So suddenly, Soft on Terror John Key can’t bring himself to detain or even name the terrorists, who he says are at large in NZ or in terrorist training camps in Yemen.
(Something the security services had no problems with in the Ururewa, with even less alleged cause. What was the explanation then? “We have to act before they do, do something.” What did leading police officers say? “The public would never forgive us is something did occur and we had not acted” Blah, blah, blah.).
If he feels he can’t bring himself to arrest these “terrorists”. There is nothing stopping John Key from acting to name and shame them. It is the very least he could do.
What is he worried about?
Is he worried that these “terrorists” might sue him for defamation?
That in fact they aren’t terrorists at all?
More likely they are government opponents like TPPA activists and environmentalists acting quite legally within the law to oppose government policies they disagree with.
If they really are terrorists, (which I doubt). If we all knew who they were. These “terrorists” would be so constrained as to be unable to act or go anywhere without being recognised.
Probably the worst thing about John Key raising these fear mongering allegations of terrorists being at large in New Zealand without naming them. Is that he is putting many innocent Islamic and Middle Eastern residents and citizens in this country under a cloud of suspicion.
Come on John Key stop protecting terrorists in our midst. Name Them!
It is a shame that the concern that John Key has for the civil liberties of Terrorists does not extend to the rest of us. The suppression of the right to protest at sea. The plan to allow the collection of Metadata on all New Zealanders exposes a contempt for civil liberties. Contempt for everyone’s civil liberties, except of course for his touching concern for the civil liberties of terrorists.
Talking about being soft on terror. David Shearer goes soft on John Key.
With John Key’s allegations of terrorists in our midst. Here was David Shearer’s chance to skewer John Key but he refused to do it.
The Labour Leader who could be privy to information on whether John Key is lying or not. Refuses to tell.
Labour leader David Shearer would not confirm whether he had been briefed about an al-Qaeda presence in New Zealand,…..
Rebecca Quillam, Claire Trevett NZ Herald
A simple question. It deserves a simple answer.
What’s with this David Shearer?
Why is he protecting John Key’s credibility?
Depending on what he had, or had not been told in briefings, the number of possible options that David Shearer could give to this question, taking into account security matters, are limited.
No, I have not been briefed on this matter.
Yes, I have been briefed on this matter, and can tell the public that the Prime Minister is correct there are terrorists at large in New Zealand.
Yes, I have been briefed on this matter, and can tell the public that the Prime Minister is wrong in saying that there are terrorists at large in New Zealand.
David Shearer explained his refusal to answer the question, saying his talks with the security services are in confidence and he would not break that.
What a dereliction of duty as an opposition MP.
Shearer’s excuse for not answering the question, is so weak as to be no excuse at all.
None of the three possible answers breach national security. (Though they might breach National’s security)
If David Shearer has been briefed by the security services, that there are Al Qaeda operatives at large in New Zealand, he would not be revealing anything that the Prime Minister had not already publicly divulged.
So why can’t he answer the question?
The only other possible reason apart from national security is, that David Shearer can’t answer. He is incapable of answering.
This inability to answer even simple questions under pressure, will prove to be disastrous if David Shearer is ever to go head to head in an election debate with John Key.
Jenny – can you put up the link, or URL, to the comments from David Shearer about ………
” John Key’s allegations of terrorists in our midst. Here was David Shearer’s chance to skewer John Key but he refused to do it.
The Labour Leader who could be privy to information on whether John Key is lying or not. Refuses to tell.
Labour leader David Shearer would not confirm whether he had been briefed about an al-Qaeda presence in New Zealand,…..”
Good one Jenny.
Key and Shearer are brothers in arms.
I am sure they are both terrorised by the prospect of the working class rising up and expropriating their wealth.
That is something that has been carefully concealed over the last few centuries – all the wealth in the country belongs to the people. It doesn’t belong to the corporations or the government.
@ Jenny
Read the parliamentary debate for Wednesday (I think it was), better yet watch it and you will see why Mr Shearer has responded the way he has in the article you link to.
He stated with a great deal of passion, (that is often sorely missing from his presentations), that if there really were people doing what Key said there was in NZ, that he considered it downright dangerous and irresponsible for Key to have said so. He considered Key’s actions as creating a threat to security to speak, because if such ‘elements’ exist it is giving them information that they are known by the intelligence agencies and being spied on. He said it was an incredibly ‘dumb’ thing to do.
It is clear, therefore, the Mr Shearer would play down any opportunity to do the same by confirming such threats.
I agree with a lot of what you have expressed in your comments above, however, take care to be accurate in your accusations, otherwise your position, which I consider to be expressing valid concerns over the motivation of our politicians, can be seriously weakened/discredited by the ‘elements’ in our society that wish to leave us all in a fearful and unquestioning state so that their interests are met and ours aren’t.
He stated with a great deal of passion, (that is often sorely missing from his presentations), that ifthere really were people doing what Key said there was in NZ, that he considered it downright dangerous and irresponsible for Key to have said so. He considered Key’s actions as creating a threat to security to speak, because if such ‘elements’ exist it is giving them information that they are known by the intelligence agencies and being spied on. He said it was an incredibly ‘dumb’ thing to do.
It is clear, therefore, the Mr Shearer would play down any opportunity to do the same by confirming such threats.
blue leopard
So David Shearer gets passionate about the need to hide the secret identities of terrorists alleged to be at large in our country. And he would do much the same as Key and play down confirming their identities with the public.
Ask yourself, Why?
It doesn’t surprise me that David Shearer supports John Key and the GCSB keeping the identity of alleged terrorists secret. It also doesn’t surprise me that David Shearer gets passionate about this, whereas he has never revealed passion or even joined up thinking about anything else.
Pardon me Blue but just as Colonel Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson gets passionate about keeping the truth away from the people he claims to be protecting, reveals his contempt for ordinary people. Similarly, so do Shearer and Key.
They may patronisingly claim that they are the only ones who can handle the truth.
But the arrogance and contempt they display for the public, the people they are paid to represent is encapsulated in the view ‘that we can’t handle the truth’ and that it best left to them to secretly decide who is a terrorist and who is not.
Personally I think it should be up to the public and the legal system. Not some secret unacountable bunch of spooks who seem to owe more loyalty to Washington than Wellington.
Any evidence of terrorism needs to be exposed and rooted out. Not kept hidden.
Most probably the real truth is that, the epithet of terrorist that they bestow on the people they have been illegally spying on would not stand up to any public scrutiny.
And that is the truth of why they seek to hide from us, the identities of those they have been spying on.
John Key and David Shearer may claim that we can’t handle the truth. But from what we have seen, the public could do a darn sight better job of handling the truth than they have shown.
@ Jenny
I don’t need to ask myself why; I can see the two possibilities for why this information isn’t shared. a. it doesn’t exist b. doing so blows the cover of any surveillance being conducted on such groups.
And due to the nature of your comments I was under the impression that perhaps you hadn’t heard the more indepth response from Shearer, in which I believe Shearer provided a reasonable explanation for why he wouldn’t discuss such things via the media.
I agree re legal system needs to decide re terrorists* or not; Do they not?
*I really don’t consider ‘terrorist’ a useful term at all; it has been well over-used and should have been made obsolete 10 years ago.
I don’t buy into the whole ‘terrorist’ thing, considering it largely an attempt to keep us all in fear. If there are people out there furious with Western interests, it isn’t surprising; what is more surprising is that there aren’t more of them.
If he feels he can’t bring himself to arrest these “terrorists”. There is nothing stopping John Key from acting to name and shame them. It is the very least he could do.
Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty?
Is he worried that these “terrorists” might sue him for defamation?
That and the fact that he’d be made to look a fool.
Is that he is putting many innocent Islamic and Middle Eastern residents and citizens in this country under a cloud of suspicion.
Divide and conquer – the normal National Party tactic. Pity it works so well.
They are finding these people guilty in secret with no right of response.
And if they really are terrorists, (which I suspect they are not), they are endangering us all, by hiding them from the public gaze.
If they had any real evidence that they were terrorists they would charge them. New Zealand’s Suppression of Terrorism law is very wide ranging and comprehensive, with a very low threshold of proof, even allowing “secret evidence” to be produced.
And by not naming them you admit that they are throwing a cloud of doubt over many innocent people, but you don’t make any point about this, other than it “works so well”. Do you support this or oppose it?
If you opposed it. You would be calling for the guilty to be named to let the innocent live without being suspects just because of their ethnicity or origin.
In an age when the icepack is thinning and shrinking due to climate change and opening up large swathes of dark open water where there used to be reflective ice starting a feedback effect. Is it that wise to try and speed up that process, by also physically attacking and breaking up the ice pack as well, exposing even more of the Arctic Ocean’s surface to the feedback effect of dark water over that of reflective ice?
Surely this is crazy.
No doubt the dozens of these long lanes of open water pathways cut across the pole, will be widened even further through the actions of storms .
That this is being done to help the passage of oil tankers seems even more crazy.
And that’s without even an oil spill. But what if there was an oil spill?
Would an oil slick stop the ice forming in the first place? And will all that dark oil also attract even more solar heating to the icepack?
It is like these people are deliberately out to wreck the planet.
I would see it more optimistically. Climate change is happening. Attempts to reduce emissions have failed abysmally, which was predictable. We should put more efforts into adapting. Opening up new sea lanes is one of the few positives.
Luckily NZ is one of the countries set to enjoy some benefits from climate change. Our emissions are tiny. We should do enough cosmetic things to stay sweet with trading partners, and then put our efforts into adapting. The Government has moved in the right direction with the ETS – it is there but it imposes almost no costs on the economy but we can still say to the rest of the world that we are doing something.
Next step should be more research on impacts on NZ and how we are going to cope. If we can start planning now the costs will be lower. Problem is people are short sighted.
Srylands are you going to be the one with the technical fix for humans so they can survive without oxygen?
You are several hot years behind the endgame. We are headed for extinction, not just in Kiwiland but Earthwise. http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/
Your comment: ‘Luckily NZ is one of the countries set to enjoy some benefits from climate change.’ is completely out of touch with reality! 🙁
“This is not “climate change”… that phrase is the innocuous little euphemism devised by the M$M to make the deadly threat sound as harmless as possible.
The name that accurately applies is “climate damage” – as Jeremy Grantham, the British manager of billions in funds has pointed out.
Remember – “damage” not “change”… this is not a shift in the weather, it’s a vicious disruption in the earth’s climate that is a severe existential threat to civilization as we know it.”
“Stronger winter winds, heavier rainfall and more droughts, they’re just some of the effects of climate change the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser is predicting by the turn of the next century.
The report by Sir Peter Gluckman also projects greater acidification of the seas, average temperatures to rise by 2 degrees by 2090 and at least two more droughts a year.
Now the report doesn’t suggest what should be done to tackle climate change….
Simon Mercep interviews Sir Peter Gluckman, Morning Report, Radio New Zealand
Listen to the full audio of the Simon Mercep’s interview with Sir Peter Here
Peter Gluckman is a public servant. People close to him have told me that he would say a lot more if he could. Specifically; As well as calling for the country to prepare to get ready to adapt to climate change, Gluckman would call for a extreme claw back in emissions.
Something which his parliamentary masters are deathly opposed to.
As we all know, both Labour and National are in support of more oil drilling, fracking and coal mining.
The last thing these political parties would allow, is for their top science adviser to publicly oppose their current policy direction.
But what Gluckman says on the government website is that New Zealand’s greatest contribution to fighting climate change will be symbolic.
“New Zealand is a small emitter by world standards – only emitting some 0.2% of global greenhouse gases. So anything we do as a nation will in itself have little impact on the climate – our impact will be symbolic, moral and political.”
That “symbolic” impact, needs to be something big, something great, something that will grab the world’s attention.
The most dangerous of all fossil fuels is coal. Worldwide coal contributes the largest percentage of anthropogenic carbon dioxide into the atmosphere NASA scientist and climatologist James Hansen famously said; “If we can’t stop coal it is all over for the climate”.
As both an example and a warning. New Zealand needs to completely shut down the coal industry. Not in ten years not in 5 years. But Now.
Our biggest contribution to fighting climate change will be to show the world that a modern industrial country can completely rid itself of coal from its economy and still maintain a decent standard of living.
Of all the industrialised countries we are already the least reliant on coal. If we can’t do it no one can.
New Zealand needs to be a test bed to show that with the right political will it can be done.
We once had a large and thriving asbestos mining and manufacturing industry. We successfully closed it down. We need to do the same for coal.
We led the world on votes for women. We led the world on anti-nuclear and anti-aparthied.
So this is how Armstrong explains the way journalists like him have spent a long time cheerleading Key and his government:
Thrown together in the rabbit warren which passes for the parliamentary complex – a veritable hothouse fuelled by rampant ego, unrequited ambition, never-ending rumour and constant intrigue – MPs and media nevertheless have to establish a degree of trust for their mutually parasitic relationship to function effectively.
That trust works on many levels, be it MPs feeling they can talk off-the-record confident they will not be shopped to their superiors, to journalists respecting embargoes, to Cabinet ministers not blocking the release of sensitive documents sought by media under the Official Information Act.
That trust can take a long time to establish. It can be destroyed in a matter of seconds.
Yes, regarding Mike Hosking, in his early days on ZB (could be 15 to 20 years ago), he was having a conversation with Paul Holmes and he high lighted the fact that he didn’t believe in reading widely, he simply didn’t believe in reading. I remember Holmes being disgusted by this admission. For me it explained everything about Hosking, I have never wasted my time listening to him, he is as thick as 2 short planks.
It goes without saying that journalists are by nature deeply suspicious of politicians and the motives which drive them – and vice versa.
It’s funny, I’ve never seen a NZ journalist who was at all suspicious of John Key. On the contrary, they tend to ascribe the best possible motives to him and cheerfully gush about what a great bloke and talented politician he is.
I think Armstrong lives in a fantasy-land of his own making where he is a journalist rather than a shill.
We can tick them off on our fingers……..the Fart Estate.
Caught only a bit of it on TV3 News last night but got the sense that even Potty@Gower had the teeth out. The hands were pretty animated too which doesn’t look good for the emperor sans vetements.
Any impressions from those who watched the whole thing ?
It goes without saying that journalists are by nature deeply suspicious of politicians and the motives which drive them
Says the John Key apologist and National Party spin-meister.
His reward from Key for making a more than reasonable fist of a job he never wanted…
Fist? Doesn’t he mean fuckup?
A head had to roll. The resignation of Geoff Thorn, the general manager of the Parliamentary Service, was deemed necessary to restore confidence in an administrative body which had long ago relinquished any confidence that both journalists and MPs might have placed in it.
More of the Blame Labour meme. After all, it couldn’t possibly be 5 years of National’s corruption and posting of their mates that could have caused the degradation of the public service.
Just a quick search revels the reach, which extends around the globe via Reuters/AP releases, who now control the narratives globally. Links above simply a brief selection, but the same was seen in OZ, Japan, Canadian press et al!
But wait on, what’s all this about, rebels with Imperialist supplied weapons preceding a dog whistle about AQ, regionally linked terror warnings !!! – Oh, I see how this works, and the more it happens, the greater the numbers who also see through this charade of BS!
It’s taken the mainstream a while to catch up then, i remember a few bitter little exchanges which took place in the pages of the Standard where some of us pointed out that US armed and funded ”rebels” were being poured into the Syrian conflict from surrounding Gulf states…
Of course you are correct – it is ‘good’ to see the machine in action if only to reconfirm the truth of their manipulation and creation of global narratives – thanks muzza.
While I appreciate that giving it oxygen repeatedly might not be seen as the best approach, it can cause some folk to shrink away and take a defeatist attitude, while others simply shrug it off, as if there is is nothing they can do, and get on with, getting on. Both of these are understandable response mechanisms, but it’s another response which I am hoping will eventuate..
Myself, I feel its best to keep such blatant activity front and center an often as required to reach as many people as is possible, based on my, still alive optimism in the human condition of “survival”, which will eventually lead to people rising up (peacefully but forcefully), and making it very clear, they will not tolerate the way the world/NZ is being run, we will not tolerate it, and will take back what has been stolen, from all of us!
That’s the primary reason I post the style of content that I regularly do!
Unrelared techy question. How do you stop mobile devices like my android pad from using the mobile theme as its painful and crashes chrome and samsungs built in browser.
I had a wonder this morning – what if a whole lot of once-Labour supporters pulled away at the next election and voted for Winston Peters to get someone who is as centre as present Labour and is a a better and more forceful speaker. Whether Labour won or lost wouldn’t matter, as the end would be the same as they would go into coalition. And it would be an option for those who don’t feel drawn to the Greens.
Labour is so damned complacent at the top with a reliable bunch of supporters who at present won’t go anywhere else. But Winston is better than what they have now, and No Worse despite any convolutions he may have been involved in. We’ll get as many from Labour elite.
I had a wonder this morning – what if a whole lot of once-Labour supporters pulled away at the next election and voted for Winston Peters
Analysis of booth by booth data show that is precisely what many thousands of (usually) Labour voters did in 2011. Those voters thought it through and did not want to see Winston coming in just under 5% again. Hopefully next time around he will have a more solid, less dick head party list behind him.
I think the more politically savvy are starting to use MMP in interesting ways. Wait until the threshold gets lowered to 2.5% or 3%. That’s when things are going to get bloody weird 🙂
How so? People that would otherwise vote Labour, but see NZF potentially dropping below 5%, who then vote NZF to keep them above the 5%, because they want NZF to keep Labour inline, but knowing that NZF might form govt with NACT. Bit of a crap shoot isn’t it?
Don’t like playing with crap weka. But often get that feeling of mixing with the real stuff when reading politicians guff. So if I’m to be covered in it when they follow their preferred routes mixing them up and giving them a scare would be no worse. Getting an agreement from Winston to go to Labour would be necessary. He would consider it because he is politically centrist, doesn’t have to go to NACT.
“Getting an agreement from Winston to go to Labour would be necessary”
Rt, Peters has categorically stated at every election that he won’t say before the election who he will go with. It’s his special thing. Why would he change now?
Brand new players in the political party eco-system (or perhaps ressurection of old ones like the Alliance or Democrats for Social Credit).
When MMP was first introduced some detractors said that voters would be confused if there were more than two or three parties to vote on. In fact, its now been proven that NZers cope very well with the situation.
Someone’s saying – Don’t get lost in the shuffle, shuffle along with the lost. It has to be accepted that a good percentage of people never understand what systems drive the parameters of their lives, and that there are alternatives. A small percentage have little idea at all, just feelings that something’s wrong somewhere and the loudest voice saying the most negative things about some recognisable, and unpopular people is what penetrates their minds.
Some vote for National, some for Labour, some dither about who to vote for – of those some genuinely apply their minds to trying to understand what’s best, and some just can’t get their heads around it all and make a snap decision based on their last snap decision, some freeze and stare into the headlights. Some just get on with things as everyday life is something they feel they have agency over, and if they haven’t then they are fully occupied in coping with the consequences.
I think that is a masterful summation of the mind of the population if I may say so, and I do!
Definitely, i would not have described myself as a floating voter until last election, but now that is exactly what i am,
Mana is the party of interest to me for the 2014 election whereas last time seeing that a very weak Opposition was the likely result of a Parliament without NZFirst, and to a certain extent wanting to give the ‘govern alone’ and ‘a vote for NZFirst is wasted’ crowd a fright, i spent my energy promoting the fact that NZFirst would be in the Parliament after that election,
Lolz, i think the choice of NZFirst’s List was carefully thought through, by Winston alone or Winston with help, with Brendon Who gone there’s little chance of a leadership coup happening within that Party this side of a government funded walking frame,
Mana tho has fired my imagination to a certain extent via a couple of simple policy’s which in effect would have in my opinion a relatively large positive effect upon society,
Of course the ‘numbers’ surrounding Mana’s chances are of definite interest to a floating voter, 1940 votes will get Annette Sykes into the Parliament and Te Ururoa Flavell out should She stand in 2014,
A few thousand party votes will add a list MP to Mana’s Parliamentary MP’s which isn’t a bad prospect for a floating voter like me,
Lolz, i like the idea of the the party vote needed to gain MP’s being lowered, the lower that needed party vote is in my opinion translates to a more democratic Parliament from a wider cross section of New Zealand society…
yes, i have been a floating voter, but always left parties (labour, greens, alliance, mana & the maori party once when i thought they were left before they joined national & others), but last election i gave my vote to mana & i probably will again next election. they have some great policies, i was drawn to the one that encourages community work as a good way to connect with your community, work for the young unemployed, its just so simple. i was genuinely shocked when i saw the results & only 62 ppl in my electorate voted mana, im right in the middle of south dunedin & i know for a fact there would be more support than that here, so for the next election im going to get way more involved & encourage ppl round here to vote.
also, a bunch of us have some other ideas, trying to get an guerilla ad campaign down here, got an idea along fo the lines of ‘want to give john key the fingers? then vote!’ kinda thing. but one thing to say about all these govt f*k ups, its certainly waking a few ppl up on the importance of voting (going by social media & the like)
Yes even in Wellington Mana only has a small ‘presence’, only having one small branch in the City, the Green Party is where the more ‘radical’ in Wellington have gathered,
My view is that Mana only needing those few thousand votes to gain an MP off of it’s list is also to a certain extent good news for Labour and the Green party as gaining those votes is likely to come from the continuing disembowelment of the Maori Party as their reward for having supported National in two terms of Government,
Yes leafleting with a message that is starkly different than the normal ‘stuffed shirt party line’ is an excellent means of attempting to ‘switch on’ those who might not otherwise vote,
Having been engaged in ‘guerilla politics’ befor there is sure as hell a lot of joy in operating outside of the ‘square’ and half a dozen people can cover an electorates letter boxes in a day with a simple message using cheap second hand photocopiers as the printing medium,
Lolz, i even become quite adept at pulling those machines apart and putting them back together with no previous experience in that field whatsoever,
If you are going to get your crew together and leaflet whole electorates a good tip is to study the map and use your vehicle to take the crew to the top of all the hills so that they are always walking downhill and never trudging up them,
+1 Colonial Viper… I suspect many voted for Winston last time strategically…because they saw him as possibly winning the election for the Left or Labour in coalition….however ….Winstons MPs are a liability….once people woke up as to who they were and what they stood for ….it could be a reason many may not vote for him again
@ Jackel….agreed…They are shockers ….Lets hope he does better.next time ..ie turfs them for some Greenies ( ha ha)…Can you imagine Winston as a Greenie?!
Chooky
Are all the NACT and Labour MPs good ones? What about just the ones at the top of both larger parties? Don’t rate Winston’s against an exemplar standard, cf them to the sitting ducks now in gubmint. Or the carnival heads with big open mouths that have been used as pictures on TS to illustrate Pura Banefit items.
What’s the GP? Winston could be wooed to the remnants of Labour if he was offered the Prime Minister position. It goes against everything that I have once considered, but what is happening now does also. So going along with what has been done in the past is not the only way – keeping on keeping on over the cliff. Time to consider changing paths. At least scare the smug and self-serving Labour types, by looking at other options.
Peters ain’t going to live forever, and there is no way in hell that the left would support him as PM. There is a good reason why NZF sits around the 5% mark – Peters betrayed his leftwing voters in the election where he lead them to believe he would go with Labour and then he went with National. Don’t think he ever got those voters back. He can’t be trusted by people on the left.
weka
All the present leaders are unreliable. Don’t pick on Winston. Make it worth his while to join Labour and shake off all the incumbents sitting on the sheep’s back, or now the dairy one. Mooove them.
If you can’t understand the specific traits that make Peters unreliable compared to other politicians, then you will fail to understand why your suggestion doesn’t really make sense.
You could list examples where Shearer, Norman and Turei have each betrayed their core voters.
@ Weka …I thought that for long time too..(.ie I was duped by Winston because i thought my vote for him was to the left of the Labour Party and against State Asset sales etc)…when he went into coalition with National after the first MMP election I was gutted.
….But if you watched the Helen Clark documentary you would realise he didnt go choose Labour to go into coalition with because New Labour under Jim Anderton refused coalition…. and NZ Labour Party didnt have the numbers for leadership….
Also Winston brought down that first MMP coalition with National by refusing to go along with more asset sales…..so the Nats hate him even more than certain Lefties like yourself.
He is a brilliant debater and thorn in the side of National….go on admit it!
To be honest, I think politics in NZ will improve when Peters is off the scene (only a matter of time).
“….But if you watched the Helen Clark documentary you would realise he didnt go choose Labour to go into coalition with because New Labour under Jim Anderton refused coalition…. and NZ Labour Party didnt have the numbers for leadership….”
Someone with a better political memory than me can correct this, but afaik, Peters wanted power and so chose the deal that suited him best. He could have supported a leftwing govt, but didn’t get the baubles he thought he deserved, so he went right.
That’s not what the doco explained for the first time … Labour could not get the numbers to rule when Jim Anderton refused coalition. Peters then went to National. WP always said he would go where the numbers were to create a secure government. IMHO, he only did what he said he would do, though I hated it at the time.
Also, worth noting Peters’ comments about Helen Clark in Part 2 this week … he openly admitted his admiration of her ethics and abilities and how easy it was to do his work at Foreign Minister. He grew to trust her 100% it seems. Oh, those were the days when we really had a PM !!
weka — I understand that — you could try going to TV3 on demand and watching Part 1 .. and I would think the programme’s producer and/or director would have other footage … most certainly it was presented clearly and as fact in an otherwise careful programme.
Actually, both parts are worth viewing .. but here is link Part 1 for you ..
Don’t have the data to watch that, but even if I did, I’d still want to hear some other credible opinions. You seem to be saying that Peters had no choice. I’m saying he did, and he chose for his own political expediency and this betrayed many of his voters.
Peters is similar, but not the same man today. He has a legacy to think about, and unlike Dunne, that is a thing which actually means something to Peters.
weka .. it is covered in the first four minutes of pt 2 if you have that much data … it is very clearly stated .. and not in ref to winston, but to anderton.
“And I seem to remember ( but not 100% on this) that Jim Anderton said elsewhere in the doco that he had refused to go into coalition …”
The bit you refered me to (first 4 mins of part two) says almost in passing that Anderton had refused to go into coalition in the 1996 election. It’s not Anderton saying that, and I’d still like to see some back up for it from another (credible) source that says that it wasn’t down to Peters.
In the 1996 elections, the Alliance gained 10% of the vote. Under the new electoral system, this secured the party thirteen MPs. New Zealand First, however, had obtained seventeen MPs, and held the balance of power between Labour and National. Eventually, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters opted to form a coalition with National, leaving both Labour and the Alliance in opposition.
The Labour Party, now led by Helen Clark, had moved away from the policies of Roger Douglas – both Douglas and his strongest supporter, Richard Prebble, had left Labour to found the ACT party, and Clark’s more traditional faction had taken over. This allowed a gradual reconciliation between Labour and the Alliance, a process assisted by the impression that lack of cooperation had cost both parties support. Eventually, this led to an agreement between the two parties, with both sides agreeing to cooperate in forming a government should election results allow it.
But with Anderton, McCarten, Harre et al in the mix, of course it was going to blow into smithereens unnecessarily. As a nation we are much worse off that they didn’t choose to hold the Alliance ship together.
Thanks weka my brain couldn’t think of that simple thing – GP Green Party. I was thinking of the USA GOP and couldn’t get past that somehow. I guess they always get called greens for short and I’m not used to GP. Still WGOUH?
My gut tells me it is left wing because i just don’t think Matthew Hooten, Cameron Slater or David Farrar would know who Billy Brag was. Textor-Crosby maybe, but not our local Death Star residents.
For the first time in NZ Political history, someone has launched the first social media coup attempt of a Political Party.
It seems some governments (our own?) consider all of us as potential terrorists. You have to ask – how much of this is about protecting the nation, and how much of this is about protecting the government.
I did see that (or the original Guardian report). That’s some scarey shit, not just because of the tracking or the narking, but because of the immense stupid.
Yesterday I was going to post that we should all send each other emails about backpacks or pressure cookers and cc to JK. But we’re past the point where this is a joke now 🙁
Fonterra said it first identified a potential quality issue in March, when a product tested positive for Clostridium. There were hundreds of different strains of Clostridium, most of which were harmless.
“Product samples were put through intensive testing over the following months.
This is very odd. 4-5 months to get to this result after first noting there may be a problem?
Ahhh I see. Journalists these days simply don’t have enough time and contacts to write a thorough article. Ideally, a food microbiologist from a university etc would also have been asked for a view.
Botulism is an unpleasant word to hear in the same sentence as dairy and Fonterra. Leaping into fast action would be the best action – red alert straight away. Four months is too long and could lead to concerns about carelessness especially when the stuff has been exported and has to be traced.
There was something on Radionz the other day about laxness in our bio security and a list of the things that have slipped through. These business-maximisation, regulation-cutting, cost-saving, less-government bozos are ruining our countries natural resources and advantages, one of which is isolation from diseases and organisms.
The palm kernel remainder that is being imported was mentioned as an important one. The drive to profit from dairy, which may not even be a credit in the nation’s accounts if it is owned by overseas entities, has over-ridden our long, big selling point of natural pastures. Our butter quality has been queried because its yellowness was thought to have been caused by dye, but no. I think it is a result of the type of cow breed, but also I think more vitamins from the green fresh feed. Which is now sullied by this environment destroying palm-feed industry.
The rabbit calci virus was imported illegally and spread at the wrong time so that immunity was able to build.
Botulism is an unpleasant word to hear in the same sentence as dairy and Fonterra. Leaping into fast action would be the best action – red alert straight away. Four months is too long and could lead to concerns about carelessness especially when the stuff has been exported and has to be traced.
Only if you don’t know what botulism is. Did you read my comment below?
When the bacteria are under stress, they develop spores, which are inert. Their natural habitats are in the soil, in the silt that comprises the bottom sediment of streams, lakes and coastal waters and in the ocean, while some types are natural inhabitants of mammalian (e.g., human, cattle, horses) intestinal tracts, and are present in their excreta. The spores can survive in their inert form for many years.[6]
Toxin is produced by the bacteria when environmental conditions are favourable for the spores to replicate and grow,….
The spores require warm temperatures, a protein source and an anaerobic (no oxygen) environment and moisture in order to become active and produce toxin.
Fonterra are talking about whey powder as far as I can tell. So, no moisture and no anaerobic conditions until the whey powder gets made into something else. If we’re talking about infant formula and sports drinks that you make up at home, then I’m guessing that the risk comes from those foods once in liquid form being stored at warm room temperature for a period of time.
Someone who knows more microbiology than me can comment, but I’d guess that it needs more than a day or so for the spores to become active and toxic. So yes, there is a risk to people who are making up the whey powder and not taking good care of that food (eg drinking it straight away or keeping it in the fridge), but it’s low.
There is also the issue of how long it takes for the powder to get to other companies to be processed into a product that then goes through the supply lines to supermarkets etc.
I am guessing here a lot, but it looks like Fonterra assessed the risk as pretty low, hence the length of time. Infants would be most at risk from botulism, so it’s extremely unlikely that Fonterra would not be rushing things if the risk was in any way serious. Had the bacteria been in liquid milk I’m guessing they would have moved fast.
weka
I repeat “Botulism is an unpleasant word to hear in the same sentence as dairy and Fonterra.”
That is a fact, and the buying public, the consumers and their suppliers, won’t like it and the connection with Fonterra’s name will not be good. Surely you can understand that. No amount of scientific or knowledgable information can stop negative bells ringing in consumer’s heads.
Botulism is an unpleasant word to hear in the same sentence as dairy and Fonterra. Leaping into fast action would be the best action – red alert straight away. Four months is too long and could lead to concerns about carelessness especially when the stuff has been exported and has to be traced.
Are you suggesting that Fonterra should have leaped into action fastly, because the public are ignorant? Wouldn’t it be better to follow proper proceedure, and to educate people about what the problems are instead of pretending they are much worse?
The media could quite easily have informed the public about the actual risks (as opposed to perception of risk).
The PKE/biosecurity issue was also highlighted for me in the June 25th issue of Straight Furrow.
Front page article “PKE discovery as ‘low’ biosecurity risk claim”.
Reading past the convoluted headline we find: An entire shipment of PKE (Palm Kernel Expeller) should have been recalled after a limb of an exotic animal was found in it, Federated Farmers seed and grain vice-chairman, Dave Clark says.
The cloven limb, believed to be that of a deer or goat, was spotted on May 12 by a dairy farmer, who immediately contacted biosecurity officials.
Mr Clark said it had taken the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) until June 17 to confirm the limb was of exotic origin.
“There should have been an immediate recall of all of that shipment of PKE, but the MPI decided to get it tested… Now that is negligence” the Canterbury farmer said….”
Article follows on with likely number of dairy farms affected (100) and with the current (and full of holes) procedure for importing PKE.
Didn’t hear this on any news items or mainstream media over the following weeks, but since I don’t read the print Herald much anymore and avoid the television news, more than likely I missed it. But does make me wonder about the ability of biosecurity to deal with actual potential breaches, rather than the normal standard operating practices.
Molly
I think that it was found to be part of a sheep. If so that doesn’t mean that Palm Kernel Extract PKE or whatever the acronym stands for is something that isn’t extremely hazardous. Even worse than falling from the jungle jim at school. Strange how some hazards are to dangerous to contemplate an injury, yet when it’s our national commerce at stake – well for a betting man it’s one in five or something. The casino culture of the RWNJs.
Samples of recent to months old news. on Radionz.
Ship crawling with exotic beetles seized – New Zealand biosecurity officials have discovered an infestation of plague soldier beetles on a vessel arriving at Port Wellington from Australia this week.
Updated at 6:03 am on 24 November 2012
and more recently
Signs of resistance to varroa bee mite treatments – assoc
The National Beekeepers Association says the battle against the varroa mite may cost almost $1 billion over the next three decades.
and http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/rural/215815/labour-calls-for-new-thinking-on-palm-kernel
Labour calls for new thinking on palm kernel
The Labour Party says there is now clear evidence that the palm kernel expeller supply chain is broken and that foreign organisms are making it to New Zealand.
Fonterra said it first identified a potential quality issue in March, when a product tested positive for Clostridium. There were hundreds of different strains of Clostridium, most of which were harmless.
“Product samples were put through intensive testing over the following months. On Wednesday 31 July 2013, tests indicated the potential presence of a strain of Clostridium (Clostridium botulinum) in a sample, which can cause botulism.”
“We are doing everything we can to assist our customers in ensuring any product containing this ingredient is removed from the marketplace and that the public is made aware,” Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings said.
“Our focus is to get information out about potentially affected product as fast as possible so that it can be taken off supermarket shelves and, where it has already been purchased, can be returned.”
Working fast? Seriously? It took them over four months to test the bacteria strains.
I”m guessing the risk is relatively low. I think Clostridium botulinum spores are not uncommon, but you need specific conditions for them to grow into something that harms humans (anaerobic conditions and warmth I think). Would it have been too much to ask Stuff to report on that rather than just regurgitating Fonterra’s press release?
Ah that explains why the local supermarket is selling a certain brand of Yoghurt 12 at a time for the price of 6,
i should flush the lot down the drain but think i might save it for a while to see where this story develops to so i can take it back to said supermarket and throw it all in the Managers face…
That would be bad12 – why not do it to the checkout operator? But both are not responsible.
Save your ire for the right person. Yoghurt is good, pie in the face is bad.
“Thought .. is the new GCSB bill in breach of our privacy laws in any way ?”
Unlikely. Privacy doesn’t apply when the state grants law enforcement certain rights. That’s why the police can search your bank or phone records, under certain circumstances. The new GCSB law gives spies more circumstances in which it’s acceptable to access information. At least that’s how I understand it.
..is that either peter dunne or the inquiry-head henry are lying..
..both of them cannot be telling the truth..
(ed:..and to be honest..tho’ having a high level of contempt for the man..the facts seem to favour dunne as the truth-teller on this particular aspect of this clusterfuck..)..”
Hadn’t heard much about Helen Clark’s lectures.
Neslon Mail report –
The pulling power of former prime minister Helen Clark is so strong a 700-seat venue in Nelson has been booked out within a day.
It is the second time the full-up sign has gone up, first at the Nelson School of Music and now at the Rutherford hotel conference centre…
Miss Clark is to give the Thomas Cawthron Memorial Lecture on August 21. The Cawthron Institute Trust Board booked the Nelson School of Music, which can seat 380. However, within 24 hours of a Nelson Mail story about the free lecture it was oversubscribed by 200…
Nelsonians will also be able to join Miss Clark for a brunch the next day, to hear how the UN Development Programme is making a difference to people’s lives and support the charity “In the Business of Hope”.
The charity was formed by Nelson business people and is raising funds for simple mechanisation for the people of Polesgo in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world. Visit http://www.inthebusinessofhope.org
The brunch will be held at Trailways, Trafalgar St, from 9 to 10.30am, on Thursday, August 22. Tickets cost $60 + GST with $40 going direct to the charity, contact commerce.org.nz or phone 5481363 or email support@commerce.org.nz
Looked on google and can’t find anything about this charity In the Business of Hope.
Looks pretty ad-hoc at the moment, one small project. Can’t find the name registered at the Companies Office, Charities Register or Incorporated Societies in NZ.
Thanks Molly. Thanks for the link. I am curious about charities, like to know about them. If they sound religious inspired, whose? Business inspired who? Why? I think Tindall and Sustainable Business are going in right direction. But good helpful development and charity to the people is not always what is the end result. So I just wondered.
I like this piece from the Nelson Tasman CofC – Throughout the world many families and communities struggle to make ends meet. One such village is Polesgo, in Burina Faso, ranked 191st place out of 197 countries with over 82% of the population living in poverty. Simple mechanisation will transform their lives, freeing up hours of manual labour for education and other economic opportunities.
Love that bit of fluff, freeing up hours of manual labour for education and other economic opportunities. Might as well sing together “Just a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down”.
Just sounds like snake oil to me. Basic education yes, economic opportunities good, but don’t give up the manual labour folks. And keep your vegetable beds and cows and goats that are your basic providers.
NZ doing development work in the Pacific, has often had money coming from the country but the materials being bought from us, so nicely balanced so that we did all right. Which was a bit self-interested and may not have resulted in the most useful, suitable assistance.
Re Helen Clark popularity now.
….. Remember the “Helengrad”, “Nanny State” and “Time for a Change ” slogans and campaigning ….directed against Helen Clark, as well as the Exclusive Brethren stalking……and the even nastier misogynist ,sexist innuendos……
I always thought Labour did not value their best asset enough….There was a concerted and disgraceful attempt by the right wing ( and even some notable left wing journalists) to down Helen Clark .
…well they got their wish….and look what we have now
…on the positive side …if we had David Cunliffe as leader there is obviously an electorate out there wanting a good left leader of the Labour Party
Does anyone know about the economics of cement production in NZ? How come they can make cement cheaper overseas? Is it perhaps because of a carbon tax that is not payable overseas? (Cement manufacture is one of the largest commercial emitters of CO2).
Holcim (New Zealand) Ltd will spend more than NZD 100M over the next three years constructing an import terminal and related infrastructure that will allow it to import and distribute bulk cement for supply to the New Zealand market.
…
Once operational, cement imported through the new terminal will replace local production at the company’s Westport cement plant. Holcim New Zealand has signaled for some years that the Westport plant was not sustainable long term. The decision also means that the proposal for a new cement plant at Weston, near Oamaru, is on hold for the foreseeable future …
Cement requires cheap raw materials (clay + limestone) + cheap power (and often coal) to bake (dehydration + chemically alters) and grind the cement feedstocks, and lax pollution regs also help as cement production is pretty environmentally dirty.
So given the costs of power here in NZ + lack of cheap coal (most of the stuff here is high grade), plus decent pollution regulations and the RMA act, it’s quite possible Holcim thinks it can increase it’s margins significantly by importing from overseas. Though with longterm projections on the costs of marine diesel not looking good, this may come to bite them on the arse, even if they’re importing it from Australia, or more likely China.
It also doesn’t help that the Westport facility is pretty damn old and sited at one of the more “interesting” harbours in NZ to get into for large ships.
Is it perhaps because of a carbon tax that is not payable overseas?
There’s so many variables that it’s hard to say. That may be one of those variables, another will probably be lower wages and then there’s probably less environmental protection as well. Wouldn’t be surprised if worse working conditions also contributed – keeping the workers safe costs money.
I have been asked on a number of occasion’s over the years whether I know why the fascists were able to come to power in Europe as it all was so obvious what is happening (being of European descent seems to provoke this question). By what I see on the news I don’t belief that any thinking person needs to ask me anymore.
A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government, and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. Aboard ship a prominent executive of one of America’s largest financial corporations told me point-blank that if the progressive trend of the Roosevelt administration continued, he would be ready to take definite action to bring Fascism to America.
I find it amazing that people don’t realize that the people at the top don’t like democracy and will do pretty much anything to stop it. The first that they did to prevent it was to put in place representative democracy.
“Herald on Sunday @HeraldonSunday 11m
First Jon Stephenson, then Andrea Vance. Now, we reveal a third journalist who has had an entire dossier of text messages seized by police.”
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
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. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
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. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
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. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
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 ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University Ken stocker/Shutterstock In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by men’s violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University Oleg Ivanov IL/Shutterstock Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this year’s federal budget. That’s the type of non-emergency surgery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne Amna Artist/Shutterstock One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
In 1995, Sally Clark went out on her own in a bold and unorthodox attempt to join an illustrious group of equestrian riders conquering the world. In the days of glovebox road maps, brick cell phones, and the hit song How Bizarre, Clark refused to follow Sir Mark Todd, Blyth ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Beaglehole, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago niphon/Getty Images The number of people accessing medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Aotearoa New Zealand increased significantly between 2006 and 2022. But the disorder is still under-diagnosed and ...
John Key goes soft on Terror.
So suddenly, Soft on Terror John Key can’t bring himself to detain or even name the terrorists, who he says are at large in NZ or in terrorist training camps in Yemen.
(Something the security services had no problems with in the Ururewa, with even less alleged cause. What was the explanation then? “We have to act before they do, do something.” What did leading police officers say? “The public would never forgive us is something did occur and we had not acted” Blah, blah, blah.).
If he feels he can’t bring himself to arrest these “terrorists”. There is nothing stopping John Key from acting to name and shame them. It is the very least he could do.
What is he worried about?
Is he worried that these “terrorists” might sue him for defamation?
That in fact they aren’t terrorists at all?
More likely they are government opponents like TPPA activists and environmentalists acting quite legally within the law to oppose government policies they disagree with.
If they really are terrorists, (which I doubt). If we all knew who they were. These “terrorists” would be so constrained as to be unable to act or go anywhere without being recognised.
Probably the worst thing about John Key raising these fear mongering allegations of terrorists being at large in New Zealand without naming them. Is that he is putting many innocent Islamic and Middle Eastern residents and citizens in this country under a cloud of suspicion.
Come on John Key stop protecting terrorists in our midst. Name Them!
It is a shame that the concern that John Key has for the civil liberties of Terrorists does not extend to the rest of us. The suppression of the right to protest at sea. The plan to allow the collection of Metadata on all New Zealanders exposes a contempt for civil liberties. Contempt for everyone’s civil liberties, except of course for his touching concern for the civil liberties of terrorists.
Talking about being soft on terror. David Shearer goes soft on John Key.
With John Key’s allegations of terrorists in our midst. Here was David Shearer’s chance to skewer John Key but he refused to do it.
The Labour Leader who could be privy to information on whether John Key is lying or not. Refuses to tell.
Labour leader David Shearer would not confirm whether he had been briefed about an al-Qaeda presence in New Zealand,…..
Rebecca Quillam, Claire Trevett NZ Herald
A simple question. It deserves a simple answer.
What’s with this David Shearer?
Why is he protecting John Key’s credibility?
Depending on what he had, or had not been told in briefings, the number of possible options that David Shearer could give to this question, taking into account security matters, are limited.
No, I have not been briefed on this matter.
Yes, I have been briefed on this matter, and can tell the public that the Prime Minister is correct there are terrorists at large in New Zealand.
Yes, I have been briefed on this matter, and can tell the public that the Prime Minister is wrong in saying that there are terrorists at large in New Zealand.
David Shearer explained his refusal to answer the question, saying his talks with the security services are in confidence and he would not break that.
What a dereliction of duty as an opposition MP.
Shearer’s excuse for not answering the question, is so weak as to be no excuse at all.
None of the three possible answers breach national security. (Though they might breach National’s security)
If David Shearer has been briefed by the security services, that there are Al Qaeda operatives at large in New Zealand, he would not be revealing anything that the Prime Minister had not already publicly divulged.
So why can’t he answer the question?
The only other possible reason apart from national security is, that David Shearer can’t answer. He is incapable of answering.
This inability to answer even simple questions under pressure, will prove to be disastrous if David Shearer is ever to go head to head in an election debate with John Key.
Jenny – can you put up the link, or URL, to the comments from David Shearer about ………
” John Key’s allegations of terrorists in our midst. Here was David Shearer’s chance to skewer John Key but he refused to do it.
The Labour Leader who could be privy to information on whether John Key is lying or not. Refuses to tell.
Labour leader David Shearer would not confirm whether he had been briefed about an al-Qaeda presence in New Zealand,…..”
Sorry about that. I thought I had embedded the link in the words NZ Herald.
Below is the naked link.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10906592
Good one Jenny.
Key and Shearer are brothers in arms.
I am sure they are both terrorised by the prospect of the working class rising up and expropriating their wealth.
Expropriating OUR wealth
+1
That is something that has been carefully concealed over the last few centuries – all the wealth in the country belongs to the people. It doesn’t belong to the corporations or the government.
@ Jenny
Read the parliamentary debate for Wednesday (I think it was), better yet watch it and you will see why Mr Shearer has responded the way he has in the article you link to.
He stated with a great deal of passion, (that is often sorely missing from his presentations), that if there really were people doing what Key said there was in NZ, that he considered it downright dangerous and irresponsible for Key to have said so. He considered Key’s actions as creating a threat to security to speak, because if such ‘elements’ exist it is giving them information that they are known by the intelligence agencies and being spied on. He said it was an incredibly ‘dumb’ thing to do.
It is clear, therefore, the Mr Shearer would play down any opportunity to do the same by confirming such threats.
I agree with a lot of what you have expressed in your comments above, however, take care to be accurate in your accusations, otherwise your position, which I consider to be expressing valid concerns over the motivation of our politicians, can be seriously weakened/discredited by the ‘elements’ in our society that wish to leave us all in a fearful and unquestioning state so that their interests are met and ours aren’t.
So David Shearer gets passionate about the need to hide the secret identities of terrorists alleged to be at large in our country. And he would do much the same as Key and play down confirming their identities with the public.
Ask yourself, Why?
It doesn’t surprise me that David Shearer supports John Key and the GCSB keeping the identity of alleged terrorists secret. It also doesn’t surprise me that David Shearer gets passionate about this, whereas he has never revealed passion or even joined up thinking about anything else.
Pardon me Blue but just as Colonel Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson gets passionate about keeping the truth away from the people he claims to be protecting, reveals his contempt for ordinary people. Similarly, so do Shearer and Key.
They may patronisingly claim that they are the only ones who can handle the truth.
But the arrogance and contempt they display for the public, the people they are paid to represent is encapsulated in the view ‘that we can’t handle the truth’ and that it best left to them to secretly decide who is a terrorist and who is not.
Personally I think it should be up to the public and the legal system. Not some secret unacountable bunch of spooks who seem to owe more loyalty to Washington than Wellington.
Any evidence of terrorism needs to be exposed and rooted out. Not kept hidden.
Most probably the real truth is that, the epithet of terrorist that they bestow on the people they have been illegally spying on would not stand up to any public scrutiny.
And that is the truth of why they seek to hide from us, the identities of those they have been spying on.
John Key and David Shearer may claim that we can’t handle the truth. But from what we have seen, the public could do a darn sight better job of handling the truth than they have shown.
@ Jenny
I don’t need to ask myself why; I can see the two possibilities for why this information isn’t shared. a. it doesn’t exist b. doing so blows the cover of any surveillance being conducted on such groups.
And due to the nature of your comments I was under the impression that perhaps you hadn’t heard the more indepth response from Shearer, in which I believe Shearer provided a reasonable explanation for why he wouldn’t discuss such things via the media.
I agree re legal system needs to decide re terrorists* or not; Do they not?
*I really don’t consider ‘terrorist’ a useful term at all; it has been well over-used and should have been made obsolete 10 years ago.
I don’t buy into the whole ‘terrorist’ thing, considering it largely an attempt to keep us all in fear. If there are people out there furious with Western interests, it isn’t surprising; what is more surprising is that there aren’t more of them.
Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty?
That and the fact that he’d be made to look a fool.
Divide and conquer – the normal National Party tactic. Pity it works so well.
They are finding these people guilty in secret with no right of response.
And if they really are terrorists, (which I suspect they are not), they are endangering us all, by hiding them from the public gaze.
If they had any real evidence that they were terrorists they would charge them. New Zealand’s Suppression of Terrorism law is very wide ranging and comprehensive, with a very low threshold of proof, even allowing “secret evidence” to be produced.
And by not naming them you admit that they are throwing a cloud of doubt over many innocent people, but you don’t make any point about this, other than it “works so well”. Do you support this or oppose it?
If you opposed it. You would be calling for the guilty to be named to let the innocent live without being suspects just because of their ethnicity or origin.
Shearer is the gift to the Nats who just keeps on giving.
Every time his name is mentioned, Key’s grin just gets wider.
Is this a good idea?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929286.100-steer-me-sideways-icebreaker-attacks-pack-ice-sideon.html#.UfwAEypXv6k
In an age when the icepack is thinning and shrinking due to climate change and opening up large swathes of dark open water where there used to be reflective ice starting a feedback effect. Is it that wise to try and speed up that process, by also physically attacking and breaking up the ice pack as well, exposing even more of the Arctic Ocean’s surface to the feedback effect of dark water over that of reflective ice?
Surely this is crazy.
No doubt the dozens of these long lanes of open water pathways cut across the pole, will be widened even further through the actions of storms .
That this is being done to help the passage of oil tankers seems even more crazy.
And that’s without even an oil spill. But what if there was an oil spill?
Would an oil slick stop the ice forming in the first place? And will all that dark oil also attract even more solar heating to the icepack?
It is like these people are deliberately out to wreck the planet.
I would see it more optimistically. Climate change is happening. Attempts to reduce emissions have failed abysmally, which was predictable. We should put more efforts into adapting. Opening up new sea lanes is one of the few positives.
Luckily NZ is one of the countries set to enjoy some benefits from climate change. Our emissions are tiny. We should do enough cosmetic things to stay sweet with trading partners, and then put our efforts into adapting. The Government has moved in the right direction with the ETS – it is there but it imposes almost no costs on the economy but we can still say to the rest of the world that we are doing something.
Next step should be more research on impacts on NZ and how we are going to cope. If we can start planning now the costs will be lower. Problem is people are short sighted.
Srylands are you going to be the one with the technical fix for humans so they can survive without oxygen?
You are several hot years behind the endgame. We are headed for extinction, not just in Kiwiland but Earthwise.
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/
rr, I think srylands responding well to McPherson is about as likely as NZ choosing to do something useful about AGW 😉
Srylands its about time you went to specsavers
Hi Srylands
Your comment: ‘Luckily NZ is one of the countries set to enjoy some benefits from climate change.’ is completely out of touch with reality! 🙁
“This is not “climate change”… that phrase is the innocuous little euphemism devised by the M$M to make the deadly threat sound as harmless as possible.
The name that accurately applies is “climate damage” – as Jeremy Grantham, the British manager of billions in funds has pointed out.
Remember – “damage” not “change”… this is not a shift in the weather, it’s a vicious disruption in the earth’s climate that is a severe existential threat to civilization as we know it.”
Yeah, more drought is such a Good Thing.
Except for the few hundred million per year of tax payer dollars that it’s costing us.
Simple, we’re going to cut farming down to the point that we have enough solely to provide for NZers in NZ.
Says the person going for short term profits and long term collapse.
Listen to the full audio of the Simon Mercep’s interview with Sir Peter Here
Peter Gluckman is a public servant. People close to him have told me that he would say a lot more if he could. Specifically; As well as calling for the country to prepare to get ready to adapt to climate change, Gluckman would call for a extreme claw back in emissions.
Something which his parliamentary masters are deathly opposed to.
As we all know, both Labour and National are in support of more oil drilling, fracking and coal mining.
The last thing these political parties would allow, is for their top science adviser to publicly oppose their current policy direction.
But what Gluckman says on the government website is that New Zealand’s greatest contribution to fighting climate change will be symbolic.
That “symbolic” impact, needs to be something big, something great, something that will grab the world’s attention.
The most dangerous of all fossil fuels is coal. Worldwide coal contributes the largest percentage of anthropogenic carbon dioxide into the atmosphere NASA scientist and climatologist James Hansen famously said; “If we can’t stop coal it is all over for the climate”.
As both an example and a warning. New Zealand needs to completely shut down the coal industry. Not in ten years not in 5 years. But Now.
Our biggest contribution to fighting climate change will be to show the world that a modern industrial country can completely rid itself of coal from its economy and still maintain a decent standard of living.
Of all the industrialised countries we are already the least reliant on coal. If we can’t do it no one can.
New Zealand needs to be a test bed to show that with the right political will it can be done.
We once had a large and thriving asbestos mining and manufacturing industry. We successfully closed it down. We need to do the same for coal.
We led the world on votes for women. We led the world on anti-nuclear and anti-aparthied.
We need to lead the world on this.
Coal Kills. Kill Coal.
So where have you been John ?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10907488
So this is how Armstrong explains the way journalists like him have spent a long time cheerleading Key and his government:
Gotta laugh at the self-serving delusions.
Helping the Nats play the country like a fiddle, not realising that you’re being played too.
Nevertheless Karol, an amazing criticism of the Key Party from John Armstrong, don’t you think? Even to the point of saying that Key is not ‘off the hook’ and has been treating matters less than seriously.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10907488
Yeah – I thought so too, Wyndham. When John A gets critical of Key, that is really something !
But Mike Hosking is still a shill for the government.
His analysis..it’s Dotcom’s fault. Does he have a brain or a conscience?
Or just an ego?
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/shows/breakfast/highlights/mhb-mikes-editorial-2aug2013
Hosking is a joke…….a made man of class and elegance and mutton dressed up as lamb. Dork !
Yes, regarding Mike Hosking, in his early days on ZB (could be 15 to 20 years ago), he was having a conversation with Paul Holmes and he high lighted the fact that he didn’t believe in reading widely, he simply didn’t believe in reading. I remember Holmes being disgusted by this admission. For me it explained everything about Hosking, I have never wasted my time listening to him, he is as thick as 2 short planks.
hosking is just a snobby egotistical narcissist.
But so overwhelmingly fastidious with his clothes and coiffure, Saarbo – You’re overlooking the important stuff! LOL
Hosking is married to Hawksby, whose brother is married to the step-daughter of Graham Hart!
Hosking is playing a role, alright!
From Armstrong’s article:
It’s funny, I’ve never seen a NZ journalist who was at all suspicious of John Key. On the contrary, they tend to ascribe the best possible motives to him and cheerfully gush about what a great bloke and talented politician he is.
I think Armstrong lives in a fantasy-land of his own making where he is a journalist rather than a shill.
Planet Key.
John Armstrong only concerned about the governement when it affects him personally.
We can tick them off on our fingers……..the Fart Estate.
Caught only a bit of it on TV3 News last night but got the sense that even Potty@Gower had the teeth out. The hands were pretty animated too which doesn’t look good for the emperor sans vetements.
Any impressions from those who watched the whole thing ?
He sounds frightened in that article
There must be a few in the press gallery sweating on this I think
Says the John Key apologist and National Party spin-meister.
Fist? Doesn’t he mean fuckup?
More of the Blame Labour meme. After all, it couldn’t possibly be 5 years of National’s corruption and posting of their mates that could have caused the degradation of the public service.
How Reuters and AP control global, news/fears on the lates global terror warning
Just a quick search revels the reach, which extends around the globe via Reuters/AP releases, who now control the narratives globally. Links above simply a brief selection, but the same was seen in OZ, Japan, Canadian press et al!
But wait on, what’s all this about, rebels with Imperialist supplied weapons preceding a dog whistle about AQ, regionally linked terror warnings !!! – Oh, I see how this works, and the more it happens, the greater the numbers who also see through this charade of BS!
Did key have a heads up about this latest, warning, which lead to his comments about AQ less than 48 hours ago?
Ahhhh very good question.
It’s taken the mainstream a while to catch up then, i remember a few bitter little exchanges which took place in the pages of the Standard where some of us pointed out that US armed and funded ”rebels” were being poured into the Syrian conflict from surrounding Gulf states…
Of course you are correct – it is ‘good’ to see the machine in action if only to reconfirm the truth of their manipulation and creation of global narratives – thanks muzza.
Hey Marty,
While I appreciate that giving it oxygen repeatedly might not be seen as the best approach, it can cause some folk to shrink away and take a defeatist attitude, while others simply shrug it off, as if there is is nothing they can do, and get on with, getting on. Both of these are understandable response mechanisms, but it’s another response which I am hoping will eventuate..
Myself, I feel its best to keep such blatant activity front and center an often as required to reach as many people as is possible, based on my, still alive optimism in the human condition of “survival”, which will eventually lead to people rising up (peacefully but forcefully), and making it very clear, they will not tolerate the way the world/NZ is being run, we will not tolerate it, and will take back what has been stolen, from all of us!
That’s the primary reason I post the style of content that I regularly do!
Have a good one!
Goodness me, you mean when the US issues a worldwide terror alert it isn’t world news – or are you really that daft and parochial?
Unrelared techy question. How do you stop mobile devices like my android pad from using the mobile theme as its painful and crashes chrome and samsungs built in browser.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151811730225429&set=a.10150162547855429.346317.12635800428&type=1&theater
{Not sure this one requires my opinion]
I had a wonder this morning – what if a whole lot of once-Labour supporters pulled away at the next election and voted for Winston Peters to get someone who is as centre as present Labour and is a a better and more forceful speaker. Whether Labour won or lost wouldn’t matter, as the end would be the same as they would go into coalition. And it would be an option for those who don’t feel drawn to the Greens.
Labour is so damned complacent at the top with a reliable bunch of supporters who at present won’t go anywhere else. But Winston is better than what they have now, and No Worse despite any convolutions he may have been involved in. We’ll get as many from Labour elite.
Analysis of booth by booth data show that is precisely what many thousands of (usually) Labour voters did in 2011. Those voters thought it through and did not want to see Winston coming in just under 5% again. Hopefully next time around he will have a more solid, less dick head party list behind him.
Labour voters supporting formation of a NACT govt. It’s a bloody weird world we live in.
I think the more politically savvy are starting to use MMP in interesting ways. Wait until the threshold gets lowered to 2.5% or 3%. That’s when things are going to get bloody weird 🙂
How so? People that would otherwise vote Labour, but see NZF potentially dropping below 5%, who then vote NZF to keep them above the 5%, because they want NZF to keep Labour inline, but knowing that NZF might form govt with NACT. Bit of a crap shoot isn’t it?
Don’t like playing with crap weka. But often get that feeling of mixing with the real stuff when reading politicians guff. So if I’m to be covered in it when they follow their preferred routes mixing them up and giving them a scare would be no worse. Getting an agreement from Winston to go to Labour would be necessary. He would consider it because he is politically centrist, doesn’t have to go to NACT.
“Getting an agreement from Winston to go to Labour would be necessary”
Rt, Peters has categorically stated at every election that he won’t say before the election who he will go with. It’s his special thing. Why would he change now?
poker face peters
key will have to eat a lot dead rats to please peters
Nah, Key pays other people to eat rats for him.
Brand new players in the political party eco-system (or perhaps ressurection of old ones like the Alliance or Democrats for Social Credit).
When MMP was first introduced some detractors said that voters would be confused if there were more than two or three parties to vote on. In fact, its now been proven that NZers cope very well with the situation.
Not sure about the CV. Some do, others don’t. I still hear people confused about how their list vote affects things compared to their electorate vote.
Someone’s saying – Don’t get lost in the shuffle, shuffle along with the lost. It has to be accepted that a good percentage of people never understand what systems drive the parameters of their lives, and that there are alternatives. A small percentage have little idea at all, just feelings that something’s wrong somewhere and the loudest voice saying the most negative things about some recognisable, and unpopular people is what penetrates their minds.
Some vote for National, some for Labour, some dither about who to vote for – of those some genuinely apply their minds to trying to understand what’s best, and some just can’t get their heads around it all and make a snap decision based on their last snap decision, some freeze and stare into the headlights. Some just get on with things as everyday life is something they feel they have agency over, and if they haven’t then they are fully occupied in coping with the consequences.
I think that is a masterful summation of the mind of the population if I may say so, and I do!
Definitely, i would not have described myself as a floating voter until last election, but now that is exactly what i am,
Mana is the party of interest to me for the 2014 election whereas last time seeing that a very weak Opposition was the likely result of a Parliament without NZFirst, and to a certain extent wanting to give the ‘govern alone’ and ‘a vote for NZFirst is wasted’ crowd a fright, i spent my energy promoting the fact that NZFirst would be in the Parliament after that election,
Lolz, i think the choice of NZFirst’s List was carefully thought through, by Winston alone or Winston with help, with Brendon Who gone there’s little chance of a leadership coup happening within that Party this side of a government funded walking frame,
Mana tho has fired my imagination to a certain extent via a couple of simple policy’s which in effect would have in my opinion a relatively large positive effect upon society,
Of course the ‘numbers’ surrounding Mana’s chances are of definite interest to a floating voter, 1940 votes will get Annette Sykes into the Parliament and Te Ururoa Flavell out should She stand in 2014,
A few thousand party votes will add a list MP to Mana’s Parliamentary MP’s which isn’t a bad prospect for a floating voter like me,
Lolz, i like the idea of the the party vote needed to gain MP’s being lowered, the lower that needed party vote is in my opinion translates to a more democratic Parliament from a wider cross section of New Zealand society…
yes, i have been a floating voter, but always left parties (labour, greens, alliance, mana & the maori party once when i thought they were left before they joined national & others), but last election i gave my vote to mana & i probably will again next election. they have some great policies, i was drawn to the one that encourages community work as a good way to connect with your community, work for the young unemployed, its just so simple. i was genuinely shocked when i saw the results & only 62 ppl in my electorate voted mana, im right in the middle of south dunedin & i know for a fact there would be more support than that here, so for the next election im going to get way more involved & encourage ppl round here to vote.
also, a bunch of us have some other ideas, trying to get an guerilla ad campaign down here, got an idea along fo the lines of ‘want to give john key the fingers? then vote!’ kinda thing. but one thing to say about all these govt f*k ups, its certainly waking a few ppl up on the importance of voting (going by social media & the like)
Yes even in Wellington Mana only has a small ‘presence’, only having one small branch in the City, the Green Party is where the more ‘radical’ in Wellington have gathered,
My view is that Mana only needing those few thousand votes to gain an MP off of it’s list is also to a certain extent good news for Labour and the Green party as gaining those votes is likely to come from the continuing disembowelment of the Maori Party as their reward for having supported National in two terms of Government,
Yes leafleting with a message that is starkly different than the normal ‘stuffed shirt party line’ is an excellent means of attempting to ‘switch on’ those who might not otherwise vote,
Having been engaged in ‘guerilla politics’ befor there is sure as hell a lot of joy in operating outside of the ‘square’ and half a dozen people can cover an electorates letter boxes in a day with a simple message using cheap second hand photocopiers as the printing medium,
Lolz, i even become quite adept at pulling those machines apart and putting them back together with no previous experience in that field whatsoever,
If you are going to get your crew together and leaflet whole electorates a good tip is to study the map and use your vehicle to take the crew to the top of all the hills so that they are always walking downhill and never trudging up them,
Makes the job that much easier and a lot quicker…
thanks, good advice.
bad12
Great 💡
+1 Colonial Viper… I suspect many voted for Winston last time strategically…because they saw him as possibly winning the election for the Left or Labour in coalition….however ….Winstons MPs are a liability….once people woke up as to who they were and what they stood for ….it could be a reason many may not vote for him again
he’ll get access to much better candidates this time around, as a sitting party in Parliament. Well, one hopes.
In some respects he couldn’t do much worse if he tried.
@ Jackel….agreed…They are shockers ….Lets hope he does better.next time ..ie turfs them for some Greenies ( ha ha)…Can you imagine Winston as a Greenie?!
Chooky
Are all the NACT and Labour MPs good ones? What about just the ones at the top of both larger parties? Don’t rate Winston’s against an exemplar standard, cf them to the sitting ducks now in gubmint. Or the carnival heads with big open mouths that have been used as pictures on TS to illustrate Pura Banefit items.
@ Rosetinted…you have a point
@ Colonial Viper …..still doesn account for the approx 800,000 who didnt vote at all for Labour
“Whether Labour won or lost wouldn’t matter, as the end would be the same as they would go into coalition”
What?
Peters already gets disaffected Labour voters everytime NZF bounces at election time. And he is likely to go with NACT. How will that help?
I’d like to know how you see NZF and the GP working in coalition together.
What’s the GP? Winston could be wooed to the remnants of Labour if he was offered the Prime Minister position. It goes against everything that I have once considered, but what is happening now does also. So going along with what has been done in the past is not the only way – keeping on keeping on over the cliff. Time to consider changing paths. At least scare the smug and self-serving Labour types, by looking at other options.
Green Party.
Peters ain’t going to live forever, and there is no way in hell that the left would support him as PM. There is a good reason why NZF sits around the 5% mark – Peters betrayed his leftwing voters in the election where he lead them to believe he would go with Labour and then he went with National. Don’t think he ever got those voters back. He can’t be trusted by people on the left.
weka
All the present leaders are unreliable. Don’t pick on Winston. Make it worth his while to join Labour and shake off all the incumbents sitting on the sheep’s back, or now the dairy one. Mooove them.
If you can’t understand the specific traits that make Peters unreliable compared to other politicians, then you will fail to understand why your suggestion doesn’t really make sense.
You could list examples where Shearer, Norman and Turei have each betrayed their core voters.
A list of where Turei and Norman have betrayed their core voters, yes please, please produce said list of betrayals…
Really, you’re better off voting Mana or Greens.
@ Weka …I thought that for long time too..(.ie I was duped by Winston because i thought my vote for him was to the left of the Labour Party and against State Asset sales etc)…when he went into coalition with National after the first MMP election I was gutted.
….But if you watched the Helen Clark documentary you would realise he didnt go choose Labour to go into coalition with because New Labour under Jim Anderton refused coalition…. and NZ Labour Party didnt have the numbers for leadership….
Also Winston brought down that first MMP coalition with National by refusing to go along with more asset sales…..so the Nats hate him even more than certain Lefties like yourself.
He is a brilliant debater and thorn in the side of National….go on admit it!
To be honest, I think politics in NZ will improve when Peters is off the scene (only a matter of time).
“….But if you watched the Helen Clark documentary you would realise he didnt go choose Labour to go into coalition with because New Labour under Jim Anderton refused coalition…. and NZ Labour Party didnt have the numbers for leadership….”
Someone with a better political memory than me can correct this, but afaik, Peters wanted power and so chose the deal that suited him best. He could have supported a leftwing govt, but didn’t get the baubles he thought he deserved, so he went right.
That’s not what the doco explained for the first time … Labour could not get the numbers to rule when Jim Anderton refused coalition. Peters then went to National. WP always said he would go where the numbers were to create a secure government. IMHO, he only did what he said he would do, though I hated it at the time.
Also, worth noting Peters’ comments about Helen Clark in Part 2 this week … he openly admitted his admiration of her ethics and abilities and how easy it was to do his work at Foreign Minister. He grew to trust her 100% it seems. Oh, those were the days when we really had a PM !!
“Labour could not get the numbers to rule when Jim Anderton refused coalition. Peters then went to National.”
Would like to see others back up that perspective before I take it as truth.
weka — I understand that — you could try going to TV3 on demand and watching Part 1 .. and I would think the programme’s producer and/or director would have other footage … most certainly it was presented clearly and as fact in an otherwise careful programme.
Actually, both parts are worth viewing .. but here is link Part 1 for you ..
http://www.tv3.co.nz/DOCUMENTARY-Helen-Clark-Part-1/tabid/3692/articleID/94222/Default.aspx
And I seem to remember ( but not 100% on this) that Jim Anderton said elsewhere in the doco that he had refused to go into coalition …
Don’t have the data to watch that, but even if I did, I’d still want to hear some other credible opinions. You seem to be saying that Peters had no choice. I’m saying he did, and he chose for his own political expediency and this betrayed many of his voters.
Peters is similar, but not the same man today. He has a legacy to think about, and unlike Dunne, that is a thing which actually means something to Peters.
weka .. maybe write to jim anderton ?
weka .. it is covered in the first four minutes of pt 2 if you have that much data … it is very clearly stated .. and not in ref to winston, but to anderton.
“And I seem to remember ( but not 100% on this) that Jim Anderton said elsewhere in the doco that he had refused to go into coalition …”
The bit you refered me to (first 4 mins of part two) says almost in passing that Anderton had refused to go into coalition in the 1996 election. It’s not Anderton saying that, and I’d still like to see some back up for it from another (credible) source that says that it wasn’t down to Peters.
In the 1996 elections, the Alliance gained 10% of the vote. Under the new electoral system, this secured the party thirteen MPs. New Zealand First, however, had obtained seventeen MPs, and held the balance of power between Labour and National. Eventually, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters opted to form a coalition with National, leaving both Labour and the Alliance in opposition.
The Labour Party, now led by Helen Clark, had moved away from the policies of Roger Douglas – both Douglas and his strongest supporter, Richard Prebble, had left Labour to found the ACT party, and Clark’s more traditional faction had taken over. This allowed a gradual reconciliation between Labour and the Alliance, a process assisted by the impression that lack of cooperation had cost both parties support. Eventually, this led to an agreement between the two parties, with both sides agreeing to cooperate in forming a government should election results allow it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_%28New_Zealand_political_party%29#Under_MMP
But with Anderton, McCarten, Harre et al in the mix, of course it was going to blow into smithereens unnecessarily. As a nation we are much worse off that they didn’t choose to hold the Alliance ship together.
“of course it was going to blow into smithereens unnecessarily.”
‘it’ being what? Didn’t the Alliance split happened later after the GP had left.
Thanks weka my brain couldn’t think of that simple thing – GP Green Party. I was thinking of the USA GOP and couldn’t get past that somehow. I guess they always get called greens for short and I’m not used to GP. Still WGOUH?
Bomber upgrades the Labour Party Coup Watch
My gut tells me it is left wing because i just don’t think Matthew Hooten, Cameron Slater or David Farrar would know who Billy Brag was. Textor-Crosby maybe, but not our local Death Star residents.
For the first time in NZ Political history, someone has launched the first social media coup attempt of a Political Party.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/08/02/breaking-labour-party-coup-watch-upgrade/
Ha, Bomber seems to categorise any Labour Party coup organisers as akin to “terrorists”!!!
That terrorism graphic is less funny now that when he first used it.
It seems some governments (our own?) consider all of us as potential terrorists. You have to ask – how much of this is about protecting the nation, and how much of this is about protecting the government.
Did you see this yesterday?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/01/government-tracking-google-searches?INTCMP=SRCH
later information seems like it was a tip off from an ex-employer:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/02/suffolk-county-home-search-tipoff?INTCMP=SRCH
I did see that (or the original Guardian report). That’s some scarey shit, not just because of the tracking or the narking, but because of the immense stupid.
Yesterday I was going to post that we should all send each other emails about backpacks or pressure cookers and cc to JK. But we’re past the point where this is a joke now 🙁
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8999044/Botulism-alert-Fonterra-infant-formula-sports-drinks-at-risk
Oops
there goes the dairy industy.
This is very odd. 4-5 months to get to this result after first noting there may be a problem?
See my comment below. I think the risk was judged relatively low, otherwise they would have been going hard out with the recall.
Ahhh I see. Journalists these days simply don’t have enough time and contacts to write a thorough article. Ideally, a food microbiologist from a university etc would also have been asked for a view.
Botulism is an unpleasant word to hear in the same sentence as dairy and Fonterra. Leaping into fast action would be the best action – red alert straight away. Four months is too long and could lead to concerns about carelessness especially when the stuff has been exported and has to be traced.
There was something on Radionz the other day about laxness in our bio security and a list of the things that have slipped through. These business-maximisation, regulation-cutting, cost-saving, less-government bozos are ruining our countries natural resources and advantages, one of which is isolation from diseases and organisms.
The palm kernel remainder that is being imported was mentioned as an important one. The drive to profit from dairy, which may not even be a credit in the nation’s accounts if it is owned by overseas entities, has over-ridden our long, big selling point of natural pastures. Our butter quality has been queried because its yellowness was thought to have been caused by dye, but no. I think it is a result of the type of cow breed, but also I think more vitamins from the green fresh feed. Which is now sullied by this environment destroying palm-feed industry.
The rabbit calci virus was imported illegally and spread at the wrong time so that immunity was able to build.
Botulism is an unpleasant word to hear in the same sentence as dairy and Fonterra. Leaping into fast action would be the best action – red alert straight away. Four months is too long and could lead to concerns about carelessness especially when the stuff has been exported and has to be traced.
Only if you don’t know what botulism is. Did you read my comment below?
When the bacteria are under stress, they develop spores, which are inert. Their natural habitats are in the soil, in the silt that comprises the bottom sediment of streams, lakes and coastal waters and in the ocean, while some types are natural inhabitants of mammalian (e.g., human, cattle, horses) intestinal tracts, and are present in their excreta. The spores can survive in their inert form for many years.[6]
Toxin is produced by the bacteria when environmental conditions are favourable for the spores to replicate and grow,….
The spores require warm temperatures, a protein source and an anaerobic (no oxygen) environment and moisture in order to become active and produce toxin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism
Fonterra are talking about whey powder as far as I can tell. So, no moisture and no anaerobic conditions until the whey powder gets made into something else. If we’re talking about infant formula and sports drinks that you make up at home, then I’m guessing that the risk comes from those foods once in liquid form being stored at warm room temperature for a period of time.
Someone who knows more microbiology than me can comment, but I’d guess that it needs more than a day or so for the spores to become active and toxic. So yes, there is a risk to people who are making up the whey powder and not taking good care of that food (eg drinking it straight away or keeping it in the fridge), but it’s low.
There is also the issue of how long it takes for the powder to get to other companies to be processed into a product that then goes through the supply lines to supermarkets etc.
I am guessing here a lot, but it looks like Fonterra assessed the risk as pretty low, hence the length of time. Infants would be most at risk from botulism, so it’s extremely unlikely that Fonterra would not be rushing things if the risk was in any way serious. Had the bacteria been in liquid milk I’m guessing they would have moved fast.
Is Nick our resident biologist?
weka
I repeat “Botulism is an unpleasant word to hear in the same sentence as dairy and Fonterra.”
That is a fact, and the buying public, the consumers and their suppliers, won’t like it and the connection with Fonterra’s name will not be good. Surely you can understand that. No amount of scientific or knowledgable information can stop negative bells ringing in consumer’s heads.
Here’s what you said
Botulism is an unpleasant word to hear in the same sentence as dairy and Fonterra. Leaping into fast action would be the best action – red alert straight away. Four months is too long and could lead to concerns about carelessness especially when the stuff has been exported and has to be traced.
Are you suggesting that Fonterra should have leaped into action fastly, because the public are ignorant? Wouldn’t it be better to follow proper proceedure, and to educate people about what the problems are instead of pretending they are much worse?
The media could quite easily have informed the public about the actual risks (as opposed to perception of risk).
You haven’t put your mind to the realities of marketing and consumer reaction.
“The drive to profit from dairy, which may not even be a credit in the nation’s accounts”
lol
What’s lol about it?
The dairy money comes into NZ, and the farm mortgage payments flow straight back out to Australia.
Grow a brain will ya.
The real profit is in tax free capital gain for farmers!
The PKE/biosecurity issue was also highlighted for me in the June 25th issue of Straight Furrow.
Front page article “PKE discovery as ‘low’ biosecurity risk claim”.
Reading past the convoluted headline we find:
An entire shipment of PKE (Palm Kernel Expeller) should have been recalled after a limb of an exotic animal was found in it, Federated Farmers seed and grain vice-chairman, Dave Clark says.
The cloven limb, believed to be that of a deer or goat, was spotted on May 12 by a dairy farmer, who immediately contacted biosecurity officials.
Mr Clark said it had taken the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) until June 17 to confirm the limb was of exotic origin.
“There should have been an immediate recall of all of that shipment of PKE, but the MPI decided to get it tested… Now that is negligence” the Canterbury farmer said….”
Article follows on with likely number of dairy farms affected (100) and with the current (and full of holes) procedure for importing PKE.
Didn’t hear this on any news items or mainstream media over the following weeks, but since I don’t read the print Herald much anymore and avoid the television news, more than likely I missed it. But does make me wonder about the ability of biosecurity to deal with actual potential breaches, rather than the normal standard operating practices.
It was also reported on National Radio.
Thanks… missed that also.
Molly
I think that it was found to be part of a sheep. If so that doesn’t mean that Palm Kernel Extract PKE or whatever the acronym stands for is something that isn’t extremely hazardous. Even worse than falling from the jungle jim at school. Strange how some hazards are to dangerous to contemplate an injury, yet when it’s our national commerce at stake – well for a betting man it’s one in five or something. The casino culture of the RWNJs.
Samples of recent to months old news. on Radionz.
Ship crawling with exotic beetles seized – New Zealand biosecurity officials have discovered an infestation of plague soldier beetles on a vessel arriving at Port Wellington from Australia this week.
Updated at 6:03 am on 24 November 2012
and more recently
Signs of resistance to varroa bee mite treatments – assoc
The National Beekeepers Association says the battle against the varroa mite may cost almost $1 billion over the next three decades.
and
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/rural/215815/labour-calls-for-new-thinking-on-palm-kernel
Labour calls for new thinking on palm kernel
The Labour Party says there is now clear evidence that the palm kernel expeller supply chain is broken and that foreign organisms are making it to New Zealand.
WORKING FAST
Fonterra said it first identified a potential quality issue in March, when a product tested positive for Clostridium. There were hundreds of different strains of Clostridium, most of which were harmless.
“Product samples were put through intensive testing over the following months. On Wednesday 31 July 2013, tests indicated the potential presence of a strain of Clostridium (Clostridium botulinum) in a sample, which can cause botulism.”
“We are doing everything we can to assist our customers in ensuring any product containing this ingredient is removed from the marketplace and that the public is made aware,” Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings said.
“Our focus is to get information out about potentially affected product as fast as possible so that it can be taken off supermarket shelves and, where it has already been purchased, can be returned.”
Working fast? Seriously? It took them over four months to test the bacteria strains.
I”m guessing the risk is relatively low. I think Clostridium botulinum spores are not uncommon, but you need specific conditions for them to grow into something that harms humans (anaerobic conditions and warmth I think). Would it have been too much to ask Stuff to report on that rather than just regurgitating Fonterra’s press release?
Ah that explains why the local supermarket is selling a certain brand of Yoghurt 12 at a time for the price of 6,
i should flush the lot down the drain but think i might save it for a while to see where this story develops to so i can take it back to said supermarket and throw it all in the Managers face…
That would be bad12 – why not do it to the checkout operator? But both are not responsible.
Save your ire for the right person. Yoghurt is good, pie in the face is bad.
So just after the govt backs down on using animals
to test recreational drugs, and backs off
recreational limits on snapper, we will have an election.
Somewhat cynical.
So it can be done … Angela Merkel cancels spying pact with US with power of Germany’s privacy laws …
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10907537
Thought .. is the new GCSB bill in breach of our privacy laws in any way ?
It’s amazing how an upcoming election concentrates politicans’ minds.
“Thought .. is the new GCSB bill in breach of our privacy laws in any way ?”
Unlikely. Privacy doesn’t apply when the state grants law enforcement certain rights. That’s why the police can search your bank or phone records, under certain circumstances. The new GCSB law gives spies more circumstances in which it’s acceptable to access information. At least that’s how I understand it.
That’s the key. It’s a vital protection from sliding into a police/surveillance state.
http://whoar.co.nz/2013/the-nation-a-review-you-cant-have-it-both-ways/
(excerpt..)
“….and what came from that..
..is that either peter dunne or the inquiry-head henry are lying..
..both of them cannot be telling the truth..
(ed:..and to be honest..tho’ having a high level of contempt for the man..the facts seem to favour dunne as the truth-teller on this particular aspect of this clusterfuck..)..”
phillip ure..
Hadn’t heard much about Helen Clark’s lectures.
Neslon Mail report –
The pulling power of former prime minister Helen Clark is so strong a 700-seat venue in Nelson has been booked out within a day.
It is the second time the full-up sign has gone up, first at the Nelson School of Music and now at the Rutherford hotel conference centre…
Miss Clark is to give the Thomas Cawthron Memorial Lecture on August 21. The Cawthron Institute Trust Board booked the Nelson School of Music, which can seat 380. However, within 24 hours of a Nelson Mail story about the free lecture it was oversubscribed by 200…
Nelsonians will also be able to join Miss Clark for a brunch the next day, to hear how the UN Development Programme is making a difference to people’s lives and support the charity “In the Business of Hope”.
The charity was formed by Nelson business people and is raising funds for simple mechanisation for the people of Polesgo in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world. Visit http://www.inthebusinessofhope.org
The brunch will be held at Trailways, Trafalgar St, from 9 to 10.30am, on Thursday, August 22. Tickets cost $60 + GST with $40 going direct to the charity, contact commerce.org.nz or phone 5481363 or email support@commerce.org.nz
Looked on google and can’t find anything about this charity In the Business of Hope.
Purely NZ charity(?), set up last year by the Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce after Helen Clark’s last speech in 2012.
Their website is here.
Looks pretty ad-hoc at the moment, one small project. Can’t find the name registered at the Companies Office, Charities Register or Incorporated Societies in NZ.
Thanks Molly. Thanks for the link. I am curious about charities, like to know about them. If they sound religious inspired, whose? Business inspired who? Why? I think Tindall and Sustainable Business are going in right direction. But good helpful development and charity to the people is not always what is the end result. So I just wondered.
I like this piece from the Nelson Tasman CofC –
Throughout the world many families and communities struggle to make ends meet. One such village is Polesgo, in Burina Faso, ranked 191st place out of 197 countries with over 82% of the population living in poverty. Simple mechanisation will transform their lives, freeing up hours of manual labour for education and other economic opportunities.
Love that bit of fluff, freeing up hours of manual labour for education and other economic opportunities. Might as well sing together “Just a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down”.
Just sounds like snake oil to me. Basic education yes, economic opportunities good, but don’t give up the manual labour folks. And keep your vegetable beds and cows and goats that are your basic providers.
NZ doing development work in the Pacific, has often had money coming from the country but the materials being bought from us, so nicely balanced so that we did all right. Which was a bit self-interested and may not have resulted in the most useful, suitable assistance.
Re Helen Clark popularity now.
….. Remember the “Helengrad”, “Nanny State” and “Time for a Change ” slogans and campaigning ….directed against Helen Clark, as well as the Exclusive Brethren stalking……and the even nastier misogynist ,sexist innuendos……
I always thought Labour did not value their best asset enough….There was a concerted and disgraceful attempt by the right wing ( and even some notable left wing journalists) to down Helen Clark .
…well they got their wish….and look what we have now
…on the positive side …if we had David Cunliffe as leader there is obviously an electorate out there wanting a good left leader of the Labour Party
TVNZ are releasing their poll results tomorrow, but in a new way.
The “preferred PM” results will be on Q & A in the morning. Usually they are part of the 6 pm bulletin.
Presumably they’re doing this to pep up Q & A. which makes you wonder if the results are … interesting.
John Key’s artwork needs many captions:
http://i39.tinypic.com/219qg7s.jpg
How many finger joints does he have?
Who’s tiny hand is that?
Clearly he thinks gummint should be small. Problem is it also looks deformed.
I thought the fingers might symbolise the current government – National, ACT, Dunne and Maori Party. But who is the thumb?
Actually they aren’t fingers, not enough joints, so there are five thumbs.
It is a forgery!!!
It is a forgery!!!
No its not,Key just has difficulty remembering, as his left hand and right hand do not communicate.
Nice
Key probably bases a lot of his persona on Homer Simpson and he only had three digits. Go figure.
The picture is of Key’s left hand. He had it amputated, so he could pretend that his other hand occupies the centre.
Take my little hand! http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHB00Nu3Ak&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DhHHB00Nu3Ak
Also could use a mani.
lol that was funny. Key’s obviously traced his hand and that raises some disquiet for me.
Does anyone know about the economics of cement production in NZ? How come they can make cement cheaper overseas? Is it perhaps because of a carbon tax that is not payable overseas? (Cement manufacture is one of the largest commercial emitters of CO2).
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1308/S00030/holcim-invests-in-cement-import-terminal.htm
Holcim (New Zealand) Ltd will spend more than NZD 100M over the next three years constructing an import terminal and related infrastructure that will allow it to import and distribute bulk cement for supply to the New Zealand market.
…
Once operational, cement imported through the new terminal will replace local production at the company’s Westport cement plant. Holcim New Zealand has signaled for some years that the Westport plant was not sustainable long term. The decision also means that the proposal for a new cement plant at Weston, near Oamaru, is on hold for the foreseeable future …
Cement requires cheap raw materials (clay + limestone) + cheap power (and often coal) to bake (dehydration + chemically alters) and grind the cement feedstocks, and lax pollution regs also help as cement production is pretty environmentally dirty.
So given the costs of power here in NZ + lack of cheap coal (most of the stuff here is high grade), plus decent pollution regulations and the RMA act, it’s quite possible Holcim thinks it can increase it’s margins significantly by importing from overseas. Though with longterm projections on the costs of marine diesel not looking good, this may come to bite them on the arse, even if they’re importing it from Australia, or more likely China.
It also doesn’t help that the Westport facility is pretty damn old and sited at one of the more “interesting” harbours in NZ to get into for large ships.
There’s so many variables that it’s hard to say. That may be one of those variables, another will probably be lower wages and then there’s probably less environmental protection as well. Wouldn’t be surprised if worse working conditions also contributed – keeping the workers safe costs money.
I have been asked on a number of occasion’s over the years whether I know why the fascists were able to come to power in Europe as it all was so obvious what is happening (being of European descent seems to provoke this question). By what I see on the news I don’t belief that any thinking person needs to ask me anymore.
Comment of the month.
Same as it ever was:
A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government, and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. Aboard ship a prominent executive of one of America’s largest financial corporations told me point-blank that if the progressive trend of the Roosevelt administration continued, he would be ready to take definite action to bring Fascism to America.
William E. Dodd.
http://www.traces.org/williamdodd.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dodd_(ambassador)
I find it amazing that people don’t realize that the people at the top don’t like democracy and will do pretty much anything to stop it. The first that they did to prevent it was to put in place representative democracy.
And now this:
https://twitter.com/HeraldonSunday/status/363638081670230017
“Herald on Sunday @HeraldonSunday 11m
First Jon Stephenson, then Andrea Vance. Now, we reveal a third journalist who has had an entire dossier of text messages seized by police.”
Fuck. The rot has really set in. On the Fourth Estate’s watch. Looks like they are finally standing up.