Looking forward to Labour and Mana campaigning vigorously on the issues in the Northland by-election, and their supporters serving the ‘national interest’ by voting for Winston Peters and taking Northland off National.
VOTE Winston Peters for Northland!
That’s the ‘common sense’ thing I’d do – were I a Northland voter ….
National will be legislatively ‘lame-ducked’ with only 59 MPs WHEN they lose Northland to Winston Peters.
Let’s do everything we can to help ensure that happens – if we’re genuine in our opposition to this John Key led National Government.
Well they do have other options, especially the farming community since National have chosen to ignore them and appointment a patsy candidate. I figure Peters and
ACT man Robin Goodgrief will attract their vote. And of course Willow Jean will get her share too.
Labour has the unenviable position of having their social and economic policies being STOLEN left, right and centre, by painful parasites, corrupt crooks and tricky thieves.
Little has said that the LP won’t be pulling Prime from the race, so Northlanders will certainly have the chance to vote for her. It’s whether they regard that choice as being in the best interests of the country that is the issue.
Consider that she can’t expect to pick up much of the Green vote at the moment. Best scenario would be if they voted for Peters, which would go a long way towards ensuring that the two parties could work together amicably in a future government. More likely is that they’ll stay away in droves.
Why not? Her particular world view and her beliefs would fit in well with green supporters. I am sure most of them are more concerned about having a progressive in Parliament than wondering about beltway issues.
I was a Green voter (until I got involved in the abortion that was the IMP alliance) and I would prefer to vote for Prime over Peters too (if I was enrolled in Northland). However that is not the choice.
The choice is between; NACT retaining a majority in the house with Osbourne, or their having to deal with either Dunne or the MP, and thus slightly curb their rapacity. Peters may be able to win the seat, Prime can not.
For the Greens to vote for a LP candidate after the spy committee debacle is like; the victim of domestic abuse running back to their partner because they can’t be bothered going the stress of a breakup anymore. Labour does not respect the GP, and never has; they’ve been fluttering their eyelashes at Peters for the last six years themselves.
At this point, the Greens would be better off; single and looking out for their own interests. Rather than continuing hoping Labour will change if they just try one more time.
That depends. If you believe that a slight lessening of NACT’s power over the next 2.5 years is the most important thing, then voting Peters makes sense. It’s a fair enough tactic because it’s likely that more and more pressure will go on National over DP and other fuck ups and there’s a slight chance that Dunne or the MP might get some actual ethics.
On the other hand, there’s the medium and long term view, which is that Peters is not left wing, he’s consistently opposed the formation of a govt that includes the GP, which essentially means that he is actively working against the left. Him having more power at this point is detrimental and undermines the mahi of shifting NZ left again.
“For the Greens to vote for a LP candidate after the spy committee debacle is like”
That’s an argument to not vote Labour, not an argument to vote Peters. If we’re talking about debacles, remember it’s Peters that essentially set the tone for MMP in NZ early on and we’ve never recovered from that. That tone is anti-democratic and has entrenched a power and control model that suits powermongers like Peters.
Further, there are many things about Labour that I object to as a GP voter. Should I then not support a Labour led govt in 2017? What is the alternative?
About all Labour have going for them these days is that they’re not as bad as National. You could just about trust them to manage the evacuation of a sinking ship after it’d run onto the rocks – wheras the Tories would be tearing up the decking for liferafts; to sell to the highest bidder (or really; to the lowest bidder who’d promised a lucrative consultancy once they’re back on dry land). Environment being the ship (and dry land gone forever).
But for those Green voters who can’t bring themselves to vote for either; NZF, or Labour at this time, there is one alternative to staying home on voting day:
…Norwegian company Statoil offers no jobs for Northland. In its home country of Norway 50% of all profits will go back to the Norwegian government. In New Zealand only 6% is awarded to the tax payer and not a cent of that money reaches Northland. The underlying issue here is that Northland is taking all the environmental risk and making no gains.
Rueben Taipari Porter is a fantastic candidate representing the Mana Movement and has displayed his leadership abilities in the Stop Statoil Hikoi. His campaign that will be setting the narrative on policy for this By-election while other party candidates will run their campaign based on party reputation or political experience.
+1 Pasupial
The only question here should be whether we can do something to slow NAct down for the rest of their term. I think Winnie can possibly win the seat. I don’t think he will drag Winston First over to the government benches this time, given the events in Northland that led up to this byelection. It’s a gamble, but voting for WJP is just throwing money away.
I note Little has already started saying Winnie is too old. Well, not too old to see the dangers of the Increase in Surveillance Bill and vote against it. I wish a few of the Labour team could have spines as old as Winnie’s.
Tactically a vote for Winnie is obvious for both Green and Labour voters. A Winnie win will stop reforms that will gut the RMA in their tracks for instance something the Greens would love.
But do Labour really care about the RMA?? Prove me wrong and vote tactically for Winnie please.
With any luck – but that’s only if you believe Dunne when he says that he is opposed to those; “reforms that will gut the RMA”. He might just settle for a cosmetic change in the legislation and a ministerial role.
I would far rather a ‘collective response’ Mickey. The Smart Greens have played their part by sitting this one out. It is a pity going down the throat cutting path. What slim hope of an upset win is pretty much gone now.
The way I see it at present micky is that Labour and Willow Jean Prime are in danger of coming in a distant third and being humiliated in the process. I hope it isn’t going to happen, but it’s possible given people cast their votes for different reasons in byelections. If the fancy takes them they could vote for Winston in large numbers to make some kind of statement, even though they would not dream of voting for him in a general election. That is why I suspect the ‘statistical’ figures are not much use in this byelection.
I don’t trust Winston Peters but he hates this current mob with a vengeance (and with good reason) and I can’t see him cuddling up to them in any shape or form – not any more. Also, his political career is coming to an end. At 70+, I can’t see a future ahead of him but I can imagine him wanting to indulge in a bit of utu before he finally hangs up his political hat.
The harder we can make it for this government to continue to play dirty – and emasculate the economy in the process – the sooner we can be rid of them. It has to be the top priority of the opposition parties at this point in time. Labour has no hope of ever retaining the treasury benches on it’s own. It must work as a team across the spectrum of opposition parties from left to centre-right, before there is any chance of it happening. This byelection was an opportunity to see a cooperative effort begin to emerge which would ultimately see a change of government, and set in train the desperately needed more progressive policies of Labour and the broad left.
I don’t think concessions should be one sided where there is something significant being given up. The GP aren’t really giving up much by not standing someone. Labour would be.
No-one knows what Peters will do. That’s the point.
My own thinking is that Peters will again actively work against the formation of a left wing govt and will try and either form a govt with Labour that excludes the GP and pulls Labour to centre, or National will clean house before 2017 and Peters will go with them. He sure as hell won’t say pre-election what he will do. Labour and the GP pre-election should make it clear that they are willing to work with NZF in coalition building, but that it’s NZF that is unwilling to let voters know their intentions before the electio.
Winston’s a social conservative. Now, having got that out of the way, his economic, employment and infrastructure policies are often well to the left of Labour’s.
So you’re a mind reader then? You know Peter’s intentions and plans? You might not like the man but that’s not the same thing as having insight into what his motivations are entering into this race.
Entering this debate late – having just come home from delivering a load of pamphlets for Willow-Jean (and getting caught up in the traffic jam caused by accident in Whangarei).
I don’t trust Winston either, Weka . He is too likely to be persuaded by the Nats – with a nice little bauble – to go with them and not the Opposition. This has happened in the past with Winston : he likes to play games, and tease, but underneath all that charm and smile – he is a basic National player.
And if any of you have read Andrew Little’s State of the Nation speech you will see that Labour is on the verge of change, and Willow Jean Prime will help bring about that change – for the good of the environment, the economy, the workers and people needing employment – so don’t write her off yet.
And don’t assume that Winston will do what he says he might do !!
“So you’re a mind reader then? You know Peter’s intentions and plans? You might not like the man but that’s not the same thing as having insight into what his motivations are entering into this race.”
That also doesn’t have anything to do with my comment. I haven’t said anything about Peters’ motivations (others have). I’ve talked about his behaviour to date and why I think it’s foolish to believe he is reliable.
It’s nothing to do with liking/not liking the man (like others, I find admirable things about him). It’s the cold hard fact that he will never let anyone know ahead of time what he will do. I’M not the one claiming I know his intentions, I’m saying that he never tells anyone what his intentions are. That’s one of the reasons he can’t be relied on.
Sure Labour and the GP need him as an ally. But the left should be honest about what that means, not engaging in fantasies of Peters’ being left wing. People can work/vote to increase his power, but let’s not pretend that we know what that means for the future. Let’s be honest about the risk.
+1 CR
And as a unionist I will add a couple of things I like about Peters. If there is an important industrial issue that I want raised in the House Peters will take the issue up “email me the details,” 48 hours time bingo. Where as over at camp workers party the wheels turn slow, a maybe a maybe not, a reply a no reply. Lets hope Little will sort this out. The Greens are good too and deliver, either leading questions or adding sups working with Peters in an attack. Don’t forget the opposition were woeful till Peters returned and gave some bite.
Peters was also a very good Minister when he was in Parliament…he treated senior public servants and advisers with respect and listened carefully to their research and advice….he did his background homework and asked intelligent questions…the implementation of policy was efficient and fast….I am told he was one of the best Ministers to work with
He also worked very well with Helen Clark and her Labour Government …and of late there has not been any conflict with the Greens
to b waghorn – Yep –
Labour IS giving it heaps here in the Northland electorate. We’re all out – we want to WJ to win – everyone is doing their bit for Willow-Jean – Labour MPs, Leader and activists – and none of it hits the media – but we’re going all out for W-J and Labour !
Ok, then. Any example of times where Winston has raised such issues. His previously unknown support for the workers can’t be just restricted to your industry, surely, so there must be heaps.
Well he did fight for the racing industry which was in serious trouble, 20,000 jobs there. Bit of a double edged sword tho.
You got to hand it to him, he knows how to campaign. I see tomorrow he is has his campaign bus tour from one end of the electorate to the other. He has targeted any soft votes in Willow Jeans home patch for his major launch.
Skinny, I don’t think anyone is arguing that Peters is not an astute and powerful politician. That’s not a good enough reason to vote for him in this situation.
Where as over at camp workers party the wheels turn slow, a maybe a maybe not, a reply a no reply.
Yep. I’ve known subject area experts quite trying to give Labour help and hints because too often Labour don’t give enough of a fuck to either recognise the value of what is being given to them on a plate, or can’t be organised enough to use it in anything resembling a timely manner.
Why should Winston stand down, and just leave it as Labour vs National?
I don’t think there is much reality of Labour winning Northland. It’s not that Willow Jean Prime isn’t an incredible candidate, she is. The problem is the electorate. Northland is a banjo twanging red neck Hicksville bled white from most Maori being on the Maori roll rather than the general roll. These people voted for a thick necked Police thug for Christ’s sake, book burning is recreational here.
Progress in Northland is people not burning witches when there’s an eclipse.
Bradbury works better as a humourist than a serious political commentator. But this line; regarding Labour putting in serious effort to win the seat rather than just using the byelection as a soapbox, does seem perceptive:
It’s a lot of money to spend to fight Winston who they are desperately trying to align with rather than the Greens.
I’m all for concessions, but they’re something that needs good faith on both sides. Peters doesn’t play well with others, and he can’t be trusted. It makes sense to me that Labour would want to get Prime out there, get her visible and having some more experience with electioneering etc.
btw, can anyone confirm with evidence that Peters winning would change the seat allocations in parliament?
If Winston wins the electorate, and then resigns his list seat, the next list member for NZFirst would enter Parliament.
This would bring National down to a permanent 59 seats (vs the 60 on election night). To get a majority of 61 they would therefore have to rely on 2 votes from Act, UF, Maori Party. At the moment they only need 1 vote from those parties, and Act pretty much pony up for anything required.
As useless as UF is, Dunne can sometimes extract meaningful concessions from National. Certainly National having 59 seats is 1 seat closer to having only 58 seats, where they would need to rely on Maori Party (or other party in Parliament) to pass all legislation, which will be significantly more difficult for them to achieve their right-wing agenda. They would also look a bit crass for calling an early election in such a case, because their confidence and supply agreement with MP protects them from dissolution until they get down to 55 seats – they would basically look like they were taking their toys and throwing a tantrum and refusing to operate under MMP.
Short answer: yes, if Winston wins, AND he resigns his seat, National are weaker. There would be no reason for Winston not to resign his seat, and it is perfectly and fully allowed within the rules, and has been done by other electorate winners in the past.
Thanks. That means that by-elections trump national elections, because according to the election calculator the proportion of MPs determined by the list vote at the general election remains unaffected by the scenario you describe. The only thing that changes is the number of list seats, not the number of overall seats. I guess the calculator could be wrong.
Graeme provides both a brief explanation – and a longer more detailed one in his post. The brief one is this: With the Northland by-election, we are temporarily getting a lesson in two of them:
That the rules we adopted for MMP mean the proportionality of the House of Representatives is only important after the general election, not to changes between elections.
That counter-intuitive things can happen a list MP wins a by-election (whether from the same party as the MP who has resigned, or a different one).
A full explanation follows, but the too long didn’t read for those of you here simply because someone provided you a link from twitter to clear up some confusion is:
If Winston Peters win the Northland by-election, he has the option of resigning as a New Zealand First list MP.
Any list MP who resigns is replaced by the next person on the list, In the case of New Zealand first, this is Ria Bond. Assuming Ms Bond is still a party member, and want the job, she would become a list MP, in addition to Winston becoming electorate MP for Northland.
If this happened, National’s number of MPs would stay at 59, down from the 60 they had after the election result was declared, and New Zealand First’s parliamentary strength would increase to 12.
There are good reason why we should do it another way, but there are also good reasons why it shouldn’t, and this is the way we’ve chosen to do it.
The longer explanation is also worth reading as are the comments as these raise various questions and answers which further clarify the possibilities etc.
I don’t think Winston has to resign his list seat. I believe it’s automatic, as it is in the general election. If it wasn’t automatic every MP in that position would have two votes in Parliament. What I’m not sure of is whether the next on the list has to come in. I recall the Greens had some grief around that a few years ago when they wanted to bring in someone else to fill a vacancy and the next guy on the list (Mike???) spat the dummy.
Re: the calculator, I don’t think it’s set up to take into account by-elections. What I’m pretty sure about is that the result of Winston or Willow-Jean winning is Nats less one vote, opposition one more. So to get a correct result in the calculator, you’d have to enter the Nats election night electorate number lower by one and increase the winning party’s by one (be it Lab or NZF).
“I believe it’s automatic, as it is in the general election”
It’s not automatic, but of course anyone would be stupid not to. This isn’t the general election; rules for by-election are different.
See Graeme Edgeler’s post linked to above.
“What I’m not sure of is whether the next on the list has to come in.”
The way it works, if they meet the requirements (still a party member, still meet other requirements for NZ parliament like not in prison, sane, still a citizen etc) is Parliament offers the list MP the option to take up the seat. They may say no, for example, if they’ve since gained a job they don’t want to give up, or have other family circumstances.
If they decline, it goes to the next person, so-on down the list until someone says yes, or the list is exhausted (causing the list seat to remain vacant in Parliament).
Theoretically, the party has no influence over whether the person takes the seat or not. In practice they of course do – being treated like a leper in Parliament can’t be fun.
Remember this all happened with Louisa Wall in 2011:
“After Darren Hughes resigned from Parliament in April 2011, and people higher on Labour’s list, such as Dave Hereora, Judith Tizard and Mark Burton, decided not to take up the list position, Wall was returned to Parliament as a Labour List MP serving in the 49th New Zealand Parliament.” (from Wikipedia).
“Re: the calculator, I don’t think it’s set up to take into account by-elections. What I’m pretty sure about is that the result of Winston or Willow-Jean winning is Nats less one vote, opposition one more. So to get a correct result in the calculator, you’d have to enter the Nats election night electorate number lower by one and increase the winning party’s by one (be it Lab or NZF).”
The calculator only does General Elections, not by-elections. Your suggestion wouldn’t work anyway, because it would mean (in the case where Willow won Northland at the GE) Labour would have 2 list seats instead of the current 3, and Andrew Little wouldn’t be in Parliament.
Cheers, Lanth. Graeme’s article is pretty comprehensive.
I reckon there could be a case for minor reforms to make it automatic (after all if you’re standing in a by-election you’re clearly signalling you want to be an electorate MP) and secondly, to leave it up to the party to decide who a replacement list MP should be if the occasion arises. Seems daft to have to stick to the list used at the general election if the party wants someone else later on.
A bit luke-warm on the second. Seems kind of unfair that you agree to be a list MP and go out and do campaigning for the party but only narrowly miss out at the GE. You know that you’re the next person on the list, but then when the vacancy comes up, the party can officially (and easily) choose someone else instead of you.
I think much like an employment contract, it’s a two way street – the party and the list member are both in it together.
There is another reason not to diverge from the list that was announced at the General Election.
In theory the list tells voters who will be the MPs if you vote for this party. Thus if you look at the list and decide you like the top 20 candidates you can decide you’ll vote for them. If you think they are a universally deplorable set of drongos you won’t. After the election, if the party can change their selection of members to fill the list seats, you can then discover that the people you liked when you voted for them aren’t there any more and a completely different set have taken over.
There is a funny thing that can happen if members get in via an electorate candidate winning. Suppose the party gets 4% and wins an electorate. They will get 5 MPs.
Another party also gets 4% and comes second in the electorate. They get no seats.
Then, after the Parliament is settled there is an electoral petition (at least that is what I think it is called). The Judges then decide that there was fraud or such-like and reverses the electorate winner. The first party retains its other 4 MPs, who got there off the list. The second party only gets the one who is now the electorate MP.
Incidentally it was by means of an election petition that got Winston Peters into Parliament in 1978 in Hunua.
“So to get a correct result in the calculator, you’d have to enter the Nats election night electorate number lower by one and increase the winning party’s by one (be it Lab or NZF)”
Yes, that’s exactly what I did. See my second link. Graeme Edgeler’s explanation makes sense, and I think we can assume now that the calculator is useless in by-elections.
“and has been done by other electorate winners in the past.”
I am not aware of any occasion when a list MP won an electorate seat in a by-election. When did this happen?
Indeed the possibility of this happening and Judith Tizard returning to the house was supposedly a reason why a new candidate, David Shearer got the Labour nomination for Helen Clark’s old seat.
@ Pasupial.
It was good post until the last paragraph. He spoils it with an attempt to drive a wedge between Labour and the Greens by way of an unfortunate historical election outcome. Has Labour spurned him or failed to give him enough attention?
Northland also has a history of voting for 3rd parties when they’re annoyed with NAct. I can remember Social Credit getting in at one stage. They do not vote Labour.
An historical but interesting comparison.
The results of the East Coast Bays by-election in 1980.
Social Credit Gary Knapp – 8,061 – 43.31%
National Don Brash – 7,110 – 38.20%
Labour Wyn Hoadley – 3,296 – 17.71%
Values J S Moore – 144 – 0.7%
Majority – 951 – 5.11%
In 1980, East Coast Bays was a deeply conservative electorate (it still pretty much is) not unlike the deeply conservative electorate of Northland. The predominantly white population was very upset with then PM, Rob Muldoon. He had increased the ‘toll charges’ on the bridge, and his star was waning. ( He just managed to win the 81 election by politicising the Springbok tour of that year.) They went to the booths in droves and voted for Social Credit as a statement of their displeasure. These were people who had always voted National in the past and they returned to them in 1987.
I see some parallels with the two situations and I note Labour came a very distant third. It could easily happen again.
That would be complete humiliation for Labour. This is another soapbox opportunity for Winston First. He will replay his usual fodder from the last 20 years as some sort of highlight reel, he will get enough votes to come second, just ahead of Labour, and nAtional to retain by 7500 votes in a voter turnout of 60%-70%. National are well organised in a very large electorate, and have already got poeple on the ground doing the hard yards. However, a friend suggests all is not well up North with the Nats, the deliberate snubbing of Grant McCullum (again) has some poised to make a protest vote, hence Winnies havign a go.
Mc Cullum is very popular in the Northland farming community, getting bounced again has brassed a lot of them off. I hear the party people are worried the rural folks may give voting a miss or turn to ACT’s opportunist candidate Robin Grieves.
Another candidate who you would be aware of that got the cold shoulder is Ken Rintoul. He lead a rural nz party last election called Focus NZ. He got 1,600 votes in Northland last year. Now if he stood again, and I hear his rural followers are keen for him to do so, he could well be the protest vote.
I read a bit of Focus NZ stuff, enough to remember the name. I think it was Ken Rintoul and his thinking was quite good – appealed to my common sense side. He noted enough of the government failings and absurdities to strike a point in people’s minds.
Yes their known as break away Tories. I mean the common complaint is ( anothet editorial in the Northern Advocate today) why people vote National in Northland, they get nothing out of them for their loyality.
I don’t know … I was just listening to a doco on National Radio on the move to introduce a Maori ward seat on the New Plymouth council where Winston was attacking the plan which is supported by the mayor Andrew Judd. It reminded me of how unpleasant he can be.
You know all this pissing around and navel gazing would be reduced if we simply adopted Instant-runoff voting (aka Alternative Vote) in our electorate seats and required a majority rather than a plurality.
Then everyone can run, parties can campaign properly on their policies and the local issues and you can put your support behind an alternative if your first choice doesn’t make it.
I’m beginning to think a real secure border fence between the US and Mexico is a good idea – to keep the f&*king USA out of Mexico, Central and South America. 😈
…lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups.
Hodson & Busseri 2012
My bold: only ~25% of US ‘citizens’ even have a passport, let alone travel overseas.
“The cost of implementing a new child support system has rocketed to $163 million – a blowout that dwarfs the bill for fixing the controversial Novopay school payroll system.
What a mind numbing waste of money, just think of what impact those funds would have had if actually spent on child support itself rather than a fancy computer system.
As always no one will be held to account and the consultants will all be able to buy themselves new mercedes.
imo this interview with Allan Gibbs by Wallace Chapman is a shocker…it starts off ok with references to art…hobnobbing with the likes of Ralph Hotere , visits to Cuba with artists, flirtations with socialism, the life of hippies, wife swapping … and entrepreneurship, …. and critiques of economics degree youngsters running the public service ….and ends with a Ruth Richardson adoration piece and a diatribe thunder and brimstone from the pulpit …. Old Testament morality ….shades of old Salvation Army morality….not getting your girlfriend pregnant unless you are going to marry her !…..reminded me of the 1970s…(.what about contraception and aborton….and doesnt the woman have a say?….what about issues of education ,employment for women ?…all around the world where women are educated and have jobs and contraception and abortion there is no unwanted pregnancy or over population ) scary patriarchal Old Testament stuff .
basically GIbbs is just a crazy old man, with enough money for people to pay attention to what he says
The weird bit is, its not that hard to find old people ranting about some perceived injustice or whatever – i know, i do it myself 🙂 (and im not THAT old)
At first the interview with Gibbs seemed weak with a few mild questions and prompts from Wallace Chapman allowing Gibbs to pontificate.
Then it became apparent that Gibbs was being played like a fish with Chapman baiting him until the ranting reached near fever pitch.
A perfect example of a typical card carrying ACT member.. ‘intoxicated with his wealth and inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity. ‘ (Apologies to Disraeli)
Lots of things to watch. The Iraqi PM says its all sweeteness and light, and that the first priority is to not harm innocents, and that Sunni tribal fighters will be shown mercy if they surrender. Bit quioeter on what happens if they don;t surrender, and what surrending would actually mean.
The Badr guy largely running the Op is framing it as revenge for previous IS war summary executions of Shia soldiers.
Reports of attacks by the militia on Sunni civilians – including accusations of mass executions – have increased in recent weeks, as they battle to retake control of towns and villages that were under Isis control… some, like the large Badr Corps, say they want to avenge the Camp Speicher massacre in Tikrit last year, in which Isis reportedly killed more than 1,500 Iraqi armed forces cadets… the volunteer fighters, who are part of the Hashd al-Shaabi (“Popular Mobilisation”) were seeking greater political influence through a victory against Isis in Tikrit…
[T]he likely destruction of the city may benefit Isis in the long run.
“If pro-government militia succeed, it will probably be after the complete destruction of the city and it will be credited to Iranian-backed militia which will further alienate Sunnis and make Isis’s hold on larger cities in Iraq and Syria even firmer,” said Hassan. “It is clearly a chance for these militia to score points and project power, which the US should keep in mind if it plans to provide air cover for these forces.”
Look at the pic in that article, that is a; Shia militia parade, but all the soldiers are wearing balaclavas or other cloth masks. It looks like a group of people who are on their way to commit a righteous cleansing, to avenge the despicable massacre perpetrated by their enemies (who will be sure to reciprocate in due course).
Yeah. There’s a lot going on. This one, from a few days ago will be making people nervous about ‘surrendering’. Ad IS have rounded up hostages from and sent them to mosul in advance. All this talk is talk. Sectrian war is same as it ever was. Kill their local leaders, deprive them of their property, rule over those who won’t leave.
But on the pics, that’s just what militia look like. The balaclavas are tactical too, makes the face less of a target in house to house combat especially.
The Badr guy largely running the Op is framing it as revenge for previous IS war summary executions of Shia soldiers.
It’s not just Hadi al-Amiri (nominally the Iraqi Minister of Transport). He’s been joined by Qassem Suleimani aka “the Shadow Commander” (the Iranian Major-General and the commander of the Quds Force – the special forces division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard primarily responsible for extraterritorial operations since 1998 and who provide support and training for most of Iran’s proxies, from Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, to the Houthis in Yemen). He’s been rebuilding and reinforcing the Shia militias for the past year.
The liberation of Tikrit is underway. The city, Saddam Hussein’s home town, is on the main road to Mosul and has both military and propaganda significance. As one of the larger cities under ISIS control, it will be interesting to learn after it’s freed just how much support ISIS actually have in their conquered territories or whether the local populations are just subdued by fear.
The Baghdad govt and it’s Iranian allies don’t give many fucks about the Pentagon’s timetable. It’s like they’ve got their own plan or something, the bastards.
And on that note, read this article from ARS technica about the future of the internet.
It’s not good news. Specifically, read the 2nd page listing the 5 internet futures.
+100 Sable…interesting ‘New Scientist’ is going to help define a new method for establishing “truth”…recently ‘New Scientist’ has carried some dubious articles itself imo….eg 6 September 2014…SPECIAL REPORT ‘END OF THE NATION – The Old world order is dying. What comes next?’….and another issue carried a large feature on Bill Gates special advanced education programme using computer learning instead of teachers….Bill Gates is investing heavily into privatised Charter Schools…taking education away from state and democratic control
…in other words ‘New Scientist’ is getting into promoting right wing corporate politics
“The search engine currently relies on a system that ranks websites based on how many times the page has been linked to – which means that even fake information has a way of making it up the chain of search results.
According to a New Scientist report, the new model developed by a Google research team would count the number of incorrect facts on each website to establish a Knowledge-Based Trust score for each site – an overall rating of trustworthiness”.
( personally i prefer the wisdom of crowds for debating/establishing “truth”….who wants to be spoon fed ‘truth’ from those who think they know it all?…and usually in the pay of corporate oligarchs and political /religious right wing patriarchal dictators)
One is to train our browsers to flag information that may be suspicious or disputed. Thus, every time a claim like “vaccination leads to autism” appears in our browser, that sentence would be marked in red—perhaps, also accompanied by a pop-up window advising us to check a more authoritative source. The trick here is to come up with a database of disputed claims that itself would correspond to the latest consensus in modern science—a challenging goal that projects like “Dispute Finder” are tackling head on.
The second—and not necessarily mutually exclusive—option is to nudge search engines to take more responsibility for their index and exercise a heavier curatorial control in presenting search results for issues like “global warming” or “vaccination.” Google already has a list of search queries that send most traffic to sites that trade in pseudoscience and conspiracy theories; why not treat them differently than normal queries? Thus, whenever users are presented with search results that are likely to send them to sites run by pseudoscientists or conspiracy theorists, Google may simply display a huge red banner asking users to exercise caution and check a previously generated list of authoritative resources before making up their minds
THE internet is stuffed with garbage. Anti-vaccination websites make the front page of Google, and fact-free “news” stories spread like wildfire. Google has devised a fix – rank websites according to their truthfulness.
Google’s search engine currently uses the number of incoming links to a web page as a proxy for quality, determining where it appears in search results. So pages that many other sites link to are ranked higher. This system has brought us the search engine as we know it today, but the downside is that websites full of misinformation can rise up the rankings, if enough people link to them.
A Google research team is adapting that model to measure the trustworthiness of a page, rather than its reputation across the web. Instead of counting incoming links, the system – which is not yet live – counts the number of incorrect facts within a page. “A source that has few false facts is considered to be trustworthy,” says the team (arxiv.org/abs/1502.03519v1). The score they compute for each page is its Knowledge-Based Trust score.
The software works by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, the vast store of facts that Google has pulled off the internet. Facts the web unanimously agrees on are considered a reasonable proxy for truth. Web pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings
GlaxoSmithKline PLC scoured parent sites with text analytics software to learn more on the concerns parents have about vaccines.
The U.K. pharmaceutical company used text analytics to analyze public discussion boards on BabyCenter.com and WhattoExpect.com, to learn what factors motivate parents to either go ahead or delay vaccinating their children for diseases like measles and mumps, said Dominic Hein, executive director of the company unit that plans new vaccines. The two month project, conducted last year, collected only anonymized excerpts and topics from posts, and no user identities, the company said
Neither parents nor administrators of these sites were aware that Glaxo was monitoring their conversations, but the pharmaceutical company says it needed to learn which concerns were causing parents to delay vaccinating their children – a key factor in the rise in incidences of these childhood diseases, it said. “When you go into the public forums, that’s where this conversation is taking place,” Mr. Hein said. “And by listening to what our customers say to each other we can better understand their needs.”
There is a certain logic to NZ involvement in Iraq.
This country’s ruling elite have always been aggressive little imperialists – in fact in the late 1800s NZ had a reputation as the “little Prussia of the South Pacific”.
Sad that Andrew Little the Labour Party leader also seems to be ignorant….wish I hadn’t voted for him now…and my Labour Party membership is as soft as a rotten marshmellow …thinking abut joining the Greens
“Labour’s mistake on US bombing in Iraq”
By Keith Locke / March 2, 2015
“If Andrew Little studied the history of US bombing missions in the Middle East he would have to admit that Dunne and Norman are right……”
In the last three decades, the FDA has become increasingly dependent for its continued functioning upon user fees paid by the very drug makers it’s meant to regulate. Meanwhile, a lack of government funding for research and development has made consumers entirely dependent upon private industry for new drugs — which means that safety and efficacy standards are perennially weighed against the demands of a corporation’s bottom line
Drug makers control the data derived from the efficacy and safety studies that they fund (making the suppression of unflattering data all too easy), and have, for well over a decade now, had a government-facilitated way to communicate directly — and, again, selectively — with the public through direct to consumer advertising. Not only is the United States all but alone in the world (along with New Zealand) in permitting direct marketing of prescription drugs to consumers, it actually encourages such commercially-biased public “education” through tax breaks.
I’m sure this complex highly monied system has patients and practitioners best interests at heart through the incorruptible virtues of science, why be so concerned? /sarc
Financial ratings companies rely on fees from financial institutions for thier existence while the regulatory agencies funding is cut and staffed with insiders
Q. What could posaibly go wrong with that model in healthcare ?
The reason we have peer review is because there is no such thing as incorruptible virtue. I note that GSK were fined for marketing drugs for “unapproved uses”. I further note that the case against them was the result of whistleblowers coming forward, and also relied heavily on scientific evidence.
You might as well blame corruption on the water in the swimming pool. After all, people swim in it!
The article only deals with the process of peer review as a guide to whether a paper is worthy of immediate publication.
It takes longer than that. Publication fosters debate, time degrades generational prejudice, bias and other corruptions. For example, Gravity Probe B supports the theory of general relativity, and a quantum eraser shows that Einstein was wrong to oppose Bohr.
Could be. If the placebo effect helps someone’s condition, then it is not something I shy from. Over half the effect of any medical drug can typically be ascribed to the “placebo effect” (whatever that actually is).
Do placebos normally make that much noise? Is it like Pavlov? A secret machine that makes a large cracking sound and that relaxes the piriformis muscle?
He’s right, whether you believe it or not. What do you understand by “the scientific method”?
Science is not the people who do it. The people who do science are living in a fucked up society, just like everyone else. They have therefore thought up an imperfect framework to try and preserve science from their own baser instincts. Pharmaceutical company executives have done no such thing. They profit from giving free reign to their baser instincts and must be constrained by heavy regulation.
For those of you who want a fully linked and well documented post on the subject of NHBC and their criminal activities go to either my blog or too corp watch were I found the article on the subject.
Also I never suggested that John Key was up to his neck in this shit as I have no proof and don’t want to be taken to court for libel or other nasty stuff. Neither would I want to subject the Standard to any risks.
You at least accept you have no evidence linking John Key to this. Which I suppose is a start. However I am not seeing any link between tax evasion and derivatives either so the rest of your post is just as flimsy.
Key’s PR says he had nothing to do with it, even though he was in senior management, in the same office, at the same time as the wolves of wall street were pillaging Main St and plunging the world into the GFC
Key the man may not of been involved but key the trader or key the dodgy guy in the next office may of been it would depend on which hat he was wearing.
I do have proof that John Key was lying about his involvement with the attack on the NZ in October 1987 and was working with Andrew Krieger while doing so and that he was involved in the “new” financial products now collapsing the system. I saved the archives pieces and the paper trail proving these issues.
I send them to Eugene Bingham and the NZ Herald and called Eugene Bingham a liar and a disgrace to journalism. I hoped they would start a libel case on that bases but instead they removed all reference or five online pages of the “unauthorised” biography detailing his banking career. The attacks on currencies, being the boss of the department developing all those new products, him gallivanting around the world selling this shit to pension funds all the while knowing it would one day collapse. All gone from the mainstream media. I wonder why?
No, he threw the money changers out of the temple presinct.
Jerusalem was a major pilgrimage site (in fact this was the reason Jesus and his disciples were there for the passover). As a result there was a need for people to exchange various currencies. This is not the same as banking.
The temple presinct was a large space that was dedicated to religious tourism. Indeed it was one of the reasons Herod the Great massively expanded it. Only the temple itself and especially the holy of hollies was deemed completely sacred.
Usury was the basis for Jesus’s calling the money changers thieves: “The commerce of the world is conducted on principles as much at variance with the teachings of the master, as are the practices of a sneak thief or burglar. So the Master taught, as with whip of cords, he indignantly drove its representatives, from the sacred precincts of the Temple, denouncing them as thieves. Every well-informed mind knows that the money changers in the Temple, on that startling occasion, were at the very centre of the Jewish Banking system, and of the pitiless and grinding commerce of Palestine.”
I don’t think FJK pioneered derivatives. They have been around in various forms since ancient times. He may have been a pioneer of their misuse and giving bad advice. He’s more like a conman than a pioneer.
How does the Nactoid government make such enormous screwups?
By slashing “back office” staff who had the institutional knowledge to prevent these sort of disasters!
The same way their philosophy and policies led directly to Pike River deaths, Solid Energy failures, GFC disaster, leaky homes, the list is endless ………..
I think they all make the mistake of believing their own bullshit.
As commented above by tinfoilhat just think of what impact those funds would have had if actually spent on child support itself rather than a fancy computer system.
As always no one will be held to account and the consultants will all be able to buy themselves new mercedes.
Nactional has a real cultural problem of forcing through quick and dirty changes without proper consultation, planning or quality control. Witness Christchurch CBD, SkyCity/Nat HQ, jumping in to Iraq, and any number of their rushed half-arsed projects and obnoxious legislation.
Not to mention that one of the amendments to the Child support act and the calculators is to exclude mony in trusts and companies ( although they are included for such things as working for families) so that they do not go into the calculation. So wealthy people can continue to hide money from their kids in trust and companies and the rest of us wind up paying. I’d like to see that one voted down in parliament.
and the blow out is about 3 times the annual child support collected.
Former UK diplomat: western media propaganda over Nemtsov assassination
Dr William Mallinson PhD speaks to Russia Today:
RT: How come most of what we are hearing from Western media is directed against Vladimir Putin while the probe is barely two days old?
WM: Exactly, such headlines…can’t be credible. That is clear propagandistic bias. Then interviewing people like [former Georgian President Mikhail] Saakashvili who has been an international playboy now I think proves that. The most serious thing which I must say, I noticed that he [Nemtsov] doesn’t appear to have a bodyguard. He therefore did not consider his life to be under any serious threat and he was therefore a soft target. I haven’t seen that mentioned anywhere. Another thing I should mention is what I call a “Becket syndrome” when Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. That was by some enraged people who thought that they would please their boss Henry II. But in fact he was furious about it and made similar statements.
NB Russia Today is (well) funded by the Russian Government.
Funnily enough a correspondant on Morning Report today suggested something very similar in that he thought that Putin wasn’t behind the assasination as it didn’t suit him to get rid of this person in such a blatent manner. The correspondant agreed that he has encouraged a political environment where people are likely to take matters in to their own hands.
That’s about right; not only are murder rates the highest in Europe, corruption is rife in Russia and corrupt officials or jilted business associates could easily have been involved in the killing. The smooth audacity of it just outside the walls of the Kremlin leads one to think it was a professional hit. And the young woman he was walking with survived without a scratch. Very unusual.
And he was thinking of getting a taxi, but she wanted to walk across the bridge.
They shot him in the back so he never got to see the whites of their eyes, and neither did she. But what a convenient choice to perambulate, for the purpose eh? And an ambulance ride after.
She also said on Russian TV that she was walking in front of him and didn’t see anything about the shooting or the shooter.
I agree with your implication however – the killers knew that he was going to be at that location at that time. You don’t shoot someone just outside the Kremlin walls on happenchance.
I think western governments need to rapidly ramp up defence spending in light of the new ‘Russia threat’ and Putin’s “volatility”. Whoops answered your question.
Actually a pretty good summary of the basics of how it operates.
I don’t like the personal attacks because that is what drives authors from writing posts. It tends to be like doing a thesis or a program. If people have been having a go at you then any distraction will stop you. Sometimes you just give up.
But you can have a go at what they write. Generally that just encourages them to write more effectively next time.
You will note that when I have to intervene, I try to ensure that the commenter causing me the aggravation gets exactly the same kind of in your face unfair crap that they have been handing out. I find that this dissuades them from wanting to write that way again as well. Unfortunately they seldom seem to get the irony.
PG’s nactoid mates are over at YawnNZ helping to reinforce his confirmation bias and martyr complex.
“TS is teh suck bro!” “ya bro they is all rude and stuff” etc.
at least “redelusion” makes a slight effort to see what those mad Lefties are raving about (and share his/her dubious wisdom). PG’s cronies are too bigoted and lazy to make any effort whatsoever, or have an original thought.
It’s good to see Greypower behaving responsibly and giving thought and taking part in public policy discussion and action on matters affecting all NZs. This link is on getting better public transport around Auckland on the front desk and putting on the bac desk, autobans and flash new roads. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11410925
edited
Rachel Stewart asks whether Little and Labour will make the paradigm shift required to create jobs that work in a sustainable future.
What’s missing though is that the world is changing all around them, and us. The “economy and jobs” he purports to maintain are in dire need of a paradigm shift, and quickly.
Little’s union credentials are central to the conviction of maintaining jobs at any cost. That’s what unions are for. They do good work. We need them now more than ever. I don’t deviate on this point.
Where we do part company is in his refrain of keeping jobs at any cost. For example, is the ongoing employment prospects of oil riggers, miners, or anyone else involved in the extractivism field worth it given we know fossil fuels must be immediately ditched for our species to have any chance of survival?
What is his, and Labour’s, vision for a sustainable future? Is it really any different from National’s? Or is it just an outdated modus operandi that’s always worked for them in the past? I haven’t seen anything to get excited about yet.
All I know is the world’s changing fast, and in more ways than one.
The political climate needs to change as fast as the planet’s climate is.
I’m provisionally supportive as long as its applied to local body elections, and is accompanied by serious effort at education and outreach eg civics classes in schools, free civics classes for adults, much better access to how our political processes work etc. It would need to be promoted in ways that enabled people to engage where they want to, otherwise it’s just a stick.
I have a problem with compulsory voting. It generally means fines having to be paid by those that can least afford to pay them – the disaffected, the dispossessed, the disenchanted, and the disenfranchised. From my understanding of the Australian system, its mandatory to turn up to a polling booth but there is no requirement to actually vote.
The main argument for mandatory voting appears to be that it will increase the level of participation by the the disaffected, the dispossessed, the disenchanted, and the disenfranchised so that their views will filter through into policy decisions and make for a stronger democracy.
I have yet to see that happening in Australia which continues to have a significant minority of the disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised especially amongst aboriginal peoples. Australia is regarded as one of the most racist countries in the world so hardly a model of virtue for us to follow in terms of democracy.
Adele, bugger all Aussies get fined and the fines are small, from memory, $20-200 depending on the circ’s. Only a small percentage get prosecuted and it’s usually political activists with an axe to grind who have publicised their refusal to vote.
$20 is actually a lot to someone who doesn’t have any money. But regardless of the amount of the fine why do those who espouse a war on poverty readily endorse a punitive regime which just creates more crap for poor people to contend with.
We are also basically saying to the disaffected, the dispossessed, the disenchanted, and the disenfranchised that they are to blame for the failure of democracy. I rather think that democracy has failed them.
Seriously? In the modern world it is ridiculously easy to register and a matter of minutes to vote. It’s not a poverty issue. Should we also make registering cars optional? Dogs? Voting is no harder than those compulsory things and a lot cheaper.
Weird how you think democracy is just more crap. Should it be restricted to just the middle class and above?
I live in the Eastern Bay of Plenty which has a deprivation index of 10, alongside Northland. People live without power here, so getting “online” is a really big issue for some. They also drive warrant-less and unregistered cars, and have unregistered dogs.
And yes, people much like you, with no understanding of how the other half live, continue to view them as dysfunctional and stupid people. Do fines change behaviour? No, they simply extract $5 a week from a benefit.
There is a huge cohort of people that cannot engage with the modern world because the modern world is far too expensive, exclusive, white, and populated by the ignorant, arrogant and mean spirited.
My point is, if we want to improve voting, give them something to vote for. Don’t immediately resort to creating another law which will most likely punish only those at the sharp end of a sanctimonious rod.
What a load of pompous tosh, Adele. Your patronising attitude toward the poor, suggesting they are incapable of even getting registered let alone voting is hopelessly bourgeois. They actually have plenty of disadvantaged people in Oz too, y’know, but they’ve made it work.
But keep on telling yourself you know best. The poor can keep themselves protected from the chill this winter by snuggling up to the warm glow of your smugness.
The only pompous tosser in this conversation is you. I suppose your idea of a poor person is someone that can’t afford a holiday to Hawaii.
They actually have plenty of disadvantaged people in Oz too, y’know, but they’ve made it work.)
Yes, we have some of those people here too. Paula Bennett and John Key readily spring to mind.
You are such an ideologue that you’d happily piss on the dignity of the disaffected, the dispossessed, the disenchanted, and the disenfranchised – all for their own good, of course.
Its your type of thinking that is killing any good notion of democracy. Bashing the minority over the head with your moral rigidity and rectitude – all for their own good, of course.
I thoroughly recommend that you pack your rectitude in a leak proof nappy and visit firsthand how mandatory voting works for aboriginal peoples in Australia. Go to the back-blocks and preach to them how they can “make it work.”
Adele, you’re are talking absolute bollocks. Middle class know it alls like you are despised by the people you talk down to. People can and do make up their own mind about whether to vote no matter what pseudo intellectuals like you think their situation is and what their response should be.
As for Koori culture, I’ve lived it. I know a fair bit about it from having lived in their communities in both urban areas and the bush. That includes a relationship with someone most white Aussies wouldn’t even share a table with. That doesn’t mean I have a right to speak for them, but it sure as hell gives me more insight than you’ve shown on this thread.
Your ignorance is matched only by your superciliousness. Get your head out of your arse.
As for Koori culture, I’ve lived it. I know a fair bit about it from having lived in their communities in both urban areas and the bush. That includes a relationship with someone most white Aussies wouldn’t even share a table with.
I would have been more impressed if you had simply said, “I know what its like to be disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised as I regularly volunteer at the local soup kitchen once a month.”
Instead, you drag a relationship with an aboriginal woman into the limelight as a beacon of light onto your virtuous nature and innate understanding of their circumstances. That is hugely disrespectful to her.
And by doing so you are implying that your knowledge is tainted with expertise on aboriginal matters. A Tui moment..
That doesn’t mean I have a right to speak for them, but it sure as hell gives me more insight than you’ve shown on this thread.
It gives you no such insight as you still come across as profoundly ignorant. Within my worldview there are non-Maori who have lived amongst us mai rānō, yet they still remain as ignorant as Cook, on the day that he landed.
It also beggars belief that you can live amongst peoples so wounded by legislation and regulation and yet still say that “it works for them.”
Yeah, more middle class bullshit, Adele. You clearly haven’t got a clue what its like to be disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised, but you don’t mind being patronising about it. I guess you’re not going to take your head out of your arse because you admire the view.
Perhaps if we could include in the voting – a “None of the above” option. Those who are not represented can meet their civic requirement without having to officially support a party that is not representing them.
Like you, would not like to see the coercion of a between a rock and a hard place in terms of voting choices, or a punitive consequence for those already vulnerable and hurting.
Yeah, more middle class bullshit, Adele. You clearly haven’t got a clue what its like to be disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised, but you don’t mind being patronising about it. I guess you’re not going to take your head out of your arse because you admire the view.
Again, you are showing your profound ignorance. If I am middle class what does that make you? Landed gentry? However, I won’t resort to your tactic of pulling an aborigine out of a hat to prove that “I really do know what I am talking about”
By and large, Māori, predominantly, are the disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised minority in this society.
I am Ngāti Awa. We had our lands confiscated in 1866, something like 245,000 acres. The economic base that we had established for ourselves was completely destroyed due to land loss and deliberate destruction by Crown forces.
Our people were robbed and left landless, homeless and in poverty. Many still exist today in this oasis of bleakness. And everyday we bear witness to our disenfranchisement and dispossession when walking, driving, or being towed past, the flash homes built on stolen coast lands.
But by your reckoning mandatory voting will make everything sweet again. True democracy will reign supreme. Te Tiriti o Waitangi will drive legislative changes. Indefeasibility of Title will be overturned. And Stolen lands will be returned.
I would offer another Tui but the beers of choice here are Lion Red and Waikato. And my arse does in fact have a very nice view as it is sitting on the whenua of my whakapapa. I am indeed privileged in that respect.
Heart Foundation head of marketing Vanessa Winning said employees and volunteers were upset the billboard has been used for political protest.
“It’s really disappointing that a charity is being targeted to score political points,” she said.
“I find it unthinkable that someone would vandalise our billboard, and consequently mock a seriously crippling disease, just to make a political statement.”
The left back up to its usuall tricks again
[lprent: Haven’t I seen you in previous comments in years past complaining about the left’s “lack of humour” when those scallywags of the right attacked Helen, Cunliffe, Turei, and just about everyone else for things like signing paintings for charity.
Yet here you whine about something that is genuinely funny, probably pretty difficult to do, and you whining for what are transparently simple political motives.
Go figure. Just another hypocrite? Or have I confused you with someone else?
Why would they get fewer donations? I thought everyone in NZ loved John Key and therefore a billboard with his picture on it will surely result in more donations?
How do we know that it wasn’t Key himself who plastered his face up there?
This is free election advertising! Will Key stop at nothing to spread his personality cult!?
considering that Dear Leader cut funds for the Obesity Action Foundation in 2009 to 0 this billboard is actually very acurate.
Quote from our favority stenographers the Herald:
The Government has lopped another limb off Labour’s “bureaucratic” public health tree, ending state funding for the Obesity Action Coalition.
The coalition, created under Labour in 2003 to promote measures to reduce obesity, confirmed yesterday it would close within months of its state contract ending on June 30, unless it could find new sources of cash.
This follows National’s permission to schools in February to resume regular sales of unhealthy foods and drinks, overturning a rule introduced last year by Labour. The new Government is also scrapping the roles of district health board staff who helped schools and early childhood centres implement the healthy food and drink guidelines underpinning the Labour rule. Quote end.
Quote: The Health Ministry is the main source of income for the Obesity Action Coalition, which represents more than 70 organisations, including the National Heart Foundation and the Cancer Society. Quote end.
Starts tomorrow – be amazed, be proud, be there – if you can
Te Matatini Kapa Haka Aotearoa and Waitaha rohe are proud to present Te Matatini 2015 – Christchurch.
Every two years, Te Matatini organises the Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival, where top kapa haka teams from New Zealand and Australia compete for the honour of being crowned the best of the best. The festival started in 1972 and is now the world’s largest celebration of Māori traditional performing arts, attracting over 30,000 performers, supporters and visitors.
The festival is a whānau friendly, smoke, alcohol and drug free event. It is an opportunity for all people, regardless of culture, background or age to come together, to share and celebrate the richness of Māori culture.
Over four days audiences can witness the best kapa haka in the world, taste Māori and local southern delicacies, shop for Māori arts and crafts and experience cultural exhibitions and workshops.
We invite you to come celebrate the 22nd Te Matatini festival and experience the power and grace of kapa haka.
Wimpo Key does it again from guts and glory to “I dont think tourists should have their Keys taken by another driver” he forgot to qualify his position that the incident was directed by the police for it to be done
How you going to slip out of that one Key? whose fault is it now? got you
Well, there’s a process to go through, but there does seem to be a pretty good case that he had absolutely nothing to do with it (and that between unrecorded conversations,, 14th-hour “confessions”, and paid witness testimony, he should never even have been charged). That, and the actual murderer was found, usually acted alone, and was in an opposing gang so they were hardly likely to be buddies.
Great. I don’t see how they could have done anything else. This episode shows that we still need the Privy Council because we can’t get over our own systemic racism.
In a just world, the cops who I believe fitted him up should go to jail. I know he made it easy for them, but the prevailing attitude at the Otahuhu Station was that two people getting done for a one man crime was better than only one getting done, and three would be even better. They would have creamed their knickers when they saw how suggestible he was. They played him like a fiddle.
As for Malcolm Rewa, my understanding is that he was a police informant and not a lot of effort was put into trying to apprehend him as long as he kept informing on his mates. I suspect that more than a few women got raped and Susan Burdett was raped and killed because a free Rewa was useful to the police. This was negligence of the first order and heads should roll. In fact, I think we need a Royal Commission into how so many unsafe convictions were entered in the last 30 years.
I also think we should have a prosecutions service independent of the police and our magistrates should be inquisitorial rather than just choosing between two sets of lies. We need to do a lot better, especially when we look at what some cops and ex cops have been getting up to.
Kia kaha, Teina Pora. May we stop such injustice from happening again.
Good to see the incompetent and complete waste of time training Iraqi army with pro Sunni tribes and Shia militias working together to thow isis nut jobs out of tikrit. Only a week ago on this site this would never happen and training and supporting Iraq to free themselves of this inhuman cult was a complete waste of time to the so enlightened on this site. Boy I am glad you guys can get your rocks off here in virtual reality and are nobodies in the real world
You little stupid chicken hawk chicken shit head, you just defeated your own point. If What you are saying is true then clearly NZ is not needed in the area to defeat ISIS, we are being lied to, so why the fuck are we going.
I am glad you have the guts to save us Redelusion. Have you seen American Sniper yet? It will be so cool to go back to Iraq and blow away the ragheads!! Rah rah #teamkey we want drones, bombs, and blood spatters all over the Middle East.
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Dell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...
Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...
In today’s digital world, screenshots have become an indispensable tool for communication and documentation. Whether you need to capture an important email, preserve a website page, or share an error message, screenshots allow you to quickly and easily preserve digital information. If you’re an Asus laptop user, there are several ...
A factory reset restores your Gateway laptop to its original factory settings, erasing all data, apps, and personalizations. This can be necessary to resolve software issues, remove viruses, or prepare your laptop for sale or transfer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to factory reset your Gateway laptop: Method 1: ...
“You talking about me?”The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...
Roger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...
Introduction Pickleball, a rapidly growing paddle sport, has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions around the world. Its blend of tennis, badminton, and table tennis elements has made it a favorite among players of all ages and skill levels. As the sport’s popularity continues to surge, the question on ...
Abstract: Soccer, the global phenomenon captivating millions worldwide, has a rich history that spans centuries. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, but the modern version we know and love emerged through a complex interplay of cultural influences and innovations. This article delves into the fascinating journey of soccer’s evolution, ...
Tinting car windows offers numerous benefits, including enhanced privacy, reduced glare, UV protection, and a more stylish look for your vehicle. However, the cost of window tinting can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article provides a comprehensive guide to help you understand how much you can expect to ...
The pungent smell of gasoline in your car can be an alarming and potentially dangerous problem. Not only is the odor unpleasant, but it can also indicate a serious issue with your vehicle’s fuel system. In this article, we will explore the various reasons why your car may smell like ...
Tree sap can be a sticky, unsightly mess on your car’s exterior. It can be difficult to remove, but with the right techniques and products, you can restore your car to its former glory. Understanding Tree Sap Tree sap is a thick, viscous liquid produced by trees to seal wounds ...
The amount of paint needed to paint a car depends on a number of factors, including the size of the car, the number of coats you plan to apply, and the type of paint you are using. In general, you will need between 1 and 2 gallons of paint for ...
Jump-starting a car is a common task that can be performed even in adverse weather conditions like rain. However, safety precautions and proper techniques are crucial to avoid potential hazards. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed instructions on how to safely jump a car in the rain, ensuring both your ...
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, Professor specialising in Internet law, Bond University Do Australian courts have the right to decide what foreign citizens, located overseas, view online on a foreign-owned platform? Anyone inclined to answer “yes” to this question should perhaps also ask ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giovanni E Ferreira, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney Last week in a post on X, owner of the platform Elon Musk recommended people look into disc replacement if they’re experiencing severe neck or back pain. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University anek.soowannaphoom/Shutterstock NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey caught the headlines yesterday, courtesy of a blistering speech condemning the latest GST carve-up. New South Wales, he claimed, would be A$11.9 billion worse off over the ...
While police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...
While police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived at Kokoda Station, Northern province, at the start of his state visit to Papua New Guinea. Both Albanese and Prime Minister James Marape will meet with the locals and the Northern Provincial government before they begin their ...
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Looking forward to Labour and Mana campaigning vigorously on the issues in the Northland by-election, and their supporters serving the ‘national interest’ by voting for Winston Peters and taking Northland off National.
VOTE Winston Peters for Northland!
That’s the ‘common sense’ thing I’d do – were I a Northland voter ….
National will be legislatively ‘lame-ducked’ with only 59 MPs WHEN they lose Northland to Winston Peters.
Let’s do everything we can to help ensure that happens – if we’re genuine in our opposition to this John Key led National Government.
Who is the MAIN political ‘enemy’ here?
Penny Bright
Do Northlanders get to vote for a non-awful politician at all? Like Willow-Jean Prime?
Well they do have other options, especially the farming community since National have chosen to ignore them and appointment a patsy candidate. I figure Peters and
ACT man Robin Goodgrief will attract their vote. And of course Willow Jean will get her share too.
Labour has the unenviable position of having their social and economic policies being STOLEN left, right and centre, by painful parasites, corrupt crooks and tricky thieves.
DPG
Little has said that the LP won’t be pulling Prime from the race, so Northlanders will certainly have the chance to vote for her. It’s whether they regard that choice as being in the best interests of the country that is the issue.
Consider that she can’t expect to pick up much of the Green vote at the moment. Best scenario would be if they voted for Peters, which would go a long way towards ensuring that the two parties could work together amicably in a future government. More likely is that they’ll stay away in droves.
Why not? Her particular world view and her beliefs would fit in well with green supporters. I am sure most of them are more concerned about having a progressive in Parliament than wondering about beltway issues.
I agree. I’m a Green voter and I’d vote Prime over Peters.
Weka
I was a Green voter (until I got involved in the abortion that was the IMP alliance) and I would prefer to vote for Prime over Peters too (if I was enrolled in Northland). However that is not the choice.
The choice is between; NACT retaining a majority in the house with Osbourne, or their having to deal with either Dunne or the MP, and thus slightly curb their rapacity. Peters may be able to win the seat, Prime can not.
For the Greens to vote for a LP candidate after the spy committee debacle is like; the victim of domestic abuse running back to their partner because they can’t be bothered going the stress of a breakup anymore. Labour does not respect the GP, and never has; they’ve been fluttering their eyelashes at Peters for the last six years themselves.
At this point, the Greens would be better off; single and looking out for their own interests. Rather than continuing hoping Labour will change if they just try one more time.
“However that is not the choice”
That depends. If you believe that a slight lessening of NACT’s power over the next 2.5 years is the most important thing, then voting Peters makes sense. It’s a fair enough tactic because it’s likely that more and more pressure will go on National over DP and other fuck ups and there’s a slight chance that Dunne or the MP might get some actual ethics.
On the other hand, there’s the medium and long term view, which is that Peters is not left wing, he’s consistently opposed the formation of a govt that includes the GP, which essentially means that he is actively working against the left. Him having more power at this point is detrimental and undermines the mahi of shifting NZ left again.
“For the Greens to vote for a LP candidate after the spy committee debacle is like”
That’s an argument to not vote Labour, not an argument to vote Peters. If we’re talking about debacles, remember it’s Peters that essentially set the tone for MMP in NZ early on and we’ve never recovered from that. That tone is anti-democratic and has entrenched a power and control model that suits powermongers like Peters.
Further, there are many things about Labour that I object to as a GP voter. Should I then not support a Labour led govt in 2017? What is the alternative?
Weka
About all Labour have going for them these days is that they’re not as bad as National. You could just about trust them to manage the evacuation of a sinking ship after it’d run onto the rocks – wheras the Tories would be tearing up the decking for liferafts; to sell to the highest bidder (or really; to the lowest bidder who’d promised a lucrative consultancy once they’re back on dry land). Environment being the ship (and dry land gone forever).
But for those Green voters who can’t bring themselves to vote for either; NZF, or Labour at this time, there is one alternative to staying home on voting day:
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/03/03/guest-blog-joe-trinder-porter-confirmed-as-candidate-for-by-election/#sthash.pEhr62WM.dpuf
If what you say is true, how is a strong Peters going to help in 2017?
“Rueben Taipari Porter is a fantastic candidate representing the Mana Movement”
But a wasted vote nevertheless in reality and indirectly helping the Nats although in a small way!
“a slight chance that Dunne or the MP might get some actual ethics”
Forget that. Power, position, ego, money and baubles are as powerful, if not more powerful, than sex.
It takes people of courage, honour and integrity to to be ‘true to themselves’ and do ‘the right thing’.
At the moment, I can only think of Marilyn Waring, Jim Anderton and Winston Peters in that honourable club of guts.
+1 Pasupial
The only question here should be whether we can do something to slow NAct down for the rest of their term. I think Winnie can possibly win the seat. I don’t think he will drag Winston First over to the government benches this time, given the events in Northland that led up to this byelection. It’s a gamble, but voting for WJP is just throwing money away.
I note Little has already started saying Winnie is too old. Well, not too old to see the dangers of the Increase in Surveillance Bill and vote against it. I wish a few of the Labour team could have spines as old as Winnie’s.
Tactically a vote for Winnie is obvious for both Green and Labour voters. A Winnie win will stop reforms that will gut the RMA in their tracks for instance something the Greens would love.
But do Labour really care about the RMA?? Prove me wrong and vote tactically for Winnie please.
With any luck – but that’s only if you believe Dunne when he says that he is opposed to those; “reforms that will gut the RMA”. He might just settle for a cosmetic change in the legislation and a ministerial role.
Very good look at the voters position in the Vote for Northland lets hope everyone reads it
I would far rather a ‘collective response’ Mickey. The Smart Greens have played their part by sitting this one out. It is a pity going down the throat cutting path. What slim hope of an upset win is pretty much gone now.
Im not too sure about WJP’s left wing credentials? What was her record on the FNDC? Anyone know?
The way I see it at present micky is that Labour and Willow Jean Prime are in danger of coming in a distant third and being humiliated in the process. I hope it isn’t going to happen, but it’s possible given people cast their votes for different reasons in byelections. If the fancy takes them they could vote for Winston in large numbers to make some kind of statement, even though they would not dream of voting for him in a general election. That is why I suspect the ‘statistical’ figures are not much use in this byelection.
I don’t trust Winston Peters but he hates this current mob with a vengeance (and with good reason) and I can’t see him cuddling up to them in any shape or form – not any more. Also, his political career is coming to an end. At 70+, I can’t see a future ahead of him but I can imagine him wanting to indulge in a bit of utu before he finally hangs up his political hat.
The harder we can make it for this government to continue to play dirty – and emasculate the economy in the process – the sooner we can be rid of them. It has to be the top priority of the opposition parties at this point in time. Labour has no hope of ever retaining the treasury benches on it’s own. It must work as a team across the spectrum of opposition parties from left to centre-right, before there is any chance of it happening. This byelection was an opportunity to see a cooperative effort begin to emerge which would ultimately see a change of government, and set in train the desperately needed more progressive policies of Labour and the broad left.
That’s the way I see it anyway.
I don’t think concessions should be one sided where there is something significant being given up. The GP aren’t really giving up much by not standing someone. Labour would be.
No-one knows what Peters will do. That’s the point.
My own thinking is that Peters will again actively work against the formation of a left wing govt and will try and either form a govt with Labour that excludes the GP and pulls Labour to centre, or National will clean house before 2017 and Peters will go with them. He sure as hell won’t say pre-election what he will do. Labour and the GP pre-election should make it clear that they are willing to work with NZF in coalition building, but that it’s NZF that is unwilling to let voters know their intentions before the electio.
Winston’s a social conservative. Now, having got that out of the way, his economic, employment and infrastructure policies are often well to the left of Labour’s.
So? My comment wasn’t about Peters’ politics (although I’d guess you are talking about NZF policy), it was about his behaviour.
So you’re a mind reader then? You know Peter’s intentions and plans? You might not like the man but that’s not the same thing as having insight into what his motivations are entering into this race.
Entering this debate late – having just come home from delivering a load of pamphlets for Willow-Jean (and getting caught up in the traffic jam caused by accident in Whangarei).
I don’t trust Winston either, Weka . He is too likely to be persuaded by the Nats – with a nice little bauble – to go with them and not the Opposition. This has happened in the past with Winston : he likes to play games, and tease, but underneath all that charm and smile – he is a basic National player.
And if any of you have read Andrew Little’s State of the Nation speech you will see that Labour is on the verge of change, and Willow Jean Prime will help bring about that change – for the good of the environment, the economy, the workers and people needing employment – so don’t write her off yet.
And don’t assume that Winston will do what he says he might do !!
@ j kirk I don’t trust Winny either give heaps up north ,people are sick of political games labour needs to play it straight and go for the win.
“So you’re a mind reader then? You know Peter’s intentions and plans? You might not like the man but that’s not the same thing as having insight into what his motivations are entering into this race.”
That also doesn’t have anything to do with my comment. I haven’t said anything about Peters’ motivations (others have). I’ve talked about his behaviour to date and why I think it’s foolish to believe he is reliable.
It’s nothing to do with liking/not liking the man (like others, I find admirable things about him). It’s the cold hard fact that he will never let anyone know ahead of time what he will do. I’M not the one claiming I know his intentions, I’m saying that he never tells anyone what his intentions are. That’s one of the reasons he can’t be relied on.
Sure Labour and the GP need him as an ally. But the left should be honest about what that means, not engaging in fantasies of Peters’ being left wing. People can work/vote to increase his power, but let’s not pretend that we know what that means for the future. Let’s be honest about the risk.
thanks Jenny. I don’t hold a huge amount of hope, but am still willing to give Little and Labour the benefit of the doubt that they can change.
+1 CR
And as a unionist I will add a couple of things I like about Peters. If there is an important industrial issue that I want raised in the House Peters will take the issue up “email me the details,” 48 hours time bingo. Where as over at camp workers party the wheels turn slow, a maybe a maybe not, a reply a no reply. Lets hope Little will sort this out. The Greens are good too and deliver, either leading questions or adding sups working with Peters in an attack. Don’t forget the opposition were woeful till Peters returned and gave some bite.
Peters was also a very good Minister when he was in Parliament…he treated senior public servants and advisers with respect and listened carefully to their research and advice….he did his background homework and asked intelligent questions…the implementation of policy was efficient and fast….I am told he was one of the best Ministers to work with
He also worked very well with Helen Clark and her Labour Government …and of late there has not been any conflict with the Greens
to b waghorn – Yep –
Labour IS giving it heaps here in the Northland electorate. We’re all out – we want to WJ to win – everyone is doing their bit for Willow-Jean – Labour MPs, Leader and activists – and none of it hits the media – but we’re going all out for W-J and Labour !
Hmmm, excuse my cynicism, but can you give us some examples of Peters raising industrial issues in the house on your behalf, Skinny?
+ 100% te reo putake
* how rude of me, on behalf of the membership and public/taxpayer.
Due to events currently unfolding where Winston’s assistance will be required, it would be totally inappropriate to potentially reveal his source.
Ok, then. Any example of times where Winston has raised such issues. His previously unknown support for the workers can’t be just restricted to your industry, surely, so there must be heaps.
Well he did fight for the racing industry which was in serious trouble, 20,000 jobs there. Bit of a double edged sword tho.
You got to hand it to him, he knows how to campaign. I see tomorrow he is has his campaign bus tour from one end of the electorate to the other. He has targeted any soft votes in Willow Jeans home patch for his major launch.
Skinny, I don’t think anyone is arguing that Peters is not an astute and powerful politician. That’s not a good enough reason to vote for him in this situation.
Yep. I’ve known subject area experts quite trying to give Labour help and hints because too often Labour don’t give enough of a fuck to either recognise the value of what is being given to them on a plate, or can’t be organised enough to use it in anything resembling a timely manner.
The Greens get the expert help instead, now.
If wishes are horses, we (Labour) would have won and in government now.
On this matter, your “common sense” ain’t mine. Winston is a disgruntled tory and is not to be trusted with the balance of power.
Why can’t Winston stand down, and just leave it as Labour vs National?
La
Why should Winston stand down, and just leave it as Labour vs National?
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/03/02/why-national-might-lose-northland-and-why-labour-cant-win/#sthash.FbyerITR.dpuf
Bradbury works better as a humourist than a serious political commentator. But this line; regarding Labour putting in serious effort to win the seat rather than just using the byelection as a soapbox, does seem perceptive:
I’m all for concessions, but they’re something that needs good faith on both sides. Peters doesn’t play well with others, and he can’t be trusted. It makes sense to me that Labour would want to get Prime out there, get her visible and having some more experience with electioneering etc.
btw, can anyone confirm with evidence that Peters winning would change the seat allocations in parliament?
If Winston wins the electorate, and then resigns his list seat, the next list member for NZFirst would enter Parliament.
This would bring National down to a permanent 59 seats (vs the 60 on election night). To get a majority of 61 they would therefore have to rely on 2 votes from Act, UF, Maori Party. At the moment they only need 1 vote from those parties, and Act pretty much pony up for anything required.
As useless as UF is, Dunne can sometimes extract meaningful concessions from National. Certainly National having 59 seats is 1 seat closer to having only 58 seats, where they would need to rely on Maori Party (or other party in Parliament) to pass all legislation, which will be significantly more difficult for them to achieve their right-wing agenda. They would also look a bit crass for calling an early election in such a case, because their confidence and supply agreement with MP protects them from dissolution until they get down to 55 seats – they would basically look like they were taking their toys and throwing a tantrum and refusing to operate under MMP.
Short answer: yes, if Winston wins, AND he resigns his seat, National are weaker. There would be no reason for Winston not to resign his seat, and it is perfectly and fully allowed within the rules, and has been done by other electorate winners in the past.
Thanks. That means that by-elections trump national elections, because according to the election calculator the proportion of MPs determined by the list vote at the general election remains unaffected by the scenario you describe. The only thing that changes is the number of list seats, not the number of overall seats. I guess the calculator could be wrong.
2014 results,
http://www.elections.org.nz/voting-system/mmp-voting-system/mmp-seat-allocation-calculator?asPercentage=1&partyName_0=ACT+New+Zealand&partyVote_0=0.69&electorateSeats_0=1&partyName_1=Aotearoa+Legalise+Cannabis+Party&partyVote_1=0.46&electorateSeats_1=0&partyName_2=Ban1080&partyVote_2=0.21&electorateSeats_2=0&partyName_3=Conservative&partyVote_3=3.97&electorateSeats_3=0&partyName_4=Democrats+for+Social+Credit&partyVote_4=0.07&electorateSeats_4=0&partyName_5=Focus+New+Zealand&partyVote_5=0.03&electorateSeats_5=0&partyName_6=Green+Party&partyVote_6=10.7&electorateSeats_6=0&partyName_7=Internet+MANA&partyVote_7=1.42&electorateSeats_7=0&partyName_8=Labour+Party&partyVote_8=25.13&electorateSeats_8=27&partyName_9=M%C4%81ori+Party&partyVote_9=1.32&electorateSeats_9=1&partyName_10=National+Party&partyVote_10=47.4&electorateSeats_10=41&partyName_11=New+Zealand+First+Party&partyVote_11=8.66&electorateSeats_11=0&partyName_12=NZ+Independent+Coalition&partyVote_12=0.04&electorateSeats_12=0&partyName_13=The+Civilian+Party&partyVote_13=0.05&electorateSeats_13=0&partyName_14=United+Future&partyVote_14=0.22&electorateSeats_14=1&partyName_opt_0=Other+Party&partyVote_opt_0=0&electorateSeats_opt_0=0&partyName_opt_1=Other+Party&partyVote_opt_1=0&electorateSeats_opt_1=0&partyName_opt_2=Other+Party&partyVote_opt_2=0&electorateSeats_opt_2=0&partyCount=15&optPartyCount=3&action=Calculate+parliamentary+seats
Same results but taking one electorate seat of National and giving one electoral seat to NZF,
http://www.elections.org.nz/voting-system/mmp-voting-system/mmp-seat-allocation-calculator?asPercentage=1&partyName_0=ACT+New+Zealand&partyVote_0=0.69&electorateSeats_0=1&partyName_1=Aotearoa+Legalise+Cannabis+Party&partyVote_1=0.46&electorateSeats_1=0&partyName_2=Ban1080&partyVote_2=0.21&electorateSeats_2=0&partyName_3=Conservative&partyVote_3=3.97&electorateSeats_3=0&partyName_4=Democrats+for+Social+Credit&partyVote_4=0.07&electorateSeats_4=0&partyName_5=Focus+New+Zealand&partyVote_5=0.03&electorateSeats_5=0&partyName_6=Green+Party&partyVote_6=10.7&electorateSeats_6=0&partyName_7=Internet+MANA&partyVote_7=1.42&electorateSeats_7=0&partyName_8=Labour+Party&partyVote_8=25.13&electorateSeats_8=27&partyName_9=M%C4%81ori+Party&partyVote_9=1.32&electorateSeats_9=1&partyName_10=National+Party&partyVote_10=47.4&electorateSeats_10=41&partyName_11=New+Zealand+First+Party&partyVote_11=8.66&electorateSeats_11=0&partyName_12=NZ+Independent+Coalition&partyVote_12=0.04&electorateSeats_12=0&partyName_13=The+Civilian+Party&partyVote_13=0.05&electorateSeats_13=0&partyName_14=United+Future&partyVote_14=0.22&electorateSeats_14=1&partyName_opt_0=Other+Party&partyVote_opt_0=0&electorateSeats_opt_0=0&partyName_opt_1=Other+Party&partyVote_opt_1=0&electorateSeats_opt_1=0&partyName_opt_2=Other+Party&partyVote_opt_2=0&electorateSeats_opt_2=0&partyCount=15&optPartyCount=3&action=Calculate+parliamentary+seats
Weka, Graeme Edgeler has provided a good legal analysis of the ramifications of the situation if Winston Peters wins at the Public Address blog here
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/the-northland-by-election-or-the-so-called/
Graeme provides both a brief explanation – and a longer more detailed one in his post. The brief one is this:
With the Northland by-election, we are temporarily getting a lesson in two of them:
That the rules we adopted for MMP mean the proportionality of the House of Representatives is only important after the general election, not to changes between elections.
That counter-intuitive things can happen a list MP wins a by-election (whether from the same party as the MP who has resigned, or a different one).
A full explanation follows, but the too long didn’t read for those of you here simply because someone provided you a link from twitter to clear up some confusion is:
If Winston Peters win the Northland by-election, he has the option of resigning as a New Zealand First list MP.
Any list MP who resigns is replaced by the next person on the list, In the case of New Zealand first, this is Ria Bond. Assuming Ms Bond is still a party member, and want the job, she would become a list MP, in addition to Winston becoming electorate MP for Northland.
If this happened, National’s number of MPs would stay at 59, down from the 60 they had after the election result was declared, and New Zealand First’s parliamentary strength would increase to 12.
There are good reason why we should do it another way, but there are also good reasons why it shouldn’t, and this is the way we’ve chosen to do it.
The longer explanation is also worth reading as are the comments as these raise various questions and answers which further clarify the possibilities etc.
Thanks!
I don’t think Winston has to resign his list seat. I believe it’s automatic, as it is in the general election. If it wasn’t automatic every MP in that position would have two votes in Parliament. What I’m not sure of is whether the next on the list has to come in. I recall the Greens had some grief around that a few years ago when they wanted to bring in someone else to fill a vacancy and the next guy on the list (Mike???) spat the dummy.
Re: the calculator, I don’t think it’s set up to take into account by-elections. What I’m pretty sure about is that the result of Winston or Willow-Jean winning is Nats less one vote, opposition one more. So to get a correct result in the calculator, you’d have to enter the Nats election night electorate number lower by one and increase the winning party’s by one (be it Lab or NZF).
“I believe it’s automatic, as it is in the general election”
It’s not automatic, but of course anyone would be stupid not to. This isn’t the general election; rules for by-election are different.
See Graeme Edgeler’s post linked to above.
“What I’m not sure of is whether the next on the list has to come in.”
The way it works, if they meet the requirements (still a party member, still meet other requirements for NZ parliament like not in prison, sane, still a citizen etc) is Parliament offers the list MP the option to take up the seat. They may say no, for example, if they’ve since gained a job they don’t want to give up, or have other family circumstances.
If they decline, it goes to the next person, so-on down the list until someone says yes, or the list is exhausted (causing the list seat to remain vacant in Parliament).
Theoretically, the party has no influence over whether the person takes the seat or not. In practice they of course do – being treated like a leper in Parliament can’t be fun.
Remember this all happened with Louisa Wall in 2011:
“After Darren Hughes resigned from Parliament in April 2011, and people higher on Labour’s list, such as Dave Hereora, Judith Tizard and Mark Burton, decided not to take up the list position, Wall was returned to Parliament as a Labour List MP serving in the 49th New Zealand Parliament.” (from Wikipedia).
“Re: the calculator, I don’t think it’s set up to take into account by-elections. What I’m pretty sure about is that the result of Winston or Willow-Jean winning is Nats less one vote, opposition one more. So to get a correct result in the calculator, you’d have to enter the Nats election night electorate number lower by one and increase the winning party’s by one (be it Lab or NZF).”
The calculator only does General Elections, not by-elections. Your suggestion wouldn’t work anyway, because it would mean (in the case where Willow won Northland at the GE) Labour would have 2 list seats instead of the current 3, and Andrew Little wouldn’t be in Parliament.
Cheers, Lanth. Graeme’s article is pretty comprehensive.
I reckon there could be a case for minor reforms to make it automatic (after all if you’re standing in a by-election you’re clearly signalling you want to be an electorate MP) and secondly, to leave it up to the party to decide who a replacement list MP should be if the occasion arises. Seems daft to have to stick to the list used at the general election if the party wants someone else later on.
Agree on the former.
A bit luke-warm on the second. Seems kind of unfair that you agree to be a list MP and go out and do campaigning for the party but only narrowly miss out at the GE. You know that you’re the next person on the list, but then when the vacancy comes up, the party can officially (and easily) choose someone else instead of you.
I think much like an employment contract, it’s a two way street – the party and the list member are both in it together.
There is another reason not to diverge from the list that was announced at the General Election.
In theory the list tells voters who will be the MPs if you vote for this party. Thus if you look at the list and decide you like the top 20 candidates you can decide you’ll vote for them. If you think they are a universally deplorable set of drongos you won’t. After the election, if the party can change their selection of members to fill the list seats, you can then discover that the people you liked when you voted for them aren’t there any more and a completely different set have taken over.
There is a funny thing that can happen if members get in via an electorate candidate winning. Suppose the party gets 4% and wins an electorate. They will get 5 MPs.
Another party also gets 4% and comes second in the electorate. They get no seats.
Then, after the Parliament is settled there is an electoral petition (at least that is what I think it is called). The Judges then decide that there was fraud or such-like and reverses the electorate winner. The first party retains its other 4 MPs, who got there off the list. The second party only gets the one who is now the electorate MP.
Incidentally it was by means of an election petition that got Winston Peters into Parliament in 1978 in Hunua.
“So to get a correct result in the calculator, you’d have to enter the Nats election night electorate number lower by one and increase the winning party’s by one (be it Lab or NZF)”
Yes, that’s exactly what I did. See my second link. Graeme Edgeler’s explanation makes sense, and I think we can assume now that the calculator is useless in by-elections.
Yes, the calculator is useless for by-elections.
“and has been done by other electorate winners in the past.”
I am not aware of any occasion when a list MP won an electorate seat in a by-election. When did this happen?
Indeed the possibility of this happening and Judith Tizard returning to the house was supposedly a reason why a new candidate, David Shearer got the Labour nomination for Helen Clark’s old seat.
You’re correct, this has not actually happened, merely been discussed.
@ Pasupial.
It was good post until the last paragraph. He spoils it with an attempt to drive a wedge between Labour and the Greens by way of an unfortunate historical election outcome. Has Labour spurned him or failed to give him enough attention?
Northland also has a history of voting for 3rd parties when they’re annoyed with NAct. I can remember Social Credit getting in at one stage. They do not vote Labour.
An historical but interesting comparison.
The results of the East Coast Bays by-election in 1980.
Social Credit Gary Knapp – 8,061 – 43.31%
National Don Brash – 7,110 – 38.20%
Labour Wyn Hoadley – 3,296 – 17.71%
Values J S Moore – 144 – 0.7%
Majority – 951 – 5.11%
In 1980, East Coast Bays was a deeply conservative electorate (it still pretty much is) not unlike the deeply conservative electorate of Northland. The predominantly white population was very upset with then PM, Rob Muldoon. He had increased the ‘toll charges’ on the bridge, and his star was waning. ( He just managed to win the 81 election by politicising the Springbok tour of that year.) They went to the booths in droves and voted for Social Credit as a statement of their displeasure. These were people who had always voted National in the past and they returned to them in 1987.
I see some parallels with the two situations and I note Labour came a very distant third. It could easily happen again.
That would be complete humiliation for Labour. This is another soapbox opportunity for Winston First. He will replay his usual fodder from the last 20 years as some sort of highlight reel, he will get enough votes to come second, just ahead of Labour, and nAtional to retain by 7500 votes in a voter turnout of 60%-70%. National are well organised in a very large electorate, and have already got poeple on the ground doing the hard yards. However, a friend suggests all is not well up North with the Nats, the deliberate snubbing of Grant McCullum (again) has some poised to make a protest vote, hence Winnies havign a go.
Mc Cullum is very popular in the Northland farming community, getting bounced again has brassed a lot of them off. I hear the party people are worried the rural folks may give voting a miss or turn to ACT’s opportunist candidate Robin Grieves.
Exactly what I am hearing.
Another candidate who you would be aware of that got the cold shoulder is Ken Rintoul. He lead a rural nz party last election called Focus NZ. He got 1,600 votes in Northland last year. Now if he stood again, and I hear his rural followers are keen for him to do so, he could well be the protest vote.
I read a bit of Focus NZ stuff, enough to remember the name. I think it was Ken Rintoul and his thinking was quite good – appealed to my common sense side. He noted enough of the government failings and absurdities to strike a point in people’s minds.
Yes their known as break away Tories. I mean the common complaint is ( anothet editorial in the Northern Advocate today) why people vote National in Northland, they get nothing out of them for their loyality.
I suspect racism. Northland pakeha on the whole are very racist. Titford was not much of an aberration.
I don’t know … I was just listening to a doco on National Radio on the move to introduce a Maori ward seat on the New Plymouth council where Winston was attacking the plan which is supported by the mayor Andrew Judd. It reminded me of how unpleasant he can be.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20169021
+100 Penny…Winston Peters, MP for Northland !
You know all this pissing around and navel gazing would be reduced if we simply adopted Instant-runoff voting (aka Alternative Vote) in our electorate seats and required a majority rather than a plurality.
Then everyone can run, parties can campaign properly on their policies and the local issues and you can put your support behind an alternative if your first choice doesn’t make it.
Sheesh! 😡
Yesterday’s discussion on roading infrastructure in Venezuela was interesting, but I find I’m particularly taken with the user-pays road repairs in Honduras (amongst other things) in this politically innovative Central American country.
fascinating.
If you have the stomach, SOA stories from Honduras.
http://www.soaw.org/about-us/equipo-sur/263-stories-from-honduras
Jeez joe,
Chile (or is that Colombia?) MkII. Another wasted decade and terrorised population in another American country the US got involved in.
I’m beginning to think a real secure border fence between the US and Mexico is a good idea – to keep the f&*king USA out of Mexico, Central and South America. 😈
Why would you do that?
…lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups.
Hodson & Busseri 2012
My bold: only ~25% of US ‘citizens’ even have a passport, let alone travel overseas.
Travelling out of state is a life time achievement for many…
Your not usually so dense OAB – is your sarcasm scanner off line? 😈
😳
“I’m beginning to think a real secure border fence between the US and Mexico is a good idea”
This has some merit – if it were a financial fence that kept greedy randist republicans out of Latin America’s infrastructure & businesses.
Apparently the US officially backs the ousted president.
“The cost of implementing a new child support system has rocketed to $163 million – a blowout that dwarfs the bill for fixing the controversial Novopay school payroll system.
The new figure has been described as “gobsmacking” by a former top Government executive who was in office when the cost was originally put at $30 million.”
What a clumsy fellow Joyce is?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11410615
@Ianmac
What a mind numbing waste of money, just think of what impact those funds would have had if actually spent on child support itself rather than a fancy computer system.
As always no one will be held to account and the consultants will all be able to buy themselves new mercedes.
imo this interview with Allan Gibbs by Wallace Chapman is a shocker…it starts off ok with references to art…hobnobbing with the likes of Ralph Hotere , visits to Cuba with artists, flirtations with socialism, the life of hippies, wife swapping … and entrepreneurship, …. and critiques of economics degree youngsters running the public service ….and ends with a Ruth Richardson adoration piece and a diatribe thunder and brimstone from the pulpit …. Old Testament morality ….shades of old Salvation Army morality….not getting your girlfriend pregnant unless you are going to marry her !…..reminded me of the 1970s…(.what about contraception and aborton….and doesnt the woman have a say?….what about issues of education ,employment for women ?…all around the world where women are educated and have jobs and contraception and abortion there is no unwanted pregnancy or over population ) scary patriarchal Old Testament stuff .
Great interview by Wallace Chapman!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/20169129/alan-gibbs-life-and-influences
basically GIbbs is just a crazy old man, with enough money for people to pay attention to what he says
The weird bit is, its not that hard to find old people ranting about some perceived injustice or whatever – i know, i do it myself 🙂 (and im not THAT old)
At first the interview with Gibbs seemed weak with a few mild questions and prompts from Wallace Chapman allowing Gibbs to pontificate.
Then it became apparent that Gibbs was being played like a fish with Chapman baiting him until the ranting reached near fever pitch.
A perfect example of a typical card carrying ACT member.. ‘intoxicated with his wealth and inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity. ‘ (Apologies to Disraeli)
Well done Wallace- but where ‘s Wayne Brittenden?
First big test of the anti-IS plan in Tikrit is unfolding
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=tikrit&hl=en-NZ&gbv=2&tbm=nws&prmd=ivnsm&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:d&sa=X&ei=6MP0VN7ZGYjU8gWowYDoCQ&ved=0CA4QpwU
Lots of things to watch. The Iraqi PM says its all sweeteness and light, and that the first priority is to not harm innocents, and that Sunni tribal fighters will be shown mercy if they surrender. Bit quioeter on what happens if they don;t surrender, and what surrending would actually mean.
The Badr guy largely running the Op is framing it as revenge for previous IS war summary executions of Shia soldiers.
PB
I wouldn’t be too optimistic on that mercy:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/02/iraq-assault-islamic-state-strongholds-baghdad
Look at the pic in that article, that is a; Shia militia parade, but all the soldiers are wearing balaclavas or other cloth masks. It looks like a group of people who are on their way to commit a righteous cleansing, to avenge the despicable massacre perpetrated by their enemies (who will be sure to reciprocate in due course).
Yeah. There’s a lot going on. This one, from a few days ago will be making people nervous about ‘surrendering’. Ad IS have rounded up hostages from and sent them to mosul in advance. All this talk is talk. Sectrian war is same as it ever was. Kill their local leaders, deprive them of their property, rule over those who won’t leave.
http://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/father-and-five-sons-found-murdered-in-baghdad/ar-BBi2UT8
But on the pics, that’s just what militia look like. The balaclavas are tactical too, makes the face less of a target in house to house combat especially.
https://twitter.com/MemlikPasha/status/572486241947672577
Nice pic here of a howitzer flying a hezbollah flag. ‘ho ho ho, now I haz an artillery gun’
That guy’s twitter is worth looking at in total too
https://twitter.com/MemlikPasha
Great place for Kiwi troops to dive right into
It’s not just Hadi al-Amiri (nominally the Iraqi Minister of Transport). He’s been joined by Qassem Suleimani aka “the Shadow Commander” (the Iranian Major-General and the commander of the Quds Force – the special forces division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard primarily responsible for extraterritorial operations since 1998 and who provide support and training for most of Iran’s proxies, from Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, to the Houthis in Yemen). He’s been rebuilding and reinforcing the Shia militias for the past year.
Great that our troops have picked a side (had a side picked for them) in the Iraqi sectarian civil war. This is going to go well.
But CR – we must do something. We must. John said so (and so did Tony & Barrack). And sending troops – it’s our only option. It is, really! 😥
The liberation of Tikrit is underway. The city, Saddam Hussein’s home town, is on the main road to Mosul and has both military and propaganda significance. As one of the larger cities under ISIS control, it will be interesting to learn after it’s freed just how much support ISIS actually have in their conquered territories or whether the local populations are just subdued by fear.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31699632
This article is a good background to the current Pentagon plan. Big emphasis on training the locals.
http://time.com/3722740/isis-islamic-state-military/
Edit: Snap, P’s B!
Thanks for the propaganda line.
That Time piece is pretty hilarious in light of today’s events;
https://t.co/aR5IsgKEFH
The Baghdad govt and it’s Iranian allies don’t give many fucks about the Pentagon’s timetable. It’s like they’ve got their own plan or something, the bastards.
Censorship anyone. Googles plans to “define” the “truth”:
http://rt.com/news/236681-google-truth-algorithm-search/
And on that note, read this article from ARS technica about the future of the internet.
It’s not good news. Specifically, read the 2nd page listing the 5 internet futures.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/fear-in-the-digital-city-why-the-internet-has-never-been-more-dangerous/
+100 Sable…interesting ‘New Scientist’ is going to help define a new method for establishing “truth”…recently ‘New Scientist’ has carried some dubious articles itself imo….eg 6 September 2014…SPECIAL REPORT ‘END OF THE NATION – The Old world order is dying. What comes next?’….and another issue carried a large feature on Bill Gates special advanced education programme using computer learning instead of teachers….Bill Gates is investing heavily into privatised Charter Schools…taking education away from state and democratic control
…in other words ‘New Scientist’ is getting into promoting right wing corporate politics
“The search engine currently relies on a system that ranks websites based on how many times the page has been linked to – which means that even fake information has a way of making it up the chain of search results.
According to a New Scientist report, the new model developed by a Google research team would count the number of incorrect facts on each website to establish a Knowledge-Based Trust score for each site – an overall rating of trustworthiness”.
http://rt.com/news/236681-google-truth-algorithm-search/
( personally i prefer the wisdom of crowds for debating/establishing “truth”….who wants to be spoon fed ‘truth’ from those who think they know it all?…and usually in the pay of corporate oligarchs and political /religious right wing patriarchal dictators)
Indeed Sable – This from a few years ago
Q. Does the internet need a Ministry of Truth ?
One is to train our browsers to flag information that may be suspicious or disputed. Thus, every time a claim like “vaccination leads to autism” appears in our browser, that sentence would be marked in red—perhaps, also accompanied by a pop-up window advising us to check a more authoritative source. The trick here is to come up with a database of disputed claims that itself would correspond to the latest consensus in modern science—a challenging goal that projects like “Dispute Finder” are tackling head on.
The second—and not necessarily mutually exclusive—option is to nudge search engines to take more responsibility for their index and exercise a heavier curatorial control in presenting search results for issues like “global warming” or “vaccination.” Google already has a list of search queries that send most traffic to sites that trade in pseudoscience and conspiracy theories; why not treat them differently than normal queries? Thus, whenever users are presented with search results that are likely to send them to sites run by pseudoscientists or conspiracy theorists, Google may simply display a huge red banner asking users to exercise caution and check a previously generated list of authoritative resources before making up their minds
Q. Is Google the Ministry of Truth ?
THE internet is stuffed with garbage. Anti-vaccination websites make the front page of Google, and fact-free “news” stories spread like wildfire. Google has devised a fix – rank websites according to their truthfulness.
Google’s search engine currently uses the number of incoming links to a web page as a proxy for quality, determining where it appears in search results. So pages that many other sites link to are ranked higher. This system has brought us the search engine as we know it today, but the downside is that websites full of misinformation can rise up the rankings, if enough people link to them.
A Google research team is adapting that model to measure the trustworthiness of a page, rather than its reputation across the web. Instead of counting incoming links, the system – which is not yet live – counts the number of incorrect facts within a page. “A source that has few false facts is considered to be trustworthy,” says the team (arxiv.org/abs/1502.03519v1). The score they compute for each page is its Knowledge-Based Trust score.
The software works by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, the vast store of facts that Google has pulled off the internet. Facts the web unanimously agrees on are considered a reasonable proxy for truth. Web pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings
Q. GSK mined discussion boards for more sales revenue ?
GlaxoSmithKline PLC scoured parent sites with text analytics software to learn more on the concerns parents have about vaccines.
The U.K. pharmaceutical company used text analytics to analyze public discussion boards on BabyCenter.com and WhattoExpect.com, to learn what factors motivate parents to either go ahead or delay vaccinating their children for diseases like measles and mumps, said Dominic Hein, executive director of the company unit that plans new vaccines. The two month project, conducted last year, collected only anonymized excerpts and topics from posts, and no user identities, the company said
Neither parents nor administrators of these sites were aware that Glaxo was monitoring their conversations, but the pharmaceutical company says it needed to learn which concerns were causing parents to delay vaccinating their children – a key factor in the rise in incidences of these childhood diseases, it said. “When you go into the public forums, that’s where this conversation is taking place,” Mr. Hein said. “And by listening to what our customers say to each other we can better understand their needs.”
Throughout it’s entire history as a country, dating from 1776, the US has been at war all but 21 years.
Quite an impressive achievement.
Make war, not love!
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/make-war-not-love-in-its-whole-history-usa-only-not-at-war-for-21-years/
Just had a quick look at a link off the bottom of that piece – loonwatch.com. Could be one worth keeping an eye on.
From the US anthem -Star Spangled Banner
“And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,”
A thanksgiving prayer:
https://vimeo.com/32820037
There is a certain logic to NZ involvement in Iraq.
This country’s ruling elite have always been aggressive little imperialists – in fact in the late 1800s NZ had a reputation as the “little Prussia of the South Pacific”.
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/no-to-all-western-military-intervention-in-the-middle-east/
Phil
Sad that Andrew Little the Labour Party leader also seems to be ignorant….wish I hadn’t voted for him now…and my Labour Party membership is as soft as a rotten marshmellow …thinking abut joining the Greens
“Labour’s mistake on US bombing in Iraq”
By Keith Locke / March 2, 2015
“If Andrew Little studied the history of US bombing missions in the Middle East he would have to admit that Dunne and Norman are right……”
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/03/02/labours-mistake-on-us-bombing-in-iraq/
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/03/03/anything-key-can-bomb-little-can-bomb-better-labour-can-bomb-better-than-you/
It’s highly unfortunate.
Excellent left economist Michael Roberts examines the state of the world economy and suggests it’s not going to get better:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/11106/
In New Zealand, this seems the ‘best’ that is on offer: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/low-pay-longer-hours-and-less-social-mobility/
Phil
Drug makers control the data derived from the efficacy and safety studies that they fund
In the last three decades, the FDA has become increasingly dependent for its continued functioning upon user fees paid by the very drug makers it’s meant to regulate. Meanwhile, a lack of government funding for research and development has made consumers entirely dependent upon private industry for new drugs — which means that safety and efficacy standards are perennially weighed against the demands of a corporation’s bottom line
Drug makers control the data derived from the efficacy and safety studies that they fund (making the suppression of unflattering data all too easy), and have, for well over a decade now, had a government-facilitated way to communicate directly — and, again, selectively — with the public through direct to consumer advertising. Not only is the United States all but alone in the world (along with New Zealand) in permitting direct marketing of prescription drugs to consumers, it actually encourages such commercially-biased public “education” through tax breaks.
I’m sure this complex highly monied system has patients and practitioners best interests at heart through the incorruptible virtues of science, why be so concerned? /sarc
Financial ratings companies rely on fees from financial institutions for thier existence while the regulatory agencies funding is cut and staffed with insiders
Q. What could posaibly go wrong with that model in healthcare ?
AAA+
Still humping that strawman?
None so blind as the truly faithful.
🙄
The reason we have peer review is because there is no such thing as incorruptible virtue. I note that GSK were fined for marketing drugs for “unapproved uses”. I further note that the case against them was the result of whistleblowers coming forward, and also relied heavily on scientific evidence.
You might as well blame corruption on the water in the swimming pool. After all, people swim in it!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/
Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals
The article only deals with the process of peer review as a guide to whether a paper is worthy of immediate publication.
It takes longer than that. Publication fosters debate, time degrades generational prejudice, bias and other corruptions. For example, Gravity Probe B supports the theory of general relativity, and a quantum eraser shows that Einstein was wrong to oppose Bohr.
Hold the faith, hold the faith, hold the faith
BTW physics is an actual science; medicine is largely commercially applied for-profit technology. World of difference.
Whatever.
I’ve experienced good results from Chiropractic treatment. Your drivel makes me wonder if it was all the placebo effect.
Could be. If the placebo effect helps someone’s condition, then it is not something I shy from. Over half the effect of any medical drug can typically be ascribed to the “placebo effect” (whatever that actually is).
Do placebos normally make that much noise? Is it like Pavlov? A secret machine that makes a large cracking sound and that relaxes the piriformis muscle?
even if that were true, it’s the other half that doesn’t depend entirely on faith. That’s what the placebo does.
It’s buggerall to do with science. It’s corporate behaviour and the corruption of political representatives.
Are you suggesting that scientists are more virtuous than other groups of humans?
The scientific method is an attempt to counter the fact that they aren’t.
I don’t believe that and I’d be surprised if you do.
Let me be clear: scientists are no more virtuous than other people.
The requirements that they propose falsifiable hypotheses and must be able to produce replicable results, are an attempt to counter that fact.
cf. Pauli, Popper.
PS: why be surprised? It would only indicate that I am ignorant. A condition we all share, etc etc.
He’s right, whether you believe it or not. What do you understand by “the scientific method”?
Science is not the people who do it. The people who do science are living in a fucked up society, just like everyone else. They have therefore thought up an imperfect framework to try and preserve science from their own baser instincts. Pharmaceutical company executives have done no such thing. They profit from giving free reign to their baser instincts and must be constrained by heavy regulation.
Tom Englehart has a post worth reading on alternet.org:
10 Things America Must Do To Stop Ruining the World.
John Key’s banking history is a gift that keeps on giving!
Merrill Lynch And HSBC Have Been Advising On Derivatives, Pioneered By John Key, Since 2000. Yep, While He Was Still A Banker with Merrill Lynch!
And what is wrong with advising on derivatives?
Jesus Christ had something to say about that
vto 😆 yep! Read the article cowboy hat boy!
I did. Despite it being quite impeneratable as far as I can tell it made no link to derivatives and tax evasion or John Key.
For those of you who want a fully linked and well documented post on the subject of NHBC and their criminal activities go to either my blog or too corp watch were I found the article on the subject.
Also I never suggested that John Key was up to his neck in this shit as I have no proof and don’t want to be taken to court for libel or other nasty stuff. Neither would I want to subject the Standard to any risks.
[lprent: Thank you.]
You at least accept you have no evidence linking John Key to this. Which I suppose is a start. However I am not seeing any link between tax evasion and derivatives either so the rest of your post is just as flimsy.
Key’s PR says he had nothing to do with it, even though he was in senior management, in the same office, at the same time as the wolves of wall street were pillaging Main St and plunging the world into the GFC
It isn’t Key’s fault: his invisible ethics are the reason he was promoted.
Key the man may not of been involved but key the trader or key the dodgy guy in the next office may of been it would depend on which hat he was wearing.
I do have proof that John Key was lying about his involvement with the attack on the NZ in October 1987 and was working with Andrew Krieger while doing so and that he was involved in the “new” financial products now collapsing the system. I saved the archives pieces and the paper trail proving these issues.
I send them to Eugene Bingham and the NZ Herald and called Eugene Bingham a liar and a disgrace to journalism. I hoped they would start a libel case on that bases but instead they removed all reference or five online pages of the “unauthorised” biography detailing his banking career. The attacks on currencies, being the boss of the department developing all those new products, him gallivanting around the world selling this shit to pension funds all the while knowing it would one day collapse. All gone from the mainstream media. I wonder why?
Here is the article I wrote in December 2008 detailing his banking career in a real unauthorised fashion
That is full of conjecture and outright fantasy on your part.
No he didn’t.
Yes, he did. He threw the bankers out of the temple and a week later they crucified him!
I’m sure that derivative traders would have been kinder than the money lenders /sarc
No, he threw the money changers out of the temple presinct.
Jerusalem was a major pilgrimage site (in fact this was the reason Jesus and his disciples were there for the passover). As a result there was a need for people to exchange various currencies. This is not the same as banking.
The temple presinct was a large space that was dedicated to religious tourism. Indeed it was one of the reasons Herod the Great massively expanded it. Only the temple itself and especially the holy of hollies was deemed completely sacred.
Oh my God, You’re an Hasbara shill!
Usury was the basis for Jesus’s calling the money changers thieves: “The commerce of the world is conducted on principles as much at variance with the teachings of the master, as are the practices of a sneak thief or burglar. So the Master taught, as with whip of cords, he indignantly drove its representatives, from the sacred precincts of the Temple, denouncing them as thieves. Every well-informed mind knows that the money changers in the Temple, on that startling occasion, were at the very centre of the Jewish Banking system, and of the pitiless and grinding commerce of Palestine.”
I don’t think FJK pioneered derivatives. They have been around in various forms since ancient times. He may have been a pioneer of their misuse and giving bad advice. He’s more like a conman than a pioneer.
See my response to Cowboy hat boy above!
Good news for IT contractors in Wellington
New child support scheme blows out to $163 million
This dwarfs Novopay, INCIS, Auckland Supercity.
How does the Nactoid government make such enormous screwups?
By slashing “back office” staff who had the institutional knowledge to prevent these sort of disasters!
PS: More mismanagement at the Commerce Commission, screwing us again
The same way their philosophy and policies led directly to Pike River deaths, Solid Energy failures, GFC disaster, leaky homes, the list is endless ………..
I think they all make the mistake of believing their own bullshit.
As commented above by tinfoilhat
just think of what impact those funds would have had if actually spent on child support itself rather than a fancy computer system.
As always no one will be held to account and the consultants will all be able to buy themselves new mercedes.
Nactional has a real cultural problem of forcing through quick and dirty changes without proper consultation, planning or quality control. Witness Christchurch CBD, SkyCity/Nat HQ, jumping in to Iraq, and any number of their rushed half-arsed projects and obnoxious legislation.
See also:
http://thestandard.org.nz/nationals-ict-failures/
As the saying goes: There’s always a simple answer that’s wrong.
National always goes for that simple answer.
and we are supposed to trust them with a TPPA and RMA reform … ha bloody ha ha.
Not to mention that one of the amendments to the Child support act and the calculators is to exclude mony in trusts and companies ( although they are included for such things as working for families) so that they do not go into the calculation. So wealthy people can continue to hide money from their kids in trust and companies and the rest of us wind up paying. I’d like to see that one voted down in parliament.
and the blow out is about 3 times the annual child support collected.
Former UK diplomat: western media propaganda over Nemtsov assassination
Dr William Mallinson PhD speaks to Russia Today:
NB Russia Today is (well) funded by the Russian Government.
http://rt.com/op-edge/236749-nemtsov-murder-west-media-provocation/
Funnily enough a correspondant on Morning Report today suggested something very similar in that he thought that Putin wasn’t behind the assasination as it didn’t suit him to get rid of this person in such a blatent manner. The correspondant agreed that he has encouraged a political environment where people are likely to take matters in to their own hands.
That’s about right; not only are murder rates the highest in Europe, corruption is rife in Russia and corrupt officials or jilted business associates could easily have been involved in the killing. The smooth audacity of it just outside the walls of the Kremlin leads one to think it was a professional hit. And the young woman he was walking with survived without a scratch. Very unusual.
And he was thinking of getting a taxi, but she wanted to walk across the bridge.
They shot him in the back so he never got to see the whites of their eyes, and neither did she. But what a convenient choice to perambulate, for the purpose eh? And an ambulance ride after.
She also said on Russian TV that she was walking in front of him and didn’t see anything about the shooting or the shooter.
I agree with your implication however – the killers knew that he was going to be at that location at that time. You don’t shoot someone just outside the Kremlin walls on happenchance.
Who would benefit from seeing Putin portrayed as he is being portrayed over this murder? …. that be the direction to go in ….
+100…my thoughts too ….and Putin has plenty of enemies ….some of whom want Russia’s oil corporatised by Western companies
I think western governments need to rapidly ramp up defence spending in light of the new ‘Russia threat’ and Putin’s “volatility”. Whoops answered your question.
We need to send troops to Ukraine. It’d be gutless not to. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing.
and John key has the most guts of all
my forehead is getting sore from the head-desking
Shame on you. You should be more concerned about what it is doing to your neck.
😈
physician heal thy self!!! 😛
This forum is so much more rewarding without PG Tips. thank you.
Wow,time for a change. I’ve been wanting to try Fairtrade – tea.
+1 Sacha. We should try and do some good with the month.
Seems to be happening already. Marvellous.
What happened to his royal greyness?
Banned for a month for giving TRP shit as an author. Would have gotten a longer ban but TRP was winding him up.
I must remember to only give TRP shit as a warmongering lackey of imperialism. As an author, he is beyond reproach.
Actually a pretty good summary of the basics of how it operates.
I don’t like the personal attacks because that is what drives authors from writing posts. It tends to be like doing a thesis or a program. If people have been having a go at you then any distraction will stop you. Sometimes you just give up.
But you can have a go at what they write. Generally that just encourages them to write more effectively next time.
You will note that when I have to intervene, I try to ensure that the commenter causing me the aggravation gets exactly the same kind of in your face unfair crap that they have been handing out. I find that this dissuades them from wanting to write that way again as well. Unfortunately they seldom seem to get the irony.
I love the Russian saying that every joke has a grain of joke in it.
Ha! Get a haircut, hippy 😉
To be fair to PG, he hasn’t overreacted to the ban. Just the three posts on the matter so far today over on YawnNZ.
PG’s nactoid mates are over at YawnNZ helping to reinforce his confirmation bias and martyr complex.
“TS is teh suck bro!” “ya bro they is all rude and stuff” etc.
reddelusion comments at the beige corner? I never knew…
at least “redelusion” makes a slight effort to see what those mad Lefties are raving about (and share his/her dubious wisdom). PG’s cronies are too bigoted and lazy to make any effort whatsoever, or have an original thought.
At least PG is sane enough not to buy into the left/right puppet theater like you do.
At the end of the day they all swear or affirm allegiance to a foreign Commander in Chief.
“PG is sane enough…” – say what?!
yeah maybe I am a sucker for thinking democracy might actually work. whereas (judging by your link) you seem to prefer theocracy?
newsflash: your ideology failed 600 years ago, thank Voltaire.
Weirdly, weka, PG, who claims to be not the least bit bothered by the ban, has written a fourth post on it. In it he writes:
“TRP wasn’t winding me up.”
Given that admission, I guess Lprent’s generous decision to make it only a month instead of a year should probably be reconsidered 😉
Thanks te reo putake – best giggle of the day
““TRP wasn’t winding me up.”
Given that admission, I guess Lprent’s generous decision to make it only a month instead of a year should probably be reconsidered 😉 “
😀
I think the dim loser may get to double figures on this series of pathetic posts – really pete is so useless only pity can help him. onya TRP 🙂
“his royal greyness”
beige, please 🙂
He’s like the blue dress.
the opposite of golden
It’s good to see Greypower behaving responsibly and giving thought and taking part in public policy discussion and action on matters affecting all NZs. This link is on getting better public transport around Auckland on the front desk and putting on the bac desk, autobans and flash new roads.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11410925
edited
Rachel Stewart asks whether Little and Labour will make the paradigm shift required to create jobs that work in a sustainable future.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/opinion/66820649/Worlds-changing-fast-MPs-need-to-get-on-board
What does everyone think of compulsory voting in NZ like Aussie has?
I’d prefer it if voters had to pass some sort of test to prove they were competent.
Yep. How about a historically proven tried and true test for ‘electoral competence’.
1) White.
2) Male.
3) Christian.
4) Owns at least an acre of property.
I was more hoping “people that are smart enough not to vote against their own best interests”.
so none of the national voters get to play next time around? Same counts for
Act and the those that voted for Peter fukcn Dunne?
i am cool with that.
I’m provisionally supportive as long as its applied to local body elections, and is accompanied by serious effort at education and outreach eg civics classes in schools, free civics classes for adults, much better access to how our political processes work etc. It would need to be promoted in ways that enabled people to engage where they want to, otherwise it’s just a stick.
Kiaora Michael
I have a problem with compulsory voting. It generally means fines having to be paid by those that can least afford to pay them – the disaffected, the dispossessed, the disenchanted, and the disenfranchised. From my understanding of the Australian system, its mandatory to turn up to a polling booth but there is no requirement to actually vote.
The main argument for mandatory voting appears to be that it will increase the level of participation by the the disaffected, the dispossessed, the disenchanted, and the disenfranchised so that their views will filter through into policy decisions and make for a stronger democracy.
I have yet to see that happening in Australia which continues to have a significant minority of the disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised especially amongst aboriginal peoples. Australia is regarded as one of the most racist countries in the world so hardly a model of virtue for us to follow in terms of democracy.
Yes and you can see daylight thru Key on that one
Adele, bugger all Aussies get fined and the fines are small, from memory, $20-200 depending on the circ’s. Only a small percentage get prosecuted and it’s usually political activists with an axe to grind who have publicised their refusal to vote.
Kiaora, Te Reo Putake
$20 is actually a lot to someone who doesn’t have any money. But regardless of the amount of the fine why do those who espouse a war on poverty readily endorse a punitive regime which just creates more crap for poor people to contend with.
We are also basically saying to the disaffected, the dispossessed, the disenchanted, and the disenfranchised that they are to blame for the failure of democracy. I rather think that democracy has failed them.
Seriously? In the modern world it is ridiculously easy to register and a matter of minutes to vote. It’s not a poverty issue. Should we also make registering cars optional? Dogs? Voting is no harder than those compulsory things and a lot cheaper.
Weird how you think democracy is just more crap. Should it be restricted to just the middle class and above?
Kiaora, Te Reo Putake
Yes, seriously.
I live in the Eastern Bay of Plenty which has a deprivation index of 10, alongside Northland. People live without power here, so getting “online” is a really big issue for some. They also drive warrant-less and unregistered cars, and have unregistered dogs.
And yes, people much like you, with no understanding of how the other half live, continue to view them as dysfunctional and stupid people. Do fines change behaviour? No, they simply extract $5 a week from a benefit.
There is a huge cohort of people that cannot engage with the modern world because the modern world is far too expensive, exclusive, white, and populated by the ignorant, arrogant and mean spirited.
My point is, if we want to improve voting, give them something to vote for. Don’t immediately resort to creating another law which will most likely punish only those at the sharp end of a sanctimonious rod.
What a load of pompous tosh, Adele. Your patronising attitude toward the poor, suggesting they are incapable of even getting registered let alone voting is hopelessly bourgeois. They actually have plenty of disadvantaged people in Oz too, y’know, but they’ve made it work.
But keep on telling yourself you know best. The poor can keep themselves protected from the chill this winter by snuggling up to the warm glow of your smugness.
Kiaora Te Reo Putake
The only pompous tosser in this conversation is you. I suppose your idea of a poor person is someone that can’t afford a holiday to Hawaii.
They actually have plenty of disadvantaged people in Oz too, y’know, but they’ve made it work.)
Yes, we have some of those people here too. Paula Bennett and John Key readily spring to mind.
You are such an ideologue that you’d happily piss on the dignity of the disaffected, the dispossessed, the disenchanted, and the disenfranchised – all for their own good, of course.
Its your type of thinking that is killing any good notion of democracy. Bashing the minority over the head with your moral rigidity and rectitude – all for their own good, of course.
I thoroughly recommend that you pack your rectitude in a leak proof nappy and visit firsthand how mandatory voting works for aboriginal peoples in Australia. Go to the back-blocks and preach to them how they can “make it work.”
Adele, you’re are talking absolute bollocks. Middle class know it alls like you are despised by the people you talk down to. People can and do make up their own mind about whether to vote no matter what pseudo intellectuals like you think their situation is and what their response should be.
As for Koori culture, I’ve lived it. I know a fair bit about it from having lived in their communities in both urban areas and the bush. That includes a relationship with someone most white Aussies wouldn’t even share a table with. That doesn’t mean I have a right to speak for them, but it sure as hell gives me more insight than you’ve shown on this thread.
Your ignorance is matched only by your superciliousness. Get your head out of your arse.
Kiaora Te Reo Putake
As for Koori culture, I’ve lived it. I know a fair bit about it from having lived in their communities in both urban areas and the bush. That includes a relationship with someone most white Aussies wouldn’t even share a table with.
I would have been more impressed if you had simply said, “I know what its like to be disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised as I regularly volunteer at the local soup kitchen once a month.”
Instead, you drag a relationship with an aboriginal woman into the limelight as a beacon of light onto your virtuous nature and innate understanding of their circumstances. That is hugely disrespectful to her.
And by doing so you are implying that your knowledge is tainted with expertise on aboriginal matters. A Tui moment..
That doesn’t mean I have a right to speak for them, but it sure as hell gives me more insight than you’ve shown on this thread.
It gives you no such insight as you still come across as profoundly ignorant. Within my worldview there are non-Maori who have lived amongst us mai rānō, yet they still remain as ignorant as Cook, on the day that he landed.
It also beggars belief that you can live amongst peoples so wounded by legislation and regulation and yet still say that “it works for them.”
Yeah, more middle class bullshit, Adele. You clearly haven’t got a clue what its like to be disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised, but you don’t mind being patronising about it. I guess you’re not going to take your head out of your arse because you admire the view.
Perhaps if we could include in the voting – a “None of the above” option. Those who are not represented can meet their civic requirement without having to officially support a party that is not representing them.
Like you, would not like to see the coercion of a between a rock and a hard place in terms of voting choices, or a punitive consequence for those already vulnerable and hurting.
Kiaora Te Reo Putake
Yeah, more middle class bullshit, Adele. You clearly haven’t got a clue what its like to be disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised, but you don’t mind being patronising about it. I guess you’re not going to take your head out of your arse because you admire the view.
Again, you are showing your profound ignorance. If I am middle class what does that make you? Landed gentry? However, I won’t resort to your tactic of pulling an aborigine out of a hat to prove that “I really do know what I am talking about”
By and large, Māori, predominantly, are the disaffected, dispossessed, disenchanted, and disenfranchised minority in this society.
I am Ngāti Awa. We had our lands confiscated in 1866, something like 245,000 acres. The economic base that we had established for ourselves was completely destroyed due to land loss and deliberate destruction by Crown forces.
Our people were robbed and left landless, homeless and in poverty. Many still exist today in this oasis of bleakness. And everyday we bear witness to our disenfranchisement and dispossession when walking, driving, or being towed past, the flash homes built on stolen coast lands.
But by your reckoning mandatory voting will make everything sweet again. True democracy will reign supreme. Te Tiriti o Waitangi will drive legislative changes. Indefeasibility of Title will be overturned. And Stolen lands will be returned.
I would offer another Tui but the beers of choice here are Lion Red and Waikato. And my arse does in fact have a very nice view as it is sitting on the whenua of my whakapapa. I am indeed privileged in that respect.
I won’t comment further on this matter.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/66869632/new-zealands-biggest-killer-billboard-replaced-with-john-key-sketch
Heart Foundation head of marketing Vanessa Winning said employees and volunteers were upset the billboard has been used for political protest.
“It’s really disappointing that a charity is being targeted to score political points,” she said.
“I find it unthinkable that someone would vandalise our billboard, and consequently mock a seriously crippling disease, just to make a political statement.”
The left back up to its usuall tricks again
[lprent: Haven’t I seen you in previous comments in years past complaining about the left’s “lack of humour” when those scallywags of the right attacked Helen, Cunliffe, Turei, and just about everyone else for things like signing paintings for charity.
Yet here you whine about something that is genuinely funny, probably pretty difficult to do, and you whining for what are transparently simple political motives.
Go figure. Just another hypocrite? Or have I confused you with someone else?
But I will put the image up…]
You think its funny, I don’t and thats cool but in this instance don’t you think its a bit shitty to do this to a charities billboard?
Or is it ok they may get less donations as long as it attacks John Key?
lol…biggest laugh i have had all day!….and I support the Heart Foundation…i am sure this won’t hurt them !
laughter is good exercise for the heart
+100
What makes you think it will get less donations?
They might get more donations. I feel inspired by the poster.
Me too 🙂 Possibly not the intended reaction but well worth a few dollars for the chuckle alone
If the Heart Foundation intended on being apolitical, they wouldn’t have put up a 2m tall picture of John Key.
Why would they get fewer donations? I thought everyone in NZ loved John Key and therefore a billboard with his picture on it will surely result in more donations?
How do we know that it wasn’t Key himself who plastered his face up there?
This is free election advertising! Will Key stop at nothing to spread his personality cult!?
The left back up to its usuall tricks again.
Oh the irony… Dirty Politics anyone?
Totally agree, Pukish. ACT on Campus really need to stop their childish pranks. It’s not big and it’s not funny.
bwahahahahahahahah
the truth shall set ye free
considering that Dear Leader cut funds for the Obesity Action Foundation in 2009 to 0 this billboard is actually very acurate.
Quote from our favority stenographers the Herald:
The Government has lopped another limb off Labour’s “bureaucratic” public health tree, ending state funding for the Obesity Action Coalition.
The coalition, created under Labour in 2003 to promote measures to reduce obesity, confirmed yesterday it would close within months of its state contract ending on June 30, unless it could find new sources of cash.
This follows National’s permission to schools in February to resume regular sales of unhealthy foods and drinks, overturning a rule introduced last year by Labour. The new Government is also scrapping the roles of district health board staff who helped schools and early childhood centres implement the healthy food and drink guidelines underpinning the Labour rule. Quote end.
Quote: The Health Ministry is the main source of income for the Obesity Action Coalition, which represents more than 70 organisations, including the National Heart Foundation and the Cancer Society. Quote end.
actions and consequences…..:)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10574539
Puckish Rogue.
Light hearted humour.
This has probably given the heart foundation a lot more free publicity no doubt Key will benefit as well.
It could be made better. Lots of reasons why it’s not, including long standing denial from the science heads.
Starts tomorrow – be amazed, be proud, be there – if you can
http://www.tematatini.co.nz/
This is us – the real Aotearoa, the people, the place and the history – this is the real us.
I am hoping to be there for at least part of it, Marty but some child related issues may nix it.
Kia kaha Otautahi, me nga roopu no Te Wai Pounamu hoki. Karawhuia 🙂
Wimpo Key does it again from guts and glory to “I dont think tourists should have their Keys taken by another driver” he forgot to qualify his position that the incident was directed by the police for it to be done
How you going to slip out of that one Key? whose fault is it now? got you
Can someone please remove the Key from government?
It is driving NZ the wrong way, too fast, and off a cliff.
A sore nose would also be well deserved.
Just saw this and thought I’d shear a very funny trademe listing.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=853742747
So body will complain and have it taken down soon – but worth a good giggle – the title anyway.
lol…looks like a good game to play with kids or after a party (instead of scrabble or monopoly)
‘
Teina Pora’s conviction has just been quashed by the Privvy Council.
Just saw that. Good news to end the day with.
Hope his compensation process is dealt with speedily and compassionately.
Well, there’s a process to go through, but there does seem to be a pretty good case that he had absolutely nothing to do with it (and that between unrecorded conversations,, 14th-hour “confessions”, and paid witness testimony, he should never even have been charged). That, and the actual murderer was found, usually acted alone, and was in an opposing gang so they were hardly likely to be buddies.
Thanks for that BLiP. There’s some good news there. But so many years of life wasted.
Great. I don’t see how they could have done anything else. This episode shows that we still need the Privy Council because we can’t get over our own systemic racism.
In a just world, the cops who I believe fitted him up should go to jail. I know he made it easy for them, but the prevailing attitude at the Otahuhu Station was that two people getting done for a one man crime was better than only one getting done, and three would be even better. They would have creamed their knickers when they saw how suggestible he was. They played him like a fiddle.
As for Malcolm Rewa, my understanding is that he was a police informant and not a lot of effort was put into trying to apprehend him as long as he kept informing on his mates. I suspect that more than a few women got raped and Susan Burdett was raped and killed because a free Rewa was useful to the police. This was negligence of the first order and heads should roll. In fact, I think we need a Royal Commission into how so many unsafe convictions were entered in the last 30 years.
I also think we should have a prosecutions service independent of the police and our magistrates should be inquisitorial rather than just choosing between two sets of lies. We need to do a lot better, especially when we look at what some cops and ex cops have been getting up to.
Kia kaha, Teina Pora. May we stop such injustice from happening again.
Good to see the incompetent and complete waste of time training Iraqi army with pro Sunni tribes and Shia militias working together to thow isis nut jobs out of tikrit. Only a week ago on this site this would never happen and training and supporting Iraq to free themselves of this inhuman cult was a complete waste of time to the so enlightened on this site. Boy I am glad you guys can get your rocks off here in virtual reality and are nobodies in the real world
You little stupid chicken hawk chicken shit head, you just defeated your own point. If What you are saying is true then clearly NZ is not needed in the area to defeat ISIS, we are being lied to, so why the fuck are we going.
lol I’m glad you could figure out what rd’s point was – to me it just seemed to be a pastiche of random rabies-froth.
I had to turn off 3/4 of my brain and contort what was left of it back to front in order to do so; am glad you appreciated the effort.
We seriously need better wingnuts.
I am glad you have the guts to save us Redelusion. Have you seen American Sniper yet? It will be so cool to go back to Iraq and blow away the ragheads!! Rah rah #teamkey we want drones, bombs, and blood spatters all over the Middle East.
You’re a fucken hero Red.
(/sarc, fyi)
PS: If anyone’s getting their rocks off it is morally retarded warmongering dickheads like you, who think going to war is an XBox game.
You left out the Iranians, Reddelusion.
Iran took a leading role in the Iraqi military’s largest offensive yet to reclaim territory from Islamic State, throwing drones, heavy weaponry and ground forces into the battle while the U.S. remained on the sidelines.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iraqs-military-begins-campaign-to-reclaim-tikrit-1425287398