We were lucky last election. We only just got over the line and special votes may make things even more precarious. Having to rely on Banks and the coiffured one for supply is daunting and the thought of the Maori Party having the balance of power is terrifying.
Unless we do something then it is vey likely that we will lose the next election and the damned socialists will wreck the country by doing such things as addressing child poverty and giving workers a living wage. Such heresy cannot be tolerated.
So we need to do something about their current leadership battle. We have deep concerns about Cunliffe. He is bright and a good debater. He is the perfect counter to brand Key. He will be able to tell when Key uses our bogus statistics.
His leadership aspirations must be thwarted at all costs.
We need all out support for his opponents. Now that Parker is out of the running we need full support for Shearer. We are pleased that our efforts to placate and control the MSM are that successful that Farrar and Slater can support Shearer without anyone being incredulous at how the views of the National Party on Labour’s leadership can be given any credence.
Please keep supporting Shearer. When you do so use phrases such as “a new way” or “gamechanger” and talk about a “groundswell” even though the actual groundswell is coming from the ranks of the supporters of the right who will never vote Labour.
People won’t vote for Shearer just because of his past. They’ll say ‘nice guy, but…’
If Labour picks Shearer and has to roll him within six months to a year because he doesn’t have what it takes, then Labour will be caught up in the sort of messy bloodbath jounalists adore, leaving the public with negative feelings about Labour as a disunited, dysfunctional party and gifting John Key a third term.
If ‘dazed and confused’ is any indication, I think the RWNJs are changing their game plan from endorsement of Shearer to the undermining of Cunliffe. Expect the rumours and innuendo to surface any day now.
You can see their endgame though, if Shearer wins they get someone who they think Key is better able to compete with, if Cunliffe wins against the “Shearer ground swell!1!!!” they get to say Labour is still out of touch with the electorate due to back room wheeling and dealing.
They’ve put themselves in a win/win situation, it’s pretty clever really.
Dont think there is any argument over that, at least none that would stand up. But, and its a big but, just because someone has taken a moral stand at some point in their career does not a leader of a left wing political party make.
By all means, yay for Shearer, but as noted, if you cant lead, you cant lead.
Previously Senior Humanitarian Affairs Adviser in Liberia; Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for the United Nations in Rwanda; Senior Humanitarian Adviser in Albania?
Chief of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Belgrade
Senior Adviser to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan
Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem;
Humanitarian Coordinator during conflict in Lebanon in 2006
Appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as his Deputy Special Representative (Humanitarian, Reconstruction and Development) for Iraq
and the United Nations Resident Coordinator and the Humanitarian Coordinator.
He also ran one of the largest refugee camp in Somalia and recieved Queens hours for his efforts. I guess they must have read David Shearer all wrong. Either that or he makes right wing twats puke because he puts his mouth where his life is and gets the job done – all without bashing a single beneficiary. That’ll scare them to death alright. What they want is a smile ‘n’ wave stunt double.
Shearer isn’t much of a stock standard leader, he’s more Prime Minister material.
Its entirely possible you are dead right – time will tell really, will it not? Other than that, pure speculation based on three very quiet years in Parliament.
Which adds up to the sort of Labour Party leader that we need /What Shearer has achivied is exactly why I joined Labour so many years ago.
Labour people has always been proud of humanitarian leaders we have sometimes had in the the past. The men and women who have a difference to the displaced and unfortunates. if Shearer is elected leader it will be with pride among us .The Right is already moving to disrupt and divide Labour.they already have the next election planned.They were succesfull in destroying Phil Goff. They were so succesfull they even had some of our own people believing them. Dont lets go down that path again.tell these Right wing bastards that we will run our party not them.I for one do not need their advice on who should be the Leader of my party. I remember Garner saying “Im going to do Goff . Right-Wing columists like Garner .Plunket and ACT supporter Holmes and the others need to be told just where they can go with their anti Labour/Green sleaze and lies. Stop,them now !.
Ive no idea what you’re drinking dude, but SP is as right wing as Im Queen Lizzie.
Seriously, seriously delusional. Having worked with his neighbour and old school chum for years, and borne witness to his alcohol fueled rants, nope, not now, not then, not ever.
He called it how he saw it, and good on him for having the nuts to do it.
I just read that in order to make their numbers look better GM just saddled their dealers with 620,000 new cars, unsold and in inventory. A record all time high. These guys are screwed.
What a load of bollocks Lanthanide. Just make this up did you? Sorry, rhetorical question. You did.
“It began a few years ago when I was something of a hippy, travelling around the world like many Kiwis take the time to do.” David Shearer, speech to the Teritiary Education Conference 28 November 2011.
Truth doesn’t sit at the bottom of a wine bottle – or in your case a whine bottle.
You cite the beginning of an explanation as to how David Shearer became involved in humanitarian causes and then imply he isn’t a humanarian, but a selfish hippy? If I could, I would ban commenters like you. You’re trolling, poorly, and wasting space. Get out and do some work you thought bludger – that’s what you tell people isn’t it? Of course you already know about context, you’re just stupid, bored and likely half drunk.
For others, here is the full context of what David Shearer said:
“It began a few years ago when I was something of a hippy, travelling around the world like many Kiwis take the time to do.
A friend and I decided to follow the Nile River to its source in Uganda. I think we had this romantic notion of following in the footsteps of those great explorers.
I remember we were reading a couple of wonderful books by Alan Moorehead, who wrote about those who had passed through these same places 100 years earlier. They were called called ‘White Nile’ and the ‘Blue Nile’.
In South Sudan we hitched a ride on a Somali truck that seemed the only way to cross the wild terrain of the Turkana tribe. It was about a five day trip.
We were sitting in the back of the truck peeling a mango and throwing the skins over the side.
I heard noises below and looking down I saw children fighting over the skins – simply because they were hungry. It was a real shock. Here I was, a tourist, travelling through a land where people were so hungry they fought over mango skins.
Over the next few days we saw many people sitting or walking – who knows where – who were just skin and bones, their lives devastated by a drought and conflict in the area, many were close to dying.
For me it was one of those turning points – it hit me that perhaps I should be doing something more to make a difference in the world.
I returned to NZ but the idea of doing something never left me. I pushed and prodded various agencies and was eventually hired by Save the Children to work in Sri Lanka where a war was being fought between the government in the south and the Tamil Tiger guerrillas in the north.”
You would ban me for pointing out an erroneous statement made by Lanth? How childish you are. At no point did I make any implications. I made a statement that Lanth made up the statement that Shearer went overseas to save lives. He did not originally go overseas to save lives. He went on his OE, that is all. The evidence is in your reproduction of his speech. If you read implications into my short earlier response, you are either far too sensitive, or perhaps the wine bottle you refer to is taking a hammering at your end.
I have nothing against David Shearer, his achievements are many, and uplifting. In my opinion he would make a fine leader of the Labour Party, the only pity being that he is not National.
So he went on his OE and ended up doing a vast amount of good. Maybe if you had your eyes opened a bit you wouldn’t be sitting around here wasting our time with such pointless exercises in pedantry and diversion.
because he has real talent, other than playing roullette with other peoples money like Shonkey did? That bloke hasn’t done a hard days work in his life!
“He will be able to tell when Key uses our bogus statistics”
Irony, much?
Always with the laughable conspiracy theory. If you got over yourself for half a second, you would see it as debate on something topical. Me, I see it as, from my perspective, the chance for labour to understand whats broken and fix it. Because remember, the electorate has just told you it is broken. And the option is yours to fix it.
Yeah but they don’t have to feed the MSM with appearances on close up etc and deflect any questions with how about that mine, or that mine safety, stuffed forecasts etc etc etc
This gives opportunity to turn it back on the dodgy behaviour the Nats excel and if they persist simply state it’s an internal party matter…..the MSM don’t deserve the time of day let alone indulge the CT initiative.
actaully TC i disagree…its both worthwhile, mature and a fresh approach…labour need to reconnect so why hide the process away from the public.
These public apearances i.e beauty contests allow the party the opportunity to gauge support, create interest with the candiadates and also the party.
This whole ‘road show’ event if properly managed will create situational responces that we can use for the future.
This is both honest fresh and relevant – go team labour and its new look.
Proof that RWNJs believe at least two impossible things before breakfast.
Some Republican lawmakers are skeptical that extending the tax cut [payroll so only wage earners pay it] beyond this year will help job creation and say it will have only a temporary effect on the economy.
Obama has proposed a tax increase on wealthy Americans, but Republicans have rejected that, saying it would hurt business owners who generate jobs.
Basically, the Republicans are demanding that the tax cuts given to the poor be revoked while demanding that the tax cuts given to the rich, which caused the deficit and aren’t creating jobs, be kept.
It’s laughable. The same people who say a tax cut for them will generate jobs are arguing a package that includes reducing the Federal workforce by 10%. Do they comprehend the words that tumble out their mouths or are they just so utterly conceited they don’t care anymore.
Africa is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed — well, they shouldn’t make such a big deal about it.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they’ve been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what’s still the most powerful job in the world.
As it turns out, there are no limits to how far they will stoop.
It’s true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen, and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and embarrassments. Yet this time around, it’s just not that funny anymore. In fact, it’s utterly horrifying.
It’s horrifying because these eight so-called, would-be candidates are eagerly ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party, the party of Lincoln lore. Worse: They’re ruining the reputation of the United States.
“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation’s foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. “They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”
Selectively Edited Email Implies Scientists “Left Out” Information To Fit A “Message.” A December 2004 email from the University of Arizona’s Jonathan Overpeck to Argentinian scientist Ricardo Villalba was cropped to say:
Overpeck:
The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out. [Email excerpt, accessed 11/28/11] Email Was Actually About Meeting Page Limits. The full email reveals that Overpeck is advising Villalba to edit a lengthy outline down to “0.5 pages of HIGHLY focused and relevant stuff.” They are discussing a “Section on Modes of Variability” for the Palaeoclimate chapter of the draft 2007 IPCC report. From Overpeck’s email:
I think the hardest, yet most important part, is to boil the section down to 0.5 pages. In looking over your good outline, sent back on Oct. 17 (my delay is due to fatherdom just after this time), you cover ALOT. The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out. For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change. Moreover, we have to have solid data – not inconclusive information.
[…]
So, the trick is for you to lead us (Dick, Keith, me – maybe Julie – ENSO expert) to produce 0.5 pages of HIGHLY focused and relevant stuff. Can you take another crack at your outline and then tell us what you need? [Email 4755, 12/16/04]
I guess we should have expected it… National looks set to bypass the Kyoto protocol. Not that New Zealand adhered to the deal to reduce emissions the first place…
It is highly symbolic that the social unrest took place in America in the Fall, for rather than expressing a social upheaval that would turn the country upside down, it actually expressed something profoundly sinister — the further application and extension of national security state power. The take-downs of the Occupy sites were nationally coordinated. The rationales given were all the same. The overwhelming police presence was similar. The acquiescence of the protestors in leaving, overwhelmingly non-violently, was strikingly common.
What makes this sinister is that it comes at just the moment when the Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act (SB 1867) co-authored by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, which contains a “worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial” provision. The bill legislates into law the capacity of the president to deploy the U.S. military anywhere in the world, including the United States, and have the legal right to arrest, hold without charge, incarcerate indefinitely, and even execute any U.S. citizen as a military matter without judicial oversight or control. As Senator Lindsey Graham says, the bill “does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.” This is the mentality dealing with Occupy, and unlike the Arab Spring, there is nothing that Occupy has done to date that has shaken this prevailing mentality. While Occupy has certainly challenged the prevailing elites, it has also given them the opportunity to exercise more powerfully the very powers Occupy is protesting.
For a glimpse of where the US and, by adjunct, NZ is going go read The Handmaid’s Tale. Even though it’s fiction it’s becoming more accurate by the day.
Earlier this year the National party completely failed to consult with local Iwi about their plans to explore for oil off the East Coast of New Zealand. To combat the negative public backlash National have now appointed a former District Commander and Superintendent of Police as Iwi Relations Manager, who just happens to have a history of violence and corruption…
NZ First leader Winston Peters is refusing to rule out reading a transcript of the teapot tape in Parliament – and experts say there is little to stop him.
The secret recording has been credited for Mr Peters’ return to Parliament. But he was tight-lipped yesterday on speculation he would raise the matter in the new term.
He will do it to. No matter if the cops try to bury it with a bs ruling Peters knows this will put him on the front page. I am so in the gallery that day!
‘I’m the type of Maori that doesn’t back dumb Maori, so I’m not saying she’s a dumb Maori. I’m just saying if she was awfully meritorious, I’d back her 100 per cent, that has not been my experience.”
Dubious disclaimer is dubious or, he is calling her stupid and the quip of:
The only thing she’s lacking is she doesn’t have a limp. Then he would have got the disabled [vote] too. That’s the truth of it and that’s the way it smacked as soon as I saw it.
Just reinforces my idea that Tamihere considers Nanaia Mahuta a non-person combined with the anti-disabled bullshit as well…
And:
”Out of the two of them you’d have to rate, on Labour Party values and on the street bringing the men’s vote back and a whole bunch of other things, Shane all day long; if he can get over in his own mind the self mutilation that he conducted in that hotel room,” Tamihere said.
Translation: misogyny = Labour Party values (oh noes wez can’t has women in leadership!111!!), and he’s anti-porn in the single most stupidest way to boot*, which is ironic given he’s talking about the “men’s vote”.
Methinks perhaps he should just stick to talk back, were the audience is full of “traditional” values, such as calling anything you don’t like “politically correct” and misogyny is held in high esteem.
_______________________________________________________________
*”self mutilation”? lolwut? it sounds like something from dodgy fundie tracts and utterly ignores the shit that goes on in the porn industry, nor issues with sexual roles/behaviours and exploitation.
Tamihere is the arse-hole who got kicked out of Labour for being misogynist. IIRC, he also took an extreme jump to the right after he left Labour as well. I don’t think anything he says is worth listening to as he’s proven, quite conclusively, that his judgement is lacking credibility.
You can always rely on John Tamihere to call it how he sees it, and that’s a good quality, but sometimes the way he calls things is unnecessary and pathetic. The point JT is trying to make is that Nanaia was selected on tokenistic grounds. A fair point, no doubt, but the way he phrased his point was low – offensive basically. He may have got a laugh out of a few racists, ableists and fuckwits, beyond that his comment didn’t serve anyone.
I’ve given up even responding to Tamihere, on account of how much of a fuckwit he is. I can’t believe New Zealand voted for the guy.
Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta has blasted former colleague John Tamihere as a sexist “failed politician” for alleging she is only a leadership candidate because she is a woman and Maori.
Mr Tamihere has called potential Labour leader David Cunliffe’s decision to pick Ms Mahuta as his running mate “smarmy” and typical.
”The only thing she’s lacking is she doesn’t have a limp. Then he would have got the disabled [vote] too. That’s the truth of it and that’s the way it smacked as soon as I saw it.”
Ms Mahuta said those comments smacked of sexism.
“John’s comments show male parochialism is alive and well in Maoridom… If John Tamihere thinks that Maori women should be in the home cooking kai, then he’s wrong.
“I would advise him to stick to his knitting. He’s a failed politician who is never making it back in, and it’s a bit rich for him to advise Labour on its leadership team.”
Fuck yes.
I can see why Cunliffe choose her now, as she’s got the steel needed for the front bench and whipping MP’s into line.
International surveillance companies are based in the more technologically sophisticated countries, and they sell their technology on to every country of the world. This industry is, in practice, unregulated. Intelligence agencies, military forces and police authorities are able to silently, and on mass, and secretly intercept calls and take over computers without the help or knowledge of the telecommunication providers. Users’ physical location can be tracked if they are carrying a mobile phone, even if it is only on stand by.
Idiot/Savant gets the best stories.
The leak has a dedicated site, and in addition there is commentary and analysis on The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and ONWI. Read it, then start thinking about how we can shut down this industry in New Zealand.
There are ways to technically usurp the system. Mainly by learning the opt out and block features on cell phones and ensuring that tracking software is not operational on your computer. However that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The other day I drove past an unmarked car that obviously had a sophisticated surveillance system in operation with a camera mounted on the inside of the windscreen. With digital facial recognition and most people having their photo online somewhere, there really is no escaping.
Therefore the best option is to politicize and work to restrict their intrusiveness and power.
The Android developer who raised the ire of a mobile-phone monitoring company last week is on the attack again, producing a video of how the Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone
USSR taxed its way into putting the first man in space.
The USA taxed its way to being the first to put a man on the moon.
The USSR removed property rights on individuals as it was a tax on the people.
The Greens argue that turning DOC land over to mining is essentially a tax on future generations who will nolonger be able to attract tourists, or utilize the nature wealth of the area.
As all property essentially excludes everyone but the property right holder, and so is a tax on everyone else.
So for a citizenry to guard property rights (the duty to deny themselves access to property) there is a responsibility on property owners to use property, rather than hoard or pollute it.
From a Green perspective wasting a landscape by mining it over a decade means the loss of future profits of generations of tourists, downstream pollution of water ways leaving costs on farmers…to…biological firms finding profit in genetic diversity.
Now why does this make the Green party more of a libertarian party than the ACT party?
Well simple, because ACT isn’t a libertarian party, it ignores property right holders duty to make a profit (by claiming they always do), in fact it pushes policies that ‘take profit’ creating no wealth.
Take for example the taxpayer built dams that are now up for sale, which is a property transfer transaction not wealth creation.
So Prebble was right, well obviously he wasnt saying taxes don’t create wealth when he said taxation doesn’t create wealth, what are the tax funded dams about to be sold because they represent so much wealth.
What he was clearly saying was the sale of assets, a cost to tax payers, is a waste of taxes as it transfers wealth rather than makes any wealth.
Well okay he wasn’t, but that what happens when an ignoramus like Prebble makes the absurd claim that taxation doesn’t create wealth, obviously sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
Property rights is a tax and potentially creates weath when property owners aren’t deluded about their role.
But if you are associated with the ACT party then either you’re delusional, ignorant or just a cheap bleating lying, which is easily discernable by those not associated with said ideology.
Much like an atheist when hearing a be-godist speach; strangely, ACT is a religious dogmatic economic party.
So here we have the problem, Dunne saying asset sales, where they happen, should be for the good of NZ, yet incapable of answering the simplest of questions!
How does transfering ‘some’ property rights to foreigners conform to Dunne’s view that sales should for the good of NZ?
Dunne is far worse than the ACT party, ACT keeps their stupidity up front and in your face, Dunne weazely wishy washy view is to cloak asset sales as some liberal pragmatism when obviously its not.
Asset sales that place ownership in foriegn hands, or even in kiwi hands where those kiwis live overseas or will inevitably have to move once they sell the asset to pay for the flight out of NZ.
The world is printing money, and our elite is selling into that market despite those assets being key to our economic future in an energy limited world.
Sorry but this is akin to leaving the Trojens gates open after returning the gift of a horse statue.
Remember every name of every MP that votes Key’s budget in (or abstains – the Maori party) because they obviously plan on having homes in Australia and need to pay for them somehow (except Maori who have a history of selling off property cheap or so Maori tell it).
The Maori party providing any form of support to ‘asset sales’ National is a disgrace imo.
Castro’s Cuba gives land away gratis to those who will use it productively, but if they fail to do so it is taken back and given to someone else who can use it productively.
Yes, and that requires someone to be watching. Capitalism does that differently by laying taxes that pressures land owners to use land, and fines for pollution. And why National ideology will always be anti-Green as it denies governments role in the process or water downs the policies.
“The good of of NZ” is best served by selling power at cost. However this is only likely to happen if the power companies are owned by the government since private owners will usually want to chase profit. I seems a pity that Labour condoned the setting up of profit making, dividend paying SOE’s, otherwise they might have contested the election with the message that selling power companies would mean an increase in power prices.
Interesting there is no comment regarding the Port of Auckland strike by called by the Union. I note that the average wage of these people is a lazy $91K (plus the extras they each get). This puts them just outside the top 5% of earners in NZ, therefore they must be Michael Cullen’s “rich pricks”. Good to see that no one here is supporting them.
[lprent: There is a comment – you just made one. Congratulations.
However I fail to see why you’re calling the wharfies “John Key”. After all that was the only person that Michael Cullen directed his remark to. As far as I can see the only comparison is that they earn less than John Key, and they work just below the MP for Helensville’s residence in Parnell.
In other words if you want to quote history then please quote real history rather than the slop that wingnuts dish up as fact. Besides I have to go through the effort of releasing it from moderation. ]
The banners the protestors were holding stated they get $13 per hour and the CEO gets $3000 per day. Now, if you would like to go down and ask to see their pay slips and confirm or deny their banner, and simultaneously justify your claimed $91K, we’d appreciate that.
The figure you are quoting means they would have to work 150 hours per week @ $13 an hour to get to $91K, or a 50 hour week earning $39 per hour – so which is it seeing as you claim to be in the know?
If you want to understand why the Occupy movement has found such traction, it helps to listen to a former banker like James Theckston. He fully acknowledges that he and other bankers are mostly responsible for the country’s housing mess.
As a regional vice president for Chase Home Finance in southern Florida, Theckston shoveled money at home borrowers. In 2007, his team wrote $2 billion in mortgages, he says. Sometimes those were “no documentation” mortgages.
“On the application, you don’t put down a job; you don’t show income; you don’t show assets,” he said. “But you still got a nod.”
“If you had some old bag lady walking down the street and she had a decent credit score, she got a loan,” he added.
Theckston says that borrowers made harebrained decisions and exaggerated their resources but that bankers were far more culpable — and that all this was driven by pressure from the top.
“You’ve got somebody making $20,000 buying a $500,000 home, thinking that she’d flip it,” he said. “That was crazy, but the banks put programs together to make those kinds of loans.”
111 Meat workers are still locked-out from the jobs at in Rangitikei. They’ve been more than six weeks without wages and they need support. This weekend is a national day of fund-raising and action in support of the locked-out workers. McDonalds are being targeted, as they are one of the primary customers of the company. There are events organised all over the country…
I presume you’re referring to Cathy Odgers claims that the Auckland wharfies are rich pricks when she does not link to her source. I think you can take her divide and conquer bullshit with a grain of salt Roflcopter.
I thought it rather unbecoming of John Key when he said that National had the “largest majority since the Waterfront strike” which occurred in 1951.
The reason for National winning the snap election then is because they ran a negative campaign on an anti-Communist platform, labeling many men who had fought bravely for their country in the second world war as communists, which further entrenched the resentment felt by the waterfront workers. They went on strike after missing out on a 15% pay increase awarded by the Arbitration Court to all other workers.
The National led government then went about beating and starving the families of the protesting workers into submission. Back then you weren’t even allowed to produce pamphlets to disseminate information. National has a history a fascism that they should be ashamed of.
Labour lost ground in the snap election because they tried to remain moderate and did not come out strongly in support of the Unions. Instead of negotiating with the unions, National chose to use violence and propaganda to repress the uprising. Hopefully it’s a lesson learned by all sides.
Looking at what’s happening it’s lesson that’s been forgotten – but we’ll all get the chance to re-learn it as the psychopaths in NAct continue their war on the poor and the theft of our assets and resources.
CAIRO: The arrival of 7 and half tons of tear gas to Egypt’s Suez port created conflict after the responsible officials at the port refused to sign and accept it for fear it would be used to crackdown on Egyptian protesters
[…]
Egypt’s al-Shorouk newspaper reported that upon the arrival of the shipment, massive disagreements broke out between employees, where five employees refused to sign for the shipment, one after the other.
The five, being dubbed by activists as the “brave five”, were to be refereed to a investigative committee as to why they refused to perform their duties, which has since called off.
But then, nek minute, it seems the Maori Party do not want Dr Sharples as co-leader any more and his position will come up for grabs.
Dr Shaples says he would like Mr Flavell to transition into the role but seems to be getting the raw end of the rejuvenation deal.
Dr Sharples suddenly faces losing not only the leadership, but his ministerial job as well and all before Christmas – not much of a present from the party he helped create.
If he resigns it would trigger a by-election which Labour could conceivably win. Depending on what happen with the special votes that could actually be the end of the NAct government.
If there is a by-election, Wall has her safe seat and Jones has a high ranking on the list, could Labour please stand a candidate who’s a born and bred local.
He obviously wasn’t happy to be forced to stand down:
From TV3 News: “This is what happens in politics… You work yourself to death … And you really get passionate about what you achieve…Then some drunk staggers up and calls you a prick,” he said after the interview.
Maybe he should just defect to the opposition benches. He always seemed to have a soft spot for Labour.
Not certain if I am permitted to post this in entirety … but here goes .. too important not to post imho .. this is from a trusted and credible website …. the email is dated today
In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America.
This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a “battleground” upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.
It’s being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn’t apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill it essentially says it can apply to Americans “if we want it to.”
Even WIRED magazine was outraged at this bill, reporting:
…the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.” http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/senate-military-detention/
The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the “legitimate assassination” of U.S. citizens on right here on American soil!
If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we’ve been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America — no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.
Are you getting all this? Do you realize America is about to be overrun by our own military?
The rule of law is about to be utterly destroyed. No due process. No legal representation. Not even a right to know what you’re being charged with when you are (indefinitely) detained.
This is an urgent time for action to protest the overreaching military police state in America. Immediately call your representatives in Washington and urge your House members to reject this bill in the reconciliation phase with the Senate. Call the office of the President and urge Obama to veto this bill if it is passed by both houses.
Call your local newspapers and protest this outrageous and traitorous attempt to nullify the entire Bill of Rights.
Do not be fooled by the trolls and disinfo agents who claim this bill does not apply to U.S. citizens — a fact which has already been established without question. If this is signed into law, military humvees will roll down the streets in U.S. cities, with gunpoint checkpoints, illegal arrests, secret torture operations and the outright murder of U.S. citizens right in their own home towns.
In observing all this, you might ask WHY is this happening right now? Why would the U.S. Senate deliberately nullify the Bill of Rights and seek the authorize military action on the streets of U.S. cities?
The answer, my friends, will not comfort you: A global economic collapse is coming, and once started, it will likely unleash a wave of social unrest and rioting that could burn many U.S. cities to the ground. The U.S. Senate is probably trying to rush authorization of the military to operate in American cities before the economic collapse arrives, thereby placing troops deep within the roughest U.S. cities where they stand a chance at halting the runaway riots that are sure to materialize when peoples’ life savings vanish as the banks collapse.
Keep reading NaturalNews.com for updates on this situation. We will continue to cover the Eurozone economic crisis as well as this Senate bill 1867, which is not yet law. Our last-ditch hope would be for Obama to veto it. We’ll issue a red alert if that action is needed…
And remember, folks, the Bill of Rights protects us all — liberals, conservatives, libertarians, agnostics, Christians, Jews, everybody! If you lose the Bill of Rights, you lose America and all the freedoms many generations have fought for. Right now protecting the Bill of Rights is perhaps the single most important thing we can do for our collective futures.
All of us who have been screaming about the importance of the U.S. Constitution have been trying to protect YOU from exactly this kind of scenario. The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights is to limit the power of government so that this kind of Senate action is never allowed.
Great, here’s a tip, don’t trust news that comes from a site well known in sceptic and science-based medicine circles for being utterly full of shit on everything from autism to cancer to HIV and beyond.
Let alone spam other places with this paranoid bullshit, as the senate lacks the power to easily mess with the bill of rights without a super majority + presidential support.
just been alerted to that fat slob leighton smith.
he went flat out on the radio all last week to denigrate the candidates for the labour party leadership.
he denigrated the United Nations and David Shearer and every time he gets the chance he denigrates Obama.
How can New Zealanders tolerate such an ugly person getting in their face to tell them lies and set the tone of hatred every morning.
I shudder to think that some actually like him and think there is some shred of truth in what he says.
If that is so then country is in deep trouble.
The last few days have been a bit too much of a whirl for me to manage a fresh edition each day. It's been that kind of year. Hope you don't mind.I’ve been coming around to thinking that it doesn't really matter if you don't have something to say every ...
The worms will live in every hostIt's hard to pick which one they eat the mostThe horrible people, the horrible peopleIt's as anatomic as the size of your steepleCapitalism has made it this wayOld-fashioned fascism will take it awaySongwriter: Twiggy Ramirez Read more ...
Hi,It’s almost Christmas Day which means it is almost my birthday, where you will find me whimpering in the corner clutching a warm bottle of Baileys.If you’re out of ideas for presents (and truly desperate) then it is possible to gift a full Webworm subscription to a friend (or enemy) ...
This morning’s six standouts for me at 6.30am include:Rachel Helyer Donaldson’s scoop via RNZ last night of cuts to maternity jobs in the health system;Maddy Croad’s scoop via The Press-$ this morning on funding cuts for Christchurch’s biggest food rescue charity;Benedict Collins’ scoop last night via 1News on a last-minute ...
A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 15, 2024 thru Sat, December 21, 2024. Based on feedback we received, this week's roundup is the first one published soleley by category. We are still interested in ...
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...
ACT would like to dictate what universities can and can’t say. We knew it was coming. It was outlined in the coalition agreement and has become part of Seymour’s strategy of “emphasising public funding” to prevent people from opposing him and his views—something he also uses to try and de-platform ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading ...
So the Solstice has arrived – Summer in this part of the world, Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. And with it, the publication my new Norse dark-fantasy piece, As Our Power Lessens at Eternal Haunted Summer: https://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/winter-solstice-2024/as-our-power-lessens/ As previously noted, this one is very ‘wyrd’, and Northern Theory of Courage. ...
The Natural Choice: As a starter for ten percent of the Party Vote, “saving the planet” is a very respectable objective. Young voters, in particular, raised on the dire (if unheeded) warnings of climate scientists, and the irrefutable evidence of devastating weather events linked to global warming, vote Green. After ...
The Government cancelled 60% of Kāinga Ora’s new builds next year, even though the land for them was already bought, the consents were consented and there are builders unemployed all over the place. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political ...
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on UnsplashEvery morning I get up at 3am to go around the traps of news sites in Aotearoa and globally. I pick out the top ones from my point of view and have been putting them into my Dawn Chorus email, which goes out with a podcast. ...
Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine: 82 OIA requests sent in 2024 7 posts based on those requests 20 average working days to receive a response Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, ...
Welcome to the December 2024 Economic Bulletin. We have two monthly features in this edition. In the first, we discuss what the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update from Treasury and the Budget Policy Statement from the Minister of Finance tell us about the fiscal position and what to ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, slamming the Bill as a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and an attack on tino rangatiratanga and the collective rights of Tangata Whenua. “This Bill seeks to legislate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles that are ...
I don't knowHow to say what's got to be saidI don't know if it's black or whiteThere's others see it redI don't get the answers rightI'll leave that to youIs this love out of fashionOr is it the time of yearAre these words distraction?To the words you want to hearSongwriters: ...
Our economy has experienced its worst recession since 1991. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 20 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below ...
Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the week we’ve been collecting stories for our final roundup of the year. As we start to wind down for the year we hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and new year. If you’re travelling please be safe on ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the year’s news with: on climate. Her book of the year was Tim Winton’s cli-fi novel Juice and she also mentioned Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Fresh Water. ...
The Government can head off to the holidays, entitled to assure itself that it has done more or less what it said it would do. The campaign last year promised to “get New Zealand back on track.” When you look at the basic promises—to trim back Government expenditure, toughen up ...
Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment:Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and , ...
“Like you said, I’m an unreconstructed socialist. Everybody deserves to get something for Christmas.”“ONE OF THOSE had better be for me!” Hannah grinned, fascinated, as Laurie made his way, gingerly, to the bar, his arms full of gift-wrapped packages.“Of course!”, beamed Laurie. Depositing his armful on the bar-top and selecting ...
Data released by Statistics New Zealand today showed a significant slowdown in the economy over the past six months, with GDP falling by 1% in September, and 1.1% in June said CTU Economist Craig Renney. “The data shows that the size of the economy in GDP terms is now smaller ...
One last thing before I quitI never wanted any moreThan I could fit into my headI still remember every single word you saidAnd all the shit that somehow came along with itStill, there's one thing that comforts meSince I was always caged and now I'm freeSongwriters: David Grohl / Georg ...
Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to ...
It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management.This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up ...
This morning I awoke to the lovely news that we are firmly back on track, that is if the scale was reversed.NZ ranks low in global economic comparisonsNew Zealand's economy has been ranked 33rd out of 37 in an international comparison of which have done best in 2024.Economies were ranked ...
Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis seems intent on portraying herself as that damsel in distress. According to Willis, this country’s current economic problems have all been caused by the spending ...
Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
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Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
Come and join myself and CTU Chief Economist for a pop-up ‘Hoon’ webinar on the Government’s Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) with paying subscribers to The Kākā for 30 minutes at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream to watch our chat. Don’t worry if ...
In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Kiwis planning a swim or heading out on a boat this summer should remember to stop and think about water safety, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop and ACC and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “New Zealand’s beaches, lakes and rivers are some of the most beautiful in the ...
The Government is urging Kiwis to drive safely this summer and reminding motorists that Police will be out in force to enforce the road rules, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“This time of year can be stressful and result in poor decision-making on our roads. Whether you are travelling to see ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
The Government will have senior representatives at Waitangi Day events around the country, including at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but next year Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has chosen to take part in celebrations elsewhere. “It has always been my intention to celebrate Waitangi Day around the country with different ...
Two more criminal gangs will be subject to the raft of laws passed by the Coalition Government that give Police more powers to disrupt gang activity, and the intimidation they impose in our communities, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. Following an Order passed by Cabinet, from 3 February 2025 the ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
The latest economic figures highlight the importance of the steps the Government has taken to restore respect for taxpayers’ money and drive economic growth, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Data released today by Stats NZ shows Gross Domestic Product fell 1 per cent in the September quarter. “Treasury and most ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
Legislation that will repeal all advertising restrictions for broadcasters on Sundays and public holidays has passed through first reading in Parliament today, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “As a growing share of audiences get their news and entertainment from streaming services, these restrictions have become increasingly redundant. New Zealand on ...
Today the House agreed to Brendan Horsley being appointed Inspector-General of Defence, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Mr Horsley’s experience will be invaluable in overseeing the establishment of the new office and its support networks. “He is currently Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, having held that role since June 2020. ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government has agreed to the final regulations for the levy on insurance contracts that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand from July 2026. “Earlier this year the Government agreed to a 2.2 percent increase to the rate of levy. Fire ...
The Government is delivering regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses through changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, which was introduced today, is the second Bill – the other being the Statutes Amendment Bill - that ...
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Court timeliness, access to justice, and improving the quality of existing regulation are the focus of a series of law changes introduced to Parliament today by Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee. The three Bills in the Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill package each improve a different part of the ...
A total of 41 appointments and reappointments have been made to the 12 community trusts around New Zealand that serve their regions, Associate Finance Minister Shane Jones says. “These trusts, and the communities they serve from the Far North to the deep south, will benefit from the rich experience, knowledge, ...
The Government has confirmed how it will provide redress to survivors who were tortured at the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital Child and Adolescent Unit (the Lake Alice Unit). “The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found that many of the 362 children who went through the Lake Alice Unit between 1972 and ...
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Mr Roger Holmes Miller and Ms Tarita Hutchinson have been appointed to the Charities Registration Board, Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Louise Upston says. “I would like to welcome the new members joining the Charities Registration Board. “The appointment of Ms Hutchinson and Mr Miller will strengthen the Board’s capacity ...
More building consent and code compliance applications are being processed within the statutory timeframe since the Government required councils to submit quarterly data, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “In the midst of a housing shortage we need to look at every step of the build process for efficiencies ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey is proud to announce the first three recipients of the Government’s $10 million Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund which will enable more Kiwis faster access to mental health and addiction support. “This fund is part of the Government’s commitment to investing in ...
New Zealand is providing Vanuatu assistance following yesterday's devastating earthquake, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. "Vanuatu is a member of our Pacific family and we are supporting it in this time of acute need," Mr Peters says. "Our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu, and we will be ...
The Government welcomes the Commerce Commission’s plan to reduce card fees for Kiwis by an estimated $260 million a year, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says.“The Government is relentlessly focused on reducing the cost of living, so Kiwis can keep more of their hard-earned income and live a ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour has welcomed the Early Childhood Education (ECE) regulatory review report, the first major report from the Ministry for Regulation. The report makes 15 recommendations to modernise and simplify regulations across ECE so services can get on with what they do best – providing safe, high-quality care ...
The Government‘s Offshore Renewable Energy Bill to create a new regulatory regime that will enable firms to construct offshore wind generation has passed its first reading in Parliament, Energy Minister Simeon Brown says.“New Zealand currently does not have a regulatory regime for offshore renewable energy as the previous government failed ...
“We urge the Health Select Committee to extend the date for submissions,” concluded Rev Bush. “There is too much at stake to leave the outcome of this review only in the hands of politicians or those with vested interests.” ...
A separate passport, citizenship and membership of the United Nations are only available to fully independent nations, Winston Peters' office says. ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 23 December appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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Memo from Crosby Textor
To all available RWNJs
We were lucky last election. We only just got over the line and special votes may make things even more precarious. Having to rely on Banks and the coiffured one for supply is daunting and the thought of the Maori Party having the balance of power is terrifying.
Unless we do something then it is vey likely that we will lose the next election and the damned socialists will wreck the country by doing such things as addressing child poverty and giving workers a living wage. Such heresy cannot be tolerated.
So we need to do something about their current leadership battle. We have deep concerns about Cunliffe. He is bright and a good debater. He is the perfect counter to brand Key. He will be able to tell when Key uses our bogus statistics.
His leadership aspirations must be thwarted at all costs.
We need all out support for his opponents. Now that Parker is out of the running we need full support for Shearer. We are pleased that our efforts to placate and control the MSM are that successful that Farrar and Slater can support Shearer without anyone being incredulous at how the views of the National Party on Labour’s leadership can be given any credence.
Please keep supporting Shearer. When you do so use phrases such as “a new way” or “gamechanger” and talk about a “groundswell” even though the actual groundswell is coming from the ranks of the supporters of the right who will never vote Labour.
Message ends.
John Key left the country to make money.
David Shearer left to save lives.
And what happens when that line gets old, Lanth?
People won’t vote for Shearer just because of his past. They’ll say ‘nice guy, but…’
If Labour picks Shearer and has to roll him within six months to a year because he doesn’t have what it takes, then Labour will be caught up in the sort of messy bloodbath jounalists adore, leaving the public with negative feelings about Labour as a disunited, dysfunctional party and gifting John Key a third term.
If ‘dazed and confused’ is any indication, I think the RWNJs are changing their game plan from endorsement of Shearer to the undermining of Cunliffe. Expect the rumours and innuendo to surface any day now.
That was what the Wellington astroturfer I banned last night “Albie” something was pushing. I guess that will be the message of the day
You can see their endgame though, if Shearer wins they get someone who they think Key is better able to compete with, if Cunliffe wins against the “Shearer ground swell!1!!!” they get to say Labour is still out of touch with the electorate due to back room wheeling and dealing.
They’ve put themselves in a win/win situation, it’s pretty clever really.
…but Key fucked the world over as part of a cadre of scumbag wanksters.
There are more people dying unnecesarily than ever before.
good or bad is irrelevent, who made the bigger difference ?
Dont think there is any argument over that, at least none that would stand up. But, and its a big but, just because someone has taken a moral stand at some point in their career does not a leader of a left wing political party make.
By all means, yay for Shearer, but as noted, if you cant lead, you cant lead.
Are we talking about the same David Shearer?
Previously Senior Humanitarian Affairs Adviser in Liberia; Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for the United Nations in Rwanda; Senior Humanitarian Adviser in Albania?
Chief of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Belgrade
Senior Adviser to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan
Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem;
Humanitarian Coordinator during conflict in Lebanon in 2006
Appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as his Deputy Special Representative (Humanitarian, Reconstruction and Development) for Iraq
and the United Nations Resident Coordinator and the Humanitarian Coordinator.
He also ran one of the largest refugee camp in Somalia and recieved Queens hours for his efforts. I guess they must have read David Shearer all wrong. Either that or he makes right wing twats puke because he puts his mouth where his life is and gets the job done – all without bashing a single beneficiary. That’ll scare them to death alright. What they want is a smile ‘n’ wave stunt double.
Shearer isn’t much of a stock standard leader, he’s more Prime Minister material.
Its entirely possible you are dead right – time will tell really, will it not? Other than that, pure speculation based on three very quiet years in Parliament.
Which adds up to the sort of Labour Party leader that we need /What Shearer has achivied is exactly why I joined Labour so many years ago.
Labour people has always been proud of humanitarian leaders we have sometimes had in the the past. The men and women who have a difference to the displaced and unfortunates. if Shearer is elected leader it will be with pride among us .The Right is already moving to disrupt and divide Labour.they already have the next election planned.They were succesfull in destroying Phil Goff. They were so succesfull they even had some of our own people believing them. Dont lets go down that path again.tell these Right wing bastards that we will run our party not them.I for one do not need their advice on who should be the Leader of my party. I remember Garner saying “Im going to do Goff . Right-Wing columists like Garner .Plunket and ACT supporter Holmes and the others need to be told just where they can go with their anti Labour/Green sleaze and lies. Stop,them now !.
Um, Sean Plunket, right wing? Anti labour??
Ive no idea what you’re drinking dude, but SP is as right wing as Im Queen Lizzie.
Seriously, seriously delusional. Having worked with his neighbour and old school chum for years, and borne witness to his alcohol fueled rants, nope, not now, not then, not ever.
He called it how he saw it, and good on him for having the nuts to do it.
Sean is as Right Hand Drive as a brand new Mustang.
Don’t go the Mustang CV, driven one, they aren’t much cop.
😀
I just read that in order to make their numbers look better GM just saddled their dealers with 620,000 new cars, unsold and in inventory. A record all time high. These guys are screwed.
“David Shearer left to save lives.”
What a load of bollocks Lanthanide. Just make this up did you? Sorry, rhetorical question. You did.
“It began a few years ago when I was something of a hippy, travelling around the world like many Kiwis take the time to do.” David Shearer, speech to the Teritiary Education Conference 28 November 2011.
Truth doesn’t sit at the bottom of a wine bottle – or in your case a whine bottle.
You cite the beginning of an explanation as to how David Shearer became involved in humanitarian causes and then imply he isn’t a humanarian, but a selfish hippy? If I could, I would ban commenters like you. You’re trolling, poorly, and wasting space. Get out and do some work you thought bludger – that’s what you tell people isn’t it? Of course you already know about context, you’re just stupid, bored and likely half drunk.
For others, here is the full context of what David Shearer said:
“It began a few years ago when I was something of a hippy, travelling around the world like many Kiwis take the time to do.
A friend and I decided to follow the Nile River to its source in Uganda. I think we had this romantic notion of following in the footsteps of those great explorers.
I remember we were reading a couple of wonderful books by Alan Moorehead, who wrote about those who had passed through these same places 100 years earlier. They were called called ‘White Nile’ and the ‘Blue Nile’.
In South Sudan we hitched a ride on a Somali truck that seemed the only way to cross the wild terrain of the Turkana tribe. It was about a five day trip.
We were sitting in the back of the truck peeling a mango and throwing the skins over the side.
I heard noises below and looking down I saw children fighting over the skins – simply because they were hungry. It was a real shock. Here I was, a tourist, travelling through a land where people were so hungry they fought over mango skins.
Over the next few days we saw many people sitting or walking – who knows where – who were just skin and bones, their lives devastated by a drought and conflict in the area, many were close to dying.
For me it was one of those turning points – it hit me that perhaps I should be doing something more to make a difference in the world.
I returned to NZ but the idea of doing something never left me. I pushed and prodded various agencies and was eventually hired by Save the Children to work in Sri Lanka where a war was being fought between the government in the south and the Tamil Tiger guerrillas in the north.”
You would ban me for pointing out an erroneous statement made by Lanth? How childish you are. At no point did I make any implications. I made a statement that Lanth made up the statement that Shearer went overseas to save lives. He did not originally go overseas to save lives. He went on his OE, that is all. The evidence is in your reproduction of his speech. If you read implications into my short earlier response, you are either far too sensitive, or perhaps the wine bottle you refer to is taking a hammering at your end.
I have nothing against David Shearer, his achievements are many, and uplifting. In my opinion he would make a fine leader of the Labour Party, the only pity being that he is not National.
Very well, vino veritarse, would you regard the phrasing:
as achieving the required level of accuracy?
Pointless objection you had there, imo.
So he went on his OE and ended up doing a vast amount of good. Maybe if you had your eyes opened a bit you wouldn’t be sitting around here wasting our time with such pointless exercises in pedantry and diversion.
Why –
because he has real talent, other than playing roullette with other peoples money like Shonkey did? That bloke hasn’t done a hard days work in his life!
“He will be able to tell when Key uses our bogus statistics”
Irony, much?
Always with the laughable conspiracy theory. If you got over yourself for half a second, you would see it as debate on something topical. Me, I see it as, from my perspective, the chance for labour to understand whats broken and fix it. Because remember, the electorate has just told you it is broken. And the option is yours to fix it.
It’s easier to keep blaming everything else and dream up yet another conspiracy.
Understanding and fixing is difficult, especially if it involves examining your own failings.
The too hard basket case.
and what are your failings, pete?
I’m learning from the ones I’m aware of.
GO AWAY – you make me depressed!
shhh – you’re just adding to the extensive list of things pete has to learn.
Yeah but they don’t have to feed the MSM with appearances on close up etc and deflect any questions with how about that mine, or that mine safety, stuffed forecasts etc etc etc
This gives opportunity to turn it back on the dodgy behaviour the Nats excel and if they persist simply state it’s an internal party matter…..the MSM don’t deserve the time of day let alone indulge the CT initiative.
actaully TC i disagree…its both worthwhile, mature and a fresh approach…labour need to reconnect so why hide the process away from the public.
These public apearances i.e beauty contests allow the party the opportunity to gauge support, create interest with the candiadates and also the party.
This whole ‘road show’ event if properly managed will create situational responces that we can use for the future.
This is both honest fresh and relevant – go team labour and its new look.
A Christmas message from the National Party
http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/qUuDm1Mt2TuhyMCo4K4x
(Farts will always be funny)
National’s next election campaign kicks off with a bang.
Or should that be a poof!
a pffft !
Proof that RWNJs believe at least two impossible things before breakfast.
Basically, the Republicans are demanding that the tax cuts given to the poor be revoked while demanding that the tax cuts given to the rich, which caused the deficit and aren’t creating jobs, be kept.
It’s laughable. The same people who say a tax cut for them will generate jobs are arguing a package that includes reducing the Federal workforce by 10%. Do they comprehend the words that tumble out their mouths or are they just so utterly conceited they don’t care anymore.
Spiegel: A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses.
Africa is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed — well, they shouldn’t make such a big deal about it.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they’ve been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what’s still the most powerful job in the world.
As it turns out, there are no limits to how far they will stoop.
It’s true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen, and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and embarrassments. Yet this time around, it’s just not that funny anymore. In fact, it’s utterly horrifying.
It’s horrifying because these eight so-called, would-be candidates are eagerly ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party, the party of Lincoln lore. Worse: They’re ruining the reputation of the United States.
How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street.
“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation’s foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. “They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”
Also: http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/12/01/379365/frank-luntz-occupy-wall-street/
Cognitive dissonance. The worst part is they probably don’t even realise they’re doing it.
MediaMatters: “Climategate” Redux: Conservative Media Distort Hacked Emails … Again
Selectively Edited Email Implies Scientists “Left Out” Information To Fit A “Message.” A December 2004 email from the University of Arizona’s Jonathan Overpeck to Argentinian scientist Ricardo Villalba was cropped to say:
Overpeck:
The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out. [Email excerpt, accessed 11/28/11]
Email Was Actually About Meeting Page Limits. The full email reveals that Overpeck is advising Villalba to edit a lengthy outline down to “0.5 pages of HIGHLY focused and relevant stuff.” They are discussing a “Section on Modes of Variability” for the Palaeoclimate chapter of the draft 2007 IPCC report. From Overpeck’s email:
I think the hardest, yet most important part, is to boil the section down to 0.5 pages. In looking over your good outline, sent back on Oct. 17 (my delay is due to fatherdom just after this time), you cover ALOT. The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out. For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change. Moreover, we have to have solid data – not inconclusive information.
[…]
So, the trick is for you to lead us (Dick, Keith, me – maybe Julie – ENSO expert) to produce 0.5 pages of HIGHLY focused and relevant stuff. Can you take another crack at your outline and then tell us what you need? [Email 4755, 12/16/04]
Kyoto – Not unconditional [sic]
I guess we should have expected it… National looks set to bypass the Kyoto protocol. Not that New Zealand adhered to the deal to reduce emissions the first place…
Yeah, when I read that Canada was thinking of pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol I figured it wouldn’t be long before this government did the same.
Huffpost: Arab Spring, American Fall
It is highly symbolic that the social unrest took place in America in the Fall, for rather than expressing a social upheaval that would turn the country upside down, it actually expressed something profoundly sinister — the further application and extension of national security state power. The take-downs of the Occupy sites were nationally coordinated. The rationales given were all the same. The overwhelming police presence was similar. The acquiescence of the protestors in leaving, overwhelmingly non-violently, was strikingly common.
What makes this sinister is that it comes at just the moment when the Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act (SB 1867) co-authored by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, which contains a “worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial” provision. The bill legislates into law the capacity of the president to deploy the U.S. military anywhere in the world, including the United States, and have the legal right to arrest, hold without charge, incarcerate indefinitely, and even execute any U.S. citizen as a military matter without judicial oversight or control. As Senator Lindsey Graham says, the bill “does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.” This is the mentality dealing with Occupy, and unlike the Arab Spring, there is nothing that Occupy has done to date that has shaken this prevailing mentality. While Occupy has certainly challenged the prevailing elites, it has also given them the opportunity to exercise more powerfully the very powers Occupy is protesting.
ACLU: Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s1867/show
For a glimpse of where the US and, by adjunct, NZ is going go read The Handmaid’s Tale. Even though it’s fiction it’s becoming more accurate by the day.
Send in the bullies
Earlier this year the National party completely failed to consult with local Iwi about their plans to explore for oil off the East Coast of New Zealand. To combat the negative public backlash National have now appointed a former District Commander and Superintendent of Police as Iwi Relations Manager, who just happens to have a history of violence and corruption…
Why does this remind me of Dicky ”Diesel” Maxwell and Chris Campbell?.
Peters won’t rule out release of tea tape
Game on.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
He will do it to. No matter if the cops try to bury it with a bs ruling Peters knows this will put him on the front page. I am so in the gallery that day!
He’s got a pretty big bone to pick… so my guess is he will as well.
hahah yeah Winnie Bring it
Hate to say it, love him or loathe him, NZ politics is a far more fun spectator sport with Winston on hand.
Parliamentary Privilege! Aha. Other gremlins to come out do you think?
Be interesting to see what pre-emptive strikes are unleashed on Winston.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6075286/Tamihere-Cunliffes-deputy-pick-smarmy
Dubious disclaimer is dubious or, he is calling her stupid and the quip of:
Just reinforces my idea that Tamihere considers Nanaia Mahuta a non-person combined with the anti-disabled bullshit as well…
And:
Translation: misogyny = Labour Party values (oh noes wez can’t has women in leadership!111!!), and he’s anti-porn in the single most stupidest way to boot*, which is ironic given he’s talking about the “men’s vote”.
Methinks perhaps he should just stick to talk back, were the audience is full of “traditional” values, such as calling anything you don’t like “politically correct” and misogyny is held in high esteem.
_______________________________________________________________
*”self mutilation”? lolwut? it sounds like something from dodgy fundie tracts and utterly ignores the shit that goes on in the porn industry, nor issues with sexual roles/behaviours and exploitation.
According to Willie Jackson today, Tamihere is working for Shearer.
If this is true both the women’s sector and the rainbow sector will be really annoyed. With good reason.
Tamihere is the arse-hole who got kicked out of Labour for being misogynist. IIRC, he also took an extreme jump to the right after he left Labour as well. I don’t think anything he says is worth listening to as he’s proven, quite conclusively, that his judgement is lacking credibility.
Maui Street: JT on Nanaia
I’ve given up even responding to Tamihere, on account of how much of a fuckwit he is. I can’t believe New Zealand voted for the guy.
And Nanaia busts out a smack down.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10770406
Maybe she does have enough fire in the belly for the deputy position.
Fuck yes.
I can see why Cunliffe choose her now, as she’s got the steel needed for the front bench and whipping MP’s into line.
Unless it’s some bizarre Machiavellian plot and he supported her all along, he’s unintentionally helped her claims to be deputy.
Good work JT!
yeah she sure aint scared of no-one and I admire her for that…………….
JT – New Zealand’s answer to Jeremy Clarkson – another one with his snout in the trough of far too many trust boards.
It begs the question what he was ever doing in a left leaning party coming out with shit like that.
The Spy Files
Idiot/Savant gets the best stories.
There are ways to technically usurp the system. Mainly by learning the opt out and block features on cell phones and ensuring that tracking software is not operational on your computer. However that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The other day I drove past an unmarked car that obviously had a sophisticated surveillance system in operation with a camera mounted on the inside of the windscreen. With digital facial recognition and most people having their photo online somewhere, there really is no escaping.
Therefore the best option is to politicize and work to restrict their intrusiveness and power.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/secret-software-logging-video/
The Android developer who raised the ire of a mobile-phone monitoring company last week is on the attack again, producing a video of how the Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone
http://allthingsd.com/20111201/carrier-iq-speaks-our-software-monitors-service-messages-ignores-other-data/#
Carrier IQ rebuts.
USSR taxed its way into putting the first man in space.
The USA taxed its way to being the first to put a man on the moon.
The USSR removed property rights on individuals as it was a tax on the people.
The Greens argue that turning DOC land over to mining is essentially a tax on future generations who will nolonger be able to attract tourists, or utilize the nature wealth of the area.
As all property essentially excludes everyone but the property right holder, and so is a tax on everyone else.
So for a citizenry to guard property rights (the duty to deny themselves access to property) there is a responsibility on property owners to use property, rather than hoard or pollute it.
From a Green perspective wasting a landscape by mining it over a decade means the loss of future profits of generations of tourists, downstream pollution of water ways leaving costs on farmers…to…biological firms finding profit in genetic diversity.
Now why does this make the Green party more of a libertarian party than the ACT party?
Well simple, because ACT isn’t a libertarian party, it ignores property right holders duty to make a profit (by claiming they always do), in fact it pushes policies that ‘take profit’ creating no wealth.
Take for example the taxpayer built dams that are now up for sale, which is a property transfer transaction not wealth creation.
So Prebble was right, well obviously he wasnt saying taxes don’t create wealth when he said taxation doesn’t create wealth, what are the tax funded dams about to be sold because they represent so much wealth.
What he was clearly saying was the sale of assets, a cost to tax payers, is a waste of taxes as it transfers wealth rather than makes any wealth.
Well okay he wasn’t, but that what happens when an ignoramus like Prebble makes the absurd claim that taxation doesn’t create wealth, obviously sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
Property rights is a tax and potentially creates weath when property owners aren’t deluded about their role.
But if you are associated with the ACT party then either you’re delusional, ignorant or just a cheap bleating lying, which is easily discernable by those not associated with said ideology.
Much like an atheist when hearing a be-godist speach; strangely, ACT is a religious dogmatic economic party.
So here we have the problem, Dunne saying asset sales, where they happen, should be for the good of NZ, yet incapable of answering the simplest of questions!
How does transfering ‘some’ property rights to foreigners conform to Dunne’s view that sales should for the good of NZ?
Dunne is far worse than the ACT party, ACT keeps their stupidity up front and in your face, Dunne weazely wishy washy view is to cloak asset sales as some liberal pragmatism when obviously its not.
Asset sales that place ownership in foriegn hands, or even in kiwi hands where those kiwis live overseas or will inevitably have to move once they sell the asset to pay for the flight out of NZ.
The world is printing money, and our elite is selling into that market despite those assets being key to our economic future in an energy limited world.
Sorry but this is akin to leaving the Trojens gates open after returning the gift of a horse statue.
Remember every name of every MP that votes Key’s budget in (or abstains – the Maori party) because they obviously plan on having homes in Australia and need to pay for them somehow (except Maori who have a history of selling off property cheap or so Maori tell it).
The Maori party providing any form of support to ‘asset sales’ National is a disgrace imo.
Castro’s Cuba gives land away gratis to those who will use it productively, but if they fail to do so it is taken back and given to someone else who can use it productively.
Yes, and that requires someone to be watching. Capitalism does that differently by laying taxes that pressures land owners to use land, and fines for pollution. And why National ideology will always be anti-Green as it denies governments role in the process or water downs the policies.
“The good of of NZ” is best served by selling power at cost. However this is only likely to happen if the power companies are owned by the government since private owners will usually want to chase profit. I seems a pity that Labour condoned the setting up of profit making, dividend paying SOE’s, otherwise they might have contested the election with the message that selling power companies would mean an increase in power prices.
NYmag: 2012=1968?
In 2008, Barack Obama lit a fire among young activists. Next year, Occupy Wall Street could consume him
from.
Interesting there is no comment regarding the Port of Auckland strike by called by the Union. I note that the average wage of these people is a lazy $91K (plus the extras they each get). This puts them just outside the top 5% of earners in NZ, therefore they must be Michael Cullen’s “rich pricks”. Good to see that no one here is supporting them.
[lprent: There is a comment – you just made one. Congratulations.
However I fail to see why you’re calling the wharfies “John Key”. After all that was the only person that Michael Cullen directed his remark to. As far as I can see the only comparison is that they earn less than John Key, and they work just below the MP for Helensville’s residence in Parnell.
In other words if you want to quote history then please quote real history rather than the slop that wingnuts dish up as fact. Besides I have to go through the effort of releasing it from moderation. ]
The banners the protestors were holding stated they get $13 per hour and the CEO gets $3000 per day. Now, if you would like to go down and ask to see their pay slips and confirm or deny their banner, and simultaneously justify your claimed $91K, we’d appreciate that.
The figure you are quoting means they would have to work 150 hours per week @ $13 an hour to get to $91K, or a 50 hour week earning $39 per hour – so which is it seeing as you claim to be in the know?
A Banker Speaks, With Regret
If you want to understand why the Occupy movement has found such traction, it helps to listen to a former banker like James Theckston. He fully acknowledges that he and other bankers are mostly responsible for the country’s housing mess.
As a regional vice president for Chase Home Finance in southern Florida, Theckston shoveled money at home borrowers. In 2007, his team wrote $2 billion in mortgages, he says. Sometimes those were “no documentation” mortgages.
“On the application, you don’t put down a job; you don’t show income; you don’t show assets,” he said. “But you still got a nod.”
“If you had some old bag lady walking down the street and she had a decent credit score, she got a loan,” he added.
Theckston says that borrowers made harebrained decisions and exaggerated their resources but that bankers were far more culpable — and that all this was driven by pressure from the top.
“You’ve got somebody making $20,000 buying a $500,000 home, thinking that she’d flip it,” he said. “That was crazy, but the banks put programs together to make those kinds of loans.”
the trillion word image that gets more real every day
Support locked-out workers
111 Meat workers are still locked-out from the jobs at in Rangitikei. They’ve been more than six weeks without wages and they need support. This weekend is a national day of fund-raising and action in support of the locked-out workers. McDonalds are being targeted, as they are one of the primary customers of the company. There are events organised all over the country…
Ask the stevedores in Auckland, they’ll have plenty to share around.
I presume you’re referring to Cathy Odgers claims that the Auckland wharfies are rich pricks when she does not link to her source. I think you can take her divide and conquer bullshit with a grain of salt Roflcopter.
I thought it rather unbecoming of John Key when he said that National had the “largest majority since the Waterfront strike” which occurred in 1951.
The reason for National winning the snap election then is because they ran a negative campaign on an anti-Communist platform, labeling many men who had fought bravely for their country in the second world war as communists, which further entrenched the resentment felt by the waterfront workers. They went on strike after missing out on a 15% pay increase awarded by the Arbitration Court to all other workers.
The National led government then went about beating and starving the families of the protesting workers into submission. Back then you weren’t even allowed to produce pamphlets to disseminate information. National has a history a fascism that they should be ashamed of.
Labour lost ground in the snap election because they tried to remain moderate and did not come out strongly in support of the Unions. Instead of negotiating with the unions, National chose to use violence and propaganda to repress the uprising. Hopefully it’s a lesson learned by all sides.
Looking at what’s happening it’s lesson that’s been forgotten – but we’ll all get the chance to re-learn it as the psychopaths in NAct continue their war on the poor and the theft of our assets and resources.
So who does Mora on Afternoons turn to for a legal opinion?
Stephen Franks (often panelist). And introduced as former
MP. (Not former ACT MP)
http://bikyamasr.com/49799/egypt-import-tear-gas-from-us/
CAIRO: The arrival of 7 and half tons of tear gas to Egypt’s Suez port created conflict after the responsible officials at the port refused to sign and accept it for fear it would be used to crackdown on Egyptian protesters
[…]
Egypt’s al-Shorouk newspaper reported that upon the arrival of the shipment, massive disagreements broke out between employees, where five employees refused to sign for the shipment, one after the other.
The five, being dubbed by activists as the “brave five”, were to be refereed to a investigative committee as to why they refused to perform their duties, which has since called off.
Sharples will stand down as Maori Party co-leader
Interesting…
Fixed your munted link DTB.
And I reckon Pita’s jumping before the SS MP hits the asset sales reef.
Gah, thanks.
If he resigns it would trigger a by-election which Labour could conceivably win. Depending on what happen with the special votes that could actually be the end of the NAct government.
hell yes
fukn A
If there is a by-election, Wall has her safe seat and Jones has a high ranking on the list, could Labour please stand a candidate who’s a born and bred local.
Whoa!
Nek minnit the Poll Idol election takes a nasty turn as the razor-back Slippery Govt steps on a banana skin.
Hang onto your assets and lubricate your pencils, Turi and Te Ure, your price just went up – before specials.
He obviously wasn’t happy to be forced to stand down:
From TV3 News: “This is what happens in politics… You work yourself to death … And you really get passionate about what you achieve…Then some drunk staggers up and calls you a prick,” he said after the interview.
Maybe he should just defect to the opposition benches. He always seemed to have a soft spot for Labour.
Not certain if I am permitted to post this in entirety … but here goes .. too important not to post imho .. this is from a trusted and credible website …. the email is dated today
NaturalNews Insider Alert ( http://www.NaturalNews.com ) email newsletter
Dear NaturalNews readers,
In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America.
This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a “battleground” upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.
It’s being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn’t apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill it essentially says it can apply to Americans “if we want it to.”
Even WIRED magazine was outraged at this bill, reporting:
…the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/senate-military-detention/
The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the “legitimate assassination” of U.S. citizens on right here on American soil!
If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we’ve been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America — no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.
Read my red alert warning on this urgent development at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034291_SB_1867_war_on_terror.html
… and watch this urgent interview with Alex Jones of InfoWars.com at:
http://www.infowars.com/stewart-rhodes-crossroads-ndaa-bill-is-pure-treason/
The mainstream media is engaged in a shameful and conspiratorial news blackout of this entire issue:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-medias-blackout-of-the-national-defense-authorization-act-is-shameful-2011-12
… and even the ACLU is outraged about this potential law:
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/senate-rejects-amendment-banning-indefinite-detention
Are you getting all this? Do you realize America is about to be overrun by our own military?
The rule of law is about to be utterly destroyed. No due process. No legal representation. Not even a right to know what you’re being charged with when you are (indefinitely) detained.
This is an urgent time for action to protest the overreaching military police state in America. Immediately call your representatives in Washington and urge your House members to reject this bill in the reconciliation phase with the Senate. Call the office of the President and urge Obama to veto this bill if it is passed by both houses.
Call your local newspapers and protest this outrageous and traitorous attempt to nullify the entire Bill of Rights.
Do not be fooled by the trolls and disinfo agents who claim this bill does not apply to U.S. citizens — a fact which has already been established without question. If this is signed into law, military humvees will roll down the streets in U.S. cities, with gunpoint checkpoints, illegal arrests, secret torture operations and the outright murder of U.S. citizens right in their own home towns.
In observing all this, you might ask WHY is this happening right now? Why would the U.S. Senate deliberately nullify the Bill of Rights and seek the authorize military action on the streets of U.S. cities?
The answer, my friends, will not comfort you: A global economic collapse is coming, and once started, it will likely unleash a wave of social unrest and rioting that could burn many U.S. cities to the ground. The U.S. Senate is probably trying to rush authorization of the military to operate in American cities before the economic collapse arrives, thereby placing troops deep within the roughest U.S. cities where they stand a chance at halting the runaway riots that are sure to materialize when peoples’ life savings vanish as the banks collapse.
Keep reading NaturalNews.com for updates on this situation. We will continue to cover the Eurozone economic crisis as well as this Senate bill 1867, which is not yet law. Our last-ditch hope would be for Obama to veto it. We’ll issue a red alert if that action is needed…
And remember, folks, the Bill of Rights protects us all — liberals, conservatives, libertarians, agnostics, Christians, Jews, everybody! If you lose the Bill of Rights, you lose America and all the freedoms many generations have fought for. Right now protecting the Bill of Rights is perhaps the single most important thing we can do for our collective futures.
All of us who have been screaming about the importance of the U.S. Constitution have been trying to protect YOU from exactly this kind of scenario. The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights is to limit the power of government so that this kind of Senate action is never allowed.
In other news today, a federal court has reversed a lower court decision and granted corporate ownership over human genes for breast cancer:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034301_breast_cancer_genes_intellectual_property.html
“naturalnews.com”…
Great, here’s a tip, don’t trust news that comes from a site well known in sceptic and science-based medicine circles for being utterly full of shit on everything from autism to cancer to HIV and beyond.
Let alone spam other places with this paranoid bullshit, as the senate lacks the power to easily mess with the bill of rights without a super majority + presidential support.
just been alerted to that fat slob leighton smith.
he went flat out on the radio all last week to denigrate the candidates for the labour party leadership.
he denigrated the United Nations and David Shearer and every time he gets the chance he denigrates Obama.
How can New Zealanders tolerate such an ugly person getting in their face to tell them lies and set the tone of hatred every morning.
I shudder to think that some actually like him and think there is some shred of truth in what he says.
If that is so then country is in deep trouble.