Chris Trotter has some thoughtful comment on aspects of Labour’s policies.
“For all those tax-payers born after 1966, however, Labour’s policies on NZ Superannuation, Kiwisaver and a CGT may well result in a reduction of living-standards.”
“Why, then, does Labour persist with these business-friendly, Rich List-cossetting policies? Why not adopt fiscal measures more in keeping with its social-democratic principles? ”
[Sigh]. Labour still has yet to get my support. It seems like a dead party walking. There are some very good people in Labour’s ranks – Sue Moroney, Nania Mahuta, Cunliffe etc. But the top ranks of the MPs need to be cleaned out, and some new blood allowed through (Shearer is old blood masquerading as new blood).
I guess we really need to nurture a strong left grass roots (non-party aligned) movement articulating real left policies – and that would be more left than Trotter’s favoured social democracy. I envisage this as a network of groups with their own focus. The network could be co-ordinated by some joint actions and meetings focused on specific issues. This would need a communications network -like Global Peace and Justice:
With you Carol. The caucus is to blame, of course. They voted in the leaders. Can’t help but think if it was the Cunliffe/Mahuta ticket that had won we would see a different Labour.
Not to worry. Labour has had the moment of triumph which it seems to feel is most important – Trevor Mallard doing his excellent rant at John Banks and putting him on the spot. That’s it for the quarter June-Sept. I don’t think that anything significant and useful can now be expected to happen in Labour till next quarter so we can all go back to our pasttimes, meantime.
I think the trouble is that Labour views parliament as a proxy for the country and so a win there as Opposition is achieving something and showing the flag etc. This is despite discussion and condemnation on this blog and elsewhere. I think that entrenched groupthink rules! Memories of Helen and what she achieved – what was her recipe? Hold on while we write all the ingredients down, then tick off the boxes as we follow her practices. Nice Labour fruit cake anyone. Hock it off at stalls in the provinces as a fundraiser – you can rely on the hard workers there to carry on supporting us while we carry on ignoring and undermining them.
Where is the evidence of all the great communication we know is around? Why aren’t Labour getting good signals? They seem no better informed about the country and people’s concerns and ideas than in their earliest days. Perhaps Labour is behind the defeat of the new cable through lack of interest and investment in getting it as it would improve communications and opportunities in NZ and put some steel in our spine. But no, NZ Labour is of the type that can only get excited about some old chap wearing other people’s medals and his grand malfeasance of $63.20. Just milk and water and wine, no substance. And they aren’t even ensuring continuance of our water and milk. Soon Labour will be nothing but an empty wine bladder – what is the favourite tipple – chardonnay? Can this dross be recycled? Is it the right stuff?
Labour is now dominated by the old has been brigade…’true believers’ who simply cannot accept that the world has moved on from their glory days when they could soft peddle ‘rogernomics’ on NZ. I can almost picture them sitting in the pariamentary bar or wherever reminiscing on past glories and washing down bucket loads of ‘what’s, if’s and might have been’s’ with their favourite tipple.
And when they’re not looking backwards, they are only capable of conniving to hang on to the tattered shell of power that fell into their hands come hell or high water. And it seems they’re quite good at that. First one of their number became leader in a fashion not a million miles removed from some sort of royal appointment. And that bought them enough time to get together like so many Gepetos and fashion themselves a wee Pinnochio. An interim measure before the next in their royal lineage (Robertson) assumed the mantle of leader. Oh, that’s right. The wheels kind of fell off that last royal carriage while it was on its way to the coronation. Fall back plan? Citadel the puppet behind an unassailable wall of 67% disapproval and get working on those wheel repairs.
Labour is now dominated by the old has been brigade…’true believers’ who simply cannot accept that the world has moved on from their glory days when they could soft peddle ‘rogernomics’ on NZ
You called it: you also implied correctly what has happened to the next generation – the young have been co-opted into the old-has been way of doing and looking at things. In other words, far too many of the new gen in the LabourParty are simply old gen outlooks in younger looking bodies.
Tread water is probably the right answer. The Nats Coalition is sinking under the combined opposition pressures, well aided by the media.
Opposition parties do not attain power but Governments lose power through continued inertia from as many oppositions as possible, and we currently have plenty.
Under MMP the Nats, and hangers on, cannot get enough to seats to govern on their own.
Whereas a Labour Greens Winston coalition can easily achieve the required numbers. All that is required is concerted pressures at every opportunity, which is currently under way.
Where are you coming from,by the looks of that comment from deep in the bottom of a prozac bottle that is as empty of capsules as your wee rant is empty of the truth,
National +John(the convicted)Banks,+ the ‘Hairdo from Ohariu’ = a majority in the House, the fact that they are floundering as the Government is simply a reflection of their abysmal policies, and, the abysmal little shyster they have as Leader who is so far gone that His decision making looks like a set of disco lights,
Treading water isn’t enough (as they found out last election) – they have to be training up so they are seen as capable of doing a decent medley once they get the opportunity.
Fortran.
Problem is NZF are really National with a Smile.They are more likely to support National . To be honest I would not be happy with them being with Labour . They consist of a lot of racist members.I realise they were part of the last Labour Government but that was under Helen and there are not many with the abilty she has. Anyway she packed him of abroad out of harms way.The country needs Labour Green government and for a long while .
I totally agree with you, Carol. I have voted always voted Labour but at present I am in total despair because the Labour Party seem to be chasing the middle-to-right vote and forgetting that they need to represent the left. Labour need to ask themselves the question: “What are the policies that will get the non-voters from last election into the polling booths to vote for Labour?”
There are more than enough potential votes out there to be had but people need to be inspired. A charismatic leader would help and some decent policy. Labour’s National-lite policy induces the apathy that makes people from the left feel unrepresented and uninspired to vote.
One of Trotter’s commentators, under the ‘anonymous’ title, said, “In NZ there is no incentive to take risks producing goods and services when you can engage in exploitation of the financially vulnerable.” This short sentence strikes at the heart of the problem. Seriously challenge this state of affairs and you frighten a decent portion of the middle class. Fail to challenge it and you cease to represent the financially vulnerable, who look to the left to represent them. Labour looks more and more as if it has been nobbled by financial interests, with Shearer as yet another Key-style stand-in. I note that in his questions and answers on Stuff he said that he did not intend to turn out to be parliament’s longest serving member.
Rather than being a traitor to the left with his blogging and public commentating on this issue, it seems to me that he is still clinging hard to hope for a future for the party, and that he is actually unable to give up on it.
Trotter though should have a deeper understanding of whats gone on with Labour in recent years,
Hows that saying go, when your young your rebellious and left wing,but,once you get older and have responsibilities you become more right wing,
When i look at Labour from a historical perspective going back to my childhood i can see how Labour represented the reality,aspirations and needs of my parents who had nothing,
By nothing i mean 4 kids, 2 jobs,a State house and a few sticks of furniture,from there they went on to own the State house,shareholdings in various company’s,cars, and have regular up-dates of the substantial limps of furniture,
Thats what modern Labour is representative and a reflection of, if at all ‘Socialist’,and, i am pretty sure i heard Helen Clark ditch the ‘Socialist’ in favor of the ‘Social Democrat’,it is the Socialism of,for, and,by the middle classes who in effect have moved in social position from 4 kids,2 jobs, and, a few sticks of furniture upon the basis of previous Socialism and now won’t tolerate the boat being rocked in any way,
Unfortunately the new underclass have 4 kids,no jobs,a few sticks of furniture,and,no hope in the Labour Party that they can see or is being promoted from within the Parliament by the Party that offers to them any such path to a more comfortable life as what my,and, a whole generation of our parents were privy to,
Labour, to the new underclass,(which Labour had a large hand in creating), are the status quo of the denial of their existence while in Government, a refusal to reverse National’s continual financial attacks upon them, and thus, simply the agents which empower the right in the form of National Governments to mount the financial attacks upon the new underclass…
I note that in his questions and answers on Stuff he said that he did not intend to turn out to be parliament’s longest serving member.
I’ve often wondered how committed Shearer is to politics. He came back to NZ after a really well paid and prestigous gig at the UN. What could he do that wouldn’t be a “step down” for an obviously ambitious man? Did he join the party before or after he was approached by party power brokers to discuss a possible career option? I can’t see Shearer joining any political party without such a motive. He’s just not that into politics
Pity he didn’t get shoulder tapped by National really.
Labour voter born and raised I have gone Green Because Labour think they have to be Nat Lite so as Not to scare business. Well all they have managed to do is piss off all their liberal voters. I agree they need a good clean out, and let some of the young blood through.
God I’m struggling with this Labour lot at the moment.
Norman did a great job with Brownlee in the House yesterday. Would be great to see a full-throated Greens-Labour anti-City-asset-sales mission arise out of it.
Seriously imagine if Brownlee used his CEA powers to force asset sales.
Russel Norman wants the rest of the country to pay a ‘levy’ (a tax) to help pay for the Christchurch rebuild as an alternative to selling some of their assets. At least he seems to understand the folly of borrowing even more to avoid selling asets.
The rest of the country is already paying a lot to help Christchurch.
Russel Norman wants the rest of the country to pay a ‘levy’ (a tax) to help pay for the Christchurch rebuild as an alternative to selling some of their assets
I would resent that very much indeed! Sympathy for Christchurch, yes, paying for them, no.
I am interested in knowing what became of renters and flatters in Christchurch, but all I hear about is the middle class kiddies with houses and businesses.
BTW, all the roll eyes smilies as replies to Pete George are juvenile and stupid. Much more disruptive than replying to him would be!
Yeah i know, i was never able to ‘grow up’ and my stupidity is only matched by my ugliness,
Horses for courses ae, i find the smiley faces directed at that one both amusing and they make in my opinion a cleaner open mike and other posts where there is no longer the same circular debate occurring day after day without really imparting anything of substance…
Some good questions but, other than that, a load of bollocks as he looks to the past to fix the problems caused by that past. He’s right that Labour are just National Lite now.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has brushed aside some bizarre and unsupported match-fixing claims made in Sir Graham Henry’s biography.
The allegations have caused a furore both here in New Zealand and around the world after Sir Graham claimed while watching a video review of the All Blacks’ quarter-final loss to France at the 2007 Rugby World Cup, he briefly suspected match-fixing played a part in the shock result.
Speaking about the claims today, Hansen, who was an assistant to Sir Graham at the time, said it was time to let the issue rest.
“Look, you’ve got to ask him about those things it’s irrelevant as far as I’m concerned, I’ve moved on. It’s 2012,” he said.
Penned by rugby writer Bob Howitt, Graham Henry Final Word stops short of making the allegations concrete. Instead, the passage describes Henry’s emotions and thoughts in the aftermath of the loss, as he dealt with the tidal wave of disapproval from heartbroken and disillusioned New Zealand rugby followers.
Howitt and the book’s publishers Harper Collins ran the controversial words past their lawyers with Howitt yesterday revealing some further portions have been removed from the final copy to avoid compromising their legal position.
However, the comments sparked immediate attention from local and foreign media with Sunday Times correspondent and regular critic of New Zealand rugby, Stephen Jones, taking to Twitter to voice his scepticism.
He, labelled the comments as a “Puke-making assault on Wayne Barnes by bitter Graham Henry”, while challenging the IRB to take action against the All Blacks’ 2011 World Cup winning coach.
The sport’s governing body offered a tentative response saying only that the comments had been “noted” as speculation began to mount as to the nature and substance of any further retort from the IRB and Barnes.
Brendan Gallagher, writing in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, mocked Sir Graham’s motives for voicing his suspicions, saying, “Hilarious Graham Henry trying to rewrite history”, mirroring the contempt held for 1995 All Blacks coach Laurie Mains’ accusations that food-poisoning derailed his side’s World Cup final against South Africa.
Sir Graham said he was “physically ill” after watching a tape of the match and asserted how numerous match statistics were so skewed against his side that he felt the performance of match referee Wayne Barnes deserved closer inspection.
His suspicions stemmed from the fact the All Blacks had enjoyed an overwhelming 73% territorial advantage in the match, winning 166 rucks to France’s 42 and made only 73 tackles compared with France’s 331, yet they had not been awarded a single penalty in the final 50 minutes of play.
Publicly Henry refused to point the finger at Barnes’ performance but upon his return to New Zealand voiced his concerns to the New Zealand Rugby Union and the International Rugby Board and asked if there were any review systems in place. But he was told there were no such avenues available.
Reaction here has included the suggestion that Sir Graham’s decision to speak out five years on from that fateful World Cup, less than a year after he found redemption with the All Blacks’ 2011 World Cup triumph over France, was inspired not so much through sour grapes but rather as a ploy to boost book sales.
A cynical and stupid ploy to sell more books and doing the current regime no favours in the process.
Careful Sir Graham or you’ll become a sad and cranky figure, which some say is accurate but winning a WC gives you some credit, don’t burn it trying to eek some extra dollars out of the rugby faithful.
I suspect this whole idea was not Henry’s but Bob Howitt’s. Henry has merely deferred to Howitt’s authority as a veteran rugby author and obediently mouthed Howitt’s words, despite the fact they are clearly nonsense.
…and doing the current regime no favours in the process.
The current regime immediately distanced themselves from Henry’s crank comments. Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith are far too diplomatic to actually refute them more forcefully.
Careful Sir Graham or you’ll become a sad and cranky figure, which some say is accurate but winning a WC gives you some credit,
Who reckons that a job like, for example, ‘Chair of the ACC’ would come with a work email account? Just in case things related to the job need to be discussed, and records kept of those discussions and the like.
Damned inconvenient for poor old Mr Judge too, I have to say, that when he buys a new computer he loses access to his personal email account. he’s a busy guy. He must have lost a lot of important stuff with that computer.
I think we just have to accept that we live in a post truth environment.
The claim seems to be that he didn’t have a work email account, so Collins forwarded the Boag email to his personal account. It then was leaked in a way damaging to Boag/Pullar, and then he got a new computer and lost his emails.
My immediate reaction was that Crusher is as desperate as she is thick. Any emails he sent will be backed up somewhere, as will any she sent. The GCSB doesn’t seem to have much to do that’s useful, why not unleash them on this one?
…But Ms Collins told the Herald last night that the email from Ms Boag was forwarded to Mr Judge’s personal and only email account…
Very strange. This at least should be able to be proven one way or another. Check the email of the other top brass and see what address they sent emails to Judge to. It would be suspicious in itself he deliberately chose to work from a personal account that belonged to him, in preference to a work account for which he might be accountable.
At what point did he stop using his work account, or did he never use it? Is that even legal under the circumstances, especially since a huge volume of privileged and highly personal private information seems to have become the private property of a personal email holder?
Could the SFO office be lurking in the background?
Wrong wrong. haven’t we learned from the Repubs in t.he USA started using private accounts to circumvent OI requests. I do not believe Judge had no work email. how can you work like that?
Not idea why tory managers seem to have difficulty with multiple email accounts – their minions who turn up here don’t seem to have too much of a problem 🙂
“In addition, I’ve now been advised that Mr Judge was given an iPad from ACC … and that iPad was wiped clean by Mr Judge’s computer expert before it was returned to ACC in June.”
Looks like he was trying to hide something.
These business-focused right-wingers – always much more efficient cos of their business background, than all those public-sector-nurtured lefties!
“In addition, I’ve now been advised that Mr Judge was given an iPad from ACC … and that iPad was wiped clean by Mr Judge’s computer expert before it was returned to ACC in June.”
And that should definitely not have happened. It was a business computer and so having it erased is actually destroying business records.
Former ACC Chairman John Judge says ACC Minister Judith Collins’ claims he hampered an investigation into a the leak of a sensitive email are untrue and an attempt to “blacken” his name.
…
Mr Judge today said Ms Collins’ comments were “pathetic”.
…
But Mr Judge said Ms Collins was aware that he replaced his home computer before the Privacy Commissioner’s inquiry was announced.
“Everything was transferred from my old computer to the new one anyway. It’s not like anything disappeared.”
Furthermore, he was not able to receive emails on his ACC iPad anyway.
He said Ms Collins “knew the truth” and was “just trying to blacken people”.
From the little I know about Judge, he is not going to sit back and quietly let Collins get away with this.
Also, I understand that forensic computer experts are able to recover deleted emails and other documents from computer hard drives etc (its their bread and butter work), so Collins’ claims don’t hold water IMO.
Also, I understand that forensic computer experts are able to recover deleted emails and other documents from computer hard drives etc (its their bread and butter work)
And that’s why you use security software which overwrites your hard drive 10-20x with layers upon layers of random data. Takes days to do.
Try doing a non-destructive surface test on a external USB 1TB drive. Lyn bounced one of her TimeMachine backup drives while it was running on the weekend. It has been running badblocks since monday night (do Mac’s have a surface scan application these days?).
Was 94% through its first and only pass this morning. So far zero damage detected….
“Also, I understand that forensic computer experts are able to recover deleted emails and other documents from computer hard drives etc (its their bread and butter work), so Collins’ claims don’t hold water IMO.”
Take what they say with a grain of salt, that industry has some of the biggest bullshitters in the IT game. When data gets overwritten no forensic expert can recover it, a single pass zero-write is unrecoverable to all intents & purposes.
More amuesment at the evidenced failure of right wing politics and their free market ideology has of course sprung from the well of broken Christchurch …
Free market ideology, that the market knows best and results in the best results when left alone, was implemented through the Resource Managemenrt Act, among many others… The idea was that the free market, when left alone to develop, would provide the best solutions as demanded by the cnsumer.
This ideology is still of course deeply ingrained and treasured by this National government and its disciples.
So when it comes to the best ever opportunity to leave the free market up to development, such as rebuilding an entire city, and prove their beloved ideology true……… what do they do? Intervene with the most heavily centralised planning structure ever conceived. All conceived from central authority with not a skeric of free market approach.
ha ha ha ha ha ha
the right and business free market ideologies fail AGAIN
Yes, vto. The neoliberal philosophy is just a front for doing whatever benefits the elite – a PR con-job while the elite accumulates and exercises more power and wealth for themselves.
The Government is proposing to change Local Government electoral laws so that donor trusts are outlawed. Sounds like an EFA 2 type attack on democracy to me. Shouldn’t there be riots in the streets and pictures of Banimarama approving the measure and all that sort of stuff?
John Key’s SkyCity convention centre deal made a “mockery” of the law aimed at protecting people from the ill effects of gambling, according to an article in an international academic journal.
The authors say the Prime Minister’s personal approach to SkyCity over the national convention centre was the “ultimate indicator” of the failure of the Gambling Act’s attempt to look after public health.
[…]
“The scale of profits from high-intensity commercial gambling has an unpleasant way of penetrating most political systems.”
[…]
Dr Adams said yesterday the Gambling Act was the legislative response to years of work in getting the health impact of gambling considered. “John Key’s gone ahead with the casino deal without embracing any of that.”
This report supports the Green Party complaint made to the Auditory General, which is investigating the deal.
John Key treats the government of the country as if it was a large corporation. He just does not care for the legal and democratic processes and cuts corners wherever he can.
It could be said he’s broken the law. Relevant section of the Gambling Act;
___________
11 No increase in casino gambling
A person must not increase the opportunities for casino gambling.
___________
12 What is increase in casino gambling
(2) An increase in the opportunities for casino gambling includes but is not limited to—
(a) an increase in the number of gaming machines unless the increase is accompanied by a reduction in the number of table games that the Casino Control Authority, or the Gambling Commission, believes is proportionate:
____________
Key might be PM but in this context I’d think he would legally still be a person. He’s certainly not above the law.
It is almost an unwritten rule that PMs dont make themselves available for Thursday’s question time. Clark certainly didn’t. They use Thursdays to get out and about.
felix .. you realize the acronym for ‘super important stuff’ is SIS ?? Thx for the smiles.
I am reminded once again of the Canadian comic visiting here a while ago — when told the name of our prime minister, he replied: ” John Key ? That what you ask for at a US gas station when you need to use the toilet !”
Yeah but that’s a convention followed because it’s expected that PMs have lots of other important PM stuff to do.
Today Key is playing talkback host again. Which is so much more important than question time that he’s doing it at exactly the same time as question time.
Oh hello Prime Minister. Raaleene here. Look I wondered what you use in your pool to keep it fresh? I’ve been trying that chlorine stuff and it turned us all green, our hair I mean because we are all blondes. Giggles.
Well Raaleene. I’m sorry that can’t help you with that. I’m so busy giving talkback shows, overseas visits and so on that I have no time available for it and so have a little man to do that.
In that case, why don’t the opposition MPs ring the talkback station and ask their questions of him there. That’d be funny. What to do? He couldn’t just hang up on David Shearer or Russell Norman or other senior pollies – could he?
Hey Anne That is creative thinking. Very creative thinking. Is there anyone alive in Labour who could do it? Probably Greens. Actual pollies trying to convey a question to the people-loving PM would soon get cut off, but get a cute Raaleene who would be a wolf in sheep’s clothing as in Trottter’s graphic, and some well put naive queries might knock the self-satisfied smile off the relaxed one.
Catching on like a terminal disease. I don’t recall any other government being referred to the Auditor General or taken to court on so many issues… Clearly National aren’t operating in the best interest of New Zealand.
Sadly, the other thing catching on is gubmint use in the House and elsewhere of ‘Planet Labour’ as a pejorative … used every day in the House to denigrate and deride Labour .. Crosby Trextor rides again. But surely Labour is smart enough to claim it back to use it to their own advantage ?? Only takes one or two to say for example: ” Here on Planet Labour we believe …… (choose your weapon) and it will diffuse National’s continuing use of it.
Two derailments – one on the Napier-Gisborne line and one on a north Auckland line – earlier this year are suspected to have been impacted by rotting sleepers, Mr Quinn says.
The replacement of the sleepers, expected to be completed by next year, is at a cost of between $250 and $1000 each.
Mr Quinn said KiwiRail was in a legal dispute with the supplier of the sleepers.
So it seems the wood in imported sleepers are the problem:
He said the decay was believed to have been present in the timber when it arrived in New Zealand.
Huh? Doesn’t NZ have a forestry industry? Don’t we have plenty of woo? Why are we importing (rotting) sleepers?
Also, Kudos to Brendan Horan of NZF who has been asking questions about these rotting sleepers in the House the last couple of days. He has tried and failed to table photos of said rotting tracks, taken by Kiwirail workers:
Brendan Horan: Is he aware that significant sections of the rail network are rotting and that the staff who would otherwise be tasked with repairing them are being made redundant?
Meanwhile RONS get more government attention than the efficiency and safety of our rail network.
Huh? Doesn’t NZ have a forestry industry? Don’t we have plenty of woo? Why are we importing (rotting) sleepers?
In short we are stuck with using imports because there’s nothing quite like Australian hard woods for their density, strength, durability and ease of machining and handling.
In efforts to replace imported eucalypts all manner of materials have been trialled and found to be unsuitable for use in both rail and the electrical transmission industry.
Bullying and the way that children are treated by authorities and schools is an example of how our society really is. It is not the good place that we want to believe, and we know that. But this guy has made a valuable doco and was talking to Kathryn Ryan this (Thursday) morning.
9-10am: Lee Hirsch, the director of an anti-bullying documentary
Film to see -International Film Festival screening Bully. in Auckland at Civic soon.
Carol re finance interviewer Das
He talked about the big money profits from small snips from handling financial transactions.
Sounds just like the Tobin tax to me. What a wonderful way of spreading the government revenue task don’t you think. Magic even.
Ah, yes, prism. But Mr Das says there are no magic bullets. People in western economies need to accept a lowering of standard of living (I guess meaning those living comfortably), to focus on getting back to production of real stuff.
Interesting that he explained all this to Bill English a while back, and Blinglish responded by asking what can NZ do. Das’s response was to position NZ to deal with the coming changes.
Mr Das also says NZ is in a good position because of our direct access to food supply, and the innovative, productive ideas amongst kiwis.
Also an interesting comment about Das’s response to an NZ journalist who said Das didn’t know what he is talking about.
Carol at 11 2 1
I have to agree with that NZ journalist who was belittling Mr Das. But for another reason than that dope would have mentioned. My reason is that Mr Das doesn’t know he is talking to people who actually don’t receive his thoughts and process them. Das has been lulled into thinking that Blinglish was listening and was open to his ideas, and would be likely to action them. Major fail on Mr Das.
And as for innovative, productive ideas amongst kiwis. They are merely like rose petals that get strewn on the roads that leaders’ chariots drive on (Roads of National Significance for instance). A bloom, a colour, a faint scent, that hails the great and god-given task of limiting innovation, crushing or ignoring ideas also all attempts to move the country as a whole to a ready position where it can cope with change and thrive as well, and that’s all of us.
Sorry Mr Das but we are determined to become a banana republic when the climate gets warmer and growing conditions are suitable. That’s our big goal.
prism, as I recall, the journalist’s reasons for saying that Das was wrong about the ponzi, investment banking system, was reference to something like the US’s recent growth rate. Das’s response was that it was a false indication of what was really happening in the US economy So I think Das was closer to understanding the realities than the NZ journo.
I do agree that Das was a bit over-optimistic about NZ’s possibilities -probably being courteous to his hosts.
Das is probably right on the goal-seeked nature of US GDP (and in fact, most GDP figures in the world).
And just as important, today the BEA revised historical GDP data retroactively. Of note 2010 GDP was revised from 3.0% to 2.4%, while Q3 2011 GDP was revised from 3.0% to 4.1%, indicating that the slowdown we are experiencing is in fact far worse than previously expected. It also shows that HFT trigger buying or selling on GDP data is completely meaningless as today’s data will be revised violently higher or lower in a year, making it completely irrelevant.
This how you cause an “increase in GDP”, United States style:
Let’s say Q2 GDP growth annualised is going to print at 1.6%. The problem is that earlier Q1 GDP growth was higher at 1.7% annualised. Well that clearly shows that Q2 GDP growth reduced from Q1.
NO PROBLEM!
One week before Q2 figures print you revise and update the Q1 figure from 1.7% to 1.3%.
So when Q2 prints officially at 1.6%, all the news outlets can claim “Q2 shows strong GDP growth quarter on quarter!”
Das has my agreement on the fact that what we have all been experiencing economically for the past 27 odd years just aint sustainable, that un-ustainability extends to both our use of resources and the levels of our personal incomes,
Obviously none of us are going to voluntarily take cuts to our income and my view is that it will take a further collapse within the global economy,(coming), which in effect will force the comfortable middle class to address such an issue,
Das has the view of the future where the economies of both the US and Europe will become more insular inward looking, and, although Das does not say so, i assume more protectionist, gosh you know where the New Zealand economy was befor Sir(spit)Roger Douglas took a very large wrecking ball to it,
So, back to the future we all go,blinkers on please as we glibly rewrite economic history forgetting the absolute misery inflicted upon large swathes of our society by Roger’s(spit) unfortunate experiment,
The consensus needed here,as in New Zealand, is the realization that there can be only X amount of employment in any future economy therefor there will always be that X of unemployment,
Das tho made the strange assertion that simply printing money will be no silver bullet for the hard economic times ahead,and, if He provided any reasoning to put flesh upon such an assertion i missed such perhaps because about here my mind had turned to matters more primitive like putting the bash on my radio for broadcasting the glib propaganda of a belated newcomer to some other economic orthodoxy after having served the masters so well in making the huge fucking mess of that economy on a global scale,
In the New Zealand economy there is definitely a case to be made for the printing of monies, befor that is one of the Davids decides to use the primitive tool of Legislative or Regulatory devaluation of the New Zealand dollar to put that dollar into a value best suited to New Zealand exporters and manufacturers,
Obviously,while a regulatory devaluation will make gains for the sectors already mentioned there is nothing except inflation gained by the rest of us by doing such,
IF, we are to have a lower expectation in the future of our personal economic gains then we have to accomplish a number of things the first being the provision of affordable accommodation for all and the State printing such monies necessary to construct the needed amounts of high density housing also accomplishes by an increase in the money supply a gradual dilution of the New Zealand dollar and thus a devaluation along with a gradual rate of inflation increase for imported products,(much of which as resources we should be using less of),
My point being that as we stumble into that increasingly economically fraught future where our personal expectations will have to be lowered then it is going to be increasingly the province of the State to ensure that we are all housed at affordable levels and as i outline above in achieving a lower valued New Zealand dollar there must also be gains for the average head who will be expected to face that increasingly fraught economic future…
none of us are going to voluntarily take cuts to our income and my view is that it will take a further collapse within the global economy,(coming), which in effect will force the comfortable middle class to address such an issue,
This is a big question. In the past we have seen white collar workers sit back quite OK while their working class brethren were smashed and manufacturing jobs exported overseas. The benefits for the white collar workers – cheaper new cars, cheaper gadgets, a higher dollar for cheaper overseas holidays.
Now its their turn to be outsourced. In the NZ context however, we have seen the middle class and upper middle class sit back quietly as income inequality widens and as child poverty continues. Jenny may have a fit at me for targetting this socio-economic strata again but its a simple fact. Those on $100K plus, outside of very specific sectors, are far more likely to vote National than Labour.
Das tho made the strange assertion that simply printing money will be no silver bullet for the hard economic times ahead,and, if He provided any reasoning to put flesh upon such an assertion
His point will have been that money in the future will neither be a resource nor a store of value. The NZ situation is interesting in that we are physical resource rich and we have a lot of surplus labour. Therefore printing money will work for us as it will help us mobilise those economic resources.
My point being that as we stumble into that increasingly economically fraught future where our personal expectations will have to be lowered then it is going to be increasingly the province of the State to ensure that we are all housed at affordable levels
Here I mildly disagree with you in that I do not believe the state will understand what it needs to do until very late in the piece. Individual families and extended families will act and adapt far more quickly.
As for the lowering of expectations: that is already happening quietly and subtly on a vast range of fronts, even for families with 2 parents working decent jobs. In Auckland for instance, large numbers of people have given up on the idea of owning their house, on the idea of moving out of their parents’ house, on the idea of being able to use their own car every day to get to and fro.
The nice thing is – we’re going to slowly discover once again that the most important things in life are free.
You are right of course i should have qualified that paragraph thus, ”it SHOULD be increasingly the province of the State to ensure that we are all housed at affordable levels,
Sadly i agree with you also on the initial response from the State being basically head in the sand until such time as they hear a large and loud political voice highlighting such problems,
Even the Minister of Guesstimates and Riffmatic, Bill English has been drawn so far as to admit that whats happening now is at the least multi-decadal, (possibly as a convenient cop-out to a piece of His other BS book balancing by 2015), and, my prognosis for the Global economy is far far gloomier than just a struggle for a decade or two…
Charter schools to open by 2014
New Zealand charter schools will be allowed to reshape the national curriculum but will be required to meet education targets set by the Government.
Education Minister Hekia Parata and Associate Education Minister John Banks this morning announced the framework for the country’s model of charter schools, which will be known as Partnership Schools or Kura Hourua.
The schools can choose between the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) or Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (TMoA) “or use or develop an alternative curriculum framework that is mapped to the principles of the NCA or TMoA”.
Legislation will be introduced to Parliament this year, and formal requests for proposals from potential charter school sponsors will be called for once the legislation passes.
All sponsors will be expected to open their schools for the beginning of the 2014 school year.
The schools will be required to report publicly on an annual basis on progress against the negotiated school-level targets and have that data included in any student achievement information provided by the Government for parents.
Partnership Schools will be approved by the Education Minister, and the Government has the right to intervene if a sponsor breaches a contract.
Partnership Schools must report against National Standards for years 1-8 students and must offer NCEA or an equivalent qualification recognised by industry and tertiary providers in New Zealand.
The schools can negotiate the percentage of registered teachers they wish to employ as part of their contracts and negotiate salary levels and employment conditions with employees.
All non-teaching and unregistered employees will undergo police vetting.
The schools can set their own school hours and term dates.
They must accept all students who apply regardless of background or ability, using a ballot if they are oversubscribed.
And how many of them will fail financially,(in the middle of the school term),thus enabling the ‘owners’ of such schools to double dip into the education budget…
It still begs the question of why these same aims for a better education system involving consultation with parents and teachers can’t be achieved within the current state school system: i.e. without including an extra bunch of ticket clippers and consultants?
And this:
The schools can negotiate the percentage of registered teachers they wish to employ as part of their contracts and negotiate salary levels and employment conditions with employees.
All non-teaching and unregistered employees will undergo police vetting.
So the only real difference charter schools offer is the possibility of using untrained/unregistered teachers, and of avoiding dealing with the unions. How is this going to result in better education?
Fair enough, Adrian. I asked a question. You have an answer. I don’t know anything much about types of wood, their best uses and what we can grow here. I’ll leave that for others to discuss/inform me on.
The reason kiwi wood is soft is that the growing conditions are too good and the trees grow fast. The reason aussie woods are hard is that the growing conditions are crap and they grow slowly. The same trees grown in Aotearoa or Brazil do not produce hardwood. However, plantation planting of natives would be a much better bet in the long term than pinus radiata, which basically just kills everything else around it. Pinus radiata is good for a quick buck and often used to be grown in the central North Island by prison labour. If this was then exported, it was in violation of human rights agreements, but Fletchers was always more important than anything else in the country.
If this was then exported, it was in violation of human rights agreements, but Fletchers was always more important than anything else in the country.
And the only reason Fletchers got their mitts on it was because we stupidly privatised those forests as they were about to make shitloads of money for the NZ public
However, plantation planting of natives would be a much better bet in the long term than pinus radiata
That’s what I’ve been thinking for quite a few years now. Native wood is of a much better quality than radiata pine and so the extra growing time is worth it but no commercial entity would ever plant it as they need to see profits in the short term (I’ve even heard that radiata plantations have dropped back from 30 years of growing to 18 so even that low quality is decreased). The only entity with the longevity to do such planting of natives would be the government.
Unless we put in decent protections for state assets that holds such sales as treason with a minimum 20 years in max security jail. If we did that then even the Tories may twig that we don’t want them to sell our stuff.
However, plantation planting of natives would be a much better bet in the long term than pinus radiata, which basically just kills everything else around it. Pinus radiata is good for a quick buck
I’m amazed that Landcorp didn’t put native trees in their plantation down south. Instead they have put in pines which they say won’t spread because they are following these good practices – recites five different things they have to do to keep wilding pines under control. There is a sad and stern comment from the Foresters Ferret down there about how a Lord of the Realm shouldn’t be encouraging people who are talking about destroying property. This about the threat that their plantation pines will be pulled out by affronted members of the public because they have been planted in close proximity to native plants from a massive effort by the public, now under threat of infestation by Landcorp’s project. Which they assure us will never happen, never, never for the full twenty-forty years before the pines mature. This is all from a Radionz interview from a few days back, possibly in early or midday rural slot.
Surely you know that Rimu is a softwood.
About the only fairly common, and reasonably durable, native hardwoods I am aware of are the Tawhai family of native beechs. These would be the Red, Hard, Black and Mountain beechs. The Silver beech is not as durable.
Sigh. I miss the availability of Rimu though. About 30 years ago I built a lot of shelving in my then house. I had the choice of pine or Rimu. Rimu was at that time only about two thirds the cost of pine! It was a very hard choice to make.
Shows us all just how f**king primitive and short-sighted our colonial for-fathers were and still are right,
The Rimu,Tawa,Kauri along with the rest of what are now extremely valuable species of trees valued all over the world are bowled over like nine pins, in a lot of cases the timber wasted in the headlong rush to clear land for pasture,
This didnt stop there either as the destruction continued to the tops of mountain ranges,although having viewed how the Tararua range was felled and milled i do have some grudging respect for those who’s labour accomplished what was in those days no easy task,
Instead of creating an industry around the growing of such valuable wood where plantations of the future could be planted and milled sustainably such forests were simply raped and left to their own devices,
Having watched the Tararua forest park re-generate itself over my life-time i cannot help the feeling whenever i am deep within Her heart that given another 30 years the same destruction will again be inflicted…
Puriri is also pretty hard (and fast growing in good conditions) as is Totara, and both timbers have been used historically in New Zealand for railway sleepers
As for beeches, it’s my experience that rot down pretty quickly in the bush, though red beech can last a while.
According to this report on Radio NZ National this morning on Morning Report, the problem is with hardwood sleepers that have been imported from Peru over the last decade, which are rotting from within from a fungal problem.
The Government took ownership of ONTRACK, the actual lines on July 1 2004, so it has owned them for just on 8 years.
Could have been either the Public or private owners who bought the ones having problems.
Don’t we grow plantation Australian hardwoods? Also I recall an item a while back about a NZ company making recycled concrete railway sleepers which KiwiRail was going to try out. Wonder what happened to that? And finally, surely there is (yet another) bio-security issue around the fungus that’s rotting the sleepers?
Totara might be OK but normally sleepers are Aussie hardwoods. Radiata treated with creosote has been used extensively as have reinforced concrete. Overseas concrete is the go……
Clearly, the Peruvian “hardwood” was cheap, but probably only cheap for a reason………..
Scott GN 13 4
Good point. I haven’t heard that mentioned yet. And who is watching how Kiwi Rail handles the already estimated 7,000 sleepers from site to destruction under controlled fire. Got to be. Which wimpy state or privatised agency will be in charge of the party. And then who pays for the carbon released. Oh woe is us, will our decision makers ever be paid according to results with a ten year continuance of responsibility after end of contract? Maybe that will make them think, plus also a tattoo that goes on their foreheads in indelible ink – Shammer, scammer or something of that nature.
Nightingale says the proposed change is a sign of the Government’s intent to maximise revenue out of the existing tax system, as indicated in the 2012 Budget.
The proposed tax on lease inducements is almost certain to go ahead, Nightingale says.
“The Government’s consulting on it, but I’d be very surprised if it didn’t proceed. They’re chasing every last dollar of tax revenue at the moment.
Except introducing something sensible like a CGT/land tax, or rolling back the personal tax cuts. They could even bring back gift duty, or a more modern form of it.
The consequence of this inattention is an irreversible commitment to dangerous climate change. Twenty years ago, the United States signed, and the Senate ratified, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The objective of this treaty was to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” which was defined in the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 as limiting the overall temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. There are three reasons why that goal is now unobtainable. First, even if greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere could be held steady at 2005 levels, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have calculated that global temperature would rise by 2.4 degrees Celsius if not for the air pollution that is masking the warming by blocking some of the sun’s rays. Second, as a 2011 paper by British climate researchers explains, emissions reductions that are constrained to levels thought to be compatible with economic growth are not sufficient to stay below 2 degrees Celsius. Only a period of planned austerity and an intensive effort to build a carbon-free energy system could now achieve the goal of avoiding dangerous climate change. Finally, the International Energy Agency has estimated that the carbon-emitting energy infrastructure that will push global temperature rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius is already 80 percent complete, and will be fully installed by 2017. This will lock in future emissions unless capital equipment is retired earlier than anticipated. The best we can now hope for is to avoid catastrophic global warming in excess of 4 degrees Celsius, which will require an aggressive response by governments around the world.
Family Fist get a serve from US rockers Train. The band’s song ‘Marry Me’ was used without authorisation on a gay hate site called ‘protectmarrige.org’.
Train say:
“We take the idea of marriage very seriously and believe it is the right of all consenting adults, regardless of sexual orientation.
Marry Me is about just that, finding that special love and making it last forever. Everyone should be allowed to have that.”
McDonald’s other crimes have been released to the public though they weren’t before as they may have influenced the decision on murder.
Surely that is the whole point, seeing the behaviour in a series rather than presenting him as a man who had done some mistaken acts against his family. Setting neighbour’s shed on fire, killing a lot of calves etc etc.
This man’s background means that he was presented to the jury in a false way. Crime scenes aren’t cleaned up before examination by authorities, so why should defendants be presented relatively clean. It has allowed a likely wrongful judgment by the jury.
Not sure I agree prism. Juries are meant to be given evidence that is relevant to the case, and these other crimes, committed two and three years earlier than the murder, may not have been seen as relevant. The deer shooting incident showed that MacDonald was capable of shooting accurately at night, and the other two were against the Guys themselves. These crimes by themselves showed him as a man capable of vengeful destruction. A litany of such crimes, including those without a direct link to the case, may have prejudiced the jury by shifting the focus to MacDonald’s character, rather than the question as to whether he did or did not kill Scott Guy.
Character is however, but one factor to take into account. People are not convicted or acquitted of being bad arses, they are convicted of crimes. And the stuff that was put before the jury was sufficient to show what he was capable of doing.
If he did do it, then telling the jury about those unmentioned things might have led them to convict. But the point is that they would have also led them to convict if he didn’t do it.
National has now opened the doors to allow a chain of “Destiny” schools to infect our quality public education system. The very best way to ensure that we have the likes of creationism, anti gay propaganda and social intolerance is taught to our children by non qualified fanatics. The fact that this initiative is led by someone who has failed the very basics of political ethics is fitting.
Dave Kennedy 18
Yes I fear that Destiny will be our destiny now we have had this piece of policy shit from the Density Party. All the oddballs can have a go, it’s based on USA ideas which have produced such a happy, healthy, flourishing society. Business can reach direct into the children’s minds instead of just dangling tv ads in front of them. There will be some successes with sports academies and whanau style learning units with te reo but Maori having successes will not be equalled by any success from pakeha, more than they would have at a state school.
Can Graham Capill become an owner? John Banks fancies himself as a role model for children. And all the warped authoritarian types can have a go. And they can be taught by someone of standing in the community. Rodney Hide, Roger Douglas, a woman who has blonde children and wants to teach the world to sing about Aryan traits (that’s one in the USA I think and I saw it on youtube) The Cooperites, the Potterites, where is the protection for the children from the brainwashed parents of cults. .
the national-banks party have now opened the door to the crummiest chapter in the life and times of new zealand.
they beleive their own thoughts to be facts and because they are idiots what they produce will match the inanity of their miniscule comprhension.
The ideas and policies come from offshore, and the government of the day simply attempt to pass what they are told to, while they have a majority.
Simply , the reason why we have such low quality politicians, is because it takes a low quality human being to willingly participate in betraying ones country, and peoples.
Former ACC Chairman John Judge says ACC Minister Judith Collins’ claims he hampered an investigation into a the leak of a sensitive email are untrue and an attempt to “blacken” his name.
[…]
But Mr Judge said Ms Collins was aware that he replaced his home computer before the Privacy Commissioner’s inquiry was announced.
“Everything was transferred from my old computer to the new one anyway. It’s not like anything disappeared.”
Furthermore, he was not able to receive emails on his ACC iPad anyway.
He said Ms Collins “knew the truth” and was “just trying to blacken people”.
The email was among documents submitted by ACC to police to support a complaint it made against Ms Pullar.
Will Judith Collins now sue Mr Judge? Surely ‘He said Ms Collins “knew the truth” and was “just trying to blacken people”’ is as defamatory as anything that Mallard and Little said.
ACC Minister Judith Collins says she will not descend to “name calling” after the former ACC chair reportedly accused her of trying to blacken his name and labelling claims against him “pathetic”.
[…]
Collins was asked in an Official Information Act request by Fairfax if she had been given “any information about John Judge’s home computer being destroyed since he received the email or emails [relating to Michelle Boag’s email to Ms Collins] and if so what information has been received”.
Collins responded: “Yes, the information I have received is that Mr Judge’s home computer was replaced in April this year.”
This afternoon she said she had received “slightly different” detail around what happened.
“I’d rather say [the computer was] replaced, but there are some parts of it may well have been destroyed”
She did not know whether that had delayed or hampered inquiries by the Privacy Commissioner and Auditor General.
“That is not something I have knowledge of.”
Collins said this afternoon she had passed on the information about Judge’s computer because it was requested under the Official Information Act.
” I make no judgment on it, I’m simply saying that’s what I’ve been advised.
Ms Collins last night told the Herald that the Privacy Commission’s investigation into who leaked an email which identified Bronwyn Pullar as the woman at the centre of a massive ACC privacy breach had been stymied by Mr Judge, replacing or wiping his computers.
But Judge called her on it and she had to withdraw…. no apology though.
With John Key playing talkback host today, Anne had the good idea earlier that opposition MPs should call in and hold him to account there instead of in the debating chamber.
Unfortunately the flaw in that plan is that DJ Johnny doesn’t take calls from the public. Imagine that. The PM hosts a talkback radio show and no-one is allowed to talk back. Says it all, innit.
This PMs idea of communicating with the citizenry is we listen to him talking to the famous and powerful. Sorry ordinary kiwis, you’re not good enough. Speak when you’re spoken to, peasant.
Slippery is a little ‘fragile’ at the moment, polling numbers being abysmal and being royally done by the Maori Council who can’t be bought with the crumbs off of His table has left Him more than a little vulnerable to the suggestion that He aint that special after all…
Just got the rates bills through from the Auckland council.
Apparently the rates rises have been capped at 10% vs 2011……. and surprise, surprise every one of my rates notices has gone up by 10% vs. the previous year.
Oh well, I suppose it’s good way to ensure a high turnout at the next Auckland council elections.
We had a plethora of drips to vote for at the council elections for many a year, the previous mayor for the Northshore was Andrew Williams….. as usual we go from one retard to another to another to another.
Despite which side of the political spectrum they come from they all have common traits of extreme autolatry, aeolism, and abliguration – and of course increasing the rates with gay abandon.
Hmmm, you were of far more interest, (as a humorist), when you were whining over Len shaking you down for any available loose coin in the form of rates rises…
No, it makes me a commenter on the lunacy of a rating system which sees increases being foisted on the public in the order of 10% per annum year on year.
According to some the word abligurition only ever occurred in Samuels effort of 1755, having not perused every English dictionary ever printed i cannot vouch for the veracity of such a claim,
PS, about 10 minutes worth of perusal educated me to your abysmal lack of spelling accuracy which marks your attempt to bamboozle an abject failure,
Take the D for you know what and sit in the relevant corner…
Lobbying Code of Conduct
Lobbying Code of Conduct – PDF 35KB
In 2008 the Australian Government introduced a Lobbying Code of Conduct and established a Register of Lobbyists.
The Code underpins the Register and sets out the requirements for contact between third-party lobbyists and Government representatives, indicates what will be publicly available on the Register and outlines the conditions for successful registration of lobbyists. It also defines lobbyists, clients, Government representatives and lobbying activities for the purposes of the Register.
Preamble
Application
Definitions
No contact between government representatives and unregistered lobbyists
Register of Lobbyists
Access to the register of lobbyists
Prohibition on Lobbying Activities
Principles of engagement with government representatives
Reporting of breaches of code
Registration
_____________________________________________________________________________
Another weak link welded back into the chain?, 3News having a little speculate over whether Slippery the Prime minister is about to re-instate old Lizard eyes, Nick’the meds’Smith into the role of Minister of Local Government,
Yeah bring the cretin back, if anything the damage done by the likes of Him and Banks will pull this abysmal Slippery National Government down all the faster…
In a draft report on the state of gender equality in New Zealand, the UN’s committee on the elimination of discrimination against women said it was concerned new welfare laws would likely “predominantly affect Maori women and reduce their social benefits”.
It recommended the Government ensure its ongoing reforms did not discriminate against disadvantaged groups of women and called for an independent evaluation of their impact.
The unedited draft report, presented to the Government this week, did not mention specific policies – but among the Government’s most controversial welfare reforms have been those targeted at women on benefits.
Meanwhile Bill English is talking about performance pay for getting people off welfare:
Mr English says some of the ministry’s funding will be performance-based but only in areas where it is specifically tied to getting people off long-term welfare, and baseline funding will be unaffected.
US Presidential finding from early 2012, CIA, Mossad, Turkish logistics elements, Qatarian financing, Saudi fighters, etc. all active in Syrian
Hey Jenny, you pro-war activist, how is the Syrian “popular uprising” going for you?
What do you think of the footage of pro-Assad soldiers being executed by the “Free Syrian Army”? Just a bit of collateral damage justified in the name of a good cause?
Do you agree with Israel trying to “Lebonize” Syria, making it a weak and divided state, just so Israel can target Iran more easily?
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Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...
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Property developers think there is an "oversupply" of houses in Auckland:High turnover rates and falling prices may be a sign that there are too many new houses going in to some parts of Auckland, commentators say. [...] Property developer David Whitburn said there was a "bit of an oversupply" in ...
Labour Party president Nigel Haworth resigned yesterday over the party's sexual assault scandal. But while that's good news, its unlikely to take away the stench of a coverup. Because according to Paula Bennett in Parliament yesterday, pretty much everyone in the Prime Minister's office was involved as well:I have been ...
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There has been a lot of talk about Boris Johnson wanting an election, and he has blustered with great gusto about 'chicken' Jeremy Corbyn refusing one, but I think there are many reasons why he is secretly glad he has been refused the opportunity:The Tories are an utter rabble,tearing themselves ...
Scottish appeal court judges have declared that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament in the run-up to the October Brexit deadline is unlawful. The three judges, chaired by Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, overturned an earlier ruling that the courts did not have the powers to interfere in the prime ...
By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...
I understand there's some stuff going round about how the SIS "was removed from the list of public offices covered by the Public Records Act in 2017". The context of course being their records derived from US torture, which will be disposed of or sealed. The good news is that ...
Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ...
Australia is burning down again, and meanwhile its natural disaster minister is denying climate change:Australia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, has said that he doesn’t “know if climate change is manmade”. Clarifying earlier comments that the question is “irrelevant” when considering the Coalition government’s response to ...
Auckland Philippines Solidarity is excited to host Professor Judy Taguiwalo for a speaking tour of NZ in September. She is a well-known activist in the Philippines and was a political prisoner under the Marcos dictatorship. Professor Taguiwalo briefly served as a Cabinet member under President Duterte but was forced from ...
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There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...
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by Daphna Whitmore Every Sunday for the past two months unionists from First Union, with supporters from other unions, have set out to the Ihumatao land protest, put up gazebos and gas barbeques, and cooked food for a few hundred locals and supporters who have come from across the country. ...
Newsroom today has an excellent, in-depth article on pine trees as carbon sinks. The TL;DR is that pine is really good at soaking up carbon, but people prefer far-less efficient native forests instead. Which is understandable, but there's two problems: firstly, we've pissed about so long on this problem that ...
Canan Kaftancioglu is a Turkish politician and member of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). Like most modern politicians, she tweets, and uses the platform to criticise the Turkish government. She has criticised them over the death of a 14-year-old boy who was hit by a tear gas grenade during ...
Hi there, just call me Tim.We face tough problems, and I’d like to help, because there are solutions.An Auckand District Health Board member has nominated me for as a candidate for the ADHB, because her MS-related pain and fatigue is reduced with hemp products from Rotorua. Nothing else helped her. If I ...
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has published their report on whether the SIS and GCSB had any complicity in American torture. And its damning. The pull quote is this:The Inquiry found both agencies, but to a much greater degree, the NZSIS, received many intelligence reports obtained from detainees who, ...
Bewhiskered Cassandra? Professor Hugh White’s chilling suggestion, advanced to select collections of academic, military and diplomatic Kiwi experts over the course of the past week, is that the assumptions upon which Australia and New Zealand have built their foreign affairs and defence policies for practically their entire histories – are ...
For most of the time I was a British MP, my party was out of government – these were the Thatcher years, when it was hard for anyone else to get a look-in. As a front-bencher and shadow minister, I became familiar with the strategies required in a parliamentary democracy ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh On August 29th a video in which veteran FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) commander Iván Márquez announced that they had taken up arms again was released. There was no delay in the reaction to it, from longtime Liberal Party figure and former president Uribe, for ...
Air New Zealand couldn’t believe its luck that this seemingly ideal piece of real estate had so far gone entirely unnoticed. Air New Zealand’s search for a site to build a second Auckland Airport may have made a breakthrough this afternoon, after employees scanning Google satellite imagery spotted a huge, ...
No-one on the anti-capitalist left in this country today puts forward a case that Labour is on the side of the working class. There are certainly people who call themselves ‘socialist’ who do, but they are essentially liberals with vested interests in Labourism – often for career reasons. Nevertheless, there ...
When National was in government and fucking over the poor for the benefit of the rich, foodbanks were a growth industry. And now Labour is in charge, nothing has changed: A huge demand for emergency food parcels means the Auckland City Mission is struggling to prepare for the impending arrival ...
Gayford, pictured here on The Project, before things got wildly out of control. A bold public relations move by the Government to encourage parents to vaccinate their children has gone horribly wrong. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appeared on tonight’s episode of Three’s The Project, where the plan was for her ...
Mr. Whippy’s business model has driven it down a dark road of intimidation. Residents in major centres around the country are becoming disgruntled by the increasingly aggressive actions of purported ice cream company Mr. Whippy, who have taken to parking on people’s front lawns and doorsteps in a desperate attempt ...
Today the government released its Action Plan for Healthy Waterways, aimed at cleaning up our lakes and rivers. Its actually quite good. There will be protection for wetlands, better standards for swimming spots, a requirement for continuous improvement, and better standards for wastewater and stormwater. But most importantly, there's a ...
Today I appeared before the Environment Committee to give an oral submission on the Zero Carbon Bill. Over 1,500 people have asked to appear in person, so they've divided into subcommittees and are off touring the country, giving people a five minute slot each. The other submitters were a mixed ...
Anti-fluoride activists have some wealthy backers – they are erecting billboards misrepresenting the Canadian study on many New Zealand cities – and local authorities are ordering their removal because of their scaremongering. Many New Zealanders ...
So, those who “know best” have again done their worst. While constantly claiming to be the guardians of democracy and the constitution, and respecters of the 2016 referendum result, diehard Remainers (who have never brought themselves to believe that their advice could have been rejected) have striven might and main ...
Following publication of this article, the Ministry has requested it to be noted that this supplied image is not necessarily representative of what the final house will look like, and it “probably won’t be that nice.” As part of today’s long-anticipated reset of the Government’s flagship KiwiBuild policy, Housing Minister ...
Over the next week or two we will be running three synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Marx began Capital not with a sweeping historical ...
The State Services Commission and Ombudsman have released another batch of OIA statistics, covering the last six months. Request volumes are up, and the core public service is generally handling them within the legal timeframe, though this may be because they've learned to extend rather than just ignore things. And ...
In 1994, I was editing an ambitious street mag called Planet, from a fabled office at at 309 Karangahape Road. The thirteenth issue of the magazine was published in the winter of that year and its cover embodied a particularly ambitious goal: the end of cannabis prohibition.I wanted to do ...
KiwiBuild was one of the Ardern government's core policies. The government would end the housing crisis and make housing affordable again by building 100,000 new homes. Of course, it didn't work out like that: targets weren't met, the houses they did build were in the wrong place, and the whole ...
As the climate crisis escalates, it is now obvious that we need to radically decarbonise our economy. The good news is that its looking easy and profitable for the energy sector. Wind is already cheaper than fossil fuels, and now solar is too:The levellised cost of solar PV has fallen ...
A Crown Asset? For reasons relating to its own political convenience, the Crown pretends to believe that “No one owns the water.” To say otherwise would re-vivify the promises contained in the Treaty of Waitangi – most particularly those pertaining to the power of the chiefs and their proprietary rights ...
Most people would say, no doubt, that they have a pretty good idea of what money is. They live with the reality of money every day. It is what is needed to buy the necessities of life and to maintain a decent standard of living. You get money, they would ...
The article below was an opinion piece that appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of Te Awa (the NZ Green Party’s newsletter) and on the Greens website. In keeping with their policy of hostility to women defending women’s right to female-only spaces, Green bureaucrats have since removed the opinion piece. ...
Longer term readers may remember my complaining that, as a political scientist, it is burdensome to have non-political scientists wanting to engage me about politics. No layperson would think to approach an astrophysicist and lecture him/her on the finer details of quarks and black holes, but everybody with an opinion ...
Joining The Fight: Stevan Eldred-Grigg's argument for New Zealand staying out of the Second World War fails not only on the hard-headed grounds of preserving the country’s strategic and economic interests; and not just on the soft-hearted grounds of duty and loyalty to the nation that had given New Zealand ...
On September 27, School Strike 4 Climate will be striking for a future to pressure the government for meaningful climate action. This time, they've asked adults to join them. And now, Lincoln University and Victoria University of Wellington have signed on:Victoria University of Wellington has joined Lincoln University in endorsing ...
Another day, another constitutional outrage in the UK. This time, the government is saying that if parliament passes a law to stop Brexit before being prorogued, they may just ignore it:A senior cabinet minister has suggested Boris Johnson could defy legislation to prevent a no-deal Brexit if it is forced ...
Environment Canterbury has finally proposed nitrogen limits to stop dairy farmers from poisoning Christchurch's water supply. And naturally, farmers are whining about it:A proposed move by Environment Canterbury (ECan) to protect Christchurch's drinking water by setting tough – some would say, draconian – nitrate reductions in the decades ahead and ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is currently before select committee. While its targets are weak, its a generally sensible bill that promises to establish a long-term framework to guide emissions reductions. But National hasn't made up its mind on whether it will support it - and according to Andrea Vance in ...
Dum-de-doo. Children across New Zealand have known him for generations as the lovable giraffe who tells them to exercise, hydrate and not to shove lit cigarettes up their nostrils. But a world renowned giraffe expert says we shouldn’t be getting attached to Life Education’s Harold the Giraffe, as he is ...
By Mike Hosking. Yesterday morning, I waltzed into work, and as I walked past the drones aggressively typing out news on the computers I’ve repeatedly asked to be moved further away from, I caught a glimpse of the words “climate change”, and noticed that suspiciously they weren’t in condescending quotation ...
National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett spent the week claiming a serious cover-up in the Prime Minister's office. She used parliamentary privilege to name three of the Prime Minister's closest advisors who, she says, knew about the sexual assault ...
Six months on from the worst terrorist attack in New Zealand history, Simon Shepherd asked Al Noor Mosque spokesperson Anthony Green how the Christchurch Muslim is community faring. ...
“The Game Animal Council is concerned that the Government’s second tranche of firearms legislation released today may contain unreasonable provisions that will unfairly impact hunters,” says Game Animal Council Chair Don Hammond. ...
Government policy work on the Carbon Zero bill highlights connections between climate change, carbon sequestration and agriculture. Water quality and allocation are also topical with the release of the Draft Policy Statement for Freshwater Management ...
DairyNZ Chief Executive Dr Tim Mackle is welcoming this afternoon’s announcement that consultation on Essential Freshwater has been extended by two weeks - but is calling on the Minister to go further. ...
DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle is calling on the Government to move swiftly to extend the six-week timeframe of the Essential Freshwater consultation. ...
Immigration New Zealand could really benefit from an large investment of money, comments Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment (NZAMI) , a leading voice in the immigration sector. “Instead of spending $25m ...
In recent times there has been no shortage of commentary regarding whistleblowers, with the proposed amendments to the Protected Disclosures Act 2000. These are aimed at strengthening the protection available to whistleblowers in New Zealand. That ...
Gun Control NZ strongly welcomes the comprehensive gun law reform bill and calls on all political parties to support it. Gun Control NZ encourages New Zealanders to let their MPs know they support this Bill, submit to the Select Committee, and ...
Federated Farmers agrees with most of the steps by government to protect people from illegal or irresponsible firearms use. But concerns about pest control and the effectiveness of a register remain. ...
Today at Parliament the NZ Drug Foundation released Taking control of cannabis: A model for responsible regulation, a new report that shows how we can take back control of cannabis from organised crime. ...
In the face of overwhelming public opinion that farmers need to clean up after themselves, Federated Farmers has mounted an offensive to try and stop some of its members having to do just that. ...
Responding to reports that Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa plans to restrict flavoured e-cigarette liquid, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams says: ...
Māori and non- Māori value different aspects of plantation forestry, which owners should bear in mind if they want to maximise their social licence to operate, a new study shows. ...
The Prime Minister’s Award in the first annual Spirit of Service Awards has been won by the Ministry of Health and five agencies who teamed up on the Healthy Homes Initiative. ...
Smoking kills 5,000 Kiwis each year, so any government policies to help reduce smoking are a good thing. However, the current approaches are not working nor will the proposed limit on flavoured e-liquid that Associate Minister Salesa announced on the news ...
A petition, that promises a significant and dramatic improvement for the New Zealand economy, was handed to Dr Deborah Russell, the MP for New Lynn today. The petition, signed by over 5,000 New Zealanders addresses our crippling level of debt as well ...
The New Zealand Medical Association welcomes the announcement of an Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. We look forward to working with the newly appointed Chair Hayden Wano and the Commission. “It is vital that the steps to mental health ...
For anyone who even randomly follows the news will know that Hong Kong has been embroiled in demonstrations for months. These sometimes bloody demonstrations initially started as a result of a proposed Extradition Bill whereby there would be special ...
The release yesterday of Port Otago’s financial result for 2019, outlining a 12% increase and profits, including the news that the Chief Executive had received a $100,000 pay increase taking his remuneration to between $610,000-620,000, is like ...
“ I continue to be amazed at the incompetence of this Government when it comes to suicide prevention and mental health. Not only is this Government about to appoint a regional coroner who has a history of under reporting suicides amongst children ...
An unannounced inspection at Tongariro Prison has found a safe and well-managed prison, with a clear sense of purpose and striving for continuous improvement. ...
The Auditor-General’s discussion paper Public accountability: A matter of trust and confidence was presented to the House of Representatives today. ...
Keep New Zealand Beautiful (KNZB) are proud to announce the winners of the Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) – Litter Less 2019 competition. ...
The Far North District Council (FNDC) and the Whangarei District Council (WDC) have lodged a joint appeal against the Northland Regional Council’s (NRC) omission of precautionary rules in its plan. [1] ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that an officer was not justified in tasering a man for a second time during an arrest in Picton on 23 June 2018. ...
The Chairman of the Authority, Judge Colin Doherty, has agreed to assist the Hong Kong Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) as a member of an international panel to provide high level advice to the IPCC in relation to its proposed "Thematic ...
“Putting families into motels is a temporary fix for desperate situations, rather than a sustainable solution to problems of poverty and homelessness,” says Scott Figenshow, Chief Executive of Community Housing Aotearoa. He was commenting on media ...
The New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS) says the current partial strike by 600 psychologists working in district health boards is a sign that temporary fixes to ongoing workforce shortages in the profession are not working. ...
New Zealand’s contribution to military operations in Malaya and Malaysia from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s will be commemorated in a national service held at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park at 11.00am on Monday 16 September. ...
The Christchurch mosque attack might not have occurred had police had the resources to enforce firearms restrictions they control, according to the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO). ...
The resignation of the President of the Labour Party over the sex pest allegations was inevitable. It was inevitable because of his appalling handling of the situation so far; and, because in situations like this where there has to be a “fall guy” ...
“It’s disappointing that Parliament failed to address the accountability issues in the End of LifeChoice Bill ,” says Renée Joubert, Executive Officer of Euthanasia-Free NZ . ...
Yesterday Hon Grant Robertson Minister of Finance issued a welcome ‘clear directive’ in the press to ensure every Government considers the wellbeing of New Zealanders when creating future budgets . ...
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has written to Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters today urging that New Zealand condemn the Israeli Prime Minister’s planned annexation of vast tracts of the occupied West Bank of Palestine. ...
A groundbreaking tool launched today at The Spinoff will help voters across New Zealand see who’s running for local government election in their area and what they stand for. ...
Today Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence (NPM) releases its next Te Arotahi paper calling on government to pay even closer attention to the issues of whānau and whakapapa within the criminal justice system. ...
“Technology adoption supports higher productivity growth, higher income growth and increased resources to pay for the things New Zealanders’ value. But the main problem facing New Zealand today isn’t too much technology, it’s not enough,” ...
DairyNZ Biosecurity Manager, Dr. Liz Shackleton, will be appearing before Parliament’s Primary Production Select Committee today to submit on the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). ...
Federated Farmers is asking nicely - please can the Government immediately extend the timeframe of the Essential Freshwater consultation so we can find a pathway forward that provides for both the health of the water, the health of people and the health ...
Youthline applauds the Government’s commitment to boosting mental health and addiction programmes and its intention to establish a Suicide Prevention Office but we urge swifter action in relation to implementing the programmes announced in the last budget ...
An Auckland mayoral candidate has broken the internet* by announcing a plan for a monorail around the central city. Who is Craig Lord, and is he serious? Alex Braae spoke to him shortly after his campaign launch to find out.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The SpinoffMembers. ...
Antibiotics are becoming increasingly less effective, so what treatments can we use when the drugs stop working? With help from plant extracts, award-winning company HerbScience is set to breathe new life into how we treat bacterial infections.When Cynthia Hunefeld was just 10 years old, her father was hospitalised with a ...
For some, it symbolises the very backbone of New Zealand’s food culture. But can Kiwi onion dip survive after the factory that makes reduced cream is shut down?The Australian factory that makes Nestlé reduced cream, an integral ingredient in Kiwi onion dip, is shutting down, casting a shadow over the ...
Every year Matariki X brings Māori innovators and entrepreneurs together to share their experiences and inspire one another. Callaghan Innovation’s Vinnie Campbell says the Māori economy’s biggest strengths have nothing to do with money.This story was funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The ...
Today marks the start of Covering Climate Now. To launch the week, the New Zealand climate change minister, James Shaw, writes an open letter to participants in the School Strike 4 Climate ahead of their day of action later this month.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is thanks to ...
National’s new agriculture spokesperson finds himself in one of the party’s most important portfolios, at a time of dramatically increasing tensions in the sector. Will Todd Muller, a man regularly mentioned as a future leader contender, find common ground?Todd Muller’s obsession with politics began with an American encyclopaedia, which his ...
Although few would now deny that there are far-right extremists in NZ, questions remain around whether we have truly reckoned with the root causes of white supremacy. ...
To celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, cookbook authors, 2014 MasterChef-winning sisters and badass wāhine Māori Karena and Kasey Bird (Te Arawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Manawa) have translated some of the delicious recipes from their second cookbook, Hungry, into te reo Māori for The Spinoff. Today, poached pears in chocolate.NGĀ PEA KŌHUA ...
Miss June’s Bad Luck Party was recorded literally between hospital shifts, and their summer schedule includes both festival dates and their frontwoman’s graduation from medical school. We sat down with the band to ask just how, exactly, they’ve survived so far.The first years of life for Tāmaki Makaurau pop-punk quartet ...
The following four short extracts are from A City Possessed: The Christchurch Child Crèche Case by Lynley Hood, which has just been reprinted by Otago University Press. The book was first published in 2001 and won the Montana Medal for Non-Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The controversial ...
Hamilton councillors have drawn headlines this year for being anti-science and insensitive to terror victims. At a mayoral debate on Wednesday, there were signs a campaign for change is gathering force.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The SpinoffMembers. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click ...
The Spinoff editor writes on the story that has engulfed NZ politics this week.One of the very few positive things to come out of a hideous week in New Zealand politics has been the sieving-out of the blinkered, partisan zealots. On one side, those who are ready to conjure up ...
In June 2018, Rawinia Higgins was appointed chairperson of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. She’s the first female and the first te reo Māori second-language speaker to hold the role, and during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, she sat down with The Spinoff to talk about her ...
Compulsory New Zealand history in schools is an exciting opportunity but it’s crucial we’re critical of the stories we tell ourselves, writes Dr Aroha Harris. History is not simply an assemblage of facts and evidence. History is also the interrogation of those things.This may be unsettling news for some, including the ...
The government and the Drug Foundation say they are committed to keeping the public informed and keeping fear mongering to a minimum ahead of the cannabis referendum. ...
One of the people who first brought Labour's assault complaints scandal to light says the party has a long way to go before it's clear it has learnt from its mistakes. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University Argument is everywhere. From the kitchen table to the boardroom to the highest echelons of power, we all use argument to persuade, investigate new ...
Climate change is not just an environmental threat but also a psychological crisis, especially as children increasingly shoulder the burden to act. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alastair Blanshard, Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History Deputy Head of School, The University of Queensland Comedy often succeeds where tragedy fails. Fangirls, the pop musical which premiered on Thursday night in Brisbane, is not the first drama to explore ...
On the 10th anniversary of the infamous “Imma let you finish” episode, Josie Adams reflects on what this moment revealed about both Taylor Swift and Kanye West.Cast your mind back a decade: 2009 DJ Earworm was still good, Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the US, Israeli ground ...
Analysis - An astounding week in politics has left Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern carrying responsibility for sorting out the mess the Labour Party is in over the sexual assault allegation, writes Peter Wilson. ...
Newsroom joins 250 media organisations internationally who are highlighting global climate change in the week leading to a critical United Nations summit. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karen Dwyer, Deputy Head, School of Medicine, Deakin University Autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is the most common genetic kidney disorder, and the fourth most common cause of kidney failure in Australian adults. It affects about one in 1,000 Australians. In people ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash has confirmed details of a new bill that will create a registry of guns, and new offences and penalties for illegal manufacture, trafficking or changing markings of firearms. ...
To celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, cookbook authors, 2014 MasterChef-winning sisters and badass wāhine Māori Karena and Kasey Bird (Te Arawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Manawa) have translated some of the delicious recipes from their second cookbook, Hungry, into te reo Māori for The Spinoff. Today, a tino reka salmon salad.NGĀ MOMO ...
James Elliott suggests it might be time for Simon Bridges to turn to AI for answers and for the Prime Minister to move her meetings to the Koru Lounge. ...
Charli XCX has just released her latest album, Charli. The futuristic musician is always looking ahead, and so are her fans. We’ve paired each star sign with their perfect Charli XCX song.Charli XCX burst onto the scene in 2012, when she co-wrote and performed electro-pop headbanger ‘I Love It’ with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benedict Sheehy, Associate professor, University of Canberra British health-care conglomerate Bupa runs more nursing homes in Australia than anyone else. We now know its record in meeting basic standards of care is also worse than any other provider. This is more than ...
Fable is best remembered for the disastrous, over-the-top promises made by its designer Peter Molyneux. But maybe, Adam Goodall argues, we’re remembering it all wrong.“There is something I have to say. And I have to say it because I love making games.” So opens an October 2004 post on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University Argument is everywhere. From the kitchen table to the boardroom to the highest echelons of power, we all use argument to persuade, investigate new ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Native Son: The Writer’s Memoir by Witi Ihimaera (Penguin Random House, $40)Stand by for a review from ...
The liquidator of Stanley Group says the construction company is facing a $13.5 million deficit and it appears it has not held on to some retentions. ...
Tara Ward delved into Māori TV’s impressive OnDemand catalogue and found some of the best TV taonga for your viewing pleasure. From lifestyle shows to documentaries, from current affairs to reality TV, Māori TV has an abundance of quality telly that celebrates and acknowledges the people, places and cultures of ...
A new poem by London-based poet Morgan Bach.Turning, hurtlingI march diligently to sunshine in the parkeverything bathed and turning golden.A woman breathes fire by the folly framing herlike a personal door to hell. Conkers are pitched from high boughsto break and give up fruit, a spire emergent from the baring ...
Simon Day learns about the history and power of Chinese five-spice. Both the origins of Chinese five-spice and the flavour itself are a little mysterious. My internet investigations revealed the powder’s name could be in reference to the use of five spices (although this often grows to six or seven), or ...
Revelations around alleged sexual assault by a Labour staffer and the party inquiry into his behaviour have dominated the week. Alex Casey and Mihi Forbes join Gone By Lunchtime to survey the damage.Alex Casey, author of the Spinoff feature published on Monday, “A Labour volunteer alleged a violent sexual assault ...
In the fourth episode of Actually Interesting, The Spinoff’s monthly podcast exploring the effect AI has on our lives, Russell Brown speaks to Ana Arriola, general manager and partner at Microsoft AI and Research, about ethics and transparency in tech.Subscribe to Actually Interesting via iTunes or listen on the player below.To download this ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Labour Party sexual assault allegations Andrea Vance (Stuff): How to make the Labour abuse scandal ...
Toi Kai Rākau Iti, who is running in the Eastern Bay of Plenty Kohi Māori constituency, encounters an unlikely channel of youth engagement.In te ao Māori you’re always looking for tohu, or symbols. They guide you through uncertain territory and help you make sense of the world. The arrival of ...
A member of the Labour Party's youth wing says the party's handling of sexual assault allegations has left him heartbroken and doubting his commitment to the party. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tomer Ventura, Senior Lecturer, School of Science and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast The creation of all-male or all-female groups of animals, known as monosex populations, has become a potentially useful approach in aquaculture and livestock rearing. Researchers and those in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Holmes, Director, Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Monash University Predictably, both major political parties are resisting calls this week for a parliamentary conscience vote to declare a climate emergency in Australia. The resistance is unsurprising because both the Coalition and Labor ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Shi, Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT University If the Religious Discrimination Bill passes into law, women may find it harder to get an abortion. That’s because health practitioners with an objection to performing the procedure on religious grounds ...
Open mike 02/08/2012 
by Rafael D. Quiles (gender-critical gay man from Puerto Rico) The writing on the wall is right in people’s faces and people just don’t see it or don’t want to. What could actually possess a heterosexual male to want to feminize himself and claim that he is a lesbian? Because ...32 mins ago
From the Wall Street Journal:Inside a room of the ornately decorated Hotel du Palais during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, President Trump awaited a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Mr. Trump looked over a gathering of American and Egyptian officials and called out in ...7 hours ago
The Brexit issue has certainly brought with it a series of apparently difficult constitutional issues, many of them concerning the respective roles of the executive and parliament. Most of them arise because of the unwillingness of MPs, despite their professions to the contrary, to be bound by a constitutional rarity ...2 days ago
. . This blogpost is different to my usual format of reporting on issues… Since July 1011, I have blogged on a variety of political issues; near always political and/or environmental; mostly highly critical of the previous National Government. Other issues included Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of ...2 days ago
Those close to the Police Minister believe the initiative may be the result of Nash “seeing a great deal” on AliExpress. In a move that comes seemingly out of nowhere, Police Minister Stuart Nash announced this afternoon that he expects all frontline staff to don bearskin hats, famously worn by ...2 days ago
The government has released its Arms Legislation Bill, containing the second tranche of changes to gun laws following the March 15 massacre. And it all looks quite sensible: a national gun register, higher penalties for illegal possession and dealing, tighter restrictions on arms dealers and shooting clubs, and a shorter ...2 days ago
Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...3 days ago
by Philip Ferguson Much of the left, even people who formally identify as marxists, have collapsed politically in the face of postmodern gender theory of the sort pioneered by American philosopher Judith Butler. For Butler even biological sex is socially constructed. “If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps ...3 days ago
By Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern I am every bit as angry as you are. I am every bit as disappointed as you must be. The people with power, oversight and the ability to do something about these processes within the Labour Party should be ashamed. Whoever those people are, I ...3 days ago
Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a ...3 days ago
By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...4 days ago
Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ... 4 days ago
An ambitious plan to fly to Los Angeles petered out into a brief sight-seeing trip and a desire to return home and get some sleep before work tomorrow. Air New Zealand has confirmed a flight to Los Angeles last night was turned back about a quarter of the way into ...5 days ago
There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...5 days ago
Here’s another novelty chocolate to shove in your gob, New Zealand Cadbury could be seeking to make itself great again with a rumoured new release: Pineapple Trumps, a spin on its classic chocolate-encased pineapple treat and do-it-yourself tooth remover. The global confectionery manufacturer and bumbling “before” character in an infomercial, ...5 days ago
During my time in the Pentagon I had the privilege of sitting down with military leaders and defence and security officials from a variety of Latin American nations. Sometimes I was present as a subordinate assistant to a senior US defence department official, sometimes as part of a delegation that ...5 days ago
Kia ora, Aotearoa. It’s that magical time of year. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. In English, the week that frightens talk radio. As you probably know by now, all your favourite media outlets are participating, some more successfully than others. Stuff has changed its name to Puna for the ...5 days ago
Lost In Political Space: The most important takeaway from this latest Labour sexual assault scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of ...6 days ago
Hi there, just call me Tim.We face tough problems, and I’d like to help, because there are solutions.An Auckand District Health Board member has nominated me for as a candidate for the ADHB, because her MS-related pain and fatigue is reduced with hemp products from Rotorua. Nothing else helped her. If I ...6 days ago
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Chris Trotter has some thoughtful comment on aspects of Labour’s policies.
“For all those tax-payers born after 1966, however, Labour’s policies on NZ Superannuation, Kiwisaver and a CGT may well result in a reduction of living-standards.”
“Why, then, does Labour persist with these business-friendly, Rich List-cossetting policies? Why not adopt fiscal measures more in keeping with its social-democratic principles? ”
Read it in full at
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/
[Sigh]. Labour still has yet to get my support. It seems like a dead party walking. There are some very good people in Labour’s ranks – Sue Moroney, Nania Mahuta, Cunliffe etc. But the top ranks of the MPs need to be cleaned out, and some new blood allowed through (Shearer is old blood masquerading as new blood).
I guess we really need to nurture a strong left grass roots (non-party aligned) movement articulating real left policies – and that would be more left than Trotter’s favoured social democracy. I envisage this as a network of groups with their own focus. The network could be co-ordinated by some joint actions and meetings focused on specific issues. This would need a communications network -like Global Peace and Justice:
http://gpjanz.wordpress.com/
But the top ranks of the MPs need to be cleaned out, and some new blood allowed through
Should have been done last term, but with fewer MPs it they have just concentrated the old dross.
A cleanup now can’t be done until 2014. Tread water until then? Or keep slowly sinking?
🙄
With you Carol. The caucus is to blame, of course. They voted in the leaders. Can’t help but think if it was the Cunliffe/Mahuta ticket that had won we would see a different Labour.
Its like saying, that when Obama and Key won their respective elections, the direction of the country was going to change for the better…
Some knew that was never going to be true, and many fell for it.
Same would apply to your wishful thinking!
Not to worry. Labour has had the moment of triumph which it seems to feel is most important – Trevor Mallard doing his excellent rant at John Banks and putting him on the spot. That’s it for the quarter June-Sept. I don’t think that anything significant and useful can now be expected to happen in Labour till next quarter so we can all go back to our pasttimes, meantime.
I think the trouble is that Labour views parliament as a proxy for the country and so a win there as Opposition is achieving something and showing the flag etc. This is despite discussion and condemnation on this blog and elsewhere. I think that entrenched groupthink rules! Memories of Helen and what she achieved – what was her recipe? Hold on while we write all the ingredients down, then tick off the boxes as we follow her practices. Nice Labour fruit cake anyone. Hock it off at stalls in the provinces as a fundraiser – you can rely on the hard workers there to carry on supporting us while we carry on ignoring and undermining them.
Where is the evidence of all the great communication we know is around? Why aren’t Labour getting good signals? They seem no better informed about the country and people’s concerns and ideas than in their earliest days. Perhaps Labour is behind the defeat of the new cable through lack of interest and investment in getting it as it would improve communications and opportunities in NZ and put some steel in our spine. But no, NZ Labour is of the type that can only get excited about some old chap wearing other people’s medals and his grand malfeasance of $63.20. Just milk and water and wine, no substance. And they aren’t even ensuring continuance of our water and milk. Soon Labour will be nothing but an empty wine bladder – what is the favourite tipple – chardonnay? Can this dross be recycled? Is it the right stuff?
Labour is now dominated by the old has been brigade…’true believers’ who simply cannot accept that the world has moved on from their glory days when they could soft peddle ‘rogernomics’ on NZ. I can almost picture them sitting in the pariamentary bar or wherever reminiscing on past glories and washing down bucket loads of ‘what’s, if’s and might have been’s’ with their favourite tipple.
And when they’re not looking backwards, they are only capable of conniving to hang on to the tattered shell of power that fell into their hands come hell or high water. And it seems they’re quite good at that. First one of their number became leader in a fashion not a million miles removed from some sort of royal appointment. And that bought them enough time to get together like so many Gepetos and fashion themselves a wee Pinnochio. An interim measure before the next in their royal lineage (Robertson) assumed the mantle of leader. Oh, that’s right. The wheels kind of fell off that last royal carriage while it was on its way to the coronation. Fall back plan? Citadel the puppet behind an unassailable wall of 67% disapproval and get working on those wheel repairs.
You called it: you also implied correctly what has happened to the next generation – the young have been co-opted into the old-has been way of doing and looking at things. In other words, far too many of the new gen in the LabourParty are simply old gen outlooks in younger looking bodies.
You’ll be standing as an independant sometime CV?
Agree PG, it’s like an ageing board of directors doing everything to ensure they keep their comfy seats at the expense of the organisation.
Pete
Tread water is probably the right answer. The Nats Coalition is sinking under the combined opposition pressures, well aided by the media.
Opposition parties do not attain power but Governments lose power through continued inertia from as many oppositions as possible, and we currently have plenty.
Under MMP the Nats, and hangers on, cannot get enough to seats to govern on their own.
Whereas a Labour Greens Winston coalition can easily achieve the required numbers. All that is required is concerted pressures at every opportunity, which is currently under way.
Where are you coming from,by the looks of that comment from deep in the bottom of a prozac bottle that is as empty of capsules as your wee rant is empty of the truth,
National +John(the convicted)Banks,+ the ‘Hairdo from Ohariu’ = a majority in the House, the fact that they are floundering as the Government is simply a reflection of their abysmal policies, and, the abysmal little shyster they have as Leader who is so far gone that His decision making looks like a set of disco lights,
Flick,this one day, flick,that another day…
Fortran is just trialling lines for his masters.
Treading water isn’t enough (as they found out last election) – they have to be training up so they are seen as capable of doing a decent medley once they get the opportunity.
Too many old salts don’t help
+ 🙄
Fortran.
Problem is NZF are really National with a Smile.They are more likely to support National . To be honest I would not be happy with them being with Labour . They consist of a lot of racist members.I realise they were part of the last Labour Government but that was under Helen and there are not many with the abilty she has. Anyway she packed him of abroad out of harms way.The country needs Labour Green government and for a long while .
I totally agree with you, Carol. I have voted always voted Labour but at present I am in total despair because the Labour Party seem to be chasing the middle-to-right vote and forgetting that they need to represent the left. Labour need to ask themselves the question: “What are the policies that will get the non-voters from last election into the polling booths to vote for Labour?”
There are more than enough potential votes out there to be had but people need to be inspired. A charismatic leader would help and some decent policy. Labour’s National-lite policy induces the apathy that makes people from the left feel unrepresented and uninspired to vote.
One of Trotter’s commentators, under the ‘anonymous’ title, said, “In NZ there is no incentive to take risks producing goods and services when you can engage in exploitation of the financially vulnerable.” This short sentence strikes at the heart of the problem. Seriously challenge this state of affairs and you frighten a decent portion of the middle class. Fail to challenge it and you cease to represent the financially vulnerable, who look to the left to represent them. Labour looks more and more as if it has been nobbled by financial interests, with Shearer as yet another Key-style stand-in. I note that in his questions and answers on Stuff he said that he did not intend to turn out to be parliament’s longest serving member.
Rather than being a traitor to the left with his blogging and public commentating on this issue, it seems to me that he is still clinging hard to hope for a future for the party, and that he is actually unable to give up on it.
Trotter though should have a deeper understanding of whats gone on with Labour in recent years,
Hows that saying go, when your young your rebellious and left wing,but,once you get older and have responsibilities you become more right wing,
When i look at Labour from a historical perspective going back to my childhood i can see how Labour represented the reality,aspirations and needs of my parents who had nothing,
By nothing i mean 4 kids, 2 jobs,a State house and a few sticks of furniture,from there they went on to own the State house,shareholdings in various company’s,cars, and have regular up-dates of the substantial limps of furniture,
Thats what modern Labour is representative and a reflection of, if at all ‘Socialist’,and, i am pretty sure i heard Helen Clark ditch the ‘Socialist’ in favor of the ‘Social Democrat’,it is the Socialism of,for, and,by the middle classes who in effect have moved in social position from 4 kids,2 jobs, and, a few sticks of furniture upon the basis of previous Socialism and now won’t tolerate the boat being rocked in any way,
Unfortunately the new underclass have 4 kids,no jobs,a few sticks of furniture,and,no hope in the Labour Party that they can see or is being promoted from within the Parliament by the Party that offers to them any such path to a more comfortable life as what my,and, a whole generation of our parents were privy to,
Labour, to the new underclass,(which Labour had a large hand in creating), are the status quo of the denial of their existence while in Government, a refusal to reverse National’s continual financial attacks upon them, and thus, simply the agents which empower the right in the form of National Governments to mount the financial attacks upon the new underclass…
+1
I note that in his questions and answers on Stuff he said that he did not intend to turn out to be parliament’s longest serving member.
I’ve often wondered how committed Shearer is to politics. He came back to NZ after a really well paid and prestigous gig at the UN. What could he do that wouldn’t be a “step down” for an obviously ambitious man? Did he join the party before or after he was approached by party power brokers to discuss a possible career option? I can’t see Shearer joining any political party without such a motive. He’s just not that into politics
Pity he didn’t get shoulder tapped by National really.
“What are the policies that will get the non-voters from last election into the polling booths to vote for Labour?”
What if most of the non-voters who may vote for Labour with the right policy mix are from the centre?
There seems to be assumptions that those who didn’t vote but might are leftish and would vote for Labour if only they had more leftish policies.
Didn’t Labour try a bit more leftish last election?
( 🙄 )
PG 😯
Labour voter born and raised I have gone Green Because Labour think they have to be Nat Lite so as Not to scare business. Well all they have managed to do is piss off all their liberal voters. I agree they need a good clean out, and let some of the young blood through.
God I’m struggling with this Labour lot at the moment.
Norman did a great job with Brownlee in the House yesterday. Would be great to see a full-throated Greens-Labour anti-City-asset-sales mission arise out of it.
Seriously imagine if Brownlee used his CEA powers to force asset sales.
Sorry. “… his CERA powers”
Russel Norman wants the rest of the country to pay a ‘levy’ (a tax) to help pay for the Christchurch rebuild as an alternative to selling some of their assets. At least he seems to understand the folly of borrowing even more to avoid selling asets.
The rest of the country is already paying a lot to help Christchurch.
🙄
🙄 on so many fucking levels
I would resent that very much indeed! Sympathy for Christchurch, yes, paying for them, no.
I am interested in knowing what became of renters and flatters in Christchurch, but all I hear about is the middle class kiddies with houses and businesses.
BTW, all the roll eyes smilies as replies to Pete George are juvenile and stupid. Much more disruptive than replying to him would be!
Yeah i know, i was never able to ‘grow up’ and my stupidity is only matched by my ugliness,
Horses for courses ae, i find the smiley faces directed at that one both amusing and they make in my opinion a cleaner open mike and other posts where there is no longer the same circular debate occurring day after day without really imparting anything of substance…
The whole point of being in a community is that there’s someone there to help when needed. You seem to be against this concept.
🙄
Okay then. Easy to rebuild a city with sympathy.
🙄
Exactly Carol, I am right with you on all of your discerning comments and suggestions.
Actual Link
Some good questions but, other than that, a load of bollocks as he looks to the past to fix the problems caused by that past. He’s right that Labour are just National Lite now.
http://tvnz.co.nz/rugby-news/hansen-brushes-aside-sir-graham-s-match-fixing-suspicions-4994166
Hansen brushes aside Sir Graham’s match fixing suspicions
by DAVID SKIPWITH, Monday July 30, 2012 Source: ONE Sport
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has brushed aside some bizarre and unsupported match-fixing claims made in Sir Graham Henry’s biography.
The allegations have caused a furore both here in New Zealand and around the world after Sir Graham claimed while watching a video review of the All Blacks’ quarter-final loss to France at the 2007 Rugby World Cup, he briefly suspected match-fixing played a part in the shock result.
Speaking about the claims today, Hansen, who was an assistant to Sir Graham at the time, said it was time to let the issue rest.
“Look, you’ve got to ask him about those things it’s irrelevant as far as I’m concerned, I’ve moved on. It’s 2012,” he said.
Penned by rugby writer Bob Howitt, Graham Henry Final Word stops short of making the allegations concrete. Instead, the passage describes Henry’s emotions and thoughts in the aftermath of the loss, as he dealt with the tidal wave of disapproval from heartbroken and disillusioned New Zealand rugby followers.
Howitt and the book’s publishers Harper Collins ran the controversial words past their lawyers with Howitt yesterday revealing some further portions have been removed from the final copy to avoid compromising their legal position.
However, the comments sparked immediate attention from local and foreign media with Sunday Times correspondent and regular critic of New Zealand rugby, Stephen Jones, taking to Twitter to voice his scepticism.
He, labelled the comments as a “Puke-making assault on Wayne Barnes by bitter Graham Henry”, while challenging the IRB to take action against the All Blacks’ 2011 World Cup winning coach.
The sport’s governing body offered a tentative response saying only that the comments had been “noted” as speculation began to mount as to the nature and substance of any further retort from the IRB and Barnes.
Brendan Gallagher, writing in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, mocked Sir Graham’s motives for voicing his suspicions, saying, “Hilarious Graham Henry trying to rewrite history”, mirroring the contempt held for 1995 All Blacks coach Laurie Mains’ accusations that food-poisoning derailed his side’s World Cup final against South Africa.
Sir Graham said he was “physically ill” after watching a tape of the match and asserted how numerous match statistics were so skewed against his side that he felt the performance of match referee Wayne Barnes deserved closer inspection.
His suspicions stemmed from the fact the All Blacks had enjoyed an overwhelming 73% territorial advantage in the match, winning 166 rucks to France’s 42 and made only 73 tackles compared with France’s 331, yet they had not been awarded a single penalty in the final 50 minutes of play.
Publicly Henry refused to point the finger at Barnes’ performance but upon his return to New Zealand voiced his concerns to the New Zealand Rugby Union and the International Rugby Board and asked if there were any review systems in place. But he was told there were no such avenues available.
Reaction here has included the suggestion that Sir Graham’s decision to speak out five years on from that fateful World Cup, less than a year after he found redemption with the All Blacks’ 2011 World Cup triumph over France, was inspired not so much through sour grapes but rather as a ploy to boost book sales.
The book is available in stores today.
A cynical and stupid ploy to sell more books and doing the current regime no favours in the process.
Careful Sir Graham or you’ll become a sad and cranky figure, which some say is accurate but winning a WC gives you some credit, don’t burn it trying to eek some extra dollars out of the rugby faithful.
A cynical and stupid ploy to sell more books…
I suspect this whole idea was not Henry’s but Bob Howitt’s. Henry has merely deferred to Howitt’s authority as a veteran rugby author and obediently mouthed Howitt’s words, despite the fact they are clearly nonsense.
…and doing the current regime no favours in the process.
The current regime immediately distanced themselves from Henry’s crank comments. Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith are far too diplomatic to actually refute them more forcefully.
Careful Sir Graham or you’ll become a sad and cranky figure, which some say is accurate but winning a WC gives you some credit,
Winning it like THIS gives him credit? ….
Who reckons that a job like, for example, ‘Chair of the ACC’ would come with a work email account? Just in case things related to the job need to be discussed, and records kept of those discussions and the like.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10823956
Damned inconvenient for poor old Mr Judge too, I have to say, that when he buys a new computer he loses access to his personal email account. he’s a busy guy. He must have lost a lot of important stuff with that computer.
I think we just have to accept that we live in a post truth environment.
Very odd indeed, I would have thought that emails while at a place of employment on their computer were the property of that place of employment.
However, I’ve got a friend who’s high up in IT provision and support within the public service and he has suggested that it is unbelievably loose.
The claim seems to be that he didn’t have a work email account, so Collins forwarded the Boag email to his personal account. It then was leaked in a way damaging to Boag/Pullar, and then he got a new computer and lost his emails.
Just bad luck I guess.
I’m just intrigued that his home computer is the only possible source for his emails – no servers or anything…
They would also have records of the emails at his ISP.
Wtf? Who wipes computers when there is an investigation going on? Oh that’s right, guilty people!
or people who internet bank and know other people will have access to the machine when they return it.
Internet banking is secure – the browser doesn’t record information relating to secure connections.
Boldest claim of the day on the interwebs.
^ 2nd boldest claim of the day on the interwebz 🙂
I thought that saving data was one of the reasons organisations have networks with network backups. Silly me.
First thought on reading the news,”Huh! Why am I not surprised?” Second thought, “Probably all organised by Judith Collins’ “get me out of this” team.
My immediate reaction was that Crusher is as desperate as she is thick. Any emails he sent will be backed up somewhere, as will any she sent. The GCSB doesn’t seem to have much to do that’s useful, why not unleash them on this one?
From the article cited above:
…But Ms Collins told the Herald last night that the email from Ms Boag was forwarded to Mr Judge’s personal and only email account…
Very strange. This at least should be able to be proven one way or another. Check the email of the other top brass and see what address they sent emails to Judge to. It would be suspicious in itself he deliberately chose to work from a personal account that belonged to him, in preference to a work account for which he might be accountable.
At what point did he stop using his work account, or did he never use it? Is that even legal under the circumstances, especially since a huge volume of privileged and highly personal private information seems to have become the private property of a personal email holder?
Could the SFO office be lurking in the background?
Wrong wrong. haven’t we learned from the Repubs in t.he USA started using private accounts to circumvent OI requests. I do not believe Judge had no work email. how can you work like that?
And McCully, of course.
Not idea why tory managers seem to have difficulty with multiple email accounts – their minions who turn up here don’t seem to have too much of a problem 🙂
But also this;
Looks like he was trying to hide something.
These business-focused right-wingers – always much more efficient cos of their business background, than all those public-sector-nurtured lefties!
Hah! Natz business-like practice with a key bankster in charge?
Is this the kind of modus operandi that smacks of Enron document-shredding scandal?
yes carol i noticed that sentence too. Very efficient at losing stuff, when they want to.
collins benefits most though because they can’t rule out a leak from somewhere else.
yes rosy we are back to the “I know nothing” defence or maybe “it wasn’t me” – either way their tactics effectively block this avenue methinks.
And that should definitely not have happened. It was a business computer and so having it erased is actually destroying business records.
Popcorn time – Ms Collins may have bitten off more than she can chew.
John Judge’s response to her latest claims in the above Herald report – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10824103
Former ACC Chairman John Judge says ACC Minister Judith Collins’ claims he hampered an investigation into a the leak of a sensitive email are untrue and an attempt to “blacken” his name.
…
Mr Judge today said Ms Collins’ comments were “pathetic”.
…
But Mr Judge said Ms Collins was aware that he replaced his home computer before the Privacy Commissioner’s inquiry was announced.
“Everything was transferred from my old computer to the new one anyway. It’s not like anything disappeared.”
Furthermore, he was not able to receive emails on his ACC iPad anyway.
He said Ms Collins “knew the truth” and was “just trying to blacken people”.
From the little I know about Judge, he is not going to sit back and quietly let Collins get away with this.
Also, I understand that forensic computer experts are able to recover deleted emails and other documents from computer hard drives etc (its their bread and butter work), so Collins’ claims don’t hold water IMO.
And that’s why you use security software which overwrites your hard drive 10-20x with layers upon layers of random data. Takes days to do.
Try doing a non-destructive surface test on a external USB 1TB drive. Lyn bounced one of her TimeMachine backup drives while it was running on the weekend. It has been running badblocks since monday night (do Mac’s have a surface scan application these days?).
Was 94% through its first and only pass this morning. So far zero damage detected….
Luffly, get the Tory’s throwing each other off of the 16th floor, this is definitely turning into a new ‘blood sport’,
Parliament could just about use the addition of a ‘cage’ on the floor of the House so we all get to watch live…
“Also, I understand that forensic computer experts are able to recover deleted emails and other documents from computer hard drives etc (its their bread and butter work), so Collins’ claims don’t hold water IMO.”
Take what they say with a grain of salt, that industry has some of the biggest bullshitters in the IT game. When data gets overwritten no forensic expert can recover it, a single pass zero-write is unrecoverable to all intents & purposes.
More amuesment at the evidenced failure of right wing politics and their free market ideology has of course sprung from the well of broken Christchurch …
Free market ideology, that the market knows best and results in the best results when left alone, was implemented through the Resource Managemenrt Act, among many others… The idea was that the free market, when left alone to develop, would provide the best solutions as demanded by the cnsumer.
This ideology is still of course deeply ingrained and treasured by this National government and its disciples.
So when it comes to the best ever opportunity to leave the free market up to development, such as rebuilding an entire city, and prove their beloved ideology true……… what do they do? Intervene with the most heavily centralised planning structure ever conceived. All conceived from central authority with not a skeric of free market approach.
ha ha ha ha ha ha
the right and business free market ideologies fail AGAIN
Yes, vto. The neoliberal philosophy is just a front for doing whatever benefits the elite – a PR con-job while the elite accumulates and exercises more power and wealth for themselves.
The Government is proposing to change Local Government electoral laws so that donor trusts are outlawed. Sounds like an EFA 2 type attack on democracy to me. Shouldn’t there be riots in the streets and pictures of Banimarama approving the measure and all that sort of stuff?
Moves to ensure they can swing the likes of Brewer or Fletcher back into the akl mayors chains.
I note they’re carefully keeping clear of applying a similar change to central government electoral laws …
I’m still wondering why the two are separate.
Because it suits them? Or are you asking specifically why it suits them?
The latter. Why are two systems that should be identical run under different rules?
The Herald has an article reporting that an article by some Auckland Uni academics claims that John key’s Sky City deal was against the law:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10823966
This report supports the Green Party complaint made to the Auditory General, which is investigating the deal.
John Key treats the government of the country as if it was a large corporation. He just does not care for the legal and democratic processes and cuts corners wherever he can.
He needs to be held to account in a major way.
It could be said he’s broken the law. Relevant section of the Gambling Act;
___________
11 No increase in casino gambling
A person must not increase the opportunities for casino gambling.
___________
12 What is increase in casino gambling
(2) An increase in the opportunities for casino gambling includes but is not limited to—
(a) an increase in the number of gaming machines unless the increase is accompanied by a reduction in the number of table games that the Casino Control Authority, or the Gambling Commission, believes is proportionate:
____________
Key might be PM but in this context I’d think he would legally still be a person. He’s certainly not above the law.
Parliament is sitting today at 2pm but DJ Johnny has something far more important to do than be held to account in a democratic institution.
Is it Thursday? he only does 2 days in the house.
It is almost an unwritten rule that PMs dont make themselves available for Thursday’s question time. Clark certainly didn’t. They use Thursdays to get out and about.
Doing super important stuff.
There’s usually more than half the seats empty whenever I watch parliament TV, so a lot of MPs must have other super important stuff.
It wouldn’t be hard to find more important stuff than a lot of the drivel that gets presented as ‘debate”.
This one last night was an awful example: http://inthehouse.co.nz/node/14243
Rock ‘n’ 🙄
felix .. you realize the acronym for ‘super important stuff’ is SIS ?? Thx for the smiles.
I am reminded once again of the Canadian comic visiting here a while ago — when told the name of our prime minister, he replied: ” John Key ? That what you ask for at a US gas station when you need to use the toilet !”
What a tragedy for us all.
“John Key ? That what you ask for at a US gas station when you need to use the toilet”
Bahahahaha!
You’re gunna love this felix!
Haha! That whole column is connected to our Johnny in so many little ways!
“drinking a little too much and taking valium”
That’s our boy, alright! But how did Ann Landers know?
Also known as, doing a runner…
That’s right HG. Neither the prime-minister nor the leader of the opposition are present in the House on Thursdays. Been that way for years.
But how many of them spend the time doing some DJ’ing on a trashy radio station programme?
HG
But Key, Shearer and Winston are all in Samoa.
No they aren’t.
Yeah but that’s a convention followed because it’s expected that PMs have lots of other important PM stuff to do.
Today Key is playing talkback host again. Which is so much more important than question time that he’s doing it at exactly the same time as question time.
Neat eh?
ps he had a day off yesterday too.
Oh hello Prime Minister. Raaleene here. Look I wondered what you use in your pool to keep it fresh? I’ve been trying that chlorine stuff and it turned us all green, our hair I mean because we are all blondes. Giggles.
Well Raaleene. I’m sorry that can’t help you with that. I’m so busy giving talkback shows, overseas visits and so on that I have no time available for it and so have a little man to do that.
In that case, why don’t the opposition MPs ring the talkback station and ask their questions of him there. That’d be funny. What to do? He couldn’t just hang up on David Shearer or Russell Norman or other senior pollies – could he?
Hey Anne That is creative thinking. Very creative thinking. Is there anyone alive in Labour who could do it? Probably Greens. Actual pollies trying to convey a question to the people-loving PM would soon get cut off, but get a cute Raaleene who would be a wolf in sheep’s clothing as in Trottter’s graphic, and some well put naive queries might knock the self-satisfied smile off the relaxed one.
“Is there anyone alive in Labour”
Well said, well said.
I’m in Labour, let me get some internal polling done on that question before I take a position to answer you with.
Over nine months in Labour and still nothing to show for it.Come on baby!
Anne that’s brilliant.
Hello Labour and the Greens, please do this kthnx
The “Key-Banks” Government. Heh, catching on.
Catching on like a terminal disease. I don’t recall any other government being referred to the Auditor General or taken to court on so many issues… Clearly National aren’t operating in the best interest of New Zealand.
Sadly, the other thing catching on is gubmint use in the House and elsewhere of ‘Planet Labour’ as a pejorative … used every day in the House to denigrate and deride Labour .. Crosby Trextor rides again. But surely Labour is smart enough to claim it back to use it to their own advantage ?? Only takes one or two to say for example: ” Here on Planet Labour we believe …… (choose your weapon) and it will diffuse National’s continuing use of it.
Get smarter Labour, PLEASE !!
Or here on “planet earth” unlike in National’s “fantasy world”.
David Clark labeled his speech yesterday “A visit from one of the aliens from Planet Labour” but didn’t actually talk about it.
Transcript: David Clark’s speech on the Estimates Debate – Vote Finance
+ 🙄 +
Hmmm… interesting. Rotting sleepers have probably caused derailments over the last year:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10824040
So it seems the wood in imported sleepers are the problem:
Huh? Doesn’t NZ have a forestry industry? Don’t we have plenty of woo? Why are we importing (rotting) sleepers?
Also, Kudos to Brendan Horan of NZF who has been asking questions about these rotting sleepers in the House the last couple of days. He has tried and failed to table photos of said rotting tracks, taken by Kiwirail workers:
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Business/QOA/2/8/a/50HansQ_20120801_00000001-1-KiwiRail-Turnaround-Plan.htm
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Business/QOA/1/7/c/50HansQ_20120731_00000009-9-KiwiRail-Minister-s-Statements.htm
Meanwhile RONS get more government attention than the efficiency and safety of our rail network.
Carol
I think we do have plenty of woo. Making love and not war has for a long time been a favourite pasttime.
Nice catch, prism 🙂
Thanks.
Well, plenty of wood for making love can also be handy.
there are pills for that
In short we are stuck with using imports because there’s nothing quite like Australian hard woods for their density, strength, durability and ease of machining and handling.
In efforts to replace imported eucalypts all manner of materials have been trialled and found to be unsuitable for use in both rail and the electrical transmission industry.
And there’s always been a risk of importing all sorts of nasties along with the timber.
Thanks. I don’t have knowledge of such things. Fair enough. Therefore it needs stronger scrutiny of the wood imported.
Bullying and the way that children are treated by authorities and schools is an example of how our society really is. It is not the good place that we want to believe, and we know that. But this guy has made a valuable doco and was talking to Kathryn Ryan this (Thursday) morning.
9-10am: Lee Hirsch, the director of an anti-bullying documentary
Film to see -International Film Festival screening Bully. in Auckland at Civic soon.
Excellent interview going on right now on Nine-to-Noon:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/20120802
10:05 Feature guest: Satyajit Das – derivatives expert and global risk analyst
He worked in the investment, derivatives banking
scaminstitutions, and came to be a big critic of the debt-based ponzi scheme.Hi Carol .. how do you do the line-through crossing-out please ??
using < etc insert text to strike through
Put strike in between each bracket.
Carol re finance interviewer Das
He talked about the big money profits from small snips from handling financial transactions.
Sounds just like the Tobin tax to me. What a wonderful way of spreading the government revenue task don’t you think. Magic even.
Ah, yes, prism. But Mr Das says there are no magic bullets. People in western economies need to accept a lowering of standard of living (I guess meaning those living comfortably), to focus on getting back to production of real stuff.
Interesting that he explained all this to Bill English a while back, and Blinglish responded by asking what can NZ do. Das’s response was to position NZ to deal with the coming changes.
Mr Das also says NZ is in a good position because of our direct access to food supply, and the innovative, productive ideas amongst kiwis.
Also an interesting comment about Das’s response to an NZ journalist who said Das didn’t know what he is talking about.
Carol at 11 2 1
I have to agree with that NZ journalist who was belittling Mr Das. But for another reason than that dope would have mentioned. My reason is that Mr Das doesn’t know he is talking to people who actually don’t receive his thoughts and process them. Das has been lulled into thinking that Blinglish was listening and was open to his ideas, and would be likely to action them. Major fail on Mr Das.
And as for innovative, productive ideas amongst kiwis. They are merely like rose petals that get strewn on the roads that leaders’ chariots drive on (Roads of National Significance for instance). A bloom, a colour, a faint scent, that hails the great and god-given task of limiting innovation, crushing or ignoring ideas also all attempts to move the country as a whole to a ready position where it can cope with change and thrive as well, and that’s all of us.
Sorry Mr Das but we are determined to become a banana republic when the climate gets warmer and growing conditions are suitable. That’s our big goal.
prism, as I recall, the journalist’s reasons for saying that Das was wrong about the ponzi, investment banking system, was reference to something like the US’s recent growth rate. Das’s response was that it was a false indication of what was really happening in the US economy So I think Das was closer to understanding the realities than the NZ journo.
I do agree that Das was a bit over-optimistic about NZ’s possibilities -probably being courteous to his hosts.
Das is probably right on the goal-seeked nature of US GDP (and in fact, most GDP figures in the world).
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/q2-gdp-beats-expectations-historical-gdp-data-revised
This how you cause an “increase in GDP”, United States style:
Let’s say Q2 GDP growth annualised is going to print at 1.6%. The problem is that earlier Q1 GDP growth was higher at 1.7% annualised. Well that clearly shows that Q2 GDP growth reduced from Q1.
NO PROBLEM!
One week before Q2 figures print you revise and update the Q1 figure from 1.7% to 1.3%.
So when Q2 prints officially at 1.6%, all the news outlets can claim “Q2 shows strong GDP growth quarter on quarter!”
Das has my agreement on the fact that what we have all been experiencing economically for the past 27 odd years just aint sustainable, that un-ustainability extends to both our use of resources and the levels of our personal incomes,
Obviously none of us are going to voluntarily take cuts to our income and my view is that it will take a further collapse within the global economy,(coming), which in effect will force the comfortable middle class to address such an issue,
Das has the view of the future where the economies of both the US and Europe will become more insular inward looking, and, although Das does not say so, i assume more protectionist, gosh you know where the New Zealand economy was befor Sir(spit)Roger Douglas took a very large wrecking ball to it,
So, back to the future we all go,blinkers on please as we glibly rewrite economic history forgetting the absolute misery inflicted upon large swathes of our society by Roger’s(spit) unfortunate experiment,
The consensus needed here,as in New Zealand, is the realization that there can be only X amount of employment in any future economy therefor there will always be that X of unemployment,
Das tho made the strange assertion that simply printing money will be no silver bullet for the hard economic times ahead,and, if He provided any reasoning to put flesh upon such an assertion i missed such perhaps because about here my mind had turned to matters more primitive like putting the bash on my radio for broadcasting the glib propaganda of a belated newcomer to some other economic orthodoxy after having served the masters so well in making the huge fucking mess of that economy on a global scale,
In the New Zealand economy there is definitely a case to be made for the printing of monies, befor that is one of the Davids decides to use the primitive tool of Legislative or Regulatory devaluation of the New Zealand dollar to put that dollar into a value best suited to New Zealand exporters and manufacturers,
Obviously,while a regulatory devaluation will make gains for the sectors already mentioned there is nothing except inflation gained by the rest of us by doing such,
IF, we are to have a lower expectation in the future of our personal economic gains then we have to accomplish a number of things the first being the provision of affordable accommodation for all and the State printing such monies necessary to construct the needed amounts of high density housing also accomplishes by an increase in the money supply a gradual dilution of the New Zealand dollar and thus a devaluation along with a gradual rate of inflation increase for imported products,(much of which as resources we should be using less of),
My point being that as we stumble into that increasingly economically fraught future where our personal expectations will have to be lowered then it is going to be increasingly the province of the State to ensure that we are all housed at affordable levels and as i outline above in achieving a lower valued New Zealand dollar there must also be gains for the average head who will be expected to face that increasingly fraught economic future…
This is a big question. In the past we have seen white collar workers sit back quite OK while their working class brethren were smashed and manufacturing jobs exported overseas. The benefits for the white collar workers – cheaper new cars, cheaper gadgets, a higher dollar for cheaper overseas holidays.
Now its their turn to be outsourced. In the NZ context however, we have seen the middle class and upper middle class sit back quietly as income inequality widens and as child poverty continues. Jenny may have a fit at me for targetting this socio-economic strata again but its a simple fact. Those on $100K plus, outside of very specific sectors, are far more likely to vote National than Labour.
His point will have been that money in the future will neither be a resource nor a store of value. The NZ situation is interesting in that we are physical resource rich and we have a lot of surplus labour. Therefore printing money will work for us as it will help us mobilise those economic resources.
Here I mildly disagree with you in that I do not believe the state will understand what it needs to do until very late in the piece. Individual families and extended families will act and adapt far more quickly.
As for the lowering of expectations: that is already happening quietly and subtly on a vast range of fronts, even for families with 2 parents working decent jobs. In Auckland for instance, large numbers of people have given up on the idea of owning their house, on the idea of moving out of their parents’ house, on the idea of being able to use their own car every day to get to and fro.
The nice thing is – we’re going to slowly discover once again that the most important things in life are free.
You are right of course i should have qualified that paragraph thus, ”it SHOULD be increasingly the province of the State to ensure that we are all housed at affordable levels,
Sadly i agree with you also on the initial response from the State being basically head in the sand until such time as they hear a large and loud political voice highlighting such problems,
Even the Minister of Guesstimates and Riffmatic, Bill English has been drawn so far as to admit that whats happening now is at the least multi-decadal, (possibly as a convenient cop-out to a piece of His other BS book balancing by 2015), and, my prognosis for the Global economy is far far gloomier than just a struggle for a decade or two…
(get the right comment link this time!)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10824053
>>Parata said the schools would be based on international best practise and would have high levels of accountability and flexibility.
international best practise and charter schools in the same breathe HA
Ipredict should set up a book on how long before a charter school fiddles its results.
And how many of them will fail financially,(in the middle of the school term),thus enabling the ‘owners’ of such schools to double dip into the education budget…
And leave the kids in limbo.
It still begs the question of why these same aims for a better education system involving consultation with parents and teachers can’t be achieved within the current state school system: i.e. without including an extra bunch of ticket clippers and consultants?
And this:
So the only real difference charter schools offer is the possibility of using untrained/unregistered teachers, and of avoiding dealing with the unions. How is this going to result in better education?
>All non-teaching and unregistered employees will undergo police vetting
So does that mean that there will be unregistered teachers?
Will ero have any role?
And carol you are right this looks a lot like our schools today.
Yes, as many of them as the school wants, which will be a disaster.
http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.co.nz/
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2011-06-23/news/mckay-scholarship-program-sparks-a-cottage-industry-of-fraud-and-chaos/
Sleepers have pretty much always been imported, mostly jarra from Oz. Our only suitable hardwoods are probably heart rimu. Hey, lets use that.
Fair enough, Adrian. I asked a question. You have an answer. I don’t know anything much about types of wood, their best uses and what we can grow here. I’ll leave that for others to discuss/inform me on.
The reason kiwi wood is soft is that the growing conditions are too good and the trees grow fast. The reason aussie woods are hard is that the growing conditions are crap and they grow slowly. The same trees grown in Aotearoa or Brazil do not produce hardwood. However, plantation planting of natives would be a much better bet in the long term than pinus radiata, which basically just kills everything else around it. Pinus radiata is good for a quick buck and often used to be grown in the central North Island by prison labour. If this was then exported, it was in violation of human rights agreements, but Fletchers was always more important than anything else in the country.
And the only reason Fletchers got their mitts on it was because we stupidly privatised those forests as they were about to make shitloads of money for the NZ public
That’s what I’ve been thinking for quite a few years now. Native wood is of a much better quality than radiata pine and so the extra growing time is worth it but no commercial entity would ever plant it as they need to see profits in the short term (I’ve even heard that radiata plantations have dropped back from 30 years of growing to 18 so even that low quality is decreased). The only entity with the longevity to do such planting of natives would be the government.
And just as that high quality native wood comes on stream, the Tories will sell it to Fletchers and Carter Holt.
Unless we put in decent protections for state assets that holds such sales as treason with a minimum 20 years in max security jail. If we did that then even the Tories may twig that we don’t want them to sell our stuff.
Murray Olsen 13 1 1
I’m amazed that Landcorp didn’t put native trees in their plantation down south. Instead they have put in pines which they say won’t spread because they are following these good practices – recites five different things they have to do to keep wilding pines under control. There is a sad and stern comment from the Foresters Ferret down there about how a Lord of the Realm shouldn’t be encouraging people who are talking about destroying property. This about the threat that their plantation pines will be pulled out by affronted members of the public because they have been planted in close proximity to native plants from a massive effort by the public, now under threat of infestation by Landcorp’s project. Which they assure us will never happen, never, never for the full twenty-forty years before the pines mature. This is all from a Radionz interview from a few days back, possibly in early or midday rural slot.
Surely you know that Rimu is a softwood.
About the only fairly common, and reasonably durable, native hardwoods I am aware of are the Tawhai family of native beechs. These would be the Red, Hard, Black and Mountain beechs. The Silver beech is not as durable.
Sigh. I miss the availability of Rimu though. About 30 years ago I built a lot of shelving in my then house. I had the choice of pine or Rimu. Rimu was at that time only about two thirds the cost of pine! It was a very hard choice to make.
Shows us all just how f**king primitive and short-sighted our colonial for-fathers were and still are right,
The Rimu,Tawa,Kauri along with the rest of what are now extremely valuable species of trees valued all over the world are bowled over like nine pins, in a lot of cases the timber wasted in the headlong rush to clear land for pasture,
This didnt stop there either as the destruction continued to the tops of mountain ranges,although having viewed how the Tararua range was felled and milled i do have some grudging respect for those who’s labour accomplished what was in those days no easy task,
Instead of creating an industry around the growing of such valuable wood where plantations of the future could be planted and milled sustainably such forests were simply raped and left to their own devices,
Having watched the Tararua forest park re-generate itself over my life-time i cannot help the feeling whenever i am deep within Her heart that given another 30 years the same destruction will again be inflicted…
Puriri is also pretty hard (and fast growing in good conditions) as is Totara, and both timbers have been used historically in New Zealand for railway sleepers
As for beeches, it’s my experience that rot down pretty quickly in the bush, though red beech can last a while.
According to this report on Radio NZ National this morning on Morning Report, the problem is with hardwood sleepers that have been imported from Peru over the last decade, which are rotting from within from a fungal problem.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2526905/rotting-sleepers-could-have-compromised-safety.asx
So the rot started while Kiwirail was in private ownership?
But who was responsible for, or owned the rails/tracks?
The Government took ownership of ONTRACK, the actual lines on July 1 2004, so it has owned them for just on 8 years.
Could have been either the Public or private owners who bought the ones having problems.
Don’t we grow plantation Australian hardwoods? Also I recall an item a while back about a NZ company making recycled concrete railway sleepers which KiwiRail was going to try out. Wonder what happened to that? And finally, surely there is (yet another) bio-security issue around the fungus that’s rotting the sleepers?
the Aussie hard woods we grow are to immature to be stable they need to grow for 800years or so
The Western Line in Auckland has concrete sleepers.
Am pretty sure the new double tracking on the Kapiti line also used concrete sleepers…
Totara might be OK but normally sleepers are Aussie hardwoods. Radiata treated with creosote has been used extensively as have reinforced concrete. Overseas concrete is the go……
Clearly, the Peruvian “hardwood” was cheap, but probably only cheap for a reason………..
cheap like the new trains
Scott GN 13 4
Good point. I haven’t heard that mentioned yet. And who is watching how Kiwi Rail handles the already estimated 7,000 sleepers from site to destruction under controlled fire. Got to be. Which wimpy state or privatised agency will be in charge of the party. And then who pays for the carbon released. Oh woe is us, will our decision makers ever be paid according to results with a ten year continuance of responsibility after end of contract? Maybe that will make them think, plus also a tattoo that goes on their foreheads in indelible ink – Shammer, scammer or something of that nature.
Here’s a very interesting story on stuff:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/7398670/Tax-likely-on-lease-sweetener
Except introducing something sensible like a CGT/land tax, or rolling back the personal tax cuts. They could even bring back gift duty, or a more modern form of it.
Conspiracy of silence: The irresponsible politics of climate change.
The consequence of this inattention is an irreversible commitment to dangerous climate change. Twenty years ago, the United States signed, and the Senate ratified, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The objective of this treaty was to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” which was defined in the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 as limiting the overall temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. There are three reasons why that goal is now unobtainable. First, even if greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere could be held steady at 2005 levels, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have calculated that global temperature would rise by 2.4 degrees Celsius if not for the air pollution that is masking the warming by blocking some of the sun’s rays. Second, as a 2011 paper by British climate researchers explains, emissions reductions that are constrained to levels thought to be compatible with economic growth are not sufficient to stay below 2 degrees Celsius. Only a period of planned austerity and an intensive effort to build a carbon-free energy system could now achieve the goal of avoiding dangerous climate change. Finally, the International Energy Agency has estimated that the carbon-emitting energy infrastructure that will push global temperature rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius is already 80 percent complete, and will be fully installed by 2017. This will lock in future emissions unless capital equipment is retired earlier than anticipated. The best we can now hope for is to avoid catastrophic global warming in excess of 4 degrees Celsius, which will require an aggressive response by governments around the world.
Family Fist get a serve from US rockers Train. The band’s song ‘Marry Me’ was used without authorisation on a gay hate site called ‘protectmarrige.org’.
Train say:
“We take the idea of marriage very seriously and believe it is the right of all consenting adults, regardless of sexual orientation.
Marry Me is about just that, finding that special love and making it last forever. Everyone should be allowed to have that.”
WTF is that article in the entertainment section? It should be in the politics and/or crime sections.
Because they are giving us circuses instead of bread?
Because that anti-gay marriage website is a joke?
McDonald’s other crimes have been released to the public though they weren’t before as they may have influenced the decision on murder.
Surely that is the whole point, seeing the behaviour in a series rather than presenting him as a man who had done some mistaken acts against his family. Setting neighbour’s shed on fire, killing a lot of calves etc etc.
This man’s background means that he was presented to the jury in a false way. Crime scenes aren’t cleaned up before examination by authorities, so why should defendants be presented relatively clean. It has allowed a likely wrongful judgment by the jury.
Not sure I agree prism. Juries are meant to be given evidence that is relevant to the case, and these other crimes, committed two and three years earlier than the murder, may not have been seen as relevant. The deer shooting incident showed that MacDonald was capable of shooting accurately at night, and the other two were against the Guys themselves. These crimes by themselves showed him as a man capable of vengeful destruction. A litany of such crimes, including those without a direct link to the case, may have prejudiced the jury by shifting the focus to MacDonald’s character, rather than the question as to whether he did or did not kill Scott Guy.
The character of the person on trial is relevant to the case.
EDIT: But possibly only as an adjunct to sentencing.
Character is however, but one factor to take into account. People are not convicted or acquitted of being bad arses, they are convicted of crimes. And the stuff that was put before the jury was sufficient to show what he was capable of doing.
Yep.
If he did do it, then telling the jury about those unmentioned things might have led them to convict. But the point is that they would have also led them to convict if he didn’t do it.
For a minute there, I though you were talking about the Golden Arches!
National has now opened the doors to allow a chain of “Destiny” schools to infect our quality public education system. The very best way to ensure that we have the likes of creationism, anti gay propaganda and social intolerance is taught to our children by non qualified fanatics. The fact that this initiative is led by someone who has failed the very basics of political ethics is fitting.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/nz-charter-schools-defined.html
Dave Kennedy 18
Yes I fear that Destiny will be our destiny now we have had this piece of policy shit from the Density Party. All the oddballs can have a go, it’s based on USA ideas which have produced such a happy, healthy, flourishing society. Business can reach direct into the children’s minds instead of just dangling tv ads in front of them. There will be some successes with sports academies and whanau style learning units with te reo but Maori having successes will not be equalled by any success from pakeha, more than they would have at a state school.
Can Graham Capill become an owner? John Banks fancies himself as a role model for children. And all the warped authoritarian types can have a go. And they can be taught by someone of standing in the community. Rodney Hide, Roger Douglas, a woman who has blonde children and wants to teach the world to sing about Aryan traits (that’s one in the USA I think and I saw it on youtube) The Cooperites, the Potterites, where is the protection for the children from the brainwashed parents of cults. .
the national-banks party have now opened the door to the crummiest chapter in the life and times of new zealand.
they beleive their own thoughts to be facts and because they are idiots what they produce will match the inanity of their miniscule comprhension.
tick tock C.hook
+1
Not quite..
The ideas and policies come from offshore, and the government of the day simply attempt to pass what they are told to, while they have a majority.
Simply , the reason why we have such low quality politicians, is because it takes a low quality human being to willingly participate in betraying ones country, and peoples.
Idiots, possibly, traitors, certainly!
Judge disputes Collin’s claims about his computer and ACC emails:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10824103
So…. who is telling the truth?
Will Judith Collins now sue Mr Judge? Surely ‘He said Ms Collins “knew the truth” and was “just trying to blacken people”’ is as defamatory as anything that Mallard and Little said.
Ah, it seems we now have a back-down from the crushless one:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7401888/Former-ACC-chair-defends-action
But she did make a judgement on it last night:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10824103
But Judge called her on it and she had to withdraw…. no apology though.
With John Key playing talkback host today, Anne had the good idea earlier that opposition MPs should call in and hold him to account there instead of in the debating chamber.
Unfortunately the flaw in that plan is that DJ Johnny doesn’t take calls from the public. Imagine that. The PM hosts a talkback radio show and no-one is allowed to talk back. Says it all, innit.
This PMs idea of communicating with the citizenry is we listen to him talking to the famous and powerful. Sorry ordinary kiwis, you’re not good enough. Speak when you’re spoken to, peasant.
He is not one of us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6qwlEMjZGI
Slippery is a little ‘fragile’ at the moment, polling numbers being abysmal and being royally done by the Maori Council who can’t be bought with the crumbs off of His table has left Him more than a little vulnerable to the suggestion that He aint that special after all…
Just got the rates bills through from the Auckland council.
Apparently the rates rises have been capped at 10% vs 2011……. and surprise, surprise every one of my rates notices has gone up by 10% vs. the previous year.
Oh well, I suppose it’s good way to ensure a high turnout at the next Auckland council elections.
Who is your candidate, Doctor Dullard Don Brash,or, snigger, the master of snout’n’trough himself rorting Rodney Hide…
We had a plethora of drips to vote for at the council elections for many a year, the previous mayor for the Northshore was Andrew Williams….. as usual we go from one retard to another to another to another.
Despite which side of the political spectrum they come from they all have common traits of extreme autolatry, aeolism, and abliguration – and of course increasing the rates with gay abandon.
Aaah the poor old ‘ownership’ class, really my heart bleeds for you, should have stuck to the humble State rental at 25% of income buckwheat,
Nay, you all should be demanding such…
I see the smoking has been particularly good for your cognitive abilities.
Hmmm, you were of far more interest, (as a humorist), when you were whining over Len shaking you down for any available loose coin in the form of rates rises…
Oh, it won’t be me he’s shaking down, I’ll be passing the cost on.
Which makes you what, a ticket clipper whining about having your ticket clipped by a bigger one…
He aims, he shoots, he SCORES
No, it makes me a commenter on the lunacy of a rating system which sees increases being foisted on the public in the order of 10% per annum year on year.
Nah, they aren’t increases, they’re the decreases that National and ACT promised would come with the SuperCity.
There’s a job for you in the Treasury with that kind of logic.
You are just SO amusing, its a bit hard to eat my dinner with a gut that wants to break out in great gales of mad laughter,
(1) As CV said, You voted for it,
(2) Don’t pay it….
(1) No I didn’t.
(2) I’ll be passing the cost on.
Perhaps some antacid for the boborygmi ?
PS, just for your ongoing edification,education,and, enlightenment, its Abligurition not abliguration,
Samuel would be rolling in His tomb at such bastardry of His English…
How cute, you’ve spent an hour looking up words in the dictionary.
ps, I wonder if that was actually ever in Johnson’s dictionary ?
pps, Capitilasation, spacing etc. you must try harder !
According to some the word abligurition only ever occurred in Samuels effort of 1755, having not perused every English dictionary ever printed i cannot vouch for the veracity of such a claim,
PS, about 10 minutes worth of perusal educated me to your abysmal lack of spelling accuracy which marks your attempt to bamboozle an abject failure,
Take the D for you know what and sit in the relevant corner…
Please accept my most enthusiastic contrafibulations.
Or a high turnout at the General Election to turf out the losers who foisted this council clusterfuck upon you.
Just got the rates bills through from the Auckland council.
Left mine on the “to open file”. Should take a couple of days to psyche myself up enough to open them.
I suggest a stiff port and an open fire nearby.
Lobbying – Code of Conduct and Register of Lobbyists – the Australian experience.
http://lobbyists.pmc.gov.au/conduct_code.cfm
Lobbying Code of Conduct
Lobbying Code of Conduct – PDF 35KB
In 2008 the Australian Government introduced a Lobbying Code of Conduct and established a Register of Lobbyists.
The Code underpins the Register and sets out the requirements for contact between third-party lobbyists and Government representatives, indicates what will be publicly available on the Register and outlines the conditions for successful registration of lobbyists. It also defines lobbyists, clients, Government representatives and lobbying activities for the purposes of the Register.
Preamble
Application
Definitions
No contact between government representatives and unregistered lobbyists
Register of Lobbyists
Access to the register of lobbyists
Prohibition on Lobbying Activities
Principles of engagement with government representatives
Reporting of breaches of code
Registration
_____________________________________________________________________________
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
http://www.dodgyjohnhasgone.com
Another weak link welded back into the chain?, 3News having a little speculate over whether Slippery the Prime minister is about to re-instate old Lizard eyes, Nick’the meds’Smith into the role of Minister of Local Government,
Yeah bring the cretin back, if anything the damage done by the likes of Him and Banks will pull this abysmal Slippery National Government down all the faster…
Family First guide to disciplining your child
If Mum or Dad can’t find a baseball bat, Family First director Bob McCoskrie points out that a hairbrush is also effective….
I see this article has slipped out of sight on the Herald’s main page, but it’s worth taking note of:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10824146
Meanwhile Bill English is talking about performance pay for getting people off welfare:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/112240/msd%27s-baseline-funding-won%27t-be-cut-english
US Presidential finding from early 2012, CIA, Mossad, Turkish logistics elements, Qatarian financing, Saudi fighters, etc. all active in Syrian
Hey Jenny, you pro-war activist, how is the Syrian “popular uprising” going for you?
What do you think of the footage of pro-Assad soldiers being executed by the “Free Syrian Army”? Just a bit of collateral damage justified in the name of a good cause?
Do you agree with Israel trying to “Lebonize” Syria, making it a weak and divided state, just so Israel can target Iran more easily?