party is not even able to understand basic biology, or at the very least is steadfastly refusing to admit biology in favour of 'self identity.
these are just a few things that come to my mind,
Sorry Weka, i know where you are coming from, and I voted for the Green Party in 2016 in honor of Metiria Turei. And unless something changes, and radically and quickly so, that was the last time i voted for them.
Tell me how not voting GP or Labour in 2023 will prevent any of that. When you’ve done that I’ll make the argument for how the non vote will make things worse.
It wont' prevent it because it is already decided. The clip above shows that this is just for show – bread and circus and hey the people in that clip are paid to be there. I guess they call that ‘work’.
Thus tell me how not voting for the Greens or Labour would make it worse for us?
I will not be part of my own demise Weka. I will not be part of the subjugation of us, I will not be part of the group that will remove the rights that our kin, has fought for, got beaten for.
And above all tell me how the removal or our rights, the commercialization of the female reproductive organs, the 'rendering invisible of biological women' it can be good for society and the environment.
I can't stop it with my vote, but i can refuse to rubberstamp it. I will not be an enabler, the turnkey, the jailor to my own prison.
Every time we have a nine years of a National led government we lose ground in so many areas. There's not evidence that National won't also carry on with the gender ID pathways. Our main hope of change for the better for women in regards to gender ideology is to push back. This is *way easier under centre left governments thand RW ones, because under RW ones a lot more of women's energy/time/resources are tied up in surviving. This is doubly so for working and underclass women, single mothers, Māori, disabled women and so on.
That's the same argument about most things eg climate change. Real change happens outside parliament and then parliament has to follow. But it's even more important here, because of how the many of the women in Labour and the GP are. Taking power from them basically leaves neoliberal conservatives in power and they're not going to be acting in the best interests of women on any level.
Agree weka.. I see this identity stuff as foolish and wrongheaded but feel that solidarity on economic injustice is more pressing, and that despite all their flaws the current government's efforts to undo the legacy of Rogernomics is a worthy project.
The cries of the poor have been ignored for too long.
how many of the poor are persons/people/others/karens and their children?
and does it matter that now we not only deny their existance, we remove a few rights, and they are still poor.
let me put it this way, the Non Male Leader of the Green and the Labour Party will never use a public toilet, they will have the keys to the executive suite, or maybe use the loo in the Korou lounge, you and i however will have no such luck, we will have to go into unisex toilets with urinals next to the handwash basins and the men will still have their mens.
This Genderquatsch will mostly – i would even go so far and say ONLY harm vulnerable and poor non males and their children.
And if taken to he extreme will sterilise and castrate the children of the poor, the neuro diverse, the ‘non conforming’ children.
I worry for my young nieces growing up in a deeply sexist, body-negative, gender-confused culture, weaponised by Instagram. There are some really bad stories coming out of Australia and Scotland about families being torn apart and women silenced.
Feel like we have to choose the lesser of two evils. Keeping the complete whack jobs of National and Act out of power is actually an existential demand for vulnerable NZers. Covid running rampant (as FJK etc are advocating) will kill thousands, mainly the poor, elderly, and people with other health problems. Housing will be made 10x worse. Inequality will be ignored. Health and education will be slashed and sold off. We will be distracted by massive rugby and sailing spectacles while all the problems are swept under the carpet.
I will vote for social credit, legalise aotearoa, or something like that.
but i will not vote for people that take rights away form us humans that were formerly known as women. Never. I will not be complicit in my own demise.
Let's get a women's party started. Te Paati Maori is TWAW. I didn't vote for them to tell me women have a penis and men get pregnant. GP DGAF about the environment. Virtue signaling to the max. 9 in James entourage, flying o/s. Not to mention the dreaded Covids. Labour has lost their way. Natscum. ACT blame the poor for being poor and are Hobson's Pledge type of folk. So what is left. All the GC ♀️ to ruin their ballot? I wholeheartedly agree. I will not be complicit in my erasure
We're always the first to suffer in times like this – however, this identity 'politics' is a $34 trillion industry, Big Pharma love the #LifeLongPatient model it affords. Whereas sex is observed at birth, matters regarding healthcare and spaces where both sexes deserve privacy.
There are currently 1200 girls waiting for radical double mastectomy/hormones/puberty blockers in our gender clinic currently…. this is taking healthy breasts away bc of a mental illness (it's in the DSM-V).
I understand that you must believe what you believe.
But i would like you again to look at the above clip, keep in mind the video of kerekere 'terfing' submitters, and tell me why again you think that these people will care.
Btw, I see no difference between Labour and National. Non of the raises in benefits have kept up with rising living costs and rental costs. No houses have been build, but the government has 'bought' houses of the market thus contributing to high house costs. Despite some crappy sandwiches in school – when school is actually on, child hood poverty is through the roof, because their parents are not keeping up with rising living costs and high rental costs/mortgages. Healthcare even without Covid was and still is a mess. Corrections a mess. Poor old people are still deciding if they should eat, have medication or heat as they still can't afford all of these things in one pay cycle.
You vote for the Green Party, go ahead, but so far you have not given me any reason to vote for them again. And the sad stage of the environment is not working anymore, no more then' national will be worse.
The last time national was having the reigns they did not try to put us back in to the 'seen but not heard box' that Labour and the Greens will put us in favor of the feelings for the generally het men with a fetish.
Also, can you explain to me if men are women, will they still be women when women have no longer rights, or will they revert back to men?
As i said, i will not be an enabler to the undoing of my sex, the few rights that i and those like me have, not even under the false premise that 'national will be worse' or that 'the greens will save the environment'. Not good enough.
Sabine, much of the foundation for SSID was laid under National / ACT governments. This has been happening since 1995. What's happening now in relation to BCs is the last card in the hand of formal and social rights needed to trump biological sex with the notion of gender identity.
I'm with you in relation to there being very important wider implications to the integrity of sex-based rights but when you suggest that a Labour government would force women to bear children, enter sex work, or sell breast milk etc, I'm afraid you lose me.
To me, the biggest threat in all of this comes from the generation of a socially conservative backlash – that will be surfed by crackpot extremist libertarians.
It happened already in England, during the Financial crisis some years ago where Jobcentres had job offers for Strippers and Lapdancers. Outrage ensued, and it was then banned in 2010, but it happened. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-10831614
So when i point to these scenarios it is not that Labour will do that or the Greens or National for that matter or any coalition, but that anyone could potentially use what ever legislation comes from it. Once it is legal, and sex is no longer protected, what then. What next.
Like for example, if men can get undressed (fully intact males) in the sauna, or spa area for women, then that would also lead to remove 'indecent exposure' for example, as clearly men do not have to undergo a gender re-assignement surgery in order to be women. So there will be huge legal changes as consequence of these changes.
So apart from the very obvious, these questions still stand, can and will people be compelled into these situations?
And so far, no one has given any assurance that it won't be irrespective of the colors of the government du jour.
I voted Labour or Green all my life. I am now politically homeless. I taught women’s and gender studies courses at university for more than thirty years. Sex and gender have been core and distinct concepts in sociology since the 1970s. Yet we are not ‘allowed’ to discuss these in political contexts unless we parrot ridiculous mantras like ‘trans women are women’ ( trans women are biological males with gender dysphoria). The role of a select committee is to hear and consider evidence. I am appalled by the behaviour of the BDMR select committee members – sneering at submitters they dislike and failing to give even the appearance of listening to groups like Speak Up for Women. Watch Deborah Russell and Elizabeth Kerekere during that and some other submissions. I left the Green Party this year when disagreement with gender self ID was termed hate speech. Im extremely unlikely to be able to vote Labour again after this mockery of democratic process. Ant vote NACT so looking for a leftie protest option.
The trouble is Weka, Labour and the Greens will see it as an endorsement of their policies if they do get back in.
We really don't have much leverage unless we collectively threaten to withdraw our votes .A huge fuss needs to be made so as to embarrass them and make them reconsider. It looks almost to me as well that Auckland is starting to come apart.Brazen non compliance and defiance of public health orders, what with that utter idiot Tamaki and the protest at the Domain today
Bang goes all the govt's covid credit if it falls apart.The restriction of our freedom in a public health emergency is the one scenario when community obedience is rational.That we can't even do that anymore gives me little hope of a spirit of collectivism to solve all our other problems
A huge fuss needs to be made so as to embarrass them and make them reconsider
Completely agree with this.
If women don't vote and NACT get in, do you believe that Labour and the GP will pin that on gender ID pol? I don't. The non-vote will disappear into the rest of the non-vote that no-one talks about and if the ideology is still strong in those parties, there will be a strong motivation to stay in denial (assuming the protest non-vote as any impact). And yes, way easier to blame on things like covid failures.
But hey ho, we should probably be talking strategy about what to do between now and then so it doesn't come to there.
why would you assume that we don't vote, by not voting for the 'supposed left' ?
MMP is the game in town, NZfirst, Maori Party, Legalise Aotearoa, Social Credits etc can all be voted for.
They might not make it in, but sometimes it is better to lose then to be complicit.
And the best thing that can happen to any of the more prominent parties is to be so small that they must go into a coalition. And that can't happen if people vote by default rather then on issues. And undoing womens rights, endangering womens in their daily lifes, work, and sport, are issues that are currently laughed out of the door by the Ministers of the Green Party and the Labour Party.
There is a media blackout on this issue unless it’s a ‘my beautiful trans kid’ story. Gender critical views don’t get published. I’m not part of Speak Up for Women, but any coverage they have had misrepresents their views. I attended one of their public meetings on the Bill and found a pleasant group of women providing a clear and accurate summary of the main points in the gender self ID clauses in it. Some transsexual women (ie medically transitioned male-to female people) were with them in support. I cannot and will not toerate the shutting down of women’s voices on this issue. I’ve been a feminist lol my adult life and, although we have often been ridiculed and misunderstood in the past, we have never been shut down or had our views banned until now. I can’t understand how this is happening. And I certainly won’t vote for a political party whose MPsinsulge in this kind of behaviour.
Bang goes all the govt's covid credit if it falls apart.The restriction of our freedom in a public health emergency is the one scenario when community obedience is rational.That we can't even do that anymore gives me little hope of a spirit of collectivism to solve all our other problems
Wanted to address this separately. This is why the GP vote will be important. What we are seeing is the divisions from decades of neoliberal ignoring of social unrest and poverty. If we get a Labour governent next time and the Greens are out of parliament, hands up who thinks that Labour will move left and address poverty or housing?
Is the Non Male Leader of the Green Party not some associate minister for the homeless and housing?
Why is then the Green Party wasting precious time and resources telling women that they are subcategory now of their own sex class so that men can pretend to be women and be given unfettered access to all and any spaces that used to be single sex, under the guise of inclusion of some while excluding those that came before. Colonisation is a good word for what the Greens and the Labour Party are currently doing. Colonising womens spaces for men.
And knowing that the Greens will enable the next Labour Government should the need arise, why are they not leveraging this knowledge now in regards to housing, homelessness and poverty? After all they have no issues working together in removing the sex based rights of Non Males in this country.
Has the green party released a statement in regards to the atrocious behavior of the Green Party members, such as KereKere and her 'terf' youtube video?
that right now is the only statement i would like to see, and also i would like to see that from the Labour Party.
A short, concise statement that will be clear that this attitude as evidenced in the video above, will not be tolerated, that the people who will make their statements will be treated with respect, fairly, and will not be spoken over or have their times cut short, and above all will not be insulted with the term 'terf' or called transphobic.
As for Deborah Russels tweet about not giving a fuck, well maybe someone in Labour Leadership should tell her that is is really not smart to admit to the public that while you like the wage you don't wanna do the work.
Time to start a left women's party. Who knows how to do this. Let's start one. What do we need to make this a reality? I'm keen. I'll join. Let's get it started
Personally I'd rather see a coalition of flax roots organisations arise first, strong and stable. Several years of those doing media work, public meetings, submissions and so on might change things.
I'm impressed with the groups that have been submitting this round. Bodes well. Am also very impressed with the rise of grass roots feminism in the UK.
what a fucking shambles. If SCs are normally like this, I'm even more shocked. And then people wonder why most people don't bother with engaging with government.
The cynic in me thinks they would by now be tech-savvy enough to ensure the video was off first, but they didn't because they wanted to show a public rebuff after the submitter was no longer on screen.
He's got to have some cromulent excuse as to why I'm not in favour of children being sterilised, or the $34 trillion Big Pharma medical industrial complex medicalising people for profit. 😉
Jennifer Bilek has written extensively on this. #LifelongPatients once you have the kids, see.
LMFAO you can fuck off all the way with 'Christian Right'. I was raped by a priest at the age of four with Catholic maths (35 DOES go into 4) so if you think I have anything to do with the Whore of Rome you can think again. Or any Xian bs.
I'm still laughing as I type – google me and you will find the dozens of OIA requests and 'footprint' you believe I've had scrubbed away… I'm a professional nobody, have complex mental health needs and damage after my childhood rape – not every outcome has been good for me, see? Can't put my finger on it, but after four years old, it was a mixed bag. They DID give me a fabulous education though so that's a bonus. 😉 Not my shame to carry, so I'll just put it out there straight away, bro. LMAO.
Can you please provide a link to substantiate your claim?
A lot of people in this country are religious. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, all sorts of different Christian denominations, and certainly a few more that i am forgetting.
Are you saying that if a person has issues with being delegated to the dustbin of history and stripped of their rights they must be a supporter of the Christian right? Really?
And Rex is a manly name too? Damn her, being so gender non conform.
Maybe she should identify as a male and run for the Male Co Leadership of the Green Party?
If you are right, and you may well be, but you have no evidence that you are… What you have in front of you, is her submission. And what you are able to comment on, is the content of her submission.
To pass judgement on this person, on a posit of possibility when you know nothing else but what she says here, is a way of dismissing what she says without addressing it.
(This does not hold true for public figures however, where we hold many examples of their behaviour and speech. But Rex Landry is not, AFAIK, a public figure and your reference to their non-existent Google history equating to be taken in by the Christian Right is a bad conjecture to make.)
See what happens when you make stupid, partisan assumptions in a political forum.
Lefties, men in particular, might want to ask themselves why they find it so hard to believe or accept that left wing women have their own strong politics when it comes to gender/sex. The connection between GC women/feminists with the religious right is a bullshit line run by gender identity activists. It won't work on TS because there are too many left wing women here, long term Standardistas, who are informed and highly politicised on the issue.
Probably because in the USA opposition to transgender rights is one taken up by the political right – GOP, which has strong Christian conservative connotations (and connection to their historic position in rights for same sex people).
It’s not the only issue in which there is a coalition of diverse groups.
The biggest grouping of gender critical feminists is in the UK, and this is far more relevant to NZ than the US. Gender ID activists call the UK Terf Island. It's not a secret. Anyone who says that those women are allied to the religious right are either willfully ignorant or lying.
The US is a different situation, but how on earth Millsy made a connection between that and this Wahine Māori is beyond me.
Sure the GOP's conservative females are not at the centre of feminist discourse.
But I wonder if some on the liberal left are not being misled by this, as maybe millsy is, and not thinking the issue through a little more.
For example I was on side with some on the inclusion of transgender concerns at the Auckland event, but this does not inform my position on fair competition in sport or women’s safety.
In the perception that concern about the proposed legislation comes from the conservatives who resisted equal place for those of same sex attraction in society (and recognition of their relationships).
The attitude of the Labour and Green MP's (support for proposed legislation) on the SC is indicative that they see the transgender issue as one of inclusion of society diversity within the civil liberties/human rights orbit. Thus they see any resistance to the legislation as coming from those on the wrong side of history.
Thus nuance is lost for the sake of political conformity to established liberal (open to socially progressive change) vs conservative (resistance to such change until it is normalised/accepted by the mainstream) positioning.
The hilarious* thing is, this self-determination ID has been (wilfully?) misused. It's a piece of international law that applies to PEOPLE, as in A PEOPLE the right to self determination. The international human rights lawyer Rosa Freedman submitted on it. It is a glorious, erudite and composed laying out of the law. Nicola Grigg was paying attention and writing things down; I heard her murmur 'that was important'.
I'm hoping to do a post on the submissions, making them very accessible to people with links and time stamps so people can pick out the ones they want to read/watch. Even just finding them has been hard going. Looking forward to watching Rosa (one of my favourite GCFs) and getting up to speed with that particular issue.
I get it's difficult to countenance a woman filled with fury 😉 LoLz. I know if he's looked at my video he knows I'm a woman and he is a bit of a korero tutae. Thanks bro.
The Government has confirmed it is scrapping plans for a $785 million cycle bridge across Auckland's Harbour in response to public pressure, and will instead use the money on projects such as speeding up the Eastern Busway.
In early August, the NZ Herald reported the cycle bridge was poised to be scrapped after strong public opposition to the cost of it and revelations the benefit to cost ratio was very low.
Transport Minister Michael Wood has now confirmed the controversial Northern Pathway will not go ahead. "It did not get the public support needed for a project of its scale, and we acknowledge that."
Insanity, building ever more motorways, has prevailed over a piece of infrastructure which would have reduced carbon emissions for the next 80 years.
Sanity has not prevailed.
It shows the problem with building carbon reducing infrastructure, when there is a chorus of unthinking protest, against spending even a fraction of the billions spent on motorways.
Mis information and utter bullshit has prevailed. As it does to often, spread by our wilfully ignorant and self opinionated media egged on by a right wing that would rather our country fails, than lose power.
A busway in highly populated areas is a better investment then a bike bridge.
Free public transport would be a good investment, but it will not happen.
The real insanity however is that it seems people believe that we can shove even more poeple into AKL and that they all need to go downtown to earn their pennies.
As Covid right now shows us, Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
I have been saying for a long long time now, that government should incentivize businesses to settle elsewhere and thus take the workers with them. this would actually revive some areas of this country, relieve the pressure on Auckland and maybe even lead to a better and healthier usage of our environment.
In the meantime tho, 1.6 odd million people are on Home D with one hour of outdoor exercise, permitted take away and 'work from home' or under severe restriction go to town and office/shop.
And no this bridge was not only disliked by the rightwing. I think you will see that polling showed labour that even lefties (and not all lefties are labour supporters ) just saw this as a diversion and pipe dream.
And fwiw, we need cycle ways. Lots of them. And in this case i would say, that the first step to get people to cycle over the bridge is to liberate a lane or two for cyclists. Permanently.
NZTA has ruled out a dedicated cycle lane on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
If the Minister turns public transport infrastructure into a popularity contest, nothing will happen except building more roads because that's what people want.
Where that leads is to continue NZ as one of the most car-polluted, unsafe, car-addicted countries on earth.
well, fear not Ad, soon there will only be electric cars, for those that can afford electric cars. The rest will walk, cycle, skateboard or use the bus.
NZTA needs to pull its fingers out of the proverbial and liberate a lane, and if only to actually gauge the real usage of that lane and thus be able in the future to build a dedicated cycle over that harbour.
But frankly it is easier for central town people to take a ferry with their bikes across the harbour than it would be for people on the outer edges of auckland to get into town with a car.
FWIW, I’ve decided it’s time to trade in my 16 year-old Mitsubishi Colt Plus, & I’m about to start researching which similarly-sized hybrid petrol/electric vehicle to replace it with.
I’m not going with an EV. The nation-wide charging infrastructure’s not sufficiently built yet.
Also, I’ve heard murmurs that disposing of old electric batteries is very problematic, & a cuz-in-law who’s an AA patrolman also told me just yesterday that he was told the amount of carbon released in the construction of EVs far exceeds that of the building + several years’ running of an efficient, standard petrol-powered auto.
(And do you have to get a charging station installed in your own home garage, anyone know?)
I never had a car to begin with, even while living in Auckland for 20 odd years and i worked downtown, newmarket and other places. Always got where ever i wanted to on public transport, cycling and walking. It can be done if the infrastructure is there.
Gezza we have a 2006 Toyota Ractis. We are keeping it as it is 1350hp, and easy to get in and out.. seats are high. The back seats are able to lie flat to take a wheelchair walker etc. It is an economical automatic. We are awaiting a comparable model. Still waiting.
Actually I kinda rate the Ractis. A couple of family members have been looking for small city runabouts and we settled on a Ractis as being the best answer for what was needed and wanted. And as a bonus, they actually go OK on the open road, too.
If you are seriously thinking about going electric, it looks to me like holding off for a year or two would be a good move. The electric choice right now is really limited and expensive, but there's a lot of chatter about things in the pipeline that might arrive in the next year or two that really are big improvements on what's available now and probably cheaper.
sigh someone with a vested interest in internal combustion engines repeats some oil industry misinformation talking points and all of a sudden it's gospel …
Yes, producing a battery electric vehicle does produce more emissions that producing an ICE vehicle, but how much more really depends on the electricity supply of where it's produced. If a battery electric vehicle were produced then used somewhere like Poland where close to 100% of the electricity supply is coal-fired, then it would take somewhere around 8 to 10 years to be lower lifetime emissions than an ICE. If it were produced and run using 100% zero-emissions electricity, the battery electric electric would have lower lifetime emissions than an ICE in less than a year. Personally, I'd work off of two years as a rough estimate for a BEV produced overseas and used in New Zealand.
There's plenty of attention and interest in electric vehicle battery recycling, starting with simply repurposing them to stationary storage when they're no longer good enough for the extreme demands of EV use. For example, Nissan Leaf batteries getting used in Nissan factories:
Then there's plenty of efforts going into direct recycling. Such as Redwood Materials, founded by J.B. Straubel, one of Tesla's founders. Their initial feedstock was rejects from Tesla battery production, which was really the only regular large quantity supply of batteries for recycling. There simply haven't been enough electric vehicles produced yet for there to really be enough end-of-life batteries to be recyled for anyone to make a business out of it, but there's plenty of companies gearing up to take that really valuable "waste" stream and turn it back into useful raw material. A simple google search on electric vehicle battery recycling will get you tons of info.
If you're looking for a Colt-sized EV with useful range and a palatable price, there really aren't any here in NZ, yet. Closest might be a Renault Zoe or Peugeot e-208, both somewhere on the wrong side of $60k after the Clean Car rebate.
But BYD are making noises about maybe releasing their EA1 (Dolphin) into NZ maybe next year, which would likely be somewhere around the $40k mark. There's a few others on the horizon as well.
Home charging can be done from a regular 240V outlet. Figure on adding 15km of range for every hour of charge. The next common option is a 7kW charger that most houses could cope with with boosting the house supply. Dunno about pricing, but if you forced me to guess I'd guess somewhere around the $3k mark installed.
Cost-wise, there's the potential imposition of Road User Charges that electric vehicles would have to pay starting March 2024 IIRC. Right RUC are 7.6 cents per km, which is just a tiny bit less than I pay for petrol for my Honda Fit hybrid. For me, that bit of transport policy stupidity would be a real obstacle to get over were I in the market for wheels right now.
But if my Fit hybrid were to be written off in a crash, I'd seriously think about a Prius plug-in hybrid. The first generation plug-in (3rd generation Prius body) gets somewhere around 15km pure-electric range, pricing starts from around $13k, while the second generation plug-in gets around 50km pure electric range, prices start around $35k. Most hybrids use Atkinson cycle engines, which basically give diesel levels of fuel efficiency without the diesel exhaust nasties.
Colt-size hybrids are mostly limited to the Toyota Aqua (everyone will think you're an Uber Eats driver) or Honda Fit. I bought my Fit hybrid in April this year, because on my test-drives it just suited me better than the Aqua. But that's just me.
My current car is a 1.5 L Mitsi Colt Plus. It’s got an extended back boot, lots more space with the rear sets flat, quite a bit bigger than a standard Mitsi Colt.
The real insanity however is that it seems people believe that we can shove even more poeple into AKL and that they all need to go downtown to earn their pennies.
The city largely lies on a isthmus is between two harbours and two oceans. The city spreads way past the two ends of the isthmus.
The harbour bridge is currently the only short in distance and time route between major population and employment centres (areas in and near to the Auckland isthmus and those on the North shore) – unless you want to go 30+kms around SH16/SH18 on the upper harbour.
It has nothing to do with adding more people into Auckland – it simply has to do with being able to connect the existing people with their existing employment.
The centre of Auckland is also a major centre for concentrated employment because it is equally accessible to people from the North, South, East, and West of Auckland because it is at the isthmus and the transport links that centre there. It can draw on the skills of the whole city.
Just as an aside to that, I recently turned down permanent jobs in the North Shore both up towards Albany/Rosedale. That was simply because the transport situation was so much of an issue. I live up by the Ponsonby/K Rd intersection – right by the motorways and with good access to all public transport except for rail (at least until the CRL is completed).
On a good pandemic run, it would take me 18-20 minutes by car to get to those jobs. When I tracked the actual times on google that I'd normally travel. It would take between 30 minutes to 90 minutes by car. In the past it has taken me up to 120 minutes when I worked out there for a few years – and I got badly hit by other cars twice over 2 years. Driving a car is pure dead time. Doing it for 15 hours a week on top of actual work is just a waste of my time.
By bus it was about 75 minutes each way. Not a complete waste of time – I can read a book in a bus. I can even sort of play on the blogs – albeit rather painfully. 12 hours or so a week would be just irritating.
By e-bike it would be around 85 minutes if I took a ferry – where the ferry timings was the main time constraint. If there was a bridge crossing it would take about 60 minutes – because the whole route is much more direct and less hilly than landing at at Bayswater road. At least that would have taken care of my exercise – something else a car or a bus simply doesn’t do. However I’m not sure that I’m interested in that much exercise each day.
A busway in highly populated areas…
The eastern suburbs are actually a reasonably lightly populated part of Auckland becasue there is not that much depth in the surrounding suburbs.
If you wanted to put a busway into a highly populated area, then you'd fast track the one up the existing North-western motorway, and put a busway and cycle lane up the existing Southern Motorway. Both of those have large population catchment areas, and far far significiant employment opportunities. Both would benefit from a busway (and cycle ways) far more than the south eastern suburb corridors.
The only reason that they are putting one into the eastern area is because they are currently upgrading the arterial roads out that way to cope with a relatively small population increase in density. I also looked at a job out towards East Tamaki. The public transport sucked, and there are no safe bikeways.
I have been saying for a long long time now, that government should incentivize businesses to settle elsewhere and thus take the workers with them.
That is a pipe-dream. I thought that may have been possible when I was looking at it in the 1990s. Experience has taught me that it almost certainly isn’t possible for most people employed in productive private businesses – even the ones that I work in who are primarily focused offshore. Quite simply there are reasons that make it preferable to live in larger centres, and I don’t have to move somewhere to work there. I can increasingly remote into the jobs in smaller centres.
Eventually I took a job in Hamilton – and I don't have to settle there. Mostly remote working from Auckland. I'm not even working at home – I'm renting a local workspace 300m from home. That is because two of us working on different jobs in a smallish apartment is just too irritating. When I'm trying to get a concentrated bit of work done, my partner is on a long and loud conversation with her gig-job employers in New York or Invercargill, or where ever. Or talking to a Indian distributor or chasing down supplies. She says that my standup conversations about work with whomever I'm working with (also worldwide) are just as irritating.
Whenever the lockdowns cease, I'll be in Hamilton 2 days a week for a while. By car that is about 85 minutes each way and a airBnB overnight. If the Te Huia train went from Auckland to Hamilton in the morning and came back in the evening (rather than the other way around), I'd use that. It might take 150 minutes each way – but I can work on a train.
However I'm unlikely to move to Hamilton. As a skilled worker, that would be employment and financial suicide.
In Auckland in the private sector there are at least several hundred firms that I could work for, in person or remote, with my current skills. In Hamilton where I went to uni, even with its current rapid expansion, then are probably 30-40. In Dunedin where I also went to university, maybe 20. Smaller cities like Rotorua or Palmerston North – there would only be a couple.
The choice as an employee, the choice is so much smaller because I have a smaller selection if I need to be there in person. And most employers would prefer you to be there in person. Despite spending a lot of my working life working remotely, I prefer working at a workplace – provided i don’t have to waste much of own hours getting to and from that workplace.
Being close to large urban areas give more choice about where you work locally, what you can work on, and who you work for. From the choices of employers to the quality of your transport and data links.
This doesn't apply just to the excessively skilled like me. If you're a worker at almost anything beyond retail work these days, you're increasingly skilled and more specialised than anything in the past. The idea of moving people around and training them like identical dominoes has gone the way of conscription – for exactly the same reason. All enterprises rely on their skilled staff and their skilled staff will move between companies multiple times during their working life.
Doing the remote work internationally is much the same. The work may be done over a data link. But those are much much more reliable in urban centres – I only have to look at the quality of links of people in zoom or google meet to know that.
Being able to pop down to Jaycar or PBTech and lay your hands on gear immediately is far easier than having to wait for increasingly erratic deliveries (or whatever your working needs are) is worth its weight in gold for productivity.
Basically, I'll probably move out of Auckland when I retire. It is the minimum that I can get away with. Ideally I should have moved offshore decades ago – but I prefer living here rather than in Austin Texas or Silicon Valley or the Silicon Slopes. And I'm in one of the more transportable professions.
I do agree with you, i myself chose Auckland for reasons of work when i moved to NZ.
But is that not the issue now, that AKL can't build up fast enough and can't get enough public transport now to move those people that move in. And that will not get any better in the future.
I pretty much lived my whole life in big towns, but living in Holland actually opened my eyes a bit what can be done if Government works with businesses.
I.e. Hilversum, a medium sized town 35 km from A-dam and 15 km away from Utrecht. When Nike closed their individual houses in the various european countries to open a Europen Headquaters in Holland, they were 'directed' to Hilversum rather then say A-dam, Rotterdam, etc. They were granted 600 carparks for something like 1800 people plus visitors and sales people that would come and go. But the government also provided extra trains to Hilversum, more train arrivals and departures, and a new trainstop across from the Office building to make up for the lack of carparks. Train tickets are tax refundable as a business expense, and thus were at the time paid for by Nike. Why? Any extra carpark that Nike wanted to build after the 600 granted would have come at an extra cost.
Sometimes it feels as if we had tried nothing really and now are out of option. And again, i am not even against a cycling bridge, i cycled in Auckland in 1998 – lol when there were no cycle roads.
I just believe that putting all of our economy in one town is a sure way to disaster if something happens. Like Covid.
And i only left Auckland as Virgil got offered a job as an IT person here in Rotorua, otherwise i would still be there, for pretty much all the reasons you mentioned.
Many, if not most, of them are related to a council with a business (with a small b) focus that ran the cities and region for decades. Plus a central government that kept hoping Auckland would get smaller if they didn't put money into it. They put money mostly into regions where their voters were.
More recently, it has had a central government interested in raking in immigration money and then dispersing it not in infrastructure or realistic housing development – but into tax cuts. It meant that most of the immigration wound up in Auckland (for the reasons I outlined), but a minimum of things required to grow.
But even if they tried to, there is another problem. One that makes it difficult for even try to push things towards dispersal rather than Auckland getting bigger.
The problem is that NZ is made up of small companies – there are no Nikes. Almost all of them are small by any international standards. Just consider this statement from stats nz in 2018.
less than 1 percent of enterprises (2,560) had 100 or more employees, but they engaged 48 percent of all employees in New Zealand
The stats tend to cut off at 100 employees. If you look for a definition of mid-sized businesses in NZ, you tend to find statements like this.
The definition of mid-size businesses varies from country to
country. It’s important to note that there is no official definition
for a MSB in New Zealand. Across the world mid-size businesses
tend to be defined as having between 20 and 200 employees.
However, New Zealand has a much smaller economy and
population than most comparable highly-developed market
economies.
With this in mind, for the purposes of our research New
Zealand’s mid-size businesses have been defined as having
revenue between $5m and $30m, and/or employing between
20 and 99 people.
If you dig around the stats for what the larger employee company sizes are, you’ll find that they are also small to mid sized enterprises. They might have thousands of employees – but they are scattered in little pockets throughout the country – like banking, supermarkets, reale state, or even Fonterra. We don’t have many single enterprise sites the size of the Nike operation you mention. They are in fact multiple small or mid-sized companies.
So those companies don’t draw staff to them. They go to where they can get staff or customers. They have little to no interest in drawing either towards them because they simply don't have the scale to do it. Even our larger companies are below the scale of Nike. That is why virtually every government push to move people out of the larger cities has failed.
The ones that have succeeded over the long term were those that were based around raw materials, natural advantages or scenery – electricity for the smelter, oil and gas for New Plymouth, tourism for Rotorua and Queenstown. The port for Tauranga. Even then most of them only managed to stave off relative population decreases.
Company towns like Tokoroa started drying again as a their business changed. The only new company town I know of is that mattress company who are trying to build in the Waikato.
Meanwhile a city like Auckland which only has a harbour as a natural asset has to develop despite a historically lacklustre set of councils and National governments who, mainly for electoral reasons, wished it didn't exist.
Climate change mitigation is not justification for this proposal.
Not all alternative transport systems are the same in regards to that.
That is not to say that planning should not include as a matter of course, recreational cycleways, walkable neighbourhoods etc. The immense value to users of mental and physical wellbeing, and improved social cohesion have been researched and validated.
However, it is the alternative transport systems available to commuters that will get the most people out of cars. The provision of affordable, reliable, efficient public transport systems that enable people to get to work, study, services, sports is the climate change mitigator. Not a bridge crossing that is an addition to the already successful alternatives for the harbour crossing that include the Northern Busway and ferries. The inner city community is already well served in that respect.
This is a choice of assessing the inequality that has come from very bad city and transport planning in the past, and making future choices that do not increase that inequality further.
Would this money have come from the Auckland fuel tax? I'd be interested to know.
However, even if it didn't… isn't there something fundamentally wrong with ignoring the fact that it is the lower income households that have to move further and further out of Auckland, travel further to get to work, school etc and therefore pay more of their income on this fuel tax than those that have the privilege to be able to live and work in close proximity? (and are more likely to have travel costs included as an employment benefit
Shouldn't we be spending on improving services for the wider Auckland population before giving an expensive additional harbour crossing for the recreational benefit of an already well-serviced community?
I cannot think of the last time a Minister had the balls to take the credit for failure on the scale and spin it so that he's just doing what the public wants.
Wrong all round, Alan. For years (since Rogernomics) we have been importing far more cars than we need, making them far too cheap, and no matter how many roads we build, we end up with ever-increasing gridlock. We never take off the roads more cars than we put on.
I think the tide is now changing. We are going to have a difficult future; we will soon be importing fewer cars, and eventually the roads we already have will be more than we need or want to maintain.
The only major transport projects this government will complete in two terms will be motorways. Enormous fuck-off motorways. Northland, Waikato, Wellington.
CRL was started under National and is heading for 2025
Auckland's Glen Innes-Downtown cycleway won't be complete this term or next
Eastern Busway has over 1 political term to go
Light rail will be at least a further 2 terms
Electric car strategy rejected by industry and importers and of course the rural community
Auckland rail track repair and slower speeds will now last a decade
Car fleet rapidly ageing and turning hard against the (still undecided) transport climate goals
Transport emissions continue to accelerate faster than our comparator countries
In NZ's major public transport projects you can fill a phonebooth with people trying to make it happen, and easily fill a stadium with people trying to stop it. And in the stands is this government.
Because the Greens are promoting the gender identification clause in the Births and Deaths Bill, the Greens are also incompetent in climate change policy. Now sometimes I'm tough on the Greens, but I've never tried that kind of comparison before. Are you sure you're not writing for TheOnion?
No, but if we are to trust science, does that include biology?
we are bodies – biological entietys, we breathe, we need water, we need shelter etc and if that is not a given we die. That is basic science and biology.
We can agree to disagree on various aspects of the Gender ID bill, but can we really pretend that biology – male / female – reproduction etc does not exists and if we don't like it we can just wish, hormon treat it, surgically remove it away? I doubt. Underlining the body is what it is, irrespective of the outwardly expression of anyone. Thus a transman can be a birthing parent, due to the invisible female (reproductive organs)
biology inside their body.
If these people can not accept that you can not 'change sex' then sorry mate, i don't trust them with fixing anything.
And btw, that whole 'change the sex' and be what ever you want is something that i expect from the Onion, but sadly as the video clip above showed, is standard operating procedure for the Green and the Labour Party.
Neither one of these parties will do anything to stem misery that will come with the raise in temperatures in the next few years.
Trust science, but only the science that we like and that we approve of. Vote Labour/Green 2023.
Here's a positive transport story from today Ad. 40,000 truck movements removed using rail instead. If you could be bothered to look you would find others.
Why you fall for this bullshit is beyond me. The headline is all about climate change while killing off a major public transport project.
Then we go from that to somehow shifting the rail hub in Ashburton, which will not change our climate impact one iota. It's not even a useful urban renewal project. On top of that, it's $2m – barely worth a contract variation.
The light rail team have just announced that they have three options to present to the government. So that’s: more options, then studies, then costings, then evaluation, then business case, then Cabinet, then network evaluation and integration into AIAL Kainga Ora AT and AC, then design and detailed design, then consultation, then land acquisition, then procurement, then construction, then operation. Unless there’s a change of government.
It would be great to defend this government on transport if it were defensible.
That's a stretch. The cycle bridge was a daft idea, the timing of the announcement was incredibly bad, and no-one believed it was going to end up costing under $1bn.
I will never ever understand why the UK elected a buffoon like Boris.
But I notice at the recent UK Labour Party conference that Starmer came out against PR. So the Labour Party continues to be run by dinosaurs who simply do not understand that without PR, and where there is a split vote between the Greens, Liberals and Labour, and with and Boris's fixing of the electoral system https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/01/boris-johnson-rigging-the-system-power-courts-protest-elections, they are unlikely ever to get back into power.
They are valid reasons. The conservatives won seats right through the 'red wall' because their position on Brexit was clear and in favour. Corbyn was and is unelectable.
Without constant life support from the Murdoch press, and the Israeli antisemitism lie, England would have had Corbyn – and ten of thousands less Covid casualties as a result.
It is the Blairites that doom Labour, depriving it of its function: representing the interests of working people.
And, absent Covid, NZ’s current government would already be on its way out – failure to engage with housing costs and the like – so off task they're chasing chimerae like gender when there are substantial issues unaddressed.
a sordid history of cuddling up to terrorists *citation required
Corbyn was and remains a better leader of Britain than any of the tragic procession of conservative hacks Murdoch media anointed. Starmer is just another quisling – Labour will go nowhere under him – which is of course exactly what you and Murdoch want.
"Corbyn was and remains a better leader of Britain "
Corbyn is and was an unelectable nutter, he was the most unpopular opposition leader in British history, and led Labour to it's worst defeat since 1935.
Ah yes – recirculating more Israel based agitprop.
Corbyn is an activist with a lifetime of serious engagement directed at finding peaceful solutions to difficult conflicts including Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine. This has required that he talk to both sides. That bad faith opponents try to exploit that for their own political ends says more about them than him.
Corbyn is and was an unelectable nutter
I think we can safely regard you as an unreliable source – a hysterical hater of the Left with nothing to boast of but your empty prejudices.
Dianne Abbott was Corbyn's pick for Home Secretary. Not only does she think on balance Mao did more good than harm, she has huge problems with numbers.
"Corbyn is an activist with a lifetime of serious engagement directed at finding peaceful solutions to difficult conflicts including Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine."
There's nothing obviously unsuitable about her – the fact that she seems to incense far-right bigots like yourself counts rather in her favour.
But come on – no words on Boris? – a clown so stupid he not only presided over 137 000 Covid deaths, he did his best to join them – a man whose follies now compare with the late stage Soviets – empty supermarkets – but not a peep from you, you're too busy trying to smear someone you figure you can then use to smear Corbyn.
You're grasping at straws – grow up and give it up – you've got nothing.
Every party has its share of unsuitable fools. But in a country with a PM as manifestly unsuitable as Boris, you're busy nitpicking Corbyn's opposition appointments?
Your priorities are bent completely out of shape by your irrational hatred of the Left.
You praised Corbyn's leadership. Picking an obviously unsuitable individual to be your shadow home secretary suggests either his leadership qualities are not what you claim, or she is up there with the best in Labour. Which is it?
Under MMP Corbyn would have been PM in 2017 AND 2019.
It was a freak result in Scotland in 2017, where the Conservatives did much better than expected under a very popular leader, that stopped Corbyn from being PM.
"Under MMP Corbyn would have been PM in 2017 AND 2019."
That is by no means certain. Labour woukld have needed the LibDems, and given that Jo Swinson lost her own seat, who knows. You'd also be assuming the major parties would run FFP campaigns under MMP, which is nonsense.
Welcome to the Church of Suicidal
We'll have a sermon and a wonderful recital
But before we go on there's something I must mention
An important message I must bring to your attention
I was in meditation and prayer last night
I was awakened by a shining bright light
Overhead a glorious spirit
He gave me a message and you all need to hear it
Send me your money
That's what he said, he said to
Send me your money
All Tamaki wanted was a Pepsi, and Ardern wouldn’t give it to him
All he wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn’t give it to him
Just a Pepsi
Given rumour still has it the Pope when elected still has to be carried over the other religious weirdos in a seat with a hole in it to show he isn't a chick again, nothing surprises me.
[Take the weekend off for your vile lie, which is easily neutered with a quick & simple fact check. You were doing reasonably well contributing to discussion, but you cannot help yourself, can you? This fucking stupid comment did not add anything useful and can only be seen as a sad attempt at a sick joke, which ridicules the whole topic thread.
Enjoy your time off in Wellington while others are still being cooped up in Level 3 – Incognito]
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Tell me what “rumour” means, and what you’d call someone who intentionally and deliberately spreads “rumours” that are vile and wrong and denigrating a large number of people because of their religion in one fell swoop? I can make all sorts of allegations and accusations under the excuse of “rumour” or a ‘friend of a friend of my brother’s girlfriend saw it somewhere on social media’ AKA hearsay. Is “religious weirdos” a fucking “rumour” too?
If you had at least made some political point that we could discuss you would have received (yet another) warning and (yet again) waste my time. As it is, there was nothing redeeming in your comment and you had long run out of warnings, as your recent diversion trolling under this Post (https://thestandard.org.nz/keys-baaaack/) and before that in another Post show all too well; you only barely escaped a one-week ban the other day too and came back with a cheeky reply in Daily Review.
IMO as Moderator, you’re a sly disingenuous troll far too often here, i.e. you have form with saying “sorry, but …”, “forgive me, but …”, and “rumour has it …”, etc., so that you think you can get away with saying whatever you like whenever you like. It won’t wash with me.
BTW, anything that you post here and that I can read in the Back End could make things worse for you.
Shifted the site server up from the linux kernel 5.4.0.x to the 5.11.0.x. There have been some odd crashes and automatic restarts on this system recently. I tracked one of them down and found that there had a been a kernel patch that fixed it the problem, and that it wasn’t likely to be backported to 5.4 any time soon..
I've been running 5.11 on my laptop on ongoing development towards ubuntu 21.10 and it is rock stable at the low levels (the KDE gui has lots of holes). The recent release version of ubuntu 20.04.03 installer 5.11 when it hits unknown hardware. So it seems like a good bet that it isn't going to cause issues with the server.
I have tried arch a few times. It is a fast way to learn how to fix linux issues.
I recently spent a 18 months building linux images with yocto. That is not only educational – but it also gives you an appreciation for how complex linux is, as well as showing just how long you can run computers at 100% CPU over all cores for hours.
In several browsers I can access this feature by right clicking on the page and finding the option to view page source. This shows you the markup as well as the text on the page, so it shows you the page without formatting.
Apparently the herald pay-wall is optional in the sense that all the article is always there, its just hidden by the formatting. However I suggest not viewing source on herald articles as its usually a waste of time reading anything they put behind the pay-wall anyway. I think they just use the paywall to discipline staff who attract a large audience.
It should run on Mac or Linux, but not Windows. Uses a few command line tools (curl, xmllint, perl, fmt) to grab a webpage then spit out some readable text. The above example isn't the exact command I used, as the comment box formatter is a bit tricky and I messed up one or two characters.
Well admittedly it is quite a geeky solution. There are other ways to mess about with web pages & paywalls using browser extensions, but for some reason (an annoying browser redirect script that I couldn’t squash) the "bypass paywalls" trick didn't work for one article I wanted to read. So it was a fun exercise to see if I could come up with an alternative. Result!
I know only too well how it comes across. My Dad hates computers but I always "got" them.
Some things are a fun technical challenge or a puzzle to solve. Sometimes you either get it or you don't.
I've been doing this for a long time now so the command line tools are not scary at all. In fact I see the CLI as a more logical way to work than the ADHD-inducing madness of modern GUIs.
I feel very sorry for the (majority) of Auckland Maori who are actually complying with the fight against Covid. The country is literally being held hostage by a handful of muppets.
A couple of thousand numbskulls gather at the Cenotaph, Auckland. Few masks, no distancing. Afterwards, the gang riders traversed Auckland (some of them spent 2 hrs roaring around the streets of Devonport and presumably Takapuna) doing wheelies, riding on the wrong side of the road and generally disturbing the peace. I presume they were thumbing their noses at the rest of us.
And where were the police? Nowhere as far as I can tell. Its already been declared a probable super-spreader event, so I suppose we can kiss good bye to any chance of coming out of L3 now.
Lets be clear. This Destiny Church crowd are just another gang masquerading as a church. If the govt. and the police don't move on them, I suspect some members of the public will take matters into their own hands. That could spell even more Covid outbreaks that we are now going to see because of their behaviour.
Different groups re the motorbikes, I ran into the group you spoke of in Auckland Central this morning mostly trail bikes…
I actually wandered down for look since it was close to home tbh from what I could see masks were pretty wide spread seemed more people than they had said on the news…
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
Stuff’s Political Editor Luke Malpass - A Fellow at New Zealand IniativeLast week I half-joked that Stuff / The Post’s Luke Malpass1 always sounded like he was auditioning for a job at the New Zealand Initiative.Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. For a limited time, subscriptions are 20% off. Thanks ...
At a funeral on Friday, there were A4-sized photos covering every wall of the Dil’s reception lounge. There must have been 200 of them, telling the story in the usual way of the video reel but also, by enlargement, making it more possible to linger and step in.Our friend Nicky ...
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 from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is methane the ...
The Government’s idea is that the private sector and Community Housing Providers will fund, build and operate new affordable housing to address our housing crisis. Meanwhile, the Government does not know where almost half of the 1,700 children who left emergency housing actually went. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong ...
Oh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youOh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youSongwriters: Alexander Ebert / Jade Allyson CastrinosMorena,I’m on a tight time frame this morning. In about an hour and a half, I’ll need to pack up and hit the road ...
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
Data released today by Statistics NZ shows that unemployment rose to 5.1%, with 33,000 more people out of work than last year said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “The latest data shows that employment fell in Aotearoa at its fastest rate since the GFC. Unemployment rose in 8 ...
The December labour market statistics have been released, showing yet another increase in unemployment. There are now 156,000 unemployed - 34,000 more than when National took office. And having thrown all these people out of work, National is doubling down on cruelty. Because being vicious will somehow magically create the ...
Boarded up homes in Kilbirnie, where work on a planned development was halted. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 5 are;Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announcedKāinga Ora would be stripped of ...
This week Kiwirail and Auckland Transport were celebrating the completion of the summer rail works that had the network shut or for over a month and the start of electric trains to Pukekohe. First up, here’s parts of the press release about the shutdown works. Passengers boarding trains in Auckland ...
Through its austerity measures, the coalition government has engineered a rise in unemployment in order to reduce inflation while – simultaneously – cracking down harder and harder on the people thrown out of work by its own policies. To that end, Social Development Minister Louise Upston this week added two ...
This year, we've seen a radical, white supremacist government ignoring its Tiriti obligations, refusing to consult with Māori, and even trying to legislatively abrogate te Tiriti o Waitangi. When it was criticised by the Waitangi Tribunal, the government sabotaged that body, replacing its legal and historical experts with corporate shills, ...
Poor old democracy, it really is in a sorry state. It would be easy to put all the blame on the vandals and tyrants presently trashing the White House, but this has been years in the making. It begins with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the spirit of Gordon ...
The new school lunches came in this week, and they were absolutely scrumptious.I had some, and even though Connor said his tasted like “stodge” and gave him a sore tummy, I myself loved it!Look at the photos - I knew Mr Seymour wouldn’t lie when he told us last year:"It ...
The tighter sanctions are modelled on ones used in Britain, which did push people off ‘the dole’, but didn’t increase the number of workers, and which evidence has repeatedly shown don’t work. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, ...
Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
The PSA have released a survey of 4000 public service workers showing that budget cuts are taking a toll on the wellbeing of public servants and risking the delivery of essential services to New Zealanders. Economists predict that figures released this week will show continued increases in unemployment, potentially reaching ...
The Prime Minister’s speech 10 days or so ago kicked off a flurry of commentary. No one much anywhere near the mainstream (ie excluding Greens supporters) questioned the rhetoric. New Zealand has done woefully poorly on productivity for a long time and we really need better outcomes, and the sorts ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
The courts should deal with illegal fishing, not the "court of public opinion", Shane Jones says, as he announces proposed changes to the Quota Management System. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan McElhone, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Monash University A London court has found Sam Kerr not guilty of the racially aggravated harassment of Metropolitan Police officer Stephen Lovell. As captain of the Australian women’s national soccer team, Kerr was widely condemned when ...
Could iwi and hapū be the unexpected solution to the government’s asset dilemma? David Seymour pressured the prime minister into an unwelcome conversation, and in the couple of weeks since the Act leader raised the issue in his state of the nation speech, privatisation has shifted from absent in the ...
Human rights advocates must uphold human dignity, rights and justice, while rejecting the discriminatory tactics we oppose, writes Taimor Hazou.Two weeks ago the Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) launched a campaign inviting New Zealanders to call a hotline if they suspected an Israel Defence Force (IDF) soldier that had ...
Immigration New Zealand figures shows more people have been looking at the ETA and visitor visa pages on the website, however fewer people have applied to come or to extend their stay. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kirsten Banks, Lecturer, School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology Debris on the surface of Mars from the Perseverance mission, captured on April 19 2022. NASA/JPL-Caltech In his inauguration speech in January, United States President Donald Trump ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alix Woolard, Senior Research Fellow, The Kids Research Institute Australia Stock Unit/Shutterstock Have you ever asked someone how their day was, or been chatting casually with a friend, only to have them tell you a horrific story that has left you ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Quentin Grafton, Australian Laureate Professor of Economics, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The Roper RiverChris Ison/Shutterstock Water is now a contested resource around the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fight playing out over the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Turner, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies, The University of Queensland Matej Kastellic/ Shutterstock As we head towards the federal election, both sides of politics are making a point of criticising universities and questioning their role in the community. ...
Alex Casey examines the perils of having your period at a music festival. It was right after Clairo’s swooning set that Sarah* knew it was time. She was on the second day of her period at Auckland’s Laneway festival, and braved the portaloos to empty her menstrual cup and change ...
A battle between health officials and local councils is heating up, as one government party seeks to change the rules. The Bulletin’s Stewart Sowman-Lund explains. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
A global consultancy will lead the government's review of electricity markets, with a local firm offering advice and two groups of experts providing quality assurance. ...
New Public Service Minister Judith Collins is calling for a culture of saying 'yes', but being honest enough with ministers to "reconcile the vision with reality". ...
The future of nearly a third of all huts and tracks managed by the Department of Conservation is in limbo, as the agency faces a 30 percent shortfall in funding to maintain them. ...
Today I’ve had a bit on. I’m living in a 23.4 metre tug off the coast of Samoa and have been for a few weeks now. I’m on a top-secret mission to help save the planet from another potential environmental disaster.I’m currently tasked with looking out the window and making ...
The ‘loneliness epidemic’ is apparently spreading around the world, but what does it look like here in New Zealand? Rachel Judkins reports. It’s a beautiful summer evening in Cornwall Park, with families scattered on the grass and a live band playing a backing track to their laughter. Sprawled on a ...
The Act leader gets a telling-off from the principal and prime minister Christopher Luxon loses his cool in a heated question time. Echo Chamber is The Spinoff’s dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Wellington editor Joel MacManus. ...
The High Court isn’t the appropriate place to solve a South Island iwi’s claims over freshwater, the Crown says.Ngāi Tahu leaders, and the collective Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, are taking legal action against the Attorney-General, demanding to be involved in decision-making over freshwater. Iwi want the Crown to recognise ...
Teenage swimmer Rylee Sayer has qualified for the world Para swimming championships, a year after her right arm, clavicle and shoulder were amputated to remove aggressive bone cancer. Ironically, her surgery has resulted in her being more competitive, due to a Para swimming reclassification.Sayer, 16, is also the only swimmer to ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Wednesday 12 February appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: It was the 10th anniversary of UNESCO’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science this week, the theme being ‘Unpacking STEM Careers: Her Voice in Science’. It is 2025, but we still need a lot more of her voices in science.In New Zealand, a 2021 survey found that ...
NewsroomBy Dr Jennifer Kruger and Dr Kelly Burrowes
A Government proposal to axe the only two jobs in New Zealand’s health sector of people who were working on a national strategy for palliative care has angered those in the sector, which is already under immense strain.It’s put another wedge between those who want terminally ill patients to live ...
COMMENTARY:By Sawsan Madina I watched US President Donald Trump’s joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week in utter disbelief. Not that the idea, or indeed the practice, of ethnic cleansing of Palestine is new. But at that press conference the mask has fallen. Recently, fascism ...
For mary
Seamus Shag
Seamus is small, sleek, & black all over, apart from some white plumage on the front of the throat & his chin. He’s a Little Shag, according to NZ Birds Online.
https://i.imgur.com/FN3HECU.gif
Love the names Gezza. Very entertaining.
We have a "mythical" cat according to friends who have never seen Mia, but observe her bed toys and bowl!!
An orchard born year old nervous native when she came to us, she disappears at extra people machinery or strange vehicles.
She is clean loving and plays like she always did, leaping and rolling in gay abandon even at 10 years. We enjoy your videos very much, keep them coming Cheers.
Thank you very much, Patricia. It’s lovely having all this free entertainment just over my back fence.
I recommend you call your cat the Invisible Cat. I can well imagine what she is like. My brother had one (of their three cats) who was invisible. She just didn’t like visitors & would also disappear. If you were lucky you see the tip of her tabby tail disappearing around a corner or into the bushes.
Spotted a very unusual bird in the stream this morning, but didn’t have my smartphone on me. By the time I got back to the fence it had moved upstream, foraging.
At least twice the size of some nearby mallard & mallard/grey hybrid drakes. Black feathers, with some flashes of white, & a very red thick beak (not a “bill”, like the ducks’). Wonder if it might be a black goose? Never seen one here before.
In Australia they have moorehens. There are some here I believe.
Bingo! (I think.)
Thanks Patricia, I’m pretty sure it’s a common moorhen. The dark colour& white flashes look right:
https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/common-moorhen
I have a couple of video clips of it some distance away. I’ll either run it through the zoom option of my movie-making program on my older laptop, or take a still frame or two & crop & enlarge them online. That should confirm it.
Oh I hope so. It is so frustrating when that happens. Good luck with the enlargement.
Seamus Shag is a very busy little fella and delightful to watch. Thanks again Gezza, much appreciated.
Morning must read:
A submission is being made,
and the person was allocated some 4-5 odd minutes, Person Russel, Other Person, and Male Human, are simply not a. paying attention, b. paying a modicum of respect, and
for what its worth, it appears that murderers and rapists in NZ – men who have committed crimes as men – are now in prision in NZ as Non Males.
These people are on the Government tit, have been for the most of their lifes on the government tit, for shame.
This is the Labour Party, and the Green Party, in its truest form.
That clip shows the true face of the parties involved in this removal of rigths from human beings that used to be known as 'women'. Btw, to any bloke who says this does not affect you? Do you have one of these humans at home? They might be your birthing partent, they might be your spouse, they might be your offspring, let me assure you in no uncertain terms this does affect you.
And btw, rest assured that there is nothing in my case that the Non Male Leader of the Labour Party could ever say in regards to this bill that would ever re-assure me or would sound even the slightest bit 'believable'. Ditto for the Non Male Co Leader of the Green Party.
Let's hope all, that we get the chance to vote in 2023, and let me assure you that my vote will go to whomever opposes this bullshit.
Labour/Greens – Never! Again!
Good on Rex! A wahine toa indeed.
Let's not ignore the abysmal time-keeping.
Start around 3:53 to hear the attempts to interrupt begin before he says at 4:00 "You've had your five minutes."
As for Deborah Russell MP:
Leave the camera on. We've all seen women stretch before, it's not a big deal. (Alternatively, tell the truth – Rex Landy rightfully identified your behaviour.)
she was the one that called small business owners 'losers' last year in April during he first lockdown. I did not think that that person could show herself even more callous than that, but good grief, this is a supposed MP of the Country. And this person lives of our taxes and hard work.
For shame Labour. For fucking shame.
I have a bottle of whiskey that i auctioned off the Non Male PM of this country many years ago, when Andrew Little was polling at 5% for preferred Leader of this country, and i am honestly thinking that the best to do with it is to flush it down the drains. As the Labour party should be flushed down the drain.
I will always vote on the left, and as a strategic voter, I will vote Labour or teh GP to keep National out of power. But the left is in for a big wake up call come the next election. Just like Māori, women have their own political perspectives, needs and positions that don't always align with the mainstream political left, this is true even for left wing women. If the NZ left wing parties aren't watching what is happening to Labour, the GP and the Libdems in the UK over this (and they're probably not except through an ID pol lens), then they deserve what they get.
Same, since the Values Party I've always voted for the planet and a fair deal, but seeing this and getting some idea of what its all about, unless they bring back the McGillicuddys I'll be refraining in future.
It is as if the inmates have taken over the asylum, Andrew Little with his steadfast adherence to reefer madness was already becoming impossible to support and in this clip he demonstrates why for a rational future its become necessary to vote Andrew out.
That's not Little in the video.
I've voted GP for as long as they've been around, so it's a pretty big deal for me too.
They may get what they deserve but do the people of NZ deserve it – especially the economically vulnerable.
Women in prisons are being raped and inseminated – aka rendered pregnant – being offered abortions in prisons, because men who raped and killed can identify out of a male prison into a female prison and be given access to vulnerable persons who have no recourse, and have no right to privacy, bodily autonomy and safety.
But then, its just some pesky non males. Right?
Oh please, if, and it's a big if, this is happening, then it sure as hell isn't being done by any trans woman.
LoL they are men. Forever. Can never erase that Y.
The only way to be a woman is to have been born a girl. And no, we are not clownfish/seahorses/plants. Intersex want nothing to do with your claims about identity of men in dresses. Intersex is not an identity.
http://www.womenarehuman.com
Check #ThisNeverHappens 😉
I'm hoping what they deserve is to be seriously challenged on what they are doing, but still win the election. I would never wish National on this country especially in the form they are in now. There's no evidence that National will roll back any of the gender ID legislation anyway.
No, there is no way any of these people will get my vote. I might lose any right to bodily autonomy (and that is what this bill is imo), any right to even just go to a toilet and in peace urinate or defecate, lose my right to a 'born female' to touch my body after a rape, and so on and so forth,
but i will be damned if i vote for my subjugation, and put myself on the urinary leash all by myself.
This video demonstrates the absolute disregards these persons form the so called 'left' aka Labour/Green have for the concerns of presons/peoples/others/karens (karens of all colors and creeds).
If the left abandons what it stands for, is it then still the left?
I have asked this before, how can anyone on the left condone the doings of Labour and the Greens if the same thing would be abhorrent to them under a National and Act government. And how can anyone vote for this, and pretend that National Act could be worse.
And last but least, there are other alternatives to put a vote for then the FFP system that seems to still linger.
This then is not a democracy, it is a demockery.
NACT would be worse because on top of this there would be all the other stuff NACT do – cut benefits, fuck with employment legislation, more dairy farms, much slower climate action and so on (pretty long list).
I'm not seeing any evidence that NACT will reverse or amend the gender ID laws.
Does anyone know the Mp positioning?
if you have no more sex – and with that no more sex based rights, how would that affect
a. benefits for 'women' if they are sex based?
b. can a person with a functioning cervix/uterus be compelled by Winz to breed children for money as a career choice (Tamati Coffey atm is pushing for the commercialization of 'surrogacy')
c. can transmen be drafted should there be a requirement
d. can any case of 'sexual discrimination' be dismissed on the grounds of gender?
e. transwomen be 'women' and thus diversity in businesses/parties be achieved (two entire male transwomen in Germany got elected on the Womens Roll if the German Green Party, thus before the persons of Germany ever achieved parity in that Party)
f. can lactating persons be compelled to sell their human milk for money by Winz?
g. can people be compelled into sex work (a career choice to some prostitution positive genderists) by Winz
g. the climate is fucked and we need a better Green Party to change anything, at the moment the Green Party is not even able to understand basic biology, or at the very least is steadfastly refusing to admit biology in favour of 'self identity.
these are just a few things that come to my mind,
Sorry Weka, i know where you are coming from, and I voted for the Green Party in 2016 in honor of Metiria Turei. And unless something changes, and radically and quickly so, that was the last time i voted for them.
Tell me how not voting GP or Labour in 2023 will prevent any of that. When you’ve done that I’ll make the argument for how the non vote will make things worse.
It wont' prevent it because it is already decided. The clip above shows that this is just for show – bread and circus and hey the people in that clip are paid to be there. I guess they call that ‘work’.
Thus tell me how not voting for the Greens or Labour would make it worse for us?
I will not be part of my own demise Weka. I will not be part of the subjugation of us, I will not be part of the group that will remove the rights that our kin, has fought for, got beaten for.
And above all tell me how the removal or our rights, the commercialization of the female reproductive organs, the 'rendering invisible of biological women' it can be good for society and the environment.
I can't stop it with my vote, but i can refuse to rubberstamp it. I will not be an enabler, the turnkey, the jailor to my own prison.
Every time we have a nine years of a National led government we lose ground in so many areas. There's not evidence that National won't also carry on with the gender ID pathways. Our main hope of change for the better for women in regards to gender ideology is to push back. This is *way easier under centre left governments thand RW ones, because under RW ones a lot more of women's energy/time/resources are tied up in surviving. This is doubly so for working and underclass women, single mothers, Māori, disabled women and so on.
That's the same argument about most things eg climate change. Real change happens outside parliament and then parliament has to follow. But it's even more important here, because of how the many of the women in Labour and the GP are. Taking power from them basically leaves neoliberal conservatives in power and they're not going to be acting in the best interests of women on any level.
Agree weka.. I see this identity stuff as foolish and wrongheaded but feel that solidarity on economic injustice is more pressing, and that despite all their flaws the current government's efforts to undo the legacy of Rogernomics is a worthy project.
The cries of the poor have been ignored for too long.
how many of the poor are persons/people/others/karens and their children?
and does it matter that now we not only deny their existance, we remove a few rights, and they are still poor.
let me put it this way, the Non Male Leader of the Green and the Labour Party will never use a public toilet, they will have the keys to the executive suite, or maybe use the loo in the Korou lounge, you and i however will have no such luck, we will have to go into unisex toilets with urinals next to the handwash basins and the men will still have their mens.
This Genderquatsch will mostly – i would even go so far and say ONLY harm vulnerable and poor non males and their children.
And if taken to he extreme will sterilise and castrate the children of the poor, the neuro diverse, the ‘non conforming’ children.
I worry for my young nieces growing up in a deeply sexist, body-negative, gender-confused culture, weaponised by Instagram. There are some really bad stories coming out of Australia and Scotland about families being torn apart and women silenced.
Feel like we have to choose the lesser of two evils. Keeping the complete whack jobs of National and Act out of power is actually an existential demand for vulnerable NZers. Covid running rampant (as FJK etc are advocating) will kill thousands, mainly the poor, elderly, and people with other health problems. Housing will be made 10x worse. Inequality will be ignored. Health and education will be slashed and sold off. We will be distracted by massive rugby and sailing spectacles while all the problems are swept under the carpet.
Hold your nose and vote Left.
I will vote for social credit, legalise aotearoa, or something like that.
but i will not vote for people that take rights away form us humans that were formerly known as women. Never. I will not be complicit in my own demise.
Let's get a women's party started. Te Paati Maori is TWAW. I didn't vote for them to tell me women have a penis and men get pregnant. GP DGAF about the environment. Virtue signaling to the max. 9 in James entourage, flying o/s. Not to mention the dreaded Covids. Labour has lost their way. Natscum. ACT blame the poor for being poor and are Hobson's Pledge type of folk. So what is left. All the GC ♀️ to ruin their ballot? I wholeheartedly agree. I will not be complicit in my erasure
We're always the first to suffer in times like this – however, this identity 'politics' is a $34 trillion industry, Big Pharma love the #LifeLongPatient model it affords. Whereas sex is observed at birth, matters regarding healthcare and spaces where both sexes deserve privacy.
There are currently 1200 girls waiting for radical double mastectomy/hormones/puberty blockers in our gender clinic currently…. this is taking healthy breasts away bc of a mental illness (it's in the DSM-V).
I understand that you must believe what you believe.
But i would like you again to look at the above clip, keep in mind the video of kerekere 'terfing' submitters, and tell me why again you think that these people will care.
Btw, I see no difference between Labour and National. Non of the raises in benefits have kept up with rising living costs and rental costs. No houses have been build, but the government has 'bought' houses of the market thus contributing to high house costs. Despite some crappy sandwiches in school – when school is actually on, child hood poverty is through the roof, because their parents are not keeping up with rising living costs and high rental costs/mortgages. Healthcare even without Covid was and still is a mess. Corrections a mess. Poor old people are still deciding if they should eat, have medication or heat as they still can't afford all of these things in one pay cycle.
You vote for the Green Party, go ahead, but so far you have not given me any reason to vote for them again. And the sad stage of the environment is not working anymore, no more then' national will be worse.
The last time national was having the reigns they did not try to put us back in to the 'seen but not heard box' that Labour and the Greens will put us in favor of the feelings for the generally het men with a fetish.
Also, can you explain to me if men are women, will they still be women when women have no longer rights, or will they revert back to men?
As i said, i will not be an enabler to the undoing of my sex, the few rights that i and those like me have, not even under the false premise that 'national will be worse' or that 'the greens will save the environment'. Not good enough.
Sabine, much of the foundation for SSID was laid under National / ACT governments. This has been happening since 1995. What's happening now in relation to BCs is the last card in the hand of formal and social rights needed to trump biological sex with the notion of gender identity.
I'm with you in relation to there being very important wider implications to the integrity of sex-based rights but when you suggest that a Labour government would force women to bear children, enter sex work, or sell breast milk etc, I'm afraid you lose me.
To me, the biggest threat in all of this comes from the generation of a socially conservative backlash – that will be surfed by crackpot extremist libertarians.
@TeWhareWhero
It happened already in England, during the Financial crisis some years ago where Jobcentres had job offers for Strippers and Lapdancers. Outrage ensued, and it was then banned in 2010, but it happened. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-10831614
So when i point to these scenarios it is not that Labour will do that or the Greens or National for that matter or any coalition, but that anyone could potentially use what ever legislation comes from it. Once it is legal, and sex is no longer protected, what then. What next.
Like for example, if men can get undressed (fully intact males) in the sauna, or spa area for women, then that would also lead to remove 'indecent exposure' for example, as clearly men do not have to undergo a gender re-assignement surgery in order to be women. So there will be huge legal changes as consequence of these changes.
So apart from the very obvious, these questions still stand, can and will people be compelled into these situations?
And so far, no one has given any assurance that it won't be irrespective of the colors of the government du jour.
I voted Labour or Green all my life. I am now politically homeless. I taught women’s and gender studies courses at university for more than thirty years. Sex and gender have been core and distinct concepts in sociology since the 1970s. Yet we are not ‘allowed’ to discuss these in political contexts unless we parrot ridiculous mantras like ‘trans women are women’ ( trans women are biological males with gender dysphoria). The role of a select committee is to hear and consider evidence. I am appalled by the behaviour of the BDMR select committee members – sneering at submitters they dislike and failing to give even the appearance of listening to groups like Speak Up for Women. Watch Deborah Russell and Elizabeth Kerekere during that and some other submissions. I left the Green Party this year when disagreement with gender self ID was termed hate speech. Im extremely unlikely to be able to vote Labour again after this mockery of democratic process. Ant vote NACT so looking for a leftie protest option.
great to see you here Sue. Your submission was heartening and inspiring. So wonderful to know FOWL are organising around this.
The trouble is Weka, Labour and the Greens will see it as an endorsement of their policies if they do get back in.
We really don't have much leverage unless we collectively threaten to withdraw our votes .A huge fuss needs to be made so as to embarrass them and make them reconsider. It looks almost to me as well that Auckland is starting to come apart.Brazen non compliance and defiance of public health orders, what with that utter idiot Tamaki and the protest at the Domain today
Bang goes all the govt's covid credit if it falls apart.The restriction of our freedom in a public health emergency is the one scenario when community obedience is rational.That we can't even do that anymore gives me little hope of a spirit of collectivism to solve all our other problems
Completely agree with this.
If women don't vote and NACT get in, do you believe that Labour and the GP will pin that on gender ID pol? I don't. The non-vote will disappear into the rest of the non-vote that no-one talks about and if the ideology is still strong in those parties, there will be a strong motivation to stay in denial (assuming the protest non-vote as any impact). And yes, way easier to blame on things like covid failures.
But hey ho, we should probably be talking strategy about what to do between now and then so it doesn't come to there.
why would you assume that we don't vote, by not voting for the 'supposed left' ?
MMP is the game in town, NZfirst, Maori Party, Legalise Aotearoa, Social Credits etc can all be voted for.
They might not make it in, but sometimes it is better to lose then to be complicit.
And the best thing that can happen to any of the more prominent parties is to be so small that they must go into a coalition. And that can't happen if people vote by default rather then on issues. And undoing womens rights, endangering womens in their daily lifes, work, and sport, are issues that are currently laughed out of the door by the Ministers of the Green Party and the Labour Party.
So what do you think
amplifying the issue on social media ?
(which I keep far away from)
Letter writing to MP's? local papers and the Listener
Discussing at branch level ? Contacting local Green candidate.
I think they need to be warned , because they will lose heaps of women voters
There is a media blackout on this issue unless it’s a ‘my beautiful trans kid’ story. Gender critical views don’t get published. I’m not part of Speak Up for Women, but any coverage they have had misrepresents their views. I attended one of their public meetings on the Bill and found a pleasant group of women providing a clear and accurate summary of the main points in the gender self ID clauses in it. Some transsexual women (ie medically transitioned male-to female people) were with them in support. I cannot and will not toerate the shutting down of women’s voices on this issue. I’ve been a feminist lol my adult life and, although we have often been ridiculed and misunderstood in the past, we have never been shut down or had our views banned until now. I can’t understand how this is happening. And I certainly won’t vote for a political party whose MPsinsulge in this kind of behaviour.
Wanted to address this separately. This is why the GP vote will be important. What we are seeing is the divisions from decades of neoliberal ignoring of social unrest and poverty. If we get a Labour governent next time and the Greens are out of parliament, hands up who thinks that Labour will move left and address poverty or housing?
Is the Non Male Leader of the Green Party not some associate minister for the homeless and housing?
Why is then the Green Party wasting precious time and resources telling women that they are subcategory now of their own sex class so that men can pretend to be women and be given unfettered access to all and any spaces that used to be single sex, under the guise of inclusion of some while excluding those that came before. Colonisation is a good word for what the Greens and the Labour Party are currently doing. Colonising womens spaces for men.
And knowing that the Greens will enable the next Labour Government should the need arise, why are they not leveraging this knowledge now in regards to housing, homelessness and poverty? After all they have no issues working together in removing the sex based rights of Non Males in this country.
Half the left want them to go harder on socioeconomics, the other half want them to stop and focus solely on the environment 🤷♀️
Genter today on transport, urban development and climate, in case anyone criticising the Greens wants to know what they are actually doing.
https://twitter.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1444072679489748993
@ Weka,
Has the green party released a statement in regards to the atrocious behavior of the Green Party members, such as KereKere and her 'terf' youtube video?
that right now is the only statement i would like to see, and also i would like to see that from the Labour Party.
A short, concise statement that will be clear that this attitude as evidenced in the video above, will not be tolerated, that the people who will make their statements will be treated with respect, fairly, and will not be spoken over or have their times cut short, and above all will not be insulted with the term 'terf' or called transphobic.
As for Deborah Russels tweet about not giving a fuck, well maybe someone in Labour Leadership should tell her that is is really not smart to admit to the public that while you like the wage you don't wanna do the work.
Time to start a left women's party. Who knows how to do this. Let's start one. What do we need to make this a reality? I'm keen. I'll join. Let's get it started
Personally I'd rather see a coalition of flax roots organisations arise first, strong and stable. Several years of those doing media work, public meetings, submissions and so on might change things.
I'm impressed with the groups that have been submitting this round. Bodes well. Am also very impressed with the rise of grass roots feminism in the UK.
what a fucking shambles. If SCs are normally like this, I'm even more shocked. And then people wonder why most people don't bother with engaging with government.
I believe it was obvious Russell wasn't listening.
A person with a modicum of respect would have waited till the presenter had finished her submission, a matter of minutes, to 'stretch her back'
And once Rex had been unceremoniously been shut down, they then all had a jolly good laugh.
They disgust me.
yes, that last bit was where they showed their true faces.
Did the man say "Don't worry Deborah, you got away with it"
then they all had a good laugh
yes it seems like he did.
That's what I heard too.
The cynic in me thinks they would by now be tech-savvy enough to ensure the video was off first, but they didn't because they wanted to show a public rebuff after the submitter was no longer on screen.
Unprofessional, cowardly or both.
If you dig deep enough, you will find that Rex (typically a male name?) is probably having her chain jerked by the Christian Right.
See seems to have scrubbed her Google history? Perhaps she doesnt want people to find out what she really thinks?
Eh?
How did you come to that conclusion?
How does one scrub ones google history?
He's got to have some cromulent excuse as to why I'm not in favour of children being sterilised, or the $34 trillion Big Pharma medical industrial complex medicalising people for profit. 😉
Jennifer Bilek has written extensively on this. #LifelongPatients once you have the kids, see.
Follow the $
soap and hot water does wonders i hear.
LMFAO you can fuck off all the way with 'Christian Right'. I was raped by a priest at the age of four with Catholic maths (35 DOES go into 4) so if you think I have anything to do with the Whore of Rome you can think again. Or any Xian bs.
I'm still laughing as I type – google me and you will find the dozens of OIA requests and 'footprint' you believe I've had scrubbed away… I'm a professional nobody, have complex mental health needs and damage after my childhood rape – not every outcome has been good for me, see? Can't put my finger on it, but after four years old, it was a mixed bag. They DID give me a fabulous education though so that's a bonus. 😉 Not my shame to carry, so I'll just put it out there straight away, bro. LMAO.
Good for you Rex.It was a great submission and you spoke so well!
Gratitude and respect
what a racist and sexist comment. as if a mana wahine does not have her own opinion.
Can you please provide a link to substantiate your claim?
A lot of people in this country are religious. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, all sorts of different Christian denominations, and certainly a few more that i am forgetting.
Are you saying that if a person has issues with being delegated to the dustbin of history and stripped of their rights they must be a supporter of the Christian right? Really?
And Rex is a manly name too? Damn her, being so gender non conform.
Maybe she should identify as a male and run for the Male Co Leadership of the Green Party?
😆😆people who can't believe hell have no fury like a ♀️.
I can assure you Rex is all woman and pulling her own chain. How far are you gonna dig to believe your own ears?
If you are right, and you may well be, but you have no evidence that you are… What you have in front of you, is her submission. And what you are able to comment on, is the content of her submission.
To pass judgement on this person, on a posit of possibility when you know nothing else but what she says here, is a way of dismissing what she says without addressing it.
(This does not hold true for public figures however, where we hold many examples of their behaviour and speech. But Rex Landry is not, AFAIK, a public figure and your reference to their non-existent Google history equating to be taken in by the Christian Right is a bad conjecture to make.)
See what happens when you make stupid, partisan assumptions in a political forum.
Lefties, men in particular, might want to ask themselves why they find it so hard to believe or accept that left wing women have their own strong politics when it comes to gender/sex. The connection between GC women/feminists with the religious right is a bullshit line run by gender identity activists. It won't work on TS because there are too many left wing women here, long term Standardistas, who are informed and highly politicised on the issue.
Probably because in the USA opposition to transgender rights is one taken up by the political right – GOP, which has strong Christian conservative connotations (and connection to their historic position in rights for same sex people).
It’s not the only issue in which there is a coalition of diverse groups.
The biggest grouping of gender critical feminists is in the UK, and this is far more relevant to NZ than the US. Gender ID activists call the UK Terf Island. It's not a secret. Anyone who says that those women are allied to the religious right are either willfully ignorant or lying.
The US is a different situation, but how on earth Millsy made a connection between that and this Wahine Māori is beyond me.
Sure the GOP's conservative females are not at the centre of feminist discourse.
But I wonder if some on the liberal left are not being misled by this, as maybe millsy is, and not thinking the issue through a little more.
For example I was on side with some on the inclusion of transgender concerns at the Auckland event, but this does not inform my position on fair competition in sport or women’s safety.
How so? Who are the liberal left in this context?
In the perception that concern about the proposed legislation comes from the conservatives who resisted equal place for those of same sex attraction in society (and recognition of their relationships).
The attitude of the Labour and Green MP's (support for proposed legislation) on the SC is indicative that they see the transgender issue as one of inclusion of society diversity within the civil liberties/human rights orbit. Thus they see any resistance to the legislation as coming from those on the wrong side of history.
Thus nuance is lost for the sake of political conformity to established liberal (open to socially progressive change) vs conservative (resistance to such change until it is normalised/accepted by the mainstream) positioning.
The hilarious* thing is, this self-determination ID has been (wilfully?) misused. It's a piece of international law that applies to PEOPLE, as in A PEOPLE the right to self determination. The international human rights lawyer Rosa Freedman submitted on it. It is a glorious, erudite and composed laying out of the law. Nicola Grigg was paying attention and writing things down; I heard her murmur 'that was important'.
I'm hoping to do a post on the submissions, making them very accessible to people with links and time stamps so people can pick out the ones they want to read/watch. Even just finding them has been hard going. Looking forward to watching Rosa (one of my favourite GCFs) and getting up to speed with that particular issue.
thanks for clarifying SPC. That makes sense and is similar to how I see it.
Best to ignore Millsy he's got a long history of making up shit about people… tbh I'm suprised moderation hant had a word about the reckons on Rex…
I get it's difficult to countenance a woman filled with fury 😉 LoLz. I know if he's looked at my video he knows I'm a woman and he is a bit of a korero tutae. Thanks bro.
AUCKLAND HARBOUR CYCLE BRIDGE SCRAPPED
Thank goodness. Sanity has prevailed !
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/government-scraps-785m-auckland-harbour-cycle-bridge-eastern-busway-the-winner/3FHI5GTQWJ2MFCR5Y7DMCAQARM/
That bridge was never gonna be build in the first place, and well some knew and some others….believed.
It was a little exercise in divide and conquer, smoke screen building and kerfuffle to not actually discuss the matters that matter.
But hey, for a while people believed that they would get a golden bridge to nowhere.
Next smokescreen please.
Insanity, building ever more motorways, has prevailed over a piece of infrastructure which would have reduced carbon emissions for the next 80 years.
Sanity has not prevailed.
It shows the problem with building carbon reducing infrastructure, when there is a chorus of unthinking protest, against spending even a fraction of the billions spent on motorways.
Mis information and utter bullshit has prevailed. As it does to often, spread by our wilfully ignorant and self opinionated media egged on by a right wing that would rather our country fails, than lose power.
A busway in highly populated areas is a better investment then a bike bridge.
Free public transport would be a good investment, but it will not happen.
The real insanity however is that it seems people believe that we can shove even more poeple into AKL and that they all need to go downtown to earn their pennies.
As Covid right now shows us, Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
I have been saying for a long long time now, that government should incentivize businesses to settle elsewhere and thus take the workers with them. this would actually revive some areas of this country, relieve the pressure on Auckland and maybe even lead to a better and healthier usage of our environment.
In the meantime tho, 1.6 odd million people are on Home D with one hour of outdoor exercise, permitted take away and 'work from home' or under severe restriction go to town and office/shop.
And no this bridge was not only disliked by the rightwing. I think you will see that polling showed labour that even lefties (and not all lefties are labour supporters ) just saw this as a diversion and pipe dream.
And fwiw, we need cycle ways. Lots of them. And in this case i would say, that the first step to get people to cycle over the bridge is to liberate a lane or two for cyclists. Permanently.
Agree.
One day, Sabine, it'd be nice to meet.
ditto.
we should organize such a meeting. I would happily host.
Cool. Let's revisit this at some point when Covid allows movement.
yes, sounds like a great idea.
NZTA has ruled out a dedicated cycle lane on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
If the Minister turns public transport infrastructure into a popularity contest, nothing will happen except building more roads because that's what people want.
Where that leads is to continue NZ as one of the most car-polluted, unsafe, car-addicted countries on earth.
well, fear not Ad, soon there will only be electric cars, for those that can afford electric cars. The rest will walk, cycle, skateboard or use the bus.
NZTA needs to pull its fingers out of the proverbial and liberate a lane, and if only to actually gauge the real usage of that lane and thus be able in the future to build a dedicated cycle over that harbour.
But frankly it is easier for central town people to take a ferry with their bikes across the harbour than it would be for people on the outer edges of auckland to get into town with a car.
FWIW, I’ve decided it’s time to trade in my 16 year-old Mitsubishi Colt Plus, & I’m about to start researching which similarly-sized hybrid petrol/electric vehicle to replace it with.
I’m not going with an EV. The nation-wide charging infrastructure’s not sufficiently built yet.
Also, I’ve heard murmurs that disposing of old electric batteries is very problematic, & a cuz-in-law who’s an AA patrolman also told me just yesterday that he was told the amount of carbon released in the construction of EVs far exceeds that of the building + several years’ running of an efficient, standard petrol-powered auto.
(And do you have to get a charging station installed in your own home garage, anyone know?)
I never had a car to begin with, even while living in Auckland for 20 odd years and i worked downtown, newmarket and other places. Always got where ever i wanted to on public transport, cycling and walking. It can be done if the infrastructure is there.
Gezza we have a 2006 Toyota Ractis. We are keeping it as it is 1350hp, and easy to get in and out.. seats are high. The back seats are able to lie flat to take a wheelchair walker etc. It is an economical automatic. We are awaiting a comparable model. Still waiting.
1350hp out of a Ractis ???!!!?
Jaeeezzuss, you must really be the deadly granny sleeper-car at track days. How do you get that much power down to the ground?
Lol My bad Andre, not hp should be 1.5L
If you are seriously thinking about going electric, it looks to me like holding off for a year or two would be a good move. The electric choice right now is really limited and expensive, but there's a lot of chatter about things in the pipeline that might arrive in the next year or two that really are big improvements on what's available now and probably cheaper.
sigh someone with a vested interest in internal combustion engines repeats some oil industry misinformation talking points and all of a sudden it's gospel …
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/may/11/viral-image/producing-electric-cars-battery-does-not-emit-same/
Yes, producing a battery electric vehicle does produce more emissions that producing an ICE vehicle, but how much more really depends on the electricity supply of where it's produced. If a battery electric vehicle were produced then used somewhere like Poland where close to 100% of the electricity supply is coal-fired, then it would take somewhere around 8 to 10 years to be lower lifetime emissions than an ICE. If it were produced and run using 100% zero-emissions electricity, the battery electric electric would have lower lifetime emissions than an ICE in less than a year. Personally, I'd work off of two years as a rough estimate for a BEV produced overseas and used in New Zealand.
There's plenty of attention and interest in electric vehicle battery recycling, starting with simply repurposing them to stationary storage when they're no longer good enough for the extreme demands of EV use. For example, Nissan Leaf batteries getting used in Nissan factories:
https://uk.nissannews.com/en-GB/releases/release-abe1d9572c0dbf098bf54c66e9451201-the-leafs-lithium-ion-batteries-find-a-home-in-nissans-automated-guided-vehicles
Then there's plenty of efforts going into direct recycling. Such as Redwood Materials, founded by J.B. Straubel, one of Tesla's founders. Their initial feedstock was rejects from Tesla battery production, which was really the only regular large quantity supply of batteries for recycling. There simply haven't been enough electric vehicles produced yet for there to really be enough end-of-life batteries to be recyled for anyone to make a business out of it, but there's plenty of companies gearing up to take that really valuable "waste" stream and turn it back into useful raw material. A simple google search on electric vehicle battery recycling will get you tons of info.
If you're looking for a Colt-sized EV with useful range and a palatable price, there really aren't any here in NZ, yet. Closest might be a Renault Zoe or Peugeot e-208, both somewhere on the wrong side of $60k after the Clean Car rebate.
But BYD are making noises about maybe releasing their EA1 (Dolphin) into NZ maybe next year, which would likely be somewhere around the $40k mark. There's a few others on the horizon as well.
Home charging can be done from a regular 240V outlet. Figure on adding 15km of range for every hour of charge. The next common option is a 7kW charger that most houses could cope with with boosting the house supply. Dunno about pricing, but if you forced me to guess I'd guess somewhere around the $3k mark installed.
Cost-wise, there's the potential imposition of Road User Charges that electric vehicles would have to pay starting March 2024 IIRC. Right RUC are 7.6 cents per km, which is just a tiny bit less than I pay for petrol for my Honda Fit hybrid. For me, that bit of transport policy stupidity would be a real obstacle to get over were I in the market for wheels right now.
But if my Fit hybrid were to be written off in a crash, I'd seriously think about a Prius plug-in hybrid. The first generation plug-in (3rd generation Prius body) gets somewhere around 15km pure-electric range, pricing starts from around $13k, while the second generation plug-in gets around 50km pure electric range, prices start around $35k. Most hybrids use Atkinson cycle engines, which basically give diesel levels of fuel efficiency without the diesel exhaust nasties.
Colt-size hybrids are mostly limited to the Toyota Aqua (everyone will think you're an Uber Eats driver) or Honda Fit. I bought my Fit hybrid in April this year, because on my test-drives it just suited me better than the Aqua. But that's just me.
Thanks for all this info, Andre. 👍🏼
Bloody awesome.
My current car is a 1.5 L Mitsi Colt Plus. It’s got an extended back boot, lots more space with the rear sets flat, quite a bit bigger than a standard Mitsi Colt.
Ah, I'd missed that a Colt plus was longer than a regular Colt.
There's the Shuttle version of the Honda Fit that's pretty much the same idea. Available in hybrid and regular drivetrains as used Jap imports.
A Prius is still quite a jump up in size, about 65mm wider and 150 to 300mm longer than your Colt plus.
The city largely lies on a isthmus is between two harbours and two oceans. The city spreads way past the two ends of the isthmus.
The harbour bridge is currently the only short in distance and time route between major population and employment centres (areas in and near to the Auckland isthmus and those on the North shore) – unless you want to go 30+kms around SH16/SH18 on the upper harbour.
It has nothing to do with adding more people into Auckland – it simply has to do with being able to connect the existing people with their existing employment.
The centre of Auckland is also a major centre for concentrated employment because it is equally accessible to people from the North, South, East, and West of Auckland because it is at the isthmus and the transport links that centre there. It can draw on the skills of the whole city.
Just as an aside to that, I recently turned down permanent jobs in the North Shore both up towards Albany/Rosedale. That was simply because the transport situation was so much of an issue. I live up by the Ponsonby/K Rd intersection – right by the motorways and with good access to all public transport except for rail (at least until the CRL is completed).
On a good pandemic run, it would take me 18-20 minutes by car to get to those jobs. When I tracked the actual times on google that I'd normally travel. It would take between 30 minutes to 90 minutes by car. In the past it has taken me up to 120 minutes when I worked out there for a few years – and I got badly hit by other cars twice over 2 years. Driving a car is pure dead time. Doing it for 15 hours a week on top of actual work is just a waste of my time.
By bus it was about 75 minutes each way. Not a complete waste of time – I can read a book in a bus. I can even sort of play on the blogs – albeit rather painfully. 12 hours or so a week would be just irritating.
By e-bike it would be around 85 minutes if I took a ferry – where the ferry timings was the main time constraint. If there was a bridge crossing it would take about 60 minutes – because the whole route is much more direct and less hilly than landing at at Bayswater road. At least that would have taken care of my exercise – something else a car or a bus simply doesn’t do. However I’m not sure that I’m interested in that much exercise each day.
The eastern suburbs are actually a reasonably lightly populated part of Auckland becasue there is not that much depth in the surrounding suburbs.
If you wanted to put a busway into a highly populated area, then you'd fast track the one up the existing North-western motorway, and put a busway and cycle lane up the existing Southern Motorway. Both of those have large population catchment areas, and far far significiant employment opportunities. Both would benefit from a busway (and cycle ways) far more than the south eastern suburb corridors.
The only reason that they are putting one into the eastern area is because they are currently upgrading the arterial roads out that way to cope with a relatively small population increase in density. I also looked at a job out towards East Tamaki. The public transport sucked, and there are no safe bikeways.
That is a pipe-dream. I thought that may have been possible when I was looking at it in the 1990s. Experience has taught me that it almost certainly isn’t possible for most people employed in productive private businesses – even the ones that I work in who are primarily focused offshore. Quite simply there are reasons that make it preferable to live in larger centres, and I don’t have to move somewhere to work there. I can increasingly remote into the jobs in smaller centres.
Eventually I took a job in Hamilton – and I don't have to settle there. Mostly remote working from Auckland. I'm not even working at home – I'm renting a local workspace 300m from home. That is because two of us working on different jobs in a smallish apartment is just too irritating. When I'm trying to get a concentrated bit of work done, my partner is on a long and loud conversation with her gig-job employers in New York or Invercargill, or where ever. Or talking to a Indian distributor or chasing down supplies. She says that my standup conversations about work with whomever I'm working with (also worldwide) are just as irritating.
Whenever the lockdowns cease, I'll be in Hamilton 2 days a week for a while. By car that is about 85 minutes each way and a airBnB overnight. If the Te Huia train went from Auckland to Hamilton in the morning and came back in the evening (rather than the other way around), I'd use that. It might take 150 minutes each way – but I can work on a train.
However I'm unlikely to move to Hamilton. As a skilled worker, that would be employment and financial suicide.
In Auckland in the private sector there are at least several hundred firms that I could work for, in person or remote, with my current skills. In Hamilton where I went to uni, even with its current rapid expansion, then are probably 30-40. In Dunedin where I also went to university, maybe 20. Smaller cities like Rotorua or Palmerston North – there would only be a couple.
The choice as an employee, the choice is so much smaller because I have a smaller selection if I need to be there in person. And most employers would prefer you to be there in person. Despite spending a lot of my working life working remotely, I prefer working at a workplace – provided i don’t have to waste much of own hours getting to and from that workplace.
Being close to large urban areas give more choice about where you work locally, what you can work on, and who you work for. From the choices of employers to the quality of your transport and data links.
This doesn't apply just to the excessively skilled like me. If you're a worker at almost anything beyond retail work these days, you're increasingly skilled and more specialised than anything in the past. The idea of moving people around and training them like identical dominoes has gone the way of conscription – for exactly the same reason. All enterprises rely on their skilled staff and their skilled staff will move between companies multiple times during their working life.
Doing the remote work internationally is much the same. The work may be done over a data link. But those are much much more reliable in urban centres – I only have to look at the quality of links of people in zoom or google meet to know that.
Being able to pop down to Jaycar or PBTech and lay your hands on gear immediately is far easier than having to wait for increasingly erratic deliveries (or whatever your working needs are) is worth its weight in gold for productivity.
Basically, I'll probably move out of Auckland when I retire. It is the minimum that I can get away with. Ideally I should have moved offshore decades ago – but I prefer living here rather than in Austin Texas or Silicon Valley or the Silicon Slopes. And I'm in one of the more transportable professions.
I do agree with you, i myself chose Auckland for reasons of work when i moved to NZ.
But is that not the issue now, that AKL can't build up fast enough and can't get enough public transport now to move those people that move in. And that will not get any better in the future.
I pretty much lived my whole life in big towns, but living in Holland actually opened my eyes a bit what can be done if Government works with businesses.
I.e. Hilversum, a medium sized town 35 km from A-dam and 15 km away from Utrecht. When Nike closed their individual houses in the various european countries to open a Europen Headquaters in Holland, they were 'directed' to Hilversum rather then say A-dam, Rotterdam, etc. They were granted 600 carparks for something like 1800 people plus visitors and sales people that would come and go. But the government also provided extra trains to Hilversum, more train arrivals and departures, and a new trainstop across from the Office building to make up for the lack of carparks. Train tickets are tax refundable as a business expense, and thus were at the time paid for by Nike. Why? Any extra carpark that Nike wanted to build after the 600 granted would have come at an extra cost.
Sometimes it feels as if we had tried nothing really and now are out of option. And again, i am not even against a cycling bridge, i cycled in Auckland in 1998 – lol when there were no cycle roads.
I just believe that putting all of our economy in one town is a sure way to disaster if something happens. Like Covid.
And i only left Auckland as Virgil got offered a job as an IT person here in Rotorua, otherwise i would still be there, for pretty much all the reasons you mentioned.
Yeah Auckland has issues.
Many, if not most, of them are related to a council with a business (with a small b) focus that ran the cities and region for decades. Plus a central government that kept hoping Auckland would get smaller if they didn't put money into it. They put money mostly into regions where their voters were.
More recently, it has had a central government interested in raking in immigration money and then dispersing it not in infrastructure or realistic housing development – but into tax cuts. It meant that most of the immigration wound up in Auckland (for the reasons I outlined), but a minimum of things required to grow.
But even if they tried to, there is another problem. One that makes it difficult for even try to push things towards dispersal rather than Auckland getting bigger.
The problem is that NZ is made up of small companies – there are no Nikes. Almost all of them are small by any international standards. Just consider this statement from stats nz in 2018.
The stats tend to cut off at 100 employees. If you look for a definition of mid-sized businesses in NZ, you tend to find statements like this.
If you dig around the stats for what the larger employee company sizes are, you’ll find that they are also small to mid sized enterprises. They might have thousands of employees – but they are scattered in little pockets throughout the country – like banking, supermarkets, reale state, or even Fonterra. We don’t have many single enterprise sites the size of the Nike operation you mention. They are in fact multiple small or mid-sized companies.
So those companies don’t draw staff to them. They go to where they can get staff or customers. They have little to no interest in drawing either towards them because they simply don't have the scale to do it. Even our larger companies are below the scale of Nike. That is why virtually every government push to move people out of the larger cities has failed.
The ones that have succeeded over the long term were those that were based around raw materials, natural advantages or scenery – electricity for the smelter, oil and gas for New Plymouth, tourism for Rotorua and Queenstown. The port for Tauranga. Even then most of them only managed to stave off relative population decreases.
Company towns like Tokoroa started drying again as a their business changed. The only new company town I know of is that mattress company who are trying to build in the Waikato.
Meanwhile a city like Auckland which only has a harbour as a natural asset has to develop despite a historically lacklustre set of councils and National governments who, mainly for electoral reasons, wished it didn't exist.
Climate change mitigation is not justification for this proposal.
Not all alternative transport systems are the same in regards to that.
That is not to say that planning should not include as a matter of course, recreational cycleways, walkable neighbourhoods etc. The immense value to users of mental and physical wellbeing, and improved social cohesion have been researched and validated.
However, it is the alternative transport systems available to commuters that will get the most people out of cars. The provision of affordable, reliable, efficient public transport systems that enable people to get to work, study, services, sports is the climate change mitigator. Not a bridge crossing that is an addition to the already successful alternatives for the harbour crossing that include the Northern Busway and ferries. The inner city community is already well served in that respect.
This is a choice of assessing the inequality that has come from very bad city and transport planning in the past, and making future choices that do not increase that inequality further.
Would this money have come from the Auckland fuel tax? I'd be interested to know.
However, even if it didn't… isn't there something fundamentally wrong with ignoring the fact that it is the lower income households that have to move further and further out of Auckland, travel further to get to work, school etc and therefore pay more of their income on this fuel tax than those that have the privilege to be able to live and work in close proximity? (and are more likely to have travel costs included as an employment benefit
Shouldn't we be spending on improving services for the wider Auckland population before giving an expensive additional harbour crossing for the recreational benefit of an already well-serviced community?
The short answer is Yes.
I cannot think of the last time a Minister had the balls to take the credit for failure on the scale and spin it so that he's just doing what the public wants.
so many public relations workers earning their keep.
They generally do. Two decades worth of growth in consultation requirements in our legislation have propelled it.
we will have a non polluting electric or hydrogen fleet of vehicles very soon, but they will need something to drive on, do you not see that?
What's your evidence for that claim that "we will have a non-polluting electric or hydrogen fleet of vehicles very soon"?
Wrong all round, Alan. For years (since Rogernomics) we have been importing far more cars than we need, making them far too cheap, and no matter how many roads we build, we end up with ever-increasing gridlock. We never take off the roads more cars than we put on.
I think the tide is now changing. We are going to have a difficult future; we will soon be importing fewer cars, and eventually the roads we already have will be more than we need or want to maintain.
Why add more roads?
The only major transport projects this government will complete in two terms will be motorways. Enormous fuck-off motorways. Northland, Waikato, Wellington.
In NZ's major public transport projects you can fill a phonebooth with people trying to make it happen, and easily fill a stadium with people trying to stop it. And in the stands is this government.
Vote Green and some of the transport things you want might just happen Ad. The problem with this government is that it is 100% Labour.
From memory this government did scrap many of the RONS Joyce was so fanatical about.
Last term we had Greens as Associate Transport Minister and even less happened.
This time the Green leader is the Minister for Climate Change and he's just a kite floating in a storm.
Successful politicians don't get re-elected by what they stop.
If James Shaw stopped climate change, he'd get re-elected alright! Deified even!
Deified? I think that would be going too far. And he’d have to go off & create his own universe.
Possibly canonised? 😇
How can the Greens stop climate change if they can not even accept basic biology?
That's the best policy segue I've ever seen.
Because the Greens are promoting the gender identification clause in the Births and Deaths Bill, the Greens are also incompetent in climate change policy. Now sometimes I'm tough on the Greens, but I've never tried that kind of comparison before. Are you sure you're not writing for TheOnion?
No, but if we are to trust science, does that include biology?
we are bodies – biological entietys, we breathe, we need water, we need shelter etc and if that is not a given we die. That is basic science and biology.
We can agree to disagree on various aspects of the Gender ID bill, but can we really pretend that biology – male / female – reproduction etc does not exists and if we don't like it we can just wish, hormon treat it, surgically remove it away? I doubt. Underlining the body is what it is, irrespective of the outwardly expression of anyone. Thus a transman can be a birthing parent, due to the invisible female (reproductive organs)
biology inside their body.
If these people can not accept that you can not 'change sex' then sorry mate, i don't trust them with fixing anything.
And btw, that whole 'change the sex' and be what ever you want is something that i expect from the Onion, but sadly as the video clip above showed, is standard operating procedure for the Green and the Labour Party.
Neither one of these parties will do anything to stem misery that will come with the raise in temperatures in the next few years.
Trust science, but only the science that we like and that we approve of. Vote Labour/Green 2023.
Possibly, but not after he’s been crucified first.
Here's a positive transport story from today Ad. 40,000 truck movements removed using rail instead. If you could be bothered to look you would find others.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/126562888/climate-and-congestion-at-forefront-as-government-funds-ashburton-rail-hub
Why you fall for this bullshit is beyond me. The headline is all about climate change while killing off a major public transport project.
Then we go from that to somehow shifting the rail hub in Ashburton, which will not change our climate impact one iota. It's not even a useful urban renewal project. On top of that, it's $2m – barely worth a contract variation.
The light rail team have just announced that they have three options to present to the government. So that’s: more options, then studies, then costings, then evaluation, then business case, then Cabinet, then network evaluation and integration into AIAL Kainga Ora AT and AC, then design and detailed design, then consultation, then land acquisition, then procurement, then construction, then operation. Unless there’s a change of government.
It would be great to defend this government on transport if it were defensible.
The question should be – how did this madness get as far as it did?
It started when National killed off trams and public transport and addicted Auckland to motorways instead starting in the mid-1950s.
And then was enabled further up by any other government and mayor of Auckland that did nothing and even furthered the idiocy.
The transport mess, the housing misery, all of that is the result of decades of 'cant' be bothered' by both National and Labour.
That's a stretch. The cycle bridge was a daft idea, the timing of the announcement was incredibly bad, and no-one believed it was going to end up costing under $1bn.
Re the cycle way
Build a cycle park, and run a free bus/shutle
if cost 1m$ then got 700 years
I will never ever understand why the UK elected a buffoon like Boris.
But I notice at the recent UK Labour Party conference that Starmer came out against PR. So the Labour Party continues to be run by dinosaurs who simply do not understand that without PR, and where there is a split vote between the Greens, Liberals and Labour, and with and Boris's fixing of the electoral system https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/01/boris-johnson-rigging-the-system-power-courts-protest-elections, they are unlikely ever to get back into power.
"I will never ever understand why the UK elected a buffoon like Boris."
There are many reasons, but I'll give you two:
1. Brexit
2. Jeremy Corbyn
Gypsy…now give me some valid reasons.
They are valid reasons. The conservatives won seats right through the 'red wall' because their position on Brexit was clear and in favour. Corbyn was and is unelectable.
“The takeover of the Labour party by the far left turned it into a glorified protest movement with cult trimmings, utterly incapable of being a credible government,”
Tony Blair
Rubbish.
Without constant life support from the Murdoch press, and the Israeli antisemitism lie, England would have had Corbyn – and ten of thousands less Covid casualties as a result.
It is the Blairites that doom Labour, depriving it of its function: representing the interests of working people.
And, absent Covid, NZ’s current government would already be on its way out – failure to engage with housing costs and the like – so off task they're chasing chimerae like gender when there are substantial issues unaddressed.
UK Labour was riddled with anti-semitism. And Corbyn indulged it, at the very least. That he has a sordid history of cuddling up to terrorists didn't help.
Labour doomed itself, as would any party with the likes of Diane Abbott, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner.
The Israeli intelligence op against Corbyn is well documented Israel running campaign against Jeremy Corbyn | The Electronic Intifada
Exclusive: Israel lobby infiltrates UK student movement | Politics News | Al Jazeera
a sordid history of cuddling up to terrorists *citation required
Corbyn was and remains a better leader of Britain than any of the tragic procession of conservative hacks Murdoch media anointed. Starmer is just another quisling – Labour will go nowhere under him – which is of course exactly what you and Murdoch want.
The Israeli intelligence op against Corbyn is well documented
Well he gave them plenty of material.
a sordid history of cuddling up to terrorists *citation required
https://news.sky.com/story/corbyn-and-johnson-in-row-over-early-release-of-london-bridge-killer-11875070
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/03/jeremy-corbyn-has-a-soft-spot-for-extremists-ira-hamas-hezbollah-britain-labour/
https://www.economist.com/britain/2019/11/09/security-questions-for-jeremy-corbyn
There's loads more if you want.
"Corbyn was and remains a better leader of Britain "
Corbyn is and was an unelectable nutter, he was the most unpopular opposition leader in British history, and led Labour to it's worst defeat since 1935.
Finally, if you have any doubt, this is the woman he wanted to be Home Secretary.
Ah yes – recirculating more Israel based agitprop.
Corbyn is an activist with a lifetime of serious engagement directed at finding peaceful solutions to difficult conflicts including Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine. This has required that he talk to both sides. That bad faith opponents try to exploit that for their own political ends says more about them than him.
Corbyn is and was an unelectable nutter
I think we can safely regard you as an unreliable source – a hysterical hater of the Left with nothing to boast of but your empty prejudices.
Dianne Abbott was Corbyn's pick for Home Secretary. Not only does she think on balance Mao did more good than harm, she has huge problems with numbers.
"Corbyn is an activist with a lifetime of serious engagement directed at finding peaceful solutions to difficult conflicts including Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine."
Sniff.
There's nothing obviously unsuitable about her – the fact that she seems to incense far-right bigots like yourself counts rather in her favour.
But come on – no words on Boris? – a clown so stupid he not only presided over 137 000 Covid deaths, he did his best to join them – a man whose follies now compare with the late stage Soviets – empty supermarkets – but not a peep from you, you're too busy trying to smear someone you figure you can then use to smear Corbyn.
You're grasping at straws – grow up and give it up – you've got nothing.
Dianne Abbott was …
Every party has its share of unsuitable fools. But in a country with a PM as manifestly unsuitable as Boris, you're busy nitpicking Corbyn's opposition appointments?
Your priorities are bent completely out of shape by your irrational hatred of the Left.
You praised Corbyn's leadership. Picking an obviously unsuitable individual to be your shadow home secretary suggests either his leadership qualities are not what you claim, or she is up there with the best in Labour. Which is it?
Under MMP Corbyn would have been PM in 2017 AND 2019.
It was a freak result in Scotland in 2017, where the Conservatives did much better than expected under a very popular leader, that stopped Corbyn from being PM.
"Under MMP Corbyn would have been PM in 2017 AND 2019."
That is by no means certain. Labour woukld have needed the LibDems, and given that Jo Swinson lost her own seat, who knows. You'd also be assuming the major parties would run FFP campaigns under MMP, which is nonsense.
In the end the Conservatives won handsomely.
Everyones trying to stop me
Arrest the pulpit pimp.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-up-to-2000-protesters-at-domain-brian-tamaki-warned-over-lockdown-rally/H4J5F42V3AF6UMDWLCWDE5XJPQ/
Welcome to the Church of Suicidal
We'll have a sermon and a wonderful recital
But before we go on there's something I must mention
An important message I must bring to your attention
I was in meditation and prayer last night
I was awakened by a shining bright light
Overhead a glorious spirit
He gave me a message and you all need to hear it
Send me your money
That's what he said, he said to
Send me your money
All Tamaki wanted was a Pepsi, and Ardern wouldn’t give it to him
All he wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn’t give it to him
Just a Pepsi
He should be Institutionalized
Judging by the signs displayed at this Auckland protest, their agenda is
1. We hate Jacinda 2. We don't have anything else in common 3. But we really hate Jacinda.
Apartheid, vaccines, women and farms, apparently.
Interesting how Apostle Bishop Brian only comes out of the woodwork when Labour is in government.
Not when NACTional are in power and selling off public housing, persecuting beneficiaries, and enriching themselves.
Almost like he has something in common with the corrupt gNat shysters.
Given rumour still has it the Pope when elected still has to be carried over the other religious weirdos in a seat with a hole in it to show he isn't a chick again, nothing surprises me.
[Take the weekend off for your vile lie, which is easily neutered with a quick & simple fact check. You were doing reasonably well contributing to discussion, but you cannot help yourself, can you? This fucking stupid comment did not add anything useful and can only be seen as a sad attempt at a sick joke, which ridicules the whole topic thread.
Enjoy your time off in Wellington while others are still being cooped up in Level 3 – Incognito]
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
See my Moderation note @ 12:34 pm.
Tell me what “rumour” means, and what you’d call someone who intentionally and deliberately spreads “rumours” that are vile and wrong and denigrating a large number of people because of their religion in one fell swoop? I can make all sorts of allegations and accusations under the excuse of “rumour” or a ‘friend of a friend of my brother’s girlfriend saw it somewhere on social media’ AKA hearsay. Is “religious weirdos” a fucking “rumour” too?
If you had at least made some political point that we could discuss you would have received (yet another) warning and (yet again) waste my time. As it is, there was nothing redeeming in your comment and you had long run out of warnings, as your recent diversion trolling under this Post (https://thestandard.org.nz/keys-baaaack/) and before that in another Post show all too well; you only barely escaped a one-week ban the other day too and came back with a cheeky reply in Daily Review.
IMO as Moderator, you’re a sly disingenuous troll far too often here, i.e. you have form with saying “sorry, but …”, “forgive me, but …”, and “rumour has it …”, etc., so that you think you can get away with saying whatever you like whenever you like. It won’t wash with me.
BTW, anything that you post here and that I can read in the Back End could make things worse for you.
The Bridge is dead, long live the Bridge!
Chucked in the "too hard" basket. So much for CC being our "nuclear moment" or whatever. Moar roadz FTW
Shifted the site server up from the linux kernel 5.4.0.x to the 5.11.0.x. There have been some odd crashes and automatic restarts on this system recently. I tracked one of them down and found that there had a been a kernel patch that fixed it the problem, and that it wasn’t likely to be backported to 5.4 any time soon..
I've been running 5.11 on my laptop on ongoing development towards ubuntu 21.10 and it is rock stable at the low levels (the KDE gui has lots of holes). The recent release version of ubuntu 20.04.03 installer 5.11 when it hits unknown hardware. So it seems like a good bet that it isn't going to cause issues with the server.
Lets find out shall we 🙂
Good luck; just don't mess around with Arch or Fedora unless you want even more bugs 😛
I have tried arch a few times. It is a fast way to learn how to fix linux issues.
I recently spent a 18 months building linux images with yocto. That is not only educational – but it also gives you an appreciation for how complex linux is, as well as showing just how long you can run computers at 100% CPU over all cores for hours.
100% ?!! You bully!
Here's a gnarly wee trick for reading stuff from behind the Herald's joke "paywall" 🏴☠️ 💩 😈
curl -s https://{herald-link-url-goes-here} > herald.htm
xmllint --html --format herald.htm --nowarning --xpath "//p" 2>/dev/null | perl -pe 's|<p.*?>||g;s|<span.?>||g;s|</.*?>|\n|g' | fmt -p -s | perl -pe 's|<strong>||ig;s|. |.\n\n|g' | fmt -p -w80
can you translate that into plain english! 🙂
You can see the whole article if you use the view source feature implemented in most browsers.
hahahah, i understand the words, but what must i do?
In several browsers I can access this feature by right clicking on the page and finding the option to view page source. This shows you the markup as well as the text on the page, so it shows you the page without formatting.
Apparently the herald pay-wall is optional in the sense that all the article is always there, its just hidden by the formatting. However I suggest not viewing source on herald articles as its usually a waste of time reading anything they put behind the pay-wall anyway. I think they just use the paywall to discipline staff who attract a large audience.
Yeah, all the above code does is strip out all the HTML stuff so you just get the article in plain text.
Plain english is what it does.
It should run on Mac or Linux, but not Windows. Uses a few command line tools (curl, xmllint, perl, fmt) to grab a webpage then spit out some readable text. The above example isn't the exact command I used, as the comment box formatter is a bit tricky and I messed up one or two characters.
A more accurate copy is here.
out of curiosity, do you realise that most non-geeks won't know what you just said?
Well admittedly it is quite a geeky solution. There are other ways to mess about with web pages & paywalls using browser extensions, but for some reason (an annoying browser redirect script that I couldn’t squash) the "bypass paywalls" trick didn't work for one article I wanted to read. So it was a fun exercise to see if I could come up with an alternative. Result!
lol the Github one is for geeks too.
I'm always curious how geeks see their explanations landing with non-geeks, whether you get that it's not accessible.
(but well done! I wish there were more regular attempts. I use archive.is mostly but it hasn't worked for the Herald).
Added a comment to my gist – – if you know how to use the uBlock Origin extension, these filters work pretty well to demolish walls
– – –
! http://www.nzherald.co.nz/arc/subs/p.js
! http://www.nzherald.co.nz##.article-offer:style(display: none !important; visibility: hidden !important;)
! http://www.nzherald.co.nz##.paywall:style(display: block !important;)
! http://www.nzherald.co.nz##.pb-f-article-body #article-content.premium-content:before:style(background-image:linear-gradient(rgba(255,255,255,0),rgba(255,255,255,0)) !important;)
I know only too well how it comes across. My Dad hates computers but I always "got" them.
Some things are a fun technical challenge or a puzzle to solve. Sometimes you either get it or you don't.
I've been doing this for a long time now so the command line tools are not scary at all. In fact I see the CLI as a more logical way to work than the ADHD-inducing madness of modern GUIs.
Cool trick. That is worth writing a cpython.
Does it keep the paragraphs?
Not really, it just adds a line break after every sentence.
Haha, must be like breaking into a bank vault only to find it full of dog shit.
Yeah especially if it's from Matthew Hooton.
Destiny Church it seems has been in receipt of upwards of $128,000 in COVID wage subsidies!
https://services.workandincome.govt.nz/eps/search
you will need to type “Destiny Church” into the search box–only takes a second–as linked result would not paste here.
So what do you think
amplifying the issue on social media ?
(which I keep far away from)
Letter writing to MP's? local papers and the Listener
Discussing at branch level ? Contacting local Green candidate.
I think they need to be warned , because they will lose heaps of women voters
I can't travel to Northland because I can't transit through Auckland airport.
If I take Brian Tamaki and a mob with me will I be able to wangle a way through?
I feel very sorry for the (majority) of Auckland Maori who are actually complying with the fight against Covid. The country is literally being held hostage by a handful of muppets.
Alexei Sayle's podcast (started late 2020).
This is not comedy as such, just communism with a sense of the absurd.
Recommended.
https://audioboom.com/posts/7736438-keir-starmer-establishment-tool
https://audioboom.com/posts/7948459-more-hope-please-with-jeremy-corbyn
What the hell!
A couple of thousand numbskulls gather at the Cenotaph, Auckland. Few masks, no distancing. Afterwards, the gang riders traversed Auckland (some of them spent 2 hrs roaring around the streets of Devonport and presumably Takapuna) doing wheelies, riding on the wrong side of the road and generally disturbing the peace. I presume they were thumbing their noses at the rest of us.
And where were the police? Nowhere as far as I can tell. Its already been declared a probable super-spreader event, so I suppose we can kiss good bye to any chance of coming out of L3 now.
Lets be clear. This Destiny Church crowd are just another gang masquerading as a church. If the govt. and the police don't move on them, I suspect some members of the public will take matters into their own hands. That could spell even more Covid outbreaks that we are now going to see because of their behaviour.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/10/new-zealanders-react-with-rage-after-brian-tamaki-holds-anti-lockdown-protest.html
Yes the police were just there observing again. But then I guess they have to treat them the same as the funeral in west Auckland yesterday.
Different groups re the motorbikes, I ran into the group you spoke of in Auckland Central this morning mostly trail bikes…
I actually wandered down for look since it was close to home tbh from what I could see masks were pretty wide spread seemed more people than they had said on the news…
politicsWell lets hope it doesn't get out of Auckland.
Covid-19: Burger King and BP stops added as locations of interest on Auckland truck driver's Palmerston North trip | Stuff.co.nz