"Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher embezzlement case has been converted to 3 years and 6 months behind bars, TASS reports from the courtroom.
"Despite the preventive measures taken with him, Navalny repeatedly violated his deadlines for reporting to the inspection. The court considers the motion of the [Russian] Federal Penitentiary Service to be satisfied," judge Natalya Repnikova announced the decision."
Yes, as usual RNZ and western media in general display their utter and almost total inability to contextualise important international news…and they wonder why so many people don't trust the news they feed them.
The Manufacturing Consent model has become almost total in MSM.
That would no doubt have much to do with the high proportion of Russian military that have been deployed to the area – as they were prior to the seizure. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-crimea/29790037.html These at least are no Crimean citizens.
It remains to be seen how far the US will go to prevent a full scale Russian invasion of the Ukraine – but at least Putin's bootlicker Trump is out of the picture for a bit, and can't roll over in response to Russian aggression as he no doubt would have done.
It must be tempting to US interests to interdict Russian expansionism at the Crimean chokepoint rather than let its corrosive influence permeate through Syria and the like.
The Ardern Labour governments superb response has limited deaths from covid to 25, Boris Fucking Johnsons inept, arrogant, public school ingrained stupidity has killed off 107,000, the UK toll under the NZ response would have been about 350.
I thought Captain Tom was in hospital with Covid. The pneumonia surely a result of that.
I hold the govt responsible that we have only had 25 deaths. They responded swiftly and superbly to a novel virus. We are extremely fortunately it has only been 25.
My absolute sympathy to those people who lost their love ones. We can thank our Govt that the country is experiencing mass grief at the moment.
If it turns out that COVID-19 had a hand in causing Moore's death, then shouldn't Johnson share at least some of the blame? After all, Johnson's already apologised, and well he should.
Sadly RNZ and most other NZ news outlets make this their lead story, but of course never do a serious story or even a small story on this…time to just admit RNZ has become nothing more than a news/entertainment outlet for teenagers and adults who can't be bothered thinking for themselves…..
The Tories' new trade bill means the NHS is now unquestionably up for sale
By rejecting Labour’s proposed amendments, the government has left our health service at the mercy of hungry US corporations
Nah, we have to wait till National and ACT lead Government and bring back Steven Joyce and Rodney Hide to merge MBIE and MoH into one giant Super-Ministry called Big Bertha.
Nobody in power likes to share data, information, or knowledge in fear of giving up power & control. Transparency and accountability are PR speak for giving the great unwashed their daily amnesia pill and the bread and circuses provided by MSM and SM do the rest. Have we won the AC yet?
We’ve heard about this issue on an off for decades, but the big factor that's different this time is the ageing workforce. Across so many technical and professional specialisations we're losing people to retirement that are simply not being replaced in sufficient numbers.
At present you can roughly divide adults into three almost equal cohorts, a 20-40 group who're relatively unskilled but energetic and growing their lives, 40-60 who've now become more skilled and productive and are investing heavily for their old age – and then over 60 who now find themselves actively shunted into retirement and become consumers of their capital. (If they have any that is.)
There are two paths we can consider. One is to address more forcefully the absurd ageism that's rife in the employment market. Everyone knows and everyone does it, yet we pretend it's somehow ok and 'what are you whinging about now boomer'? That would expand the availability of already skilled and capable people later into their lives.
The second more approach we need to be thinking about is how to get younger workers up to speed and more productive earlier in their careers. Get people up into that 'skilled high value bracket' by their early 30's instead of their 40's. More employer investment into automation and in career training are the obvious plays here.
The point is our demographics are changing in ways our societies have never experienced before – and we'll need to start considering doing things in response we're not accustomed to.
Lets assume the premise is correct….I shake my head every time I hear some office wallah extolling the virtues of working past retirement age…in many occupations it is quite simply typically impossible if not downright dangerous.
There actually needs to be a stock assessment of all the workforces as to their age cohorts. This isn't occurring just in Health – building, engineering, farming, carpet laying …. there is a long list.
Should be easy to be done centrally by industry first using IRD wage and salary data as a starting point – I think only IRD would have where you work and what industry it is in.
That would allow some focus after that on occupations. All the info should be made public and accessible and updated monthly if possible so industries can examine where they are at and plan accordingly. This is where government should be able to shine – the provision of timely, quality bulk data.
Agree it is a reported issue in many workforces and in the near term it is only going to get worse. I would have thought it will have been an issue widely canvassed in Labour's Future of Work study…..then again perhaps not.
Yes it's true that as we age the nature of what we can do well also changes – but the idea that somehow we become suddenly useless at 65 is just nuts. Adaptation is always possible.
who said useless?….I think I said "in many occupations it is typically impossible if not downright dangerous'.
I have witnessed countless guys struggling through the final years of their working life trying to hide the fact the job is too much for them (physically) any longer and the impact it has on their health…many of them decided it wasnt possible any longer and didnt make retirement age in the industry.
Not so sure about that….with increasing workloads on the existing cohort 'burn out' and mental health appear to be an issue…certainly in the primary health field.
And the world dosnt run solely on skilled technical and professional groups….such as it runs.
One good friend here put it to me like this – employers know you can still do the job, but they also intuitively sense that as you got older not only did the tide of bullshit keep rising, but your tolerance for it diminished.
And the two trends crossed over for you about two years ago
… employers know you can still do the job, but they also intuitively sense that as you got older not only did the tide of bullshit keep rising, but your tolerance for it diminished.
To a land in which economists are useless and confounded.
No one, not even the most optimistic, thought headline unemployment would fall to 4.9%, the underutilisation rate (even seasonally adjusted) falls to 11.9%, and now the fifth highest employment rate for those 15-64 in the OECD.
Clearly – they were holding the chicken entrails upside down at the time of their predictions. Hence the gobsmackery they have just experienced. No worries, normal transmission will soon be resumed, and along with it, their accustomed air of authority.
I would be very cautiously about the desirable level of economic forecasting certainty.
In no time at all following 2008-2010 the Key government had control of the narrative, unemployment in NZ was relatively low and spending was being slowed towards surplus regardless whos pocket book that cut into.
Clearly from events we now know the country could have afforded to be much more supportive, and that also applies to Jacindas first term. But it still took 2020 to shake the sureity with which the country carried on at the time.
Last time we had anything like an economic narrative was 2002. An attempt at least.
Since then it's been simply crisis response. 2020 is no exception.
Grand narratives are grand, I recall Paul Ricoeur saying, because what they narrate is the work of the social imaginary itself. No one is proposing a New Zealand state with that scale of agency.
From the ones I've know professionally and personally, doctors don't retire due to age.
They seem to retire either so they can ignore the daily bs and do their own research or healthcare-related thing, or so they can live in Otago or Nelson (sometimes with grapes involved).
It is why quality jobs are important that pay well. If GDP rises on the basis of added value/high profit then anything is affordable – if GDP rises on the basis of low paid jobs like tourism then it is much more of a struggle.
The problem is we've chased low paying work.
I think what companies like Tait could have done with good investment in those early days of cell-phones, etc. We potentially could have been leading the world in cell-phone technology.
On the other hand we are starting to see us leading in things like agricultural robotics.
It's more that the wretchedly worthless clowns in Treasury and Immigration and Education have chased low-paying work on our behalf. We ought to have a professionalised society along Scandinavian lines, and would but for the larding of our civil services with Brash-selected failures addicted to Chicago School nonsense instead of the pragmatism that used to make our country effective.
Had a long yarn with a semi-retired former DSIR bloke the other day. The civil service has gone from bad to worse, with gyres of managers producing nothing but friction stymying the work that needs to be done at every turn. And for Callahan Innovation, his scorn was withering. The cheese has been pared a little too often, so development has stalled – except in the safest of all sectors, property speculation.
But hey – 900 Kiribatians the other day – undercutting wages and setting worker exploitation in concrete until the present generation of corrupt MPs retire. Our economy will follow that of the American south – hollowed out by slave-depressed wages and the worthless spawn of entitlement non-working rentiers breed.
We are in no hurry to get our hands on the vaccine…
That's not the impression I have. Hipkins has exhibited frustration about the current situation and has been in daily contact with the providers. They are very concerned.
Now that it's finally gone through phase 3 trials, it's probably as copacetic as the others.
It was, shall we say, a 'bold move' cut cut corners as significantly as they did, though. A bit like lauching a moon mission without thoroughly testing the engines that would get you off the rock and back home.
"cut corners as significantly as they did" They did? Care to elucidate?
Anyway
"In the first week of February, vaccination with Sputnik V will start in the following 12 countries: Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Palestine, UAE, Paraguay, Hungary, Armenia, Algeria, Bosnian Serb Republic, Venezuela and Iran."
"
Efficacy of Sputnik V against COVID-19 was reported at 91.6%.
Analysis included data on 19,866 volunteers, who received both the first and second doses of the Sputnik V vaccine or placebo at the final control point of 78 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Efficacy in the elderly group of 2,144 volunteers over 60 years old was 91.8% and did not differ statistically from the 18-60 group.
Russia started dispensing it on 5 December. That's only ten days after they recruited their cohort for the first half of their phase 3 trials. Given that the trials looked at recipients for 21 days after their shot, let me be clear on this: they started distributing the vaccine before even the interim phase 3 trial results had been produced.
As opposed to Oxford–AstraZeneca, for which the interim phase 3 results were announced on 23 November and the first non-trials distribution was on 4 Jan 2021.
Whether that was a calculated risk by the Russians when faced with a pandemic and an extremely promising (if untested) vaccine, or simply a prestige-based move based on a fair bet nothing will go massively wrong with it, that's up in the air.
Thanks for the new word copacetic to add to my vocab. library. 😉
Maybe they did cut a few corners but they would have been informed enough to know the risk was worth taking. Whatever… it provides those countries who would not be able to afford the more expensive vaccines a chance to vaccinate their citizens. That is is a damned good thing for everyone.
I mean, I'm not saying they were distributing something they thought was likely to go wrong, quite the reverse.
But phase three trials exist for a reason, even though they're expensive. Something gets to phase three if folks are pretty darn sure it will work and be safe, but not every drug or device passes them.
In the midst of news unemployment figures dropping and average wages increasing Federated Farmers say 'finding and retaining staff is a headache for its members'.
Perhaps if farmers and the rest of the agriculture and horticulture industries stopped relying on paying the minimum wage or less they wouldn't find getting workers so difficult.
It's a near-perfect storm for leveraging wage prices up, with few students, few temporary seasonal workers, very few tourist visas and wine and apple harvest coming around the corner.
That Living Wage target sure appears achievable with this amount of market pressure.
Holyoake didn't can free education, kill the DSIR or let the DFC go off the reservation – that happened under a less scrupulous generation. And that's saying something.
Agree every government has contributed to where we are. Holyoake didn't set up an equivalent to Temasek, didn't tax water use, didn't try to keep Glaxo here, didn't support the development of a local stock exchange, didn't do anything useful from the wool collapse, didn't prepare use for CER, didn't build on Sutch's work, didn't support union shopfloor productivity, didn't do much at all.
Doesn't let Treasury off the hook though – they are useless. All this stuff about an aging society – what do they suppose insecure low-wage employment and a housing bubble created by capital inflows does for working folk meaning to raise a family? Too stupid to live – and these are the folk who, for some reason, pull in big bucks. A bit of competence in economics wouldn't go amiss.
Finally someone's come up with the answer. If only everybody did what Anja Meredith's done…everyone would own their own home. About time people began taking responsibility!
You could do it too if you wanted. Borrowing money has never been cheaper. I say good on her, but there is a risk involved and a lot of people (probably like yourself) are not willing to take that risk.
Meredith says all her disciplines create "self confidence & happiness" – good on her for chasing her dreams. Not for everyone though, and not for me – sounds exhausting.
These kinds of stories have attached the subtext "everybody can do it if the really want to so if you don't want to you don't really want it so everything's your own fault". The irony is that if everyone had that dream house prices would shoot through to the next galaxy, even less people would own their own home, homelessness increases and so on. These one percenter stories that are dressed up to tell us things aren't that bad are like a pyramid scheme – the more people believe them the worse things get. The flipside is that perpetuating these stories is in the interests of one group, and to the detriment of another.
Does the Real Estate industry sponsor this crap one might wonder?
Every few weeks a story pops up about say, a 17 year old with two flyer rounds, and a strong work ethic, who has bought a block of flats or something–“anyone prepared to work hard and give away the coffee can do it” the little weasel says …until the reader discovers a loan or assistance from family etc. actually kickstarted the process.
Many middle class families know with certainty that their kids will never raise a deposit in the current environment, unless their parents are in a position to cough up.
That is why Labour has got it so wrong imo–the switch voters, and “doing oks” they are pandering to, along with their slavish defence of neoliberal hegemony, would actually like to see their own kids in houses!
"The government's latest argument is that other countries need the vaccine more than we do. Taken to its logical conclusion, that would mean no vaccines for New Zealanders for many years to come, which even the government isn't proposing."
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The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Honiara Solomon Islands’ incumbent prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has been re-elected in the East Choiseul constituency. It is the opening move in the political chess match to form the country’s next government. Returning officer Christopher Makoni made the declaration late last night after ...
Headline: The moment of friction. – 36th Parallel Assessments In strategic studies “friction” is a term that it is used to describe the moment when military action encounters adversary resistance. “Friction” is one of four (along with an unofficial fifth) “F’s” in military strategy, which includes force (kinetic mass), ...
The Fast-track Bill, if passed, would allow three Ministers, unchallenged and unchecked, to approve the immediate extraction and exhaustion of one-off resources. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
In apparent defiance of the Biden administration, the Netanyahu government has now initiated missile strikes against Iran. Last Saturday night (Sunday morning in New Zealand) Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against Israeli military targets. With the assistance of US, UK and possibly French forces, ...
Māori representation brings a perspective that encompasses not only the interests of Māori communities but also a broader, holistic approach to environmental stewardship and community well-being, principles deeply embedded in Te Ao Māori (the Māori ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
Zoë Colling’s favourite piece in the ‘That’s So Last Century’ collection is a lubrication chart for a sewing machine from the ’60s. It’s about the size of a postcard, and carefully maintained. “I like it that this piece of ephemera highlights that manual and technical side of the skill involved ...
Kia Ora Gaza A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to ...
With submissions closing today, Macassey-Pickard says groups around the country have been supporting a huge range of people to make their submissions. ...
Our response to the new legislation is informed by targeted conversations with practitioners working in the system and through an implementation lens. ...
The new ‘Fast-track Approvals Bill’ would give just three Ministers the power to approve or deny development projects. They would avoid the usual checks and balances that are in place to protect rivers, land, the ocean, and communities. ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pearce, Professor, School of Allied Heath, Human Services & Sport, La Trobe University, La Trobe University This week, Collingwood AFL player Nathan Murphy announced his retirement, brought on by his concussion history and ongoing issues. The 24-year-old’s seemingly sudden retirement, ...
The Mental Health Foundation provides support and resources for those facing the loss of their job, so it’s wrong in the very week the Government adds another 1000 jobs to its tally of cuts, that this is happening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/Sydney Theatre Company Decay, terror, revulsion. These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President. The Austrian is one of the greatest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ye In (Jane) Hwang, Postdoctoral Research Associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says threats by ministers Shane Jones and David Seymour to reform or close down the Waitangi Tribunal were “ill-considered”, as legal experts say the ministers may have breached Cabinet Manual conventions. “I think those comments are ill-considered and we expect all ministers to actually exercise good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Pexels/RDNE stock project You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. ...
A new poem by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. Mitochondrial Problem I. It was long drive to Kansas for the man and his dog but you have to understand he said She doesn’t fly. Which calls to mind not carsick shitting barking or whining but a dog who chooses not to as ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)Hot off the press, this debut ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without ...
Chief executive Shaun Robinson said it has not had any government funding cut, but government-funded contracts have not kept pace with rising costs. ...
The Ministry of Health has delayed the release of its evidence brief on the safety, reversibility and mental health and wellbeing outcomes for puberty blockers. While we wait, Julia de Bres speaks to those with firsthand experience. Best practice gender-affirming healthcare is based on trans people’s self-determination and agency. The ...
Barcelona’s city streets have gone from traffic-clogged to pedestrian-friendly. How? Superblocks. Ellen Rykers explains. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week I read a great interview with renowned urbanist Janette Sadik-Khan by The Spinoff’s Wellington editor Joel MacManus: “You can reimagine streets, ...
Student groups ‘Climate Action VUW’, Schools Strike 4 Climate and VUWSA will be on the street in Wellington today, the last day for submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill, with a message that the fight against the Government’s ‘War on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sofia Ammassari, Research Fellow, Griffith University Since 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity has grown exponentially – and so has the formidable organisational machine of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). These two factors will be key to delivering the BJP a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Associate Professor of Education (Adjunct) & Senior Manager (BCE), Charles Sturt University During COVID almost all Australian students and their families experienced online learning. But while schools have long since gone back to in-person teaching, online learning has not gone ...
Yes, they’re better for the environment. No, that’s not a good enough reason for me to use them. Once every 26 days or so, my period arrives, and if struck by an act of God, I am caught red-crotched without products. How, after 17 years of this, do I still ...
“It will cause significant harm to our environment and communities. It is completely at odds with New Zealanders’ relationship with nature and our need for a low-carbon, sustainable economic future." ...
The Chair of the National Maori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, has warned a Parliamentary Select Committee that fast-tracking legislation is a perilous practice that undermines the core tenets of democracy, transparency, and accountability. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Tenbensel, Associate Professor, Health Policy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Since coming into power, the coalition government has adopted a simple but shrewd see-how-fast-we-can-move political strategy. However, in the health sector this need for speed entails ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Hronis, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Darya Sannikova/Pexels Whether you’re watching TV, attending a footy game, or eating a meal at your local pub, gambling is hard to escape. Although the rise of gambling is not unique to Australia, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Wong, Forrest Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia Have you ever wondered if there are more insects out at night than during the day? We set out to answer this question by combing through the scientific ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol T Kulik, Research Professor, University of South Australia IR Stone/Shutterstock In Australia, it’s not the done thing to know – let alone ask – what our colleagues are paid. Yet, it’s easy to see how pay transparency can make pay ...
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is sounding a warning to migrants, that running foul of the law may see them leaving the country prematurely. ...
The government’s plan to get 50,000 people off jobseeker support by 2030 has had a rocky start, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Beneficiary numbers are up – and so are ...
Raglan Roast is a staple of Wellington coffee culture. But with five branches across the capital, which one is the best? I am a die-hard Raglan Roast fan. It’s consistently the most affordable cafe in Wellington, and one of the only places you can get a coffee after 3pm. So, ...
Residents of University of Auckland halls are being urged to withhold their accommodation fees from May 1, in a bid to force the university to take student concerns over rent hikes seriously.The University of Auckland is facing a strike from students over the cost of on-campus accommodation. The Students ...
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Opinion: With maths understanding at 42 percent for Year 8 students, there’s no doubt something has to be done. But how? The post Financial literacy should be on all of us appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Hineaupounamu ‘Missy’ Nuku has been scaling mountains in Canada for her college basketball team, the Lakeland Rustlers. Alberta is currently home for the 20-year-old point guard, who is in her first year of a scholarship at Lakeland College, where she is studying for a business degree. She has certainly made ...
Very good interview regarding Navalny, probably worth watching if this story has any interest to you…
Putin and Navalny Both Represent Big Russian Capital – Alexander Buzgalin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnmcdqF1BxI
I have seen it time and time again leaders who are addicted to power and they will cross the line to keep it.
"Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher embezzlement case has been converted to 3 years and 6 months behind bars, TASS reports from the courtroom.
"Despite the preventive measures taken with him, Navalny repeatedly violated his deadlines for reporting to the inspection. The court considers the motion of the [Russian] Federal Penitentiary Service to be satisfied," judge Natalya Repnikova announced the decision."
https://tass.com/society/1251939
Yes, as usual RNZ and western media in general display their utter and almost total inability to contextualise important international news…and they wonder why so many people don't trust the news they feed them.
The Manufacturing Consent model has become almost total in MSM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suFzznCHjko
A possible flash point for international conflict – the Crimea is running out of water.
Interesting that now the Ukrainians see Crimean citizens as their enemy .Why block water to people they see as being occupied by Russia?
And of course, rivers that flow through Ukraine, like the Dnieper, have their headwaters in Russia.
Tit for tat could see Ukraine without water for their hydro and much of their water needs
Still, why is Kiev punishing the very people it believes to be its own citizens!
That would no doubt have much to do with the high proportion of Russian military that have been deployed to the area – as they were prior to the seizure. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-crimea/29790037.html These at least are no Crimean citizens.
It remains to be seen how far the US will go to prevent a full scale Russian invasion of the Ukraine – but at least Putin's bootlicker Trump is out of the picture for a bit, and can't roll over in response to Russian aggression as he no doubt would have done.
It must be tempting to US interests to interdict Russian expansionism at the Crimean chokepoint rather than let its corrosive influence permeate through Syria and the like.
Wake me up when they get to Kiev
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/300220309/covid19-captain-tom-moore-uk-veteran-who-raised-money-for-healthcare-workers-dies-at-100
Very sad, but he will certainly be remembered for all the good he did. 100 is a great innings.
Its a telling indictment of British governance now that Hitler and his cohort couldn't kill Sir Tom Moore but Boris Fucking Johnson could.
It highlights the laissez-faire attitude the British have toward Covid-19.
Your (of course) holding our PM responsible for the 25 deaths in NZ?
The Ardern Labour governments superb response has limited deaths from covid to 25, Boris Fucking Johnsons inept, arrogant, public school ingrained stupidity has killed off 107,000, the UK toll under the NZ response would have been about 350.
The guy was 100 years old and had pneumonia but you're blaming Boris for his death?
I thought Captain Tom was in hospital with Covid. The pneumonia surely a result of that.
I hold the govt responsible that we have only had 25 deaths. They responded swiftly and superbly to a novel virus. We are extremely fortunately it has only been 25.
My absolute sympathy to those people who lost their love ones. We can thank our Govt that the country is experiencing mass grief at the moment.
I think you will find he has been fighting pneumonia for some time as the article states.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/01/captain-sir-tom-moore-joined-by-family-in-hospital-after-covid-diagnosis
If it turns out that COVID-19 had a hand in causing Moore's death, then shouldn't Johnson share at least some of the blame? After all, Johnson's already apologised, and well he should.
The main difference between the UK and NZ is clearly geographic isolation and global connected ness of the populations.
The claims being made here are pure partisan hyperbole. They are also unappealing claims.
I figured the main difference was having either a fool or a psycho in charge. Explains the US and Brazil, too.
Sadly RNZ and most other NZ news outlets make this their lead story, but of course never do a serious story or even a small story on this…time to just admit RNZ has become nothing more than a news/entertainment outlet for teenagers and adults who can't be bothered thinking for themselves…..
The Tories' new trade bill means the NHS is now unquestionably up for sale
By rejecting Labour’s proposed amendments, the government has left our health service at the mercy of hungry US corporations
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/22/the-tories-new-trade-bill-means-the-nhs-is-now-unquestionably-up-for-sale
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/staring-down-the-barrel-of-nzs-doctor-crisis
The problem: a plethora of fiefdoms run and ruled by managers.
The solution: a bigger, more powerful centralised fiefdom to rule them all.
Simplistic?
One would have expected that to be a basic function of the MoH
Nah, we have to wait till National and ACT lead Government and bring back Steven Joyce and Rodney Hide to merge MBIE and MoH into one giant Super-Ministry called Big Bertha.
Nobody in power likes to share data, information, or knowledge in fear of giving up power & control. Transparency and accountability are PR speak for giving the great unwashed their daily amnesia pill and the bread and circuses provided by MSM and SM do the rest. Have we won the AC yet?
We’ve heard about this issue on an off for decades, but the big factor that's different this time is the ageing workforce. Across so many technical and professional specialisations we're losing people to retirement that are simply not being replaced in sufficient numbers.
At present you can roughly divide adults into three almost equal cohorts, a 20-40 group who're relatively unskilled but energetic and growing their lives, 40-60 who've now become more skilled and productive and are investing heavily for their old age – and then over 60 who now find themselves actively shunted into retirement and become consumers of their capital. (If they have any that is.)
There are two paths we can consider. One is to address more forcefully the absurd ageism that's rife in the employment market. Everyone knows and everyone does it, yet we pretend it's somehow ok and 'what are you whinging about now boomer'? That would expand the availability of already skilled and capable people later into their lives.
The second more approach we need to be thinking about is how to get younger workers up to speed and more productive earlier in their careers. Get people up into that 'skilled high value bracket' by their early 30's instead of their 40's. More employer investment into automation and in career training are the obvious plays here.
The point is our demographics are changing in ways our societies have never experienced before – and we'll need to start considering doing things in response we're not accustomed to.
Lets assume the premise is correct….I shake my head every time I hear some office wallah extolling the virtues of working past retirement age…in many occupations it is quite simply typically impossible if not downright dangerous.
There actually needs to be a stock assessment of all the workforces as to their age cohorts. This isn't occurring just in Health – building, engineering, farming, carpet laying …. there is a long list.
Should be easy to be done centrally by industry first using IRD wage and salary data as a starting point – I think only IRD would have where you work and what industry it is in.
That would allow some focus after that on occupations. All the info should be made public and accessible and updated monthly if possible so industries can examine where they are at and plan accordingly. This is where government should be able to shine – the provision of timely, quality bulk data.
Agree it is a reported issue in many workforces and in the near term it is only going to get worse. I would have thought it will have been an issue widely canvassed in Labour's Future of Work study…..then again perhaps not.
Yes it's true that as we age the nature of what we can do well also changes – but the idea that somehow we become suddenly useless at 65 is just nuts. Adaptation is always possible.
who said useless?….I think I said "in many occupations it is typically impossible if not downright dangerous'.
I have witnessed countless guys struggling through the final years of their working life trying to hide the fact the job is too much for them (physically) any longer and the impact it has on their health…many of them decided it wasnt possible any longer and didnt make retirement age in the industry.
All true but not obviously relevant to the 'skilled technical and professional' groups we're talking about here.
Not so sure about that….with increasing workloads on the existing cohort 'burn out' and mental health appear to be an issue…certainly in the primary health field.
And the world dosnt run solely on skilled technical and professional groups….such as it runs.
We are just going to have to consult back to the major firms for 2 days a week.
Agree both New Zealand and Australia are fast-ageing societies, and the skills planning largely consists of propping up polytechs.
One good friend here put it to me like this – employers know you can still do the job, but they also intuitively sense that as you got older not only did the tide of bullshit keep rising, but your tolerance for it diminished.
And the two trends crossed over for you about two years ago
🙂
"Agree both New Zealand and Australia are fast-ageing"
To which galaxy are we going?
To a land in which economists are useless and confounded.
No one, not even the most optimistic, thought headline unemployment would fall to 4.9%, the underutilisation rate (even seasonally adjusted) falls to 11.9%, and now the fifth highest employment rate for those 15-64 in the OECD.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124119700/shock-fall-in-unemployment-to-49
Clearly – they were holding the chicken entrails upside down at the time of their predictions. Hence the gobsmackery they have just experienced. No worries, normal transmission will soon be resumed, and along with it, their accustomed air of authority.
Falling unemployment, growing economy, rising wages. Labour's best in the world covid response continues.
Makes you wonder if we ever really needed all those annoying tourists messing the place up.
I would be very cautiously about the desirable level of economic forecasting certainty.
In no time at all following 2008-2010 the Key government had control of the narrative, unemployment in NZ was relatively low and spending was being slowed towards surplus regardless whos pocket book that cut into.
Clearly from events we now know the country could have afforded to be much more supportive, and that also applies to Jacindas first term. But it still took 2020 to shake the sureity with which the country carried on at the time.
Last time we had anything like an economic narrative was 2002. An attempt at least.
Since then it's been simply crisis response. 2020 is no exception.
Grand narratives are grand, I recall Paul Ricoeur saying, because what they narrate is the work of the social imaginary itself. No one is proposing a New Zealand state with that scale of agency.
From the ones I've know professionally and personally, doctors don't retire due to age.
They seem to retire either so they can ignore the daily bs and do their own research or healthcare-related thing, or so they can live in Otago or Nelson (sometimes with grapes involved).
Technology will make up the labour skills short fall weather there is enough of a tax base to fund retirees is another matter.
It is why quality jobs are important that pay well. If GDP rises on the basis of added value/high profit then anything is affordable – if GDP rises on the basis of low paid jobs like tourism then it is much more of a struggle.
The problem is we've chased low paying work.
I think what companies like Tait could have done with good investment in those early days of cell-phones, etc. We potentially could have been leading the world in cell-phone technology.
On the other hand we are starting to see us leading in things like agricultural robotics.
The problem is we've chased low paying work.
It's more that the wretchedly worthless clowns in Treasury and Immigration and Education have chased low-paying work on our behalf. We ought to have a professionalised society along Scandinavian lines, and would but for the larding of our civil services with Brash-selected failures addicted to Chicago School nonsense instead of the pragmatism that used to make our country effective.
Had a long yarn with a semi-retired former DSIR bloke the other day. The civil service has gone from bad to worse, with gyres of managers producing nothing but friction stymying the work that needs to be done at every turn. And for Callahan Innovation, his scorn was withering. The cheese has been pared a little too often, so development has stalled – except in the safest of all sectors, property speculation.
But hey – 900 Kiribatians the other day – undercutting wages and setting worker exploitation in concrete until the present generation of corrupt MPs retire. Our economy will follow that of the American south – hollowed out by slave-depressed wages and the worthless spawn of entitlement non-working rentiers breed.
A new Russian Covid vaccine is showing signs of being very effective and they expect to have 1.4 billion doses available this year.
Another possible source of vaccine for NZ to consider in the near future? Or will it be turned down cos, you know… Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/02/sputnik-v-vaccine-has-916-efficacy-against-symptomatic-covid-russian-trial-suggests
We are in no hurry to get our hands on the vaccine so I don't expect the government will be talking to Russia about it.
That's not the impression I have. Hipkins has exhibited frustration about the current situation and has been in daily contact with the providers. They are very concerned.
Now that it's finally gone through phase 3 trials, it's probably as copacetic as the others.
It was, shall we say, a 'bold move' cut cut corners as significantly as they did, though. A bit like lauching a moon mission without thoroughly testing the engines that would get you off the rock and back home.
"cut corners as significantly as they did" They did? Care to elucidate?
Anyway
"In the first week of February, vaccination with Sputnik V will start in the following 12 countries: Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Palestine, UAE, Paraguay, Hungary, Armenia, Algeria, Bosnian Serb Republic, Venezuela and Iran."
"
"
https://sputnikvaccine.com/about-vaccine/
Lancet analysis and report:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00234-8/fulltext
Well, yes they did cut corners.
Russia started dispensing it on 5 December. That's only ten days after they recruited their cohort for the first half of their phase 3 trials. Given that the trials looked at recipients for 21 days after their shot, let me be clear on this: they started distributing the vaccine before even the interim phase 3 trial results had been produced.
As opposed to Oxford–AstraZeneca, for which the interim phase 3 results were announced on 23 November and the first non-trials distribution was on 4 Jan 2021.
Whether that was a calculated risk by the Russians when faced with a pandemic and an extremely promising (if untested) vaccine, or simply a prestige-based move based on a fair bet nothing will go massively wrong with it, that's up in the air.
That's some knot you've tied yourself in there McFlock
Starting general distribution before large scale results are in isn't cutting corners?
What were they going to do if the trial had some adverse events – unvaccinate everyone?
Thanks for the new word copacetic to add to my vocab. library. 😉
Maybe they did cut a few corners but they would have been informed enough to know the risk was worth taking. Whatever… it provides those countries who would not be able to afford the more expensive vaccines a chance to vaccinate their citizens. That is is a damned good thing for everyone.
I mean, I'm not saying they were distributing something they thought was likely to go wrong, quite the reverse.
But phase three trials exist for a reason, even though they're expensive. Something gets to phase three if folks are pretty darn sure it will work and be safe, but not every drug or device passes them.
This one seems to be coming out ok.
Astra Zeneca has teamed up with Sputnik to improve its efficacy
https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/136683/astrazeneca-to-test-combination-of-azd1222-and-sputnik-v-vaccines/
We're signed up with Astra Zeneca so will likely get Sputnik embedded
Both are much cheaper than the vaccines invented by mega pharmaceutical companies
UK report shouts LOUD!
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/2/2/nature-is-our-home-new-uk-report-urges-big-economic-rethink
In the midst of news unemployment figures dropping and average wages increasing Federated Farmers say 'finding and retaining staff is a headache for its members'.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124119700/shock-fall-in-unemployment-to-49-per-cent
Perhaps if farmers and the rest of the agriculture and horticulture industries stopped relying on paying the minimum wage or less they wouldn't find getting workers so difficult.
It's a near-perfect storm for leveraging wage prices up, with few students, few temporary seasonal workers, very few tourist visas and wine and apple harvest coming around the corner.
That Living Wage target sure appears achievable with this amount of market pressure.
Just a shame the living wage isn't much more than the minimum wage.
We are a low-wage, low investment, low productivity economy.
So you take the leverage when you find it.
For workers, this is the most Goldilocks moment we've had in a decade.
We are a low-wage, low investment, low productivity economy.
For which we can thank the unevolved economists of Treasury.
Successive governments chose this state for us for us since at least Holyoake.
Holyoake didn't can free education, kill the DSIR or let the DFC go off the reservation – that happened under a less scrupulous generation. And that's saying something.
Agree every government has contributed to where we are. Holyoake didn't set up an equivalent to Temasek, didn't tax water use, didn't try to keep Glaxo here, didn't support the development of a local stock exchange, didn't do anything useful from the wool collapse, didn't prepare use for CER, didn't build on Sutch's work, didn't support union shopfloor productivity, didn't do much at all.
Doesn't let Treasury off the hook though – they are useless. All this stuff about an aging society – what do they suppose insecure low-wage employment and a housing bubble created by capital inflows does for working folk meaning to raise a family? Too stupid to live – and these are the folk who, for some reason, pull in big bucks. A bit of competence in economics wouldn't go amiss.
New Zealand Labour/Greens support up to 58.5% – highest since the election
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8629-nz-national-voting-intention-january-2021-202102010459
Finally someone's come up with the answer. If only everybody did what Anja Meredith's done…everyone would own their own home. About time people began taking responsibility!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/buying/124035697/property-investor-who-bought-five-houses-during-lockdown-plans-to-own-25-by-2025
Wow that makes me sick. How on earth is this even remotely 'productive'?
You could do it too if you wanted. Borrowing money has never been cheaper. I say good on her, but there is a risk involved and a lot of people (probably like yourself) are not willing to take that risk.
Meredith says all her disciplines create "self confidence & happiness" – good on her for chasing her dreams. Not for everyone though, and not for me – sounds exhausting.
These kinds of stories have attached the subtext "everybody can do it if the really want to so if you don't want to you don't really want it so everything's your own fault". The irony is that if everyone had that dream house prices would shoot through to the next galaxy, even less people would own their own home, homelessness increases and so on. These one percenter stories that are dressed up to tell us things aren't that bad are like a pyramid scheme – the more people believe them the worse things get. The flipside is that perpetuating these stories is in the interests of one group, and to the detriment of another.
The sinister side of the "good news story".
pretty much
Obscene.
move out of the way "avacado smash", the reason for low home ownership is evening TV and not getting up early enough.
Does the Real Estate industry sponsor this crap one might wonder?
Every few weeks a story pops up about say, a 17 year old with two flyer rounds, and a strong work ethic, who has bought a block of flats or something–“anyone prepared to work hard and give away the coffee can do it” the little weasel says …until the reader discovers a loan or assistance from family etc. actually kickstarted the process.
Many middle class families know with certainty that their kids will never raise a deposit in the current environment, unless their parents are in a position to cough up.
That is why Labour has got it so wrong imo–the switch voters, and “doing oks” they are pandering to, along with their slavish defence of neoliberal hegemony, would actually like to see their own kids in houses!
"Does the Real Estate industry sponsor this crap one might wonder?"
'Sponsor' may be a little too explicit…..encourage shall we say (along with the other vested interests)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/300220714/bnz-cracks-down-on-property-investors-due-to-unprecedented-demand
About time.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/435748/covid-19-vaccine-government-s-contracts-with-suppliers-questioned
As Mr Spock would say: “Mr Bishop, you are a moron”.
If Bishop is a moron, what do you call David Seymour. 😮
you may choose
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Levine-and-Marks-1928-IQ-classification_tbl1_343813113
Seymour is from a different TV-series, which was much funnier because it was British.
That said, he’s by far the most effective Opposition MP although the bar is low.