The outrage and bellicosity that has greeted the fall of the Bauer publications from comfy centrists, neolib and other out of touch media types who are for once in the frontline rather than sniping from the back of an economic crisis is a classic illustration that when tens of thousands of others lose their jobs it is a necessary market correct but when the pampered middle class lose theirs it is a government failure led depression.
One should feel very sorry for the people who have lost their jobs, but I think you can also be permitted to savour a certain delicious irony at watching publications (like the Listener) that long ago transformed themselves into cheerleading journals for the comfy and complacent middle class winners of neoliberalism, globalisation and unfettered foreign ownership of our assets scream for government intervention when the grim reaper of "market forces" comes for them. And let's not get started at how Mediaworks – who consistently argue the government should pull out media altogether because it shows then up and they compete – are bellowing about the need for government help as well now.
Some – most – have taken it on the chin, but others (Lizzie Marvelley's splenetic twitter outbursts would be funny if it wasn't tragic, a snowflake right there) have reacted in a way that kinda confirms the suspicion that quite a few of the chatterati think of themselves as part of the other, pampered class and quite different from Joe and Jane Sixpack on Struggle street.
Then you've got aging types like Chris Trotter, who yearns these days for NZ to be like it was in the 1980s. His reaction is bordering on the hysterical, as trusty mastheads of his youth fall all around him and nothing is certain anymore.
The thing is we can argue all day about the whys and wherefores of this. A wildly angry Wendyl Nissan (so much for the smooth veneer of media objectivity when the abstract becomes the personal) claimed on RNZ yesterday that the Woman's Weekly was making money. Some claim Bauer are clearing out the local opposition ahead of simply bringing it's Australian equivalents. It does seem like COVID-19 has provided a nice cover for Bauer to engage in a bit of disaster capitalism.
But really these titles have gone broke because increasingly no one reads them and nobody wants to advertise in them. Gone with not a bang, but a whimper. The Listener – the biggest of them all I think – nowadays has a "readership" of a couple of hundred thousand. That isn't sales, just what they think the number of people who read an issue is so they can pump their advertising costs. Sure, they may have been turning over a trickle of profit. But their ruthless German publishing masters clearly thought wurst was to come.
the future of how to pay for longform journalism is a conundrum even the media experts don't have an answer for. Perhaps it is time for government subsidies – but the idea that those subsidies should go to obsolescent publications owned by foreign corporations? Hmmm. Not so sure.
For what it is worth, I think it is time for a licence fee – a fee on data usage, collected by ISPs and paid to a state broadcasting entity. According to stats NZ (https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/new-zealand-internet-is-going-unlimited) in 2018 the average unlimited broadband user consumed 150 gigabytes a month and broadband usage was about 280 million gigabytes a month. Imagine NZers used four billion gigabytes of data a year in 2020. A fee of 1.5c a gigabyte would bring in sixty million or so (if my morning maths isn't to wobbly). It would add $27-$30 a year to the cost of that average unlimited broadband connection. Is $30 a year a price New Zealanders are willing to pay to keep a local media? Could that be a way to help fund journalism?
Have the companies pay that. There are people in NZ who can't afford to eat and pay their rent, so I think a set fee on all usage is not the best option.
I am amazed at the lack of solidarity – let alone memory – from those on the left like Sanctuary who saw their communities ripped apart in the 1990s with meatworks closing down, manufacturing industries dying, farmers walking off their land and suiciding, mortgagee sales piling up, and entire generations wrecked and forced into near-perpetual social welfare.
Did we protest at the time for the devastated provincial proletariat?
Hell yes we did. And the "we" includes Chris Trotter and plenty of others with actual functioning memories.
It may well be too much to ask people like you to lift a fucking finger in protest when it happens to the bourgeoisie. But that's just a measure of your integrity.
There will of course be plenty who like you will continue to sneer from their keyboards because they don't like the ideological impurities of the New Zealand Women's Weekly or any of the other media for which it is about to happen – but that just shows how out of touch you are with how many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders communicate.
And now for the real stuff.
We are losing thousands upon thousands to unemployment by the day right now.
They are from all kinds of industries.
Almost none of it is the fault of the newly unemployed.
Before anyone else like Sanctuary or Alwyn commits to their keyboard again and tries to offload their bile about who is more or less deserving to hold onto a job, do just one thing:
Imagine it happening to you.
Who knows, perhaps you have the memory still to remember a time when it got all a bit too close. When families were devastated, homes were lost, marriages broke down. Like is happening right now.
To avoid derailing Micky's post, what is this "bowl cut" instruction of which you wrote? Not that I'd use it. I do have experience of cutting back my fringe though, with a kind of point cutting.
I haven't seen what he wrote but I imagine he's talking about what we used to call a pudding basin haircut back in the day when you would no more waste money on sending your child to a hairdresser than fly. Your mother cut your hair. Typically the result looked as though she had upturned a pudding basin on your head and cut around it – lol. Traditionally you got one of these when you turned 5 and started school!
Yes. I know what a bowl cut is. My dad used to give my brothers such a cut. My younger bro hated them. Or maybe a slight variation on them. Bowl cuts were something I associated with Brit immigrants.
My dad had clippers that shaved the back and sides – AKA "short back and sides"
A permanent solution, no….as far as I can see all solutions have a limited period of functionality until they cease to work any longer though that period may be decades.
What I do see however is a need for some form of government employment scheme to transition out of the worst of the crisis as wasnt done in the eighties reforms…we cannot leave it all to market forces this time round because we know how that plays out.
Not all of them. For instance my maternal grandfather spent a chunk of the late depression hammering out Scenic Drive in Auckland’s Waitakere ranges pretty much by hand and blasting until they got it flat enough to get a bulldozer in. Even the thought of doing 26 miles of road in a basalt base is enough to make my skin crawl.
I was tempted to gloat about the prospect so many right wing propaganda mongering bene bashing overpaid fools, getting the medicine they are so keen on dishing out to those "lazy, other people".
But. Thinking about it, I don't wish that on anyone, apart from people like Hosking's and Richardson having their monstrous salaries reduced, to their true worth.
There are all the other people in the organisation losing their jobs, printers, delivery people typesetters etc, and the few remaining actual, journalists!
And my mum, who has been reading woman's weekly for near on 80 years.
Its not a case of wishing it upon anyone , or gloating or even indifference…nor is it dismissing the value of the work….it is a recognition of the realities.
There has been much reportage about the 'zombie' companies only surviving due to the low cost of debt and obviously were vulnerable to any revenue shock….this will be far from the last company to close its doors and the government cannot buy them all out.
One should feel very sorry for the people who have lost their jobs, but I think you can also be permitted to savour a certain delicious irony at watching publications (like the Listener) that long ago transformed themselves into cheerleading journals for the comfy and complacent middle class winners of neoliberalism, globalisation and unfettered foreign ownership of our assets scream for government intervention when the grim reaper of "market forces" comes for them.
Did you watch TV1 6pm news yesterday? Did you note the palatial back-grounds of the big names associated with said magazines who were interviewed in their homes?
To suggest he is "lacking solidarity… with those who saw their communities ripped apart in the 1990s…" and is "lacking in human empathy" is reading something into Sanctuary's comments that isn't there.
As a person who was adversely affected at the time, I see no comparison whatsoever to the events of the 1990s and Sanctuary's response to the demise of a bunch of magazines whose time was up, so the owners used the pandemic to close them down.
"Before anyone else like Sanctuary or Alwyn commits to their keyboard again and tries to offload their bile about who is more or less deserving to hold onto a job, do just one thing: "
You really don't get it do you? I don't make any comments, or express any opinions about who is "more or less deserving to hold onto a job". I merely state that if people don't buy printed magazines, and nobody is willing to pay to advertise in them they will die.
Technology becomes redundant. People in jobs within those technologies lose their jobs. I don't make decisions on those matters. Look for example at the computer industry. Remember the days of the punch rooms where a lot of people were occupied in punching data into punched cards to feed the computers of the day? Should we insist that that technology must be restored to recreate those jobs?
Of course not.
If you have access to a map of Australia have a look at the route of the railway line from Perth to Sydney. In particular have a look at the little places between Kalgoorlie and Woomera. Every name on that map was a settlement where people lived in the days when the trains were coal fueled and used water in the bilers.
Soneville, Karonie, Zanthus, Kitchener, Naretha, Rawlinna, Haig, Nurina, Loongana, Forest, Reid, Deakin, Hughes, Denman, Cook, Fisher, O'Malley, Watson, Ooldea, Bates,Wynbring, ……. There are others but I am sick of reading the names in the very small print on my map.
They were all places where people lived and worked. They were needed because a train had to take on coal about every 160 km and water every 80 km,
Well now they have Diesels and they refuel at, I believe, Kalgoorlie and Cook. Cook has a population of 4. Nothing exists of all the other places. All the people who worked there lost their jobs because the steam train was dead. Should we bring them back to recreate the jobs of yesteryear?
Why? And if you won't do it for those jobs why do it for magazines that not many people buy. Why do YOU think you have the power to decide which jobs stay and which go? Because that is the power you are claiming for yourself when you decide that these particular magazines must continue, at taxpayers expense, to be preserved.
.
Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces
There'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier
There'll be no refreshment for a thirsty jackaroo
From Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander
With newfangled buffet cars and faster locomotives
The train stopped in Serviceton less and less often
No, there's nothing sadder than a town with no cheer
Vic Rail decided the canteen was no longer necessary there
No spirits, no bilgewater and eighty dry locals
And the high noon sun beats a hundred and four
There's a hummingbird trapped in a closed-down shoe store
This tiny Victorian rhubarb
Kept the watering hole open for sixty-five years
Now it's boilin' in a miserable March twenty-first
Wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse
The train smokes down the xylophone, there’ll be no stopping here
All you can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer
No Bourbon, no Branchwater, though the townspeople here
Fought her Vic Rail decree tooth and nail
Now it’s boilin’ in a miserable March twenty-first
Wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson’s curse
The train smokes down the xylophone, there’ll be no stopping here
All ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer
Town With No Cheer – Tom Waits (Swordfishtrombones)
Nobody wishes the ills that follow job loss upon anyone. But this is a different issue to the problem of what publications like The Listener represent. The ideal situation is that The Listener dies and never again sees the light of day, and the consequences don't include any kind of hardship for anyone. There's an interesting piece on Stuff about a number of things but I think the issue of pointless jobs is its prevailing theme:
My favourite was the tantrum by Bill Ralston looking like something from the Australian outback (is that the new Ponsonby look?) Still can't stop giggling.
Brilliant summation-this'Some claim Bauer are clearing out the local opposition ahead of simply bringing it's Australian equivalents. It does seem like COVID-19 has provided a nice cover for Bauer to engage in a bit of disaster capitalism.'.
"…You know some folk do '…read Farrar for news and opinion.'.."
Maybe once upon a time. Farrar's blog struggles for relevance these days and is regarded as toxic – something he can only blame himself for, as he allows the comments of completely fucking insane nutters to remain up. To put it bluntly, he has inherited the Whaleoil crowd and done nothing about it – and his reputation as a source has suffered accordingly.
To put it bluntly, he has inherited the Whaleoil crowd and done nothing about it – and his reputation as a source has suffered accordingly.
??!!??!!!?
That statement suggests that Farrar's blog has been less toxic and less extreme than Whaleoil's. That's not true, not in the slightest. Farrar's views are as horrible as Cameron Slater's, and the people commenting on his site are no more better informed or humane. Farrar himself is a disgrace: he once wrote about a visit he made to the Occupied Terrritories, and claimed that he had not noticed anything at all to suggest that Palestinians were being oppressed.
Over many years, Farrar has encouraged and/or turned a blind eye to the most ignorant and racist comments outside of a NewstalkZB announcers' barbecue….
I don't think he should be fired (last thing we need right now is a change of Health Minister during a pandemic). But I do think he and Ardern should address this more directly. He needs to own up to having fucked up (the traveling thing, they can deal with the stupid of a sign written car internally) and point out we are all on a learning curve, an apology would be good too.
Unfortunately we have a macho political culture that will try and use that to take Labour down. Labour should still do the right thing.
I'm also mindful that those government people will be full of stress chemicals, and they're going to have to sustain living like that for quite some time. I can understand why he would want and even need to do what he did. It's still a fuck up though.
Wow. Some one on the Standard actually admits Clark made a mistake or a fuck up in your words.
IPrent will ban you! The echo chamber must be preseved at all costs.
[lprent: Or you could be less of a moronic dimwit and listen when a moderator talks to you about your behaviour. Commentary is ok. However this is a forum for debate and that involves dealing with other peoples disagreeing with you, especially when they make reasonable objections to your points. Sticking your head firmly up your arse and ignoring them, which appears to be your childish default behaviour isn’t acceptable. FFS grow up. ]
Not sure how new you are to TS, but most of us have been criticising Labour for a long time. I suggest you take note of Lynn's moderations, because now you just look like a troll.
It would make little to no difference to the pandemic management if the Health Minister is sacked, the bureaucrats in the ministry are effectively directing and running the show at present.
What it would do if he was severely censured is signal that no one in NZ whatever their status is above those impositions being placed on the rest of us.
The names of the MOH bureaucrats might change, but the culture remains.
This government demonstrated its subservience to the Ministry when it allowed the demonstrably incompetent Group Manager of MOH:DSS to closely advise Ministers on disability and carer issues.
I don't think he should be sacked, but certainly hope the PM gives him a kick up the backside.
No, it wasn't terrible, it wasn't near the level of Ministerial misbehaviour in the past, BUT he's just made his own job – and the government's – harder. Not helping.
Hopefully it will highlight the overreach, of banning, all, car travel for exercise, when there are people who cannot get enough exercise while following the distancing rules and keeping safe, without some car travel.
Letting scared people on Facebook,and "past their use by date" Senior cops who got there by attrition, set the rules.
But it won't. And by giving those people a stick to beat the Government with. I was going to say he should go. But maybe this is an opportunity to be more rational about total bans on activities.
Yes, there have been a few changes like that. For instance going from a complete ban on swimming to swimming in a way that is very safe (ie no surfing). These changes are to be expected This is such a novel situation that it would be impossible to be completely right from the get go.
In my neighbourhood people are being very sensible and reasonable. Almost no traffic at all. I wonder if car use will reduce in a more permanent way, even when we can drive freely?
I hope it does Wayne. People have been pushing for less traffic for a long time, seems an ideal opportunity to adopt some new social practices. Less pollution, better for climate mitigation, more liveable urban spaces, more health, lots of benefits.
Agreed on the need to adapt advice over time. Not least because they'd have to wait and see how well people were getting what needed to be done.
I wonder how much of our low community transmission, so far, is due to people thinking for themselves and maintaining their distance, well before the Government required it?
In our previous week before the lockdown, we obviously didn't see many people, but the ones we did were already socialising from several metres away, in their dinghies, the local shop was sanitising the EFTPOS pad between customers and the fuel bowser attendant was cleaning it between fills. People walking on the road were keeping their distance.
Unless it is for essentials, the answer is no. If you have to drive somewhere for a walk, for example, then it is not regarded as local and you’re flouting the rules. I saw a Government clip somewhere yesterday that explained it well but I cannot find it 🙁
if someone needs to drive 4 blocks to the local park so their kids can run around, and this is for the parents' mental health as much as anything, that seems as essential to health as walking round the block next to one's house in terms of personal physical exercise.
As long as people are social distancing, not using jungle gyms, and not taking the piss or socialising, this seems reasonable to me.
If the govt cracks down on that under the current level, it will be because of people doing stupid shit like socialising, not because someone went an extra few blocks.
No. It hasn’t weka @ 2.3.1.1 Those who need to travel by car to get to an area for exercising can do so provided it is within their neighbourhood. I think it was Bush who reiterated this only yesterday. I am one of those affected since I can no longer walk to the beach for exercise because of severely arthritic knees.
In the case of David Clark… I gather he drove 2 kms to get to a motorbike track which was closely associated with his neighbourhood. I think the public pearl clutching over his 'misdemeanour' is being a tad overdone for political reasons.
Anne. Clark drove his electorate vehicle emblazoned with a photo of his physiognomy to a mountain bike track for a spot of between video conferencing mountain biking.
An activity on the 'We 'd rather you not indulge in because of risk of injury' list.
The whole incident smacks of either extraordinary arrogance or extreme tone deafness.
Or both.
This is a fuck up of quite significant proportions and could not have come at a worse time.
He used his electorate vehicle because he could put his bike into it. It was hardly for publicity because there was no one there but himself. Looked like an easy ride – nothing dangerous – and there are few spots he can go to where he can have any privacy.
You've got it in for him as you seem to have a good many people, and you are using it to discredit him. No different from those who are doing it for political reasons.
Why didn't he just ride his bike to the track if it is so close ? Or just ride it around his suburb a few times like people seem to be doing in my neck of the woods ?
Or just ride it around his suburb a few times like people seem to be doing in my neck of the woods ?
I'm a commuter cyclist. So when I ride, I ride as much as possible on cycle paths and only go on the roads when I absolutely have to.
That is because many motorists can be classed as dangerous fuckwits on the road.
They open doors whilst parked without looking in their mirror. That happened to me on Wednesday. Fortunately I was riding a metre out from the parked cars and didn't have truck or SUV trying to pass me.
They change lanes without notice because they expect cyclists to be really slow. That last happened on Tuesday. FFS: I routinely ride my e-bike between 35km/hour and 50km/hour except uphill. The number of time I've had to crash on the brakes to stop crashing into fuckwit driver who jumps into the left lane directly in front of me and then slows down to lok for a park is almost a daily occurrance if I'm on a road.
They (especially now) speed through intersections when the other traffic has a green light because it was orange when they crossed the line. That happened to me yesterday. Which is why I sometimes get a honk from cars behind. The acceleration for an electric bike is such that cars are just slow starters. I have to make sure that there isn't damn fool running a orange light.
Of course there are even more driver who are considerate and not impatient dimwits. But when you have no protection you stick to what you know works and what you have experience with.
It seems unlikely that David Clark is a commuter. He sounds like a recreational mountain biker. Probably doesn't ride on the road because it is too damn dangerous.
I trust that answers your query.
I expect it doesn’t. To me it is apparent that I’d class you as being a ignorant dangerous fuckwit motorist who is too stupid to think through what other road users do.
They (especially now) speed through intersections when the other traffic has a green light because it was orange when they crossed the line
Incidentally I frequently see cyclists (and some scooter user) do the same even when the light is red. Basically police should seize their bikes/scooters and sell them to someone who is less stupid. If they are renting them, then they should inform all hire companies that they should not be able to hire one again. Can't think of anything that is a more stupid behaviour.
"I expect it doesn’t. To me it is apparent that I’d class you as being a ignorant dangerous fuckwit motorist who is too stupid to think through what other road users do."
Perhaps you haven't noticed the vast decrease in traffic on the road at the moment ? This is making it vastly easier for cyclists to get out and about without worrying nearly as much about motorists.
Please continue with your specious rant it's most amusing.
A friend, homeless and forced to live in a campground and share facilities with a swag of overseas backpacker types, drives her wee van out of the camp ground and down the road to a near deserted beach to allow her aged and grass averse dog to walk on sand and in soothing seawater.
No risk. No harm. And believe me, her fragile state means that the whole social distancing thing has been her way of life for years.
She gets tailed by the local cops in a marked car who park right behind her. They don't approach her in a community friendly manner. Just intimidate by their close presence. Later, when she is driving out of the camp for another dog walk and soul repair session she gets told by the camp managers she's going out too often.
Now. Do you think that Dr. (of god only knows) Clark will intervene and allow my highly stressed friend a pass to indulge in an activity that is causing harm to no one and benefiting her and her wee dog immeasurably?
Of course not. Don't be silly.
But bet you we get a call or a text sometime today when she reads about Clark's little lapse.
Her fingernails are ragged enough already.
But what does that matter so long as we all abide by the New Way and allow our Minister of Health in time of a pandemic to openly and loudly flout the rules he demands we plebs follow?
And while you're there Anne and making this personal…who ate these "…good many people…" I have it in for?
I think Jacinda's conversation with David Clark will probably start with, "David. What the actual fuck?!"
Unless he's oblivious to everything going on around him, I struggle to comprehend how he thought doing what he did was in any way a good idea. And taking a van. With your fucking face painted on it. Christ on a bike, man!
I guess he was hoping everyone was at home and no one would notice. But the Blue Team are watching. The Blue Team are always watching…
Speaking of the Blue Team, I see Joyce and English have slithered out from whatever rocks they've been hiding under to throw handfuls of muck at the government. Armchair generals are the very best kind after all.
and "Jesus Christ on a fucking chariot" were my first comments last night when I read it on Stuff.
And Farrar, Blue to his core, had the breathtaking audacity to dig up the putrid corpse of Ryall and state categorically that 'he would never do such a thing…'
Ryall was a numpty of outstanding proficiency who accepted bucketsloads of absolute bullshit from his trusted advisors at the Ministry of Health. Outstanding he was. Set a whole new standard for fuckwittedness of Ministers of Health.
This is of course from the point of view of a family carer of a MOH:DSS client with very high support needs who still hasn't managed to remove the knife in my back planted there by Ryall and driven home by subsequent Ministers, including the current incumbent.
I agree totally. He's made a dumb mistake and even Willie Jackson couldn't defend him this morning. Its probably not sack able but does undermine the govt. Jacinda will have a talking to him. Anyway, shouldn't really question on this blog as you are not allowed to debate or disagree according to IPrent below. – Goodbye.
More and more it looks to me like a situation with no good outcome. Such are our times.
But yep, people need to be able to make personalised decisions within the rules. Otherwise we will have rules designed for middle of the bell curve people that cause problems for others.
Don't be silly Rosemary. He was 0.3km outside the 2km limit-hardly a hanging offence. It is possible the bike track was on the way to or near his local supermarket-have you thought about this? I have to drive 19km to my local supermarket which opens up no end of biking/walking opportunities.
It appears the Health Minister followed all other self-isolation criteria. Media I have read/listened too (Stuff/RNZ) have not given this story any oxygen at all.
Here in Wanaka groups of people are congregating on bridges and jumping into the Clutha River, ignoring all of the s-i rules-these are the people the police should be chasing.
I do sympathise with some of the comment on Kiwiblog criticising the fact that people seem to be getting away with biking, including mountain-biking, all over the place. Mountain biking is more dangerous than skiing in terms of injuries suffered. Meanwhile I am not allowed to take my sailing boat out in light winds with reefed sails, which is safer than both.
"He was 0.3km outside the 2km limit-hardly a hanging offence"
If he was Joe Bloggs, it wouldn't matter. He's the Minister of Health and has a perception/messaging issue to deal with now. Hoping it blows over, but it does leave the problem of the perception that we can bend the rules.
Yes, a senior Minister should grasp the basics of perception.
We know (and he should have) that the PM will be asked about it at the press conference today. She is now obliged to say …
either "No biggie, not bothered", which she can't then combine with her usual messaging. She can't switch seamlessly from a shrug to a call for sacrifice.
or (more likely) "The Minister got it wrong".
Ardern's tough-but-kind persona is very effective in this crisis, and she doesn't need that undermined. More importantly, the country doesn't.
Yes it is about perception – rightly or wrongly people in the public eye are held to a higher standard of behaviour whether they like it or not! Silly man!!!
Its not so much that he was 0.3km out of range, its the fact that its a deserted bike trail that the general public are not using as they've been told not to do those sort of activities, but Clark decides that rule only applies to the plebs not him. What if he had an accident somewhere along the trail?
you should read the link though, tracks aren't closed, it's the huts and campsites that are. Obviously they're also telling people to not go into the back country and to use tracks in the neighbourhood (they also say don't drive to them).
Yes but point being we are all told not to go surfing, hunting, sailing, swimming? or anything else and slightly dangerous. So now the general public stuck at home with time on their hands will say if its ok for him (and he makes the rules) its ok for us.
Yes, which is why he has apologised, and everyone is reiterating stay home, don't drive unless it's necessary, get some exercise, wash your hands and practice physical distancing.
"For everyone’s safety, at Alert Level 4 people must not to head into the backcountry or remote areas, nor should they undertake outdoor activities (such as adventure sports or hunting) that would expose them to higher levels of risk." https://www.doc.govt.nz/news/issues/covid-19/
Clark wasn't in a remote area, nor was he partaking in an adventure sport. Nor was he even in a DOC area to start with.
Then that's great. We can all head out to the parks.
Did you notice in the photo the car park was empty so the public was actually staying away!
[lprent: Read my note please – rather than your current career of being a dimwitted repetitive troll who never listens. I’ll release one more comment, otherwise I’ll get ride of you as stupid time wasting problem with a brain of stone and clogged up ‘ears’ that need a pneumatic drill to clear them. ]
There seems to be people, and different branches of Government, making up ad-hoc rules all over the place.
Not even sure myself, where we were at in the "driving to exercise" rules, and I've been going on the Government Covid website every day.
They are not, helping.
Why does it matter how far I walk, for example, when the only thing I touch on the entire walk is my front gate, and all of us on every walk, are keeping, so far, several metres apart.
I am refraining from sailing in the harbour ,, even though I can do that without going within 20metres of anyone, and my coastal capable boat, is extremely unlikely to require help, where I can almost walk ashore, as much not to bother the cop who has to tell me off, as much as any other reason.
I would rather they spent their time, talking to the few, that are really doing things that endanger other people.
If everyone tries to follow the principal, "act as though you have it", and keep away from people outside your bubble, we will not, have community transmission. Whether someone drove 2.174km or 1.999km, away from home is not going to change that.
Some people like the reassurance of, rules, or the power kick from forcing others to follow them. But arbitrary, detailed and confusing rules, treating people like children, don't work.
My only thought about the whole thing is why didn't he just bike to the start of the trail? At 2.3km away, it would have taken bugger-all longer than the time needed to load and unload his bike into the van.
If you aren't used to riding on the road, most cyclists won't if they have any choice. It is frigging dangerous.
I've only started since I don't have a bike path between me and work from december (they moved). Even now, during my daily exercise during the lockdown, I'm still getting close to having idiot car driver caused accidents most days. I’m road riding now because it is an ideal time to get more experience at avoid the dipshit motorists. I normally ignore main roads, riding on footpaths by preference because it is safer for me and not that dangerous to pedestrians (I just wait at slow speeds until they move over).
Most mountain bikers who do trails don’t ride on roads. They don’t have the road skills and their bikes don’t have all of the lights, reflectors and other crap like highlighted clothes and road level helmets that road cyclists routinely have.
I bike because I can't walk far due to a pad wearing out between my right big toe and the foot bones.
I avoid road riding around Dorkland, it's no fun at all and scary AF. And I'm the kind of person that needs a bit of adrenaline with my exercise, whether it's on a bike or kayak or skis. But right now in lockdown it might be ok.
When it comes to the specific ride in question, supposedly David's home is in Opoho. The roads to and from the Logan Park High School carpark don't look like the kind of hazards our Orcland roads are. Or better yet, do a loop to the carpark, over the Big Easy, then back home via Signal Hill Rd.
I did my MBA in Dunedin from 1985 and was there for while afterwards until the end of 1988 while my partner at the time finished her dual degrees.
We had bikes the entire time that I was there and never rode them around the city. The main reason was because compared to Auckland the streets were quite narrow (more like the rabbit warren cart track streets in the water side of Ponsonby or Kingsland) and the parked cars made them too dangerous. Instead we walked most of the time or took a car.
Where we used the bikes was where there were no parked cars and the roads were pretty wide – riding around most of the West Coast for instance.
I think that the roads are wider further out from the centre of Dunedin from what I saw this Xmas at least on the flat. Once you get into those hills however they looked like single way cart tracks winding their way up and down. The danger on bikes is mostly proximity to cars.
I can’t remember much about Opoho, but generally I regard any route as dangerous if at any point you get to effectively single lane with even occasional parked cars. Which is why I never road there. All of the roads around where I lived were like that.
While there are lot of roads that are like that in Auckland, there are usually routes that allow you to avoid them here. Less so in Wellington or Dunedin. Whereas riding in Christchurch or Invercargill is just so damn easy.
"We had bikes the entire time that I was there and never rode them around the city."
At that same time I commuted via bike from Maryhill to work at the bottom of MacClaggan Street. One morning I rode (with feet sliding) all the way down down High Street in snow.
My point wasn’t really about snow or the shape of roads – it was about bloody motorists.
I grew up in Mt Albert in Auckland. We used to ride everywhere all of the time. But the traffic went from being not a problem in the late 60s to bleeding dangerous by the early 80s as the population went up markedly and the quality of the drivers dropped.
In the late 70s and early 80s I’d had several accidents on pushbikes and motor scooters, all the fault of drivers. The worst was riding down a shallow slope on morningside drive by St Lukes Mall and having a car abruptly turn right in front of me to go into the mall. Or having a car pull out of a parking space on the side of the road obviously without having looked in their wing mirror.
Problem is that with a bike of any kind you’re reliant on dimwits in cars. After a few accidents caused by motorists you become a really defensive rider very fast. Dunedin city drivers really didn’t impress me with the care that they took looking around.
Of course I could just have high standards…
I’d point out that in my entire car driving career, I’ve only had a few accidents. One where another car turned right into me (I still have no idea how they could have missed an burnt orange peugeot). One where a tire blew out after running into the end of someones exhaust dropped in the southern motorway – it was evening and I didn’t see the pipe on the road until too late. And one on the bridge evening commuter shuffle when an idiot talking to the female passenger (I’d be watching him in the mirror) behind me ran straight into my arse.
Oh and I slid a long wheel base land rover off a track once, while I was trying to get around a slip in the clay road.
…why didn't he just bike to the start of the trail?
Riding mountain bikes on the road is a pain in the arse with those fat, knobby tyres. You'd have to be very determined or a glutton for punishment to choose to do it.
Not as much a pain in the arse as riding skinny road tyres around a mountain bike trail. Or snow, for that matter. I was a product development engineer at Trek in Wisconsin for a year. I've ridden some weird shit and seen a lot of even weirder shit happen on bikes.
In San Diego I lived about 4km from some primo trails. I almost always rode there and back, it just felt wrong to drive there. It helped to pump up the tyres a bit for the road and let them down for the trails. Not locking out the shocks on the road was good for dialling in smooth pedalling technique.
I don't know where in Opoho he lives but that's the suburb with Dunedins steepest streets (Baldwin for eg, like excessively steep), to get to Logan Park you'd have to use the high windy narrow road through the Botanical Gardens, or go the long way (bout 5-6 kms) through the university.
This is mountain biking we're talking here. Steepness and hills are kinda the point.
Baldwin street is overrated. Hell, my driveway here in Titirangi is steeper. For about ten metres or so, anyways. Was down there in November and my twins on their learners permit wanted to drive up it to see what the big deal was. It was a letdown for them.
Shoulda made them do a three point turn at the steepest bit.
Baldwin Street is further up North East Valley and doesn't link to Opoho, but there are other steep-ish streets from NEV up to Opoho Like Blacks Road, which on paper links to the Big Easy (down a gully). Clark will live at about 100m which isn't much in Dunedin.
Funny thing is he drove down from Opoho to near Logan Park at near sea level (at what was Pelichet Bay before it was reclaimed). Then the Big Easy track heads up the Opoho Creek gully to closer to where he lives. There's walking track access from Opoho, but I don't know if there's bike access.
But the driving a couple of km to the track isn't what the PM told him off for, it was for doing risky recreation which has clearly been officially discouraged for ordinary people.
Presumably some people would get a bit grumpy if the Minister of Health ended up crocked up in hospital right now.
From trail ratings I've read, Big Easy does not qualify as risky recreation. As lprent says, even with reduced lockdown traffic riding the streets is riskier.
He would have been told off for the "not a good look" of getting sprung for doing something we've all been sorta kinda instructed to not do.
I'm good with trusting people to make decisions in their own location. But we do need the govt to be seen to doing the right thing here, because now people will be going oh, it's ok to drive to my local bike track. I wish he'd taken a plain car.
But perception is everything. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of what he did, he's the health minister. At a time when the message is stay at home what he did means there'll be people who'll think 'what's good for the goose' then find themselves being confronted by the cops. It's a time when the government needs the support and cooperation of citizens, which in turn means the respect of citizens. Without that we're stuffed. Clark should've known that and have acted accordingly.
Reminded me of when I was a kid at a friends house for dinner, and they all prayed, I didn't as I had no idea what they were doing, anyway, one of the other kids told their dad I hadn't prayed and the dad said "how did you know? were you not praying too?". Just the person who took the photograph was a couple kms away from wherever they lived too (I know the area).
But ignoring all that – it goes against what we are being asked to do. If everybody acted in the same way as the minister of health did in this circumstance the whole isolation 'thing' would be nowhere as effective and people will die.
No they're not. They are telling us not to go swimming in clusters and to keep the full 2 metre distance from one another. That did not happen in Mission Bay, Auckland for example, so they shooed the lot of them off the beach. Since then they appear to have eased the rules and if people are acting sensibly… going for a swim by themselves or in pairs and keeping a good distance from one another they are being left alone. That is what is happening at my local beach anyway.
Your political bias is shining through. Knew it wouldn’t take long before the rwnj’s were back to normal. In fact they’ve been strangely absent here up until now.
Justify it anyhow you like……Clark was an idiot. He is obviously above the rules for us plebs.
[lprent: You appear to be reluctant to actually deal with the objections to your pre-written scenario. That does not constitute robust debate. That just makes you look like a fucking useless and ignorant idiot troll. I suggest that you engage or leave before I make the decision for you. ]
Yes. It was mistake to go in his electorate van. His bad luck that a Nat – who was also 2 km away from his residence – happened to spot him and took a photo and dropped him into it. Someone should trace the source of the photo and see who it was, and what he/she was doing in the area too.
So it would've been okay to go in his private car without the identifying stuff on the side of it? Why then wouldn't it have been okay for the photographer to have been there?
Perhaps the photographer lived across the road and was going for a quick walk alone for a bit of exercise? There's certainly nothing to suggest the photographer was mountain biking, either.
So you're saying, mcflock, that the photographer had no business being there? The point is that their presence may have been well within the common understanding of the limits of the lock down.
No, I'm saying that there are no houses "just across the road".
If the photographer thought being there was fine for them, why would anyone think Clark's presence was camera-worthy? You're coming up with imaginings to defend rank hypocrisy.
The carpark is down a long dead end track behind the school, so the photographer must have been in there for a specific reason. Maybe going for a ride themselves, dropping someone off or picking them up, or maybe had seen the van and followed it in.
"If the photographer thought being there was fine for them, why would anyone think Clark's presence was camera-worthy? You're coming up with imaginings to defend rank hypocrisy."
Even if there aren't 'houses across the road', my point is the photographer may have been there within the limits of the lock down. Clark clearly wasn't. It hasn't been established the photographer had no business being there. If the photographer was there legitimately there's no hypocrisy. Your logic is lacking.
McFlock, that's your stomping ground isn't it? The Oddity says the van was parked at Logan Park school, other reports say it was at Signal Hill. Do you recognise from the photo which carpark it was?
edit: never mind, Pete seems pretty definite it was Logan Park school.
Thanks Pete. I couldn't match up what was in the news photo with what was in the google maps satellite photo, but there's a pin there for the carpark in an open field. S'pose the carpark has been developed since the satellite photo.
Wouldn't catch me anywhere near a cycle track lol.
But you can see from the stuff pic and pete's link the start of the track as a V and the position of individual trees that it's at the lower carpark next to LPHS.
Oh, and if you look at the map, Clark lives in Ohopo and he parked at the Signal Hill reserve carpark. The way the crow flies this is probably about 500m, certainly well under 1km, let alone 2km!!!
The only way to get to Signal Hill lookout is by car or bike, no one walks that road, if you did walk it would take maybe 40 mins, an hour? There are no houses near there, it's a tourist spot normally.
The Nat-voting numpty who ratted on Clark at what is a time of major pressure would have known exactly where the minister lived and they would have known exactly what they were doing when they went public.
I’ve imagined myself in the same position and I wouldn’t breathlessly go to the media. But Nat voters are venal like that.
The car park is behind Logan Park High School at the bottom of the track. It may be 500m by bike but there's no direct route by car, via Lovelock Track it's 2.4km.
But according to the PM the distance isn't the issue.
Hi Anne – hope you are well. I'm really not that concerned about him using his electorate van. The guys probably working his ass off at the moment, and I don't begrudge him some 'me' time at all. I think the issue is the nature of the activity – mountain biking. https://covid19.govt.nz/help-and-advice/for-everyone/leaving-your-house/ says this:
Help our emergency services by only doing safe activities, such as going for a walk.
Don’t go swimming, surfing, hunting or tramping.
Anyone giving Clark flack for having a break is being a dick. But IMHO he should not have been mountain biking.
All that said, I'm loooking out over the upper harbour towards TeAtatu and gee it's tempting to put my little boat in. We're all human after all!
Nice one Paddington. Of course he made a mistake and he has admitted as much.
What I take objection to is the over-reactions largely by those who are indulging in political point scoring. Interestingly, these types have been strangely silent on this blog for weeks now, then suddenly when a cabinet minister makes a wee mistake – and let anyone name a minister of any political persuasion who hasn't – and they all turn up for the kill.
Their motivations are crystal clear for all to see.
I'm not so "silly" as to read the comments from Farrar's Ferals, my primary interest is following what various platforms are choosing to highlight by way of posts and opinion pieces.
I have a particular and very personal interest in all things Ministry of Health and especially the relationship between the Ministry and the Minister.
And although, despite his Higher Education, Clark was clearly unsuited from day one to be the Minister in Charge of the Transformation of Kindness (after the much need high colonic) promised by Our Leaders he has outdone even my low expectations of him.
Heavens to Betsy BG, he gave the lot if us in Lockdown a very emphatic FU.
If what David Clark did was a general member of the public it would have likely gone unnoticed, and if the police had discovered them they would probably have been 'educated'.
But Clark isn't just an ordinary member of the public.
So this doesn't look good for Clark nor for the Government, on an issue that is annoying many people due to open abuses and borderline cases and in particular a lack of clarity (that has to be rectified quickly). Clark has made it appear that anyone can decide for themselves what they do.
Possible more importantly, Clark has what must be one of the most important jobs in the country, in the biggest issue facing health in probably a hundred years.
So why is he working from home and not in Wellington?
The Prime Minister has seen fit to work from Wellington. The Minister of Finance and the Director-General of Health and the Commissioner of Police and the Director of Civil Defence and Emergency Management are all in Wellington dealing with an unprecedented crisis.
I can understand Clark preferring to be at home for personal and family reasons, but he can't be as effective from home asd he could be working with the other key personnel and his Ministry of Health in Wellington.
Unless he is unofficially but deliberately sidelined .
I'm self-isolating to protect myself and others including a vulnerable person. I haven't left my property for nearly two weeks.
But it's obvious from media and social media coverage that many people are doing a wide range of activities away from home. This is likely to keep creeping to more activities and more risks.
In case you hadn’t noticed ( *sigh* ) all Ministers and MPs, apart from Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson, are working from where ever their home is. The reason why these two are required to be at the centre is because they need to use their actual hands to formally and legally sign things – like requests to use powers granted by the ‘crown’ like asking to use the armed forces and expending money from the treasury.
Everyone else is remote..
Ministers don’t need to be in Wellington. After all they don’t exactly have bits of hardware like bodies or sewerage systems that they’re working on. Most of their ‘hands’ are part of the bureaucracy or at the coalface. They just need to be able to communicate with those that they are responsible for and working with all around the country.
This includes the epidemic response committee which arguably is as important or more important as a frigging minister of cabinet.
The only requirement in our system for MPs to be together otherwise is pass legislation with even a token presence. Which they did before stage 4 when parliament shut itself down for a time.
You're right about that. I do most of my work remotely from Dunedin. I've been working in Timaru, Auckland and the UK today from home. But for big and critical jobs we like to do site visits, there are things you can miss from not being on site dealing with key people face to face and seeing a bigger picture.
All the other key leaders seem to be involved in person, they have appeared in various combinations in media conferences (keeping appropriate distances to set a good example) so must have a safe bubble to work in.
Keep in touch with what the Government doesn't want you to do when in isolation, or when in a key ministerial position?
Remote conferencing is good for many things, but it isn't as good as face to face for important discussions and decision making.
Face-to-face meetings allow for clearer communication. In addition to being able to read facial expressions, body language, and inflection, in-person meetings often end up being more positive, and considered more credible than online or virtual conversations.
In a face-to-face meeting, participants can see the reactions of others, recognizing body language and gestures. Those nonverbal signs help participants and meeting leaders to know if others understand the points they are making.
Ardern: “People can go outside to get fresh air and drive short distances if needed, but we have asked people to avoid activities where there is a higher risk of injury, and the Minister should have followed this guidance.”
The latest Daily COVID-19 update from the New Zealand Government (just received by email):
Answers to common questions
Q. I want to get some fresh air in my neighbourhood this weekend. How can I stay safe?
A. You might be tempted to leave the house this weekend, particularly if the weather is nice. Remember, staying home is the best thing you can do to stop the spread of COVID-19. But you can leave the house to buy groceries or to get some fresh air in your neighbourhood.
If you do leave the house this weekend, here are some do’s and don’ts to remember:
Keep a 2 metre distance from other people at all times.
Stay local if you go out for exercise and stay close to home.
Keep it solitary when going out, just by yourself or with the people you live with.
If you're exercising in your neighbourhood and it's too busy, go home. Go out later.
Help our emergency services by only doing safe activities, such as going for a walk.
Don’t go swimming, surfing, hunting or tramping.
Don’t touch surfaces others may have touched and avoid park benches or playgrounds.
Don’t travel far from home, especially not to baches or second homes.
Clark has apologised for doing something a bit risky (riding a bike on a dirt track). But sometimes driving a short distance for exercise seems to be within the rules from what I can tell. The guidance is to avoid unnecessary travel.
I do video conferencing all of the time. Kind of have to with my current project team being in the UK, aussie, parts of the US and now locked down here. It isn’t any worse or better than when we all did the same thing around a meeting room table with or without video links to outliers as I did it a decade ago. Or when doing it via chat rooms and version control systems as I did 20 years ago.
Or as programmers do it these days; via slack, jira, confluence, stash and jenkins or their equivalents. We seldom use video conferencing except to deal with the unskilled (like managers and customer), because we’ve been doing this kind of remote stuff forever and we’re efficient doing it.
These days we just layer all of those together depending on who the audience is.
It is like everything else – you get better at it the more you do it.
I don't think it's fair or correct to sack Clark for anything in particular. He's clearly an idiot so blame shouldn't come into it. He should just be sacked for general incompetence.
Liz Craig would be very appropriate but this is her first term so it could be a bit soon. She wasn't even appointed to the Epidemic Response Committee.
There is a very funny picture leading Brian Easton's column on Pundit re Trump masking. I can't copy and paste it but it can be seen on https://www.pundit.co.nz/
The PM will likely address the Minister of Health’s brain fade at her press conference today. Hopefully anyway, and use him as an example of what not to do. He should apologise profusely. Jacinda did not need this at this time. She has to keep well and get enough sleep and not be kept awake at night by such stupidity.
Jacinda is a very weak leader re staff. Twyford, Lees-Galloway and Clark (and NZ First MP's) often embarrass her but she will not fire anyone. The talent pool is too shallow we all know that. She also only acted on Clare Curran and Meka Whaitiri as she was forced to.
She needs to take a leaf out of Helen Clarks' playbook.
Like many others, Jimmy is still tuned in to "politics as usual".
Previous cases are irrelevant here. Firings have always been based more on the importance of the sinner than the sin (Murray McCully broke more rules than there are in the book, but survived, because he was Murray McCully and knew where the bodies were buried).
The PM won't fire Clark because she is dealing with an extraordinary challenge, and the health system doesn't need a newbie learning the name tags. That is vastly more important than playing the Beehive games which made headlines on a slow news day, but are entirely irrelevant now.
I have to agree with you on Jacinda's communication (and not just this Covid-19 thing), it is always very good. Just wish she would put some of her MP's in their place when the do absolutely dumb things like this that embarrass them.
Gee the leader of the of a labour party (the party that try's to make workers lifes better) doesnt believe in pulling their metaphorical penis out and sacking people to prove they’re the bees knees.
She was none of those things Chris. OK maybe a bit duplicitous in a political sense but you name a prominent politician who isn't. But she was from broadly the same generation and Presbyterian background as I came from. We were brought up not to show our emotions on our sleeve. It was often mistaken for coldness and lack of empathy. It was neither of those things.
Helen Clark was certainly no idiot. But I knew her personally. She was none of the other things.
I disagreed with her simply calling a hiatus to the Neo-liberal onslaught. “New Zealand is tired of changes”, But doubt anyone could have achieved much more at the time, in that direction.
Male politicians with similar characteristics, would have been credited with much more positive descriptions.
The only brain fade was using a marked van. In his defence a chance to get away on his own and do a bit of clear thinking is probably invaluable considering how many are yapping in his ear. I once had a job that required a bit of clear headed thinking on occasion and I used to drive a few kms away and park-up and think without distraction for 5 or 10 minutes.
It seems COVID-19 deaths in Europe are being way under-reported. For instance, in France and Spain, retirement home deaths apparently aren't included in reported totals.
Every morning Bill de Blasio, mayor of NY does a presser.
This morning he is advising all NYer's to wear a 'face covering'. People may carry the virus yet have no symptoms, so they just spread it, asymptomatic . He does not want people using surgical masks, as those need to be saved for those on the 'front line'. Instead encouraging people to make their own or wear a bandana.
It must be horrendous in NY, he's asking for the military to mobilize and for any medical people to come to NY to help.
The Presidential presser yesterday started off with an astonishing electioneering session. They didn't want to talk about the new milestones or the number of deaths and infected so went full out on war.
The navy is going to sort out the drug cartels. This is war. Iran is going to be sorted out, this is war. 'We are not sleeping, no-one should think that while we're distracted we're not ready." The navy is ready, they're ready to go. As of today they're …
And all those saying how great the Leader is. The election is the week before Veterans Day. I wonder if the troops and rockets and bowing and scraping experts will be ready for the parade in Washington.
Great piece here from the NYTimes about the demise of advertising-funded print media. Perhaps a few of the loud mouthed media commentators here in NZ should read it and have a deeper look at the reasons their industry is headed the same way as the dinosaurs. Apologies if it’s paywalled, an online sub to the NYT is the same price as the NZHerald though and about a million times better.
Maybe contact Mitre 10 and ask them to have it included in their list of essential items? I under stand they had to submit such a list to the government?
In anticipation of a resolution of our current homeless/NFA situation I eagerly went online seeking 5ol heavy duty storage crates with lids. The crates I originally packed our books in have not fared well in the shed they are stored in. They will not survive being trucked to our prospective home.
Got the same NO CAN SELL message.
Played the phone tag game for a while, but life is short.
In a small clinical trial just granted approval, about 30 COVID-19 patients at Karolinska University Hospital may soon begin to receive blood plasma from people who have recovered from the disease. Sweden's Ethical Review Authority has approved the trial treatment, and its effectiveness will be evaluated in a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Karolinska University Hospital.
Several seriously ill covid-19 patients in Sweden have been treated with chlorikin, the active substance in malaria medicine – something praised by researchers in other parts of the world. Now comes alarming reports that the drug on the contrary can be dangerous. – That is why we have decided in Gothenburg and in Västra Götaland that we do not use it, says Magnus Gisslén, chief physician at the Eastern Hospital.
The idiot US President has some other idiot on there talking about the big learnings to come out of the current situation. Apparently relying on other countries for essential things is bad. Stuff is being made overseas because of cheap labour is bad.
Hello? Globalisation has been good for scores of years when American companies decamped production off shore for cheap labour so they could make a killing. Now essential medical needs should be manufactured at home? How about making everything at home?
Whingeing about their sacred capitalist system not working how they want it to work when the going gets tough? Just another effect of the virus I suppose.
Why the hell is it all Trump, Pence, and Jared Kushner? Where are the DOCTORS? Why do the press corps just sit there like dummies and accept this evil farce?
Many main stream are considering not covering these publicly funded "election rallies", despite the fact that people are anxious to find out the latest information regarding the pandemic, and are thinking about simply reporting the key "take way" messages, after they have been clarified by WH staff.
President Trump is a ratings hit, and some journalists and public health experts say that could be a dangerous thing.
Whoa! Just looked up from my laptop, glanced out my window. A couple of PO-licemen in the front yard of neighbour, talking to neighbour – same place there was a loud altercation a couple of evenings' back.
I guess I'm becoming a curtain twitcher under lock down.
No one wearing PPE and no handcuffs, pepperspray or tasers.
At one stage four members of the household were in the back of the ambulance and were then joined by a thin mask wearing paramedic.
All but the Man of The House exited said ambulance and it went on it's way.
The constables spent some time in deep conversation with an Older Gentleman who had arrived earlier in the day. Possibly to hold the a-frame ladder while the man of the house perched atop so he could remove crud from his spouting and hurl it hither and thither.
Mildly interesting, but I was busy, so I detached from this timeless suburban pursuit with a dismissive…'silly bugger's going to fall and break his neck' to my partner.
Total relief when I saw them all walking in and out of the ambulance.
We have to get right down and personal and help NZs stuck overseas and not just keep repeating that refrain that's almost a threnody, stay in place for the duration. That's economic thinking, we say it and turn it into reality without concern for the implementation. These people need money and need it now. And to be advised of any transport available, and they need a 24 hour line with people who have a budget to facilitate things now. Not save money or supplies up for a possible greater need tomorrow.
NZ Government – support our people. You have been in globalisation mode for quite a while now – but the other side of it is that everyone needs a home, not in the globe in general, but on some definite ground which is here in NZ. Bring them home, or support them until they can get here.
The federal government has explicit powers under the Defense Production Act to take control of this, order companies to produce what's needed and set the price at cost plus a reasonable margin, and coordinate sending product to where it's most needed. But it's not doing that with the bilious fake-bronze baboon preferring to just sit back and fire off twitter insults against those trying to fight the problem.
Given the atrocious way the CCP have treated the Falun Gong, this should be unsurprising. The CCP's relationship with all religious traditions has varied from overbearing and oppressive, to hostile and murderous.
I don't know a great deal about Falun Gong, but whatever the propaganda from either side says, it's clear that nothing good has happened.
Then look at the Uighur situation for another example of totalitarian oppression.
Then listen to what many of the Christian Churches say, forced to operate underground or work with severe restrictions such as not being allowed to teach their own children their faith. Or compelled to register with State bodies that ensure compliance with state dictates.
Or just go back to the Maoist destruction of China's own indigenous religious and cultural traditions during the Cultural Revolution.
Yes there is a lot of propaganda from all sides, and with the language barrier plus our social remove none of us are in a position to make much sense of it all. Yet one thing is clear, the CCP is not merely a political party; it represents a totalitarian ideology that brooks no serious competitors.
My mainland born SIL reckons it's China's Chernobyl. Local officials minimised and prevaricated, things were out of control long before Beijing was aware of the severity of the situation and from then on it's only ever been a face saving exercise.
But this time there was no radiation to be detected so we'll never know how widespread the disease was let alone how many deaths occurred.
"Countries may have good reasons to change the way they collect data as circumstances change, but it apparently happens often enough that the World Health Organisation feels that they have to ask countries to notify them when they do it. Famously, China did so earlier in the epidemic, but others do too: in complying with the WHO’s request, Australia has noted that it has changed its definition of a Covid-19 “case” (and therefore a Covid-19 “death”) at least 12 times since 23 January.
As for the number of urns delivered to funeral homes in Hubei after the quarantine was lifted one has also to consider the number of regular death. Hubei province has some sixty million inhabitants. The regular mortality rate in China is 726 per 100.000 inhabitants per year. The regular expected number of death from January 1 to March 31 in Hubei province without the epidemic was 108.900. In Wuhan, which has 14 million inhabitants, the expected number was 25.410. Photos that show the delivery of a few thousands of urns to large funeral homes in Wuhan are thereby not a sign for a higher Covid-19 death rate. To claim such is propaganda nonsense."
Really some of the crap coming out of American Trump and Bannon wannabes is laughable .Pravda redux.
I think it's far more insidious than pravda. Pravda was one outlet, not a conglomeration of corporate media outlets always singing from the same song book and from the page they have been told to turn to by (usually) anonymous western "Intelligence Sources".
Throw on top of that the fact that most people (it seems) continue to labour under the notion that there's a "vibrant free press" comprised of competing outlets and mediums bent on providing facts and discovering truths.
That's not provocative. It's just a reflection of who and what you are.
I already provided a lengthy article that covered the propaganda of the Wuhan urns – that article "outed" the source of the story and much else besides and you didn't challenge a word of it. But for anyone who might be stumbling across this bile for the first time, below is the relevant passage from the article I already provided to you.
And for those who don't know, the source for the story – RFA is Radio Free Asia – " a US government news agency created during the Cold War as part of a “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the CIA”, according to the New York Times."
And, of course, versions of the urn story are being carried uncritically by multiple western outlets (google "chinese urns" for a partial run down), because that's what they do – "follow the script" that's fed to them – China being an "official enemy" and all….
Oddly, none of the social media posts RFA referred to were quoted in its article.
RFA’s “estimates” are based on morbid speculation regarding the cremation capacity of Wuhan’s funeral homes. RFA cites a story by the Chinese media outlet Caixin on funeral arrangements being made by Wuhan residents during the crisis. On March 26, Caixin reported that 5,000 cremation urns had arrived at a mortuary in Wuhan over a two-day period. This is treated as nefarious evidence of Chinese government deception solely because it exceeds the official death total in Wuhan.
RFA completely ignores the fact that residents have continued to die from other causes during the pandemic, as well as the backlog in funerals and cremations caused by the city’s several month long lockdown. In 2019, approximately 56,000 cremations took place in Wuhan, according to the city’s official statistics.
That means that roughly 4600 residents died per month, a figure that was likely higher during the winter months and with Wuhan’s health care system overwhelmed by the outbreak. With Wuhan under lockdown since January 23, a substantial increase in the use of funeral homes and crematoriums should have been expected.
The university was pulling the business as usual card up until a day before it locked its doors.
It constantly couches everything, especially publicly, in concern for safety and wellbeing, but then put the onus on staff to demonstrate why they should be able to stay home, tried to implement some BS "working from home" leave request that required above-department signoff, and generally shows a lack of human consideration worthy of a nat blogger.
Plus everything in the Critic opinion piece.
A month or two back (who can tell these days) the uni decided to improve morale by telling us to consider what we could do to make our colleagues happier. Telling colleagues that everyone in the top rungs of the hierarchy was retiring would cheer a lot of people up.
Skegg was pretty good, as I recall. People were quite optimistic about Hayne, as another practising academic rather than academic-turned professional university administrator.
Shame it turned out this way. She's possibly even worse than Fogelberg was, and he was a total wanker as VC. In those days we could get 2,000 people outside his office chanting exactly that 🙂
Given the events of the last few weeks, anyone else think the grim reaper of New Zealand, David Seymour, will have trouble with his legalised murder bill in the upcoming referendum?
Adam Schlesinger died from Covid-19 on 1 April in New York (aged 52). He was a singer-songwriter, record producer, guitarist, keyboardist, and frontman for several bands including "Fountains of Wayne".
It makes me very sad, but I just wanted to remember him and share one of his bands popular songs released in 2003.
Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne (Live In Chicago).
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
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 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, 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. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
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A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
The outrage and bellicosity that has greeted the fall of the Bauer publications from comfy centrists, neolib and other out of touch media types who are for once in the frontline rather than sniping from the back of an economic crisis is a classic illustration that when tens of thousands of others lose their jobs it is a necessary market correct but when the pampered middle class lose theirs it is a government failure led depression.
One should feel very sorry for the people who have lost their jobs, but I think you can also be permitted to savour a certain delicious irony at watching publications (like the Listener) that long ago transformed themselves into cheerleading journals for the comfy and complacent middle class winners of neoliberalism, globalisation and unfettered foreign ownership of our assets scream for government intervention when the grim reaper of "market forces" comes for them. And let's not get started at how Mediaworks – who consistently argue the government should pull out media altogether because it shows then up and they compete – are bellowing about the need for government help as well now.
Some – most – have taken it on the chin, but others (Lizzie Marvelley's splenetic twitter outbursts would be funny if it wasn't tragic, a snowflake right there) have reacted in a way that kinda confirms the suspicion that quite a few of the chatterati think of themselves as part of the other, pampered class and quite different from Joe and Jane Sixpack on Struggle street.
Then you've got aging types like Chris Trotter, who yearns these days for NZ to be like it was in the 1980s. His reaction is bordering on the hysterical, as trusty mastheads of his youth fall all around him and nothing is certain anymore.
The thing is we can argue all day about the whys and wherefores of this. A wildly angry Wendyl Nissan (so much for the smooth veneer of media objectivity when the abstract becomes the personal) claimed on RNZ yesterday that the Woman's Weekly was making money. Some claim Bauer are clearing out the local opposition ahead of simply bringing it's Australian equivalents. It does seem like COVID-19 has provided a nice cover for Bauer to engage in a bit of disaster capitalism.
But really these titles have gone broke because increasingly no one reads them and nobody wants to advertise in them. Gone with not a bang, but a whimper. The Listener – the biggest of them all I think – nowadays has a "readership" of a couple of hundred thousand. That isn't sales, just what they think the number of people who read an issue is so they can pump their advertising costs. Sure, they may have been turning over a trickle of profit. But their ruthless German publishing masters clearly thought wurst was to come.
the future of how to pay for longform journalism is a conundrum even the media experts don't have an answer for. Perhaps it is time for government subsidies – but the idea that those subsidies should go to obsolescent publications owned by foreign corporations? Hmmm. Not so sure.
For what it is worth, I think it is time for a licence fee – a fee on data usage, collected by ISPs and paid to a state broadcasting entity. According to stats NZ (https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/new-zealand-internet-is-going-unlimited) in 2018 the average unlimited broadband user consumed 150 gigabytes a month and broadband usage was about 280 million gigabytes a month. Imagine NZers used four billion gigabytes of data a year in 2020. A fee of 1.5c a gigabyte would bring in sixty million or so (if my morning maths isn't to wobbly). It would add $27-$30 a year to the cost of that average unlimited broadband connection. Is $30 a year a price New Zealanders are willing to pay to keep a local media? Could that be a way to help fund journalism?
Have the companies pay that. There are people in NZ who can't afford to eat and pay their rent, so I think a set fee on all usage is not the best option.
I am amazed at the lack of solidarity – let alone memory – from those on the left like Sanctuary who saw their communities ripped apart in the 1990s with meatworks closing down, manufacturing industries dying, farmers walking off their land and suiciding, mortgagee sales piling up, and entire generations wrecked and forced into near-perpetual social welfare.
Did we protest at the time for the devastated provincial proletariat?
Hell yes we did. And the "we" includes Chris Trotter and plenty of others with actual functioning memories.
It may well be too much to ask people like you to lift a fucking finger in protest when it happens to the bourgeoisie. But that's just a measure of your integrity.
There will of course be plenty who like you will continue to sneer from their keyboards because they don't like the ideological impurities of the New Zealand Women's Weekly or any of the other media for which it is about to happen – but that just shows how out of touch you are with how many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders communicate.
And now for the real stuff.
We are losing thousands upon thousands to unemployment by the day right now.
They are from all kinds of industries.
Almost none of it is the fault of the newly unemployed.
Before anyone else like Sanctuary or Alwyn commits to their keyboard again and tries to offload their bile about who is more or less deserving to hold onto a job, do just one thing:
Imagine it happening to you.
Who knows, perhaps you have the memory still to remember a time when it got all a bit too close. When families were devastated, homes were lost, marriages broke down. Like is happening right now.
That thing called human empathy.
Good comment. A post would be good. Hint. Hint.
Mickey has a post on it already up.
To avoid derailing Micky's post, what is this "bowl cut" instruction of which you wrote? Not that I'd use it. I do have experience of cutting back my fringe though, with a kind of point cutting.
I haven't seen what he wrote but I imagine he's talking about what we used to call a pudding basin haircut back in the day when you would no more waste money on sending your child to a hairdresser than fly. Your mother cut your hair. Typically the result looked as though she had upturned a pudding basin on your head and cut around it – lol. Traditionally you got one of these when you turned 5 and started school!
Yes. I know what a bowl cut is. My dad used to give my brothers such a cut. My younger bro hated them. Or maybe a slight variation on them. Bowl cuts were something I associated with Brit immigrants.
My dad had clippers that shaved the back and sides – AKA "short back and sides"
Enjoy.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=bowl+cuts&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwip1-3c78roAhVj7nMBHahTDcsQ_AUoAXoECBIQAw&biw=1733&bih=982
😊
It could become the new trend for 2020-2021.
I understand the lock downs internationally are cause some despair among young trendees with undercuts.
"Imagine it happening to you. "
For many of us its not a case of imagining….its a case of remembering.
4 times in the 80s and twice more in the 90s
Exactly. That's why I started my response that way.
Then you will know that protesting wont change it.
Do you know what changes it?
are you referring to this specific case or employment in general?
As general as possible 🙂
lol…not much to ask.
A permanent solution, no….as far as I can see all solutions have a limited period of functionality until they cease to work any longer though that period may be decades.
What I do see however is a need for some form of government employment scheme to transition out of the worst of the crisis as wasnt done in the eighties reforms…we cannot leave it all to market forces this time round because we know how that plays out.
The thing is most make work projects are just nave work hard and uninspiring.
It worked in the depression but it wont now with a benefit backstop.
Not all of them. For instance my maternal grandfather spent a chunk of the late depression hammering out Scenic Drive in Auckland’s Waitakere ranges pretty much by hand and blasting until they got it flat enough to get a bulldozer in. Even the thought of doing 26 miles of road in a basalt base is enough to make my skin crawl.
Pat 11.03am Rational and wise – let's do it for the good of society and those who are left bereft without work and a way to go.
@bwaghorn
some define a 'depression' by an unemployment rate of 25% or more
or a prolonged decline in GDP of greater than 10%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QHha1zko1A&ab_channel=LittleBig
I was tempted to gloat about the prospect so many right wing propaganda mongering bene bashing overpaid fools, getting the medicine they are so keen on dishing out to those "lazy, other people".
But. Thinking about it, I don't wish that on anyone, apart from people like Hosking's and Richardson having their monstrous salaries reduced, to their true worth.
There are all the other people in the organisation losing their jobs, printers, delivery people typesetters etc, and the few remaining actual, journalists!
And my mum, who has been reading woman's weekly for near on 80 years.
Its not a case of wishing it upon anyone , or gloating or even indifference…nor is it dismissing the value of the work….it is a recognition of the realities.
There has been much reportage about the 'zombie' companies only surviving due to the low cost of debt and obviously were vulnerable to any revenue shock….this will be far from the last company to close its doors and the government cannot buy them all out.
We will adapt….because the alternative is not to.
I agree, that the Government cannot support companies which were on their way under anyway..
Especially when they take the opportunity to close down companies, when they can pretend that it was Covid 19, not them.
Supporting the staff into new industries, that do have a future, is something I've always advocated, as a legitimate role of the Government.
Good and varied Journalism is an essential infrastructure, in my book. The recipes and knitting patterns serve a purpose as well.
Noting that the Government agrees. They did offer support to keep those staff employed.
Sanctuary @ 1
Did you watch TV1 6pm news yesterday? Did you note the palatial back-grounds of the big names associated with said magazines who were interviewed in their homes?
To suggest he is "lacking solidarity… with those who saw their communities ripped apart in the 1990s…" and is "lacking in human empathy" is reading something into Sanctuary's comments that isn't there.
As a person who was adversely affected at the time, I see no comparison whatsoever to the events of the 1990s and Sanctuary's response to the demise of a bunch of magazines whose time was up, so the owners used the pandemic to close them down.
"Before anyone else like Sanctuary or Alwyn commits to their keyboard again and tries to offload their bile about who is more or less deserving to hold onto a job, do just one thing: "
You really don't get it do you? I don't make any comments, or express any opinions about who is "more or less deserving to hold onto a job". I merely state that if people don't buy printed magazines, and nobody is willing to pay to advertise in them they will die.
Technology becomes redundant. People in jobs within those technologies lose their jobs. I don't make decisions on those matters. Look for example at the computer industry. Remember the days of the punch rooms where a lot of people were occupied in punching data into punched cards to feed the computers of the day? Should we insist that that technology must be restored to recreate those jobs?
Of course not.
If you have access to a map of Australia have a look at the route of the railway line from Perth to Sydney. In particular have a look at the little places between Kalgoorlie and Woomera. Every name on that map was a settlement where people lived in the days when the trains were coal fueled and used water in the bilers.
Soneville, Karonie, Zanthus, Kitchener, Naretha, Rawlinna, Haig, Nurina, Loongana, Forest, Reid, Deakin, Hughes, Denman, Cook, Fisher, O'Malley, Watson, Ooldea, Bates,Wynbring, ……. There are others but I am sick of reading the names in the very small print on my map.
They were all places where people lived and worked. They were needed because a train had to take on coal about every 160 km and water every 80 km,
Well now they have Diesels and they refuel at, I believe, Kalgoorlie and Cook. Cook has a population of 4. Nothing exists of all the other places. All the people who worked there lost their jobs because the steam train was dead. Should we bring them back to recreate the jobs of yesteryear?
Why? And if you won't do it for those jobs why do it for magazines that not many people buy. Why do YOU think you have the power to decide which jobs stay and which go? Because that is the power you are claiming for yourself when you decide that these particular magazines must continue, at taxpayers expense, to be preserved.
.
Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces
There'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier
There'll be no refreshment for a thirsty jackaroo
From Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander
With newfangled buffet cars and faster locomotives
The train stopped in Serviceton less and less often
No, there's nothing sadder than a town with no cheer
Vic Rail decided the canteen was no longer necessary there
No spirits, no bilgewater and eighty dry locals
And the high noon sun beats a hundred and four
There's a hummingbird trapped in a closed-down shoe store
This tiny Victorian rhubarb
Kept the watering hole open for sixty-five years
Now it's boilin' in a miserable March twenty-first
Wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse
The train smokes down the xylophone, there’ll be no stopping here
All you can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer
No Bourbon, no Branchwater, though the townspeople here
Fought her Vic Rail decree tooth and nail
Now it’s boilin’ in a miserable March twenty-first
Wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson’s curse
The train smokes down the xylophone, there’ll be no stopping here
All ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer
Town With No Cheer – Tom Waits (Swordfishtrombones)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-GJpdDU7ps
Come, come. Be more cheerful. Always look on the bright side of life.
They may have called it Patterson's Curse in your part of Australia but it was better known in South Australia as Salvation Jane.
How the same plant could be regarded as a poisonous scourge in one place and a suitable feed for livestock in another was totally beyond me.
I hope you'll forgive me for thinking that listening to this once, and I did listen to all of it, is enough for my lifetime.
LOL
Nobody wishes the ills that follow job loss upon anyone. But this is a different issue to the problem of what publications like The Listener represent. The ideal situation is that The Listener dies and never again sees the light of day, and the consequences don't include any kind of hardship for anyone. There's an interesting piece on Stuff about a number of things but I think the issue of pointless jobs is its prevailing theme:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120728480/what-will-the-world-be-like-after-coronavirus-four-possible-futures
My favourite was the tantrum by Bill Ralston looking like something from the Australian outback (is that the new Ponsonby look?) Still can't stop giggling.
Brilliant summation-this'Some claim Bauer are clearing out the local opposition ahead of simply bringing it's Australian equivalents. It does seem like COVID-19 has provided a nice cover for Bauer to engage in a bit of disaster capitalism.'.
What should happen today is the Minister of Health is fired.
He shouldn't be allowed to resign.
Ardern should fire him.
Publicly.
Primarily for gifting the Right more ground from which to sling shit.
Making it too easy for Farrar's Mob.
If you read Farrar for news and opinion? Jesus wept.
Sanctuary.
You know some folk do '…read Farrar for news and opinion.'
Just like folk come to TS and go to TDB.
Or, one just might see an article in the mainstream news and then find out where that particular news item is being discussed.
Ignoring our problems does not make them go away dear.
"…You know some folk do '…read Farrar for news and opinion.'.."
Maybe once upon a time. Farrar's blog struggles for relevance these days and is regarded as toxic – something he can only blame himself for, as he allows the comments of completely fucking insane nutters to remain up. To put it bluntly, he has inherited the Whaleoil crowd and done nothing about it – and his reputation as a source has suffered accordingly.
To put it bluntly, he has inherited the Whaleoil crowd and done nothing about it – and his reputation as a source has suffered accordingly.
??!!??!!!?
That statement suggests that Farrar's blog has been less toxic and less extreme than Whaleoil's. That's not true, not in the slightest. Farrar's views are as horrible as Cameron Slater's, and the people commenting on his site are no more better informed or humane. Farrar himself is a disgrace: he once wrote about a visit he made to the Occupied Terrritories, and claimed that he had not noticed anything at all to suggest that Palestinians were being oppressed.
Over many years, Farrar has encouraged and/or turned a blind eye to the most ignorant and racist comments outside of a NewstalkZB announcers' barbecue….
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/11/general_debate_3_november_2016.html/comment-page-1#comment-1810551
I don't think he should be fired (last thing we need right now is a change of Health Minister during a pandemic). But I do think he and Ardern should address this more directly. He needs to own up to having fucked up (the traveling thing, they can deal with the stupid of a sign written car internally) and point out we are all on a learning curve, an apology would be good too.
Unfortunately we have a macho political culture that will try and use that to take Labour down. Labour should still do the right thing.
I'm also mindful that those government people will be full of stress chemicals, and they're going to have to sustain living like that for quite some time. I can understand why he would want and even need to do what he did. It's still a fuck up though.
Wow. Some one on the Standard actually admits Clark made a mistake or a fuck up in your words.
IPrent will ban you! The echo chamber must be preseved at all costs.
[lprent: Or you could be less of a moronic dimwit and listen when a moderator talks to you about your behaviour. Commentary is ok. However this is a forum for debate and that involves dealing with other peoples disagreeing with you, especially when they make reasonable objections to your points. Sticking your head firmly up your arse and ignoring them, which appears to be your childish default behaviour isn’t acceptable. FFS grow up. ]
Not sure how new you are to TS, but most of us have been criticising Labour for a long time. I suggest you take note of Lynn's moderations, because now you just look like a troll.
As far as I can tell since 8 June 2018 so ignorance is no excuse.
It would make little to no difference to the pandemic management if the Health Minister is sacked, the bureaucrats in the ministry are effectively directing and running the show at present.
What it would do if he was severely censured is signal that no one in NZ whatever their status is above those impositions being placed on the rest of us.
Same as it has been for the past two decades.
The names of the MOH bureaucrats might change, but the culture remains.
This government demonstrated its subservience to the Ministry when it allowed the demonstrably incompetent Group Manager of MOH:DSS to closely advise Ministers on disability and carer issues.
SSDD
I don't think he should be sacked, but certainly hope the PM gives him a kick up the backside.
No, it wasn't terrible, it wasn't near the level of Ministerial misbehaviour in the past, BUT he's just made his own job – and the government's – harder. Not helping.
Hopefully it will highlight the overreach, of banning, all, car travel for exercise, when there are people who cannot get enough exercise while following the distancing rules and keeping safe, without some car travel.
Letting scared people on Facebook,and "past their use by date" Senior cops who got there by attrition, set the rules.
But it won't. And by giving those people a stick to beat the Government with. I was going to say he should go. But maybe this is an opportunity to be more rational about total bans on activities.
Has car travel for exercise been banned?
As I said not sure.
My son says it was on the Covid website from the 30th, but if it was, I missed it.
The Police Commissioner was saying one thing about it one day, and something different the next.
I see the "car travel to exercise" has been removed from the Unite against Covid 19 website.
"Essential purposes only".
which I take to me: please don't drive to exercise if you can avoid it, but people need to make their own decisions based on need and location.
i.e. not a ban.
Yes, there have been a few changes like that. For instance going from a complete ban on swimming to swimming in a way that is very safe (ie no surfing). These changes are to be expected This is such a novel situation that it would be impossible to be completely right from the get go.
In my neighbourhood people are being very sensible and reasonable. Almost no traffic at all. I wonder if car use will reduce in a more permanent way, even when we can drive freely?
I hope it does Wayne. People have been pushing for less traffic for a long time, seems an ideal opportunity to adopt some new social practices. Less pollution, better for climate mitigation, more liveable urban spaces, more health, lots of benefits.
Agreed on the need to adapt advice over time. Not least because they'd have to wait and see how well people were getting what needed to be done.
I wonder how much of our low community transmission, so far, is due to people thinking for themselves and maintaining their distance, well before the Government required it?
In our previous week before the lockdown, we obviously didn't see many people, but the ones we did were already socialising from several metres away, in their dinghies, the local shop was sanitising the EFTPOS pad between customers and the fuel bowser attendant was cleaning it between fills. People walking on the road were keeping their distance.
Yeah in general it's been really good for a couple of weeks now.
Nah, I walked through the uni here in Dunedin during and after St Patricks day (coz my work) & there were 100s of people like any other day.
Unless it is for essentials, the answer is no. If you have to drive somewhere for a walk, for example, then it is not regarded as local and you’re flouting the rules. I saw a Government clip somewhere yesterday that explained it well but I cannot find it 🙁
if someone needs to drive 4 blocks to the local park so their kids can run around, and this is for the parents' mental health as much as anything, that seems as essential to health as walking round the block next to one's house in terms of personal physical exercise.
As long as people are social distancing, not using jungle gyms, and not taking the piss or socialising, this seems reasonable to me.
If the govt cracks down on that under the current level, it will be because of people doing stupid shit like socialising, not because someone went an extra few blocks.
People on twitter are saying it's in the daily briefings, which is not much use for those of us that don't watch them.
No. It hasn’t weka @ 2.3.1.1 Those who need to travel by car to get to an area for exercising can do so provided it is within their neighbourhood. I think it was Bush who reiterated this only yesterday. I am one of those affected since I can no longer walk to the beach for exercise because of severely arthritic knees.
In the case of David Clark… I gather he drove 2 kms to get to a motorbike track which was closely associated with his neighbourhood. I think the public pearl clutching over his 'misdemeanour' is being a tad overdone for political reasons.
Anne. Clark drove his electorate vehicle emblazoned with a photo of his physiognomy to a mountain bike track for a spot of between video conferencing mountain biking.
An activity on the 'We 'd rather you not indulge in because of risk of injury' list.
The whole incident smacks of either extraordinary arrogance or extreme tone deafness.
Or both.
This is a fuck up of quite significant proportions and could not have come at a worse time.
BS.
He used his electorate vehicle because he could put his bike into it. It was hardly for publicity because there was no one there but himself. Looked like an easy ride – nothing dangerous – and there are few spots he can go to where he can have any privacy.
You've got it in for him as you seem to have a good many people, and you are using it to discredit him. No different from those who are doing it for political reasons.
Why didn't he just ride his bike to the track if it is so close ? Or just ride it around his suburb a few times like people seem to be doing in my neck of the woods ?
Why doesn't Anne walk on the beach?
I'm a commuter cyclist. So when I ride, I ride as much as possible on cycle paths and only go on the roads when I absolutely have to.
That is because many motorists can be classed as dangerous fuckwits on the road.
Of course there are even more driver who are considerate and not impatient dimwits. But when you have no protection you stick to what you know works and what you have experience with.
It seems unlikely that David Clark is a commuter. He sounds like a recreational mountain biker. Probably doesn't ride on the road because it is too damn dangerous.
I trust that answers your query.
I expect it doesn’t. To me it is apparent that I’d class you as being a ignorant dangerous fuckwit motorist who is too stupid to think through what other road users do.
Incidentally I frequently see cyclists (and some scooter user) do the same even when the light is red. Basically police should seize their bikes/scooters and sell them to someone who is less stupid. If they are renting them, then they should inform all hire companies that they should not be able to hire one again. Can't think of anything that is a more stupid behaviour.
Squished cyclist is unpleasant for everyone.
"I expect it doesn’t. To me it is apparent that I’d class you as being a ignorant dangerous fuckwit motorist who is too stupid to think through what other road users do."
Perhaps you haven't noticed the vast decrease in traffic on the road at the moment ? This is making it vastly easier for cyclists to get out and about without worrying nearly as much about motorists.
Please continue with your specious rant it's most amusing.
Anne.
A friend, homeless and forced to live in a campground and share facilities with a swag of overseas backpacker types, drives her wee van out of the camp ground and down the road to a near deserted beach to allow her aged and grass averse dog to walk on sand and in soothing seawater.
No risk. No harm. And believe me, her fragile state means that the whole social distancing thing has been her way of life for years.
She gets tailed by the local cops in a marked car who park right behind her. They don't approach her in a community friendly manner. Just intimidate by their close presence. Later, when she is driving out of the camp for another dog walk and soul repair session she gets told by the camp managers she's going out too often.
Now. Do you think that Dr. (of god only knows) Clark will intervene and allow my highly stressed friend a pass to indulge in an activity that is causing harm to no one and benefiting her and her wee dog immeasurably?
Of course not. Don't be silly.
But bet you we get a call or a text sometime today when she reads about Clark's little lapse.
Her fingernails are ragged enough already.
But what does that matter so long as we all abide by the New Way and allow our Minister of Health in time of a pandemic to openly and loudly flout the rules he demands we plebs follow?
And while you're there Anne and making this personal…who ate these "…good many people…" I have it in for?
That'll be why the Bush police have no time to check up on self isolating travellers. I thought they were too busy playing with their guns.
I think Jacinda's conversation with David Clark will probably start with, "David. What the actual fuck?!"
Unless he's oblivious to everything going on around him, I struggle to comprehend how he thought doing what he did was in any way a good idea. And taking a van. With your fucking face painted on it. Christ on a bike, man!
I guess he was hoping everyone was at home and no one would notice. But the Blue Team are watching. The Blue Team are always watching…
Speaking of the Blue Team, I see Joyce and English have slithered out from whatever rocks they've been hiding under to throw handfuls of muck at the government. Armchair generals are the very best kind after all.
"What the actual fucking fuck."
and "Jesus Christ on a fucking chariot" were my first comments last night when I read it on Stuff.
And Farrar, Blue to his core, had the breathtaking audacity to dig up the putrid corpse of Ryall and state categorically that 'he would never do such a thing…'
Ryall was a numpty of outstanding proficiency who accepted bucketsloads of absolute bullshit from his trusted advisors at the Ministry of Health. Outstanding he was. Set a whole new standard for fuckwittedness of Ministers of Health.
This is of course from the point of view of a family carer of a MOH:DSS client with very high support needs who still hasn't managed to remove the knife in my back planted there by Ryall and driven home by subsequent Ministers, including the current incumbent.
Jesus the axes at your place must be really blunt, given the amount of time you spend on grinding them.
I agree totally. He's made a dumb mistake and even Willie Jackson couldn't defend him this morning. Its probably not sack able but does undermine the govt. Jacinda will have a talking to him. Anyway, shouldn't really question on this blog as you are not allowed to debate or disagree according to IPrent below. – Goodbye.
More and more it looks to me like a situation with no good outcome. Such are our times.
But yep, people need to be able to make personalised decisions within the rules. Otherwise we will have rules designed for middle of the bell curve people that cause problems for others.
Don't be silly Rosemary. He was 0.3km outside the 2km limit-hardly a hanging offence. It is possible the bike track was on the way to or near his local supermarket-have you thought about this? I have to drive 19km to my local supermarket which opens up no end of biking/walking opportunities.
It appears the Health Minister followed all other self-isolation criteria. Media I have read/listened too (Stuff/RNZ) have not given this story any oxygen at all.
Here in Wanaka groups of people are congregating on bridges and jumping into the Clutha River, ignoring all of the s-i rules-these are the people the police should be chasing.
I do sympathise with some of the comment on Kiwiblog criticising the fact that people seem to be getting away with biking, including mountain-biking, all over the place. Mountain biking is more dangerous than skiing in terms of injuries suffered. Meanwhile I am not allowed to take my sailing boat out in light winds with reefed sails, which is safer than both.
there's safety statistically, and there's safety individually, and then there's plain bad luck.
Where does it say 2km is the limit?
"He was 0.3km outside the 2km limit-hardly a hanging offence"
If he was Joe Bloggs, it wouldn't matter. He's the Minister of Health and has a perception/messaging issue to deal with now. Hoping it blows over, but it does leave the problem of the perception that we can bend the rules.
Yes, a senior Minister should grasp the basics of perception.
We know (and he should have) that the PM will be asked about it at the press conference today. She is now obliged to say …
either "No biggie, not bothered", which she can't then combine with her usual messaging. She can't switch seamlessly from a shrug to a call for sacrifice.
or (more likely) "The Minister got it wrong".
Ardern's tough-but-kind persona is very effective in this crisis, and she doesn't need that undermined. More importantly, the country doesn't.
Yes it is about perception – rightly or wrongly people in the public eye are held to a higher standard of behaviour whether they like it or not! Silly man!!!
Its not so much that he was 0.3km out of range, its the fact that its a deserted bike trail that the general public are not using as they've been told not to do those sort of activities, but Clark decides that rule only applies to the plebs not him. What if he had an accident somewhere along the trail?
The general public has been told to stop using easy bike trails like "The Big Easy" ??
Yes. Most bike trails are closed. Why do you think the car park is deserted?
That ones normally busy
"Most bike trails are closed."
Citation please.
DOC website. When you go on web site a covid-19 window comes up saying "stay at home, All DOC facilities are closed"
https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/things-to-do/mountain-biking/
you should read the link though, tracks aren't closed, it's the huts and campsites that are. Obviously they're also telling people to not go into the back country and to use tracks in the neighbourhood (they also say don't drive to them).
Yes but point being we are all told not to go surfing, hunting, sailing, swimming? or anything else and slightly dangerous. So now the general public stuck at home with time on their hands will say if its ok for him (and he makes the rules) its ok for us.
Yes, which is why he has apologised, and everyone is reiterating stay home, don't drive unless it's necessary, get some exercise, wash your hands and practice physical distancing.
"For everyone’s safety, at Alert Level 4 people must not to head into the backcountry or remote areas, nor should they undertake outdoor activities (such as adventure sports or hunting) that would expose them to higher levels of risk." https://www.doc.govt.nz/news/issues/covid-19/
Clark wasn't in a remote area, nor was he partaking in an adventure sport. Nor was he even in a DOC area to start with.
Then that's great. We can all head out to the parks.
Did you notice in the photo the car park was empty so the public was actually staying away!
[lprent: Read my note please – rather than your current career of being a dimwitted repetitive troll who never listens. I’ll release one more comment, otherwise I’ll get ride of you as stupid time wasting problem with a brain of stone and clogged up ‘ears’ that need a pneumatic drill to clear them. ]
Otago Rail Trail = Open.
Trails in the Queenstown area = Open
Where did this 2km limit come from?
There seems to be people, and different branches of Government, making up ad-hoc rules all over the place.
Not even sure myself, where we were at in the "driving to exercise" rules, and I've been going on the Government Covid website every day.
They are not, helping.
Why does it matter how far I walk, for example, when the only thing I touch on the entire walk is my front gate, and all of us on every walk, are keeping, so far, several metres apart.
I am refraining from sailing in the harbour ,, even though I can do that without going within 20metres of anyone, and my coastal capable boat, is extremely unlikely to require help, where I can almost walk ashore, as much not to bother the cop who has to tell me off, as much as any other reason.
I would rather they spent their time, talking to the few, that are really doing things that endanger other people.
If everyone tries to follow the principal, "act as though you have it", and keep away from people outside your bubble, we will not, have community transmission. Whether someone drove 2.174km or 1.999km, away from home is not going to change that.
Some people like the reassurance of, rules, or the power kick from forcing others to follow them. But arbitrary, detailed and confusing rules, treating people like children, don't work.
East Germany tried that!
There is not a 2 km limit. There is in Ireland and there is talk about local limits.
Call me biased but the incident fills me with "meh". He drove to a carpark near his home where there was no one and got some exercise.
Hardly a hanging offence.
You and I can say "meh".
But the PM can't. That's the point.
She can say, what's your problem with this?
My only thought about the whole thing is why didn't he just bike to the start of the trail? At 2.3km away, it would have taken bugger-all longer than the time needed to load and unload his bike into the van.
If you aren't used to riding on the road, most cyclists won't if they have any choice. It is frigging dangerous.
I've only started since I don't have a bike path between me and work from december (they moved). Even now, during my daily exercise during the lockdown, I'm still getting close to having idiot car driver caused accidents most days. I’m road riding now because it is an ideal time to get more experience at avoid the dipshit motorists. I normally ignore main roads, riding on footpaths by preference because it is safer for me and not that dangerous to pedestrians (I just wait at slow speeds until they move over).
Most mountain bikers who do trails don’t ride on roads. They don’t have the road skills and their bikes don’t have all of the lights, reflectors and other crap like highlighted clothes and road level helmets that road cyclists routinely have.
I bike because I can't walk far due to a pad wearing out between my right big toe and the foot bones.
I avoid road riding around Dorkland, it's no fun at all and scary AF. And I'm the kind of person that needs a bit of adrenaline with my exercise, whether it's on a bike or kayak or skis. But right now in lockdown it might be ok.
When it comes to the specific ride in question, supposedly David's home is in Opoho. The roads to and from the Logan Park High School carpark don't look like the kind of hazards our Orcland roads are. Or better yet, do a loop to the carpark, over the Big Easy, then back home via Signal Hill Rd.
https://www.wildthings.club/trails/otago/dunedin/signal-hill-big-easy/
In normal times I won't ride on the road in Wellington. The drivers actively try to kill you.
Better in Auckland. They are just unaware of your existence.
I did my MBA in Dunedin from 1985 and was there for while afterwards until the end of 1988 while my partner at the time finished her dual degrees.
We had bikes the entire time that I was there and never rode them around the city. The main reason was because compared to Auckland the streets were quite narrow (more like the rabbit warren cart track streets in the water side of Ponsonby or Kingsland) and the parked cars made them too dangerous. Instead we walked most of the time or took a car.
Where we used the bikes was where there were no parked cars and the roads were pretty wide – riding around most of the West Coast for instance.
I think that the roads are wider further out from the centre of Dunedin from what I saw this Xmas at least on the flat. Once you get into those hills however they looked like single way cart tracks winding their way up and down. The danger on bikes is mostly proximity to cars.
I can’t remember much about Opoho, but generally I regard any route as dangerous if at any point you get to effectively single lane with even occasional parked cars. Which is why I never road there. All of the roads around where I lived were like that.
While there are lot of roads that are like that in Auckland, there are usually routes that allow you to avoid them here. Less so in Wellington or Dunedin. Whereas riding in Christchurch or Invercargill is just so damn easy.
"We had bikes the entire time that I was there and never rode them around the city."
At that same time I commuted via bike from Maryhill to work at the bottom of MacClaggan Street. One morning I rode (with feet sliding) all the way down down High Street in snow.
My point wasn’t really about snow or the shape of roads – it was about bloody motorists.
I grew up in Mt Albert in Auckland. We used to ride everywhere all of the time. But the traffic went from being not a problem in the late 60s to bleeding dangerous by the early 80s as the population went up markedly and the quality of the drivers dropped.
In the late 70s and early 80s I’d had several accidents on pushbikes and motor scooters, all the fault of drivers. The worst was riding down a shallow slope on morningside drive by St Lukes Mall and having a car abruptly turn right in front of me to go into the mall. Or having a car pull out of a parking space on the side of the road obviously without having looked in their wing mirror.
Problem is that with a bike of any kind you’re reliant on dimwits in cars. After a few accidents caused by motorists you become a really defensive rider very fast. Dunedin city drivers really didn’t impress me with the care that they took looking around.
Of course I could just have high standards…
I’d point out that in my entire car driving career, I’ve only had a few accidents. One where another car turned right into me (I still have no idea how they could have missed an burnt orange peugeot). One where a tire blew out after running into the end of someones exhaust dropped in the southern motorway – it was evening and I didn’t see the pipe on the road until too late. And one on the bridge evening commuter shuffle when an idiot talking to the female passenger (I’d be watching him in the mirror) behind me ran straight into my arse.
Oh and I slid a long wheel base land rover off a track once, while I was trying to get around a slip in the clay road.
So he could have used his legs and pushed the damned thing.
…why didn't he just bike to the start of the trail?
Riding mountain bikes on the road is a pain in the arse with those fat, knobby tyres. You'd have to be very determined or a glutton for punishment to choose to do it.
Not as much a pain in the arse as riding skinny road tyres around a mountain bike trail. Or snow, for that matter. I was a product development engineer at Trek in Wisconsin for a year. I've ridden some weird shit and seen a lot of even weirder shit happen on bikes.
In San Diego I lived about 4km from some primo trails. I almost always rode there and back, it just felt wrong to drive there. It helped to pump up the tyres a bit for the road and let them down for the trails. Not locking out the shocks on the road was good for dialling in smooth pedalling technique.
I don't know where in Opoho he lives but that's the suburb with Dunedins steepest streets (Baldwin for eg, like excessively steep), to get to Logan Park you'd have to use the high windy narrow road through the Botanical Gardens, or go the long way (bout 5-6 kms) through the university.
This is mountain biking we're talking here. Steepness and hills are kinda the point.
Baldwin street is overrated. Hell, my driveway here in Titirangi is steeper. For about ten metres or so, anyways. Was down there in November and my twins on their learners permit wanted to drive up it to see what the big deal was. It was a letdown for them.
Shoulda made them do a three point turn at the steepest bit.
Baldwin Street is further up North East Valley and doesn't link to Opoho, but there are other steep-ish streets from NEV up to Opoho Like Blacks Road, which on paper links to the Big Easy (down a gully). Clark will live at about 100m which isn't much in Dunedin.
Funny thing is he drove down from Opoho to near Logan Park at near sea level (at what was Pelichet Bay before it was reclaimed). Then the Big Easy track heads up the Opoho Creek gully to closer to where he lives. There's walking track access from Opoho, but I don't know if there's bike access.
But the driving a couple of km to the track isn't what the PM told him off for, it was for doing risky recreation which has clearly been officially discouraged for ordinary people.
Presumably some people would get a bit grumpy if the Minister of Health ended up crocked up in hospital right now.
Come on Pete. Admit you have been camped outside Minister Clark's house watching his movements for the last week.
I hope that's a stupid attempt at a joke.
I haven't been away from home since Saturday two weeks ago – I had decided to go into isolation before we had to.
You do seem to know a lot about his movements, Pete…
From trail ratings I've read, Big Easy does not qualify as risky recreation. As lprent says, even with reduced lockdown traffic riding the streets is riskier.
He would have been told off for the "not a good look" of getting sprung for doing something we've all been sorta kinda instructed to not do.
This "incident" is a Pete George "magic moment" – his glee is palpable!
I say (again), ho hum.
I'm good with trusting people to make decisions in their own location. But we do need the govt to be seen to doing the right thing here, because now people will be going oh, it's ok to drive to my local bike track. I wish he'd taken a plain car.
But perception is everything. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of what he did, he's the health minister. At a time when the message is stay at home what he did means there'll be people who'll think 'what's good for the goose' then find themselves being confronted by the cops. It's a time when the government needs the support and cooperation of citizens, which in turn means the respect of citizens. Without that we're stuffed. Clark should've known that and have acted accordingly.
Well said.
Reminded me of when I was a kid at a friends house for dinner, and they all prayed, I didn't as I had no idea what they were doing, anyway, one of the other kids told their dad I hadn't prayed and the dad said "how did you know? were you not praying too?". Just the person who took the photograph was a couple kms away from wherever they lived too (I know the area).
I do not believe there is a 2km limit that you are referring to. But there are guidelines that dont support the actions he did (https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120613766/coronavirus-mountain-bike-trails-close-as-cyclists-asked-to-ride-local)
But ignoring all that – it goes against what we are being asked to do. If everybody acted in the same way as the minister of health did in this circumstance the whole isolation 'thing' would be nowhere as effective and people will die.
So – should his behaviour be ignored?
As you can see from the car park, the place was deserted. What if Clark had had an accident and needed rescuing somewhere on the track?
They are telling us not to go swimming and surfing but idiot Clark goes on a bike trail!
Also telling us to keep away from other people!
They are telling us not to go swimming.
No they're not. They are telling us not to go swimming in clusters and to keep the full 2 metre distance from one another. That did not happen in Mission Bay, Auckland for example, so they shooed the lot of them off the beach. Since then they appear to have eased the rules and if people are acting sensibly… going for a swim by themselves or in pairs and keeping a good distance from one another they are being left alone. That is what is happening at my local beach anyway.
Your political bias is shining through. Knew it wouldn’t take long before the rwnj’s were back to normal. In fact they’ve been strangely absent here up until now.
Justify it anyhow you like……Clark was an idiot. He is obviously above the rules for us plebs.
[lprent: You appear to be reluctant to actually deal with the objections to your pre-written scenario. That does not constitute robust debate. That just makes you look like a fucking useless and ignorant idiot troll. I suggest that you engage or leave before I make the decision for you. ]
Yes. It was mistake to go in his electorate van. His bad luck that a Nat – who was also 2 km away from his residence – happened to spot him and took a photo and dropped him into it. Someone should trace the source of the photo and see who it was, and what he/she was doing in the area too.
That sounds a bit like sour grapes. You are allowed out but you are not supposed to do "dangerous"activities else I would go surfing!
Please read my note to you about your behaviour at 2.4.6.2.1
So it would've been okay to go in his private car without the identifying stuff on the side of it? Why then wouldn't it have been okay for the photographer to have been there?
In which case, why did the photographer consider it photo-worthy?
Perhaps the photographer lived across the road and was going for a quick walk alone for a bit of exercise? There's certainly nothing to suggest the photographer was mountain biking, either.
"lived across the road".
He got papped by the wilderpeople living in the green belt. Much lols
So you're saying, mcflock, that the photographer had no business being there? The point is that their presence may have been well within the common understanding of the limits of the lock down.
No, I'm saying that there are no houses "just across the road".
If the photographer thought being there was fine for them, why would anyone think Clark's presence was camera-worthy? You're coming up with imaginings to defend rank hypocrisy.
The carpark is down a long dead end track behind the school, so the photographer must have been in there for a specific reason. Maybe going for a ride themselves, dropping someone off or picking them up, or maybe had seen the van and followed it in.
"If the photographer thought being there was fine for them, why would anyone think Clark's presence was camera-worthy? You're coming up with imaginings to defend rank hypocrisy."
Even if there aren't 'houses across the road', my point is the photographer may have been there within the limits of the lock down. Clark clearly wasn't. It hasn't been established the photographer had no business being there. If the photographer was there legitimately there's no hypocrisy. Your logic is lacking.
McFlock, that's your stomping ground isn't it? The Oddity says the van was parked at Logan Park school, other reports say it was at Signal Hill. Do you recognise from the photo which carpark it was?
edit: never mind, Pete seems pretty definite it was Logan Park school.
There's a car park called Signal Hill Reserve Carpark in behind the school. That's different to the lookout carpark at the top of the bike tracks.
Thanks Pete. I couldn't match up what was in the news photo with what was in the google maps satellite photo, but there's a pin there for the carpark in an open field. S'pose the carpark has been developed since the satellite photo.
This DCC rates map is more up to date and shows the formed car park behind the school..
https://dunedin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=759c35fd91ee487e8e7ac3c9581b17b6
Wouldn't catch me anywhere near a cycle track lol.
But you can see from the stuff pic and pete's link the start of the track as a V and the position of individual trees that it's at the lower carpark next to LPHS.
First of all you identify the person taking the photo as a "Nat" and then state that they were also over 2km away from their residence.
Anything to back that up?
No? funny that.
It'll be Pete George, won't it?
An ACT voter in fact 🙂
Oh, and if you look at the map, Clark lives in Ohopo and he parked at the Signal Hill reserve carpark. The way the crow flies this is probably about 500m, certainly well under 1km, let alone 2km!!!
The only way to get to Signal Hill lookout is by car or bike, no one walks that road, if you did walk it would take maybe 40 mins, an hour? There are no houses near there, it's a tourist spot normally.
Quite.
Er, just saying he wasn't 2.3km from his house 🙂
It was almost literally his own back yard.
The Nat-voting numpty who ratted on Clark at what is a time of major pressure would have known exactly where the minister lived and they would have known exactly what they were doing when they went public.
I’ve imagined myself in the same position and I wouldn’t breathlessly go to the media. But Nat voters are venal like that.
It was political…
The car park is at the bottom near Logan Park High School, not up at the lookout.
Ok, so you're making dirty false insinuations.
I've never voted for ACT.
The car park is behind Logan Park High School at the bottom of the track. It may be 500m by bike but there's no direct route by car, via Lovelock Track it's 2.4km.
But according to the PM the distance isn't the issue.
I feel my family is a lot safer knowing Pete is all over this. Never know when Ministers of the Crown are going to recklessly drive out of their zone.
are there any residences within 2km of the car park?
https://twitter.com/five15design/status/1245880004723916802/photo/3
Yes, it's within 1km of a lot of university flats and accommodation.
See if you can see from this link:
https://www.google.co.nz/maps/place/Logan+Park+High+School/@-45.8588339,170.5290984,1770m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xa82eac5b1186b223:0x759b80f37df43f00!8m2!3d-45.8619093!4d170.5288774
Clark lives somewhere near the Presbyterian Church in Opoho.
Funny coincidence, there's an Arden Street House nearby.
Hi Anne – hope you are well. I'm really not that concerned about him using his electorate van. The guys probably working his ass off at the moment, and I don't begrudge him some 'me' time at all. I think the issue is the nature of the activity – mountain biking. https://covid19.govt.nz/help-and-advice/for-everyone/leaving-your-house/ says this:
Anyone giving Clark flack for having a break is being a dick. But IMHO he should not have been mountain biking.
All that said, I'm loooking out over the upper harbour towards TeAtatu and gee it's tempting to put my little boat in. We're all human after all!
If there was an issue with the nature of the activity, the website would probably say don't go mountain biking as well.
The last time I tried it, mountain biking was dangerous!
Nice one Paddington. Of course he made a mistake and he has admitted as much.
What I take objection to is the over-reactions largely by those who are indulging in political point scoring. Interestingly, these types have been strangely silent on this blog for weeks now, then suddenly when a cabinet minister makes a wee mistake – and let anyone name a minister of any political persuasion who hasn't – and they all turn up for the kill.
Their motivations are crystal clear for all to see.
What gets me is the ignorance and outright stupidity of some of them…
It is like they just ignored the events and discussion going into stage 4.
I guess it is what people say – being conservatives makes people into wishful thinkers.
I'm not so "silly" as to read the comments from Farrar's Ferals, my primary interest is following what various platforms are choosing to highlight by way of posts and opinion pieces.
I have a particular and very personal interest in all things Ministry of Health and especially the relationship between the Ministry and the Minister.
And although, despite his Higher Education, Clark was clearly unsuited from day one to be the Minister in Charge of the Transformation of Kindness (after the much need high colonic) promised by Our Leaders he has outdone even my low expectations of him.
Heavens to Betsy BG, he gave the lot if us in Lockdown a very emphatic FU.
Perhaps Clark’s god can help us?
Clark's certainly not going to set the world on fire.
Agreed.
If what David Clark did was a general member of the public it would have likely gone unnoticed, and if the police had discovered them they would probably have been 'educated'.
But Clark isn't just an ordinary member of the public.
So this doesn't look good for Clark nor for the Government, on an issue that is annoying many people due to open abuses and borderline cases and in particular a lack of clarity (that has to be rectified quickly). Clark has made it appear that anyone can decide for themselves what they do.
Possible more importantly, Clark has what must be one of the most important jobs in the country, in the biggest issue facing health in probably a hundred years.
So why is he working from home and not in Wellington?
The Prime Minister has seen fit to work from Wellington. The Minister of Finance and the Director-General of Health and the Commissioner of Police and the Director of Civil Defence and Emergency Management are all in Wellington dealing with an unprecedented crisis.
I can understand Clark preferring to be at home for personal and family reasons, but he can't be as effective from home asd he could be working with the other key personnel and his Ministry of Health in Wellington.
Unless he is unofficially but deliberately sidelined .
"… on an issue that is annoying many people due to open abuses and borderline cases …"
You are self isolating to do the right thing, it isn't a competition. Do your bit and concentrate on what you can control.
You could follow your own advice.
I'm self-isolating to protect myself and others including a vulnerable person. I haven't left my property for nearly two weeks.
But it's obvious from media and social media coverage that many people are doing a wide range of activities away from home. This is likely to keep creeping to more activities and more risks.
In case you hadn’t noticed ( *sigh* ) all Ministers and MPs, apart from Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson, are working from where ever their home is. The reason why these two are required to be at the centre is because they need to use their actual hands to formally and legally sign things – like requests to use powers granted by the ‘crown’ like asking to use the armed forces and expending money from the treasury.
Everyone else is remote..
Ministers don’t need to be in Wellington. After all they don’t exactly have bits of hardware like bodies or sewerage systems that they’re working on. Most of their ‘hands’ are part of the bureaucracy or at the coalface. They just need to be able to communicate with those that they are responsible for and working with all around the country.
This includes the epidemic response committee which arguably is as important or more important as a frigging minister of cabinet.
The only requirement in our system for MPs to be together otherwise is pass legislation with even a token presence. Which they did before stage 4 when parliament shut itself down for a time.
There was an interesting RNZ article on the legal issues from last month.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-house/audio/2018738161/how-to-run-a-country-in-a-pandemic
Please avoid straw man arguments based on a ignorant and rather stupid spurious premise.
I think they have phones down in Dunedin. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're right about that. I do most of my work remotely from Dunedin. I've been working in Timaru, Auckland and the UK today from home. But for big and critical jobs we like to do site visits, there are things you can miss from not being on site dealing with key people face to face and seeing a bigger picture.
Are you suggesting that the Health Minister should be doing face to face meetings? Or going to sites? Why?
All the other key leaders seem to be involved in person, they have appeared in various combinations in media conferences (keeping appropriate distances to set a good example) so must have a safe bubble to work in.
Six key people (see Lynn's explanation) are working in Wellington. Some of those for obvious reasons (eg press conferences).
What can Clark do in Wellington that he can't do from Dunedin?
Ride his mountain bike?
Keep in touch with what the Government doesn't want you to do when in isolation, or when in a key ministerial position?
Remote conferencing is good for many things, but it isn't as good as face to face for important discussions and decision making.
https://medium.com/@shannonkelly_80469/steve-jobs-on-the-importance-of-face-to-face-meetings-even-in-the-age-of-iphones-a5a4b83621a6
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/longdistance-meetings-vs-facetoface-meetings-35427.html
Clark seems to have not properly understood Ardern's stay-at-home related advice.
So you are suggesting that he does face to face meetings, despite all work places being told to work from home where possible.
"Clark seems to have not properly understood Ardern's stay-at-home related advice."
I can't see anything that Clark needs to be face to face for for the month, and no-one seems to be able to be specific on this.
How so? We're allowed out to exercise.
Ardern: “People can go outside to get fresh air and drive short distances if needed, but we have asked people to avoid activities where there is a higher risk of injury, and the Minister should have followed this guidance.”
The latest Daily COVID-19 update from the New Zealand Government (just received by email):
Answers to common questions
Q. I want to get some fresh air in my neighbourhood this weekend. How can I stay safe?
A. You might be tempted to leave the house this weekend, particularly if the weather is nice. Remember, staying home is the best thing you can do to stop the spread of COVID-19. But you can leave the house to buy groceries or to get some fresh air in your neighbourhood.
If you do leave the house this weekend, here are some do’s and don’ts to remember:
Clark has apologised for doing something a bit risky (riding a bike on a dirt track). But sometimes driving a short distance for exercise seems to be within the rules from what I can tell. The guidance is to avoid unnecessary travel.
Hey that is just crap.
I do video conferencing all of the time. Kind of have to with my current project team being in the UK, aussie, parts of the US and now locked down here. It isn’t any worse or better than when we all did the same thing around a meeting room table with or without video links to outliers as I did it a decade ago. Or when doing it via chat rooms and version control systems as I did 20 years ago.
Or as programmers do it these days; via slack, jira, confluence, stash and jenkins or their equivalents. We seldom use video conferencing except to deal with the unskilled (like managers and customer), because we’ve been doing this kind of remote stuff forever and we’re efficient doing it.
These days we just layer all of those together depending on who the audience is.
It is like everything else – you get better at it the more you do it.
'We' might need to get over 'ourselves'.
Did Clark's actions actually threaten anyone with Covid-19? No.
Media beat-up. They are desperate to tarnish the gold that is Jacinda (and Robertson).
I don't think it's fair or correct to sack Clark for anything in particular. He's clearly an idiot so blame shouldn't come into it. He should just be sacked for general incompetence.
Who should be Minister of Health?
I don't know. Louisa Wall? Liz Craig? I’m liking Chloe Swarbrick more and more.
Liz Craig would be very appropriate but this is her first term so it could be a bit soon. She wasn't even appointed to the Epidemic Response Committee.
Bit of a joke that last bit, given her CV.
Out of interest, have you seen Farrar's post from yesterday about the Covid-19 comittee members? He makes the same point about Liz Craig.
Farrars mob?
Haven't they been wishing for someone more like bill english in a crisis?
John Hopkins just ticked over a million reported cases. Took 8 days to double from half a million.
There is a very funny picture leading Brian Easton's column on Pundit re Trump masking. I can't copy and paste it but it can be seen on https://www.pundit.co.nz/
Seem to remember that picture heading one of the posts on here recently…..and the article is as good as the picture
No..wasnt here…mustve been somewhere else
Ha!
Direct link to image:
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/5c19a371aa49a150fcfe2851/1585805622387-U9K4J4WNMX8LWPUO2DCC/ET_NX18WoAUPp39.jpg?content-type=image%2Fjpeg
The PM will likely address the Minister of Health’s brain fade at her press conference today. Hopefully anyway, and use him as an example of what not to do. He should apologise profusely. Jacinda did not need this at this time. She has to keep well and get enough sleep and not be kept awake at night by such stupidity.
Jacinda is a very weak leader re staff. Twyford, Lees-Galloway and Clark (and NZ First MP's) often embarrass her but she will not fire anyone. The talent pool is too shallow we all know that. She also only acted on Clare Curran and Meka Whaitiri as she was forced to.
She needs to take a leaf out of Helen Clarks' playbook.
Like many others, Jimmy is still tuned in to "politics as usual".
Previous cases are irrelevant here. Firings have always been based more on the importance of the sinner than the sin (Murray McCully broke more rules than there are in the book, but survived, because he was Murray McCully and knew where the bodies were buried).
The PM won't fire Clark because she is dealing with an extraordinary challenge, and the health system doesn't need a newbie learning the name tags. That is vastly more important than playing the Beehive games which made headlines on a slow news day, but are entirely irrelevant now.
Really? I've never sacked anyone either.
Told a few, including myself, "I hope you have bloody well learned from this, and will do better next time".
Works much better than shooting people for their cockups.
You just end up replacing them with another fallible human, who you have to train to avoid the mistakes, the previous one learned from.
Some people are promoted beyond their capabilities. Clark, Curran, ILG and Twyford are examples in Labour IMO.
Nick Smith, Paula Bennett are examples in National also IMO.
I still have an open mind about which of them were, "promoted beyond their capabilities" and which are learning a huge job, on the trot.
It remains to be seen.
National were in long enough to make it obvious.
Jacinda Adern has done an excellent job, of communicating, which is her role, so far, as have many others.
I have to agree with you on Jacinda's communication (and not just this Covid-19 thing), it is always very good. Just wish she would put some of her MP's in their place when the do absolutely dumb things like this that embarrass them.
Some people are promoted beyond their capabilities.
IMO, Simon Bridges.
Gee the leader of the of a labour party (the party that try's to make workers lifes better) doesnt believe in pulling their metaphorical penis out and sacking people to prove they’re the bees knees.
Who woulda thunk it.?
I'm simply saying Helen Clark would not have put up with this shit from her MP's.
Yeah well Clark was a 90s poly and the first elected female PM Nz was still dragging its knuckles then some are trying to walk upright nowadays
Oh look. Jimmy was almost certainly calling Helen Clark an idiot – and a few other names no doubt – when she was PM.
It is Helen Clark's playbook by the way. Just a little grammar lesson for you.
Did you get out of the wrong side of someone's bed Anne?
No I did very well under the Clark government and she certainly surrounded herself with much more competent people. But also did not suffer fools.
But thanks for the grammar lesson….I must admit I'm not a good typist.
Helen Clark was no idiot. Cold, uncaring, heartless, calculating, unkind, at times even duplicitous – but she was no idiot.
Some (…) would call that a backhanded compliment, others would call it a character assassination.
Like her or loathe her (Helen that is), she was a good politician and PM.
She was none of those things Chris. OK maybe a bit duplicitous in a political sense but you name a prominent politician who isn't. But she was from broadly the same generation and Presbyterian background as I came from. We were brought up not to show our emotions on our sleeve. It was often mistaken for coldness and lack of empathy. It was neither of those things.
Helen Clark was certainly no idiot. But I knew her personally. She was none of the other things.
I disagreed with her simply calling a hiatus to the Neo-liberal onslaught. “New Zealand is tired of changes”, But doubt anyone could have achieved much more at the time, in that direction.
Male politicians with similar characteristics, would have been credited with much more positive descriptions.
The only brain fade was using a marked van. In his defence a chance to get away on his own and do a bit of clear thinking is probably invaluable considering how many are yapping in his ear. I once had a job that required a bit of clear headed thinking on occasion and I used to drive a few kms away and park-up and think without distraction for 5 or 10 minutes.
It seems COVID-19 deaths in Europe are being way under-reported. For instance, in France and Spain, retirement home deaths apparently aren't included in reported totals.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/official-coronavirus-figures-dont-reveal-the-true-scale-of-the-pandemic_n_5e846d7ac5b6a1bb76507da7
Same in Italy
The poms hadn't been counting deaths outside hospital.
https://youtu.be/WimbyL_25Nw
If only David Clark had listened to Randy Rainbow.
Every morning Bill de Blasio, mayor of NY does a presser.
This morning he is advising all NYer's to wear a 'face covering'. People may carry the virus yet have no symptoms, so they just spread it, asymptomatic . He does not want people using surgical masks, as those need to be saved for those on the 'front line'. Instead encouraging people to make their own or wear a bandana.
It must be horrendous in NY, he's asking for the military to mobilize and for any medical people to come to NY to help.
If your interested, I usually watch it on this link, comes on around 9.30-10am.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU8SPervUD4
Meanwhile, agent orange has just started his daily presser…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMJutiXTak
The Presidential presser yesterday started off with an astonishing electioneering session. They didn't want to talk about the new milestones or the number of deaths and infected so went full out on war.
The navy is going to sort out the drug cartels. This is war. Iran is going to be sorted out, this is war. 'We are not sleeping, no-one should think that while we're distracted we're not ready." The navy is ready, they're ready to go. As of today they're …
And all those saying how great the Leader is. The election is the week before Veterans Day. I wonder if the troops and rockets and bowing and scraping experts will be ready for the parade in Washington.
Bit of a dilemma for the trumpskyites, is it still ok to rip veils off muslims.
Great piece here from the NYTimes about the demise of advertising-funded print media. Perhaps a few of the loud mouthed media commentators here in NZ should read it and have a deeper look at the reasons their industry is headed the same way as the dinosaurs. Apologies if it’s paywalled, an online sub to the NYT is the same price as the NZHerald though and about a million times better.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-journalists-newspapers.html?searchResultPosition=9
NYT gives you some free articles before you hit the paywall.
Well worth it though. IMHO.
http://archive.li/9pRUw
On the lighter side. Walked past a couple of women, several metres apart, sitting on their respective front lawns, drinking wine.
Told us they were practising their "social" distancing.
Oh joy Mitre 10 can sell padlocks online – pity I have a broken exterior door lock – which they stock
BUT CAN'T BLOODY SELL ME!
Maybe contact Mitre 10 and ask them to have it included in their list of essential items? I under stand they had to submit such a list to the government?
Got through to their customer service centre – transferred to a supervisor… left message on his answerphone – wish me luck
Good. 👍
Good luck!
In anticipation of a resolution of our current homeless/NFA situation I eagerly went online seeking 5ol heavy duty storage crates with lids. The crates I originally packed our books in have not fared well in the shed they are stored in. They will not survive being trucked to our prospective home.
Got the same NO CAN SELL message.
Played the phone tag game for a while, but life is short.
Papiere Bitte!
https://twitter.com/profkarolsikora/status/1244566715251515395
https://twitter.com/bbckamal/status/1245800546893774850
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/uk-plans-coronavirus-immunity-passports-so-brits-can-leave-lockdown-2020-4?
Hoping this leads to something…
https://twitter.com/TXMedCenter/status/1245037270605889538
In a small clinical trial just granted approval, about 30 COVID-19 patients at Karolinska University Hospital may soon begin to receive blood plasma from people who have recovered from the disease. Sweden's Ethical Review Authority has approved the trial treatment, and its effectiveness will be evaluated in a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Karolinska University Hospital.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-green-trial-blood-plasma-recovered.html
..and this quackery is done.
Several seriously ill covid-19 patients in Sweden have been treated with chlorikin, the active substance in malaria medicine – something praised by researchers in other parts of the world. Now comes alarming reports that the drug on the contrary can be dangerous. – That is why we have decided in Gothenburg and in Västra Götaland that we do not use it, says Magnus Gisslén, chief physician at the Eastern Hospital.
(google translate)
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/malariamedicin-provas-pa-sjuka-infektionslakaren-dumt
The idiot US President has some other idiot on there talking about the big learnings to come out of the current situation. Apparently relying on other countries for essential things is bad. Stuff is being made overseas because of cheap labour is bad.
Hello? Globalisation has been good for scores of years when American companies decamped production off shore for cheap labour so they could make a killing. Now essential medical needs should be manufactured at home? How about making everything at home?
Whingeing about their sacred capitalist system not working how they want it to work when the going gets tough? Just another effect of the virus I suppose.
What happens when you displease Dear Leader by telling the truth,
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1245812219633377281
And people criticise the Chinese.
Not that one baby killing lying murderous Government, is any better than the other.
People also criticise the yankers you know.
Horror Show, Live
Why the hell is it all Trump, Pence, and Jared Kushner? Where are the DOCTORS? Why do the press corps just sit there like dummies and accept this evil farce?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1y9KOesF6w&feature=emb_logo
Because as far as he is concerned it is all about Trump. As has been the case all his life. It's not going to change even for 100,000+ lives.
True enough, Trump is more heinous than anyone could have predicted. But the real problem here is the deferential, compliant press corps.
Many main stream are considering not covering these publicly funded "election rallies", despite the fact that people are anxious to find out the latest information regarding the pandemic, and are thinking about simply reporting the key "take way" messages, after they have been clarified by WH staff.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/business/media/trump-coronavirus-briefings-ratings.html
and
https://deadline.com/2020/03/coronavirus-chris-hayes-don-lemon-1202896531/
Whoa! Just looked up from my laptop, glanced out my window. A couple of PO-licemen in the front yard of neighbour, talking to neighbour – same place there was a loud altercation a couple of evenings' back.
I guess I'm becoming a curtain twitcher under lock down.
Same here yesterday.
Ambulance first. Then cop car.
No one wearing PPE and no handcuffs, pepperspray or tasers.
At one stage four members of the household were in the back of the ambulance and were then joined by a thin mask wearing paramedic.
All but the Man of The House exited said ambulance and it went on it's way.
The constables spent some time in deep conversation with an Older Gentleman who had arrived earlier in the day. Possibly to hold the a-frame ladder while the man of the house perched atop so he could remove crud from his spouting and hurl it hither and thither.
Mildly interesting, but I was busy, so I detached from this timeless suburban pursuit with a dismissive…'silly bugger's going to fall and break his neck' to my partner.
Total relief when I saw them all walking in and out of the ambulance.
Oh happy days.
Yes. All these little dramas in the residential areas. I take an interest for a minute or 2 and go back to what I am doing.
Mostly my hood is pretty quiet. No illegal or risky behaviours as far as I know. Probably just some stressed people with short fuses.
Maybe people don't have much imagination, or maybe I have too much, but the last place I would want to be right now is in traction in a hospital.
These days you're more likely to be fitted up with an external fixator and sent home to suffer.
that would suit me. But you take my point.
Yup. Not a great time to be hospitalised
Help! What are we doing for these people. Our people overseas, now needing help in all parts of the globe.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/413303/kiwis-stuck-in-new-dehli-call-for-help-from-the-government
We have to get right down and personal and help NZs stuck overseas and not just keep repeating that refrain that's almost a threnody, stay in place for the duration. That's economic thinking, we say it and turn it into reality without concern for the implementation. These people need money and need it now. And to be advised of any transport available, and they need a 24 hour line with people who have a budget to facilitate things now. Not save money or supplies up for a possible greater need tomorrow.
NZ Government – support our people. You have been in globalisation mode for quite a while now – but the other side of it is that everyone needs a home, not in the globe in general, but on some definite ground which is here in NZ. Bring them home, or support them until they can get here.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXnRf3TQcpk
Bring Him Home from Les Miserables
Bring him peace, bring him joy
He is young, he is only a boy
You can take, you can give
Let him be, let him live…
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home
Worth a laugh, funny news
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfIsuMmncm0&ab_channel=SomeMoreNews
Here's a good illustration of the kind of price gouging and profiteering going on right now in the US.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-york-medical-equipment-payments_n_5e863fd7c5b6d302366cf992
The federal government has explicit powers under the Defense Production Act to take control of this, order companies to produce what's needed and set the price at cost plus a reasonable margin, and coordinate sending product to where it's most needed. But it's not doing that with the bilious fake-bronze baboon preferring to just sit back and fire off twitter insults against those trying to fight the problem.
More who love the market model. Coming up with some altruistic crap about loving America and doing things for America.
People do things for money. That's how it works. More money, quicker money. Donald Trump would be happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmKvC7RpEQ
White power Tucker's pissed off because 3M is selling what is rightfully the tRump crime family's PPE to foreigners.
/
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1245852517474295809
https://twitter.com/blogboynick/status/1245878819791101953
I am, I admit, being a little provocative here: a link for bill. The first 20 minutes worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WP2xcV97Nk
Tedros of WHO a member of the Maoist Party of Ethiopia?
Yeah, Falun Gong don't like the CCP.
Given the atrocious way the CCP have treated the Falun Gong, this should be unsurprising. The CCP's relationship with all religious traditions has varied from overbearing and oppressive, to hostile and murderous.
I don't know a great deal about Falun Gong, but whatever the propaganda from either side says, it's clear that nothing good has happened.
Then look at the Uighur situation for another example of totalitarian oppression.
Then listen to what many of the Christian Churches say, forced to operate underground or work with severe restrictions such as not being allowed to teach their own children their faith. Or compelled to register with State bodies that ensure compliance with state dictates.
Or just go back to the Maoist destruction of China's own indigenous religious and cultural traditions during the Cultural Revolution.
Yes there is a lot of propaganda from all sides, and with the language barrier plus our social remove none of us are in a position to make much sense of it all. Yet one thing is clear, the CCP is not merely a political party; it represents a totalitarian ideology that brooks no serious competitors.
My mainland born SIL reckons it's China's Chernobyl. Local officials minimised and prevaricated, things were out of control long before Beijing was aware of the severity of the situation and from then on it's only ever been a face saving exercise.
But this time there was no radiation to be detected so we'll never know how widespread the disease was let alone how many deaths occurred.
What has transpired is too big to be left to individual countries. Particularly closed-off and authoritarian ones.
Doctors and health officials need an independent global body which to report to the next time this happens.
We can't go through this shit again.
Well, who does.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/04/china-did-not-deceive-us-counting-death-during-an-epidemic-is-really-difficult.html#more
an excerpt:
As for the number of urns delivered to funeral homes in Hubei after the quarantine was lifted one has also to consider the number of regular death. Hubei province has some sixty million inhabitants. The regular mortality rate in China is 726 per 100.000 inhabitants per year. The regular expected number of death from January 1 to March 31 in Hubei province without the epidemic was 108.900. In Wuhan, which has 14 million inhabitants, the expected number was 25.410. Photos that show the delivery of a few thousands of urns to large funeral homes in Wuhan are thereby not a sign for a higher Covid-19 death rate. To claim such is propaganda nonsense."
Really some of the crap coming out of American Trump and Bannon wannabes is laughable .Pravda redux.
Pravda redux.
I think it's far more insidious than pravda. Pravda was one outlet, not a conglomeration of corporate media outlets always singing from the same song book and from the page they have been told to turn to by (usually) anonymous western "Intelligence Sources".
Throw on top of that the fact that most people (it seems) continue to labour under the notion that there's a "vibrant free press" comprised of competing outlets and mediums bent on providing facts and discovering truths.
It's truly horrible.
That's not provocative. It's just a reflection of who and what you are.
I already provided a lengthy article that covered the propaganda of the Wuhan urns – that article "outed" the source of the story and much else besides and you didn't challenge a word of it. But for anyone who might be stumbling across this bile for the first time, below is the relevant passage from the article I already provided to you.
And for those who don't know, the source for the story – RFA is Radio Free Asia – " a US government news agency created during the Cold War as part of a “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the CIA”, according to the New York Times."
And, of course, versions of the urn story are being carried uncritically by multiple western outlets (google "chinese urns" for a partial run down), because that's what they do – "follow the script" that's fed to them – China being an "official enemy" and all….
Oddly, none of the social media posts RFA referred to were quoted in its article.
RFA’s “estimates” are based on morbid speculation regarding the cremation capacity of Wuhan’s funeral homes. RFA cites a story by the Chinese media outlet Caixin on funeral arrangements being made by Wuhan residents during the crisis. On March 26, Caixin reported that 5,000 cremation urns had arrived at a mortuary in Wuhan over a two-day period. This is treated as nefarious evidence of Chinese government deception solely because it exceeds the official death total in Wuhan.
RFA completely ignores the fact that residents have continued to die from other causes during the pandemic, as well as the backlog in funerals and cremations caused by the city’s several month long lockdown. In 2019, approximately 56,000 cremations took place in Wuhan, according to the city’s official statistics.
That means that roughly 4600 residents died per month, a figure that was likely higher during the winter months and with Wuhan’s health care system overwhelmed by the outbreak. With Wuhan under lockdown since January 23, a substantial increase in the use of funeral homes and crematoriums should have been expected.
Critic banned.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120800211/university-of-otago-cuts-off-studentrun-critic-magazine-over-coronavirus-article
Critic can be a bit of a loose unit at times.
The editorial's not even that bad. Just accurate.
The university was pulling the business as usual card up until a day before it locked its doors.
It constantly couches everything, especially publicly, in concern for safety and wellbeing, but then put the onus on staff to demonstrate why they should be able to stay home, tried to implement some BS "working from home" leave request that required above-department signoff, and generally shows a lack of human consideration worthy of a nat blogger.
Plus everything in the Critic opinion piece.
A month or two back (who can tell these days) the uni decided to improve morale by telling us to consider what we could do to make our colleagues happier. Telling colleagues that everyone in the top rungs of the hierarchy was retiring would cheer a lot of people up.
Universities seem to have had the worst of incompetent, chair polishing managerialism inflicted on them. Since they have been "run like a business".
Skegg was pretty good, as I recall. People were quite optimistic about Hayne, as another practising academic rather than academic-turned professional university administrator.
Shame it turned out this way. She's possibly even worse than Fogelberg was, and he was a total wanker as VC. In those days we could get 2,000 people outside his office chanting exactly that 🙂
I'm staggered by the numbers of overseas tourists still in NZ.
12,000 Germans have registered for repatriation from NZ.
Thats a lot of rentals opened up. Every cloud…
Given the events of the last few weeks, anyone else think the grim reaper of New Zealand, David Seymour, will have trouble with his legalised murder bill in the upcoming referendum?
The robber barons never went away.
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1245932633864863747
https://twitter.com/ricardo_de_anda/status/1245940075734732801
Adam Schlesinger died from Covid-19 on 1 April in New York (aged 52). He was a singer-songwriter, record producer, guitarist, keyboardist, and frontman for several bands including "Fountains of Wayne".
It makes me very sad, but I just wanted to remember him and share one of his bands popular songs released in 2003.
Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne (Live In Chicago).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKVf6ey64DI
Sesame Street for Adults:
Brought to you by the letters W T and F
Two weeks ago bus driver Jason Hargrove posted a video on FB saying he was worried about coronavirus transmission after a woman coughed on his bus.
He's died after contracting coronavirus.
https://www.facebook.com/1242205136/videos/10222496193013898/
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/04/02/detroit-bus-drivers-dead-covid-19/5115450002/