National is not responsible for what is happening in Gaza. Demanding they do something is not going to achieve anything.
And expelling the Israeli diplomat? How would we then express our disgust at the innocent murder of women and children the next time it happens?
mickysavage
Most people would reject the murder of innocent women and children on the first instance.
Come on Greg you can be better than this.
Stand up to the extreme Right pressure in your own party.
Do what ever it takes. Demand in the strongest terms possible (either privately or publicly), that your party leader David Cunliffe make a statement promising to cut diplomatic relations with Israel.
Gee Jenny I was expressing a personal view, not succumbing to right wing pressure.
My personal view is that diplomatic channels if at all possible should be left open. So I disagree with calls to send the Israeli ambassador home. And I do reject the murder of innocent women and children. Have a read of what I have written on the subject if you want proof.
My personal view is that diplomatic channels if at all possible should be left open. So I disagree with calls to send the Israeli ambassador home.
mickysavage
Greg if you are of a certain age you will understand that you are using the same morally indefensible and bankrupt excuse used by the NZRFU and the Muldoon administration for keeping ties with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
And I do reject the murder of innocent women and children. Have a read of what I have written on the subject if you want proof.
mickysavage
Greg you can keep up your liberal handwringing as long as you like, but by refusing to take a stand to match, your expressions of condemnation and concern at the massacre of innocents are hollow.
Climate change is not yesterday’s news, the same lack of leadership from the Labour Party we are seeing around that issue we see around the genocide in Gaza.
If Labour activists really started fighting for what they believe and convinced their leaders to come out swinging with policies sharply contrasted to National’s then we might see Labour’s electoral fortunes turn around.
As it is, how can there really be an electoral contest between Labour and National when both Labour and National agree on deep sea oil, fracking and new coal mines, and in foreign affairs on how to deal with Israel. The strongest thing the two parties disagree on most strongly in the eyes of the electorate is raising the age of Superannuation entitlement. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be funny.
Your disingenuity does much damage to your position, which increasingly looks petty, spiteful and coordinated, leaving you very much isolated, inhabiting the fringes of debate.
TRP and Alien – Jenny is saying something eminently sensible here. I agree with her. I don’t know what you two are trying to say, because all you’ve done is attack her.
Diplomacy doesn’t work with the Zionists. Latin American countries have taken the lead and are cutting off diplomatic relations. We should be with them, not with countries that do all they can to support Zionist aggression.
Not just a case of shoot the messenger, there are plenty of reasons why Labour should not come out calling for the expulsion of diplomats or the closing of the idf embassy.
One, it’s a big call to make, and the run up to a general election, without the benefit of departmental briefings etc.. is not the place to make ad-hoc/snap policy decisions, especially by the current opposition.
Second, there are other avenues open, such as calling the embassy boss in for a please explain, and to officially pass on the dissatisfaction of the NZ public over the idf operations and occupation of Palestine before reaching the expulsion stage, without which, would expose the Labour leadership to accusations of being unfit to govern.
I support the closing of the Israel embassy and telling them to only come back when they’ve negotiated a two state agreement, but after winning the election first and following due procedure after informed advice.
Weird. Having an internationalist perspective and wanting to preserve diplomatic relations is somehow a bad thing. (Nevill Chamberlaine’s ghost scratches his head in puzzlement that his critics could ever think such things as he eternally walks from the plane.)
Robert Muldoon’s ghost from 1981 creases his cheek and chuckles
Mickeysavage, with all due respect to you, and for your p.o.v. on this issue – I beg to disagree.
Israel will not “listen” to international pressure until the are made to feel international pressure by increasing isolation.
When the Ambassador is sent home – then Israel will feel that pressure.
When we stop trading with them – then Israel will feel that pressure.
When we cease sporting contacts with them – then Israel will begin to understand.
That is how the white regime in Souith Africa was made to “listen” to international pressure. Apartheid was finally destroyed when it was no longer tenable for the South African government of the day to preserve it.
Any message we send to Israel can be done through the U.N.
Thanks Frank. I will cogitate on the issue. At Uni I studied Advanced International Law and I agreed with the model that diplomatic channels should be kept open if at all possible.
I am more than happy if we stop trading and sporting contacts with Israel.
The World is Starting to Turn Against Israel! I srael must be called to account for crimes against humanity!
From Robert Fisk , the Independent
‘Dress the Gaza situation up all you like, but the truth hurts -The world is starting to turn against Israel’
“There was a time when our politicians and media had one principal fear when covering Middle East wars: that no one should ever call them anti-Semitic.
So corrosive, so vicious was this charge against any honest critic of Israel that merely to bleat the word “disproportionate” – as in any normal wartime exchange rate of Arab-to-Israeli deaths – was to provoke charges of Nazism by Israel’s would-be supporters. Sympathy for Palestinians would earn the sobriquet “pro-Palestinian”, which, of course, means “pro-terrorist”.
Or so it was until the latest bloodbath in Gaza, which is being so graphically covered by journalists that our masters and our media are suffering a new experience: not fear of being called anti-Semitic, but fear of their own television viewers and readers – ordinary folk so outraged by the war crimes committed against the women and children of Gaza that they are demanding to know why, even now, television moguls and politicians are refusing to treat their own people like moral, decent, intelligent human beings…..
People supposed that the open nature of the internet would increase accountability, but all it does is clarify the ability of the powerful to act with impunity. A harsh lesson.
They’re bigger than they were last time the Zionists slaughtered people in Gaza. If there’s a next time, they’ll be even bigger. When the outspoken supporters of Zionist terror are people as rotten as SSlands, Tel Aviv should be worried.
Yep, Chooky, although (in response to the excellent Robert Fisk) I’d say public opinion throughout the world has been slowly changing since Israel’s brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and, much more rapidly, since its carpet-bombing of Lebanon in 2006 and, above all, its previous massacre of around 1400 Gazans in late 2008 / early 2009 (as with the current orgy of mass murder, the vast majority were civilians, with a sizeable minority of children – although, you probably know that already).
A poll was conducted in New Zealand around the time of the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, asking respondents who they basically sympathised with. From memory, 25% said Israel, 23% said the Palestinians, almost all of the remaining 52% chose the Unsure because I don’t have enough knowledge option, albeit with tiny minorities choosing either Both or Neither. So, bearing in mind the margin of error, roughly half unsure, a quarter sympathetic to Israel and a quarter sympathetic to the Palestinians. And that division of opinion was very similar to that in Britain, Australia and a few other countries (especially Japan, where the figures were, if I remember rightly, almost exactly the same).
I’d be surprised if that hasn’t changed significantly since 2006. All of the international polls carried out over the last 8 years suggest a major swing against Israel. There’s even been swing in the US, despite the uber-Israeli nuttiness of their mainstream media.
Having said that, there’s always existed a politically astute minority in western countries who have managed to cut through the barrage of Israeli propaganda over the decades. I’ve just been listening to George Galloway talk about the way he became active in the mid-70s and almost suggesting he was unique in this. But, despite a broad sympathy for Israel in Labour Party circles throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s (both in NZ, UK, Oz), there were always people within the Labour Party like my mother who saw things pretty clearly from early on. She became strongly sympathetic to the Palestinians as a teenager in Wellington in 1948 after reading reports of the 1947-48 Arab-Israeli War in The Evening Post, The Dominion and, above all, the Wellington version of The Standard, the Labour-aligned Southern Cross newspaper (published during the post-war period, through to the early 50s).
She said you didn’t have to read much between the lines to see Israel was carrying out a brutal ethnic-cleansing of the Palestinian population, complete with a whole series of massacres of civilian men, women and children. Same old Israeli mindset, never changes. Zionism, at least since the 30s, has always been about the proud, gun-toting Israeli Jew, using violence to militarily carve-out an ethnically-pure Greater Israel.
thanks for that swordfish…your Mother must have been very enlightened for her times in 1948!
…i only wised up when I first went to university in my teens and mixed with some socialist types ( lol) and read a book called ‘Is Israel a Colonial Settler State?’….up until then I was indoctrinated by the fiction best seller ‘Exodus’ and was very pro Israel, like many others then and today, because of the horrors of the WWII holocaust
..this is why i am so pro Internet freedom and free access for all …because you do not have to be an academic or a student to have access to information ( both the best and the worst)….if you search for it and inquire with an open and fair mind…you can see all sides of the story and make up your own mind…It has to be a win /win for world justice and peace in the long term.
“because you do not have to be an academic or a student to have access to information ”
That is right. But you still need an education to make use of that information. What you did with the “information” you cam across on vaccination was abhorent. You simply cannot be trusted to come to the right conclusions on anything. Your vaccination rantings make you a fundamentally untrustworthy person.
@ srylands lol…yes I am uneducated!….. so I let others speak for themselves including doctors and scientists and immunologists and Mothers of children adversely affected by some vaccines
….however as you are so venal and interested always in defending multinational multi billion dollar interests and profits….i guess this would interest you because there is BIG MONEY involved here:
You mentioned the holocaust Chooky. It has crossed my mind of recent times that the N—is were actually afraid of the “Jews”. That was the real reason for the “ethnic cleansing” in ‘Nasti’ Germany.
And when you look at what is happening today there is a correlation between 1930s Germany and Israel of today. Two cuckoos from the same nest so to speak.
Oh do kindly keep your antisemitism to yourself. The Jews of Germany were mostly all assimilated and consider themselves German. And don’t conflate Israel’s far right with “all Jews” – that just makes you a bigot.
Me anti-semitic? It’s the N–is who called them “Jews” not me. I happen to have a number of Jewish relatives in England with whom I lived with for a few years. I have probably had a darn sight more to do with Jewish people than you have.
To help you with your comprehension:
I don’t blame most ordinary Israelis for the actions of their government.
I have never blamed ordinary Russians for the actions of their successive governments.
Nor do I blame ordinary Americans for the actions of their government.
And so it goes on… savvy?
I’d be surprised if that hasn’t changed significantly since 2006. All of the international polls carried out over the last 8 years suggest a major swing against Israel. There’s even been swing in the US, despite the uber-Israeli nuttiness of their mainstream media.
And yet Israel manages to violate human rights with ever more impunity. All your talk matters not a bit, since both sides of the US congress have been bought, and that’s all that is needed to prevent Israel ever being held to account.
Palestine is simply not an issue that looms large in the minds of voters.
Q&A TVNZ this morning;
FIRST Union Secretary Robert Reid on the panel with (might pay to eat after the show) David Farrar, Claire Robinson–and David Shearer on the Israel/Palestine situation.
In my opinion on Q&A David Shearer came close to calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy, but is not quite there.
When asked directly whether he would recommend closing the Israeli embassy Shearer said that there is movement toward that around the world.
David Shearer also confirmed that what New Zealand does is influential. In his words we are “The mouse that roared”
This is where influential leading Labour Party activists like Greg Presland could tilt the balance. Instead Greg channels Murray McCully’s statements about the need to keep the communication channels open. Followed by a lot of moralistic handwringing in the exactly same vein as mickysavage
The moral danger for Greg and other conservative political activists is that the centrist political swamp they are wading through will see them left stranded with the McCullys and Keys on the wrong side of history.
Labour Party activists are working their butts off at present. Many (including me) will have attended protests supporting Palestine and sent emails to the Israeli Embassy. I am sure that I am not the only one who has wept in sadness and disgust at the inhumanity shown by Israel. Lashing out at others will not remove that pain.
A bunch of us will make sure that this issue is covered in Labour’s policy platform going forward i.e. that it is the Labour Party position that the Palestinian people have the right to a sovereign state including democratic and economic self determination without military interference or assault, sanction or blockade, which is exactly the same right that Israel has.
Really? Are you suggesting that New Zealand break off diplomatic relations with the only democracy in the middle east? It is not going to happen. The crazed hate filled mug of Minto will strike zero resonance with New Zealanders. Just look at his face.
In deference to religious Jews, no public bus services run in Israel on the traditional day of rest, except in Arab areas; aircraft operated by El Al, the state airline, remain grounded. Because Jews are not allowed to eat anything leavened or fermented at Passover, in memory of the exodus from Egypt, foods containing grain – even beer or muesli – have to be cleared from the supermarket shelves every spring. Instead of white and brown bread, they sell matzo – an unleavened cracker.
Their proposal defines Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, where the Jewish people have the exclusive right to national self-determination.
Srylands
In terms of threatening liberty – you forgot (most likely omitted);
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
Ukraine
Georgia
and the United States of America.
The Israeli “collateral quotient” equates 4 MH17’s – and counting..
Go and do your own protesting against whoever you like, SSlands, but don’t demand that we do it for you. Get over your stupid sense of entitlement.
As for Israel being a beacon of secular democracy – what a load of shit. It’s a corrupt mafia state these days, with special laws for non-Jews, and lucrative property deals for Bibi’s mates. Mind you, I suspect you think democracy means helping the rich get even richer.
Labour Party activists are working their butts off at present. Many (including me) will have attended protests supporting Palestine and sent emails to the Israeli Embassy.
Tautoko Viper
Good on you TV. It shouldn’t take much more of a push to get the Labour Party leadership to come out on the side of the Palestinians and call for the closure of the Israeli embassy. Already Labour’s potential coalition partners the Greens and Mana have made this call. Ask yourself TV, what would a Kirk or even a Lange do? In 1984 on the Labour Party coming to power the South African embassy didn’t wait around to be asked to leave, but shut up shop and fled the country. TV what you don’t want is your party to be on the wrong side of history this time.
Yesterday I went to the rally in support of the Palestinians at QEII Square at the bottom of Queen Street, Auckland. I saw a number of Green Party and Mana Party banners and flags. But never saw one Labour Party one. Both Mana and Green Party have sent official spokespeople to speak in support of the Palestinians.
On the 16th of August the organisers have called for an even bigger rally and march starting from Aotea Square. Will Labour be there? All political parties have been invited to send official representatives and spokespersons. Labour is the biggest Left Party, TV if Labour Party activists and supporters were as sincere as you claim they could rally far greater numbers than the Green and Mana Parties combined, and make this rally the success it should be. Will we see David Shearer take the speakers platform? Or will it be another no-show?
I hope you are doing all this protest etc for genuine altruistic honest reasons and not just to get some political capital for the coming elections. Your dissing of Labour and demanding that they should do this and that just as the Greens and Mana are doing makes me suspicious of your motives.
Jenny’s regular corrosive style misses the target by singling out mickysavage who has actually made a number of supportive and obviously sincere statements against the Gaza massacre here on The Standard.
Labour as a Party at top level certainly needs to step out of the ‘safe zone’ of underplaying the asymmetrical nature of the Israeli occupation. Sending the ambassador home is a symbolic move but one I support, and putting pressure on the US rather than cheerleading like Key and McCully.
The most important two practical things Kiwis can do is support Kia Ora Gaza with donations for medical aid and become informed and start hitting Israeli business and enablers in the bank account via BDS (Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions). Notice how quick the brief halt to international flights into Tel Aviv got the corporates squealing.
Jenny’s regular corrosive style misses the target by singling out mickysavage who has actually made a number of supportive and obviously sincere statements against the Gaza massacre here on The Standard.
Tiger Mountain
Yet the party he supports has been missing in action. At the protest in Queen Street yesterday I saw a number of Green Party and Mana Party flags but not any of the Labour Party. And both Mana and the Green Party have sent official spokespersons to address these rallies and speaking in support of Palestinians.
Yet Labour is the biggest and most influential party on the Left and could if they were sincere rally many more people to these rallies than either Mana or the Greens.
This tells me that there is a serious default in leadership being shown by influential Labour Party activists like Greg and others like him.
If they were really sincere then they should have the courage of their convictions and be calling for their party leaders to promise to close the embassy. You almost sense that David Shearer wants to make that call and knows that this is necessary if you are serious in opposing the massacre in Gaza, but that he is not getting the support he needs from his party. Leaders must lead but they can’t do that in a vacuum. And with Greg Presland and presumably others opposing this call he won’t.
FFS Jenny your corrosive style of commenting is really unhelpful. I was door knocking and getting people on the roll yesterday. I have been on protests in the past and I have followed the issue for years.
Disagreeing with you on one particular action point does not make me a conservative sellout.
mickysavage
First of all Greg I haven’t accused you of being a conservative sellout, don’t put words in my mouth that I never said.
But it is not just one action point, the trouble Greg, is this is all part of a very worrying pattern.
The same as climate change, you can write dozens of articles on climate and inches of type about how dreadful it is, but when it comes to the crunch, refuse to advocate doing anything about it, and go all silent.
I think the key words in your statement above are “action point” it is ACTION that the modern Labour Party seems to have some allergic reaction to.
For goodness sake Greg, Norman Kirk wasn’t satisfied to just rail on about how awful French nuclear testing at Muruoa atoll was, (he could have done), he did something about it, he sent a gruddy great warship there to protest against it.
Greg your party will have a chance to redeem itself on the 16th of August in Auckland’s Aotea Square.
Will the Labour Party rally their members to turn up?
Will the Labour Party take up their invited place on the official speakers platform?
Will Labour join Mana and the Greens in calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy?
I know you won’t answer Greg, but the whole country will get to see your answer on the day.
[lprent: You appear to be harassing and haranguing one of my authors again because they don’t think exactly the same as you do. I really don’t have time for it at present. I’m trying to move the server.
The server is now at its new (ie cheaper) home. It was going to be the backup server, but when I tested the UFB and looked at the costs, it turned out to be better here and to make the AWS system the backup.
Fortune magazine quotes Jim Johnson of the Standish Group saying 90 percent of ERP projects are either late or over budget. He says: “Your chances of coming in on time and on budget are statistically zero“
SAP has an interesting track record including being successfully sued by Waste Management for fraud after selling the company a US$100 million ERP system described as a complete and utter failure.
So, on the surface, it appears government is willing to entrust the backbone of our economy to a company and industry with a track record of spectacular failure.
When are we going to accept that it’s just to risky and expensive to have private contractors doing the government’s IT work?
What is the solution then? Bill Bennett clearly didn’t offer one. Just scaremongering.
The main IRD tax system, called FIRST, is many decades old, and from what I’ve seen difficult to maintain – the code is COBOL and finding experts in that area gets more difficult each year – and law changes are difficult to implement, see Kiwisaver and Student Loans. Support by third parties might stop.
So at some point the system has to be replaced.
Some areas within IRD are already off the main tax system, for example the Kiwisaver administration, which interestingly runs on SAP. Did you read anywhere, that this project was over budget, over time or didn’t meet the expectation of the client/IRD?
There are thousands of SAP projects around the world and – of course – the failures get a lot more press than the successes (even if you work within the industry).
As far as I know, the only other software option for the FIRST replacement is Oracle. The project to move student loans within IRD to Oracle was, after spending significant amount and efforts, cancelled.
Over the years I’ve been involved in many projects like this one. The success/failure simply depends on (high level):
Quality, expertise of the System Implementer (SI),
Business input (here not only IRD, but also the government for example by simplifying the framework, like tax laws)
Over the years both points might have gone a bit “downhill”, because of (supposedly) cheaper off-shore models, like customer-specific development in India, and larger scopes and complexities, like more sophisticated products, more customer channels etc.
A government IT department tasked with supplying all government departments with their IT needs. This would have a number of advantages:
Build up of institutional knowledge which will produce better software (Addresses your Quality, expertise of the System Implementer)
Better integration across the whole of government (Better for statistical purposes and sharing of data when needed)
Software would be developed over time removing the problems brought about by the sudden upgrade process that we have now
It would be cheaper (No profit to cover and keeping a few people fully employed will cut costs associated with the sudden upgrade process as well as removing the added costs of proprietary software)
Removal from the constraints of proprietary software (government shouldn’t be limited by the software it uses because of IP ownership)
Everything you say there reinforces what I said. A continual small iterative process would remove the major failures and the government, as a whole, is large enough to support a dedicated IT department.
What you say is true. But that’s the nature of big long projects. The answer is – don’t have big long projects. They are too complex and requirements will always change if a project is dragging out 4, 5, 6 years long. Governments change, Ministerial heads change, of course there will be requirements changes.
Simplifying our tax system down would also be very beneficial.
The specific answer is to use a development methodology that de-risks big long projects.
Big problems require big complicated solutions by their very nature. Big complicated solutions take a long time to write.
Agile methodologies de-risk long projects by (effectively) breaking them up into many many many small projects. That way if one small project fails, you find out about it early and have a chance to determine why it failed and what needs to be done differently to ensure that future projects don’t fail.
now that’s talking sense. (Wouldn’t hurt to have a whole lot of the capabilities in house either as opposed to knocking on Accenture’s door every time etc…)
it also helps to have IT project managers rather than working parties on the govt side, and ministers who read the fine print before signing go-live authorisation. And the ministers should know that “mission critical” is important.
How dishonest, or at best unartful, can Q + A become ?
Shearer interviewed on Gaza. That was his billing. Gaza.
The Panel – Robinson, Farrar, Reid.
Reid addresses Shearer’s Gaza comments.
Farrar disagrees. Not sure with whom or about what precisely.
Robinson barely acknowledges Gaza. What ? Supposedly she’s there to offer response to Shearer’s comments, on Gaza. The headline under which Q + A billed him.
But no. She and Farrar committedly engage one another in lively depiction of Shearer as leadership aspirant. So quickly and so thoroughly that you’d think it was planned. Wood chirps in merrily – about Shearer as leadership aspirant.
This perfectly reflects (1) the bankruptcy of Q + A as but a Sunday morning shill show for National Party status-quoism, and (2) the never spoken springboard of western media editorial that Palestinians matter less. The murder figures ? Profess horror and move on. Robinson of course is worse. She doesn’t even profess horror.
Reid’s identification of Robinson as “spin-woman”. Spot on !
Reid is one of the few authentic political commentators in NZ. The Robinsons and the Millers, Wood et al are pure frippery. Delivered with (mock) solemnity as to suggest authority. Except for Wood whose number is the perpetually affixed condescending smile, tending to smirk.
+1
I had anticipated the pundits having to create a new narrative about Labour’s polling, but they skirted that; Robinson even resorted to the old ‘polls bounce around’ defence.
Q and A, particularly when they have half -wit, biased, pro-Right wing, pro-National, anti-Labour, anti-Cunliffe commentators like Clair Robinson, turns into a time wasting unfair gossip session rather than a genuine balanced political programme. Reid HAD to pull the other two twits in line for their uncalled for anti Cunliffe comments and he did! Reid is good. Farrar is ok and tolerable. But Robinson is a completely biased irritating idiot.
Haven’t been able to watch all the way through it yet. But this rehash of Labour leadership in the election campaign- following on from Mallard’s fucking “David Cunliffe is the Labour leader. David Cunliffe is the Labour leader.”
Cunliffe hasn’t been able to unite all the caucus groups yet, but if it comes out that Grant Robertson isn’t doing all he can to stomp on this in the run up to the election, well, I guess my disappointment in him allowing Shearer to become leader the first time will only be amplified enormously.
in reply to Clem : Farrar is good at what he does, and not a twit unless it seems very very necessary. As for the rest…eck.
Well, when one side is dominating…
Or am I being completely sucked into a National play to make what is an enormous strength for Labour- a moral foreign policy with an experienced minister- about the leadership?
Flag-burning is an outrage, scream the extreme right.
Burning children, bombing hospitals? Not a problem.
Mediawatch, Radio NZ National, Sunday 3 August 2014
If you have a taste for the moronic, the insane and the disturbing, then you may well be familiar with the public utterances of one Dennis Prager. This fellow is a deranged lunatic who has achieved a cult status in the United States simply because he is so stupid. In appearance and style, he is like one of the bizarre occasional eccentrics in The Simpsons, or perhaps one of the deluded characters dreamed up and perfected by Steve Coogan or Ricky Gervais. In fact, Prager is so unintentionally hilarious that he might even have been dreamed up by Peter Cook himself. Dennis Prager is to public discourse as Binyamin Netanyahu is to statesmanship, and Lance Armstrong is to sportsmanship: he is a mockery, an insult, a vexation, a screaming nutjob who reads nothing and knows nothing. He is, in other words, the American version of errrrr, ummmmm, Leighton Ummmm, errrrrrr, uuuummmmm, Smith.
So who better to learnedly discuss the massacre in Gaza? Dennis Prager was the guest of NewstalkZB’s drivetime shockjock Larry “Lackwit” Williams last Monday 28th July. He was in vintage form. “Looking at things from my perspective, which I think is the position of moral clarity,” he explained to the head-nodding Lackwit, all of the conflict in the world comes down to “West versus non-west, weak versus strong, white versus non-white.” Prager raved on for a long time in this erudite manner. Not once was the stream of lunacy challenged by Lackwit Williams.
In fact, throughout the week, Lackwit Williams treated his listeners to his own views on the conflict. They were, as you might expect, pretty much identical to Dennis Prager’s, except that Williams is not as absolutely depraved as Prager; he did acknowledge that Israel had committed atrocities. Not that that little quibble was going to derail his prepared speech….
LARRY WILLIAMS: The bombing of Gaza is just appalling…. but while it is unforgivable, it is also unforgivable that Hamas uses human shields.
That’s a lie, of course, straight from the Israeli government’s propagandists. It has been refuted time and again, including by the comprehensive U.N. inquiry into the 2008-9 massacre in Gaza. Not that Larry Lackwit Williams, or Cameron Slater, or any of the other “friends of Israel” that infest the media would care about that.
On Maori TV, Bill Ralston’s ghastly wife Janet Wilson was vapouring about how she finally was forced to think about what was happening to the people of Gaza by the sight of UN spokesman Chris Gunness breaking down on camera. “It takes a middle class white guy to cry before we start taking notice,” she barked. “What does that say about us?”
Of course, seeing that she hadn’t taken any notice of the suffering of Gaza’s people before last week, it hardly comes as a surprise to find that she has not taken any notice of the shameful quality of “reporting” of the massacre by the likes of CNN, ITV and the British state broadcaster. Asked what she had to say about TV3 reporter Mike McRoberts’ deservedly praised performance in Gaza, she hesitated for a while, in order to make it clear she was thinking deeply about what she was about to say. Then she spoke. “He has done a pretty good job,” she said, carefully. “But I’m not sure I would have sent him, when the media organizations TV3 is lined up with would have handled it thoroughly anyway.”
So there we are: this is the standard of media commentary we are served up day after day, week after week. Unhinged lunatics from the farthest fringes of the right wing in the United States, Larry “Lackwit” Williams and his silly ignorant guests on The Cauldron, and a media “expert” (Janet Wilson) who obviously has not watched any of the media she is paid to comment on.
Of course, to the extremists, there was only one issue during the protest marches against the Israeli aggression in Gaza. It wasn’t the bombing of schools and hospitals and the killing of men, women and children. They applaud all that. What exercised these moral leaders was the outrageous sight of an Israeli flag being burned. I sent the following email to Wallace Chapman…..
It’s not “unfathomable” that the right focuses on flag-burning
Dear Wallace,
On Mediawatch this morning, Colin Peacock claimed that the obsession of the extreme right with flag-burning is “unfathomable”. Actually, it’s perfectly logical. It’s a chance for the likes of Cameron Slater, Larry Williams and Paul Henry to distract from the issue, which is the burning of people, schools and hospitals in Gaza.
As Laila Harre showed when she silenced Paul Henry’s objections by insisting that he focus on the issue of the protests—the ongoing death and destruction being inflicted on the citizens of Gaza—the extreme right has no coherent answer when it is presented with the facts.
“On Maori TV, Bill Ralston’s ghastly wife Janet Wilson was vapouring about how she finally was forced to think about what was happening to the people of Gaza by the sight of UN spokesman Chris Gunness breaking down on camera. “It takes a middle class white guy to cry before we start taking notice,” she barked. “What does that say about us?”
Ghastly is right! Speak for yourself, Jan, not ‘us’. Unless by ‘us ‘ you mean vapid, shrill righties, in which case go ahead.
A little story about the wife, Janet Wilson and hubby, Bill Ralston.
Once upon a time (maybe 10 or 12 years ago now) there was a dairy in the locality where I live. It was just and ordinary dairy (or so I thought) and one quiet Sunday afternoon I was sitting nearby in my car when I saw the above loving couple having what appeared to be a very earnest discussion or domestic dispute outside the dairy in question. Eventually the problem (whatever it was) was solved and loving wife disappeared inside the dairy. Hubby wandered self-consciously off in the opposite direction and I was left wondering what it was all about because their demeanour appeared cagey -almost clandestine. Several months later the dairy in question was raided by the police for illegal party drugs. The penny dropped.
@Ergo Robertina
Distasteful slur? – rubbish! It was an interesting and humorous aside about two well known people prompted by their names being mentioned by Tigger @ 8.1. Are you inferring I made it up? I don’t do lies like the “piece of smelly blubber” you refer to.
And thanks North and Chooky below. Good to have some reasoned commenters around at times like this. Perhaps the others had a heavy weekend. 🙂
Probably been mentioned befor, BUT, on my drive back from this mornings veg market among the nests of election billboards i got this message, ”Vote Positive”,
Ok, i will look for the positive party on my ballot papers in September, because at 40K which was the speed i was driving at that’s the message i got from the billboard along with a splash of color which might or might not have been a picture of ‘happy families’,
Obviously, because i know it is, i can identify the ‘vote positive’ billboard as a Labour one because of ‘prior knowledge’, my point being, that those armed with NO prior knowledge wont have a clue considering the ‘cluster’ of messages that are on offer at the two nests of billboards i have so far seen in this electorate,
Are Labour shy or something??? what’s wrong with Big Red BillBoards that Yell in Big White Letters, VOTE LABOUR,
To be noticed in a crowd you have to be bold and loud…
Three weeks ago I emailed via the Labour Party website to ask about their welfare policy, do they have one and when will it be released. I was informed the next day my email would be forwarded to Sue Moroney (Welfare spokesperson) “for her consideration”. I love that, apparently a straightforward, simple question needs to be “considered”. I have had no reply from ANYONE.
I would love to be generous and say that the email genuinely got lost, but it wasn’t. Labour has a welfare policy all right and that’s to totally avoid the subject. That’s been obvious for years, continuing the cuts of the 1990s, their deafening silence in “opposition” to the last 6 years of NACT cruelty, and more recently their refusal to engage in the subject when questioned in the media or blogs, here included (DCs question time for example).
Labour are in total agreement with National over welfare (read:benefit) policy and their attitude towards those of us who have no choice but to be dependent on it. The only difference is that National don’t pretend to hid their distain and we know exactly. where we stand with them.
Long term beneficiaries realised many years ago that Labour are no longer our friend and we changed our votes accordingly. Now it’s up to us to inform others we know on benefits, or who’s jobs aren’t safe and might be having to run the WINZ gauntlet in the near future, that while we need a Left Government to vote Greens or Mana. Labour don’t want our vote, they’ve done everything short of actually saying it our loud, and if we can get more Green/IMP MPs in Government at least we might stand a chance of stopping our situation getting worse.
Labour IS a very caring but also a very responsible party.
Labour do have a well thought out financially and socially manageable fair and reasonable welfare policy for beneficiaries, for families, for students, for super annuitants, for children, for mothers, for the poor, for the sick, for the homeless, for the unemployed etc. There aren’t unlimited funds to give unlimited rock-star assistance that you and I may desire. No responsible party can do that. For you to say that the Labour party is akin to the National party in its welfare policies is a lie.
Remember that it is a balancing act that needs public support too to be in a position to form a government to make the necessary changes. What use of having utopian wishes without the majority public votes and without being fair to the workers and everyone else in society too?
I think your plug for the greens and Mana is obvious, but completely unfair in your blatant attempt to diss the Labour party in this context.
P.S :
Just go to the Labour party website (google is your friend, even if you are a Labour foe) and READ their policies before firing off time wasting emails around or posting unjust comments here.
Have you contacted them before Kaye? Maybe they know you are not a friend. As Clem says, you can go to the website and find out anything you want for yourself. Why should Labour – who are in campaign mode and have been for some time now – waste precious time on someone who is too lazy to find out for him/herself.
According to the Labour website, this is a list of all the announced policies. Perhaps you could find the welfare policy for us Anne, because I can’t see it.
I think DC said at the last Q and A that Labour would announce welfare policy soon. That was a month or so ago.
Hi Weka – I’ve noticed your absence – Welcome back! 🙂
I have also searched for the Labour party’s welfare policy and it doesn’t appear to be there (apart from the Best Start policy). The Greens and Mana are quite clear on their welfare policies. I haven’t looked up the Internet Party’s policy yet.
One thing I am glad of is that so far unemployed people have not been used as a political football. Long may that last.
I very much appreciated Mr Cunliffe’s comments on the Q&A:
But what I can tell you is that the systematic victimisation and demonisation of beneficiaries we’ve seen under National has absolutely no place in Labour’s values or a Labour Government.
This is a heartening signal – yet, yes, it isn’t policy – which as Weka conveyed Mr Cunliffe wrote on the same Q&A session: “I’m not going to announce our welfare policy here.”
I don’t think Labour and National treat beneficiaries the same, although I can understand why Kaye feels like they do. However, Labour have an appalling history of welfare policy and implementation and despite some of the good things they have done that Anne refers to, they still suck for a supposedly left wing party. The only way that you can say that Labour have good welfare policy is by comparing them to NACT.
I too hope that Cunliffe’s Labour will pull something out of the hat before the election. I won’t be surprised if that something is fairly mediocre and designed to not give the impression that Labour are soft on bludgers. It also greatly concerns me that Labour’s welfare focus is so hugely on job creation to the point where they seem incapable of talking about people who don’t/can’t/shouldn’t work in paid employment. I will be very interested to see what they do with the shit being done to solo parents currently. Will Labour reinstate the right to stay at home and raise your kids, or will they continue with policy that says that solo parents need to be punished and bullied into work?
As far as I can tell DC believes that the solutions are in job creation. I’ve yet to see anything definitive about who should be expected to work.
And there has been nothing from Labour to make up for Shearer’s painter on the roof fiasco.
Labour are actually doing what I thought they should do – keeping very low key re welfare. I can see, however, that leaves those on welfare worried that they are going to be ‘just as bad as National’ and not reverse draconian approaches National have introduced. It is a bit frustrating because I can just imagine what shite Labour are going to get if they release anything of substance re welfare – and if they don’t they will get shite from potential supporters.
It seems like a terribly no win situation they are in.
Personally, I would prefer that they keep fairly low key on welfare -[ yet I can see there is a problem with trust for many. ] I would rather Labour went low key and got in and lost some of the welfare vote to Mana than come out fighting and get completely obliterated by the predictable vitriol that would set in from National and our uncaring Media and end up not getting in at all.
I realise this is a pretty sadly, fearful and conservative approach. 🙁
It could be that a strong message could be sent out to New Zealanders that welfare improvement is much needed (as it is) and a shift in peoples’ attitudes occurred however I would assume this would have been better started way earlier and Cunliffe hasn’t been leader long enough to have taken that approach. 🙁
At what point then should Labour actually reform welfare in a good way?
Labour won’t be as bad as National. I’ve argued pretty strongly on ts in the past that it does a big disservice to characterise Labour in this way, because it hides the reality that Labour hide behind their welfare lite reform that fiddles a bit and makes some things better but doesn’t change anything substantial (the hard core call this National stab us in the front, Labour stab us in the back). Based on previous Labour govts, what I expect is that a few of the harsher things Bennett has done will be rescinded, but many things will just have the hard edges sanded off them but essentially left in place. The culture within WINZ will swing back towards being human towards beneficiaries, but such change takes time and will never reach all staff and all offices. And they won’t make up for the shit entrenched in policy and legislation. I can’t see Labour doing much about the extreme institutional dysfunctionality of WINZ unless there is a distinct shift left. No-one will want to touch that.
Perhaps it needs to come from an organised ‘people pressure’? That way Labour can’t be ‘blamed’. It can be ‘sold’ as Labour being responsive to public pressure?
If Labour are going to make changes they need to address attitudes first. I think Cunliffe is doing well in that respect. If he keeps pushing the line that all people need to have a share in our country’s wealth and of fairness and also values and if his government actively creates jobs, then people have to start seeing that those on welfare are actually more victims of the system than ‘bludgers’. I really don’t think that is the case in most peoples’ minds yet, although I am open to arguments on that matter!
For people on invalids these concerns I have shouldn’t be such an issue – changes should be made straight away. I also think that treating those in relationships differently than single people needs to go straight away – this should actually save money on the ridiculous investigations that must go on all over this country. It could also be sold as ‘keeping families together’ because I feel quite certain that welfare for couples must split rather a lot up.
That is a bit rough. They should have at least told Kaye they hadn’t released it yet. Kaye is showing interest and democratic responsibility in contacting Labour to find out what they are offering. If we all did that, then our democracy would be achieving more sound results!
@ Kaye
Good one for your efforts Kaye! 🙂
Hope Labour’s poor response/non-response doesn’t put you off completely – I wrote to them asking about their stance on broadcasting a few weeks ago and got an extremely quick reply – surprisingly so. They only told me that there was a policy release in the pipeline – no details, which is what they should have done for you too – hopefully they will…eventually. Good communication is very important. 🙂
Have a read of Kaye @10. He/she was being provocative, judgmental and in the case of the following quote from the same post :
Labour are in total agreement with National over welfare (read:benefit) policy and their attitude towards those of us who have no choice but to be dependent on it. The only difference is that National don’t pretend to hide their disdain and we know exactly where we stand with them.
totally wrong.
The facts are far more likely to be… they are saving the Welfare policy package in order for it to have maximum impact, and to reduce the ability of National and the MSM being able to distort, misrepresent and generally pillory the policy as well as the beneficiaries themselves.
We’ve seen more than enough of the deplorable discrediting tactics coming from the Tories and the MSM in recent times without having the very people Labour wants to help ensuring they succeed.
Btw, I was a beneficiary in the 1990s – the Christine Rankin era – and I know all about the bullying, humiliation and thuggery that took place at the time. And Helen Clark’s Labour government took immediate steps to remove Rankin and overturn the culture of bullying etc. that prevailed.
Yes, I have commented in other threads I, too, have been on welfare when the government has changed. There is a noticeable difference between the two parties – one is much more likely to get off welfare under Labour because there is more assistance to help you do that – generally more helpful and less hostile under Labour.
[There is such a difference I have to admit to having a few moments of feeling sorry for WINZ staff with the latest round of draconian changes! They are encouraged to establish a rapport with you and then suddenly they have to change their entire attitude and leave you stranded when National do their shite. It can’t be very good working conditions at WINZ. Not easy to just quit either – considering the dreadful levels of unemployment – that they know all about!]
I, therefore, also get annoyed when people say Labour and National are ‘just the same’. [Not saying there is not room for improvement re Labour!] However, Labour should be organised and communicative with people writing in to find things out about their policies. If only to say ‘we haven’t released the policy yet’. It makes a big difference if one gets quick and friendly response.
@clemgeopin
I have been to their website. I looked, and I’ve been looking regularly for months. If there’s something there I can’t find it. If it is there can you please link it for me? If they have a policy then there’s a lot of us who would like to study it so we can make an informed vote. Why is it so hard to even get an answer from them about their policy??
btw,a welfare policy isn’t just about money, it’s about how people are treated by the system and the community as a whole. I’d like to know if a Labour govt would reverse the general cruelty that anyone unfortunate enough needing WINZ assistance now has to deal with, for example. You know, consider us as human beings. The fact that they’ve been incredibly quiet about this is telling. Get my point? I’m happy to stand corrected of course. Believe it or not I’ve been looking for reasons to vote Labour, I used to. I’m not a member of Greens/Mana and until this year I’ve never remotely engaged in anything political and never thought I’d ever be posting on blog sites but this is something I feel very strongly about so I’m putting it out there.
And I’m not the only person with these views who’s commented on the Standard in the last few months.
Searching for the word “welfare” gives no results. However the very top of the page says this:
We will continue to announce policies through until the general election on 20 September 2014.
So you’ll just have to wait.
Labour are obviously not going to tell random people that email them the date on which they are going to announce particular policies, because that would allow their political opponents to arrange how they are going to respond, by example by releasing their equivalent policies on the same day, or the day before, to ensure they get total media coverage.
Labour’s policies will be based on its Policy Platform – which is on the official NZLP website.
If you just google NZ Labour Party Policy Platform, you should be able to get to it easily.
The Policy Platform has a series of Values which Labour will base its various policies on.
Start at page 25 and go on from there. Here is an example :
5.12 Chance and misfortune mean that some people struggle even in ‘the good times’. Security, mutual responsibility, and fairness demand that those adversely affected should not depend on charity and the stigma that carries, or be subject to humiliation or meaningless ‘make work’ to survive.
This indicates to me that Labour does care about how people are treated by the beaurocratic system set up under National, and intend to do something about it.
The Policy Platform goes on to say –
As a matter of principle and sound social and economic investment, Labour is committed to banishing child poverty in New Zealand. The solutions are not simple, and the goal cannot be achieved immediately. We will co-ordinate and monitor its approach across all of government and policy……..
Yep, its also called a comprehensive food in schools program and an equally comprehensive rebuild of the States Housing stocks so that the lowest income working families, those who are the last to be hired and the first to be fired, are all housed at 25% of their household income,
There is a point of measurable poverty judged in dollar terms, everyone who lives at that measurable point should be eligible to be paying no more than 25% of their income as rent,
I seem to remember Marion Street and another Labour MP, may have been Sue Moroney had been working on this very issue, i.e. the issue of how people are treated when they go into WINZ ………..looking at changing the culture, so people are treated with dignity and respect………I think they may have done this in association with the young woman who spoke up so bravely about her experience with Nelson WINZ. Correct me if my memory doesn’t serve me well.
I don’t think they have released their welfare policy yet. If it’s not on their website then this is likely the case.
The one thing we know is in Best Start, parents of new infants including those on benefits will be entitled to that $60.00 a week.
“I seem to remember Marion Street and another Labour MP, may have been Sue Moroney had been working on this very issue, i.e. the issue of how people are treated when they go into WINZ ………..looking at changing the culture, so people are treated with dignity and respect………I think they may have done this in association with the young woman who spoke up so bravely about her experience with Nelson WINZ. Correct me if my memory doesn’t serve me well.”
They were doing some work via the website. As a beneficiary there is no way that I would have answered their survey. It was unsafe, asking people to give details about negative experiences and identifying details with absolutely no information about how that would be used, or how the safety of those beneficiaries would be safeguarded. Made me trust Labour even less than I did before when it comes to WINZ issues. What do you think happens to beneficiaries who make complaints about WINZ who happen to reside in areas that have WINZ offices with vindictive and petty staff? Remember what happened to the two Nelson women on the DPB who spoke out about National removing the training incentive allowance? Paula Bennett dragged them through the media, including revealing confidential information from their files, and then told the Privacy Commissioner to get stuffed when they ruled against her breaching the privacy rights of those two women.
This is why I and others want to know what Labour intend to do, not just some nice sounding values stuff.
“The one thing we know is in Best Start, parents of new infants including those on benefits will be entitled to that $60.00 a week.”
That’s not welfare policy, that’s social security. What’s at issue here is how beneficiaries, ie clients of WINZ, are treated and supported.
Kaye, I have no idea why they did not reply to you. They should have. I am guessing that perhaps they get thousands of emails and letters daily from supporters, enemies, press, other parties, MPs, campaign workers, campaign personnel, etc etc with suggestions, queries, criticisms etc etc that they are simply unable to respond due to lack of time, personnel and resources. Perhaps they only answer very urgent/essential messages. I do know that for a major political party, the Labour party barely has enough funds and donations to manage a general election, unlike some other parties. Added to that, there seems to be a strong MSM unfair crusade dissing tide against it and its leader. That is why I get irritated when posters supporting other progressive minor parties too try to diss it. Sorry for being short in my reply if you were not one of those.
At least they replied to you saying they have sent your query to Sue Moroney, their welfare spokesperson. By the way, I have NOTHING to do with the party itself, except it is the party I like and will most certainly be voting for it.
Do post here when you find out what their ‘welfare’ policies are.
Also, can you state clearly what exactly you want to see in a welfare policy? I am curious to know.
Will Labour restore benefits to the inflation adjusted levels of pre-1990 benefit cuts?
Will Labour remove the institionalised prejudice inherent in its Working for Families policy?
Will Labour reintroduce a hardship grant that allows beneficiaries under significant financial duress to get adequate assistance?
What specifically will Labour do to reverse the bene bashing meme that has been allowed to arise both within govt and within NZ society? (that Labour has participated in in the past btw)
What will Labour do to reverse the bene bashing culture within WINZ?
What will Labour do to turn WINZ into a functional bureaucracy as opposed to the dog’s breakfast it has become in the past 25yrs? (including under Labour’s watch in that past)?
Which of National’s draconian welfare Acts and policies will Labour repeal or significantly ammend in its first term?
You can understand why some beneficiaries aren’t holding their breath about change under a Labour govt.
You use the same search techniques here as those applied to your wisdom on vaccinations.
Gaza could have developed the gas with Israel cooperation if Hamas had not taken power. There were plans well developed with Israel’s cooperation. But why would Israel boost the resoucres of Hamas? If Gaza residents nominate rational representatives who support Israel’s right to exist and give up on the terror, they will get their gas.
..the French did not lie down and take it from Hitler…there was resistance …so why should the Palestinians take it from the Israelis?…..really the West has to support the Palestinians otherwise they are acquiescing to a new Fascist Nazi force in the world
Because in 1939 the French were the good guys and in 2014 Hamas are the bad guys? Had you considered that difference just for a start? Or are you still addled from the influence of the anti-vaccine nutters?
with a line that I thought ought to be pondered by Trevor, Phil and Annette….
“…even years on and rightwing intellectuals still cannot accept that their certainties no longer make sense. Like old men at a bar, they block out the present and relive the moment when they were young and filled with audacious vigour…”
These kind of polls are good for a laugh, but all I’d take from is it that Nat supporters haven’t seen the email telling them to get onto it and vote ASAP. That and there are 6 Colonservative folk who were voting when they should have been in church. Colin knows your names, people. He Sees All.
Agree Ffloyd @ 15………I was commenting on this today………..English answering on his behalf in the final session of Parliament for the year and what a truly disgraceful performance it was dodging and fudging questions on child poverty……….
Then Joyce coming in. National’s strategy seems to be talk loud and over others, dick around about statistics and then say we are doing that already. Laugh at opponent in an attempt to ridicule and discredit them……………..
I have thought for some weeks Key looks tired and ???? possibly unwell? Could we see his resignation soon? If it is just after the election, it would demonstrate just how much National hold the NZ public in.
Learning more of his spin lines and trying to improve his brain fades and golf strokes.. And oh, perhaps the recent secret visitor, the FBI big guy, may have given him some urgent home work to do.
I think Clem’s on to it. Also the discovery there was a secret visit from an NSA engineer last year advising the GCSB how to intercept the Southern Cross cyber-optic cable. I doubt Key wants to be interviewed about it.
Michael Anderson, a postdoctoral fellow at Massey University, is interested in finding out more about the arrival dates of our two species of migratory cuckoos: the Long-tailed Cuckoo and Shining Cuckoo. If you hear or see one of these birds, please help by reporting it using one of the Google forms:
Long-tailed Cuckoo spring migration form http://goo.gl/ClBMWZ
Shining Cuckoo spring migration form http://goo.gl/CDjbuh
Prime News just had an article extracted from TV1’s Q&A where David Shearer didn’t rule out challenging for the leadership..it really makes me wonder about these guys and whether they have any political extinct at all. The fact that he answered that particular question in that way would disqualify him straight away in my humble opinion.
@ Sarrbo 5.55
Political “extinct” or instinct? While wondering which it occurred to me that this is clever satire. Are they ex or in? Is politics itself? And does anyone in Lab-our care, or is it all ‘our’ scientific experiment on the mumblers to see how much bullshit we can swallow?
Why would they comment on it? He can endorse whomever he likes. In any case, Lomu’s a wealthy man – of course he’s backing National. For the wealthy, it’s either National or ACT, and ACT is a basket case.
As a famous sports figure liked by the country Lomu should have better sense than supporting any political party and its leader, especially a crooked one like National party and its dodgy leader, Key!
Lomu has now come across as a right wing political pawn and a politically naive fool!
League player? Actor? Radio announcer? Married to someone with plastic surgery?
Please advise how shallow your hero worship is?
I haven’t bothered watching or following sport, most TV, or many aspects of popular culture for the last 20 years. The vacuous mindset and allusions that you display are usually not worth following.. But hey, we must feel charitable for those afflicted with such addictions.
He played rugby union and was supposed to win the world cup in South Africa, but the South Africans poisoned our rugby heroes (at least that’s what the coach claimed) and South Africa won. He then got kidney disease and had to stop playing.
I have no idea why anyone should give his political preferences any time at all.
@ lprent 7.38
I said to mickeysavage yesterday how it would be good to start off comments in the manner I have in this one, because you can nail who and what is being replied to. Nuff said.
Meh! Just a rinse’n’repeat CrosbyTextor gimmick from last election when it was Michael Jones. At least this time Jonah’s followers have put a flea in his ear.
Sorrylands a millionaire and serial philanderer who has damaged his health eating burgers with high salt trans fats refined carbohydrates bludging on the health system what role model for the right personal resposibilty and all.
He should be encouraging people to vote ACT.
Then he could go round to Dirty old Don,s place for tea discuss old flames philandering techniques and share a corned beef and frozen pea dinners!
Not the first All Black to be a Tory. One even became a NAct MP, but we shouldn’t talk about him. Doesn’t surprise me at all. At the All Black level it’s all corporate and they suck off the government tit. He’s just thinking them for all the corporate welfare.
Lomu is a sometimes official/sometimes unofficial rep of the NZRU. We’ve seen the stake in the ground from the NZRU, it’s on the cover of the Rugby News.
Me too. I am a rugby fan and have been since my dad used to wake me up in the middle of the night in the ’70s to watch All Black test matches in Europe.
The two incidents, Rugby News cover, and Lomu’s bought and paid for endorsement have really shaken me.
Thing is, at junior level it is not about elites at all, it’s about every kid, decile 1 to 10, no matter what the background. This is our patch, and why rugby should be totally left alone by politicians.
Oh, I grew up in a rugby family, but, (as far as I can guess) my parents voted National.
I used to like going to watch club rugby, and to the main match at Eden Park on Saturdays when i was growing up. But as a teenager, I went off it for years – for political reasons (mainly feminist ones – socially conservative and patriarchal values dominated rugby circles). But after ’81, I gradually got back to watching it….. off it again now.
I played cricket, rugby, and league when I was a kid. My interest waned when I stopped playing. I never watched them on TV. After all we had Eden park down the road and it didn’t cost much to go and watch a game.
After I moved cities, joined the army, started working as a barman, and did university (all at the same time), my interest completely died. There were more important and interesting things to do. And that was before I got seriously into programming.
It is quite prudent to avoid following and advocating representative sports.
Most often it is about people impeding other people from achieving their goals (or Try’s).
These days the sports persons are earning MILLIONS of dollars in fees and sponsoring, as well as sports has become corrupt and very suspect with match fixing and entwined with corporate crooks and tie wearing gangs from the gambling dens.
Every time I look at a game on TV now, I wonder how many millions have passed hands and if the results are genuine ones or just make-believe genuine looking stunts for gullible arm chair screaming suckers around the world including me!
Shanghai Pengxin, the controversial Chinese buyer of the massive Lochinver Station, was recently given conservation land by the Government, including parts of the Rakaia riverbed.
“Decision
Consent granted
Section 12(b) Overseas Investment Act 2005
Decision date 1 April 2014
Investment
An overseas investment in sensitive land, being the Applicant’s acquisition of rights or interests in up to 100% of the shares of China Merchants Pacific (NZ) Limited which owns or controls a freehold interest in approximately:
4.5112 hectares of land at Chatham Hill, Gulf Harbour; and
10.9114 hectares of land at Matua Road, Huapai.
Consideration $55,520,300
Applicant
China Merchants Properties Development Limited
Chinese Government, China, People’s Republic of (100.0%)
Vendor China Merchant Holdings (Pacific) Limited
Chinese Government, China, People’s Republic of (82.44%)
Various overseas persons (17.56%)
Background
The transaction reflects an intragroup transfer, which results in an increase in China Merchant Group Limited’s ultimate control of the target China Merchants Pacific (NZ) Limited from 82.44% to 100%. The rationale is to transfer the target’s property development activities from the Vendor (whose core business is developing toll roads) to the Applicant whose core business aligns with those activities.
The overseas investment transaction has satisfied the criteria in section 16 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005. The ‘benefit to New Zealand’ criterion was satisfied by particular reference to the following factors:
Overseas Investment Regulations 2005
28(c) – Affect image, trade or international relations
28(e) – Previous investments
28(f) – Advance significant Government policy or strategy”
Tolls roads brought to you by the Chinese Government! Criterion 28 (f) “Advance significant government policy or strategy indeed!” Stephen Joyce you are everywhere.
The forest sell off was too much WTF to start with and it’s getting late so will park this until tomorrow. Seems 12 hectares of conservation handed over to Shanghai Pengxin is the tip of the iceberg
Don’t you just love that 28(f) catch all? Thing is, the National Ltd™ government’s policy and strategy to sell off everything has never been made clear to the New Zealand public. Its starting to become more and more apparent though but, alas, too late.
…lets hope this becomes a BIG Election issue( Winnie was on the case this morning) ….Chinese corporate buy up of New Zealand land….China could buy New Zealand up millions of times over
….John Keys NACT govt is selling New Zealand and New Zealanders OUT!
You know, once, a long time ago Rhinocrates expressed his shock and surprise at something appalling in the Nat Govt’s long list of “shocking and appalling things we do to NZ”.
He expressed his surprise by saying “Well! my flabbers are well and truly gasted!” I’ll never forget that great line and this is one of those times where that line can be brought into use, again.
PS: Good links you provided yesterday re Jewish peace rallies held in NY and Tel Aviv in support of Palestine. No time to reply as I only got to Open Mike later in the evening. Onya Chooky.
I wonder if ministerial funds were used Judith Collins Jenny Shipley most likely involved.
This is the sort of corruption we read about happening in China every day.
Steven Joyce and Nick Smith are more than likely involved.
with all these extravagant expenses National MP are running up at the taxpayers expense!
Brain Fade Keys PROMISE of more accountability seems to be fading like his memory!
Is it too late? It’s too late to stop the applications that have been approved but is it too late to halt further “investments” that are not in the public’s interest?
Could the very deep well of darkness be exposed to the light of day by researchers for the opposition parties, pronto, before the election?
Agree Steven Joyce (especially roads and other infrastructure) and Nick Smith (forests)will more than likely be involved. They are agents of team knock off the lot. This could be a scandal of Collins’ proportions.
Are we “Little China” or are we “Little America”? Make your mind up Key.
That article actually says “It’s notable that one former MP, convicted fraudster Donna Awatere Huata, is back on the fringes of the Internet-Mana alliance.” It doesn’t mention “advising” at all, so I doubt your good faith in making your comment.
Given who the author is, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from the mighty Whalespew army had seen Awatere in Rotorua, and everyone knows Annette Sykes is from there!!
I continue to be disappointed with Labour. Now the dismaying news that they plan to “replace Careers New Zealand with a new agency to oversee a national careers strategy”.
“Funding for the Agency would be $17 million over four years…”
Funding for Careers New Zealand right now is $15 million PER YEAR. That’s $60 million over the last four years. Funding for the agency has been flat for nearly 6 years thanks to our idiotic National govt, which has resulted in a steadily reducing reach and staffing level as inflation cuts into their ability to perform.
Careers NZ ALREADY HAS a national careers strategy. What they need is MORE funding, resources and assistance to achieve it.
Instead, they talk of replacing a perfectly good agency, squandering resources and effort, and replacing it with a body with a quarter of the funding!
I ran across a recent essay from The Brothers Krynn, which attempts to map common horror monsters onto the Seven Deadly Sins: https://canadianculturecorner.substack.com/p/horror-monsters-and-vice My interest, however, is not in the meat of the piece, but rather the opening paragraph: It is an interesting fact that in recent decades, Vampires have ...
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
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Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
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Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
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‘
Labour and National Party activists and politicians must have a much higher tolerance level for genocide than most people.
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-02082014/#comment-859197
Most people would reject the murder of innocent women and children on the first instance.
Come on Greg you can be better than this.
Stand up to the extreme Right pressure in your own party.
Do what ever it takes. Demand in the strongest terms possible (either privately or publicly), that your party leader David Cunliffe make a statement promising to cut diplomatic relations with Israel.
Gee Jenny I was expressing a personal view, not succumbing to right wing pressure.
My personal view is that diplomatic channels if at all possible should be left open. So I disagree with calls to send the Israeli ambassador home. And I do reject the murder of innocent women and children. Have a read of what I have written on the subject if you want proof.
Greg if you are of a certain age you will understand that you are using the same morally indefensible and bankrupt excuse used by the NZRFU and the Muldoon administration for keeping ties with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Greg you can keep up your liberal handwringing as long as you like, but by refusing to take a stand to match, your expressions of condemnation and concern at the massacre of innocents are hollow.
Come on Greg I expected better of you than this.
Weird. Having an internationalist perspective and wanting to preserve diplomatic relations is somehow support for Israel.
Ah, Jenny. Wallowing in the blood of the innocent dead to in order to make a sectarian and irrelevant attack on Labour. Quality stuff.
Yes, climate change must be yesterdays news.
More mileage in dead children than dead polar bears.
Lordy, imagine if a polar bear washed up on the beach at Gaza … Jenny Jackpot! Labour to blame, obviously.
You nailed it mate.
Climate change is not yesterday’s news, the same lack of leadership from the Labour Party we are seeing around that issue we see around the genocide in Gaza.
If Labour activists really started fighting for what they believe and convinced their leaders to come out swinging with policies sharply contrasted to National’s then we might see Labour’s electoral fortunes turn around.
As it is, how can there really be an electoral contest between Labour and National when both Labour and National agree on deep sea oil, fracking and new coal mines, and in foreign affairs on how to deal with Israel. The strongest thing the two parties disagree on most strongly in the eyes of the electorate is raising the age of Superannuation entitlement. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be funny.
Your disingenuity does much damage to your position, which increasingly looks petty, spiteful and coordinated, leaving you very much isolated, inhabiting the fringes of debate.
Good luck with that.
TRP and Alien – Jenny is saying something eminently sensible here. I agree with her. I don’t know what you two are trying to say, because all you’ve done is attack her.
Diplomacy doesn’t work with the Zionists. Latin American countries have taken the lead and are cutting off diplomatic relations. We should be with them, not with countries that do all they can to support Zionist aggression.
Not just a case of shoot the messenger, there are plenty of reasons why Labour should not come out calling for the expulsion of diplomats or the closing of the idf embassy.
One, it’s a big call to make, and the run up to a general election, without the benefit of departmental briefings etc.. is not the place to make ad-hoc/snap policy decisions, especially by the current opposition.
Second, there are other avenues open, such as calling the embassy boss in for a please explain, and to officially pass on the dissatisfaction of the NZ public over the idf operations and occupation of Palestine before reaching the expulsion stage, without which, would expose the Labour leadership to accusations of being unfit to govern.
I support the closing of the Israel embassy and telling them to only come back when they’ve negotiated a two state agreement, but after winning the election first and following due procedure after informed advice.
“Evil will prevail when good men do nothing”
The same dude who is popularly attributed to your quote.
Diplomacy doesn’t work with animals.
I’ve seen enough pictures of burned babies in my Twitter feed.
Weird. Having an internationalist perspective and wanting to preserve diplomatic relations is somehow a bad thing. (Nevill Chamberlaine’s ghost scratches his head in puzzlement that his critics could ever think such things as he eternally walks from the plane.)
Robert Muldoon’s ghost from 1981 creases his cheek and chuckles
Mickeysavage, with all due respect to you, and for your p.o.v. on this issue – I beg to disagree.
Israel will not “listen” to international pressure until the are made to feel international pressure by increasing isolation.
When the Ambassador is sent home – then Israel will feel that pressure.
When we stop trading with them – then Israel will feel that pressure.
When we cease sporting contacts with them – then Israel will begin to understand.
That is how the white regime in Souith Africa was made to “listen” to international pressure. Apartheid was finally destroyed when it was no longer tenable for the South African government of the day to preserve it.
Any message we send to Israel can be done through the U.N.
Thanks Frank. I will cogitate on the issue. At Uni I studied Advanced International Law and I agreed with the model that diplomatic channels should be kept open if at all possible.
I am more than happy if we stop trading and sporting contacts with Israel.
Cheers, micky! 🙂
Two out of three ain’t bad. We can work out the third option…
The World is Starting to Turn Against Israel! I srael must be called to account for crimes against humanity!
From Robert Fisk , the Independent
‘Dress the Gaza situation up all you like, but the truth hurts -The world is starting to turn against Israel’
“There was a time when our politicians and media had one principal fear when covering Middle East wars: that no one should ever call them anti-Semitic.
So corrosive, so vicious was this charge against any honest critic of Israel that merely to bleat the word “disproportionate” – as in any normal wartime exchange rate of Arab-to-Israeli deaths – was to provoke charges of Nazism by Israel’s would-be supporters. Sympathy for Palestinians would earn the sobriquet “pro-Palestinian”, which, of course, means “pro-terrorist”.
Or so it was until the latest bloodbath in Gaza, which is being so graphically covered by journalists that our masters and our media are suffering a new experience: not fear of being called anti-Semitic, but fear of their own television viewers and readers – ordinary folk so outraged by the war crimes committed against the women and children of Gaza that they are demanding to know why, even now, television moguls and politicians are refusing to treat their own people like moral, decent, intelligent human beings…..
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/dress-the-gaza-situation-up-all-you-like-but-the-truth-hurts-9641240.html
I don’t think that’s going to happen.
People supposed that the open nature of the internet would increase accountability, but all it does is clarify the ability of the powerful to act with impunity. A harsh lesson.
I disagree…..The internet is a powerful means of education and knowledge!.
…This is why we must all fight for freedom of access to the internet and oppose any attempts to censor or stifle it !
You can learn all you like. It makes no difference. You are a niche market.
Most people are posting inanities to Facebook, reading celebrity gossip or masturbating to violent pornography.
Projecting much?
Another hopeful sign…..Jews stage massive anti war demonstrations against Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians
http://www.globalresearch.ca/not-in-our-namejews-stage-massive-anti-war-protests-in-tel-aviv-new-york-and-elsewhere/5393512
Really? How massive are these protests? Probably a few hundred Hatnuah members out on a Thursday night.
@ srylands…Israelis and holocaust survivors speak out against Israel’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/01/all-6-former-israeli-secret-service-chiefs-slam-occupation-of-palestine.html
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/israeli-soldiers-testimonies-from-the-occupied-territories-2000-2010.html
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/11/holocaust-survivors-criticize-israeli-policy-towards-palestinians.html
They’re bigger than they were last time the Zionists slaughtered people in Gaza. If there’s a next time, they’ll be even bigger. When the outspoken supporters of Zionist terror are people as rotten as SSlands, Tel Aviv should be worried.
Yep, Chooky, although (in response to the excellent Robert Fisk) I’d say public opinion throughout the world has been slowly changing since Israel’s brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and, much more rapidly, since its carpet-bombing of Lebanon in 2006 and, above all, its previous massacre of around 1400 Gazans in late 2008 / early 2009 (as with the current orgy of mass murder, the vast majority were civilians, with a sizeable minority of children – although, you probably know that already).
A poll was conducted in New Zealand around the time of the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, asking respondents who they basically sympathised with. From memory, 25% said Israel, 23% said the Palestinians, almost all of the remaining 52% chose the Unsure because I don’t have enough knowledge option, albeit with tiny minorities choosing either Both or Neither. So, bearing in mind the margin of error, roughly half unsure, a quarter sympathetic to Israel and a quarter sympathetic to the Palestinians. And that division of opinion was very similar to that in Britain, Australia and a few other countries (especially Japan, where the figures were, if I remember rightly, almost exactly the same).
I’d be surprised if that hasn’t changed significantly since 2006. All of the international polls carried out over the last 8 years suggest a major swing against Israel. There’s even been swing in the US, despite the uber-Israeli nuttiness of their mainstream media.
Having said that, there’s always existed a politically astute minority in western countries who have managed to cut through the barrage of Israeli propaganda over the decades. I’ve just been listening to George Galloway talk about the way he became active in the mid-70s and almost suggesting he was unique in this. But, despite a broad sympathy for Israel in Labour Party circles throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s (both in NZ, UK, Oz), there were always people within the Labour Party like my mother who saw things pretty clearly from early on. She became strongly sympathetic to the Palestinians as a teenager in Wellington in 1948 after reading reports of the 1947-48 Arab-Israeli War in The Evening Post, The Dominion and, above all, the Wellington version of The Standard, the Labour-aligned Southern Cross newspaper (published during the post-war period, through to the early 50s).
She said you didn’t have to read much between the lines to see Israel was carrying out a brutal ethnic-cleansing of the Palestinian population, complete with a whole series of massacres of civilian men, women and children. Same old Israeli mindset, never changes. Zionism, at least since the 30s, has always been about the proud, gun-toting Israeli Jew, using violence to militarily carve-out an ethnically-pure Greater Israel.
thanks for that swordfish…your Mother must have been very enlightened for her times in 1948!
…i only wised up when I first went to university in my teens and mixed with some socialist types ( lol) and read a book called ‘Is Israel a Colonial Settler State?’….up until then I was indoctrinated by the fiction best seller ‘Exodus’ and was very pro Israel, like many others then and today, because of the horrors of the WWII holocaust
..this is why i am so pro Internet freedom and free access for all …because you do not have to be an academic or a student to have access to information ( both the best and the worst)….if you search for it and inquire with an open and fair mind…you can see all sides of the story and make up your own mind…It has to be a win /win for world justice and peace in the long term.
“because you do not have to be an academic or a student to have access to information ”
That is right. But you still need an education to make use of that information. What you did with the “information” you cam across on vaccination was abhorent. You simply cannot be trusted to come to the right conclusions on anything. Your vaccination rantings make you a fundamentally untrustworthy person.
@ srylands lol…yes I am uneducated!….. so I let others speak for themselves including doctors and scientists and immunologists and Mothers of children adversely affected by some vaccines
….however as you are so venal and interested always in defending multinational multi billion dollar interests and profits….i guess this would interest you because there is BIG MONEY involved here:
Israel’s interest in Gaza Oil and Gas…
http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?273262-Armed-robbery-in-Gaza-Israel-US-UK-carve-up-the-spoils-of-Palestine-s-stolen-gas
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39050.htm
http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/israel-wants-palestine-s-water-and-gas-1.1364615
http://www.naturalgaseurope.com/gaza-marine-offshore-field
http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-and-natural-gas-the-israeli-invasion-and-gaza-s-offshore-gas-fields/11680
Your existence serves as a warning of the consequences.
to be fair, it probably wasn’t education’s fault.
It was pearls cast before Swinelands…
What goes for you goes for the hordes of climate change deniers and World Islamic conspiracists.
There are more of them than there are of us.
You mentioned the holocaust Chooky. It has crossed my mind of recent times that the N—is were actually afraid of the “Jews”. That was the real reason for the “ethnic cleansing” in ‘Nasti’ Germany.
And when you look at what is happening today there is a correlation between 1930s Germany and Israel of today. Two cuckoos from the same nest so to speak.
Oh do kindly keep your antisemitism to yourself. The Jews of Germany were mostly all assimilated and consider themselves German. And don’t conflate Israel’s far right with “all Jews” – that just makes you a bigot.
What antisemitism? Be specific please. Your sense of vibe from the written word has been shown many times to be unreliable.
“And don’t conflate Israel’s far right with “all Jews” – that just makes you a bigot.”
Um Pop, Anne’s comment is right there. We can all see she didn’t say anything like “all Jews”.
Making up quotes – that just makes you a liar.
Me anti-semitic? It’s the N–is who called them “Jews” not me. I happen to have a number of Jewish relatives in England with whom I lived with for a few years. I have probably had a darn sight more to do with Jewish people than you have.
To help you with your comprehension:
I don’t blame most ordinary Israelis for the actions of their government.
I have never blamed ordinary Russians for the actions of their successive governments.
Nor do I blame ordinary Americans for the actions of their government.
And so it goes on… savvy?
Robert Fisk?? FFS and you ripped into me for linking to Breitbart?
And yet Israel manages to violate human rights with ever more impunity. All your talk matters not a bit, since both sides of the US congress have been bought, and that’s all that is needed to prevent Israel ever being held to account.
Palestine is simply not an issue that looms large in the minds of voters.
Q&A TVNZ this morning;
FIRST Union Secretary Robert Reid on the panel with (might pay to eat after the show) David Farrar, Claire Robinson–and David Shearer on the Israel/Palestine situation.
In my opinion on Q&A David Shearer came close to calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy, but is not quite there.
When asked directly whether he would recommend closing the Israeli embassy Shearer said that there is movement toward that around the world.
David Shearer also confirmed that what New Zealand does is influential. In his words we are “The mouse that roared”
This is where influential leading Labour Party activists like Greg Presland could tilt the balance. Instead Greg channels Murray McCully’s statements about the need to keep the communication channels open. Followed by a lot of moralistic handwringing in the exactly same vein as mickysavage
The moral danger for Greg and other conservative political activists is that the centrist political swamp they are wading through will see them left stranded with the McCullys and Keys on the wrong side of history.
Labour Party activists are working their butts off at present. Many (including me) will have attended protests supporting Palestine and sent emails to the Israeli Embassy. I am sure that I am not the only one who has wept in sadness and disgust at the inhumanity shown by Israel. Lashing out at others will not remove that pain.
A bunch of us will make sure that this issue is covered in Labour’s policy platform going forward i.e. that it is the Labour Party position that the Palestinian people have the right to a sovereign state including democratic and economic self determination without military interference or assault, sanction or blockade, which is exactly the same right that Israel has.
All very “aspirational” CV. But will you and other Labour Party activists be calling for a Labour led government to close the Israeli embassy?
Really? Are you suggesting that New Zealand break off diplomatic relations with the only democracy in the middle east? It is not going to happen. The crazed hate filled mug of Minto will strike zero resonance with New Zealanders. Just look at his face.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11296381
Why are you focussing all this angst on Israel? You could turn your attention to a host of countries that threaten liberty:
Russia
Egypt
Burma
Central African Republic
Just for starters. Go protest against them. Leave the beacon of secular democracy alone.
Quoth Shitlands: “the only democracy in the middle east“.
You have already been told that such a statement is a falsehood. That you persist in repeating this falsehood shows you up as nothing but a liar.
not the first time he’s been demonstrated as a liar, won’t be the last.
Um, Lebanon is a secular liberal democracy – if Israel is your yardstick anyway. And I’m protesting Russia like billy-o, shithead.
Neither secular,
In deference to religious Jews, no public bus services run in Israel on the traditional day of rest, except in Arab areas; aircraft operated by El Al, the state airline, remain grounded. Because Jews are not allowed to eat anything leavened or fermented at Passover, in memory of the exodus from Egypt, foods containing grain – even beer or muesli – have to be cleared from the supermarket shelves every spring. Instead of white and brown bread, they sell matzo – an unleavened cracker.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/religion-and-secularism-in-israel-unholy-conflict-in-the-holy-land-a-469996.html
or, if the RWNJ’s have their way, democratic.
Their proposal defines Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, where the Jewish people have the exclusive right to national self-determination.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.588478
Srylands
In terms of threatening liberty – you forgot (most likely omitted);
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
Ukraine
Georgia
and the United States of America.
The Israeli “collateral quotient” equates 4 MH17’s – and counting..
Go and do your own protesting against whoever you like, SSlands, but don’t demand that we do it for you. Get over your stupid sense of entitlement.
As for Israel being a beacon of secular democracy – what a load of shit. It’s a corrupt mafia state these days, with special laws for non-Jews, and lucrative property deals for Bibi’s mates. Mind you, I suspect you think democracy means helping the rich get even richer.
Good on you TV. It shouldn’t take much more of a push to get the Labour Party leadership to come out on the side of the Palestinians and call for the closure of the Israeli embassy. Already Labour’s potential coalition partners the Greens and Mana have made this call. Ask yourself TV, what would a Kirk or even a Lange do? In 1984 on the Labour Party coming to power the South African embassy didn’t wait around to be asked to leave, but shut up shop and fled the country. TV what you don’t want is your party to be on the wrong side of history this time.
Yesterday I went to the rally in support of the Palestinians at QEII Square at the bottom of Queen Street, Auckland. I saw a number of Green Party and Mana Party banners and flags. But never saw one Labour Party one. Both Mana and Green Party have sent official spokespeople to speak in support of the Palestinians.
On the 16th of August the organisers have called for an even bigger rally and march starting from Aotea Square. Will Labour be there? All political parties have been invited to send official representatives and spokespersons. Labour is the biggest Left Party, TV if Labour Party activists and supporters were as sincere as you claim they could rally far greater numbers than the Green and Mana Parties combined, and make this rally the success it should be. Will we see David Shearer take the speakers platform? Or will it be another no-show?
I hope you are doing all this protest etc for genuine altruistic honest reasons and not just to get some political capital for the coming elections. Your dissing of Labour and demanding that they should do this and that just as the Greens and Mana are doing makes me suspicious of your motives.
Jenny’s regular corrosive style misses the target by singling out mickysavage who has actually made a number of supportive and obviously sincere statements against the Gaza massacre here on The Standard.
Labour as a Party at top level certainly needs to step out of the ‘safe zone’ of underplaying the asymmetrical nature of the Israeli occupation. Sending the ambassador home is a symbolic move but one I support, and putting pressure on the US rather than cheerleading like Key and McCully.
The most important two practical things Kiwis can do is support Kia Ora Gaza with donations for medical aid and become informed and start hitting Israeli business and enablers in the bank account via BDS (Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions). Notice how quick the brief halt to international flights into Tel Aviv got the corporates squealing.
Yet the party he supports has been missing in action. At the protest in Queen Street yesterday I saw a number of Green Party and Mana Party flags but not any of the Labour Party. And both Mana and the Green Party have sent official spokespersons to address these rallies and speaking in support of Palestinians.
Yet Labour is the biggest and most influential party on the Left and could if they were sincere rally many more people to these rallies than either Mana or the Greens.
This tells me that there is a serious default in leadership being shown by influential Labour Party activists like Greg and others like him.
If they were really sincere then they should have the courage of their convictions and be calling for their party leaders to promise to close the embassy. You almost sense that David Shearer wants to make that call and knows that this is necessary if you are serious in opposing the massacre in Gaza, but that he is not getting the support he needs from his party. Leaders must lead but they can’t do that in a vacuum. And with Greg Presland and presumably others opposing this call he won’t.
FFS Jenny your corrosive style of commenting is really unhelpful. I was door knocking and getting people on the roll yesterday. I have been on protests in the past and I have followed the issue for years.
Here is something I wrote in 2009. Here is something I wrote in 2010 after attending a protest. Here is something I wrote recently.
Disagreeing with you on one particular action point does not make me a conservative sellout.
First of all Greg I haven’t accused you of being a conservative sellout, don’t put words in my mouth that I never said.
But it is not just one action point, the trouble Greg, is this is all part of a very worrying pattern.
The same as climate change, you can write dozens of articles on climate and inches of type about how dreadful it is, but when it comes to the crunch, refuse to advocate doing anything about it, and go all silent.
I think the key words in your statement above are “action point” it is ACTION that the modern Labour Party seems to have some allergic reaction to.
For goodness sake Greg, Norman Kirk wasn’t satisfied to just rail on about how awful French nuclear testing at Muruoa atoll was, (he could have done), he did something about it, he sent a gruddy great warship there to protest against it.
Greg your party will have a chance to redeem itself on the 16th of August in Auckland’s Aotea Square.
Will the Labour Party rally their members to turn up?
Will the Labour Party take up their invited place on the official speakers platform?
Will Labour join Mana and the Greens in calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy?
I know you won’t answer Greg, but the whole country will get to see your answer on the day.
[lprent: You appear to be harassing and haranguing one of my authors again because they don’t think exactly the same as you do. I really don’t have time for it at present. I’m trying to move the server.
Banned 7 weeks. ]
Ta. She was getting rather tiresome …
So I gather.
The server is now at its new (ie cheaper) home. It was going to be the backup server, but when I tested the UFB and looked at the costs, it turned out to be better here and to make the AWS system the backup.
Thanks. Seemed like a smooth ride to the new home to me.
Frightening to see many right wingers yesterday and today calling for discussion on when genocide is permissible. This is in relation to Gaza.
A real step backwards in my view.
Are you ready for the next monumental government fuckup in IT?
When are we going to accept that it’s just to risky and expensive to have private contractors doing the government’s IT work?
What is the solution then? Bill Bennett clearly didn’t offer one. Just scaremongering.
The main IRD tax system, called FIRST, is many decades old, and from what I’ve seen difficult to maintain – the code is COBOL and finding experts in that area gets more difficult each year – and law changes are difficult to implement, see Kiwisaver and Student Loans. Support by third parties might stop.
So at some point the system has to be replaced.
Some areas within IRD are already off the main tax system, for example the Kiwisaver administration, which interestingly runs on SAP. Did you read anywhere, that this project was over budget, over time or didn’t meet the expectation of the client/IRD?
There are thousands of SAP projects around the world and – of course – the failures get a lot more press than the successes (even if you work within the industry).
As far as I know, the only other software option for the FIRST replacement is Oracle. The project to move student loans within IRD to Oracle was, after spending significant amount and efforts, cancelled.
Over the years I’ve been involved in many projects like this one. The success/failure simply depends on (high level):
Quality, expertise of the System Implementer (SI),
Business input (here not only IRD, but also the government for example by simplifying the framework, like tax laws)
Over the years both points might have gone a bit “downhill”, because of (supposedly) cheaper off-shore models, like customer-specific development in India, and larger scopes and complexities, like more sophisticated products, more customer channels etc.
A government IT department tasked with supplying all government departments with their IT needs. This would have a number of advantages:
Everything you’ve said would make no difference. See below. It’s not the issue.
Everything you say there reinforces what I said. A continual small iterative process would remove the major failures and the government, as a whole, is large enough to support a dedicated IT department.
Why speak about something you have no actual experience in?
The reason these projects fail, and the police system is a good example, is because the ‘customer’ requires changes after the project has started.
If you had some clue, you’d know this is what happened with the police system. Every time this happens, the bug/issue rate soars.
Projects should be agreed upon and delivered, then changes made.
The police project were making changes every single month, hence the massive delay with nothing working.
From what I’ve seen, I’d say this is happening in most govt projects.
What you say is true. But that’s the nature of big long projects. The answer is – don’t have big long projects. They are too complex and requirements will always change if a project is dragging out 4, 5, 6 years long. Governments change, Ministerial heads change, of course there will be requirements changes.
Simplifying our tax system down would also be very beneficial.
The specific answer is to use a development methodology that de-risks big long projects.
Big problems require big complicated solutions by their very nature. Big complicated solutions take a long time to write.
Agile methodologies de-risk long projects by (effectively) breaking them up into many many many small projects. That way if one small project fails, you find out about it early and have a chance to determine why it failed and what needs to be done differently to ensure that future projects don’t fail.
now that’s talking sense. (Wouldn’t hurt to have a whole lot of the capabilities in house either as opposed to knocking on Accenture’s door every time etc…)
it also helps to have IT project managers rather than working parties on the govt side, and ministers who read the fine print before signing go-live authorisation. And the ministers should know that “mission critical” is important.
http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/television-new-zealand-calling-to-have-mike-hosking-dropped-from-moderatingthe-political-debates#share
Here it is again. Please sign and send it on! Many thanks.
How dishonest, or at best unartful, can Q + A become ?
Shearer interviewed on Gaza. That was his billing. Gaza.
The Panel – Robinson, Farrar, Reid.
Reid addresses Shearer’s Gaza comments.
Farrar disagrees. Not sure with whom or about what precisely.
Robinson barely acknowledges Gaza. What ? Supposedly she’s there to offer response to Shearer’s comments, on Gaza. The headline under which Q + A billed him.
But no. She and Farrar committedly engage one another in lively depiction of Shearer as leadership aspirant. So quickly and so thoroughly that you’d think it was planned. Wood chirps in merrily – about Shearer as leadership aspirant.
This perfectly reflects (1) the bankruptcy of Q + A as but a Sunday morning shill show for National Party status-quoism, and (2) the never spoken springboard of western media editorial that Palestinians matter less. The murder figures ? Profess horror and move on. Robinson of course is worse. She doesn’t even profess horror.
Reid’s identification of Robinson as “spin-woman”. Spot on !
Reid is one of the few authentic political commentators in NZ. The Robinsons and the Millers, Wood et al are pure frippery. Delivered with (mock) solemnity as to suggest authority. Except for Wood whose number is the perpetually affixed condescending smile, tending to smirk.
Glad I didn’t watch Q and A North……………..have given up on it.
I will encourage you to sign the above petition if you haven’t. We need to take every opportunity to tell it like it is about the MSM!
Disgusting that they spun Shearer on Gaza into leadership (non) issue.
it was so so boring..
..parkyn is perhaps the most wooden interviewer around..
..(which perhaps helps form my view he should be fronting a handyman-show..)
..and one who always seems to be playing catch-up..to be not quite up to speed..
..to not have much of a grasp of nuance/big-picture stuff..
..(seriously..!..wood and hand-tools are his true calling..)
..and speaking of ‘wood’..parkyn and the compere together..talking..is hard to watch/teeth-grinding television..
..i/you actually feel embarrassed for them..
..but all in all..if you could put q&a into a pill..
..you wd solve the nations insomnia problems..
..(and it most certainly is not addictive..)
..tho’ i did like it when reid called wood a ‘poverty-denier’..
+1
I had anticipated the pundits having to create a new narrative about Labour’s polling, but they skirted that; Robinson even resorted to the old ‘polls bounce around’ defence.
i think we should all make an effort to weave ‘poverty-denier’ into the lexicon..
.it crystalises some wordy verbiage/arguments..
..into two words..
..arguably one word..if wed with/by the hyphen..
..and lets’s use the hypen more..people..!..it is such an expressive piece of punctuation..
..and hardly anyone uses it enough..
..you can also use it as a form of methadone..
..as you wean yrslf from the (ever-wretched/cringing) comma..
Q and A, particularly when they have half -wit, biased, pro-Right wing, pro-National, anti-Labour, anti-Cunliffe commentators like Clair Robinson, turns into a time wasting unfair gossip session rather than a genuine balanced political programme. Reid HAD to pull the other two twits in line for their uncalled for anti Cunliffe comments and he did! Reid is good. Farrar is ok and tolerable. But Robinson is a completely biased irritating idiot.
I think Wood and Christie are the most useless political journalists in NZ.
Clearly got there because they won’t ask difficult questions.
The basic problem is that these buggers are paid huge salaries and begin to love National and the right wing agenda for their own selfish reasons.
Claire Robinson. eck.
Haven’t been able to watch all the way through it yet. But this rehash of Labour leadership in the election campaign- following on from Mallard’s fucking “David Cunliffe is the Labour leader. David Cunliffe is the Labour leader.”
Cunliffe hasn’t been able to unite all the caucus groups yet, but if it comes out that Grant Robertson isn’t doing all he can to stomp on this in the run up to the election, well, I guess my disappointment in him allowing Shearer to become leader the first time will only be amplified enormously.
in reply to Clem : Farrar is good at what he does, and not a twit unless it seems very very necessary. As for the rest…eck.
Well, when one side is dominating…
Or am I being completely sucked into a National play to make what is an enormous strength for Labour- a moral foreign policy with an experienced minister- about the leadership?
Got as far as Reid- love it!
“Spin-woman and poll man” I would love someone to make this cartoon and run it regularly on this site, with Robert Reid as the ‘Stan Lee’ creator of.
Flag-burning is an outrage, scream the extreme right.
Burning children, bombing hospitals? Not a problem.
Mediawatch, Radio NZ National, Sunday 3 August 2014
If you have a taste for the moronic, the insane and the disturbing, then you may well be familiar with the public utterances of one Dennis Prager. This fellow is a deranged lunatic who has achieved a cult status in the United States simply because he is so stupid. In appearance and style, he is like one of the bizarre occasional eccentrics in The Simpsons, or perhaps one of the deluded characters dreamed up and perfected by Steve Coogan or Ricky Gervais. In fact, Prager is so unintentionally hilarious that he might even have been dreamed up by Peter Cook himself. Dennis Prager is to public discourse as Binyamin Netanyahu is to statesmanship, and Lance Armstrong is to sportsmanship: he is a mockery, an insult, a vexation, a screaming nutjob who reads nothing and knows nothing. He is, in other words, the American version of errrrr, ummmmm, Leighton Ummmm, errrrrrr, uuuummmmm, Smith.
So who better to learnedly discuss the massacre in Gaza? Dennis Prager was the guest of NewstalkZB’s drivetime shockjock Larry “Lackwit” Williams last Monday 28th July. He was in vintage form. “Looking at things from my perspective, which I think is the position of moral clarity,” he explained to the head-nodding Lackwit, all of the conflict in the world comes down to “West versus non-west, weak versus strong, white versus non-white.” Prager raved on for a long time in this erudite manner. Not once was the stream of lunacy challenged by Lackwit Williams.
In fact, throughout the week, Lackwit Williams treated his listeners to his own views on the conflict. They were, as you might expect, pretty much identical to Dennis Prager’s, except that Williams is not as absolutely depraved as Prager; he did acknowledge that Israel had committed atrocities. Not that that little quibble was going to derail his prepared speech….
LARRY WILLIAMS: The bombing of Gaza is just appalling…. but while it is unforgivable, it is also unforgivable that Hamas uses human shields.
That’s a lie, of course, straight from the Israeli government’s propagandists. It has been refuted time and again, including by the comprehensive U.N. inquiry into the 2008-9 massacre in Gaza. Not that Larry Lackwit Williams, or Cameron Slater, or any of the other “friends of Israel” that infest the media would care about that.
On Maori TV, Bill Ralston’s ghastly wife Janet Wilson was vapouring about how she finally was forced to think about what was happening to the people of Gaza by the sight of UN spokesman Chris Gunness breaking down on camera. “It takes a middle class white guy to cry before we start taking notice,” she barked. “What does that say about us?”
Of course, seeing that she hadn’t taken any notice of the suffering of Gaza’s people before last week, it hardly comes as a surprise to find that she has not taken any notice of the shameful quality of “reporting” of the massacre by the likes of CNN, ITV and the British state broadcaster. Asked what she had to say about TV3 reporter Mike McRoberts’ deservedly praised performance in Gaza, she hesitated for a while, in order to make it clear she was thinking deeply about what she was about to say. Then she spoke. “He has done a pretty good job,” she said, carefully. “But I’m not sure I would have sent him, when the media organizations TV3 is lined up with would have handled it thoroughly anyway.”
So there we are: this is the standard of media commentary we are served up day after day, week after week. Unhinged lunatics from the farthest fringes of the right wing in the United States, Larry “Lackwit” Williams and his silly ignorant guests on The Cauldron, and a media “expert” (Janet Wilson) who obviously has not watched any of the media she is paid to comment on.
Of course, to the extremists, there was only one issue during the protest marches against the Israeli aggression in Gaza. It wasn’t the bombing of schools and hospitals and the killing of men, women and children. They applaud all that. What exercised these moral leaders was the outrageous sight of an Israeli flag being burned. I sent the following email to Wallace Chapman…..
It’s not “unfathomable” that the right focuses on flag-burning
Dear Wallace,
On Mediawatch this morning, Colin Peacock claimed that the obsession of the extreme right with flag-burning is “unfathomable”. Actually, it’s perfectly logical. It’s a chance for the likes of Cameron Slater, Larry Williams and Paul Henry to distract from the issue, which is the burning of people, schools and hospitals in Gaza.
As Laila Harre showed when she silenced Paul Henry’s objections by insisting that he focus on the issue of the protests—the ongoing death and destruction being inflicted on the citizens of Gaza—the extreme right has no coherent answer when it is presented with the facts.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
“On Maori TV, Bill Ralston’s ghastly wife Janet Wilson was vapouring about how she finally was forced to think about what was happening to the people of Gaza by the sight of UN spokesman Chris Gunness breaking down on camera. “It takes a middle class white guy to cry before we start taking notice,” she barked. “What does that say about us?”
Ghastly is right! Speak for yourself, Jan, not ‘us’. Unless by ‘us ‘ you mean vapid, shrill righties, in which case go ahead.
+1
A little story about the wife, Janet Wilson and hubby, Bill Ralston.
Once upon a time (maybe 10 or 12 years ago now) there was a dairy in the locality where I live. It was just and ordinary dairy (or so I thought) and one quiet Sunday afternoon I was sitting nearby in my car when I saw the above loving couple having what appeared to be a very earnest discussion or domestic dispute outside the dairy in question. Eventually the problem (whatever it was) was solved and loving wife disappeared inside the dairy. Hubby wandered self-consciously off in the opposite direction and I was left wondering what it was all about because their demeanour appeared cagey -almost clandestine. Several months later the dairy in question was raided by the police for illegal party drugs. The penny dropped.
Thanks for that very revealing insight, Anne. That marriage has been a tormented one for a long time….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-22032013/#comment-607420
Anne, this type of distasteful slur belongs on whaleoil.
I agree. Anne, not cool nor fair!
@Ergo Robertina
Distasteful slur? – rubbish! It was an interesting and humorous aside about two well known people prompted by their names being mentioned by Tigger @ 8.1. Are you inferring I made it up? I don’t do lies like the “piece of smelly blubber” you refer to.
And thanks North and Chooky below. Good to have some reasoned commenters around at times like this. Perhaps the others had a heavy weekend. 🙂
WTF is wrong with you, woman?! Antisemitism and now sleeze? Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on the far right?
Popsickle……keep your sick “anti-semite” intimidation to yourself. Sad old tory masquerading as a progressive you.
+100 Anne…we need to have realism brought to some television icons ..
Probably been mentioned befor, BUT, on my drive back from this mornings veg market among the nests of election billboards i got this message, ”Vote Positive”,
Ok, i will look for the positive party on my ballot papers in September, because at 40K which was the speed i was driving at that’s the message i got from the billboard along with a splash of color which might or might not have been a picture of ‘happy families’,
Obviously, because i know it is, i can identify the ‘vote positive’ billboard as a Labour one because of ‘prior knowledge’, my point being, that those armed with NO prior knowledge wont have a clue considering the ‘cluster’ of messages that are on offer at the two nests of billboards i have so far seen in this electorate,
Are Labour shy or something??? what’s wrong with Big Red BillBoards that Yell in Big White Letters, VOTE LABOUR,
To be noticed in a crowd you have to be bold and loud…
Three weeks ago I emailed via the Labour Party website to ask about their welfare policy, do they have one and when will it be released. I was informed the next day my email would be forwarded to Sue Moroney (Welfare spokesperson) “for her consideration”. I love that, apparently a straightforward, simple question needs to be “considered”. I have had no reply from ANYONE.
I would love to be generous and say that the email genuinely got lost, but it wasn’t. Labour has a welfare policy all right and that’s to totally avoid the subject. That’s been obvious for years, continuing the cuts of the 1990s, their deafening silence in “opposition” to the last 6 years of NACT cruelty, and more recently their refusal to engage in the subject when questioned in the media or blogs, here included (DCs question time for example).
Labour are in total agreement with National over welfare (read:benefit) policy and their attitude towards those of us who have no choice but to be dependent on it. The only difference is that National don’t pretend to hid their distain and we know exactly. where we stand with them.
Long term beneficiaries realised many years ago that Labour are no longer our friend and we changed our votes accordingly. Now it’s up to us to inform others we know on benefits, or who’s jobs aren’t safe and might be having to run the WINZ gauntlet in the near future, that while we need a Left Government to vote Greens or Mana. Labour don’t want our vote, they’ve done everything short of actually saying it our loud, and if we can get more Green/IMP MPs in Government at least we might stand a chance of stopping our situation getting worse.
Labour IS a very caring but also a very responsible party.
Labour do have a well thought out financially and socially manageable fair and reasonable welfare policy for beneficiaries, for families, for students, for super annuitants, for children, for mothers, for the poor, for the sick, for the homeless, for the unemployed etc. There aren’t unlimited funds to give unlimited rock-star assistance that you and I may desire. No responsible party can do that. For you to say that the Labour party is akin to the National party in its welfare policies is a lie.
Remember that it is a balancing act that needs public support too to be in a position to form a government to make the necessary changes. What use of having utopian wishes without the majority public votes and without being fair to the workers and everyone else in society too?
I think your plug for the greens and Mana is obvious, but completely unfair in your blatant attempt to diss the Labour party in this context.
P.S :
Just go to the Labour party website (google is your friend, even if you are a Labour foe) and READ their policies before firing off time wasting emails around or posting unjust comments here.
Have you contacted them before Kaye? Maybe they know you are not a friend. As Clem says, you can go to the website and find out anything you want for yourself. Why should Labour – who are in campaign mode and have been for some time now – waste precious time on someone who is too lazy to find out for him/herself.
According to the Labour website, this is a list of all the announced policies. Perhaps you could find the welfare policy for us Anne, because I can’t see it.
I think DC said at the last Q and A that Labour would announce welfare policy soon. That was a month or so ago.
Hi Weka – I’ve noticed your absence – Welcome back! 🙂
I have also searched for the Labour party’s welfare policy and it doesn’t appear to be there (apart from the Best Start policy). The Greens and Mana are quite clear on their welfare policies. I haven’t looked up the Internet Party’s policy yet.
One thing I am glad of is that so far unemployed people have not been used as a political football. Long may that last.
I very much appreciated Mr Cunliffe’s comments on the Q&A:
This is a heartening signal – yet, yes, it isn’t policy – which as Weka conveyed Mr Cunliffe wrote on the same Q&A session: “I’m not going to announce our welfare policy here.”
Thanks bl 🙂
I don’t think Labour and National treat beneficiaries the same, although I can understand why Kaye feels like they do. However, Labour have an appalling history of welfare policy and implementation and despite some of the good things they have done that Anne refers to, they still suck for a supposedly left wing party. The only way that you can say that Labour have good welfare policy is by comparing them to NACT.
I too hope that Cunliffe’s Labour will pull something out of the hat before the election. I won’t be surprised if that something is fairly mediocre and designed to not give the impression that Labour are soft on bludgers. It also greatly concerns me that Labour’s welfare focus is so hugely on job creation to the point where they seem incapable of talking about people who don’t/can’t/shouldn’t work in paid employment. I will be very interested to see what they do with the shit being done to solo parents currently. Will Labour reinstate the right to stay at home and raise your kids, or will they continue with policy that says that solo parents need to be punished and bullied into work?
As far as I can tell DC believes that the solutions are in job creation. I’ve yet to see anything definitive about who should be expected to work.
And there has been nothing from Labour to make up for Shearer’s painter on the roof fiasco.
+1 Weka. I can’t understand why anyone dependent on welfare assistance would vote Labour.
I agree with mostly all of what you say here.
Labour are actually doing what I thought they should do – keeping very low key re welfare. I can see, however, that leaves those on welfare worried that they are going to be ‘just as bad as National’ and not reverse draconian approaches National have introduced. It is a bit frustrating because I can just imagine what shite Labour are going to get if they release anything of substance re welfare – and if they don’t they will get shite from potential supporters.
It seems like a terribly no win situation they are in.
Personally, I would prefer that they keep fairly low key on welfare -[ yet I can see there is a problem with trust for many. ] I would rather Labour went low key and got in and lost some of the welfare vote to Mana than come out fighting and get completely obliterated by the predictable vitriol that would set in from National and our uncaring Media and end up not getting in at all.
I realise this is a pretty sadly, fearful and conservative approach. 🙁
It could be that a strong message could be sent out to New Zealanders that welfare improvement is much needed (as it is) and a shift in peoples’ attitudes occurred however I would assume this would have been better started way earlier and Cunliffe hasn’t been leader long enough to have taken that approach. 🙁
At what point then should Labour actually reform welfare in a good way?
Labour won’t be as bad as National. I’ve argued pretty strongly on ts in the past that it does a big disservice to characterise Labour in this way, because it hides the reality that Labour hide behind their welfare lite reform that fiddles a bit and makes some things better but doesn’t change anything substantial (the hard core call this National stab us in the front, Labour stab us in the back). Based on previous Labour govts, what I expect is that a few of the harsher things Bennett has done will be rescinded, but many things will just have the hard edges sanded off them but essentially left in place. The culture within WINZ will swing back towards being human towards beneficiaries, but such change takes time and will never reach all staff and all offices. And they won’t make up for the shit entrenched in policy and legislation. I can’t see Labour doing much about the extreme institutional dysfunctionality of WINZ unless there is a distinct shift left. No-one will want to touch that.
Perhaps it needs to come from an organised ‘people pressure’? That way Labour can’t be ‘blamed’. It can be ‘sold’ as Labour being responsive to public pressure?
If Labour are going to make changes they need to address attitudes first. I think Cunliffe is doing well in that respect. If he keeps pushing the line that all people need to have a share in our country’s wealth and of fairness and also values and if his government actively creates jobs, then people have to start seeing that those on welfare are actually more victims of the system than ‘bludgers’. I really don’t think that is the case in most peoples’ minds yet, although I am open to arguments on that matter!
For people on invalids these concerns I have shouldn’t be such an issue – changes should be made straight away. I also think that treating those in relationships differently than single people needs to go straight away – this should actually save money on the ridiculous investigations that must go on all over this country. It could also be sold as ‘keeping families together’ because I feel quite certain that welfare for couples must split rather a lot up.
+1
@ Anne
That is a bit rough. They should have at least told Kaye they hadn’t released it yet. Kaye is showing interest and democratic responsibility in contacting Labour to find out what they are offering. If we all did that, then our democracy would be achieving more sound results!
@ Kaye
Good one for your efforts Kaye! 🙂
Hope Labour’s poor response/non-response doesn’t put you off completely – I wrote to them asking about their stance on broadcasting a few weeks ago and got an extremely quick reply – surprisingly so. They only told me that there was a policy release in the pipeline – no details, which is what they should have done for you too – hopefully they will…eventually. Good communication is very important. 🙂
Can’t agree with you there blue leopard.
Have a read of Kaye @10. He/she was being provocative, judgmental and in the case of the following quote from the same post :
totally wrong.
The facts are far more likely to be… they are saving the Welfare policy package in order for it to have maximum impact, and to reduce the ability of National and the MSM being able to distort, misrepresent and generally pillory the policy as well as the beneficiaries themselves.
We’ve seen more than enough of the deplorable discrediting tactics coming from the Tories and the MSM in recent times without having the very people Labour wants to help ensuring they succeed.
Btw, I was a beneficiary in the 1990s – the Christine Rankin era – and I know all about the bullying, humiliation and thuggery that took place at the time. And Helen Clark’s Labour government took immediate steps to remove Rankin and overturn the culture of bullying etc. that prevailed.
@ Anne,
Yes, I have commented in other threads I, too, have been on welfare when the government has changed. There is a noticeable difference between the two parties – one is much more likely to get off welfare under Labour because there is more assistance to help you do that – generally more helpful and less hostile under Labour.
[There is such a difference I have to admit to having a few moments of feeling sorry for WINZ staff with the latest round of draconian changes! They are encouraged to establish a rapport with you and then suddenly they have to change their entire attitude and leave you stranded when National do their shite. It can’t be very good working conditions at WINZ. Not easy to just quit either – considering the dreadful levels of unemployment – that they know all about!]
I, therefore, also get annoyed when people say Labour and National are ‘just the same’. [Not saying there is not room for improvement re Labour!] However, Labour should be organised and communicative with people writing in to find things out about their policies. If only to say ‘we haven’t released the policy yet’. It makes a big difference if one gets quick and friendly response.
@clemgeopin
I have been to their website. I looked, and I’ve been looking regularly for months. If there’s something there I can’t find it. If it is there can you please link it for me? If they have a policy then there’s a lot of us who would like to study it so we can make an informed vote. Why is it so hard to even get an answer from them about their policy??
btw,a welfare policy isn’t just about money, it’s about how people are treated by the system and the community as a whole. I’d like to know if a Labour govt would reverse the general cruelty that anyone unfortunate enough needing WINZ assistance now has to deal with, for example. You know, consider us as human beings. The fact that they’ve been incredibly quiet about this is telling. Get my point? I’m happy to stand corrected of course. Believe it or not I’ve been looking for reasons to vote Labour, I used to. I’m not a member of Greens/Mana and until this year I’ve never remotely engaged in anything political and never thought I’d ever be posting on blog sites but this is something I feel very strongly about so I’m putting it out there.
And I’m not the only person with these views who’s commented on the Standard in the last few months.
Took me 1 minute to find this page:
https://www.labour.org.nz/policy
Searching for the word “welfare” gives no results. However the very top of the page says this:
So you’ll just have to wait.
Labour are obviously not going to tell random people that email them the date on which they are going to announce particular policies, because that would allow their political opponents to arrange how they are going to respond, by example by releasing their equivalent policies on the same day, or the day before, to ensure they get total media coverage.
Labour’s policies will be based on its Policy Platform – which is on the official NZLP website.
If you just google NZ Labour Party Policy Platform, you should be able to get to it easily.
The Policy Platform has a series of Values which Labour will base its various policies on.
Start at page 25 and go on from there. Here is an example :
5.12 Chance and misfortune mean that some people struggle even in ‘the good times’. Security, mutual responsibility, and fairness demand that those adversely affected should not depend on charity and the stigma that carries, or be subject to humiliation or meaningless ‘make work’ to survive.
This indicates to me that Labour does care about how people are treated by the beaurocratic system set up under National, and intend to do something about it.
The Policy Platform goes on to say –
As a matter of principle and sound social and economic investment, Labour is committed to banishing child poverty in New Zealand. The solutions are not simple, and the goal cannot be achieved immediately. We will co-ordinate and monitor its approach across all of government and policy……..
“..The solutions are not simple, and the goal cannot be achieved immediately..”
..yes you can…it’s called a universal basic income..
..paid for by a financial transaction tax on the banksters/capital gains tax/land tax/whatever….
..and some serious clawing back of the inequality-gulf delivered to us by 30 yrs of neo-liberalism..
..these are the same incrementalist promises that were made before the clark govt got elected..
..then we had nine yrs of boom-times..
..and an ignoring/breaking of those promises..
..what makes now any different..?
..aspirational-waffle is just that…
..history has shown/proven it means nothing..
Yep, its also called a comprehensive food in schools program and an equally comprehensive rebuild of the States Housing stocks so that the lowest income working families, those who are the last to be hired and the first to be fired, are all housed at 25% of their household income,
There is a point of measurable poverty judged in dollar terms, everyone who lives at that measurable point should be eligible to be paying no more than 25% of their income as rent,
That’s what i am voting for…
HI Kaye,
I seem to remember Marion Street and another Labour MP, may have been Sue Moroney had been working on this very issue, i.e. the issue of how people are treated when they go into WINZ ………..looking at changing the culture, so people are treated with dignity and respect………I think they may have done this in association with the young woman who spoke up so bravely about her experience with Nelson WINZ. Correct me if my memory doesn’t serve me well.
I don’t think they have released their welfare policy yet. If it’s not on their website then this is likely the case.
The one thing we know is in Best Start, parents of new infants including those on benefits will be entitled to that $60.00 a week.
“..The one thing we know is in Best Start, parents of new infants including those on benefits will be entitled to that $60.00 a week…”
and that is very good..
..and we need more solid/concrete poverty-busting policies like that…
..for all those aside from newborns..
..who are living in the miseries that are poverty…
“I seem to remember Marion Street and another Labour MP, may have been Sue Moroney had been working on this very issue, i.e. the issue of how people are treated when they go into WINZ ………..looking at changing the culture, so people are treated with dignity and respect………I think they may have done this in association with the young woman who spoke up so bravely about her experience with Nelson WINZ. Correct me if my memory doesn’t serve me well.”
They were doing some work via the website. As a beneficiary there is no way that I would have answered their survey. It was unsafe, asking people to give details about negative experiences and identifying details with absolutely no information about how that would be used, or how the safety of those beneficiaries would be safeguarded. Made me trust Labour even less than I did before when it comes to WINZ issues. What do you think happens to beneficiaries who make complaints about WINZ who happen to reside in areas that have WINZ offices with vindictive and petty staff? Remember what happened to the two Nelson women on the DPB who spoke out about National removing the training incentive allowance? Paula Bennett dragged them through the media, including revealing confidential information from their files, and then told the Privacy Commissioner to get stuffed when they ruled against her breaching the privacy rights of those two women.
This is why I and others want to know what Labour intend to do, not just some nice sounding values stuff.
“The one thing we know is in Best Start, parents of new infants including those on benefits will be entitled to that $60.00 a week.”
That’s not welfare policy, that’s social security. What’s at issue here is how beneficiaries, ie clients of WINZ, are treated and supported.
@Kaye:
Kaye, I have no idea why they did not reply to you. They should have. I am guessing that perhaps they get thousands of emails and letters daily from supporters, enemies, press, other parties, MPs, campaign workers, campaign personnel, etc etc with suggestions, queries, criticisms etc etc that they are simply unable to respond due to lack of time, personnel and resources. Perhaps they only answer very urgent/essential messages. I do know that for a major political party, the Labour party barely has enough funds and donations to manage a general election, unlike some other parties. Added to that, there seems to be a strong MSM unfair crusade dissing tide against it and its leader. That is why I get irritated when posters supporting other progressive minor parties too try to diss it. Sorry for being short in my reply if you were not one of those.
At least they replied to you saying they have sent your query to Sue Moroney, their welfare spokesperson. By the way, I have NOTHING to do with the party itself, except it is the party I like and will most certainly be voting for it.
Do post here when you find out what their ‘welfare’ policies are.
Also, can you state clearly what exactly you want to see in a welfare policy? I am curious to know.
Cheers!
Some info that might help you before you get the actual welfare policy which is yet to be released it seems:
[1] Labour values:
http://campaign.labour.org.nz/
[2]Labour policies:
http://campaign.labour.org.nz/policies
[3] Already ANNOUNCED policies:
https://www.labour.org.nz/policy
Will Labour restore benefits to the inflation adjusted levels of pre-1990 benefit cuts?
Will Labour remove the institionalised prejudice inherent in its Working for Families policy?
Will Labour reintroduce a hardship grant that allows beneficiaries under significant financial duress to get adequate assistance?
What specifically will Labour do to reverse the bene bashing meme that has been allowed to arise both within govt and within NZ society? (that Labour has participated in in the past btw)
What will Labour do to reverse the bene bashing culture within WINZ?
What will Labour do to turn WINZ into a functional bureaucracy as opposed to the dog’s breakfast it has become in the past 25yrs? (including under Labour’s watch in that past)?
Which of National’s draconian welfare Acts and policies will Labour repeal or significantly ammend in its first term?
You can understand why some beneficiaries aren’t holding their breath about change under a Labour govt.
I suggest you send them an email.
Are you taking the piss?
Yes, just a nip. What made to think of my drink?
Israel’s interest in Gaza Oil and Gas
http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?273262-Armed-robbery-in-Gaza-Israel-US-UK-carve-up-the-spoils-of-Palestine-s-stolen-gas
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39050.htm
http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/israel-wants-palestine-s-water-and-gas-1.1364615
http://www.naturalgaseurope.com/gaza-marine-offshore-field
http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-and-natural-gas-the-israeli-invasion-and-gaza-s-offshore-gas-fields/11680
You use the same search techniques here as those applied to your wisdom on vaccinations.
Gaza could have developed the gas with Israel cooperation if Hamas had not taken power. There were plans well developed with Israel’s cooperation. But why would Israel boost the resoucres of Hamas? If Gaza residents nominate rational representatives who support Israel’s right to exist and give up on the terror, they will get their gas.
Hamas was the democratic choice of the Palestinians ..or dont you believe in democracy for the Palestinians?
….would you like the Israelis to dictate to the Palestinians on their own land and take over Gaza?
…and take over their oil and gas rights as well?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006
I am sure Hitler used a similar rationale for those naughty people who opposed him
..the French did not lie down and take it from Hitler…there was resistance …so why should the Palestinians take it from the Israelis?…..really the West has to support the Palestinians otherwise they are acquiescing to a new Fascist Nazi force in the world
Because in 1939 the French were the good guys and in 2014 Hamas are the bad guys? Had you considered that difference just for a start? Or are you still addled from the influence of the anti-vaccine nutters?
A geo-politics lesson from SSLands, i laughed out loud, did you read it off of the back of a big mac’s napkin,
With all the ever changing world of good guys/badguys, ie: al Quaeda now part of the ISIS alliance fighting in Syria, how ever do you keep up…
It’s easy, bad12. Whoever the U.S. supports at a given moment are the good guys at that moment.
No further analysis required.
Because in 1939 the French were the good guys and in 2014 Hamas are the bad guys?
During World War II, people like you called the French Resistance the bad guys.
I’d recommend you to read a few books, but I don’t think you’re either serious enough or bright enough.
srylands …how do you feel about this?…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jul/31/un-spokesman-chris-gunness-breaks-down-during-aljazeera-interview-video
An interesting article in the Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/03/why-do-we-still-honour-free-market-intellectuals-northern-rock
with a line that I thought ought to be pondered by Trevor, Phil and Annette….
“…even years on and rightwing intellectuals still cannot accept that their certainties no longer make sense. Like old men at a bar, they block out the present and relive the moment when they were young and filled with audacious vigour…”
@Sanctuary
Singing – Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance for ever and a day…..
Now they are filled with audacious vinegar. It preserves specimens well.
New Poll Shock! Labour up to 36%, National plummet to record low of 2%. IMP/Greens to form next Government?
http://insightnz.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/the-voice-of-a-nation-insiders-2014-poll/
That would wipe out all the Nat MPs except…. except for …. poor old John. How sad.
These kind of polls are good for a laugh, but all I’d take from is it that Nat supporters haven’t seen the email telling them to get onto it and vote ASAP. That and there are 6 Colonservative folk who were voting when they should have been in church. Colin knows your names, people. He Sees All.
i see united future got one vote..
..that’d be dunne…
Weird bit of mail today. Blue card with a picture of John Key strangling a kiwi while a bunch of dickheads stand around laughing.
… almost as though they are advertising themselves honestly….very strange indeed….
Key seems to have gone quiet lately. Wonder what’s coming??
Agree Ffloyd @ 15………I was commenting on this today………..English answering on his behalf in the final session of Parliament for the year and what a truly disgraceful performance it was dodging and fudging questions on child poverty……….
Then Joyce coming in. National’s strategy seems to be talk loud and over others, dick around about statistics and then say we are doing that already. Laugh at opponent in an attempt to ridicule and discredit them……………..
I have thought for some weeks Key looks tired and ???? possibly unwell? Could we see his resignation soon? If it is just after the election, it would demonstrate just how much National hold the NZ public in.
Learning more of his spin lines and trying to improve his brain fades and golf strokes.. And oh, perhaps the recent secret visitor, the FBI big guy, may have given him some urgent home work to do.
We’ve noticed that too Ffloyd! Not on tv news for DAYS, so very unusual! Not in Parliament for the last day either – something is definitly UP!
Maybe he’s sick? or in rehab?
I think Clem’s on to it. Also the discovery there was a secret visit from an NSA engineer last year advising the GCSB how to intercept the Southern Cross cyber-optic cable. I doubt Key wants to be interviewed about it.
It’s all happening… more dots to join…. slowly unwinding.
Yep thats the best guess so far
Enoying this game though
He’s on the wagon since his Hawaiian holiday – so should be feeling Spritely.
Well he is able to type as he is the only person to respond positively to jonah’s tweet
Other thoughts about where key may be
At the crosby textor finishing school
Or
Dotcom really does have something and he’s done a runner 😉
A Reminder, The InternetMana Roadshow is in Wellington tomorrow night from 6 o’clock,
Mac’s event center is the venue and that’s located down the bottom of Taranaki Street,(right down near the wharf),
Be there….
I don’t see information on google about where Internet Mana are going in their six week meeting schedule which started mid July.
here you are..
..it kicks off on wed in nelson..
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/the-internetmana-party-sth-island-road-tour-itinerary/
(and i mean..why wd u go to google..b4 checking whoar..?..eh..?..
..tsk..!..tsk..!..)
@ philip ure 4.49
And I thought you were just a pretty face – then I looked at your logo!
Thanks.
Cuckoo study – please report sightings
Michael Anderson, a postdoctoral fellow at Massey University, is interested in finding out more about the arrival dates of our two species of migratory cuckoos: the Long-tailed Cuckoo and Shining Cuckoo. If you hear or see one of these birds, please help by reporting it using one of the Google forms:
Long-tailed Cuckoo spring migration form http://goo.gl/ClBMWZ
Shining Cuckoo spring migration form http://goo.gl/CDjbuh
I am pleased to report that I have spotted a cuckoo, in a locality renowned for its tolerance of cuckoos….
http://www.3news.co.nz/Christine-Rankin-to-stand-in-Epsom/tabid/1607/articleID/355263/Default.aspx
then of course there is the big-breasted cuckoo..
..otherwise known as the brownlee..
..it is known/notorious for flying in thru the exit door…
Love it, Morrissey and Phil …. + + 100%
Prime News just had an article extracted from TV1’s Q&A where David Shearer didn’t rule out challenging for the leadership..it really makes me wonder about these guys and whether they have any political extinct at all. The fact that he answered that particular question in that way would disqualify him straight away in my humble opinion.
-he didn’t rule out challenging again until after the election..
..and that that piece of selective/message-pushing/gotcha! bullshit was chosen from that whole interview..(which was an ok outing for shearer..)
..is just the latest example of the most woeful examples/attempts of/at ‘journalism’ that are such a feature of prime news..
..a total ‘rag’ of a news channel…
i didn’t see Shearer ‘not rule out anything’, words to the effect that the only thing on His mind was the election i think was the gist of it,
Just more blind media manipulation/spin trying to twist the mind of the gullible,
Don’t buy into it…
@ Sarrbo 5.55
Political “extinct” or instinct? While wondering which it occurred to me that this is clever satire. Are they ex or in? Is politics itself? And does anyone in Lab-our care, or is it all ‘our’ scientific experiment on the mumblers to see how much bullshit we can swallow?
I am astounded that all commentators at The Standard are silent on the great Jonah Lomu urging his admirers to vote National.
https://twitter.com/JONAHTALILOMU/status/495059431894155265
🙄 The resident under-bridge dweller pushes its luck, 🙄 🙄 🙄 …
Why would they comment on it? He can endorse whomever he likes. In any case, Lomu’s a wealthy man – of course he’s backing National. For the wealthy, it’s either National or ACT, and ACT is a basket case.
Another successful purchase.
/
Who is Jonah Lomu???
As a famous sports figure liked by the country Lomu should have better sense than supporting any political party and its leader, especially a crooked one like National party and its dodgy leader, Key!
Lomu has now come across as a right wing political pawn and a politically naive fool!
Some context would probably help.
League player? Actor? Radio announcer? Married to someone with plastic surgery?
Please advise how shallow your hero worship is?
I haven’t bothered watching or following sport, most TV, or many aspects of popular culture for the last 20 years. The vacuous mindset and allusions that you display are usually not worth following.. But hey, we must feel charitable for those afflicted with such addictions.
“The vacuous mindset and allusions that you display are usually not worth following.”
Were you replying to me?
If so, what are you referring to?
srylands. I vaguely remember that Lomu was some kind of league player? Maybe rugby?
Anyway, for me it is a state of who frigging cares.
He played rugby union and was supposed to win the world cup in South Africa, but the South Africans poisoned our rugby heroes (at least that’s what the coach claimed) and South Africa won. He then got kidney disease and had to stop playing.
I have no idea why anyone should give his political preferences any time at all.
He sure was a player too! Now Key is wooing him instead!
@ lprent 7.38
I said to mickeysavage yesterday how it would be good to start off comments in the manner I have in this one, because you can nail who and what is being replied to. Nuff said.
And tell me Rylands, how did Jonah’s followers respond to that tweet?
wow – that’s encouraging
‘
Meh! Just a rinse’n’repeat CrosbyTextor gimmick from last election when it was Michael Jones. At least this time Jonah’s followers have put a flea in his ear.
Sorrylands a millionaire and serial philanderer who has damaged his health eating burgers with high salt trans fats refined carbohydrates bludging on the health system what role model for the right personal resposibilty and all.
He should be encouraging people to vote ACT.
Then he could go round to Dirty old Don,s place for tea discuss old flames philandering techniques and share a corned beef and frozen pea dinners!
Not the first All Black to be a Tory. One even became a NAct MP, but we shouldn’t talk about him. Doesn’t surprise me at all. At the All Black level it’s all corporate and they suck off the government tit. He’s just thinking them for all the corporate welfare.
Lomu is a sometimes official/sometimes unofficial rep of the NZRU. We’ve seen the stake in the ground from the NZRU, it’s on the cover of the Rugby News.
Yep. And I’m officially off rugby. The sport of those who support the elites. And it damages bodies.
Me too. I am a rugby fan and have been since my dad used to wake me up in the middle of the night in the ’70s to watch All Black test matches in Europe.
The two incidents, Rugby News cover, and Lomu’s bought and paid for endorsement have really shaken me.
Thing is, at junior level it is not about elites at all, it’s about every kid, decile 1 to 10, no matter what the background. This is our patch, and why rugby should be totally left alone by politicians.
It hasn’t been.
Oh, I grew up in a rugby family, but, (as far as I can guess) my parents voted National.
I used to like going to watch club rugby, and to the main match at Eden Park on Saturdays when i was growing up. But as a teenager, I went off it for years – for political reasons (mainly feminist ones – socially conservative and patriarchal values dominated rugby circles). But after ’81, I gradually got back to watching it….. off it again now.
I played cricket, rugby, and league when I was a kid. My interest waned when I stopped playing. I never watched them on TV. After all we had Eden park down the road and it didn’t cost much to go and watch a game.
After I moved cities, joined the army, started working as a barman, and did university (all at the same time), my interest completely died. There were more important and interesting things to do. And that was before I got seriously into programming.
It is quite prudent to avoid following and advocating representative sports.
Most often it is about people impeding other people from achieving their goals (or Try’s).
These days the sports persons are earning MILLIONS of dollars in fees and sponsoring, as well as sports has become corrupt and very suspect with match fixing and entwined with corporate crooks and tie wearing gangs from the gambling dens.
Every time I look at a game on TV now, I wonder how many millions have passed hands and if the results are genuine ones or just make-believe genuine looking stunts for gullible arm chair screaming suckers around the world including me!
a rugger bugger
Shanghai Pengxin, the controversial Chinese buyer of the massive Lochinver Station, was recently given conservation land by the Government, including parts of the Rakaia riverbed.
Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Govt-gave-Shanghai-Pengxin-conservation-land/tabid/1607/articleID/355268/Default.aspx#ixzz39JLdw9y7
Yes, saw that on the News Tautoko Viper. What the hell is all that about?
Why is the government giving conservation land away? What arrangements do they have in place with Shanghai Pengxin?
And that precious and sensitive land and river bed land belongs to all of us, did they not think to ask us first?
‘
Disgusting. Look what else is coming down the pipeline from National Ltd™’s “Sale Of The Century”
http://www.linz.govt.nz/overseas-investment/decisions
Disgusting……………. and bewildering…………..There’s more
From the linz link:
http://www.linz.govt.nz/overseas-investment/decisions/decision-summaries/201320055
“Decision
Consent granted
Section 12(b) Overseas Investment Act 2005
Decision date 1 April 2014
Investment
An overseas investment in sensitive land, being the Applicant’s acquisition of rights or interests in up to 100% of the shares of China Merchants Pacific (NZ) Limited which owns or controls a freehold interest in approximately:
4.5112 hectares of land at Chatham Hill, Gulf Harbour; and
10.9114 hectares of land at Matua Road, Huapai.
Consideration $55,520,300
Applicant
China Merchants Properties Development Limited
Chinese Government, China, People’s Republic of (100.0%)
Vendor China Merchant Holdings (Pacific) Limited
Chinese Government, China, People’s Republic of (82.44%)
Various overseas persons (17.56%)
Background
The transaction reflects an intragroup transfer, which results in an increase in China Merchant Group Limited’s ultimate control of the target China Merchants Pacific (NZ) Limited from 82.44% to 100%. The rationale is to transfer the target’s property development activities from the Vendor (whose core business is developing toll roads) to the Applicant whose core business aligns with those activities.
The overseas investment transaction has satisfied the criteria in section 16 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005. The ‘benefit to New Zealand’ criterion was satisfied by particular reference to the following factors:
Overseas Investment Regulations 2005
28(c) – Affect image, trade or international relations
28(e) – Previous investments
28(f) – Advance significant Government policy or strategy”
Tolls roads brought to you by the Chinese Government! Criterion 28 (f) “Advance significant government policy or strategy indeed!” Stephen Joyce you are everywhere.
The forest sell off was too much WTF to start with and it’s getting late so will park this until tomorrow. Seems 12 hectares of conservation handed over to Shanghai Pengxin is the tip of the iceberg
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Don’t you just love that 28(f) catch all? Thing is, the National Ltd™ government’s policy and strategy to sell off everything has never been made clear to the New Zealand public. Its starting to become more and more apparent though but, alas, too late.
+100 Blip and Rosie
…lets hope this becomes a BIG Election issue( Winnie was on the case this morning) ….Chinese corporate buy up of New Zealand land….China could buy New Zealand up millions of times over
….John Keys NACT govt is selling New Zealand and New Zealanders OUT!
My thought exactly Chooky (see below)
You know, once, a long time ago Rhinocrates expressed his shock and surprise at something appalling in the Nat Govt’s long list of “shocking and appalling things we do to NZ”.
He expressed his surprise by saying “Well! my flabbers are well and truly gasted!” I’ll never forget that great line and this is one of those times where that line can be brought into use, again.
PS: Good links you provided yesterday re Jewish peace rallies held in NY and Tel Aviv in support of Palestine. No time to reply as I only got to Open Mike later in the evening. Onya Chooky.
Lol on Rhinocrates….and thanks I always appreciate your comments as well…they are always well balanced and penetrating and humane and sensitive
😀
I wonder if ministerial funds were used Judith Collins Jenny Shipley most likely involved.
This is the sort of corruption we read about happening in China every day.
Steven Joyce and Nick Smith are more than likely involved.
with all these extravagant expenses National MP are running up at the taxpayers expense!
Brain Fade Keys PROMISE of more accountability seems to be fading like his memory!
BLiP and tricledrown.
Is it too late? It’s too late to stop the applications that have been approved but is it too late to halt further “investments” that are not in the public’s interest?
Could the very deep well of darkness be exposed to the light of day by researchers for the opposition parties, pronto, before the election?
Agree Steven Joyce (especially roads and other infrastructure) and Nick Smith (forests)will more than likely be involved. They are agents of team knock off the lot. This could be a scandal of Collins’ proportions.
Are we “Little China” or are we “Little America”? Make your mind up Key.
Green Party launch “Election priority for students” on Tuesday 2pm, University of Auckland.
Well, if it’s true that Donna Awatere Huata is advising Internet Mana, then all I can say is Go Kelvin!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/food-wine/news/article.cfm?c_id=206&objectid=11302811
That article actually says “It’s notable that one former MP, convicted fraudster Donna Awatere Huata, is back on the fringes of the Internet-Mana alliance.” It doesn’t mention “advising” at all, so I doubt your good faith in making your comment.
Given who the author is, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from the mighty Whalespew army had seen Awatere in Rotorua, and everyone knows Annette Sykes is from there!!
the rest of the article stinks, too.
The bleating of a privileged dickhead.
Googling Huata +Internet Party is kind of interesting.
Oops….
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israel-intelligence-eavesdropped-on-phone-calls-by-john-kerry-a-984246.html
I continue to be disappointed with Labour. Now the dismaying news that they plan to “replace Careers New Zealand with a new agency to oversee a national careers strategy”.
“Funding for the Agency would be $17 million over four years…”
What the actual hell.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/election-2014/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503581&objectid=11303469
Funding for Careers New Zealand right now is $15 million PER YEAR. That’s $60 million over the last four years. Funding for the agency has been flat for nearly 6 years thanks to our idiotic National govt, which has resulted in a steadily reducing reach and staffing level as inflation cuts into their ability to perform.
Careers NZ ALREADY HAS a national careers strategy. What they need is MORE funding, resources and assistance to achieve it.
Instead, they talk of replacing a perfectly good agency, squandering resources and effort, and replacing it with a body with a quarter of the funding!
Has Labour gone mad??
Very disappointed.
Warsaw ghetto Mark II.