The emperors clothes may finally be seen by the bulk of the subjects of granny/ TVNZ for what they are….nothing. His vacuous demeanor is wearing thin and he doesn’t even bother to appear concerned about a global economy that has every other leader genuinely worried.
Time for the opposition to hit the trail hard, keep it simple and expose the shysters for plundering a zero nett debt position to give tax cuts to the already well off, reward their backers and generally degrade our standing on all the wrong indicators like child poverty, inequality, minimum wage buying power etc.
The only trick they’ve got is Asset sales …….imagine your power prices over the next 10yrs with the likes of Fay, Richwhite, Goldman Sachs etc behind the generators…..scary indeed.
Not to mention the privatization they’ve already undergone in ACC, health and other juicy govt funded sectors for their mates to plunder.
(That particular graphic has hadly changed in 3 months and the drought has affected Texas for nearly a year now). Similar things are happening all over the world. And Fukishima is still spewing radiation into the atmosphere and into the ocean.
Add to that the social meltdown and a health meltdown (cancer rates are rising spectacularly) throughout most of the western world)..
Clearly the vast majority of politiicans could not care less about any of it.
Either that or they are acting as agents to bring it all about. My experience of talking with politicians over many years indicates the latter.
It is long past time we threw out the dinosaurs and saboteurs, and put in the their place some people who have some knowledge of things other than how to operate rorts, long past time we put in place people who actually care about the people they are supposed to be representing and care about the future. Unfortunately, such people are probably unelectable because the general populace has been trained to believe in short- termism and trained to think that distractions, such as rugby, have some significance. The stupidity we have witnessed over recent weeks bears withness to that.
A friend of mine, now around 70 years old, told me yesterday that for the first time in his life he was seriously thinking about not voting because he now realised that voting made no difference.
Yes, systemic collapse is getting very close CV. And anyone who thinks the government or the local council will be of much (any?) assistance is utterly deluded.
We are in a really difficult position. Our advice in 2009 to focus on the threat of a Credit Rating downgrade to measure the success of the budget has come back to bite big time. It allowed National to get through tax cuts for the wealthy without any major damage.
But last week’s double downgrade poses major problems. Our carefully cultivated veneer of competent economic management is in tatters.
So we need to divert attention. Two Labour MPs said something not very nice about Peter Leitch and there were a few comments on the Standard what were not complimentary either. For the type of debates that occur on blogs they were not out of the ordinary but this presents us with a unique chance to try and divert attention.
So go for it. Talk about the two female MPs being “unleashed from their kennels” and be disparaging as you like. Don’t worry about the irony (look it up in the dictionary if you do not know what this means). Attack and be as pointed as you can be.
PS: And have a go at anyone who supports the two female MPs. Especaily if they’re also female. Be as venal as you can…paint them as silly bitches who don’t know nothing. It goes down well with Waitakere man.
Former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard once said “people who exercise free speech have an obligation to do so in a sensitive and caring fashion. That has always been my credo.”
But Howard also said: “It has also been my credo that, if someone disagrees with the prevailing orthodoxy of the day, that person should not be denigrated as a narrow-minded bigot.”
Perhaps what is missing though is what I first learnt in Territory politics and that is to play politics and business like you would a game of rugby: hard on the field, but to the rules, in the spirit of the game, with some simple courtesies before and after the game to demonstrate there is something bigger at stake.
That is the nature of a civil society; not the absence of conflict but the presence of civility, respect and the acceptance that there is a diversity of views out there.
BREAKING NEWS: Dan Carter is out of the World Cup.
The All Blacks first five-eighths has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament because of the groin injury he suffered at yesterday’s captains run and Colin Slade will now be expected to wear the No 10 jersey.
A challenge, like any greatv team if the ABs are good enough they will overcome this and still get a result. Tghey have to be good enough to do it without McCaw to if necessary.
Time for grumpy graham to roll that plan B he’s had 4 years to perfect…..great players though they are they’re not young and backing up after a tri nations series.
Just over a month ago, it was revealed that National was borrowing a whopping $380 million per week; but $100 million of that was not required. That amounts to around $5.2 billion in additional debt per year. When questioned about this, Bill English said it was a good time to borrow because interest rates were low, but it would put additional pressure on the exchange rate…
for massive tax cuts, and suddenly they get a downgrade.
They knew they were up for it, they pretty much insured
that it would happen.
So as Switzland finds that small country status ain’t
so good either, probably wishing it had a bunch of nasty
Nats running its economy (NOT, they ar emuch smarter),
that it has to peg its currency to the EU.
Small countries may be more stable in the crisis years
while the big blocks sort out the new more intergrated
world economic reality, but once we return to some
new normal small countries will be far worse off.
And their in lies the danger, as we enter the second
phase, those smart money will withdraw their cash from
Nz (its already started), farmers in Nz will be hit hard
by a stalled China, higher energy costs, low
commodity prices and still high currency as we still
all need new TVs.
So the stresses on European countries are actually
adaptive pressures that NZ is missing out on!
Because of the great short term management of National
to avoid the problem, and leave it for the future.
A shakeout of old tired thinkers, they sack their
Douglas’s far quicker, Thatcher only lasted a little
over a decade in the front shop! We have a Hubbard
like fashionation will keeping success long after its
use by date. aka Paul Holmes. Its hurts the economy
because they had their day, decades ago.
So here you have it, summation of the NZ economy.
Hollowed out by poor managers who won’t leave the
front desk when they make a killing so others
can, exposing NZ to exploitation and downgrades
for short term political and finance benefit (that
only pay out if they leave to retire in Hawaii!).
we are moving into a low growth world economy,
one where you either feed, house, doctor, your
population or they get very uncivil. Only then
can you pass the spoils on to your mates.
Remember don’t vote for a party that doesn’t
believe in government, doesn’t like the voting
system, and so spends its time in opposition
worried about lightbulbs rather than doing the
best with the system that’s there for all NZ.
ACC cannot be privatised as no Insurance Company in New Zealand is in any position, with the Christchurch situation, to re-open ACC with a new book of business.
Considering Billionaire George Soros owns Yahoo.com, is it any wonder that their search engines have been actively blocking communications containing the phrase Occupy Wall Street and OccupyWallStreet.org? Although Yahoo has been caught and apologized for blocking emails that contained content about the protests, doesn’t this show the underhanded way those controlling our media act?
It’s unsurprising that the capitalists don’t want the people to know what’s happening in the world. If they knew, they’d probably do something about the people (the capitalists) causing the poverty and that wouldn’t suit the psychopaths at all.
Although Yahoo has been caught and apologized for blocking emails that contained content about the protests, doesn’t this show the underhanded way those controlling our media act?
Oh good grief! I knew there were good reasons to ditch my Yahoo email, aside from the huge amount of spam and the fact that it doesn’t work very well..
If the media are stupid enough to pay interesting amounts of money for a story, then I back him 100% for selling said story. He doesn’t owe the public anything.
A sketch I would like to see……(a rewrite of Monty Python sketch)
Part V: Live Organ Transplants…
two paramedics (Chapman and Cleese) arrive at the doorstep of a card-carrying organ donor, Mr. John Key, to claim his kidney. Still being alive, he initially refuses. Not to be deterred, the paramedics burst through the door and brutally disembowel him, removing the organ “under condition of death”.
Was that the John Howard, notorious liar, who told the Australian nation that boat people threw their children to the sharks? the same John Howard who lied to the Australian people about Iraq so he could get troops involved? the same John Howard who lied to the people of Australia about the economy and told them the way to prosperity was to increase their debt level and spend their money on imported consumer goods? the same John Howard who refused to apologise to indigenous people for the injustices and abuses perpetrated against them by previous generations of psychotic spociopaths?
aerobubble
‘we are moving into a low growth world economy,
one where you either feed, house, doctor, your
population or they get very uncivil. Only then
can you pass the spoils on to your mates.’
We are in a negative growth world economy, due to the contraints of Peak Oil (peak practically everything actually).
Practially everyone’s standard of living is falling. The elites mission is to transfer an ever-bigger portion of the diminishing cake to themselves, at the expense of everyone, intially throiugh the use of lies, but when they start wearing thin, via the use of ‘security forces’ (as per 1984).
DTB
Exactly! 70% of NZers couldn’t care less about rugby, and of that 70%, about 30% loathe internationalised rugby and everythng it stands for -corporate bullshit wrapped in a platina of patriotism, money making by the few at the expense of the many, environmental and social degradation….. whorehouses and beer halls, smashed up hotel rooms and vomit.
thejackel
The [quoted] 400 people who control 99% of commercial activity in the western world will do whatever it takes to prevent the hundreds of millions of victims of the their scams from discovering the truth and throwing off the chains.
I’m sure that censorship is just the opening round of the ultimate war that has been in the making since the time humans gave up the hunter-gatehrer lifestyle and submitted themselves to agriculture and all it spawned, i.e. hierarchical societies in which the fruits of the labours of those at the bottom are transferred to those at the top.
“The [quoted] 400 people who control 99% of commercial activity in the western world will do whatever it takes to prevent the hundreds of millions of victims of the their scams from discovering the truth and throwing off the chains. ”
Another case of Russel Norman being out of touch with reality http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1110/S00006/govt-bungling-adds-cost-of-earthquake-levy-to-mortgages.htm
So if we introduced a levy there would have been no down grade?
With a levy kiwis would be facing interest increases AND this levy cost. Russel how does a household pay for this? There are not many households with surplus atthe moment, and with costs increasing all the time – just wait for the depreciating NZ$ to start taking hold.
A levy of 1.5 percent on income between $48,001-$70,000 and a 3 percent levy on income above $70,000, with no change needed to the corporate tax rate of 30 percent, would raise $1.026b a year, according to Green Party estimates. People earning $50,000 a year would pay an extra 58c a week, and those on $70,000 a year would pay an extra $6.33 a week. People on $100,000 would pay an extra $23.59 a week.
With a levy kiwis would be facing interest increases AND this levy cost. Russel how does a household pay for this? There are not many households with surplus atthe moment, and with costs increasing all the time – just wait for the depreciating NZ$ to start taking hold.
I know households who have bought tickets to every All Blacks game they think will happen right up to and including the final.
How the fuck did they afford that herod?
This reminds me of a lesson from budgeting 101. Its about your priorities.
How important is it that we help those New Zealanders (and those parts of New Zealand) who are most in need? We can assign the problem a high priority and deal with it as such, or put it in line behind a bunch of other shit.
Where economics is concerned, the Greens are generally never in touch with reality – it’s a nice luxury they have.
So if we introduced a levy there would have been no down grade?
No one knows. The agencies certainly didn’t say this, though Russel claims that’s what they meant. But the fact is no one knows.
However in fairness to Russel, he may be right, and therefore his assertion isn’t one iota as silly as Phil Goff’s claims that the downgrade somehow justifies Labour’s loophole-laden Capital Gains Tax.
(usual disclaimer: good on Labour for broaching the CGT rampart, support broad-based CGT in principle, brave move but poor execution, etc)
Where economics is concerned, the Greens are generally never in touch with reality…
They’re more connected to reality than pretty much any other party. Act is, of course, completely disconnected from reality and so is National. Unfortunately, so are the economists that advise the government.
How do the Road traffic department get controlling event and holiday traffic wrong?
Drove to Hamilton this afternoon. At 4 pm there was a major problem
of congestion north of Huntly – major traffic delays. Newstalkzb had
given an indication that traffic around Hamilton was building for RWC at 3 pm.
400 m, on a bend, sits a patrol car with lights flashing. Another one 200 metres with lights flashing. Neither indicating that as the expressway is finishing that the traffic is at a standstill or crawling.
It seems to be obvious that, if you have heavy traffic using two lanes, when those lanes merge, there is twice the amount of traffic to get into one lane. The traffic department must have known that this was likely to happen. What about a mobile trailer giving a warning to traffic on the Bombays that they were going to reduce the Expressway to single traffic at say Rangiri – coning one lane off and reducing traffic speed to say 70 KMH.
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The green light for New Zealand’s first COVID-19 vaccine could be granted in just over a week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. “We’re making swift progress towards vaccinating New Zealanders against the virus, but we’re also absolutely committed to ensuring the vaccines are safe and effective,” Jacinda Ardern said. ...
The Minister for ACC is pleased to announce the appointment of three new members to join the Board of ACC on 1 February 2021. “All three bring diverse skills and experience to provide strong governance oversight to lead the direction of ACC” said Hon Carmel Sepuloni. Bella Takiari-Brame from Hamilton ...
The Government is investing $9 million to upgrade a significant community facility in Invercargill, creating economic stimulus and jobs, Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene have announced. The grant for Waihōpai Rūnaka Inc to make improvements to Murihiku Marae comes from the $3 billion set ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
Cycling advocates are calling for the transformation of urban transport, as New Zealand races to cut carbon. The Climate Change Commission will release its initial advice on Sunday 31 January. “Bikes and e-bikes are perfect for many local trips, ...
Three Ministers, led by the PM, joined in chorus today to warble about a bunch of measures aimed at helping to meet New Zealand’s 2050 carbon neutral target, create new jobs and boost innovation. Mind you, the measures mentioned seem to be more matters of decisions yet to be made ...
Michelle Kidd defines her role at Auckland’s specialist family violence court as te kaiwhakatere – the navigator. It’s a one-of-a-kind job, helping guide defendants through the court system. And there’s no one better suited to it than Whaea Michelle.First published November 24, 2020.Whaea Michelle is part of Frame, a series of short ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sallie Yea, Associate professor & Principal Research Fellow, La Trobe University Each year, thousands of men and boys labour under extremely exploitative conditions on commercial fishing vessels owned by Taiwanese, Chinese and South Korean companies. The Taiwanese fleet, which operates in all ...
Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis believes the Crown should maintain responsibility for the care and protection of at-risk and vulnerable children, regardless of their race. Moreover, he is confident his all-Maori team of advisers will not be taking race into account as they help to improve Oranga Tamariki’s care and protection of ...
It’s easy to sacrifice John Banks. It’s a lot harder for brands, sports organisations and government to truly stop funding racism. Are they willing to try?Yesterday John Banks, the former Auckland mayor and MP, became subject to one of the fastest firings in media history when audio covering his approving ...
A community is outraged after Auckland Council granted consent for a row of trees planted by local kids to be removed along a revitalised waterway in South Auckland, reports Justin Latif. An Auckland Council decision to give contractors the all-clear to chop down 12 mānuka and kānuka trees shading Māngere’s Tararata ...
Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu hopes that the recent changes to Oranga Tamariki leadership present an opportunity for a long overdue paradigm shift that will place whānau at the heart of the child welfare sector. Pouārahi Helen Leahy says that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rice, Professor of Management, University of New England Elon Musk is now the world’s richest person, edging out previous title holder Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. His rocketing fortune is due to the booming share price of Tesla, the maker of electric vehicles ...
There are now three returnees who contracted the virus in the Auckland isolation facility then left into the community while positive. These are some of the questions that need to be resolved. At 10.20pm last night the Ministry of Health confirmed that the two cases they’d been treating as probable ...
Having a hard time remembering to scan in on the NZ Covid Tracer app when you’re out and about? Get this song stuck in your head and you’ll never forget again.Learn the lyrics:Aotearoa, it’s time to get scanning!I mean if you think about it, it never really wasn’t time we ...
We conclude our week-long examination of New Zealand writer Roderick Finlayson with a review of his stories by John Newton Roger Hickin’s Cold Hub Press is one of the small miracles of contemporary New Zealand publishing. Over the last decade, on what can only be a shoe-string budget, the ...
Thursday 28th January, AUCKLAND: Drive Electric, the not-for-profit with one mission – making electric vehicle uptake in New Zealand mainstream, welcomes the announcement by the Government today as a sign of what’s to come through 2021, and we are confident ...
The Government announced today key policy decisions on the proposed clean car policies. The MIA has stated on many occasions that we support well thought out and constructive policies that will lead to an increased rate in the reduction of CO2 emissions from ...
Get wild, get cultured, get fed and then get to bed: the essential guide to a perfect few days in the southern city. There’s one thing that preoccupies the staff of The Spinoff almost as much as arranging popular food items into arbitrary lists, and that’s Dunedin. A quite remarkable ...
John Banks’ racist exchange with a Magic Talk listener on Tuesday was the latest in nearly 50 years of talkback controversies. Donna Chisholm has the receipts.John Banks axed over Māori ‘stone age culture’ comments on Magic Talk1972: On Radio I, sports talkback host Tim Bickerstaff launches a “Punch a Pom ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission.Two new community Covid-19 cases have been identified as the more infectious South African variant, but Auckland Mayor Phil Goff sayit would be "premature to go into lockdown now". The two new cases of Covid-19 identified in the ...
Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine in Southland to Fonterra’s ...
KiwiRail STOP Hauling COAL Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Dunn, Associate professor, University of Sydney The government is rolling out a new public information campaign this week to reassure the public about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, which one expert has said “couldn’t be more crucial” to people actually getting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Therese O’Sullivan, Associate Professor, Edith Cowan University The COVID vaccine rollout has placed the issue of vaccination firmly in the spotlight. A successful rollout will depend on a variety of factors, one of which is vaccine acceptance. One potential hurdle to vaccine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernard Walker, Associate Professor in Organisations and Leadership, University of Canterbury Kiwis know what it’s like when life throws curveballs. We’ve had major quakes, floods, fires, an eruption, a terrorist attack and now a pandemic. In those situations, it’s the ability to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Irwin, Emeritus professor, Murdoch University While we continue to be occupied with the COVID pandemic, another life-threatening disease has emerged in northern Australia, one that’s cause for considerable alarm for the millions of dog owners around the country. This disease — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cath Ferguson, Academic, Edith Cowan University Almost half of Australian adults struggle with reading. Similar levels of struggling readers are reported in the United Kingdom and United States. This does not mean all struggling readers are illiterate. It means they often struggle ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abbas Shieh, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Design, Islamic Azad University The industrial revolution transformed cities, resulting in places of residence and work becoming more distant than ever before. This spatial segregation is still largely embedded in the design of our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Review: Occupation: Rainfall, written and directed by Luke Sparke Historically, when a sequel to a film was greenlit, you could rest assured this was because the first film made a ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 28, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Tourism suffers in the shadow of Covid-19, two new positive cases in Auckland confirmed, and National will contest the Māori electorates.The front page of the January 4 Greymouth Star carried grim tidings for several of the glacier towns on the ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Two people who left managed isolation on January 15 have been confirmed as positive Covid-19 cases, with the Ministry of Health urging anyone who visited the same locations during the same time period as the infected pair in Auckland to ...
The watchlist of 'offensive or unreasonable' babies' names is to be reviewed, to include more names from other languages. Generations of the Īhaka family have played a meaningful role in bringing Te Reo and stories of Māori to our wider community. Archdeacon Sir Kīngi Matutaera Īhaka (Te Aupōuri, 1921-93) was known as the orator of ...
After Morocco’s flagrant violation of the terms of the ceasefire in Western Sahara on Friday 13 November 2020 war broke out between the two sides. In the midst of this war Tauranga based Ballance Agri-Nutrients has decided to carry on importing phosphate ...
Nicholas Agar suggests that our handling of the pandemic could be partly down to our distinctive Treaty of Waitangi relationship, and Māori ideas that enabled us to make it through without tens of thousands of deaths A mission for universities in the coming decade will be a deep understanding of the meaning ...
A young girl who once sent $5 to an embattled America's Cup team is now among the women on the water helping run the contest for the Auld Mug. As an eager and generous nine-year-old, Melanie Roberts posted a letter, with a $5 note, to OneAustralia’s America’s Cup team. It was 1995, ...
At 5am today, cock’s crow, the embargo lifted on the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlist. Here are the books in the race, followed by thoughts from poetry editor Chris Tse and books editor Catherine Woulfe. A shortlist of four books in each category will be announced March 3, with ...
Ignoring those QR codes when you drop into the supermarket? Can’t be bothered when you grab a coffee? The people serving you notice, and you’re freaking them out.So far, New Zealanders’ use of the Covid-19 Tracer app has been notably woeful. Food industry workers who’ve watched streams of customers walk ...
Steve Braunias reveals the longlist of the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards Apart from one or two unfortunate omissions which cast doubt on the sanity and intellectual acumen of judges, especially the nobodies who judged this year's non-fiction, the longlist for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards is ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea’s biggest hospital is straining to provide medical services to the growing population of the capital Port Moresby – with an estimated growth rate of 3 percent annually, a medical executive says. Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Nationals who attend Thursday’s memorial service in Tweed Heads for Doug Anthony, who died last month aged 90, may muse on the contrast between the state of their party when he led it and now. ...
Returning to quarantine-free travel in 2021 doesn't just need a vaccine, but a way to check whether arriving passengers are actually immune to the virus. A smart Kiwi science start-up is working with a global biometrics giant to make that happen. A deal signed between Kiwi research and development company Orbis Diagnostics, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlyn Forster, PhD Candidate, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney This summer’s wetter conditions have created great conditions for flowering plants. Flowers provide sweet nectar and protein-rich pollen, attracting many insects, including bees. Commercial honey bees are also thriving: ...
Lotto scratchie tickets featuring the pop band Six60 are being withdrawn after a public backlash. In a statement, Lotto NZ said there had been a mutual decision made with the band to remove the tickets from sale following the negative feedback, and it offered an apology. The band faced criticism, both ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Shell-crushing predation was already in full swing half a billion years ago, as our new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals. A hyena devouring ...
Vodafone has suspended advertising on the radio station amid calls for talkback host John Banks to be taken off air after yet another racist outburst. Alex Braae reports. In an alarming segment of talkback radio, former Auckland mayor John Banks endorsed the views of a caller who described Māori as a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Welch, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland When a COVID-19 case was found in Northland last Sunday, Aotearoa’s second-longest period with no detected community case came to an end. ESR scientists worked late into Sunday night to obtain a whole genome sequence ...
He has the perfect moustache, an exceptional mullet, and he uses terms like ‘face hole’ on national TV. Who or what is Dr Joel Rindelaub?I was drawn in by the moustache, but it was the mullet that really kept me there. Watching TVNZ’s Breakfast yesterday morning I was fixated. Often, ...
We’ll never be royals with nearly a quarter of declined baby names featuring “Royal” in some form or another. Te Tari Taiwhenua Department of Internal Affairs has released the list of names declined in 2020 by the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and ...
After a raft of inquiries delving into and recommending what should be done about the politically beleaguered Orangi Tamaraki, along with the briefing papers we suppose he has been given, we imagined Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis would have no more need for expert advice. Wrong. He has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University There’s a common assumption men take longer than women to poo. People say so on Twitter, in memes, and elsewhereonline. But is that right? What could explain it? And if ...
Just as sexuality is a spectrum, so too is asexuality. In Ace of Hearts, members of New Zealand’s asexual community talk about the challenges and misconceptions of identifying as ace.First published November 17, 2020.Ace of Hearts is part of Frame, a series of short documentaries produced by Wrestler for The Spinoff.“A ...
Sam Brooks wasn’t allowed to watch kids TV as a kid. Now, as a 30 year old man, he watches it for the first time.My mother’s approach to parenting was unorthodox. I wrote weekly book reports on top of my actual homework, I did maths equations in Roman numerals and ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk More leading Indonesian figures have made racial slurs against Natalius Pigai, former chair of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) – and all West Papuans, says United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda. “Since the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1963, Indonesian ...
“The Government’s failure to even conduct a standard cost-benefit analysis for the most expensive infrastructure project in New Zealand’s history is mind-bogglingly arrogant,” says New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke. “A ...
The Ministry of Health is today drawing backlash from the local New Zealand vaping industry following its release of proposed regulations for the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act. Vaping Trade Association New Zealand (VTANZ) President, ...
Sophie Gilmour and Simon Day are joined by special guest Hugo Baird, co-owner of Grey Lynn’s Honey Bones and Lilian, to talk about opening new pub Hotel Ponsonby.Auckland is a city of many bars but few really good pubs – the kind of places you’d be just as comfortable going ...
The appointment of an advisory board for Oranga Tamariki is welcome and should be a step toward a total transformation of the care and protection system to a by Māori, for Māori approach, Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft said today. Minister ...
Taking control of your financial wellbeing can have cascading positive impacts for your life and it can also be fun. With the help of the team at Kiwi Wealth, we’ve compiled some simple tricks for balancing your books in 2021. There’s something about the beginning of a new year, especially after ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of Technology As we know, getting into New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. There are practicalities, such as high airfare and managed isolation costs. And there are legal requirements, including pre-flight testing, mandatory ...
New Zealand faces the risk of a generation being locked out of the housing market unless land is freed up and more houses built, National Party leader Judith Collins says. ...
On Sunday, Stuff published a months-long investigation by Alison Mau detailing allegations of harassment and exploitation within the local music industry.The piece, ‘Music industry professionals demand change after speaking out about its dark side’, includes allegations of inappropriate behaviour and abuse of power by male artists, international acts and executives; ...
“The Government is all at sea on timelines for Australia and New Zealand’s respective vaccine roll-outs, with the worst news coming from the mouth of Pfizer Australia CEO Anne Harris,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “Yesterday, under increasing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised the US would demonstrate “global leadership on refugees”. Once elected, he pledged to vastly increase refugee resettlement in the US. If history is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Baumann, Casual Academic, School of Social Sciences & Psychology, Western Sydney University Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Lanicek, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History and Jewish History, UNSW On January 27 communities worldwide commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz — the largest complex of concentration camps and extermination centres during the Holocaust. This is the first year the International ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lorinda Cramer, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Australian Catholic University The summer break is over, marking a return to the office. For some, this ends almost a year of working from home in lockdown. Some analysts are predicting it might also mark an enduring ...
The emperors clothes may finally be seen by the bulk of the subjects of granny/ TVNZ for what they are….nothing. His vacuous demeanor is wearing thin and he doesn’t even bother to appear concerned about a global economy that has every other leader genuinely worried.
Time for the opposition to hit the trail hard, keep it simple and expose the shysters for plundering a zero nett debt position to give tax cuts to the already well off, reward their backers and generally degrade our standing on all the wrong indicators like child poverty, inequality, minimum wage buying power etc.
The only trick they’ve got is Asset sales …….imagine your power prices over the next 10yrs with the likes of Fay, Richwhite, Goldman Sachs etc behind the generators…..scary indeed.
Not to mention the privatization they’ve already undergone in ACC, health and other juicy govt funded sectors for their mates to plunder.
Must watch: MELTDOWN part 2 – an Al Jazeera special – “A Global Financial Tsunami”
American government and business leaders incompetently contrive to fuck the American people.
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/meltdown/2011/09/201191713542357406.html
It’s not just a financial meltdown, of course. There is an ongoing environmental meltdown. For example.
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
(That particular graphic has hadly changed in 3 months and the drought has affected Texas for nearly a year now). Similar things are happening all over the world. And Fukishima is still spewing radiation into the atmosphere and into the ocean.
Add to that the social meltdown and a health meltdown (cancer rates are rising spectacularly) throughout most of the western world)..
Clearly the vast majority of politiicans could not care less about any of it.
Either that or they are acting as agents to bring it all about. My experience of talking with politicians over many years indicates the latter.
It is long past time we threw out the dinosaurs and saboteurs, and put in the their place some people who have some knowledge of things other than how to operate rorts, long past time we put in place people who actually care about the people they are supposed to be representing and care about the future. Unfortunately, such people are probably unelectable because the general populace has been trained to believe in short- termism and trained to think that distractions, such as rugby, have some significance. The stupidity we have witnessed over recent weeks bears withness to that.
A friend of mine, now around 70 years old, told me yesterday that for the first time in his life he was seriously thinking about not voting because he now realised that voting made no difference.
Yes, systemic collapse is getting very close CV. And anyone who thinks the government or the local council will be of much (any?) assistance is utterly deluded.
Memo to all RWNJs
From Crosby Textor NZ
We are in a really difficult position. Our advice in 2009 to focus on the threat of a Credit Rating downgrade to measure the success of the budget has come back to bite big time. It allowed National to get through tax cuts for the wealthy without any major damage.
But last week’s double downgrade poses major problems. Our carefully cultivated veneer of competent economic management is in tatters.
So we need to divert attention. Two Labour MPs said something not very nice about Peter Leitch and there were a few comments on the Standard what were not complimentary either. For the type of debates that occur on blogs they were not out of the ordinary but this presents us with a unique chance to try and divert attention.
So go for it. Talk about the two female MPs being “unleashed from their kennels” and be disparaging as you like. Don’t worry about the irony (look it up in the dictionary if you do not know what this means). Attack and be as pointed as you can be.
Message ends.
PS: And have a go at anyone who supports the two female MPs. Especaily if they’re also female. Be as venal as you can…paint them as silly bitches who don’t know nothing. It goes down well with Waitakere man.
and, if you can, throw in some homophobia that seems to go down well with many right wing males….
Memo to all LWNJs
From Mark Textor
Former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard once said “people who exercise free speech have an obligation to do so in a sensitive and caring fashion. That has always been my credo.”
But Howard also said: “It has also been my credo that, if someone disagrees with the prevailing orthodoxy of the day, that person should not be denigrated as a narrow-minded bigot.”
Perhaps what is missing though is what I first learnt in Territory politics and that is to play politics and business like you would a game of rugby: hard on the field, but to the rules, in the spirit of the game, with some simple courtesies before and after the game to demonstrate there is something bigger at stake.
That is the nature of a civil society; not the absence of conflict but the presence of civility, respect and the acceptance that there is a diversity of views out there.
Message ends.
The words sound good.
Until you remember that his job is to lie and bullshit us into voting for, outwardly impressive, thieves.
The biggest crooks wear suits and ties, and open doors for Ladies.
Google Psychopath again.
I used to think you were a smart man putting on a dumb internet persona, Joe Bloggs.
Really, I always thought he was an idiot putting on a dumb internet persona because he’s stupid.
The nature of a civil society is one where everybody cooperates rather than one where individuals compete in a war of all against all.
Joe Bloggs quoting john Howard as if he is a moral and noble person whose fine words actually represent his thinking? Mutual self-hypnosis I think.
It’s not on podcast yet, but Mediawatch on National Radio had some good items.
One about John Key’s Radio Live appearance which hit all the main points of criticism.
One about the media focus on certain political leaders but not on any policies.
One on media ownership.
If you missed it then the podcast will be worth a listen.
Up now:
[audio src="http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mwatch/mwatch-20111002-0905-mediawatch_for_2_october_2011-048.mp3" /]
John Key is obviously out of touch with the mainstream – 70% of kiwis were ignoring the rugby/league as they have no interest in it.
Good points on the rest as well especially the ownership of the MSM.
Exactly! 🙂
Thanks Felix – I knew I wasn’t going to get back on the net for most of the day so hoped someone else would provide the link.
Yup looking forward to Goff’s hour in the interests of fair play and balance…..yeah right !
Panic in National’s ranks.
Dan Carter has just been ruled out of the World cup with a torn tendon …
Wonder how Smile and Wave is feeling?
John Key is getting advice from the Mad Butcher… cheapest cuts ever.
He’s been on the phone to Ted telling him is is an all round sportsman (see his cricket performance anyone?) and also that he looks good in Jokey’s.
Hasn’t had time to make a video, too busy out on the piss in Sydney.
Man! I can’t wait for the Feelers to bang out ‘Right here right now’ as well. Awesome!
media works watch free fluff from celeb cat walk cat talk PM.Nzeds next top model.That only cost us taxpayers $ 43 million
BREAKING NEWS: Dan Carter is out of the World Cup.
The All Blacks first five-eighths has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament because of the groin injury he suffered at yesterday’s captains run and Colin Slade will now be expected to wear the No 10 jersey.
A challenge, like any greatv team if the ABs are good enough they will overcome this and still get a result. Tghey have to be good enough to do it without McCaw to if necessary.
Time for grumpy graham to roll that plan B he’s had 4 years to perfect…..great players though they are they’re not young and backing up after a tri nations series.
Injury prone colin slade
SHOTGUN WEDDING IN PALESTINE
Life goes on, even under brutal military occupation…
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/shotgun-wedding-in-palestine/
National’s Downgrade
Just over a month ago, it was revealed that National was borrowing a whopping $380 million per week; but $100 million of that was not required. That amounts to around $5.2 billion in additional debt per year. When questioned about this, Bill English said it was a good time to borrow because interest rates were low, but it would put additional pressure on the exchange rate…
Wonder what they’re using as collateral ?
Might not need to sell state assets if they get repoed by the international wunch of banksters.
We can only borrow and hope
The people and their ability to produce.
pollywog – neat description.
for massive tax cuts, and suddenly they get a downgrade.
They knew they were up for it, they pretty much insured
that it would happen.
So as Switzland finds that small country status ain’t
so good either, probably wishing it had a bunch of nasty
Nats running its economy (NOT, they ar emuch smarter),
that it has to peg its currency to the EU.
Small countries may be more stable in the crisis years
while the big blocks sort out the new more intergrated
world economic reality, but once we return to some
new normal small countries will be far worse off.
And their in lies the danger, as we enter the second
phase, those smart money will withdraw their cash from
Nz (its already started), farmers in Nz will be hit hard
by a stalled China, higher energy costs, low
commodity prices and still high currency as we still
all need new TVs.
So the stresses on European countries are actually
adaptive pressures that NZ is missing out on!
Because of the great short term management of National
to avoid the problem, and leave it for the future.
A shakeout of old tired thinkers, they sack their
Douglas’s far quicker, Thatcher only lasted a little
over a decade in the front shop! We have a Hubbard
like fashionation will keeping success long after its
use by date. aka Paul Holmes. Its hurts the economy
because they had their day, decades ago.
So here you have it, summation of the NZ economy.
Hollowed out by poor managers who won’t leave the
front desk when they make a killing so others
can, exposing NZ to exploitation and downgrades
for short term political and finance benefit (that
only pay out if they leave to retire in Hawaii!).
we are moving into a low growth world economy,
one where you either feed, house, doctor, your
population or they get very uncivil. Only then
can you pass the spoils on to your mates.
Remember don’t vote for a party that doesn’t
believe in government, doesn’t like the voting
system, and so spends its time in opposition
worried about lightbulbs rather than doing the
best with the system that’s there for all NZ.
Gareth Morgan and Sir Paul O’Callaghan highlighted a lack of balance and a loss of opportunities in our current economic management when interviewed on Q & A this morning.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.com/2011/10/national-measures-balance-with-faulty.html
Good report about growing Occupy Wall Street movement from Stuff (of all places)!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/5719337/Anti-Wall-St-protesters-block-Brooklyn-Bridge
Have a look at nytimes.com – quite a good detailed article there
Bomber has a bit of a go at the NZ Herald for their lack of reporting.
Apologies! That was Phoebe Fletcher who wrote New Zealand Herald: you are failing us. Not sure why I got that wrong!
Interestingly the New York Times article was changed soon after publication to be nicer on the cops.
Even the Herald managed to have a miniscule link on their front page http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10756045
It would have been a headline had there been 400 polices arrests in Kabul, Beijing or Cairo.
The land of the free? Yeah Right
ACC cannot be privatised as no Insurance Company in New Zealand is in any position, with the Christchurch situation, to re-open ACC with a new book of business.
That just leaves the overseas insurance companies and investment funds then
The Revolution will not be Televised
Considering Billionaire George Soros owns Yahoo.com, is it any wonder that their search engines have been actively blocking communications containing the phrase Occupy Wall Street and OccupyWallStreet.org? Although Yahoo has been caught and apologized for blocking emails that contained content about the protests, doesn’t this show the underhanded way those controlling our media act?
It’s unsurprising that the capitalists don’t want the people to know what’s happening in the world. If they knew, they’d probably do something about the people (the capitalists) causing the poverty and that wouldn’t suit the psychopaths at all.
Oh good grief! I knew there were good reasons to ditch my Yahoo email, aside from the huge amount of spam and the fact that it doesn’t work very well..
Unfortunately all the email services capitulated to the American government a while ago so there are non that keep your info private anymore.
700 people arrested on Brooklyn Bridge today… not one word on New Zealand’s Six O’Clock news. Shame!
The revolution will not be privatized!
Lomu needs new kidney – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10756006
Lets see when Key offer his kidney! Now we know why Jonah wanted privacy; the story had been sold to NZ Womans Weekly.
If the media are stupid enough to pay interesting amounts of money for a story, then I back him 100% for selling said story. He doesn’t owe the public anything.
That’s odd. I heard he was donating his groin, maybe it’s both.
A sketch I would like to see……(a rewrite of Monty Python sketch)
Part V: Live Organ Transplants…
two paramedics (Chapman and Cleese) arrive at the doorstep of a card-carrying organ donor, Mr. John Key, to claim his kidney. Still being alive, he initially refuses. Not to be deterred, the paramedics burst through the door and brutally disembowel him, removing the organ “under condition of death”.
Joe Bloggs
Was that the John Howard, notorious liar, who told the Australian nation that boat people threw their children to the sharks? the same John Howard who lied to the Australian people about Iraq so he could get troops involved? the same John Howard who lied to the people of Australia about the economy and told them the way to prosperity was to increase their debt level and spend their money on imported consumer goods? the same John Howard who refused to apologise to indigenous people for the injustices and abuses perpetrated against them by previous generations of psychotic spociopaths?
aerobubble
‘we are moving into a low growth world economy,
one where you either feed, house, doctor, your
population or they get very uncivil. Only then
can you pass the spoils on to your mates.’
We are in a negative growth world economy, due to the contraints of Peak Oil (peak practically everything actually).
Practially everyone’s standard of living is falling. The elites mission is to transfer an ever-bigger portion of the diminishing cake to themselves, at the expense of everyone, intially throiugh the use of lies, but when they start wearing thin, via the use of ‘security forces’ (as per 1984).
DTB
Exactly! 70% of NZers couldn’t care less about rugby, and of that 70%, about 30% loathe internationalised rugby and everythng it stands for -corporate bullshit wrapped in a platina of patriotism, money making by the few at the expense of the many, environmental and social degradation….. whorehouses and beer halls, smashed up hotel rooms and vomit.
thejackel
The [quoted] 400 people who control 99% of commercial activity in the western world will do whatever it takes to prevent the hundreds of millions of victims of the their scams from discovering the truth and throwing off the chains.
I’m sure that censorship is just the opening round of the ultimate war that has been in the making since the time humans gave up the hunter-gatehrer lifestyle and submitted themselves to agriculture and all it spawned, i.e. hierarchical societies in which the fruits of the labours of those at the bottom are transferred to those at the top.
“The [quoted] 400 people who control 99% of commercial activity in the western world will do whatever it takes to prevent the hundreds of millions of victims of the their scams from discovering the truth and throwing off the chains. ”
JP Morgan buy $400 mill of Twitter shares
http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2011/10/01/jpmorgan-chase-co-has-invested-in-a-fund-that-has-bought-about-400-million-in-twitter-inc/
Warriors lose.
*John Key & the Warriors lose.
Haha, my only upside of that loss is that Key didn’t get the chance to do a Mandela.
He’s got one more chance I suppose…
Maybe next season will be the year!!!!
Another case of Russel Norman being out of touch with reality
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1110/S00006/govt-bungling-adds-cost-of-earthquake-levy-to-mortgages.htm
So if we introduced a levy there would have been no down grade?
With a levy kiwis would be facing interest increases AND this levy cost. Russel how does a household pay for this? There are not many households with surplus atthe moment, and with costs increasing all the time – just wait for the depreciating NZ$ to start taking hold.
A levy of 1.5 percent on income between $48,001-$70,000 and a 3 percent levy on income above $70,000, with no change needed to the corporate tax rate of 30 percent, would raise $1.026b a year, according to Green Party estimates. People earning $50,000 a year would pay an extra 58c a week, and those on $70,000 a year would pay an extra $6.33 a week. People on $100,000 would pay an extra $23.59 a week.
Whats the problem?
I know households who have bought tickets to every All Blacks game they think will happen right up to and including the final.
How the fuck did they afford that herod?
This reminds me of a lesson from budgeting 101. Its about your priorities.
How important is it that we help those New Zealanders (and those parts of New Zealand) who are most in need? We can assign the problem a high priority and deal with it as such, or put it in line behind a bunch of other shit.
Where economics is concerned, the Greens are generally never in touch with reality – it’s a nice luxury they have.
So if we introduced a levy there would have been no down grade?
No one knows. The agencies certainly didn’t say this, though Russel claims that’s what they meant. But the fact is no one knows.
However in fairness to Russel, he may be right, and therefore his assertion isn’t one iota as silly as Phil Goff’s claims that the downgrade somehow justifies Labour’s loophole-laden Capital Gains Tax.
(usual disclaimer: good on Labour for broaching the CGT rampart, support broad-based CGT in principle, brave move but poor execution, etc)
They’re more connected to reality than pretty much any other party. Act is, of course, completely disconnected from reality and so is National. Unfortunately, so are the economists that advise the government.
Well thenm buddy, who is in touch with reality? Fitch? S&P?
You notice that both those guys just downgraded our asses?
Is that what you call reality, the incompetence of Key and English.
How do the Road traffic department get controlling event and holiday traffic wrong?
Drove to Hamilton this afternoon. At 4 pm there was a major problem
of congestion north of Huntly – major traffic delays. Newstalkzb had
given an indication that traffic around Hamilton was building for RWC at 3 pm.
400 m, on a bend, sits a patrol car with lights flashing. Another one 200 metres with lights flashing. Neither indicating that as the expressway is finishing that the traffic is at a standstill or crawling.
It seems to be obvious that, if you have heavy traffic using two lanes, when those lanes merge, there is twice the amount of traffic to get into one lane. The traffic department must have known that this was likely to happen. What about a mobile trailer giving a warning to traffic on the Bombays that they were going to reduce the Expressway to single traffic at say Rangiri – coning one lane off and reducing traffic speed to say 70 KMH.