The whole anonymous @ 3.48 thing means lots of scrolling and jumping back and forth, esp on long comment threads.
Plus if he disables anonymous and leaves only pseudonymous/real names and logins, then it’s more likely people will use a consistent handle, which makes it easier to follow debates.
For those who are unaware, this is where Trotter’s title comes from.
If there is to be revolution, there must be a revolutionary party. Without a revolutionary party, without a party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style, it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of the people in defeating imperialism and its running dogs.
What we do not have in Labour today is not a revolutionary party it is a party of the mainstream status quo.
The last time Labour was revolutionary was in the 1980’s, when they sided with the capitalist running dogs.
Yes, and a practical example is Labour’s stance on beneficiaries and social security. For as long as Labour and National stand side by side on this issue the longer we’re saddled with relentless nasty attacks on the poor. Regardless who the government is.
Well, I’ve known Chris Trotter for quite a long time, and I think he’s a great writer, ah, I think he might be, um, better at writing fiction these days, ah, and, but I think he’s also a bit like a dog with a bone, and he tends to live in the past a bit in his writing, and, ah he also has hasn’t been a member of the Labour Party for a very long time, but he likes to give us the benefit of his very strong views, so I guess that’s what I’ve got to say I mean, um, you know that’s not the way I um saw it, and ah you know we had a great conference, and we’re a united party moving forward.”
“… a bit like a dog with a bone”… better at writing fiction…” Don’t you love it when someone in describing someone else, are in fact describing themselves.
“… we’re a united party moving forward.” One of those senseless sayings. Moving forward where? To the top of the cliff?
Just moving forward. Not sideways. Not backwards. Just forward, on the same circular path. Nobody, it seems, is moving with them. And they won’t, unless & until they know when they are going to break out of the circle, where they are going, who is actually driving, and whether they have the skill to drive.
“Dog with a bone” is code for “we know you’re right but we’re never going to admit it so we have to dismiss what you say without debating the merits because if we did that our flawed position would be exposed so, no, we can’t do that and that’s why we have to resort to maligning you personally with pathetic little tactics like calling you a “dog with a bone”.
Labour was reactionary in the 80s, not revolutionary. They acted to preserve the prevailing social order, not to overthrow it. Since then, it’s been business as usual, steady as she goes.
I think they were revolutionary in scope and impact. Although we had a system of capitalism beforehand and that is also what we had after, the changes that the Rogernomes (followed by Ruthanasia) brought on were not part of the natural evolutionary trend of NZ over the prior decades.
My feeling is that it is now time for a counter-revolution.
Although we had a system of capitalism beforehand and that is also what we had after,
And the system of capitalism we had after the 4th Labour government was the same as the one in the 19th century which was the driving force behind the introduction of the 40 hour week, unions and award rates. The 4th Labour government effectively took us back 150 years. This government wants to takes us back even further.
1. The level of frustration experienced by people in the east of Christchurch.
2. The level of incompetence of government departments.
3. The complete and utter abandonment of east Christchurch people.
Gerry Brownlee has had peoples holiday homes in Akaroa repaired. He has had people in his Ilam electorate with minor cracks to the paint repaired. Meanwhile those in the east with completely broken houses, crooked foundations, unsanitary services have been left to fester with inadequate resources for EQC to carry out their repairs.
And this government are also going flat out on building a fucking stupid convention centre right in the middle of town, before those of us who live here are looked after. Oh yes, convetnion-goers are such important people. What a bloody joke.
And Labour? Fuck them as well. Shunting Lianne Dalziel backwards. She is one of the only ones to take this corrupt and uncaring National lot to task. Now she’s effectively gone as well.
Thanks for nothing Shearer you cock.
As for governmentr departments and their renowned inefficiency, well all of those stereotypes are being well polished at the moment. Total incompetence. Get a dozen people from the east together to compare notes. You will be lucky if you find one that is happy. All have tales of complete incompetence, fools, lies, bullshit, the lot.
It surprises me not one little bit that people are threatening and carrying out their threats against EQC aka the government.
It has all become a boring story now no doubt to the rest of NZ, but that means fucking diddly when it comes to the reality on the ground.
I say return the physical reality to the government. Which is what the people in this article are doing. Good on them, we need more physical action. Nothing else works.
Well I for one always appreciate your comments on Chch vto, and I can tell you that some of us at least are watching from the outside and and understand that unless NZ wakes the fuck up it’s only a matter of time for the rest of us.
However, you are right in that most of NZ is too insulated from the realities of life for Chch people. I had no idea this was going on –
“Fletcher EQR general manager David Peterson said the firm had spent thousands of dollars on extra security to protect its 700 staff after threats and verbal abuse from homeowners.
“We have 20 hubs around the city and we’ve had to make the fences slightly higher, put in exit doors for staff and the reception counters are higher now too, so people can’t jump over them so easily,” Peterson said.”
I remember when they brought in security staff at WINZ offices. It was after that high profile case of a man attacking an ACC staffer I think, and marked a significant change in NZ culture/society. But what that article describes is far beyond isolated incidences. Seriously bad levels of collective stress.
I tend to agree about getting physical, but wish it would happen in street activism style rather than personal violence.
Planning repairs to take place up until 2015 was never smart. No alternative housing provided by the government.
Live in a shed in your back yard for 5 years? What do EQC and EQR expect – buy in?
Gerry’s policies are to have his government do nothing so that EQC and EQR take the blame.
Thanks vto. I wonder how many of these frustrated people would have bothered filling out the wellbeing survey even if they’d been asked to?
All the powers that CERA and Brownlee were gifted and they haven’t used any of them to help people living in broken homes, neighbourhoods and suburbs. They’ve never used those powers to bring the insurance companies into line. They’ve never used those powers to do anything about the shortage of accommodation for those in most need.
They haven’t even used those powers to speed up the ever-so-precious – and supposedly vital – development of the inner city retail precinct, despite moving rapidly to compulsorily purchase land in ‘The Frame’ (because they are so pro-green space – what a joke). Compulsory purchase of land in The Frame is all about increasing the land values of those in the ‘retail precinct’, and that land, in turn, is now being forcibly aggregated to drive out smaller property owners in the area.
Their powers have been used for one thing: to advantage large, private capital in the re-engineering of Christchurch as a neo-liberal city whose prime functions are the smooth extraction of resources from Canterbury and the provision of ‘investments’ for large capital.
Burdening ratepayers with expensive ‘nice to haves’ both advantages private capital (e.g., Philip Carter will do very well out of the Convention Centre proposal) and has the desirable side-effect of pressuring the Council to sell assets or risk becoming the unpopular initiator of massive rates increases.
The hierarchy running things in the Labour camp obviously don’t care about the Canterbury vote.
I would have thought that demoting a Christchurch MP is the ultimate in lack of political nous. But then why am I surprised.
U$K: The artist taxi driver on the desperate austerity screw the Tory scum are imposing to pay for their Bankers’ Bail Outs and their continuing bonuses. The Pigs at the trough lie are winning. 🙁
They think they are winning. Watch the fear level of the elites begin to ratchet up over the next couple of years. Those “spontaneous” “criminal” riots they experienced in the UK are only a taste of things to come.
Problem is CV thats exactly what the elites want to happen, as they care not about the people hurting, killing , wrecking etc, it makes no difference to them at all!
The humanity has gone, those running the show have been actively murdering, and genociding for so long, that now with the technology etc behind them, I just don’t see where the ability to force change if coming from.
Not helped of course by the sleeping population base here in NZ, or is it that the exports took the thinking ability with them, and left a bunch of bloggers behind in their place!
Maybe it’s the reverse, that NZnis full of failed trade unionists who lost their cause in the UK when they took on Thatcher and ended up in that soft touch NZ. Having tried to ruin the UK pre thatcher they failed and vanished like whipped Curs, their tails between their legs.
Crikey, an early contender for non-sensical comment of the day. May as well claim the ’82 All Whites were mostly whipped curs running from Thatcher for all the sense it makes.
Who sailed to NZ started work at 54 on minimum wage. And the started my own business. Now retired with a nice house on 5 acres two yachts etc Not bad for a thick aging failed pom from the UK.
9 years on my wee boat traveling and with my wife, a nurse working for poorer communities, particularly in Vanuatu helping where they didn’t have medical services. Ura para para in particular we trained a fe w girls I. Basic medical skills and built their school and library and a woodwork workshop.
I ask because I have working class relatives there who found themselves, circa 2004, in what was, to them, a remarkable situation. When they visited here, they realised that, if they sold up their modest house back home, paid off their mortgage and came over to NZ they could buy, freehold, a modern home in one of those pop-up subdivisions and think about retiring early. She was a receptionist and he was a taxi driver.
yes puddlegum, when I arrive a pound bought 3.4 $ now less than 2. Cost of living has zoomed up since 2000.when I loom at house prices in the UK thayer seem cheap now.Still 4 mill v 66 mil in a similar sized country explains why I am here to stay.
Just wait till Labour gets back into power you dirty filthy pommy cunt. We are going to tax the fucking shit out of you to pay for schools and hospitals for the poor.
We are going to tax you out of your flash house and we are going to leave you on the street, just like where you want the poor to be.
AND JOINING A UNION IS A HUMAN RIGHT. YOU FILTHY FASCIST CUNT.
[lprent: Pull your head in. That, while you did make a point, was excessive. It is simply stupid and repitition will be dangerous. ]
Milsey cutie pie don’t you think not having to join a union is a human right too. I have no problem with those who want to join a union if they want to give their money to an organization that supports a party that is anti business and will probably cost them their jobs go for it. Where did all those unionized jobs in Fisher andpaykle go under the last Labour government?
Someone is clearly angry and frustrated with their life.
Frustration that other people are wealthier, happier and more successful. No, you won’t tax *the shit out of us*, my friend. Like Helen, we are smart and know how to play the investment game.
Weren’t you chaps suggesting R&D credits? That will be most fun. You’ll be paying for my overseas holidays.
PS: I don’t employ Union labour either. Never have, never will.
Like I said ,the worry is the failed “power to the unions model” that ended so spectacularly in The UK that’s been imported here. On the Tory side what I see imported is people with the get. Up and go to start and run business and employ others. I look around and see most big businesses run by Former UK imports as you call them. OLd joke Hoe do you vet a kiwi to run a small business? Give him a big one to start with!
No I just like to see workers walk away from unions, it’s happened here and it happened in the uk. Who needs to ban an institution thatbhas failed the people it purported to serve. Unions will just wither and die. No need to ban them. I believe in freedom of choose unlike the unions who believe in compulsion.
I am retired and on a pension milsey sweet thing I didn’t notice the unions in the Glasgow fire strike caring about the business and homes that were burnt down. I didn’t see the mining unions care about the pensioners who went cold with power cuts. The jobs hat were lost in other industries. The wages that were lost by all workers. It was about GREED. I want more and I think I have the power to blackmail the government. How wrong they were.
I thought it was the majority of new zealanders that voted JK in. Now didn’t Labour get their worst ever result! I am not so big headed to think that was my doing. I lay all credit at the feet of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen.
You are greedy. You want to have more in terms of tax cuts and profit, and you are willing to have children go without food or housing in order to do it.
The wealthy had their taxes cut by nearly half in the past 25 years, and the non-wealthy have had to pay for it with low wages, low benefits, and long hospital waiting lists.
And you want to take WFF which will result in more people going into poverty. Have you no decency?
Yes and under who did the UK fail. 13 thatcher years, major boom. Did Labour reverse anything she did, No, they just failed to manage properly. Result after 13 years of Tory boom we had years of Labour Bust!
Crikey, Addison, you seem to know even less about UK politics than you do about NZ trade unionism. Any other subjects you want to raise to demonstrate your ignorance?
btw, your claimed business genius status is somewhat undermined by your failure to work out what the reply button is for.
Who said I was genius, just someone with a work ethic who doesn’t believe the state needs to wipe my backside for me. Those who run down the UK actually need to compare it with the socialist paradises in The rest of Europe. You experts can tell me what anti union policies of Thatcher were reversed by the Labour Government. How much per year did The UK grow under thatcher and compare that with under Labour.
As far as I’m concerned Addison if you started up a successful business and succeeded in making it thrive and giving yourself and your partner and kids a comfortable lifestyle good on you and good luck to you. If you think you managed to achieve that all as a result of solely your own efforts and intellect and that the rest of NZ society had absolutely no input into your success I highly doubt that. You started and ran a successful business in a society which has developed an infrastructure and institutions in more egalitarian times past you that you (and everyone else) has benefited from.
Your goal in life seems to have been to become financially wealthy and you have achieved that. I have no problem with that. But if you think that therefore anyone else can do the same, and if they can’t or don’t they are all lazy, useless bludgers who deserve to be driven to the poorhouse you are extremely blinkered. Those who have not had the same advantages of education, language facility and business savvy you have do not deserve to have their living standards progressively lowered by policies which ensure the steady transfer of their limited and effectively shrinking wealth to those who are already doing well because of their own efforts.
I want a government which has policies that enable every one of its citizens who is able and willing to work full-time to do so and have at least a reasonable standard of living and self-respect. One which does not use lower wages, direct and indirect taxation, sale of taxpayer built income earning assets, and unemployment, to continually and increasingly facilitate the transfer of more and more of the national wealth into the hands of the already well off by effectively reducing the living standards of the majority of ordinary working citizens.
IMHO a democratic government should be rated and voted for on the basis of the standard of living it achieves for the majority of its citizens, and for the way it treats those who are prevented by illness or disability, genuine misfortune or lack of opportunity for education and decent paid work – not just on the preferences of those who have even by dint of hard work and good fortune, or inheritance, acquired more of its net wealth than others.
I don’t consider myself wealthy ,I have enough to make my retirement comfortable and have worked since I was young to achieve that. I do think that there are many in NZ and the UK for that matter who take the piss out of social services and could work but choose benefit instead. You seem think that there is nothing between chasing wealth something I have never done and Benefits. That’s Labour and the lefts big mistake. They hate anyone better off than themselves. So what of teachers, nurses ,doctors all rich pricks in socialist terms. A source of revenue to top up their political supporters and pet. Social engineering projects. A source of funds to produce money to try and bribe the electorate. What else was the last minute rabbit out of the hat policy of free student loans and working for families. The trouble is they now ignore the majority of Workers and concentrate only on the Unions and beneficiaries which is why for 4 and a half years National has been polling higher than Labour ever did. Why is labour in the pits. It’s not in government and therefore can’t raise the cash for buying popularity, bribes aside it has nothing to offer the average,note average hard working Kiwi.
Without working for families there would be people having to live on the street. Why dont you go to a WFF recipeienct and tell them that they should have all their money taken off them and live on the street. Im sure you will be finding your teeth.
Do you want to Americanise heath care. I am warning you, I will come for you if you do. I will come for you. I will kick the shit out of you 10 times over you mean nasty horrible person. All those poor and working people and unionists you denigrate will cheer me on and probably join in.
Milsey what hollow threats, that’s all ou have . No argument so threats of voiolence and thuggery. You would have fitted in well in the socialist party of Germany in the 30s. Thank god most of the human race has become a bit more civilized since then.
p.s. Addison, there was a very good speech about two Peters in the House this week, one old, one young, you should look it up and thenremember that without the dselfless sacrifice of thousands of people over hndreds of years yur great ability to run a business would never have eventuated, you would still be ( as you appear to be ) a serf to your masters
p.s Addison, there was a very good speech about two Peters in the House this week, one old, one young, you should look it up and then remember that without the selfless sacrifice of thousands of people over hundreds of years your great ability to run a business would never have eventuated, you would still be ( as you appear to be ) a serf to your masters
I am fortunate that my parents gave me an ethic for work and a good education. I was employed for a fair part of my life 18 to 40 years old and yes it’s better being your own master than not. I enjoyed being self employed my mistakes cost me , not the mistakes of others. I value that freedom as I value freedom of speech and applaud bloggs like this where the rights to express opinion are valued.
It’s just a shame when the likes of Milsey have to reduce everything to preconceived ideas. I am right wing if centerist. I come from a political family one you would find hard to believe. Father secretary of the TGWU in Glasgow who went on to be a conservative political organizer. A Step mum who ran the conservative ( unionist party) in Scotland, and a sister who stood as a Labour candidate. You can imagine family dinners! Yes I value those who went before , those who set up the welfare state, those who, fight for freedom. You may think all right thinking people are arseholes, your entitled to your opinion. It may surprise you to know that between leaving the uk in 1998 and arriving in NZ I spent 9 years on my yacht much of it in poor communities in the Caribean and pacific using my wife’s expertise as a nurse and what funds we had spare to help those communities. Great fun and much more satisfactory than being a tourist. Arriving in NZ, nearly broke was why we had to go back to work.
Addison said: “I don’t consider myself wealthy ,I have enough to make my retirement comfortable and have worked since I was young to achieve that. I do think that there are many in NZ and the UK for that matter who take the piss out of social services and could work but choose benefit instead. You seem think that there is nothing between chasing wealth something I have never done and Benefits. That’s Labour and the lefts big mistake. They hate anyone better off than themselves. etc”.
Perhaps you are describing some of the regular posters here, but I don’t see things in such simplistic class terms at all. I applaud your success. There is a wide middle ground between those who are extremely wealthy or even comfortably off like yourself and those who are on benefits.
Reading your comments it seems to me it is you who sees the UK and NZ as societies that essentially consist of people who make themselves successful because of their superior virtues, values and work ethics, and lesser beings who either bludge off people like yourselves or who deserve to struggle in a country which is by world standards still quite wealthy.
Are there bludgers and no-hopers in our society? Yep. Should dole bludgers be working if there’s a job they can do? Yep. Are there enough jobs they could do that would enable them to earn and save enough to better themselves? Nope – not when many of the jobs they could do (if they can actually get them) pay so desperately little they are really just subsidising their employer’s income and not even necessarily gaining the ability to meet their housing and living costs without state assistance. Can they better themselves? Not easily. Not in the current job market.
Are all people who haven’t managed to achieve your level of material and financial comfort bludgers or in some way blameworthy for wanting their incomes from full time work to be sufficient for a decent standard of living? Nope.
Does National have a plan to raise or at least not continue to lower the living standards of all people in full-time work? I don’t see it – joblessness and declining standards of living for the low and middle income earners seems to be the future under National. Does Labour have a plan to do this? Who knows? They seem lost. The party that does manage to find one will eventually replace the nats. Do I support unions? If there’s no other means by which ordinary working people can prevent their living standards, pay and conditions being lowered while those of the well off and wealthy keep rising, yes.
Addison wishes to ignore the broad societal and macroeconomic aspects of a nation, in order to pretend that heroic self-sufficiency will compensate for all situations, for all people.
I’m assuming Addison your objection to unions is based on a belief they destroy jobs by destroying businesses through unaffordable demands. To be fair, that’s happened. Certainly in a few especially noteworthy UK cases mentioned, and maybe even some here. But against that there are still thousands of negotiation rounds going on all around the world where unions are recognised where both parties reach mutually agreed and beneficial arrangements. Worker participation in profits is something that has always seemed to me to be a great motivator for increasing productivity, but although that has been frequently touted I dunno how much it’s happened.
I wonder if a certain someone is a spotty weed of a teenager working for minimum wage who has never been in a fight in his unachieving, virginal life. Possibly aims to be the local Union rep.
Threats of Union violence are amusing. Just one more reason not to hire Union labour.
Millsy’s violent comments were well off, and he copped a ban for them.
Hope you cop one too for describing them as “Union violence” you lying little shite. Nothing you’ve written here indicates that you’ll be of any value to this forum.
“Do you want to Americanise heath care. I am warning you, I will come for you if you do. I will come for you. I will kick the shit out of you 10 times over you mean nasty horrible person. All those poor and working people and unionists you denigrate will cheer me on and probably join in.”
Isn’t that last line a threat of Union violence?
I have a question. Why don’t the Unions, and unionists, run their own businesses?
One would have thought it was fairly easy for a Union to get into business. They have the workers, they have the beginnings of a management structure. Bolt on some further expertise, and away you go.
Good wages for all. Little dispute. Cut out the capitalist. If what the capitalist does is so simple, then compete with him. You’ve already got the labour.
I don’t hate you, Addison, as much as you want to paint it that way. I feel a little contempt for someone who thinks owning two yachts is something to brag about, and I find your simplistic outlook a bit sad. When I think about success in my life, I think about what I’ve been able to do to help others, not what I’ve been able to buy for myself. I would rather fish off the Birkenhead wharf with friends than sail in one of your yachts. I would rather help someone install solar power generation or build a low impact environmental dwelling, or teach an adult to read, than set foot on your other yacht.
You might have a great work ethic, but what have you done to make the world a better place or help a fellow member of society? What have you achieved beyond using more of our limited resources than you need? Why on earth should I hate you when I think I’m far, far better off than you could ever be?
Those pesky trade unions and their demands for basic worker safety and a living wage.
Fancy wanting to feed your kids properly and wanting to be able to afford to give them a decent education.
Give me a nation any day where I can, with significant subsidies that the nuclear industry attracts, look after myself.
And Thatcherism and Blairism have made the United Kingdom the great nation that it is today, as long as you don’t look at the appalling debt, the unemployment queues or what is happening to the north.
I seem to remember pr Thatcher that the UK was the but of what the rest of Europe called the British disease, unionism. Thatcher cured us of that but it now seems that many countries Portugal, Italy Greece, France have caught that infection and are paying the price.
Don’t run down young new zealanders. Socialists now that’s another question , I have seen the. Damage they did.Those parasite have been there for 400 years not maggies doing.
Yeah. In reality, the German and Japanese industrial relations concept is better – workers and owners co-operating to achieve the best end result for the business, and then ensuring those benefits are distributed equitably throughout the organisation.
There is no reason for a CEO to be earning more than 10x what his median worker earns.
Compare the UK with the socialist paradises in the rest of Europe?
I do. Everyday. I live in one and have lived in the UK. Unemployment figures were out yesterday… 4.9 percent thanks to worker friendly legislation. We also have high, really high union membership.
So look at your comparisons again. Anti-union UK is not the European Nirvana.
Go and tell that to the children of whole communities wiped out because of thatcherism.
I’m all right Jack is never a virtue.
Your five acres and boats prove fuck all, except that you could never have achieved it under Thatcher, and you would never have achieved it without a Clark government here.
Rather odd, and oddly misogynist, post from Tim Selwyn this morning. Admittedly, its about Seven Sharp, so he may have been mired in mediocrity to the point where it affected his writing. Must try harder, Tim.
Oh dear. I don’t know which to be more critical of. The statement that the 18-35 year old female demographic want fluffy, girly current events according to the management or the revoltingly sexist and lewd comments that followed.
BTW why do both channels cut the demographic to attract off at 54 years. Living dead after that age? Personally I’d have though the over 54’s would be more likely to be watching than younger people, out doing interesting young people things.
Editors note: I have just had a chance to get to this – sorry for the delay. This was an early draft that wasn’t vetted thoroughly enough for the language to fit with the values of the site. It has been now. Sexist jokes and language are lazy and dull.
You mean he rushed to hide his innate chauvinism behind a thin fictive veil of Political Correctness when it would be far easier to get over the blokey posturing and simply not say things which we know would offend our mothers, sisters and daughters like a civil person.
I don’t find that unusual at all from Tim Selwyn. I noticed a few years ago that he expresses some quite regressive stereotypes on gender and sexuality and some other related characteristics. I have commented critically on it on Tumeke in the past.
Actually, I plead guilty.. I check it out on the Web everyday after reading the guardian. I call it the daily bigot and it’s really interesting to see how many derogatory adjectives about a person it can fit in one headline. Also for straight out misogyny it’s hard to beat.
And if you want your news (for want of a better term) in pictures then the daily bigot is your site. Occasionally it throws up an unexpected goodie – like yesterday’s article about Amazon warehouse work. But then after sullying myself there I feel guilty for just giving it page clicks.
Big claims about a “total after-tax surplus of $478 million” and the fine print says that $455 million of it was an increase in the value of its net assets. In other words they revalued a bunch of assets, probably land the council owns, and called it a gain on the books.
That link was the NZX who at least know how to report financial results. This link is from our media;
Note the statement “It raked in $478 million more than it spent in the second half of the 2012-13 financial year.” Err, no it didn’t.
The $62 million in trading profit is at least welcome, wonder how much more it would have been if the incompetent management at POAL hadn’t made a complete hash of the ports dispute.
The thing that I most notice, both yesterday and today, about Christchurch is that the traffic is really stally. Keeps jamming up in the strangest places.
Can’t remember it being this bad pre-quake. Last time I was on here post quake was the Xmas after the first one. Figured that it was the season then.
Maybe just tired. Lyn had to jump on a plane early this morning back to Auckland. Aunty sitting her niece who just got a sister this morning.
Yes, the traffic is ‘stally’. We lost the central city roads and some arterial routes (out east) and, since then, we’ve had major roadworks and a huge number of unexpected smaller road repair jobs that seem to pop up over night on the roads that now take the load (and were not designed/planned to take the loads). Routes that ‘work’ one week often don’t the next.
It all adds to the stress and the feeling of not being able to have control over your daily life (e.g., getting places on time).
Yes – National did campaign for asset sales – albeit in a a not very ‘open and transparent’ way?
You will note that their 2011 pre-election policy did NOT say – “National supports asset sales”, or “National supports the Mixed Ownership Model for key state assets”.
National is increasing savings and creating jobs built on exports and productive investment.
We’re getting on top of debt, and returning to surplus sooner.
We will extend the successful mixed-ownership model – where the Government owns most of acompany, but offers a minority stake to investors – to four state-owned energy companies, and reduce the government’s stake in Air New Zealand.
This will give Kiwis a chance to invest in large New Zealand companies.”
The 2011 election results?
National got 59 out of 121 MPs.
The final vote on the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Act 2012, was 61 – 60
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.
Ayes 61
New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Noes 60
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Māori Party 3; Mana 1.
___________________________________________________________________
HOWEVER:
” UF (United Future) did not specifically campaign for the ‘mixed ownership model for the electricity companies and Air New Zealand’ because it was not UF (United Future)policy”
[ Pete George (16,292) Says: February 15th, 2013 at 10:28 pm]
In my considered opinion – the voting public of Ohariu were thus effectively misled by United Future and Peter Dunne on the issue of support for the ‘Mixed Ownership Model’ for State-Owned electricity assets and Air New Zealand.
In my considered opinion, United Future and Peter Dunne SOLD OUT the voting public of Ohariu by voting in support of the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership) Amendment Act 2012.
Had Peter Dunne kept faith with the voting public of Ohariu – the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill should have BEEN DEFEATED 60 – 61.
I thus believe that I am absolutely correct in my statement that THERE IS NO MANDATE FOR ASSET SALES – given that this minority National Government (which DID campaign on asset sales) has only 59 out of 121 MPs.
National did not keep their privatisation plans secret (unlike charter schools). No Asset Sales was the biggest election campaign plank of Labour and other parties. They had most of a year to make that argument and failed. That is on them.
No, Labour hedged around the issue and left big loopholes for the selling off of energy and broadcasting infrastructure. Not the same thing at all. Only the Greens and New Zealand First have been vocal about blocking asset sales, and NZF has been very clear that its policy is to buy back those privatised assets.
I pay my taxes, even as a pensioner what taxes do you pay or are you government funded. No my wife’s a nurse so fully support the excellent NZ health service which seems , so the workers in it tell me, to have blossomed under National.
If you knew anything about NZ, you would realise that the healthcare industry is in a compared to what is was 10-15 years ago, so no its not anecdotally blossomed under national
You don’t write like an pension aged person you claim to be, I suspect you’re not!
So very kind of you borne 1946 in 203 copeland Rd Glasgow. Went to Govan primary just opposite Ibrox Park home of Rangers FC. Primary school teacher Miss Strang. What else do I have to give to prove my innocence and do I care what you think. Those who disagree with me must be enemies of the state! Where have I heard that before!
Whoo Millsy, don’t o this, curb your aggro speeches. Two wrongs don’t make one right. Yes, there is something rotten with the politics of this country but I doubt that Addison has anything to do with it. NZ needs hardworking people and it is OK that those people get rewarded.
Hey! Wild Colonial Boy. You ware in my Vision (O’toolish Sunderland) as slumber coiled on around the hearth.
These US cuts; 85B=750,000 jobs (5% from domestic agencies, 8% from the Pentagon), yet that’s alright with me mama, that’s alright with me, the Senate chaplain Barry Black prayed ‘Rise up O God and save us from ourselves, or oh, oh, The Guns of Brixton.(84% of fictional childrens tv shows are from the US, often ‘highly sexualized” “Sponge Bob”)
HBT-500%5 increase in nitrates modeled for some ground and storage water resources. “we’ll be back in Bow River again, crying like Choir Girl, looking like a refugee. Goodbye (Astrid) Goodbye.
Shotover
ZeroHedge explains that on Feb 28, in just one day, the US Treasury issued in it’s normal operations, new debt to the value of US$80B. Basically the entire size of the sequester was borrowed in 24 hours.
The manifest problem is the issuing of banking licenses to the merchant bankers such as GS post GFC bailouts,proving federal protection insurance and the ability to borrow low interest money a subsidy in 2011 of 25 billion eg Haldane at the BOE.
Thinking about Chch, and affordable housing, there was a good interview on RNZ this morning with Michael Reynolds of Earthship fame. He will be in Chch in a few weeks doing talks and running workshops.
One of the interesting snippets in the interview was his team has gotten solar power installation down from $US30,000 to $US1,000 per house. That’s survival level (pumps, LED lights, cell ph and latop charging), and he acknowledges in reality the cost will sit somewhere in between, but the reason for the top end pricing is regulations not the actual necessity of the household. And that’s off-grid, so once built the house has exceptionally low running costs (passive heating technology is used too).
It’s a problem in NZ that anyone wanting to build out of the ordinary housing, and this includes both cheaper houses and green houses, faces increased costs to do with regulation. Councils are now so bound up in the post-leaky homes fall out that innovation is being stiffled. Instead we should be encouraging people developing new low end technologies, and regulations should acknowledge the role of the owner/builder – probably by creating exemptions on some consents where the building won’t be sold, or will be sold ‘as is’.
Certainly a special category should be created for owners post-disaster, so that they can create short and medium term (temporary) housing where restoration of dwellings is expected to take a long time. This doesn’t mean a free-for-all, people would still be expected to build safe buildings, but it would create a system where skilled people can take responsibility for their own housing security in situations where society is failing them.
$1K US is pretty impressive. The other day I came across a solar powered tent on FB which I thought would be a good idea to have (I’m told that you aren’t allowed off grid, you have to be connected if it can reach you – why?)
Baseline services (power, mains supply water, sewerage) are considered essential. I would guess this is to maintain a certain standard of living in NZ, but I would be interested to know how big a part industry played in drafting those regs.
However whenever you hear someone saying ‘you can’t’, it pays to dig deeper. Council inspectors often say no, not because the thing is illegal, but because it’s outside of their scope. If the builder/owner/architect can prove that a thing is safe, long lasting etc then often it is allowable. That process can be very expensive though, hence my comment about innovation being stifled.
I had to look up the grid connection thing, but it looks like it is not compulsory. I would guess that the actual regulations stipulate a certain standard of safety around electrical installation, but there is latitude in what gets installed (in the US it is more regulated).
At present, all domestic consumers are charged a standard line charge. It is proposed that, in 2013, lines companies may no longer be legally required to supply power to lines they consider to be uneconomic. They may also be able to charge substantially higher line charges to some customers, which may affect the economics of supply considerably. However, this policy is currently under review and may change.
The uncertainty of supply may have an impact on design considerations regarding whether to opt for a grid connection or to design a stand-alone energy system.”
I assume they’re talking about remote rural areas there (and companies already charge higher line charges in smaller places), but the way it’s written there, it looks pretty dodgy.
“I had to look up the grid connection thing, but it looks like it is not compulsory. I would guess that the actual regulations stipulate a certain standard of safety around electrical installation, but there is latitude in what gets installed (in the US it is more regulated).”
Grid connect isn’t that complicated or expensive and there’s no regulatory issues except the usual electrical stuff. AS/NZS 5033:2005 covers the installation of solar arrays and AS/NZS 3000 covers the wiring.
New buildings might need some approval, not sure there, but existing dwellings don’t as a rule. Installation will get a bit more expensive with the new addendum to NZS5033 they’re bringing in for solar arrays but it shouldn’t be that much more.
Solar panels and efficient water heating combined is the best approach. I know a site that installed 2.4kw of panels on a grid-tie and the new heat-exchange water cylinder. His last power bill was about $10 and the one before he got a cheque in the mail. His payback time is about 3-4yrs but he did get the equipment at a good price & did the install himself. The hot water cylinder is probably his best power saver, LED lighting also saves a bit.
Biggest uncertainty is the power providers. Meridian are canning their 1:1 all you can eat feed-in tariff and limiting it to a max of 5kw/hr daily at 1:1 after which they pay 10c unit, makes larger grid-tie systems a bit less economic but still worth considering.
All across Europe, feed-in tariffs and subsidies for solar power are being cut or even scrapped. In Portugal and Spain, these actions are justified with the debt crisis, even though they expand these states’ trade deficit. This month the Spanish government took a decisive move to scare investors away and expel most renewable energies from the electric grid, particularly solar.
Yeah it is a bit of a worry but not so much in NZ. Overseas the feed-in tariffs were heavily subsidised. In Aus they were buying back power for double what they were selling it for, it clearly couldn’t last forever and the new rates are about half what they charge for power. NZ has no subsidies that can be cut and the power companies have to pay around wholesale price for feed-in which is around 10c unit.
I’m against asset sales but I will say that I think the power companies don’t have a bright future on the sharemarket. They’re slowly but surely pricing themselves out of the market. Power might keep going up in price but alternate energy isn’t. It’s been constantly falling in price and likely will continue to do so.
“Grid connect isn’t that complicated or expensive and there’s no regulatory issues except the usual electrical stuff.”
So can someone build a house in a suburb with a low usage 12V system and no connection to the grid? When you say not expensive, how relative is that to Reynolds’ $US1,000 solar install price?
Anyone thinking seriously about future-proofing needs their electricity to work without the grid, irrespective of whether they choose grid-tied or now.
You’ll need a solar thermal installation as well, for hot water. Also if you are totally off-grid you are going to need storage batteries. And probably gas for cooking (very hard to escape fossil fuels…)
Lots of very cool energy efficient cooking technologies that need to make the jump from fringe to mainstream. But yeah, fossil fuels… we should really be saving them for the most important stuff. I’ve not looked at this, but is lpg a straight swap to biogas, or does something else need to happen in between?
I’m hoping we get our shit together together to improve battery tech while we still can, but I think in the long run we have to give up this idea that we can have as much electricity as we want, when we want it (anyone off grid already knows this).
We may be running up against limitations in battery development that cannot be solved without quantum level breakthroughs – mega money has been poured into the development of cellphone batteries and in 15 years we’ve gone from slightly larger 1250 mAh batteries to slightly smaller 1800 mAh batteries.
That’s a 50% increase when what we really needed in that timeframe was a 1000% increase.
I personally do not think that any massive improvement in mass-market batteries will become available (specialist and military use batteries aside).
I’ve not looked at this, but is lpg a straight swap to biogas, or does something else need to happen in between?
Not sure, to be honest. I’m guessing that the highly variable nature of different biogas sources will have some impact.
I personally do not think that any massive improvement in mass-market batteries will become available (specialist and military use batteries aside).
You missed this comment from Pascal’s Bookie? Thin super-capacitors that presently have the same density as modern batteries but can be charged a whole lot faster and are probably also cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
Maybe. I’d like to see a presentation that had a bit more of a critique of the science and potential applications (we’re going to be able to compost graphene batteries? Come on.)
The Reynolds system has to be based on an extremely low power usage, it’s not possible for the typical household. You just can’t get household quantity power for that sort of money, even at todays low prices you’d have to budget up to $10k or more for a small household to be close to self-sufficient in power.
Off-grid systems aren’t economic in the cities because the batteries cost too much. They’re economic in some of the high cost areas like King country that have very high lines charges, but in most places they cost more than mains power.
DH, I think you might have missed the point of my original comment. Reynolds is talking about multiple systems in his houses that reduce the need for power eg the heating portion of a passive house is tiny compared to a typical household. I’m taking it that your figures are based on a typical modern kiwi build, that isn’t that energy efficient relative to Earthships.
Plus he (and I) are saying to use less power anyway. We don’t NEED anything like the amount of power we use currently. So households could reduce power usage markedly, and will have to in the future anyway. My comments here are in that context, not in the context of continued growth and using whatever we want when we want.
There isn’t really that much genuine savings in an energy efficient house. You use less power and the cost amortisation of the energy saving appliances takes the cost back up again. The biggest saving I’ve seen is efficient water heating using a heat pump, hot water makes up the largest part of the typical bill so if you can knock that off you’re well on the way.
I’d think a large part of Reynolds $30k – $1k is simply the fact he’s discovered how much the price of solar panels has fallen over the last couple of years. Ten years ago you’d pay over $700 for a 100watt panel. I can land one for under $100 now.
There isn’t really that much genuine savings in an energy efficient house.
[citation needed]
You use less power and the cost amortisation of the energy saving appliances takes the cost back up again.
It’s not about money – especially the way money works today. It’s about actual physical use and available physical resources. Not using the resources is always better than using them.
Get real. It’s always about money. I’ve had over 20years dealing with the general public and the one thing you learn is they’re tighter than the proverbial Scotsman. When it comes to prising open that wallet you’ll find they’re suddenly not so green after all.
Most people I know who go down the solar route do so for futureproofing reasons, personal and/or societal. The whole point of this conversation was to talk about making that choice more available to people without much money. If you only know people that spend tens of thousands of dollars on solar, and want a complete replacement for a conventional grid tied house, then that says more about you than anything.
I’m sure you are very knowledgable in your field, but you don’t appear to know much about energy efficient/passive housing. Draco asked for a citation that there are not really any genuine savings to be made from passive technologies. It’s a fair request. And bear in mind that most other people in this conversation value things in addition to money.
Under the current monetary system but the current monetary system uses up resources as if there’s no tomorrow. It is, quite simply, unsustainable.
When it comes down to being sustainable it’s about how much resources we use. This will probably mean more regulation to bring about correct pricing so that what is cheap but unsustainable becomes expensive.
“The whole point of this conversation was to talk about making that choice more available to people without much money. If you only know people that spend tens of thousands of dollars on solar, and want a complete replacement for a conventional grid tied house, then that says more about you than anything.”
We’re at cross purposes here. My work on solar & energy saving has been all about people on low incomes. Every household spends tens of thousands of dollars on power, the typical bill these days would be up around $200 a month. That’s $2400 a year, solar panels last more than 20 years and 20yrs worth of power will cost most people over $60,000 if we include the regular price increases. Many will pay double that.
If we can get the Govt assisting low income people into $60,000 worth of power for only $10k then we’d be helping them rather a lot wouldn’t we.
Reynolds earthship is more than just a passive house, that includes the likes of sewage and recycled materials. The electrical regulations he complained about don’t really apply here, in NZ it’s the building regs that wouldn’t fly especially in ChCh. So when we talk about passive houses I’m assuming we’re talking about the common passive house which revolves around insulation and heating with standard plumbing and compliant with building codes
Passive houses cost more to build, things like double glazing aren’t free. Every $1000 you spend on a house adds around $75 annually to the mortgage. So you’d need to save $75 worth of power each year to break even for every $1k extra the passive house cost to build. At city prices $75 is about what a refrigerator uses, around 340 Kw/hrs or nearly 1kw/hr per day. Some of the numbers add up, some don’t.
A large part of the energy business is about basic maths; you have to crunch the numbers. The Chatham Islanders found that out to their extreme cost.
Hey guys the idea that we should all be installing our own electricity generators, instead of working to break up the grid cartel, strikes me as really wasteful.
There is a glut of electricity on the wholesale market right now and possibly there will be much much more if Rio Tinto pulls out of NZ.
Just built a fairly energy efficient house. Biggest savings were 1, passive heating, lots of glass facing north and foam insulated concrete floor. Cost about an extra 3k o. Build. 2, Solar water heating. Cost about 5k. Total cost about 77 k and savings work out at $150 PM. generally summer and winter we have to open windows by 10 in the morning and heating goes on on non sunny days in winter. My mistake was underestimating the efficiency of those two things. Anyone want to buy a secondhand heat pump hardly used!
We need ways to simplify home design and construction to lower energy costs. Once a threshold of fundamental water tightness, safety and energy efficiency has been reached, people should be allowed to innovate and improvise.
Councils are now so bound up in the post-leaky homes fall out that innovation is being stiffled.
Regulation should be driving innovation, if it’s suppressing it then somethings wrong either with the regulation or the people who are supposed to be innovating not doing so. I suspect the latter.
Making the Passive House Standard mandatory on all new buildings should drive innovation in producing the cheaper house to that standard. Still, we also need regulations on the building materials to ensure that they’re up to to the job. This is likely to cause some delay in getting new developments into the industry.
probably by creating exemptions on some consents where the building won’t be sold, or will be sold ‘as is’.
Nope because if you do that then everyone will try for the exemptions and then we’ll just get another leaky building disaster down the road.
Certainly a special category should be created for owners post-disaster, so that they can create short and medium term (temporary) housing where restoration of dwellings is expected to take a long time.
Cheap, portable buildings – we’ve had them for decades.
…but it would create a system where skilled people can take responsibility for their own housing security in situations where society is failing them.
The average run of the mill person hasn’t got a hope in building a livable house – DIY is a bad idea. What we need to be doing is finding out why the skilled people aren’t queuing up to rebuild Chch. I suspect it has to do with the insurance companies, EQC included, trying really hard to keep prices down. Quite simply, the builders outside of Chch aren’t being offered enough to temporarily move to Chch to rebuild it. They’re not even being offered enough to cover accommodation in Chch never mind to also keep the house that they own elsewhere. Basically, they’re in a position that, if they take the jobs to rebuild Chch, they’ll lose everything and when that’s true there’s not a lot of incentive.
“Regulation should be driving innovation, if it’s suppressing it then somethings wrong either with the regulation or the people who are supposed to be innovating not doing so. I suspect the latter.”
What is your suspicion based on? Try talking to owner/builders esp ones doing things like strawbale and mudearth. Some councils are better/worse than others too. Watch Reynolds’ doco. Then listen to the Kim Hill interview where he talks about how the Attorney General who initially tried to prosecute him ended up helping to get the laws changed. But it took him years of fighting. Imagine if he had been supported instead.
“Still, we also need regulations on the building materials to ensure that they’re up to to the job.”
Nope. If someone can come up with a way of making houses safely out of car tyres or chicken wire, then they should be allowed to. You don’t regulate the material, you regulate the standard of safety (eg won’t leak, won’t fall down in an earthquake).
“”probably by creating exemptions on some consents where the building won’t be sold, or will be sold ‘as is’.”
Nope because if you do that then everyone will try for the exemptions and then we’ll just get another leaky building disaster down the road.”
You missed the point. You don’t exempt individuals, you exempt by classification. eg the house will have to be sold ‘as is’. This reduces the resale value of the house hugely, which limits the people wanting to do this. But it supports people who are willing to live in a house that’s been built out of tyres. Or who needs a building to live in for 5 years while their long term house is built (happens already under the radar alot in NZ).
Such buildings would still need to have standards. And leaky-buildings didn’t happen because of lax regulations, they happened because of sharks in the industry. Better to regulate the sharks than limit what honest people can do.
“The average run of the mill person hasn’t got a hope in building a livable house – DIY is a bad idea.”
We obviously move in different circles. And I’m not talking about any old person being able to build their own house, although I think that building houses is alot easier than you do. Historically, ordinary (run of the mill) people assisted in building the homes they lived in. My father built his first house in the 50s working alongside a qualified builder. Dad had ‘ordinary’ carpentry skills that he learnt growing up. Many people in NZ play major roles in building their own home (am guessing you’re not familiar with what owner/builders do), some within regs, some outside.
Sure, the other things you talk about need to happen too. But people like Reynolds would have had many in Chch rehoused by now if they’d been allowed.
The skills needed to build a house need to stay with lay people as well as professionals. It’s the professionals that created leak-building syndrome, and it’s the professionals that have made building houses harder as a result. Owner/builders aren’t responsible for leaky-homes.
In the approaching crises (PO, CC, GFC etc) we need people with hands-on skills, and we need to preserve those skills now, by supporting the people who want to learn them and use them in their own lives.
If someone can come up with a way of making houses safely out of car tyres or chicken wire, then they should be allowed to. You don’t regulate the material, you regulate the standard of safety (eg won’t leak, won’t fall down in an earthquake).
Yeah, that’s what I meant but I don’t think you just allow people to go out and build houses out of anything they think is a good idea. You have it so that they prove that it’s a good idea first, secondary testing by the government and then let it be used throughout the industry.
You missed the point. You don’t exempt individuals, you exempt by classification. eg the house will have to be sold ‘as is’.
No, it won’t. It will start a boom in really cheap and nasty houses that we’ll be paying for for decades because of the present shortage of cheap housing. It’ll make the leaky house scandal seem like a day at Sunday School.
Such buildings would still need to have standards. And leaky-buildings didn’t happen because of lax regulations, they happened because of sharks in the industry.
They happened both because of the sharks in the industry and the fact that the regulating body had the industry on it.
(am guessing you’re not familiar with what owner/builders do)
My brother-in-law built his house and generally it’s a well built house but, then, he’s an engineer. My brother, on the other hand, has been renovating his and what he’s done is absolute crap.
It’s the professionals that created leak-building syndrome, and it’s the professionals that have made building houses harder as a result.
Yes and no. Yes, some of the professionals, usually the ones at the top, were the ones that caused the problem but others would have been building good houses. The problem, which the leaky homes has shown, is that the people who caused the problem aren’t being held to account and are probably still building shonky houses and it doesn’t help that the people hiring are doing it on cost – the cheaper quote gets the job and the quote is, more often than not, far too low to actually do the job.
“No, it won’t. It will start a boom in really cheap and nasty houses that we’ll be paying for for decades because of the present shortage of cheap housing. It’ll make the leaky house scandal seem like a day at Sunday School.”
Why nasty houses?
It wouldn’t be that hard to build accountability and limits into the system eg you can only build one such house a decade. And you can’t sell within a certain time frame. That takes out the people wanting to make money.
We’re talking about owner/builders remember, so no developers, or professional builders wanting to make a quick buck. And the point is to support people doing innovative work (you still haven’t answered my question about your suspicions), or those in urgent need for short/medium term housing (Chch). And I think you missed the bit about there still needing to be standards.
btw, I know people that live in really cheap houses. You might call them nasty houses, but I and the occupants don’t. But they’re not houses that fit well into the capitalist model of asset ownership – they can’t be sold for much money and they don’t appreciate in value over time. But they allow people to live in their own place, and often they mean that people can live on successfully on low incomes, which increases quality of life.
At which point there was no reason for the exception. A one off unit isn’t worthwhile. What we need is research and development into better building materials that can then be rolled out across the industry.
And the point is to support people doing innovative work
I’m not against supporting innovation – I just want it to be innovation that is proven rather than people going off on half-arsed ideas that don’t actually work.
I know people that live in really cheap houses. You might call them nasty houses,
If 70% of people are against Nact’s policy of selling the power companies and Air NZ then maybe Shearer would get good traction by announcing he’d buy them back, especially now that the grubby detail like the Aussie float is about to come out – the lifting of the 49% will no doubt be next. The only trouble, though, is that Labour’s track-record tells us they’d be likely to do a u-turn after it won the election and keep them in whose ever hands they end up in. If Shearer had a backbone he’d use this opportunity to start trying to convince us Labour’s changed. 70% support points to this being the perfect issue to use to begin rebuilding the trust and confidence that Labour lost a long long time ago. But again, I keep forgetting Shearer and Labour do not have backbone.
“If 70% of people are against Nact’s policy of selling the power companies and Air NZ then maybe Shearer would get good traction by announcing he’d buy them back”
If Shearer really wanted to piss off the sharemarket he’d be better off doing a deal with one of the big solar panel manufacturers and then offering installs to every home & business owner. Wouldn’t even have to subsidise it, just pass the packages on at cost plus about 10% to cover expenses & people could add it to their mortgage.
If people could buy solar systems at today’s ex-factory bulk prices their power bill would be less than half what they’re paying now. That would really cut into the power company’s profits & bring their share prices down. Then we could buy them back.
“If Shearer really wanted to piss off the sharemarket he’d be better off doing a deal with one of the big solar panel manufacturers and then offering installs to every home & business owner.”
The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and the buy-back would be primarily for New Zealanders (although pissing the share market off would be fun).
Someone in Labour did publicly state he’d consider buying back any assets sold…..Cunliffe. But the Labour Caucus don’t want him and wider the wider LP heirachy and Council are too weak to act as a check and balance. Go Labour! Go down the toilet!
In one (reported) sentence, Trevor Mallard demonstrates perfectly why he should be put out to pasture …
“Mr Mallard believed that the anonymous invective against on social media was either National Party sourced or from people who belonged to Labour 20 years ago.”
(Audrey Young, Herald).
Now this is so obviously not true, that it beggars belief that Trevor could say it. Yes, of course there are Nat trolls, as well as critics well to the left of Labour. But there are also many, many Labour voters and members who are unhappy, and they are saying so. Either Trevor doesn’t know this (in which case he is woefully out of touch), or he does know it and pretends not to.
Or he was misquoted by the Herald and will be correcting this any minute now? We can only hope.
Powerful stuff about the everyday tragedy. Really, if people wanted to reduce healthcare costs, solo parents, social security costs, disturbed children, teen parenting, teen crime, prison costs and a host of other social ills they’d be marching in the streets to change the ills that lead to domestic violence. As this photo essay shows it’s not just an ‘individual choice’ to be an abuser or a victim it’s a whole heap of social, cultural and economic factors.
Yeah, that whole story kinda squicks me. I blogged about it. (Hopefully the link displays, I’ve been having a problem with that). I simply don’t buy the idea that a photo-essay like this is groundbreaking or going to be so effective that it outweighs the fact she let a small child watch her mum get choked by her partner.
Do you support publily funded health care?
How much do you pay your workers?
Would you sack your workers if they took a sick day?
Would you sack your workers if they joined a union? I bet you would. You nasty fascist cunt. You should have your head kicked in for that.
Im sick of people who want to lock up unionists and bring back slavery. They derserve to be strung up with piano wire.
Will you be wearing your brown shirt and your facist supplied jackboots when you do that. I thought this was a forum with a bit of decorum! Good behavior and insults only a problem if you are not from the left it seems.
Yep that Tony Blair. He was a real socialist, nationalised all sorts of industries, taxed the wealthy more, refused to support the Americans in invading Iraq …
Mickey, not saying Blair was a socialist, he was a lawyer after all! But it seems the more left you go the less chance of growth. It’s interesting that old Labour died nothing replaced it. I. The UK you have center right and left of center right? Why do you think there is ne left anymore?
So Addison I thought that you were really thick and some old codger who strayed onto the site and wanted to have a moan. Your last statement shows that you are a troll.
Well, that must the first time I’ver ever heard the Blair administration described as socilalist, Addison. You do know what the word means, don’t you? Still, funny that you should leave in 1998, when Blair had only been in office a few months. Perhaps the sloppy slope socialist paradise you were fleeing was John Major’s government. Oh, yes!
The dickhead hyprocite Addison decided that he would like to settle somewhere in his older years where there was good socialised medicine and infrastructure/services provided for older people.
Mickey sorry, wrong again! Just have an interest in debate and politics. PS there is no left anymore, certainly not in NZ or UK politics. Ever ask yourself why?
I meant of course no more socialists in parliament, in the uk or NZ. Where are the likes of Foot and Tony Benn in the uk. I can’t think of anyone in the labour caucus who is seriously Left. Hellen Kelly, one in waiting but that’s all. I am not that knowledgable on the bottom end of Labours list so will stand corrected.
Where oh where did I say , bring back slavery. What you don’t understand milsey honey bunch is that workers unsuccessful businesses do well. I am no longer in business but my son is and do you know what that right wing pig only pays his workers $600 a day! What a disgrace. Now his business still makes a profit, $ 30 ooo last month alone. Why don’t we get him and put those 8 workers back on the dole, we could that would be one more rich prick gone and 8 more on benefit, the socialist paradise.
What have I said that’s rude?I see from your comment that you support civil disobedience. You support workers being stopped at factory gates where there is no dispute by miners who are not looking for more safety or better conditions just more money. They did a shitty job I agree but I used to spend a lot of time around south Wales and most ex miners I spoke to hated Scargill for what happened to mining. They stayed on strike just long enough to see the mines flood beyond recovery. UK car industry, once a great industry where is it now. My entire family uncle aunts etc all Clyde shipbuilders another industry screwed by constant union fighting. All these well paid jobs priced out of the market!
“and most ex miners I spoke to hated Scargill for what happened to mining”
The strike started when Thatcher ordered the closure of 20 pits. The miners went on strike to protect their jobs, so if your ‘ex-miner’ mates reckon the decline of mining in the UK was Scargill’s fault, they’re as ignorant as you, Addison.
And exactly haw am I as a pensioner doing harm to NZs economy. My UK pension is paid to the nz government who then pay me an NZ pension. I have pension from previous empoyment that I pay tax on. So I just enjoy a quiet life walking in NZs wonderful landscape and sailing on it’s pristine waters.
Now wait one cotton picking minute… I have seen people who have been banned ( for life in one recent case) for using far less threatening language than Millsy has in this thread. Where hell is Millsys ban moderator? Or is it only right wingers who get banned on here, for even the feeblest reasons…
[lprent: The reasons are listed in the policy. The section that applies is about “pointless abuse” because he offered no *direct* abuse. So he got warned rather than banned. You of course are buying into the into a. of being a lawyer b. telling moderators what to do. Care to comment?
A fantastic speech by David Cunliffe. For anyone who grew up in the shadow of… or have wonderful memories of trekking through parts of the Waitakere ranges… or more importantly care about out most famous native tree, the Kauri tree, then this is a must read. He posted it on Red Alert but nobody has chosen to comment. Not surprising.
Greg Presland, who Cunliffe mentions in his speech, did a guest post on TS on it recently. in the comments, Presland linked to Cunliffe’s RA post on the meeting.
I find Millsy’s internet threats quite repugnant. As much as I loathe capitalism and despise its advocates, physically threatening them on an internet blog is ridiculous. That sort of empty crap is best left to WhaleSpew’s vile army of malcontents and viagra users. My first instinct whenever I see these sorts of threats in a left wing environment is to wonder if we have an agent provocateur and who is paying them. We don’t need it.
Murray, the trouble is with hating capitalists is that despite there being not much trickledown effect of wealth, there has been a trickle down effect of capitalism. Even here it’s about house ownership not about cheap affordable renting. Humans sadly have a gene that wants them to do better for their kids, not the next generation of humanity, but the next generation of them! Look at the Asians hard workers, education oriented, family oriented but all aimed at their kids having it better. You despise that sort of capitalism you despise a lot of workers.
Many of the major flaws in capitalism are those which inherently boost the position of financial capital, and undermine the economic leverage of labour.
Your argument is like saying that because I hate cancer I must hate cancer patients. Capitalism is a cancer on our planet. It is unable to meet the challenges we are facing, but acts to accelerate the problems.
You say it’s about house ownership. I say house ownership is a con job and this is shown by the decreasing percentage of people who are able to own a house. The people who are paying half or more of their wages in rent would no doubt welcome affordable housing without ownership. I don’t despise them, I despise those who lobby the government to not build houses when they themselves own several. I despise governments who think that opening up more land for developers and money lenders to profit from is an answer to anything. In the end, their kids won’t have it better. In fact, because so much of their self esteem is bound up in how big their car is, or how many yachts they have, they’ll have it worse once global heating and energy shortages push us all into survival mode.
You don’t think the wil, to strive is genetic, it is in every animal on the plan net, humans included? If wilder beast sat all day on their arses instead of getting on their 4 feet and migrating ever year there would be a lot less wilder beast. And yes I think a lot of parents so called greed is a desire to set up their kids to have a better life. I personally don’t think that’s bad but could be construed as greed because they don’t work so hard to do the same for everyone’s kids. That said I have never seen the docks union go on strike to improve the lot of teachers or nurses! Or to get better conditioned for old buddies in nursing homes, are they not selfish too!
Addison’s point is lost on me here. Unions came into existence to fight for improved pay and conditions from ruthlessly exploitative employers for their own members. Employers organisations do their best to ensure employers continue to make as much personal profit from their enterprises as possible. Political parties offer voters choices as to how those competing imperatives should be managed. Whichever parties delivers the best and most memorable lines in competing bullshit seem to be the ones that get elected. Jo public has no idea what’s really going on half the time.
Capitalism has its place. It needs to be controlled. Unregulated capitalism and free markets are invariably unstable and destructive to national economies. The galling irony is the banks and finance houses that are the most public face of the free markets ended up with their reputations and financial affairs in tatters, and in being rescued and guaranteed by taxpayers because we were told that allowing them to collapse would’ve wrecked national economies.
He probably rings them a fair bit as well. He has such great stories to tell; about how we should emulate the mighty wildebeest, the greedy unions, and capitalism as biological imperative. Feudalism obviously was as well, but God must have changed her mind and decided to try something else.
It’s also possible that he needed more space for his life-size Maggie Thatcher doll collection than he could afford back in Blighty.
No don’t do that. But what I miss most is pub life. Where a bunch of blocks having had a few beers can sort all the worlds problems from wither the USA should go to war to selecting the England rugby team.. I was hoping this blogg offered that sort of discussion. At least in th pub I was never offered violence, thanks moderator for making sure I have a week free of such ugliness.
The best system is probably still some form regulated capitalism. What we used to have. The old ways of redressing gross power and wealth imbalances (riots, pitchforks, tumbrils and guillotines) have fallen out of favour.
That’s true, but it’s also true that it’s good at spotting and developing products and markets, and innovations. It works well for that. But the ruthlessness of business needs to be constrained by governments and the benefits of it for those who use it to enrich themselves and employ others to help enrich them can be harnessed. IMO that’s how social democracies should operate.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
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Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
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The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
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Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
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Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
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Chris Trotters latest piece (and aftermath) worthy of a post on the standard?
I’d post on it if I had something else to include, like my own take or analysis, or it’s relevance to some other article…. and when I had the time.
However, I think Trotter’s post is excellent on its own, and people can add their comments on Trotter’s blog or here on open mike.
This?
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/running-dogs.html?m=1
I wish Trotter would disable anonymous commenting.
Yes that. Why should he get rid of anonymous commenting?
The whole anonymous @ 3.48 thing means lots of scrolling and jumping back and forth, esp on long comment threads.
Plus if he disables anonymous and leaves only pseudonymous/real names and logins, then it’s more likely people will use a consistent handle, which makes it easier to follow debates.
For those who are unaware, this is where Trotter’s title comes from.
What we do not have in Labour today is not a revolutionary party it is a party of the mainstream status quo.
The last time Labour was revolutionary was in the 1980’s, when they sided with the capitalist running dogs.
Yes, and a practical example is Labour’s stance on beneficiaries and social security. For as long as Labour and National stand side by side on this issue the longer we’re saddled with relentless nasty attacks on the poor. Regardless who the government is.
This is a very very big problem.
Combined with zero vision of New Zealand able to deal with the oncoming twin storm of climate change and energy decline.
The Government of the 21st century isn’t going to be dealing with just financial problems. The problems are going to be very real and very physical.
Clare Curran’s reported riposte to Chris Trotter:
“… a bit like a dog with a bone”… better at writing fiction…” Don’t you love it when someone in describing someone else, are in fact describing themselves.
“… we’re a united party moving forward.” One of those senseless sayings. Moving forward where? To the top of the cliff?
Just moving forward. Not sideways. Not backwards. Just forward, on the same circular path. Nobody, it seems, is moving with them. And they won’t, unless & until they know when they are going to break out of the circle, where they are going, who is actually driving, and whether they have the skill to drive.
Anne – I heard today that on a no-affiliate basis, the Greens paid up membership base numbers a few thousand now.
Without giving too much away…the Greens will probably be able to match or beat Labour’s paid up membership base by elections 2014.
“Dog with a bone” is code for “we know you’re right but we’re never going to admit it so we have to dismiss what you say without debating the merits because if we did that our flawed position would be exposed so, no, we can’t do that and that’s why we have to resort to maligning you personally with pathetic little tactics like calling you a “dog with a bone”.
Labour was reactionary in the 80s, not revolutionary. They acted to preserve the prevailing social order, not to overthrow it. Since then, it’s been business as usual, steady as she goes.
I think they were revolutionary in scope and impact. Although we had a system of capitalism beforehand and that is also what we had after, the changes that the Rogernomes (followed by Ruthanasia) brought on were not part of the natural evolutionary trend of NZ over the prior decades.
My feeling is that it is now time for a counter-revolution.
And the system of capitalism we had after the 4th Labour government was the same as the one in the 19th century which was the driving force behind the introduction of the 40 hour week, unions and award rates. The 4th Labour government effectively took us back 150 years. This government wants to takes us back even further.
Can’t argue with that.
And what about the NEXT Labour Govt draco?
This story http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8372157/EQC-workers-bullied-by-angry-homeowners gives an accurate indication of three things in Christchurch.
1. The level of frustration experienced by people in the east of Christchurch.
2. The level of incompetence of government departments.
3. The complete and utter abandonment of east Christchurch people.
Gerry Brownlee has had peoples holiday homes in Akaroa repaired. He has had people in his Ilam electorate with minor cracks to the paint repaired. Meanwhile those in the east with completely broken houses, crooked foundations, unsanitary services have been left to fester with inadequate resources for EQC to carry out their repairs.
And this government are also going flat out on building a fucking stupid convention centre right in the middle of town, before those of us who live here are looked after. Oh yes, convetnion-goers are such important people. What a bloody joke.
And Labour? Fuck them as well. Shunting Lianne Dalziel backwards. She is one of the only ones to take this corrupt and uncaring National lot to task. Now she’s effectively gone as well.
Thanks for nothing Shearer you cock.
As for governmentr departments and their renowned inefficiency, well all of those stereotypes are being well polished at the moment. Total incompetence. Get a dozen people from the east together to compare notes. You will be lucky if you find one that is happy. All have tales of complete incompetence, fools, lies, bullshit, the lot.
It surprises me not one little bit that people are threatening and carrying out their threats against EQC aka the government.
It has all become a boring story now no doubt to the rest of NZ, but that means fucking diddly when it comes to the reality on the ground.
I say return the physical reality to the government. Which is what the people in this article are doing. Good on them, we need more physical action. Nothing else works.
Well I for one always appreciate your comments on Chch vto, and I can tell you that some of us at least are watching from the outside and and understand that unless NZ wakes the fuck up it’s only a matter of time for the rest of us.
However, you are right in that most of NZ is too insulated from the realities of life for Chch people. I had no idea this was going on –
“Fletcher EQR general manager David Peterson said the firm had spent thousands of dollars on extra security to protect its 700 staff after threats and verbal abuse from homeowners.
“We have 20 hubs around the city and we’ve had to make the fences slightly higher, put in exit doors for staff and the reception counters are higher now too, so people can’t jump over them so easily,” Peterson said.”
I remember when they brought in security staff at WINZ offices. It was after that high profile case of a man attacking an ACC staffer I think, and marked a significant change in NZ culture/society. But what that article describes is far beyond isolated incidences. Seriously bad levels of collective stress.
I tend to agree about getting physical, but wish it would happen in street activism style rather than personal violence.
just Wow! (kinda like the further blast-proofing of the US Embassy being tendered)
Planning repairs to take place up until 2015 was never smart. No alternative housing provided by the government.
Live in a shed in your back yard for 5 years? What do EQC and EQR expect – buy in?
Gerry’s policies are to have his government do nothing so that EQC and EQR take the blame.
Thanks vto. I wonder how many of these frustrated people would have bothered filling out the wellbeing survey even if they’d been asked to?
All the powers that CERA and Brownlee were gifted and they haven’t used any of them to help people living in broken homes, neighbourhoods and suburbs. They’ve never used those powers to bring the insurance companies into line. They’ve never used those powers to do anything about the shortage of accommodation for those in most need.
They haven’t even used those powers to speed up the ever-so-precious – and supposedly vital – development of the inner city retail precinct, despite moving rapidly to compulsorily purchase land in ‘The Frame’ (because they are so pro-green space – what a joke). Compulsory purchase of land in The Frame is all about increasing the land values of those in the ‘retail precinct’, and that land, in turn, is now being forcibly aggregated to drive out smaller property owners in the area.
Their powers have been used for one thing: to advantage large, private capital in the re-engineering of Christchurch as a neo-liberal city whose prime functions are the smooth extraction of resources from Canterbury and the provision of ‘investments’ for large capital.
Burdening ratepayers with expensive ‘nice to haves’ both advantages private capital (e.g., Philip Carter will do very well out of the Convention Centre proposal) and has the desirable side-effect of pressuring the Council to sell assets or risk becoming the unpopular initiator of massive rates increases.
The hierarchy running things in the Labour camp obviously don’t care about the Canterbury vote.
I would have thought that demoting a Christchurch MP is the ultimate in lack of political nous. But then why am I surprised.
I thought that was the ‘dogs’ running things. But of course that is to derogate dogs.
vto – very well spoken with all your heart. Believe me, you do have those of us who feel absolutely with you on every word.
Terry
U$K: The artist taxi driver on the desperate austerity screw the Tory scum are imposing to pay for their Bankers’ Bail Outs and their continuing bonuses. The Pigs at the trough lie are winning. 🙁
They think they are winning. Watch the fear level of the elites begin to ratchet up over the next couple of years. Those “spontaneous” “criminal” riots they experienced in the UK are only a taste of things to come.
Won’t ever happen here though, what with the fluoride in the water and Shortland street as the sedative of the masses.
Problem is CV thats exactly what the elites want to happen, as they care not about the people hurting, killing , wrecking etc, it makes no difference to them at all!
The humanity has gone, those running the show have been actively murdering, and genociding for so long, that now with the technology etc behind them, I just don’t see where the ability to force change if coming from.
Not helped of course by the sleeping population base here in NZ, or is it that the exports took the thinking ability with them, and left a bunch of bloggers behind in their place!
Maybe it’s the reverse, that NZnis full of failed trade unionists who lost their cause in the UK when they took on Thatcher and ended up in that soft touch NZ. Having tried to ruin the UK pre thatcher they failed and vanished like whipped Curs, their tails between their legs.
What great Tory ideas are you importing from the failed Empire now?
“Having tried to ruin the UK pre thatcher they failed”
So how did GB fare after the wicked witches reign?
Reap what you sow.
Crikey, an early contender for non-sensical comment of the day. May as well claim the ’82 All Whites were mostly whipped curs running from Thatcher for all the sense it makes.
Ps: http://www.isthatcherdeadyet.co.uk/
Who sailed to NZ started work at 54 on minimum wage. And the started my own business. Now retired with a nice house on 5 acres two yachts etc Not bad for a thick aging failed pom from the UK.
Skite skite skite
Tell us how much capital you imported from the UK to start your business.
Have you seen the ad on ms tv for G.J Homes? It seems like Addison has the starring role.
Meanwhile east ChCh rots.
NZ 20000 dollars.
You and your wife worked your whole lives in the UK into your 50’s and all you could bring into NZ was 10,000 GBP?
What the hell went wrong?
it’s a lot more capital than a lot of kiwis can scratch together, even today, CV.
True true.
9 years on my wee boat traveling and with my wife, a nurse working for poorer communities, particularly in Vanuatu helping where they didn’t have medical services. Ura para para in particular we trained a fe w girls I. Basic medical skills and built their school and library and a woodwork workshop.
Hi Addison,
Did you own a house in the UK?
I ask because I have working class relatives there who found themselves, circa 2004, in what was, to them, a remarkable situation. When they visited here, they realised that, if they sold up their modest house back home, paid off their mortgage and came over to NZ they could buy, freehold, a modern home in one of those pop-up subdivisions and think about retiring early. She was a receptionist and he was a taxi driver.
Health issues put paid to those dreams, though.
He claims he only brought NZ$20,000 into the country from the UK.
No I didn’t, divorced so rented! Getting a bit personal,when did you stop beating your wife 🙂
yes puddlegum, when I arrive a pound bought 3.4 $ now less than 2. Cost of living has zoomed up since 2000.when I loom at house prices in the UK thayer seem cheap now.Still 4 mill v 66 mil in a similar sized country explains why I am here to stay.
🙄
Nobody cares about your money and houses, ya fucking wowser. Go and sail your boat instead of boring us to death.
geoff 🙂
He’s an old man who feels the need to brag and run down young New Zealanders. What the fuck does that say.
Not bragging when asked a question I answer it. At least honest enough to stand behind my name!
🙄
It’s got a leak of even greater proportions than the one his head has.
If I bore you goeff just ignore me!
Could be describing NZs settler origins as a petty bourgeois paradise. The key term missing is ‘theft’. I like the French word ‘Colon’.
You prove that you have no understanding of what happens when the majority of the population are kept in poverty.
Also, did the workers you hired for the business also get rich or was it just you?
Agreed.and they have been there 400 years.
Just wait till Labour gets back into power you dirty filthy pommy cunt. We are going to tax the fucking shit out of you to pay for schools and hospitals for the poor.
We are going to tax you out of your flash house and we are going to leave you on the street, just like where you want the poor to be.
AND JOINING A UNION IS A HUMAN RIGHT. YOU FILTHY FASCIST CUNT.
[lprent: Pull your head in. That, while you did make a point, was excessive. It is simply stupid and repitition will be dangerous. ]
Milsey cutie pie don’t you think not having to join a union is a human right too. I have no problem with those who want to join a union if they want to give their money to an organization that supports a party that is anti business and will probably cost them their jobs go for it. Where did all those unionized jobs in Fisher andpaykle go under the last Labour government?
Those who are anti union are anti democracy.
They want to take food out of the mouths of children, They should be treated with extreme prejudice.
Someone is clearly angry and frustrated with their life.
Frustration that other people are wealthier, happier and more successful. No, you won’t tax *the shit out of us*, my friend. Like Helen, we are smart and know how to play the investment game.
Weren’t you chaps suggesting R&D credits? That will be most fun. You’ll be paying for my overseas holidays.
PS: I don’t employ Union labour either. Never have, never will.
Like I said ,the worry is the failed “power to the unions model” that ended so spectacularly in The UK that’s been imported here. On the Tory side what I see imported is people with the get. Up and go to start and run business and employ others. I look around and see most big businesses run by Former UK imports as you call them. OLd joke Hoe do you vet a kiwi to run a small business? Give him a big one to start with!
you’re just describing in an economic model where it’s more profitable to fire workers than hire them. Contact Energy, Telecom, etc.
And why should workers use their effort and talent to enrich pricks like you to start with?
Says the man from the failed Empire. Riotous.
A bit like Cullen running the post then Cut backs in services and layoffs coming soon.
🙄
Do you want unions banned Addison. Do you want union leaders thrown in jail and tortured? Yes or no?
Why dont you piss off to some dictatorship where unions are banned.
If you tried to sack me for joining a union I would kick the shit out of you where you stand, And I would take plesuare in it
No I just like to see workers walk away from unions, it’s happened here and it happened in the uk. Who needs to ban an institution thatbhas failed the people it purported to serve. Unions will just wither and die. No need to ban them. I believe in freedom of choose unlike the unions who believe in compulsion.
I believe in freedom to strike
With wankers like you employing them, then they will join in droves.
By the way Thatcher was a horrible bitch who got off on destroying people living standards.
I am retired and on a pension milsey sweet thing I didn’t notice the unions in the Glasgow fire strike caring about the business and homes that were burnt down. I didn’t see the mining unions care about the pensioners who went cold with power cuts. The jobs hat were lost in other industries. The wages that were lost by all workers. It was about GREED. I want more and I think I have the power to blackmail the government. How wrong they were.
You gotta be desperate now
The City of London is hollowing out your home country
And all you want to do is bring the British Tory illness to our shores
What a waste
I thought it was the majority of new zealanders that voted JK in. Now didn’t Labour get their worst ever result! I am not so big headed to think that was my doing. I lay all credit at the feet of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen.
I blame the positioning of Andromeda, personally.
Is that where you get your economic policy from the stars and a few old bones:-)
Tea leaves, also I roll dice to pick random paragraphs out of Trotsky’s book
Because most people thought Labour were useless. Still do, according to the polls.
You are greedy. You want to have more in terms of tax cuts and profit, and you are willing to have children go without food or housing in order to do it.
The wealthy had their taxes cut by nearly half in the past 25 years, and the non-wealthy have had to pay for it with low wages, low benefits, and long hospital waiting lists.
And you want to take WFF which will result in more people going into poverty. Have you no decency?
Yes and under who did the UK fail. 13 thatcher years, major boom. Did Labour reverse anything she did, No, they just failed to manage properly. Result after 13 years of Tory boom we had years of Labour Bust!
Major boom for the top 5% in society. Shall we buy a new XJS for the garage, Jeeves?
Crikey, Addison, you seem to know even less about UK politics than you do about NZ trade unionism. Any other subjects you want to raise to demonstrate your ignorance?
btw, your claimed business genius status is somewhat undermined by your failure to work out what the reply button is for.
TRP, dude 🙂
Who said I was genius, just someone with a work ethic who doesn’t believe the state needs to wipe my backside for me. Those who run down the UK actually need to compare it with the socialist paradises in The rest of Europe. You experts can tell me what anti union policies of Thatcher were reversed by the Labour Government. How much per year did The UK grow under thatcher and compare that with under Labour.
As far as I’m concerned Addison if you started up a successful business and succeeded in making it thrive and giving yourself and your partner and kids a comfortable lifestyle good on you and good luck to you. If you think you managed to achieve that all as a result of solely your own efforts and intellect and that the rest of NZ society had absolutely no input into your success I highly doubt that. You started and ran a successful business in a society which has developed an infrastructure and institutions in more egalitarian times past you that you (and everyone else) has benefited from.
Your goal in life seems to have been to become financially wealthy and you have achieved that. I have no problem with that. But if you think that therefore anyone else can do the same, and if they can’t or don’t they are all lazy, useless bludgers who deserve to be driven to the poorhouse you are extremely blinkered. Those who have not had the same advantages of education, language facility and business savvy you have do not deserve to have their living standards progressively lowered by policies which ensure the steady transfer of their limited and effectively shrinking wealth to those who are already doing well because of their own efforts.
I want a government which has policies that enable every one of its citizens who is able and willing to work full-time to do so and have at least a reasonable standard of living and self-respect. One which does not use lower wages, direct and indirect taxation, sale of taxpayer built income earning assets, and unemployment, to continually and increasingly facilitate the transfer of more and more of the national wealth into the hands of the already well off by effectively reducing the living standards of the majority of ordinary working citizens.
IMHO a democratic government should be rated and voted for on the basis of the standard of living it achieves for the majority of its citizens, and for the way it treats those who are prevented by illness or disability, genuine misfortune or lack of opportunity for education and decent paid work – not just on the preferences of those who have even by dint of hard work and good fortune, or inheritance, acquired more of its net wealth than others.
nice
I don’t consider myself wealthy ,I have enough to make my retirement comfortable and have worked since I was young to achieve that. I do think that there are many in NZ and the UK for that matter who take the piss out of social services and could work but choose benefit instead. You seem think that there is nothing between chasing wealth something I have never done and Benefits. That’s Labour and the lefts big mistake. They hate anyone better off than themselves. So what of teachers, nurses ,doctors all rich pricks in socialist terms. A source of revenue to top up their political supporters and pet. Social engineering projects. A source of funds to produce money to try and bribe the electorate. What else was the last minute rabbit out of the hat policy of free student loans and working for families. The trouble is they now ignore the majority of Workers and concentrate only on the Unions and beneficiaries which is why for 4 and a half years National has been polling higher than Labour ever did. Why is labour in the pits. It’s not in government and therefore can’t raise the cash for buying popularity, bribes aside it has nothing to offer the average,note average hard working Kiwi.
Without working for families there would be people having to live on the street. Why dont you go to a WFF recipeienct and tell them that they should have all their money taken off them and live on the street. Im sure you will be finding your teeth.
Do you want to Americanise heath care. I am warning you, I will come for you if you do. I will come for you. I will kick the shit out of you 10 times over you mean nasty horrible person. All those poor and working people and unionists you denigrate will cheer me on and probably join in.
Milsey what hollow threats, that’s all ou have . No argument so threats of voiolence and thuggery. You would have fitted in well in the socialist party of Germany in the 30s. Thank god most of the human race has become a bit more civilized since then.
“Thank god most of the human race has become a bit more civilized since then.”
LMAO
p.s. Addison, there was a very good speech about two Peters in the House this week, one old, one young, you should look it up and thenremember that without the dselfless sacrifice of thousands of people over hndreds of years yur great ability to run a business would never have eventuated, you would still be ( as you appear to be ) a serf to your masters
p.s Addison, there was a very good speech about two Peters in the House this week, one old, one young, you should look it up and then remember that without the selfless sacrifice of thousands of people over hundreds of years your great ability to run a business would never have eventuated, you would still be ( as you appear to be ) a serf to your masters
I am fortunate that my parents gave me an ethic for work and a good education. I was employed for a fair part of my life 18 to 40 years old and yes it’s better being your own master than not. I enjoyed being self employed my mistakes cost me , not the mistakes of others. I value that freedom as I value freedom of speech and applaud bloggs like this where the rights to express opinion are valued.
It’s just a shame when the likes of Milsey have to reduce everything to preconceived ideas. I am right wing if centerist. I come from a political family one you would find hard to believe. Father secretary of the TGWU in Glasgow who went on to be a conservative political organizer. A Step mum who ran the conservative ( unionist party) in Scotland, and a sister who stood as a Labour candidate. You can imagine family dinners! Yes I value those who went before , those who set up the welfare state, those who, fight for freedom. You may think all right thinking people are arseholes, your entitled to your opinion. It may surprise you to know that between leaving the uk in 1998 and arriving in NZ I spent 9 years on my yacht much of it in poor communities in the Caribean and pacific using my wife’s expertise as a nurse and what funds we had spare to help those communities. Great fun and much more satisfactory than being a tourist. Arriving in NZ, nearly broke was why we had to go back to work.
You want to get rid of unions, privatise health, scrap benefits and bring back slavery.
This will impose misery on thousands of people.
Addison said: “I don’t consider myself wealthy ,I have enough to make my retirement comfortable and have worked since I was young to achieve that. I do think that there are many in NZ and the UK for that matter who take the piss out of social services and could work but choose benefit instead. You seem think that there is nothing between chasing wealth something I have never done and Benefits. That’s Labour and the lefts big mistake. They hate anyone better off than themselves. etc”.
Perhaps you are describing some of the regular posters here, but I don’t see things in such simplistic class terms at all. I applaud your success. There is a wide middle ground between those who are extremely wealthy or even comfortably off like yourself and those who are on benefits.
Reading your comments it seems to me it is you who sees the UK and NZ as societies that essentially consist of people who make themselves successful because of their superior virtues, values and work ethics, and lesser beings who either bludge off people like yourselves or who deserve to struggle in a country which is by world standards still quite wealthy.
Are there bludgers and no-hopers in our society? Yep. Should dole bludgers be working if there’s a job they can do? Yep. Are there enough jobs they could do that would enable them to earn and save enough to better themselves? Nope – not when many of the jobs they could do (if they can actually get them) pay so desperately little they are really just subsidising their employer’s income and not even necessarily gaining the ability to meet their housing and living costs without state assistance. Can they better themselves? Not easily. Not in the current job market.
Are all people who haven’t managed to achieve your level of material and financial comfort bludgers or in some way blameworthy for wanting their incomes from full time work to be sufficient for a decent standard of living? Nope.
Does National have a plan to raise or at least not continue to lower the living standards of all people in full-time work? I don’t see it – joblessness and declining standards of living for the low and middle income earners seems to be the future under National. Does Labour have a plan to do this? Who knows? They seem lost. The party that does manage to find one will eventually replace the nats. Do I support unions? If there’s no other means by which ordinary working people can prevent their living standards, pay and conditions being lowered while those of the well off and wealthy keep rising, yes.
Addison wishes to ignore the broad societal and macroeconomic aspects of a nation, in order to pretend that heroic self-sufficiency will compensate for all situations, for all people.
What is it with right wing tossers like Addison that they:
a) Need to tell people how rich they are (all from HARD WORK )
and
b) How charitable they are.
If they’re so fucking charitable then why do they object so strongly to ordinary folks sharing in the gains of increased productivity?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/files/2013/02/productivity-wages.png
That graph captures the consequences of what Addison is arguing for.
I’m assuming Addison your objection to unions is based on a belief they destroy jobs by destroying businesses through unaffordable demands. To be fair, that’s happened. Certainly in a few especially noteworthy UK cases mentioned, and maybe even some here. But against that there are still thousands of negotiation rounds going on all around the world where unions are recognised where both parties reach mutually agreed and beneficial arrangements. Worker participation in profits is something that has always seemed to me to be a great motivator for increasing productivity, but although that has been frequently touted I dunno how much it’s happened.
I wonder if a certain someone is a spotty weed of a teenager working for minimum wage who has never been in a fight in his unachieving, virginal life. Possibly aims to be the local Union rep.
Threats of Union violence are amusing. Just one more reason not to hire Union labour.
Millsy’s violent comments were well off, and he copped a ban for them.
Hope you cop one too for describing them as “Union violence” you lying little shite. Nothing you’ve written here indicates that you’ll be of any value to this forum.
Same old boring tr0ll lines, same old fantasies.
Millsy said:
“Do you want to Americanise heath care. I am warning you, I will come for you if you do. I will come for you. I will kick the shit out of you 10 times over you mean nasty horrible person. All those poor and working people and unionists you denigrate will cheer me on and probably join in.”
Isn’t that last line a threat of Union violence?
I have a question. Why don’t the Unions, and unionists, run their own businesses?
I have a similar question Burt. Why don’t employers do their all workers jobs?
Arghh!! Try again.
I have a similar question Burt. Why don’t employers do all their workers’ jobs?
No that’s not a threat of “Union violence”, you need to learn to read.
ps the violence in industrial relations is almost entirely one way, and it isn’t from the workers.
One would have thought it was fairly easy for a Union to get into business. They have the workers, they have the beginnings of a management structure. Bolt on some further expertise, and away you go.
Good wages for all. Little dispute. Cut out the capitalist. If what the capitalist does is so simple, then compete with him. You’ve already got the labour.
I read it again and it still says:
“All those poor and working people and unionists you denigrate will cheer me on and probably join in”
If he wasn’t including Union violence, then he would have left out the term “unionists” and “join in” (the beating)
Perhaps you missed it when you were rushing to chastise me.
Desperate mate.
Tell me, what is this “Union violence” that you keep bringing up and repeating the phrase as if it were a recognised and well understood phenomena?
Perhaps we could both agree to just move on.
How about my Union idea?
Or you could explain what you’ve been banging on about. Up to you.
I don’t hate you, Addison, as much as you want to paint it that way. I feel a little contempt for someone who thinks owning two yachts is something to brag about, and I find your simplistic outlook a bit sad. When I think about success in my life, I think about what I’ve been able to do to help others, not what I’ve been able to buy for myself. I would rather fish off the Birkenhead wharf with friends than sail in one of your yachts. I would rather help someone install solar power generation or build a low impact environmental dwelling, or teach an adult to read, than set foot on your other yacht.
You might have a great work ethic, but what have you done to make the world a better place or help a fellow member of society? What have you achieved beyond using more of our limited resources than you need? Why on earth should I hate you when I think I’m far, far better off than you could ever be?
Good stuff, Murray
I’m with Addison.
Those pesky trade unions and their demands for basic worker safety and a living wage.
Fancy wanting to feed your kids properly and wanting to be able to afford to give them a decent education.
Give me a nation any day where I can, with significant subsidies that the nuclear industry attracts, look after myself.
And Thatcherism and Blairism have made the United Kingdom the great nation that it is today, as long as you don’t look at the appalling debt, the unemployment queues or what is happening to the north.
The Northerners are revolting.
The Midlanders too, come to think of it…
I seem to remember pr Thatcher that the UK was the but of what the rest of Europe called the British disease, unionism. Thatcher cured us of that but it now seems that many countries Portugal, Italy Greece, France have caught that infection and are paying the price.
Thatchers cure was to bleed out millions of working class
The result is an infestation of parasitic thieving bankers in the City of London
Try not to contaminate NZ with your Brit Tory Politik please
Don’t run down young new zealanders. Socialists now that’s another question , I have seen the. Damage they did.Those parasite have been there for 400 years not maggies doing.
The financial sector is the parasitic sector.
Agreed.and they have been there 400 years.
I blame Venice.
JOINING. A. UNION. IS. A. DEMOCRATIC. HUMAN. RIGHT.
UNION. MEMBERS. GET. BETTER. PAY. AND. CONDITIONS. THAN. OTHER. WORKERS.
WHY. DO. YOU. WANT. WORKERS. TO. HAVE. LESS. WAGES?
The best thing to happen to Thatcher is for a gunman to splatter her brains over the 10 Downing Street door.
Pity those IRA guys didnt succed is blowing her to bits. Would have saved a lot of UKers from the misery you wanted imposed on them.
Because if he can pay workers less for the work that they do then he’ll get richer. It’s typical of the parasitical business owners.
Massively strong trade unions in Germany, one of the largest and strongest industrial and technology economies in Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_unions_in_Germany
Paris was notorious for coming to a standstill whenever the lorry driver unions struck in sympathy with someone or other
Yeah. In reality, the German and Japanese industrial relations concept is better – workers and owners co-operating to achieve the best end result for the business, and then ensuring those benefits are distributed equitably throughout the organisation.
There is no reason for a CEO to be earning more than 10x what his median worker earns.
So you want to ban trade unions too?
Imagine a union free world.
Oh that’s right, China, and the southern US states in the 1850’s.
Compare the UK with the socialist paradises in the rest of Europe?
I do. Everyday. I live in one and have lived in the UK. Unemployment figures were out yesterday… 4.9 percent thanks to worker friendly legislation. We also have high, really high union membership.
So look at your comparisons again. Anti-union UK is not the European Nirvana.
Amen.
Go and tell that to the children of whole communities wiped out because of thatcherism.
I’m all right Jack is never a virtue.
Your five acres and boats prove fuck all, except that you could never have achieved it under Thatcher, and you would never have achieved it without a Clark government here.
You give our people a bad name. Shame on you.
Rather odd, and oddly misogynist, post from Tim Selwyn this morning. Admittedly, its about Seven Sharp, so he may have been mired in mediocrity to the point where it affected his writing. Must try harder, Tim.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/03/02/tv-review-7-sharp-defining-pointlessness/
Just because he called the show girly?
But…it is. I don’t like my political analysis girly. Or laddish.
Yeah, girly as a perjorative and the slur about Mau ‘swallowing’. Just seems a bit off to me.
the “turned lesbian” thing was definitely not a needed or relevant comment from Selwyn.
Frankly if he was going to make a point about SS being trite and lightweight, imitation wasn’t the best way to go.
+1 this whole thread.
+ 1
Oh dear. I don’t know which to be more critical of. The statement that the 18-35 year old female demographic want fluffy, girly current events according to the management or the revoltingly sexist and lewd comments that followed.
BTW why do both channels cut the demographic to attract off at 54 years. Living dead after that age? Personally I’d have though the over 54’s would be more likely to be watching than younger people, out doing interesting young people things.
Bomber’s on to it:
Martyn Bradbury says:
March 2, 2013 at 3:07 pm
Editors note: I have just had a chance to get to this – sorry for the delay. This was an early draft that wasn’t vetted thoroughly enough for the language to fit with the values of the site. It has been now. Sexist jokes and language are lazy and dull.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/03/02/tv-review-7-sharp-defining-pointlessness/#comment-471
You mean he rushed to hide his innate chauvinism behind a thin fictive veil of Political Correctness when it would be far easier to get over the blokey posturing and simply not say things which we know would offend our mothers, sisters and daughters like a civil person.
I think you might be confusing two separate people.
I don’t find that unusual at all from Tim Selwyn. I noticed a few years ago that he expresses some quite regressive stereotypes on gender and sexuality and some other related characteristics. I have commented critically on it on Tumeke in the past.
Selwyn can say many things I agree with, but……
This could be a developing story ..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2268926/I-raped-leader-Exclusive-Brethren-Shock-testimony-man-alleges-abused-child-Big-Jim-Taylor-rocks-churchs-claim-charitable-status.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284225/Lib-Dem-sex-scandal-Explosive-emails-Team-Clegg-knew-specific-groping-claims-Lord-Rennard.html
Add this into the mix, one wonders how the lid will be kept on it, as those who know what has been going on are many!
The system is run by paedos for paedos, time for people to get that through their heads!
lol
Oh, you read the Daily Mail. Explains a lot. Check out number 4.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21599119
Should have used the key media sponsor of the paedophile cover-up – The BBC!
Your stalking and comments are becoming progressively worse, sort it out!
you mistake me for your legion of imaginary followers.
Legion (We are)
Nice dark reference there.
Hopefully we aren’t all pigs running off a cliff, however.
It’s clearly another phase of the personal research project – I got much the same result when I respond to one of muzza’s comments a few days ago.
Yep.
Actually, I plead guilty.. I check it out on the Web everyday after reading the guardian. I call it the daily bigot and it’s really interesting to see how many derogatory adjectives about a person it can fit in one headline. Also for straight out misogyny it’s hard to beat.
And if you want your news (for want of a better term) in pictures then the daily bigot is your site. Occasionally it throws up an unexpected goodie – like yesterday’s article about Amazon warehouse work. But then after sullying myself there I feel guilty for just giving it page clicks.
/notsurprised.
The Auckland City Council doesn’t appear to be immune to the creative accounting craze;
“Solid six months for council group ”
https://www.nzx.com/companies/AKC/announcements/233674
Big claims about a “total after-tax surplus of $478 million” and the fine print says that $455 million of it was an increase in the value of its net assets. In other words they revalued a bunch of assets, probably land the council owns, and called it a gain on the books.
That link was the NZX who at least know how to report financial results. This link is from our media;
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/news/regak/800962277-big-surplus-announced-by-auckland-council
Note the statement “It raked in $478 million more than it spent in the second half of the 2012-13 financial year.” Err, no it didn’t.
The $62 million in trading profit is at least welcome, wonder how much more it would have been if the incompetent management at POAL hadn’t made a complete hash of the ports dispute.
The thing that I most notice, both yesterday and today, about Christchurch is that the traffic is really stally. Keeps jamming up in the strangest places.
Can’t remember it being this bad pre-quake. Last time I was on here post quake was the Xmas after the first one. Figured that it was the season then.
Maybe just tired. Lyn had to jump on a plane early this morning back to Auckland. Aunty sitting her niece who just got a sister this morning.
Hi lprent,
Yes, the traffic is ‘stally’. We lost the central city roads and some arterial routes (out east) and, since then, we’ve had major roadworks and a huge number of unexpected smaller road repair jobs that seem to pop up over night on the roads that now take the load (and were not designed/planned to take the loads). Routes that ‘work’ one week often don’t the next.
It all adds to the stress and the feeling of not being able to have control over your daily life (e.g., getting places on time).
WHERE IS THE ‘MANDATE’ FOR ASSET SALES????
Yes – National did campaign for asset sales – albeit in a a not very ‘open and transparent’ way?
You will note that their 2011 pre-election policy did NOT say – “National supports asset sales”, or “National supports the Mixed Ownership Model for key state assets”.
http://www.national.org.nz/mixed-ownership.aspx
THIS is the rather sly way that National wiggled in their stated asset sale policy – prior to the 2011 election:
http://www.national.org.nz/PDF_General/Future_Investment_Fund_policy.pdf
“Building savings and investment
National is increasing savings and creating jobs built on exports and productive investment.
We’re getting on top of debt, and returning to surplus sooner.
We will extend the successful mixed-ownership model – where the Government owns most of acompany, but offers a minority stake to investors – to four state-owned energy companies, and reduce the government’s stake in Air New Zealand.
This will give Kiwis a chance to invest in large New Zealand companies.”
The 2011 election results?
National got 59 out of 121 MPs.
The final vote on the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Act 2012, was 61 – 60
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/e/8/e/50HansD_20120626_00000012-State-Owned-Enterprises-Amendment-Bill-Public.htm
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.
Ayes 61
New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.
Noes 60
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Māori Party 3; Mana 1.
___________________________________________________________________
HOWEVER:
” UF (United Future) did not specifically campaign for the ‘mixed ownership model for the electricity companies and Air New Zealand’ because it was not UF (United Future)policy”
[ Pete George (16,292) Says: February 15th, 2013 at 10:28 pm]
In my considered opinion – the voting public of Ohariu were thus effectively misled by United Future and Peter Dunne on the issue of support for the ‘Mixed Ownership Model’ for State-Owned electricity assets and Air New Zealand.
In my considered opinion, United Future and Peter Dunne SOLD OUT the voting public of Ohariu by voting in support of the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership) Amendment Act 2012.
Had Peter Dunne kept faith with the voting public of Ohariu – the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill should have BEEN DEFEATED 60 – 61.
I thus believe that I am absolutely correct in my statement that THERE IS NO MANDATE FOR ASSET SALES – given that this minority National Government (which DID campaign on asset sales) has only 59 out of 121 MPs.
Do the maths folks!
It ISN’T complicated?
NO MAJORITY – NO MANDATE.
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
2013 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
http://www.occupyaucklandvsaucklandcouncilappeal.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/OCCUPY-AUCKLAND-APPEAL-APPLICATION-BY-APPELLANT-BRIGHT-TO-ADDUCE-NEW-EVIDENCE-pdf.pdf
Good argument. Should be being constantly pointed out by all parties opposed to asset sales. Why isn’t it?
National did not keep their privatisation plans secret (unlike charter schools). No Asset Sales was the biggest election campaign plank of Labour and other parties. They had most of a year to make that argument and failed. That is on them.
No, Labour hedged around the issue and left big loopholes for the selling off of energy and broadcasting infrastructure. Not the same thing at all. Only the Greens and New Zealand First have been vocal about blocking asset sales, and NZF has been very clear that its policy is to buy back those privatised assets.
So no policies should be passed unless there is a mandate. !Might be a bit difficult to raise the taxes to pay your benefits penny.
How many hospitals would you close to cut taxes?
We need to tax rich cunts like you (who are taking food out of childrens mouth) to give people a standard of health care that the best of the world.
NOW SHUT UP AND PAY YOUR TAXES..
[lprent: shut up and have a week off to collect your thoughts. The idea when you have a warning is to hide it. ]
I pay my taxes, even as a pensioner what taxes do you pay or are you government funded. No my wife’s a nurse so fully support the excellent NZ health service which seems , so the workers in it tell me, to have blossomed under National.
Bullshit is such great fertiliser.
If you knew anything about NZ, you would realise that the healthcare industry is in a compared to what is was 10-15 years ago, so no its not anecdotally blossomed under national
You don’t write like an pension aged person you claim to be, I suspect you’re not!
So very kind of you borne 1946 in 203 copeland Rd Glasgow. Went to Govan primary just opposite Ibrox Park home of Rangers FC. Primary school teacher Miss Strang. What else do I have to give to prove my innocence and do I care what you think. Those who disagree with me must be enemies of the state! Where have I heard that before!
A scot who supports Margaret Thatcher?
Yeah right.
lololololololol probably why he had to RUN AWAY
Shit , I even had a step mum who worked for Maggie thatcher.
And yes before you get it in, she was the wicked stepmother, a real bitch!
Whoo Millsy, don’t o this, curb your aggro speeches. Two wrongs don’t make one right. Yes, there is something rotten with the politics of this country but I doubt that Addison has anything to do with it. NZ needs hardworking people and it is OK that those people get rewarded.
Addison, if you even think about banning unions and Americanising our health care, I will, come for you.
Now you’re talking mate.
Is that love at first sight or will it just be a one night stand lover!
prophiterole: Alf and Betty, Rob.
Hey! Wild Colonial Boy. You ware in my Vision (O’toolish Sunderland) as slumber coiled on around the hearth.
These US cuts; 85B=750,000 jobs (5% from domestic agencies, 8% from the Pentagon), yet that’s alright with me mama, that’s alright with me, the Senate chaplain Barry Black prayed ‘Rise up O God and save us from ourselves, or oh, oh, The Guns of Brixton.(84% of fictional childrens tv shows are from the US, often ‘highly sexualized” “Sponge Bob”)
HBT-500%5 increase in nitrates modeled for some ground and storage water resources. “we’ll be back in Bow River again, crying like Choir Girl, looking like a refugee. Goodbye (Astrid) Goodbye.
Shotover
Those cuts and the situation explained.
http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/02/sequestration-and-self-inflicted-wounds.html
Prodigious, Firestarter (pulling the hair from their chinny chin chin)
ZeroHedge explains that on Feb 28, in just one day, the US Treasury issued in it’s normal operations, new debt to the value of US$80B. Basically the entire size of the sequester was borrowed in 24 hours.
That’s how crazy this whole system has become.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-01/there-goes-sequester
The manifest problem is the issuing of banking licenses to the merchant bankers such as GS post GFC bailouts,proving federal protection insurance and the ability to borrow low interest money a subsidy in 2011 of 25 billion eg Haldane at the BOE.
(Save Ant Music for later)
a carpenters son
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Henry_Pullen
At Play
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Hughes_%28sociologist%29
In The Fields of The Lord
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Torrone
What’s the best way to celebrate a 137% increase in profit? Why, mass sackings of course!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/8372421/Closure-means-30-jobs-to-go
Thinking about Chch, and affordable housing, there was a good interview on RNZ this morning with Michael Reynolds of Earthship fame. He will be in Chch in a few weeks doing talks and running workshops.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/20130302
http://earthship.co.nz/?p=721
One of the interesting snippets in the interview was his team has gotten solar power installation down from $US30,000 to $US1,000 per house. That’s survival level (pumps, LED lights, cell ph and latop charging), and he acknowledges in reality the cost will sit somewhere in between, but the reason for the top end pricing is regulations not the actual necessity of the household. And that’s off-grid, so once built the house has exceptionally low running costs (passive heating technology is used too).
It’s a problem in NZ that anyone wanting to build out of the ordinary housing, and this includes both cheaper houses and green houses, faces increased costs to do with regulation. Councils are now so bound up in the post-leaky homes fall out that innovation is being stiffled. Instead we should be encouraging people developing new low end technologies, and regulations should acknowledge the role of the owner/builder – probably by creating exemptions on some consents where the building won’t be sold, or will be sold ‘as is’.
Certainly a special category should be created for owners post-disaster, so that they can create short and medium term (temporary) housing where restoration of dwellings is expected to take a long time. This doesn’t mean a free-for-all, people would still be expected to build safe buildings, but it would create a system where skilled people can take responsibility for their own housing security in situations where society is failing them.
$1K US is pretty impressive. The other day I came across a solar powered tent on FB which I thought would be a good idea to have (I’m told that you aren’t allowed off grid, you have to be connected if it can reach you – why?)
Baseline services (power, mains supply water, sewerage) are considered essential. I would guess this is to maintain a certain standard of living in NZ, but I would be interested to know how big a part industry played in drafting those regs.
However whenever you hear someone saying ‘you can’t’, it pays to dig deeper. Council inspectors often say no, not because the thing is illegal, but because it’s outside of their scope. If the builder/owner/architect can prove that a thing is safe, long lasting etc then often it is allowable. That process can be very expensive though, hence my comment about innovation being stifled.
I had to look up the grid connection thing, but it looks like it is not compulsory. I would guess that the actual regulations stipulate a certain standard of safety around electrical installation, but there is latitude in what gets installed (in the US it is more regulated).
http://www.level.org.nz/energy/electrical-design/electrical-supply-options/mains-or-grid-supply/
As an aside this looks a bit alarming
“Future supply changes
At present, all domestic consumers are charged a standard line charge. It is proposed that, in 2013, lines companies may no longer be legally required to supply power to lines they consider to be uneconomic. They may also be able to charge substantially higher line charges to some customers, which may affect the economics of supply considerably. However, this policy is currently under review and may change.
The uncertainty of supply may have an impact on design considerations regarding whether to opt for a grid connection or to design a stand-alone energy system.”
http://www.level.org.nz/energy/electrical-design/electrical-supply-options/
I assume they’re talking about remote rural areas there (and companies already charge higher line charges in smaller places), but the way it’s written there, it looks pretty dodgy.
“I had to look up the grid connection thing, but it looks like it is not compulsory. I would guess that the actual regulations stipulate a certain standard of safety around electrical installation, but there is latitude in what gets installed (in the US it is more regulated).”
Grid connect isn’t that complicated or expensive and there’s no regulatory issues except the usual electrical stuff. AS/NZS 5033:2005 covers the installation of solar arrays and AS/NZS 3000 covers the wiring.
New buildings might need some approval, not sure there, but existing dwellings don’t as a rule. Installation will get a bit more expensive with the new addendum to NZS5033 they’re bringing in for solar arrays but it shouldn’t be that much more.
Solar panels and efficient water heating combined is the best approach. I know a site that installed 2.4kw of panels on a grid-tie and the new heat-exchange water cylinder. His last power bill was about $10 and the one before he got a cheque in the mail. His payback time is about 3-4yrs but he did get the equipment at a good price & did the install himself. The hot water cylinder is probably his best power saver, LED lighting also saves a bit.
Biggest uncertainty is the power providers. Meridian are canning their 1:1 all you can eat feed-in tariff and limiting it to a max of 5kw/hr daily at 1:1 after which they pay 10c unit, makes larger grid-tie systems a bit less economic but still worth considering.
Watch out for this bad trend from Europe:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9841
I suspect that such moves are being driven from behind the scenes. The people who make a profit from non-renewables are starting to get frightened.
Yeah it is a bit of a worry but not so much in NZ. Overseas the feed-in tariffs were heavily subsidised. In Aus they were buying back power for double what they were selling it for, it clearly couldn’t last forever and the new rates are about half what they charge for power. NZ has no subsidies that can be cut and the power companies have to pay around wholesale price for feed-in which is around 10c unit.
I’m against asset sales but I will say that I think the power companies don’t have a bright future on the sharemarket. They’re slowly but surely pricing themselves out of the market. Power might keep going up in price but alternate energy isn’t. It’s been constantly falling in price and likely will continue to do so.
“Grid connect isn’t that complicated or expensive and there’s no regulatory issues except the usual electrical stuff.”
So can someone build a house in a suburb with a low usage 12V system and no connection to the grid? When you say not expensive, how relative is that to Reynolds’ $US1,000 solar install price?
Anyone thinking seriously about future-proofing needs their electricity to work without the grid, irrespective of whether they choose grid-tied or now.
You’ll need a solar thermal installation as well, for hot water. Also if you are totally off-grid you are going to need storage batteries. And probably gas for cooking (very hard to escape fossil fuels…)
Lots of very cool energy efficient cooking technologies that need to make the jump from fringe to mainstream. But yeah, fossil fuels… we should really be saving them for the most important stuff. I’ve not looked at this, but is lpg a straight swap to biogas, or does something else need to happen in between?
I’m hoping we get our shit together together to improve battery tech while we still can, but I think in the long run we have to give up this idea that we can have as much electricity as we want, when we want it (anyone off grid already knows this).
We may be running up against limitations in battery development that cannot be solved without quantum level breakthroughs – mega money has been poured into the development of cellphone batteries and in 15 years we’ve gone from slightly larger 1250 mAh batteries to slightly smaller 1800 mAh batteries.
That’s a 50% increase when what we really needed in that timeframe was a 1000% increase.
I personally do not think that any massive improvement in mass-market batteries will become available (specialist and military use batteries aside).
Not sure, to be honest. I’m guessing that the highly variable nature of different biogas sources will have some impact.
specific energy, burn temp, ignition temp etc.
You missed this comment from Pascal’s Bookie? Thin super-capacitors that presently have the same density as modern batteries but can be charged a whole lot faster and are probably also cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
Maybe. I’d like to see a presentation that had a bit more of a critique of the science and potential applications (we’re going to be able to compost graphene batteries? Come on.)
The Reynolds system has to be based on an extremely low power usage, it’s not possible for the typical household. You just can’t get household quantity power for that sort of money, even at todays low prices you’d have to budget up to $10k or more for a small household to be close to self-sufficient in power.
Off-grid systems aren’t economic in the cities because the batteries cost too much. They’re economic in some of the high cost areas like King country that have very high lines charges, but in most places they cost more than mains power.
DH, I think you might have missed the point of my original comment. Reynolds is talking about multiple systems in his houses that reduce the need for power eg the heating portion of a passive house is tiny compared to a typical household. I’m taking it that your figures are based on a typical modern kiwi build, that isn’t that energy efficient relative to Earthships.
Plus he (and I) are saying to use less power anyway. We don’t NEED anything like the amount of power we use currently. So households could reduce power usage markedly, and will have to in the future anyway. My comments here are in that context, not in the context of continued growth and using whatever we want when we want.
There isn’t really that much genuine savings in an energy efficient house. You use less power and the cost amortisation of the energy saving appliances takes the cost back up again. The biggest saving I’ve seen is efficient water heating using a heat pump, hot water makes up the largest part of the typical bill so if you can knock that off you’re well on the way.
I’d think a large part of Reynolds $30k – $1k is simply the fact he’s discovered how much the price of solar panels has fallen over the last couple of years. Ten years ago you’d pay over $700 for a 100watt panel. I can land one for under $100 now.
[citation needed]
It’s not about money – especially the way money works today. It’s about actual physical use and available physical resources. Not using the resources is always better than using them.
Get real. It’s always about money. I’ve had over 20years dealing with the general public and the one thing you learn is they’re tighter than the proverbial Scotsman. When it comes to prising open that wallet you’ll find they’re suddenly not so green after all.
Most people I know who go down the solar route do so for futureproofing reasons, personal and/or societal. The whole point of this conversation was to talk about making that choice more available to people without much money. If you only know people that spend tens of thousands of dollars on solar, and want a complete replacement for a conventional grid tied house, then that says more about you than anything.
I’m sure you are very knowledgable in your field, but you don’t appear to know much about energy efficient/passive housing. Draco asked for a citation that there are not really any genuine savings to be made from passive technologies. It’s a fair request. And bear in mind that most other people in this conversation value things in addition to money.
Under the current monetary system but the current monetary system uses up resources as if there’s no tomorrow. It is, quite simply, unsustainable.
When it comes down to being sustainable it’s about how much resources we use. This will probably mean more regulation to bring about correct pricing so that what is cheap but unsustainable becomes expensive.
“The whole point of this conversation was to talk about making that choice more available to people without much money. If you only know people that spend tens of thousands of dollars on solar, and want a complete replacement for a conventional grid tied house, then that says more about you than anything.”
We’re at cross purposes here. My work on solar & energy saving has been all about people on low incomes. Every household spends tens of thousands of dollars on power, the typical bill these days would be up around $200 a month. That’s $2400 a year, solar panels last more than 20 years and 20yrs worth of power will cost most people over $60,000 if we include the regular price increases. Many will pay double that.
If we can get the Govt assisting low income people into $60,000 worth of power for only $10k then we’d be helping them rather a lot wouldn’t we.
Reynolds earthship is more than just a passive house, that includes the likes of sewage and recycled materials. The electrical regulations he complained about don’t really apply here, in NZ it’s the building regs that wouldn’t fly especially in ChCh. So when we talk about passive houses I’m assuming we’re talking about the common passive house which revolves around insulation and heating with standard plumbing and compliant with building codes
Passive houses cost more to build, things like double glazing aren’t free. Every $1000 you spend on a house adds around $75 annually to the mortgage. So you’d need to save $75 worth of power each year to break even for every $1k extra the passive house cost to build. At city prices $75 is about what a refrigerator uses, around 340 Kw/hrs or nearly 1kw/hr per day. Some of the numbers add up, some don’t.
A large part of the energy business is about basic maths; you have to crunch the numbers. The Chatham Islanders found that out to their extreme cost.
Hey guys the idea that we should all be installing our own electricity generators, instead of working to break up the grid cartel, strikes me as really wasteful.
There is a glut of electricity on the wholesale market right now and possibly there will be much much more if Rio Tinto pulls out of NZ.
Quite literally we gotta take the power back!
This too.
Just built a fairly energy efficient house. Biggest savings were 1, passive heating, lots of glass facing north and foam insulated concrete floor. Cost about an extra 3k o. Build. 2, Solar water heating. Cost about 5k. Total cost about 77 k and savings work out at $150 PM. generally summer and winter we have to open windows by 10 in the morning and heating goes on on non sunny days in winter. My mistake was underestimating the efficiency of those two things. Anyone want to buy a secondhand heat pump hardly used!
CW: +1
We need ways to simplify home design and construction to lower energy costs. Once a threshold of fundamental water tightness, safety and energy efficiency has been reached, people should be allowed to innovate and improvise.
Regulation should be driving innovation, if it’s suppressing it then somethings wrong either with the regulation or the people who are supposed to be innovating not doing so. I suspect the latter.
Making the Passive House Standard mandatory on all new buildings should drive innovation in producing the cheaper house to that standard. Still, we also need regulations on the building materials to ensure that they’re up to to the job. This is likely to cause some delay in getting new developments into the industry.
Nope because if you do that then everyone will try for the exemptions and then we’ll just get another leaky building disaster down the road.
Cheap, portable buildings – we’ve had them for decades.
The average run of the mill person hasn’t got a hope in building a livable house – DIY is a bad idea. What we need to be doing is finding out why the skilled people aren’t queuing up to rebuild Chch. I suspect it has to do with the insurance companies, EQC included, trying really hard to keep prices down. Quite simply, the builders outside of Chch aren’t being offered enough to temporarily move to Chch to rebuild it. They’re not even being offered enough to cover accommodation in Chch never mind to also keep the house that they own elsewhere. Basically, they’re in a position that, if they take the jobs to rebuild Chch, they’ll lose everything and when that’s true there’s not a lot of incentive.
“Regulation should be driving innovation, if it’s suppressing it then somethings wrong either with the regulation or the people who are supposed to be innovating not doing so. I suspect the latter.”
What is your suspicion based on? Try talking to owner/builders esp ones doing things like strawbale and mudearth. Some councils are better/worse than others too. Watch Reynolds’ doco. Then listen to the Kim Hill interview where he talks about how the Attorney General who initially tried to prosecute him ended up helping to get the laws changed. But it took him years of fighting. Imagine if he had been supported instead.
“Still, we also need regulations on the building materials to ensure that they’re up to to the job.”
Nope. If someone can come up with a way of making houses safely out of car tyres or chicken wire, then they should be allowed to. You don’t regulate the material, you regulate the standard of safety (eg won’t leak, won’t fall down in an earthquake).
“”probably by creating exemptions on some consents where the building won’t be sold, or will be sold ‘as is’.”
Nope because if you do that then everyone will try for the exemptions and then we’ll just get another leaky building disaster down the road.”
You missed the point. You don’t exempt individuals, you exempt by classification. eg the house will have to be sold ‘as is’. This reduces the resale value of the house hugely, which limits the people wanting to do this. But it supports people who are willing to live in a house that’s been built out of tyres. Or who needs a building to live in for 5 years while their long term house is built (happens already under the radar alot in NZ).
Such buildings would still need to have standards. And leaky-buildings didn’t happen because of lax regulations, they happened because of sharks in the industry. Better to regulate the sharks than limit what honest people can do.
“The average run of the mill person hasn’t got a hope in building a livable house – DIY is a bad idea.”
We obviously move in different circles. And I’m not talking about any old person being able to build their own house, although I think that building houses is alot easier than you do. Historically, ordinary (run of the mill) people assisted in building the homes they lived in. My father built his first house in the 50s working alongside a qualified builder. Dad had ‘ordinary’ carpentry skills that he learnt growing up. Many people in NZ play major roles in building their own home (am guessing you’re not familiar with what owner/builders do), some within regs, some outside.
Sure, the other things you talk about need to happen too. But people like Reynolds would have had many in Chch rehoused by now if they’d been allowed.
The skills needed to build a house need to stay with lay people as well as professionals. It’s the professionals that created leak-building syndrome, and it’s the professionals that have made building houses harder as a result. Owner/builders aren’t responsible for leaky-homes.
In the approaching crises (PO, CC, GFC etc) we need people with hands-on skills, and we need to preserve those skills now, by supporting the people who want to learn them and use them in their own lives.
Yeah, that’s what I meant but I don’t think you just allow people to go out and build houses out of anything they think is a good idea. You have it so that they prove that it’s a good idea first, secondary testing by the government and then let it be used throughout the industry.
No, it won’t. It will start a boom in really cheap and nasty houses that we’ll be paying for for decades because of the present shortage of cheap housing. It’ll make the leaky house scandal seem like a day at Sunday School.
They happened both because of the sharks in the industry and the fact that the regulating body had the industry on it.
My brother-in-law built his house and generally it’s a well built house but, then, he’s an engineer. My brother, on the other hand, has been renovating his and what he’s done is absolute crap.
Yes and no. Yes, some of the professionals, usually the ones at the top, were the ones that caused the problem but others would have been building good houses. The problem, which the leaky homes has shown, is that the people who caused the problem aren’t being held to account and are probably still building shonky houses and it doesn’t help that the people hiring are doing it on cost – the cheaper quote gets the job and the quote is, more often than not, far too low to actually do the job.
“No, it won’t. It will start a boom in really cheap and nasty houses that we’ll be paying for for decades because of the present shortage of cheap housing. It’ll make the leaky house scandal seem like a day at Sunday School.”
Why nasty houses?
It wouldn’t be that hard to build accountability and limits into the system eg you can only build one such house a decade. And you can’t sell within a certain time frame. That takes out the people wanting to make money.
We’re talking about owner/builders remember, so no developers, or professional builders wanting to make a quick buck. And the point is to support people doing innovative work (you still haven’t answered my question about your suspicions), or those in urgent need for short/medium term housing (Chch). And I think you missed the bit about there still needing to be standards.
btw, I know people that live in really cheap houses. You might call them nasty houses, but I and the occupants don’t. But they’re not houses that fit well into the capitalist model of asset ownership – they can’t be sold for much money and they don’t appreciate in value over time. But they allow people to live in their own place, and often they mean that people can live on successfully on low incomes, which increases quality of life.
At which point there was no reason for the exception. A one off unit isn’t worthwhile. What we need is research and development into better building materials that can then be rolled out across the industry.
I’m not against supporting innovation – I just want it to be innovation that is proven rather than people going off on half-arsed ideas that don’t actually work.
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/cheap+and+nasty
If 70% of people are against Nact’s policy of selling the power companies and Air NZ then maybe Shearer would get good traction by announcing he’d buy them back, especially now that the grubby detail like the Aussie float is about to come out – the lifting of the 49% will no doubt be next. The only trouble, though, is that Labour’s track-record tells us they’d be likely to do a u-turn after it won the election and keep them in whose ever hands they end up in. If Shearer had a backbone he’d use this opportunity to start trying to convince us Labour’s changed. 70% support points to this being the perfect issue to use to begin rebuilding the trust and confidence that Labour lost a long long time ago. But again, I keep forgetting Shearer and Labour do not have backbone.
Bring Back the Backbone Club
The BBCs 😉
“Bring back the Backbone Club” says Colonial Viper. I hope you are joking ! You do know they supported the Rogernomes ?
Yes exactly, there would be a delicious irony in it my friend 😉
“If 70% of people are against Nact’s policy of selling the power companies and Air NZ then maybe Shearer would get good traction by announcing he’d buy them back”
If Shearer really wanted to piss off the sharemarket he’d be better off doing a deal with one of the big solar panel manufacturers and then offering installs to every home & business owner. Wouldn’t even have to subsidise it, just pass the packages on at cost plus about 10% to cover expenses & people could add it to their mortgage.
If people could buy solar systems at today’s ex-factory bulk prices their power bill would be less than half what they’re paying now. That would really cut into the power company’s profits & bring their share prices down. Then we could buy them back.
“If Shearer really wanted to piss off the sharemarket he’d be better off doing a deal with one of the big solar panel manufacturers and then offering installs to every home & business owner.”
The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and the buy-back would be primarily for New Zealanders (although pissing the share market off would be fun).
What’s the point in buying them Back! Your cunning plan just stuffed their profits and their future, great idea! Not!
So you see no point to government owning and running essential infrastructure other than revenue?
Someone in Labour did publicly state he’d consider buying back any assets sold…..Cunliffe. But the Labour Caucus don’t want him and wider the wider LP heirachy and Council are too weak to act as a check and balance. Go Labour! Go down the toilet!
The diseased old tree cover must be felled before you growth can emerge from underneath.
“new growth can emerge from underneath”
In one (reported) sentence, Trevor Mallard demonstrates perfectly why he should be put out to pasture …
“Mr Mallard believed that the anonymous invective against on social media was either National Party sourced or from people who belonged to Labour 20 years ago.”
(Audrey Young, Herald).
Now this is so obviously not true, that it beggars belief that Trevor could say it. Yes, of course there are Nat trolls, as well as critics well to the left of Labour. But there are also many, many Labour voters and members who are unhappy, and they are saying so. Either Trevor doesn’t know this (in which case he is woefully out of touch), or he does know it and pretends not to.
Or he was misquoted by the Herald and will be correcting this any minute now? We can only hope.
Time Photo Essay of Domestic Violence
http://lightbox.time.com/2013/02/27/photographer-as-witness-a-portrait-of-domestic-violence/#1
good commentary here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/28/photo-essay-shows-how-abusers-manipulate-victims/
Powerful stuff about the everyday tragedy. Really, if people wanted to reduce healthcare costs, solo parents, social security costs, disturbed children, teen parenting, teen crime, prison costs and a host of other social ills they’d be marching in the streets to change the ills that lead to domestic violence. As this photo essay shows it’s not just an ‘individual choice’ to be an abuser or a victim it’s a whole heap of social, cultural and economic factors.
Saw this essay on gender violence in Sweden on Euronews yesterday too.
Yeah, that whole story kinda squicks me. I blogged about it. (Hopefully the link displays, I’ve been having a problem with that). I simply don’t buy the idea that a photo-essay like this is groundbreaking or going to be so effective that it outweighs the fact she let a small child watch her mum get choked by her partner.
ADDISON:
Do you support publily funded health care?
How much do you pay your workers?
Would you sack your workers if they took a sick day?
Would you sack your workers if they joined a union? I bet you would. You nasty fascist cunt. You should have your head kicked in for that.
Im sick of people who want to lock up unionists and bring back slavery. They derserve to be strung up with piano wire.
Will you be wearing your brown shirt and your facist supplied jackboots when you do that. I thought this was a forum with a bit of decorum! Good behavior and insults only a problem if you are not from the left it seems.
What a dickhead
If you remember, it was Thatcher who sent in the military and the riot police against ordinary workers and their families
Tory Jackboot thugs
Why ask for politeness and manners? You deserve none. In fact, you’re the rudest and ungrateful of them all.
Lay off Addison. He is here, in NZ, rather than his right-wing, Thatcher-reformed paradise in the UK.
Ol’ Addy voted with his feet and chose a country considerably more left-wing than his birthplace to make his home.
The fact that he’s now trying to create the sort of mess he left behind is testament to his stupidity.
Yes but I left in 1998 not 1990 when Thacher left Downing Street. It was then a socialist paradise and well on the sloppy slope.
Yep that Tony Blair. He was a real socialist, nationalised all sorts of industries, taxed the wealthy more, refused to support the Americans in invading Iraq …
Mickey, not saying Blair was a socialist, he was a lawyer after all! But it seems the more left you go the less chance of growth. It’s interesting that old Labour died nothing replaced it. I. The UK you have center right and left of center right? Why do you think there is ne left anymore?
So Addison I thought that you were really thick and some old codger who strayed onto the site and wanted to have a moan. Your last statement shows that you are a troll.
Well, that must the first time I’ver ever heard the Blair administration described as socilalist, Addison. You do know what the word means, don’t you? Still, funny that you should leave in 1998, when Blair had only been in office a few months. Perhaps the sloppy slope socialist paradise you were fleeing was John Major’s government. Oh, yes!
Why didnt you go to China?
Sweatshops, no labour or environmental standards, unionists getting locked up, poverty everywhere, etc.
The dickhead hyprocite Addison decided that he would like to settle somewhere in his older years where there was good socialised medicine and infrastructure/services provided for older people.
He is having us on CV. He is a tr0ll.
Heh 🙂
I’ll have a fine stout in honour of you and your courageous LEC tonight.
Mickey sorry, wrong again! Just have an interest in debate and politics. PS there is no left anymore, certainly not in NZ or UK politics. Ever ask yourself why?
Addison says there is no Left any more and voila! Just like that, it is so. *GROAN*
So CV you tell me how many in the beehive are true socialists, or failing that to the left.
Um there are no socialists in the Beehive Addison, National and John Key are in control …
No more socialists Addison? Then your job is done! Thxbye!
Addison
I’m sick of your coy questions.
PS there is no left anymore, certainly not in NZ or UK politics. Ever ask yourself why?
So explain why this is in some depth, instead of dropping knowing hints.
Are you drunk? You come up with statements that seem to be plucked out of thin air…
I meant of course no more socialists in parliament, in the uk or NZ. Where are the likes of Foot and Tony Benn in the uk. I can’t think of anyone in the labour caucus who is seriously Left. Hellen Kelly, one in waiting but that’s all. I am not that knowledgable on the bottom end of Labours list so will stand corrected.
Wow more political insight, that the whole of politics has shifted to the Right over the last few decades, to where neoliberalism is the mainstream.
You should really charge for this shit mate, it’s political analysis gold.
Where oh where did I say , bring back slavery. What you don’t understand milsey honey bunch is that workers unsuccessful businesses do well. I am no longer in business but my son is and do you know what that right wing pig only pays his workers $600 a day! What a disgrace. Now his business still makes a profit, $ 30 ooo last month alone. Why don’t we get him and put those 8 workers back on the dole, we could that would be one more rich prick gone and 8 more on benefit, the socialist paradise.
“$600 a day!”
Binders full of women!
“put those 8 workers back on the dole,”
Your son got workers via WINZ and paid them $150k pa? For reals?
“$ 30 ooo last month alone.”
The answer’s obvious, sack your son and hire two more of those $150k interns. Nett result; one less person on the dole.
In answer to your questions:yes,I don’t, I am a pensioner,no,no. That satisfy you or do you just want to kill all those who don’t agree with you!
No just let them slowly starve in quiet cold poverty
What have I said that’s rude?I see from your comment that you support civil disobedience. You support workers being stopped at factory gates where there is no dispute by miners who are not looking for more safety or better conditions just more money. They did a shitty job I agree but I used to spend a lot of time around south Wales and most ex miners I spoke to hated Scargill for what happened to mining. They stayed on strike just long enough to see the mines flood beyond recovery. UK car industry, once a great industry where is it now. My entire family uncle aunts etc all Clyde shipbuilders another industry screwed by constant union fighting. All these well paid jobs priced out of the market!
Help me Jebus!
“and most ex miners I spoke to hated Scargill for what happened to mining”
The strike started when Thatcher ordered the closure of 20 pits. The miners went on strike to protect their jobs, so if your ‘ex-miner’ mates reckon the decline of mining in the UK was Scargill’s fault, they’re as ignorant as you, Addison.
I think it can be said with some confidence that Addison is not a Crosby Textor plant.
And exactly haw am I as a pensioner doing harm to NZs economy. My UK pension is paid to the nz government who then pay me an NZ pension. I have pension from previous empoyment that I pay tax on. So I just enjoy a quiet life walking in NZs wonderful landscape and sailing on it’s pristine waters.
Now wait one cotton picking minute… I have seen people who have been banned ( for life in one recent case) for using far less threatening language than Millsy has in this thread. Where hell is Millsys ban moderator? Or is it only right wingers who get banned on here, for even the feeblest reasons…
[lprent: The reasons are listed in the policy. The section that applies is about “pointless abuse” because he offered no *direct* abuse. So he got warned rather than banned. You of course are buying into the into a. of being a lawyer b. telling moderators what to do. Care to comment?
Yes, if you’re Union you can act like a fu*kwit.
A fantastic speech by David Cunliffe. For anyone who grew up in the shadow of… or have wonderful memories of trekking through parts of the Waitakere ranges… or more importantly care about out most famous native tree, the Kauri tree, then this is a must read. He posted it on Red Alert but nobody has chosen to comment. Not surprising.
http://cunliffe.co.nz/speech-saving-our-trees-again/
Damm… it’s our most famous tree.
Greg Presland, who Cunliffe mentions in his speech, did a guest post on TS on it recently. in the comments, Presland linked to Cunliffe’s RA post on the meeting.
Does anybody even bother to read RA any more? I know I don’t.
Film the police.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/03/jury_finds_occu.php
I find Millsy’s internet threats quite repugnant. As much as I loathe capitalism and despise its advocates, physically threatening them on an internet blog is ridiculous. That sort of empty crap is best left to WhaleSpew’s vile army of malcontents and viagra users. My first instinct whenever I see these sorts of threats in a left wing environment is to wonder if we have an agent provocateur and who is paying them. We don’t need it.
Murray, the trouble is with hating capitalists is that despite there being not much trickledown effect of wealth, there has been a trickle down effect of capitalism. Even here it’s about house ownership not about cheap affordable renting. Humans sadly have a gene that wants them to do better for their kids, not the next generation of humanity, but the next generation of them! Look at the Asians hard workers, education oriented, family oriented but all aimed at their kids having it better. You despise that sort of capitalism you despise a lot of workers.
Many of the major flaws in capitalism are those which inherently boost the position of financial capital, and undermine the economic leverage of labour.
First time I’ve heard the notion that capitalism is genetic. Idiotic.
Your argument is like saying that because I hate cancer I must hate cancer patients. Capitalism is a cancer on our planet. It is unable to meet the challenges we are facing, but acts to accelerate the problems.
You say it’s about house ownership. I say house ownership is a con job and this is shown by the decreasing percentage of people who are able to own a house. The people who are paying half or more of their wages in rent would no doubt welcome affordable housing without ownership. I don’t despise them, I despise those who lobby the government to not build houses when they themselves own several. I despise governments who think that opening up more land for developers and money lenders to profit from is an answer to anything. In the end, their kids won’t have it better. In fact, because so much of their self esteem is bound up in how big their car is, or how many yachts they have, they’ll have it worse once global heating and energy shortages push us all into survival mode.
You don’t think the wil, to strive is genetic, it is in every animal on the plan net, humans included? If wilder beast sat all day on their arses instead of getting on their 4 feet and migrating ever year there would be a lot less wilder beast. And yes I think a lot of parents so called greed is a desire to set up their kids to have a better life. I personally don’t think that’s bad but could be construed as greed because they don’t work so hard to do the same for everyone’s kids. That said I have never seen the docks union go on strike to improve the lot of teachers or nurses! Or to get better conditioned for old buddies in nursing homes, are they not selfish too!
used to happen, but sympathy strikes have been illegal for quite some many years.
Addison’s point is lost on me here. Unions came into existence to fight for improved pay and conditions from ruthlessly exploitative employers for their own members. Employers organisations do their best to ensure employers continue to make as much personal profit from their enterprises as possible. Political parties offer voters choices as to how those competing imperatives should be managed. Whichever parties delivers the best and most memorable lines in competing bullshit seem to be the ones that get elected. Jo public has no idea what’s really going on half the time.
Capitalism has its place. It needs to be controlled. Unregulated capitalism and free markets are invariably unstable and destructive to national economies. The galling irony is the banks and finance houses that are the most public face of the free markets ended up with their reputations and financial affairs in tatters, and in being rescued and guaranteed by taxpayers because we were told that allowing them to collapse would’ve wrecked national economies.
Addison, why did you come to New Zealand?
Was it just to listen to talkback radio?
Ha!
He probably rings them a fair bit as well. He has such great stories to tell; about how we should emulate the mighty wildebeest, the greedy unions, and capitalism as biological imperative. Feudalism obviously was as well, but God must have changed her mind and decided to try something else.
It’s also possible that he needed more space for his life-size Maggie Thatcher doll collection than he could afford back in Blighty.
No don’t do that. But what I miss most is pub life. Where a bunch of blocks having had a few beers can sort all the worlds problems from wither the USA should go to war to selecting the England rugby team.. I was hoping this blogg offered that sort of discussion. At least in th pub I was never offered violence, thanks moderator for making sure I have a week free of such ugliness.
The best system is probably still some form regulated capitalism. What we used to have. The old ways of redressing gross power and wealth imbalances (riots, pitchforks, tumbrils and guillotines) have fallen out of favour.
Capitalism seeks maximum financial return on capital. In a finite world, that model of exponential quantiative growth is not sustainable.
That’s true, but it’s also true that it’s good at spotting and developing products and markets, and innovations. It works well for that. But the ruthlessness of business needs to be constrained by governments and the benefits of it for those who use it to enrich themselves and employ others to help enrich them can be harnessed. IMO that’s how social democracies should operate.
Well, you know, fashion comes and goes 😈